Secrets of the Federal Reserve: the 1930's
|
|
|
by Eustace Mullins CHAPTER THIRTEEN
However, there were some Senators who did not believe he should hold any Government office, because of his family background as an international gold dealer and his mysterious operations in billions of dollars of Government securities in the First World War. Consequently, the Senate held Hearings to determine whether Meyer ought to be on the Federal Reserve Board. At these Hearings, Representative Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, said:
World's Work of February 1931, said:
The Senate Hearings on Eugene Meyer, Jr. continued:
President Rand, of the Marine Midland Corporation, questioned about his sudden desire for the services of Edmund Platt, said:
Senator Brookhart showed that Eugene Meyer, Jr. administered the Federal Farm Loan Board against the interests of the American farmer, saying:
During this tragic period, chairman Louis McFadden of the House Banking and Currency Committee continued his lone crusade against the "London Connection" which had wrecked the nation. On June 10, 1932, McFadden addressed the House of Representatives:
On January 13, 1932, McFadden had introduced a resolution indicting the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for "Criminal Conspiracy":
No action was taken on this Resolution. McFadden came back on December 13, 1932 with a motion to impeach President Herbert Hoover. Only five Congressmen stood with him on this, and the resolution failed. The Republican majority leader of the House remarked, "Louis T. McFadden is now politically dead." On May 23, 1933, McFadden introduced House Resolution No. 158, Articles of Impeachment against the Secretary of the Treasury, two Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and officers and directors of the Federal Reserve Banks for their guilt and collusion in causing the Great Depression. "I charge them with having unlawfully taken over 80 billion dollars from the United States Government in the year 1928, the said unlawful taking consisting of the unlawful recreation of claims against the United States Treasury to the extent of over 80 billion dollars in the year 1928, and in each year subsequent, and by having robbed the United States Government and the people of the United States by their theft and sale of the gold reserve of the United States." The Resolution never reached the floor. A whispering campaign that McFadden was insane swept Washington, and in the next Congressional elections, he was overwhelmingly defeated by thousands of dollars poured into his home district of Canton, Pennsylvania. In 1932, the American people elected Franklin D. Roosevelt President of the United States. This was hailed as the freeing of the American people from the evil influence which had brought on the Great Depression, the ending of Wall Street domination, and the disappearance of the banker from Washington.
"I know what we'll do," exclaimed Bessie, "We'll run him for Governor of New York!" Because of her power, she succeeded in this goal, and Roosevelt later became President. One of the men Roosevelt brought down from New York with him as a Special Advisor to the Treasury was Earl Bailie of J & W Seligman Company, who had become notorious as the man who handed the $415,000 bribe to Juan Leguia, son of the President of Peru, in order to get the President to accept a loan from J & W Seligman Company. There was a great deal of criticism of this appointment, and Mr. Roosevelt, in keeping with his new role as defender of the people, sent Earl Bailie back to bringing in New York. Franklin D. Roosevelt himself was an international banker of ill repute, having floated large issues of foreign bonds in this country in the 1920s. These bonds defaulted, and our citizens lost millions of dollars, but they still wanted Mr. Roosevelt as President. The New York Directory of Directors lists Mr. Roosevelt as President and Director of United European Investors, Ltd., in 1923 and 1924, which floated many millions of German marks in this country, all of which defaulted. Poor's Directory of Directors lists him as a director of The International Germanic Trust Company in 1928. Franklin D. Roosevelt was also an advisor to the Federal International Banking Corporation, an Anglo-American outfit dealing in foreign securities in the United States. Roosevelt's law firm of Roosevelt and O'Connor during the 1920s represented many international corporations. His law partner, Basil O'Connor, was a director in the following corporations: Cuban-American Manganese Corporation, Venezuela-Mexican Oil Corporation, West Indies Sugar Corporation, American Reserve Insurance Corporation, Warm Springs Foundation. He was director in other corporations, and later head of the American Red Cross. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as President of the United States, he appointed as Director of the Budget James Paul Warburg, son of Paul Warburg, and Vice President of the International Acceptance Bank and other corporations. Roosevelt appointed as Secretary of the Treasury W.H. Woodin, one of the biggest industrialists in the country, Director of the American Car Foundry Company and numerous other locomotive works, Remington Arms, The Cuba Company, Consolidated Cuba Railroads, and other big corporations. Woodin was later replaced by Henry Morgenthau, Jr., son of the Harlem real estate operator who had helped put Woodrow Wilson in the White House. With such a crew as this, Roosevelt's promises of radical social changes showed little likelihood of fulfillment. One of the first things he did was to declare a bankers' moratorium, to help the bankers get their records in order. World's Work says:
