Portal:Business/Selected quote/104
"When the Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Bill was sprung on the House in its finished draft and ready for action to be taken, the debate was limited to three hours and Banker Vreeland placed in charge. It took so long for copies of the bill to be gotten that many members were unable to secure I copy until within a few minutes of the time to vote. No member who wished to present the people's side of the case was given sufficient time to enable him to properly analyze the bill. I asked for time and was told that if would vote for the bill it would be given to me, but not otherwise. Others were treated in the same way.
Accordingly, on June 30th, 1908, the Money Trust won the first fight and the Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Law was placed on the statute books. Thus the first precedent was established for the people's guarantee of the rich man’s watered securities, by making them a basis on which to issue currency. It was the entering wedge. We had already guaranteed the rich men's money, and now, by this act, the way was opened, and it was intended that we should guarantee their watered stocks and bonds. Of course, they were too keen to attempt to complete, in a single act, such an enormous steal as it world have been if they had included all they hoped ultimately to secure. They knew that they would be caught at it if they did, and so it was planned that the whole thing should be done by a succession of acts. The first three have taken place.
Act No. 1 was the manufacture, between 1896 and 1907, through stock gambling, speculation and other devious methods and devices, of tens of billions of watered stocks, bonds, and securities.
Act No. 2 was the panic of 1907, by which those not favorable to the Money Trust could be squeezed out of business and the people frightened, into demanding changes in the banking and currency laws which the Money Trust would frame.
Act No. 3 was the passage of the Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Bill, by which the Money Trust interests should have the privilege of securing from the Government currency on their watered bonds and securities. But while the act contained no authority to change the form of the bank notes, the U. S. Treasurer (in some way that I have been unable to find a reason for) implied authority and changed the form of bank notes which were issued for the banks on government bonds. These notes had hitherto had printed on them, “This note is secured by bonds of the United States.” He changed it to read as follows: “This note is secured by bonds of the United States or other securities.” “Or other securities” is the addition that was secured by the special interests. The infinite care the Money Trust exercises in regard to important detail work is easily seen in this piece of management. By that change it was enabled to have the form of the money issued in its favor on watered bonds and securities, the same as bank notes secured on government bonds, and, as a result the people do not know whether they get one or the other. None of the $500,000,000 printed and lying in the U. S. Treasury ready to float on watered bonds and securities has yet (April, 1913) been used. But it is there, maintained at a public charge, as a guarantee to the Money Trust that it may use it in case it crowds speculation beyond the point of its control. The banks may take it to prevent their own failures, but there is not even so much as a suggestion that it may be used to help keep the industries of the people in a state of prosperity"
- —Charles August Lindbergh, Banking and Currency and the Money Trust, 1913