The following historical story is taken from a radio
address given by Congressman Charles G. Binderup of Nebraska, some 50
years ago and was reprinted in Unrobing the Ghosts of Wall Street:
Colonies More Prosperous Than The Home Country
Before the American War for Independence in 1776, the colonized part
of what is today the United States of America was a possession of
England. It was called New England, and was made up of 13 colonies,
which became the first 13 states of the great Republic. Around 1750,
this New England was very prosperous. Benjamin Franklin was able to
write:
“There was abundance in the Colonies, and peace was
reigning on every border. It was difficult, and even impossible, to
find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the
globe. Comfort was prevailing in every home. The people, in general,
kept the highest moral standards, and education was widely spread.”
When Benjamin Franklin went over to England to represent the
interests of the Colonies, he saw a completely different situation: the
working population of this country was gnawed by hunger and poverty.
“The streets are covered with beggars and tramps,” he wrote. He asked
his English friends how England, with all its wealth, could have so
much poverty among its working classes.
His friends replied that England was a prey to a terrible condition:
it had too many workers! The rich said they were already overburdened
with taxes, and could not pay more to relieve the needs and poverty of
this mass of workers. Several rich Englishmen of that time actually
believed, along with Mathus, that wars and plague were necessary to rid
the country from man-power surpluses.
Franklin’s friends then asked him how the American Colonies managed
to collect enough money to support their poor houses, and how they
could overcome this plague of pauperism. Franklin replied:
“We have no poor houses in the Colonies; and if we had
some, there would be nobody to put in them, since there is, in the
Colonies, not a single unemployed person, neither beggars nor tramps.”
Thanks To Free Money Issued By The Nation
His friends could not believe their ears, and even less understand
this fact, since when the English poor houses and jails became too
cluttered, England shipped these poor wretches and down-and- outs, like
cattle, and discharged, on the quays of the Colonies, those who had
survived the poverty, dirtiness and privations of the journey. At that
time, England was throwing into jail those who could not pay their
debts. They therefore asked Franklin how he could explain the
remarkable prosperity of the New England Colonies. Franklin replied:
“That is simple. In the Colonies, we issue our own paper
money. It is called ‘Colonial Scrip.’ We issue it in proper proportion
to make the goods and pass easily from the producers to the consumers.
In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its
purchasing power and we have no interest to pay to no one.”
The Bankers Impose Poverty
The information came to the knowledge of the English Bankers, and
held their attention. They immediately took the necessary steps to have
the British Parliament to pass a law that prohibited the Colonies from
using their scrip money, and then ordered them to use only the gold and
silver money that was provided in sufficient quantity by the English
bankers. Then began in America the plague of debt-money, which has
never since brought so many curses to the American people.
The first law was passed in 1751, and then completed by a more
restrictive law in 1763. Franklin reported that one year after the
implementation of this prohibition on Colonial money, the streets of
the Colonies were filled with unemployment and beggars, just like in
England, because there was not enough money to pay for the goods and
work. The circulating medium of exchange had been reduced by half.
Franklin added that this was the original cause of the American
Revolution – and not the tax on tea nor the Stamp Act, as it has been
taught again and again in history books. The financiers always manage
to have removed from school books all that can throw light on their own
schemes, and damage the glow that protects their power.
Franklin, who was one of the chief architects of the American independence, wrote it clearly:
“The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on
tea and other matters had it not been the poverty caused by the bad
influence of the English bankers on the Parliament, which has caused in
the Colonies hatred of England and the Revolutionary War.”
This point of view of Franklin was confirmed by great statesmen of
his era: John Adams, Jefferson, and several others. A remarkable
English historian, John Twells, wrote, speaking of the money of the
Colonies, the Colonial Scrip:
“It was the monetary system under which America’s
Colonies flourished to such an extent that Edmund Burke was able to
write about them: ‘Nothing in the history of the world resembles their
progress. It was a sound and beneficial system, and its effects led to
the happiness of the people.’”
John Twells adds:
“In a bad hour, the British Parliament took away from
America its representative money, forbade any further issue of bills of
credit, these bills ceasing to be legal tender, and ordered that all
taxes should be paid in coins. Consider now the consequences: this
restriction of the medium of exchange paralyzed all the industrial
energies of the people. Ruin took place in these once flourishing
Colonies; most rigorous distress visited every family and every
business, discontent became desperation, and reached a point, to use
the words of Dr. Johnson, when human nature rises up and assets its
rights.”
Another writer, Peter Cooper, expresses himself along the same
lines. After having said how Franklin had explained to the London
Parliament the cause of the prosperity of the Colonies, he wrote:
“After Franklin gave explanations on the true cause of
the prosperity of the Colonies, the Parliament exacted laws forbidding
the use of this money in the payment of taxes. This decision brought so
many drawbacks and so much poverty to the people that it was the main
cause of the Revolution. The suppression of the Colonial money was a
much more important reason for the general uprising than the Tea and
Stamp Act.”
Today, in America as well as in Europe, we are under the regime of
the Scrip of the Bankers instead of the scrip of the nation. Hence the
public debts, everlasting interest charges, taxes that plunder
purchasing power, with the only result being a consolidation of the
financial dictatorship.
There is only one cure for America’s ultimate financial collapse and
that is for Congress to exercise Clause 30 of the “Federal” Reserve
Act, buy the outstanding shares of stock, shut down this
unconstitutional system and sell off their assets to reimburse the
people of this nation for this unspeakable theft of their wealth. This
is the first installment of postings on this issue, new ones will be
put up as soon as manpower allows.
Copyright © 1941 by Congressman Charles G. Binderup
BINDERUP, Charles Gustav, a Representative from Nebraska; born
in Horsens, Denmark, March 5, 1873; when six months old immigrated to
the United States with his parents, who settled on a farm near
Hastings, Adams County, Nebr.; attended the county schools and Grand
Island (Nebr.) Business College; engaged in agricultural pursuits near
Hastings and Minden, Nebr., and also in the mercantile and creamery
business at Minden, Nebr.; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-fourth
and Seventy-fifth Congresses (January 3, 1935-January 3, 1939); was an
unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1938 to the Seventy-sixth
Congress and for election as an Independent in 1940 to the
Seventy-seventh Congress; organized and was active in the
Constitutional Money League of America in Minden, Nebr., until his
death; died in Minden, Nebr., August 19, 1950; interment in Minden
Cemetery.