Roosevelt also set up the Securities Exchange Commission, to see to it that no new faces got into the Wall Street gang, which caused the following colloquy in Congress:
Paul Einzig pointed out in 1935 that:
In other words, he eased the burden of debts off of the rich onto the poor, since the rich are few and the poor many. Senator Robert L. Owen, testifying before the House Committee on Banking and Currency in 1938, said:
Senator Owen did not go into the question of whether the Federal Reserve Board could be held responsible to the public. Actually, they cannot. They are public officials who are appointed by the President, but their salaries are paid by the private stockholders of the Federal Reserve Banks. Governor W.P.G. Harding of the Federal Reserve Board testified in 1921 that:
However, the Government does give the Federal Reserve System the use of its billions of dollars of credit, and this gives the Federal Reserve its characteristic of a central bank, the power to issue currency on the Government's credit. We do not have Federal Government notes or gold certificates as currency. We have Federal Reserve Bank notes, issued by the Federal Reserve Banks, and every dollar they print is a dollar in their pocket. W. Randolph Burgess, of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, stated before the Academy of Political Science in 1930 that:
All of these central banks have the power of issuing currency in their respective countries. Thus, the people do not own their own money in Europe, nor do they own it here. It is privately printed for private profit. The people have no sovereignty over their money, and it has developed that they have no sovereignty over other major political issues such as foreign policy. As a central bank of issue, the Federal Reserve System has behind it all the enormous wealth of the American people. When it began operations in 1913, it created a serious threat to the central banks of the impoverished countries of Europe. Because it represented this great wealth, it attracted far more gold than was desirable in the 1920s, and it was apparent that soon all of the world's gold would be piled up in this country. This would make the gold standard a joke in Europe, because they would have no gold over there to back their issue of money and credit. It was the Federal Reserve's avowed aim in 1927, after the secret meeting with the heads of the foreign central banks, to get large quantities of that gold sent back to Europe, and its methods of doing so, the low interest rate and heavy purchases of Government securities, which created vast sums of new money, intensified the stock market speculation and made the stock market crash and resultant depression a national disaster. Since the Federal Reserve System was guilty of causing this disaster, we might suppose that they would have tried to alleviate it. However, through the dark years of 1931 and 1932, the Governors of the Federal Reserve Board saw the plight of the American people worsening and did nothing to help them. This was more criminal than the original plotting of the Depression. Anyone who lived through those years in this country remembers the widespread unemployment, the misery, and the hunger of our people. At any time during those years the Federal Reserve Board could have acted to relieve this situation. The problem was to get some money back into circulation. So much of the money normally used to pay rent and food bills had been sucked into Wall Street that there was no money to carry on the business of living. In many areas, people printed their own money on wood and paper for use in their communities, and this money was good, since it represented obligations to each other which people fulfilled. The Federal Reserve System was a central bank of issue. It had the power to, and did, when it suited its owners, issue millions of dollars of money. Why did it not do so in 1931 and 1932? The Wall Street bankers were through with Mr. Herbert Hoover, and they wanted Franklin D. Roosevelt to come in on a wave of glory as the saviour of the nation. Therefore, the American people had to starve and suffer until March of 1933, when the White Knight came riding in with his crew of Wall Street bribers and put some money into circulation. That was all there was to it. As soon as Mr. Roosevelt took office, the Federal Reserve began to buy Government securities at the rate of ten million dollars a week for ten weeks, and created a hundred million dollars in new money, which alleviated the critical famine of money and credit, and the factories started hiring people again. During the Roosevelt Administration, The Federal Reserve Board, insofar as the public was concerned, was Marriner