COMMITTEE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
On June 20, 1961, _The San Francisco Examiner_ published a United Press
International news story with a June 19, Washington, D. C. date line,
under the headline "J.F.K. Backs Tax Cut Plan."
Here are portions of the article:
"President Kennedy today urged Congress and the people to give a
close study to a monetary reform proposal which would empower him
to cut income taxes in recession periods.
"He issued the statement after receiving a bulky report from the
Commission of [sic] Money and Credit....
"The 27-member commission was set up in 1957 by the Committee for
Economic Development (CED). Its three-year study was financed by
$1.3 million in grants from the CED and the Ford and Merrill
Foundation.
"One of the key recommendations was to give the President limited
power to cut the 20 percent tax rate on the first $2000 of personal
income, if needed to help the economy....
"The report also recommended extensive changes in the Federal
Reserve System, set up in 1913 as the core of the Nation's banking
system...."
This _San Francisco Examiner_ article is a classic example of propaganda
disguised as straight news reporting.
* * * * *
A story about the President supporting a plan for reducing taxes could
not fail to command sympathetic attention. But the truth is that the
tax reform proposals of the Commission on Money and Credit would give
the President as much power and leeway to _raise_ taxes as to lower
them.
In its 282-page report, the Commission made 87 separate proposals. One
would permit the President (on his own initiative) to reduce the basic
income-tax rate (the one that applies to practically every person who
has any income at all) from 20% to 15%. It would also permit the
President to raise the basic rate from 20% to 25%.
The idea of giving the President such power is as alien to American
political principles as communism itself is. The proposed "machinery"
for granting such Presidential power would violate every basic principle
of our constitutional system. Under the Commission's proposal, the
President would announce that he was going to increase or decrease
taxes. If, within sixty days, Congress did not veto the plan, it would
become law, effective for six months, at which time it would have to be
renewed by the same procedure. That is very similar to the Soviet way.
It could not be more foreign to the American way if it had been lifted
from the Soviet constitution.
Other proposals in the report of the Commission on Money and Credit,
filed on June 18, 1961, after a three-year study:
1. The Federal Reserve Act would be amended to give the President
control over the Federal Reserve System--which, as set up in 1913,
is supposed to be free of any kind of political control, from the
White House or elsewhere.
2. The Commission recommends elimination of the legal requirement
that the Federal Reserve System maintain a gold reserve as backing
for American currency. A bill was introduced in Congress (May 9,
1961, by U. S. Congressman Abraham Multer, New York Democrat) to
implement this Commission recommendation. The bill would take away
from American citizens twelve billion dollars in gold which
supports their own currency, and enable government to pour this
gold out to foreigners, as long as it lasts, leaving Americans with
a worthless currency, and at the mercy of foreign governments and
bankers (see the _Dan Smoot Report_, "Gold and Treachery," May 22,
1961).
3. The banking laws of individual states would be ignored or
invalidated: banking laws of 33 states prohibit mutual savings
banks; the Commission on Money and Credit wants a federal law to
permit such banks in all states.
4. The Commission would circumvent, if not eliminate, state laws
governing the insurance industry: the Commission proposes a federal
law which would permit insurance companies to obtain federal
charters and claim federal, rather than state, regulation.
5. The Commission would subject all private pension funds to
federal supervision.
6. The Commission would abolish congressional limitations on the
size of the national debt--so that the debt could go as high as the
President pleased, without any interference from Congress.
7. The Commission recommends that Congress approve all federal
public works projects three years in advance, so that the President
could order the projects _when he felt_ the economy needed
stimulation.
Remembering how President Kennedy and his administrative officials and
congressional leaders used political extortion and promises of bribes
with public money to force the House of Representatives, in January,
1961, to pack the House Rules Committee, imagine how the President could
whip Congress, and the whole nation, into line if the President had just
_some_ of the additional, unconstitutional power which the Commission on
Money and Credit wants him to have.
* * * * *
The objective of the Commission on Money and Credit (to finish the
conversion of America into a total socialist state, under the
dictatorship of whatever "proletarian" happens to be enthroned in the
White House) can be seen, between the lines, in the Commission's remarks
about the "formidable problem" of unemployment.
The Commission wants unemployment to drop to the point where the number
of jobless workers will equal the number of vacant jobs! And the clear
implication is that the federal government must adopt whatever policies
necessary to create this condition.
Such a condition can exist only in a slave system--like the socialist
system of communist China where, for example, all "farmers" (men, women,
and children) enjoy full employment; under the whips of overseers, on
the collective farms of communism.
The Commission on Money and Credit was created on November 21, 1957, by
the Committee for Economic Development (CED). In the 1957 Annual Report
of the CED, Mr. Donald K. David, CED Chairman, gave the history of the
Commission on Money and Credit. Mr. David said:
"CED began nine years ago [1948] to call attention to the need for
a comprehensive reassessment of our entire system of money and
credit.
"When the last such survey of the economic scene was made by the
Aldrich Commission in 1911, we had no central banking system, no
guaranteed deposits or guaranteed mortgages. There were no personal
or corporate income taxes; no group insurance plans, pension funds,
or Social Security system....
"Although CED had envisaged a commission created by government, the
inability of government to obtain the consensus required for
launching the study became as apparent as the need for avoiding
further delay. So, after receiving encouragement from other
research institutions, leaders in Congress, the Administration, and
from various leaders in private life, CED's Trustees decided to
sponsor the effort, assisted by a grant from The Ford
Foundation...."
