MAY 20
1851- BIRTH OF CHARLES MACUNE, HEAD OF SOUTHERN FARMERS’ ALLIANCE AND ORIGINATOR OF THE POPULIST “SUB-TREASURY PLAN”
The “Sub-Treasury Plan,” developed by the southern Populist Macune, was an ingenious proposal to circumvent banking corporations, merchants and landlords by farmers to avoid debt at high interest, which often resulted in the loss of their farms. The proposal called for farmers to store their harvest in federal warehouses when prices for their commodities were low. Farmers would leverage those commodities for loans (up to 80% of the market value in federal notes) to support themselves until prices rose. The proposal was especially useful to southern farmers with non-perishable crops (i.e. cotton). The farmer had one year to sell the crop and then pay back the note and 1% interest.
1891 — FOUNDING OF THE PEOPLE’S PARTY IN CINCINNATI, OHIO
From their platform: “The right to make and issue money is a sovereign power to be maintained by the people for the common benefit, hence we demand the abolition of National banks as banks of issue, and, as a substitute for National bank notes, we demand that legal tender treasury notes be issued in sufficient volume to transact the business of the country on a cash basis, without damage or especial advantage of any class or calling, such notes to be legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, and such notes when demanded by the people shall be loaned to them at not more than two per cent per annum upon nonperishable products as indicated in the subtreasury plan, and also upon real estate, with proper limitation upon the quantity of land and amount of money.”
MAY 21
1912 – SPEECH BY J. LAWRENCE LAUGHLIN, CHAIR OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL CITIZENS’ LEAGUE, ON MONETARY REFORM
Born in Deerfield, Ohio, Laughlin was the first chair of the economics department at the University of Chicago and chair of the Executive Committee of the National Citizens League for the Promotion of a Sound Banking System from 1911-13. The League was established and funded with $5 million in contributions from the big New York banks (including those owned by John D. Rockefeller and J.P Morgan) to establish an “educational fund.” The fund financed respected university professors, such as Laughlin, to endorse the concept of creating a private central bank, what became the Federal Reserve Bank, created by the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. The “Citizens'” League provided a terrific cover in providing the appearance that privatizing/corporatizing money creation by a private national central bank was sound and reasonable since “objective” intelligent university professors promoted it.
MAY 22
1912 – SPEECH BY ROBERT MCCABE, VICE CHAIR OF THE OHIO CHAPTER OF THE NATIONAL CITIZENS’ LEAGUE, ON MONETARY REFORM
McCabe, an Ohio attorney, was recruited to speak on behalf of the plan supported by the nation’s biggest banks to create a private national central bank. He spoke throughout Ohio and the Midwest. He spoke on his date in Illinois. Among the points in his remarks was that the creation of what would become the Federal Reserve System would “avoid the tendency to take the money power of the nation out of the hands of the many and put it in the hands of the few.” The reality was and remains just the opposite.
The New York Times on the National Citizens’ League: ““A million dollars doesn’t go very far in a campaign of education such as is being carried on by the National Citizens League for the promotion of a sound banking system, yet the contribution of $1,000,000 for that purpose by individual Directors of the National banks of the country a short time ago provoked much comment and a suggestion that the electorate was the be corrupted by the use of these funds.”
MAY 23
1933 – ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT PRESENTED IN THE US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AGAINST THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD OF GOVERNORS, THE OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANKS, THE US SECRETARY OF TREASURY AND OTHERS FOR THEIR COLLUSION IN CAUSING THE GREAT DEPRESSION.
US Congressman Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, introduced the Articles of Impeachment. McFadden stated,
“The Great Depression was not accidental; it was a carefully contrived occurrence… bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here, so that they might emerge as rulers of us all.”
“We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are U.S. government institutions. They are private credit monopolies; domestic swindlers, rich and predatory money lenders, which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers…The truth is, the Federal Reserve Board has usurped the Government of the United States by the arrogant credit monopoly, which operates the Federal Reserve Board.”
1937 – DEATH OF JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, OIL AND FINANCIAL CAPITALIST
“God gave me my money!”
MAY 24
1543 – DEATH OF NICOLAS COPERNICUS, MATHEMATICIAN AND ASTRONOMER
“Although there are countless maladies that are forever causing the decline of kingdoms, princedoms, and republics, the following four (in my judgment) are the most serious: civil discord, a high death rate, sterility of the soil, and the debasement of coinage.
The first three are so obvious that everybody recognizes the damage they cause; but the fourth one, which has to do with money, is noticed by only a few very thoughtful people, since it does not operate all at once and at a single blow, but gradually overthrows governments, and in a hidden, insidious way.”
Debasement means lowering the value of. What lowers the value of our currency? How about creating it out thin air like the Federal Reserve via Quantitative Easing (QE) has done to prop up major banks or by banks when they create money as debt when they issue loans?
1604 – ENGLISH COURT DECISION ON “MIXED MONEY” CASE
English court rules that sovereign governments possess the power to create, regulate, limit and define money.
“The Mixt Moneys case decided that Money was a Public Measure, a measure of value, and that, like other measures, it was necessary in the public welfare that its dimension of volume should be limited, defined and regulated by the State. The whole body of learning left us by the ancient and renascent world was invoked in this celebrated dictum: Aristotle, Paulus, Godin and Budelius were summoned to its support; the Roman law, the common law and the statutes all upheld it; ‘the State alone had the right to issue money and to decide of what substances its symbols should be made, whether of gold, silver, brass or paper. Whatever the State declared to be money, was money.’”
– From The History of Money in America by Alexander Del Mar
2005 – “NAZISM AND THE GERMAN ECONOMIC MIRACLE” PRINTED SECTION OF BOOK BY HENRY C.K. LIU IN ASIA TIMES
“The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, at a time when its economy was in total collapse, with ruinous war-reparation obligations and zero prospects for foreign investment or credit. Yet through an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit and a full-employment public-works program, the Third Reich was able to turn a bankrupt Germany, stripped of overseas colonies it could exploit, into the strongest economy in Europe within four years, even before armament spending began. In fact, German economic recovery preceded and later enabled German rearmament, in contrast to the US economy, where constitutional roadblocks placed by the US Supreme Court on the New Deal delayed economic recovery until US entry to World War Two put the US market economy on a war footing. While this observation is not an endorsement for Nazi philosophy, the effectiveness of German economic policy in this period, some of which had been started during the last phase of the Weimar Republic, is undeniable.” http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GE24Dj01.html
MAY 25
1787 – US CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION BEGINS
The Congress shall have power to…coin money [and] regulate the value thereof” Article 1, Section 8, US Constitution.
MAY 26
2007 – PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE “CREDIT AS A PUBLIC UTILITY: THE KEY TO MONETARY REFORM” BY RICHARD COOK
“We now need to return to the recognition that money and credit truly are public utilities as recognized during colonial days and at the times of great crises such as the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the New Deal.
Today we are in a similar crisis, when the solution is the same as it has been in the past. It is for the commonwealth of Americans, acting through their elected representatives, to exert their constitutional prerogatives in controlling the nation’s supply of money and credit.”
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Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt? Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice. This calendar is the original project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini, Deb Jose and Greg Coleridge helped in its development. It is currently updated by Greg Coleridge. Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, email monetarycalendar@yahoo.com
To see the calendar year-to-date, go to https://monetarycalendar.wordpress.com/
A second historical calendar, the REAL Democracy History Calendar, in many ways complements this calendar. For information, go to https://realdemocracyhistorycalendar.wordpress.com/about/
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