Eccles, an emulator and admirer of "the Chief". Eccles was a Utah banker, President of the First Securities Corporation, a family investment trust consisting of a number of banks which Eccles had picked up cheap during the Agricultural Depression of 1920-21. Eccles also was a director of such corporations as Pet Milk Company, Mountain States Implement Company, and Amalgamated Sugar. As a big banker, Eccles fitted in well with the group of powerful men who were operating Roosevelt. There was some discussion in Congress as to whether Eccles ought to be on the Federal Reserve Board at the same time he had all of these banks in Utah, but he testified that he had very little to do with the First Securities Corporation besides being President of it, and so he was confirmed as Chairman of the Board. Eugene Meyer, Jr. now resigned from the Board to spend more of his time lending the two billion dollar capital of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and determining the value of collateral by his own methods. The Banking Act of 1935, which greatly increased Roosevelt's power over the nation's finances, was an integral part of the legislation by which he proposed to extend his reign in the United States. It was not opposed by the people as was the National Recovery Act, because it was not so naked an infringement of their liberties. It was, however, an important measure. First of all, it extended the terms of office of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors to fourteen years, or, three and a half times the length of a Presidential term. This meant that a President assuming office who might be hostile to the Board could not appoint a majority to it who would be favorable to him. Thus, a monetary policy inaugurated before a President came into the White House would go on regardless of his wishes. The Banking Act of 1935 also repealed the clause of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933, which had provided that a banking house could not be on the Stock Exchange and also be involved in investment banking. This clause was a good one, since it prevented a banking house from lending money to a corporation which it owned. Still it is to be remembered that this clause covered up some other provisions in that Act, such as the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, providing insurance money to the amount of 150 million dollars, to guarantee fifteen billion dollars worth of deposits. This increased the power of the big bankers over small banks and gave them another excuse to investigate them. The Banking Act of 1933 also legislated that all earnings of the Federal Reserve Banks must by law go to the banks themselves. At last the provision in the Act that the Government share in the profits was gotten rid of. It had never been observed, and the increase in the assets of the Federal Reserve Banks from 143 million dollars in 1913 to 45 billion dollars in 1949 went entirely to the private stockholders of the banks. Thus, the one constructive provision of the Banking Act of 1933 was repealed in 1935, and also the Federal Reserve Banks were now permitted to loan directly to industry, competing with the member banks, who could not hope to match their capacity in arranging large loans. When the provision that banks could not be involved in investment banking and operate on the Stock Exchange was repealed in 1935, Carter Glass, originator of that provision, was asked by reporters:
Because that provision was unfavorable to them, the bankers had simply clamped down on making loans until it was repealed. Newsweek of March 14, 1936, noted that:
This was another instance of the centralization of control in the Federal Reserve System. The regional district system had never been an important factor in the administration of monetary policy, and the Board was not cutting down on its officials outside of Washington. The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency had asked, during the Gold Reserve Hearings of 1934:
The Gold Reserve Hearings had also brought in other people who had more than a passing interest in the operations of the Federal Reserve System. James Paul Warburg, just back from the London Economic Conference with Professor O.M.W. Sprague and Henry L. Stimson, came in to declare that he thought we ought to modernize the gold standard. Frank Vanderlip suggested that we do away with the Federal Reserve Board and set up a Federal Monetary Authority. This would have made no difference to the New York bankers, who would have selected the personnel anyway. And Senator Robert L. Owen, longtime critic of the system, made the following statement:
Benjamin Anderson, economist for the Chase National Bank of New York, said:
Dr. Anderson also stated that:
This is an explanation of the manner in which the Federal Reserve Banks increased their assets from 143 million dollars to 45 billion dollars in thirty-five years. They did not produce anything, they were non-productive enterprises, and yet they had this enormous profit, merely by creating money, 95 percent of it in the form of credit, which did not add to the circulating medium. It was not distributed among the people in the form of wages, nor did it increase the buying power of the farmers and workers. It was credit-money created by bankers for the use and profit of bankers, who increased their wealth by more than forty billion dollars in a few years because they had obtained control of the Government's credit in 1913 by passing the Federal Reserve Act. Marriner Eccles also had much to say about the creation of money. He considered himself an economist, and had been brought into the Government service by Stuart Chase and Rexford Guy Tugwell, two of Roosevelt's early brain-trusters. Eccles was the only one of the Roosevelt crowd who stayed in office throughout his administration. Before the House Banking and Currency Committee on June 24, 1941, Governor Eccles said:
Turning over the Government's credit to private bankers in 1913 gave them unlimited opportunities to create money. The Federal Reserve System could also destroy money in large quantities through open market operations. Eccles said, at the Silver Hearings of 1939:
Extinguishing reserves means wiping out a basis for money and credit issue, or, tightening up on money and credit, a condition which is usually even more favorable to bankers than the creation of money. Calling in or destroying money gives the banker immediate and unlimited control of the financial situation, since he is the only one with money and the only one with the power to issue money in a time of money shortage. The money panics of 1873, 1893, 1920-21, and 1929-31, were characterized by a drawing in of the circulating medium. In economical terms, this does not sound like such a terrible thing, but when it means that people do not have money to pay their rent or buy food, and when it means that an employer has to lay off three-fourths of his help because he cannot borrow the money to pay them, the enormous guilt of the bankers and the long record of suffering and misery for which they are responsible would suggest that no punishment might be too severe for their crimes against their fellowmen. On September 30, 1940, Governor Eccles said:
This is an accurate statement about our money system. Instead of money being created by the production of the people, the annual increase in goods and services, it is created by the bankers out of the debts of the people. Because it is inadequate, it is subject to great fluctuations and is basically unstable. These fluctuations are also a source of great profit. For that reason, the Federal Reserve Board has consistently opposed any legislation which attempts to stabilize the monetary system. Its position has been set forth definitively in Chairman Eccles' letter to Senator Wagner on March 9, 1939, and the Memorandum issued by the Board on March 13, 1939. Chairman Eccles wrote that:
The Memorandum of the Board stated, in its "Memorandum on Proposals to maintain prices at fixed levels":
Yet William McChesney Martin, the Chairman of the Board of Governors in 1952, said before the Subcommittee on Debt Control, the Patman Committee, on March 10, 1952 that "One of the fundamental purposes of the Federal Reserve Act is to protect the value of the dollar." Senator Flanders questioned him: "Is that specifically stated in the original legislation setting up the Federal Reserve System?" "No," replied Mr. Martin, "but it is inherent in the entire legislative history and in the surrounding circumstances." Senator Robert L. Owen has told us how it was taken out of the original legislation against his will, and that the Board of Governors has opposed such legislation. Apparently Mr. Martin does not know this. Steady average prices, indeed, are impossible so long as we have the speculators on the stock exchange driving prices up and down in order to reap profits for themselves. Despite Governor Eccles' insistence that steady average prices would not insure lasting prosperity, they could do much to bring about this condition. A man on a yearly wage of $2,500 is not more prosperous if the price of bread increases five cents a loaf during the year. In 1935, Eccles said before the House Committee on Banking and Currency:
This is an almost direct contradiction of Eccles' statement in 1939 that prices do not depend, primarily, on the price or cost of money. In 1935, Governor Eccles stated before the House Committee:
Governor Eccles testimony exposes the heart of the money machine which Paul Warburg revealed to his incredulous fellow bankers at Jekyll Island in 1910. Most Americans comment that they cannot understand how the Federal Reserve System operates. It remains beyond understanding, not because it is complex, but because it is so simple. If a confidence man comes up to you and offers to demonstrate his marvelous money machine, you watch while he puts in a blank piece of paper, and cranks out a $100 bill. That is the Federal Reserve System. You then offer to buy this marvelous money machine, but you cannot. It is owned by the private stockholders of the Federal Reserve Banks, whose identities can be traced partially, but not completely, to "the London Connection." At the House Banking and Currency Committee Hearings on June 6, 1960, Congressman Wright Patman, Chairman, questioned Carl E. Allen, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. (p. 4).
This is the most incredible part of the Federal Reserve operation and one which is difficult for anyone to understand. How can any American citizen grasp the concept that there are people in this country who have the power to make an entry in a ledger that the government of the United States now owes them one billion dollars, and to collect the principal and interest on this "loan"? Congressman Wright Patman tells us in "The Primer of Money", p. 38 of going into a Federal Reserve Bank and asking to see their bonds on which the American people are paying interest. After being shown the bonds, he asked to see their cash, but they only had some ledgers and blank checks. Patman says,
Peter L. Bernstein, in A Primer On Money, Banking and Gold says:
As Congressman Patman puts it,
Patman continues,
In 1951, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York published a pamphlet, "A Day's Work at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York." On page 22, we find that:
The decisions of the Federal Reserve Board, or rather, the decisions which they are told to make by "parties unknown", affect the daily lives of every American by the effect of these decisions on prices. Raising the interest rate, or causing money to became "dearer" acts to limit the amount of money available in the market, as does the raising of reserve requirements by the Federal Reserve System. Selling bonds by the Open Market Committee also extinguishes and lowers the money supply. Buying government securities on the open market "creates" more money, as does lowering the interest rate and making money "cheaper". It is axiomatic that an increase in the money supply brings prosperity, and that a decrease in the money supply brings on a depression. Dramatic increases in the money which outstrip the supply of goods brings on inflation, "too much money chasing too few goods". A more esoteric aspect of the monetary system is "velocity of circulation", which sounds much more technical than it is. This is the speed at which money changes hands; if it is gold buried in the peasant's garden, that is a slow velocity of circulation, caused by a lack of confidence in the economy or the nation. Very rapid velocity of circulation, such as the stock market boom of the late 1920s, means quick turnover, spending and investment of money, and its stems from confidence, or overconfidence, in the economy. With a high velocity of circulation, a smaller money supply circulates among as many people and goods as a larger money supply would circulate with a slower velocity of circulation. We mention this because the velocity of circulation, or confidence in the economy, also is greatly affected by the Federal Reserve actions. Milton Friedman comments in Newsweek, May 2, 1983, "The Federal Reserve's major function is to determine the money supply. It has the power to increase or decrease the money supply at any rate it chooses." This is an enormous power, because increasing the money supply can cause the re-election of an administration, while decreasing it can cause an administration to be defeated. Friedman goes on to criticize the Federal Reserve, "How is it that an institution which has so poor a record of performance nevertheless has so high a public reputation and even commands a considerable measure of credibility for its forecasts?" All open market transactions, which affect the money supply, are conducted for a single System account by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on the behalf of all the Federal Reserve Banks, and supervised by an officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The conferences at which decisions are made to buy or sell securities by the Open Market Committee remain closed to the public, and the deliberations also remain a mystery. On May 8, 1928, The New York Times reported that Adolph C. Miller, Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, testifying before the House Banking and Currency Committee, stated that open market purchases and rediscount rates were established through "conversations". At that time, the purchases on the open market amounted to seventy or eighty million dollars a day, and would be ten times that today. These are vast sums to be manipulated on the basis of mere "conversations", but that is as much information as we can obtain. Because of these mysterious transactions which affect the life, liberty and happiness of every American citizen, there have been numerous proposals such as Senate Document No. 23, presented by Mr. Logan on January 24, 1939, that "The Government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of the consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity." On March 21, 1960, Congressman Wright Patman used a simple illustration in the Congressional Record of how banks "create money".
How this is done is best revealed by Governor Eccles at Hearings before the House Committee on Banking and Currency on June 24, 1941:
On September 30, 1941, before the same Committee, Governor Eccles was asked by Representative Patman:
On June 17, 1942, Governor Eccles was interrogated by Mr. Dewey.
At the House Hearing of 1947, Mr. Kolburn asked Mr. Eccles:
Congressman Jerry Voorhis is quoted in U.S. News, August 31, 1959, as questioning Secretary of Treasury Anderson,
Strangely enough, there has never been a court trial on the legality or Constitutionality of the Federal Reserve Act. Although it is on much the same shaky grounds as the National Recovery Act, or NRA, which was challenged in Schechter Poultry v. United States of America, 29 U.S. 495, 55 US 837.842 (1935), the NRA was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on the grounds that "Congress may not abdicate or transfer to others its legitimate functions. Congress cannot Constitutionally delegate its legislative authority to trade or industrial associations or groups so as to empower them to make laws." Article 1, Sec. 8 of the Constitution provides that "The Congress shall have power to borrow money on the credit of the United States . . . and to coin Money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." According to the NRA decision, Congress cannot delegate this power to the Federal Reserve System, nor can it delegate its legislative authority to the Federal Reserve System to allow the System to fix the rate of bank reserves, the rediscount rate, or the volume of money. All of these are "legislated" by the Federal Reserve Board, meeting in legislative sessions to determine these matters and to issue "laws" or regulations fixing them. The Second World War gave the big bankers who owned the Federal Reserve System a chance to unload on the country billions of dollars printed early in 1930, in the biggest counterfeiting operation in history, all legalized by Roosevelt's government, of course. Henry Hazlitt writes in the January 4, 1943 issue of Newsweek Magazine:
Governor Eccles also testified to some other interesting matters of the Federal Reserve and war finance at the Senate Hearings on the Office of Price Administration in 1944:
The Congressmen never did get to discuss the Stabilization Fund, another setup whereby we would give the impoverished countries of Europe back the gold which had been sent over here. In 1945, Henry Hazlitt, commenting in Newsweek of January 22, on Roosevelt's annual budget message to Congress, quoted Roosevelt as saying:
Hazlitt pointed out that the reserve requirement was not high, it was just what it had been for the past thirty years. Roosevelt's purpose was to free more gold from the Federal Reserve System and make it available for the Stabilization Fund, later called the International Monetary Fund, part of the World Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the equivalent of the League Finance Committee which would have swallowed the financial sovereignty of the United States if the Senate had let us join it. NOTES: 91 Peter L. Bernstein, A Primer On Money, Banking and Gold, Vintage Books, New York, 1965, p. 104 <back---Table of Contents---next> 
This is a crazy world. What can be done? Amazingly, we have been mislead. We have been taught that we can control government by voting. The founder of the Rothschild dynasty, Mayer Amschel Bauer, told the secret of controlling the government of a nation over 200 years ago. He said, "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws." Get the picture? Your freedom hinges first on the nation's banks and money system. Freedom is connected with Debt Elimination for each individual. Not only does this end personal debt, it places the people first in line as creditors to the National Debt ahead of the banks. They don't wish for you to know this. It has to do with recognizing WHO you really are in A New Beginning: A Practical Course in Miracles, an informational study. Disclaimer - The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein. I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. (attributed to Voltaire), but certainly embodies what the 1st amendment of the constitution refers to as the freedom of speech 
Bill of RightsAmendment 1Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In
1930 Herbert Hoover appointed to the Federal Reserve Board an old friend
from World War I days, Eugene Meyer, Jr., who had a long record of
public service dating from 1915, when he went into partnership with
Bernard Baruch in the Alaska-Juneau Gold Mining Company. Meyer had been
a Special Advisor to the War Industries Board on Non-Ferrous Metals
(gold, silver, etc.); Special Assistant to the Secretary of War on
aircraft production; in 1917 he was appointed to the National Committee
on War Savings, and was made Chairman of the War Finance Corporation
from 1918-1926. He then was appointed chairman of the Federal Farm Loan
Board from 1927-29. Hoover put him on the Federal Reserve Board in 1930,
and Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Reconstruction Bank for
Reconstruction and Development in 1946. Meyer must have been a man of
exceptional ability to hold so many important posts.
The
record of public service did not prevent Eugene Meyer, Jr. from
continuing to serve the American people on the Federal Reserve Board, as
Chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and as head of the
International Bank.
Roosevelt
owed his political career to a fortuitous circumstance. As
Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I, because of old
school ties, he had intervened to prevent prosecution of a large ring of
homosexuals in the Navy which included several Groton and Harvard chums.
This brought him to the favorable appreciation of a wealthy
international homosexual set which travelled back and forth between New
York and Paris, and which was presided over by Bessie Marbury, of a very
old and prominent New York family. Bessie's "wife", who lived with her
for a number of years, was Elsie de Wolfe, later Lady Mendl in a "mariage
de convenance", the arbiter of the international set. They recruited
J.P. Morgan's youngest daughter, Anne Morgan, into their circle, and
used her fortune to restore the Villa Trianon in Paris, which became
their headquarters. During World War I, it was used as a hospital.
Bessie Marbury expected to be awarded the Legion of Honor by the French
Government as a reward, but J.P. Morgan, Jr., who despised her for
corrupting his youngest sister, requested the French Government to
withhold the award, which they did. Smarting from this rebuff, Bessie
Marbury threw herself into politics, and became a power in the
Democratic National Party. She had also recruited Eleanor Roosevelt into
her circle, and, during a visit to Hyde Park, Eleanor confided that she
was desperate to find something for "poor Franklin" to do, as he was
confined to a wheelchair, and was very depressed.
Governor
Young had denied this, but it had already been brought out that on both
of his hurried trips to this country in 1927 and 1929 to dictate Federal
Reserve policy, Governor Montagu Norman of the Bank of England had gone
directly to Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, to get him to
purchase Government securities on the open market and start the movement
of gold out of this country back to Europe.
Queen
Victoria