Here is the membership of the CED's Commission on Money and Credit:
Frazar B. Wilde, Chairman (President of Connecticut General Life
Insurance Company)
Hans Christian Sonne, Vice-Chairman (New York; official in numerous
foundations and related organizations, such as Twentieth Century
Fund; American-Scandanavian Foundation; National Planning
Association; and so on)
Adolf A. Berle, Jr. (New York; Berle has been in and out of
important posts in government for many years; he is an
anti-communist socialist; he resigned from the Commission on Money
and Credit to accept his present job handling Latin American
affairs in the State Department)
James B. Black (Chairman of the Board of Pacific Gas and Electric
Company)
Marriner S. Eccles (Chairman of the Board of the First Security
Corporation; formerly Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury
under Roosevelt; Governor of Federal Reserve Board; and official in
numerous international banking organizations, such as the
Export-Import Bank)
Lamar Fleming, Jr. (Chairman of the Board of Anderson, Clayton &
Co., Houston, Texas)
Henry H. Fowler (Washington, D.C.; resigned from the Commission on
February 3 to accept appointment from Kennedy as Under Secretary of
the Treasury)
Gaylord A. Freeman, Jr. (President of the First National Bank,
Chicago)
Philip M. Klutznick (Park Forest, Ill., resigned from the
Commission on February 8, to accept appointment from President
Kennedy as United States Representative to the United Nations
Economic and Social Council)
Fred Lazarus, Jr. (Chairman of the Board of Federated Department
Stores, Inc.)
Isador Lubin (Professor of Public Affairs at Rutgers University)
J. Irwin Miller (Chairman of the Board of Cummins Engine Company)
Robert R. Nathan (Washington, D.C.; has been in and out of many
important government jobs since the first Roosevelt Administration)
Emil Rieve (President emeritus of the Textile Workers
Union--AFL-CIO)
David Rockefeller (President of Chase Manhattan Bank)
Stanley H. Ruttenberg (Research Director for AFL-CIO)
Charles Sawyer (Cincinnati lawyer, prominent in Democratic Party
politics in Ohio)
Earl B. Schwulst (President of the Bowery Savings Bank in New York)
Charles B. Shuman (President of the American Farm Bureau
Federation)
Jesse W. Tapp (Chairman of the Board, Bank of America)
John Cameron Thomson (former Chairman of the Board of Northwest
Bancorporation, Minneapolis)
Willard L. Thorp (Director of the Merrill Center for Economics at
Amherst College)
Theodore O. Yntema (Vice President in Charge of Finance, Ford Motor
Company)
William F. Schnitzler (Secretary-Treasurer of AFL-CIO; resigned
from the Commission in 1960)
Joseph M., Dodge (Chairman of the Board of Detroit Bank and Trust
Co.; resigned from the Commission in 1960)
Beardsley Ruml (well-known and influential new deal economist who
held numerous posts with foundations and related organizations; is
sometimes called the father of the federal withholding tax law,
enacted during World War II; Dr. Ruml died before the Commission on
Money and Credit completed its report)
Fred T. Greene (President of the Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis;
died before the Commission completed its report)
The director of research for the Commission Was Dr. Bertrand Fox,
professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. His
assistant was Dr. Eli Shapiro, Professor of Finance at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
Of the 27 persons who served as members of the Commission on Money and
Credit, 13 (Wilde, Sonne, Berle, Fleming, Fowler, Lubin, Nathan,
Rockefeller, Tapp, Thorp, Yntema, Dodge, Ruml) were members of the
Council on Foreign Relations.
In other words, the Commission on Money and Credit was just another
tax-exempt propaganda agency of America's invisible government, the
Council on Foreign Relations.
* * * * *
The above discussion of the Commission on Money and Credit, together
with the roster of membership, was first published in _The Dan Smoot
Report_ dated July 3, 1961.
On September 22, 1961, Mr. Charles B. Shuman, President of the American
Farm Bureau Federation, wrote me a letter, saying:
"I was a member of the Commission on Money and Credit but you will
notice that I filed very strong objections to several of the
recommendations which you brought to the attention of your
readers. I do not agree with the Commission recommendations to
authorize the President of the United States to vary the rate of
income tax. Neither do I agree that the gold reserve requirement
should be abandoned. I agree with several of your criticisms of the
Report but I cannot agree that 'the objective of the Commission on
Money and Credit (to finish the conversion of America into a total
socialist state, under the dictatorship of whatever proletarian
happens to be enthroned in the White House) can be seen, between
the lines, in the Commission's remarks about the formidable problem
of unemployment.'
"At its worst, it was a compromise of the divergent viewpoint of
the conservative and liberal members of the Commission."
I will not argue with Mr. Shuman, an honest and honorable man, about the
objective of the Commission; but I will reassert the obvious:
recommendations of the Commission on Money and Credit, if fully
implemented, would finish the conversion of America into a total
socialist state.
* * * * *
As pointed out before, the various agencies which interlock with the
Council on Foreign Relations do not have formal affiliation with the
Council, or generally, with each other; but their effective togetherness
is revealed by their unanimity of purpose: They are all working toward
the ultimate objective of creating a one-world socialist system and
making America a part of it.
This ambitious scheme was first conceived and put into operation, during
the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, by Colonel Edward M. House, and
by the powerful international bankers whom House influenced.
House founded the Council on Foreign Relations for the purpose of
creating (and conditioning the American people to accept) what House
called a "positive" foreign policy for America--a policy which would
entwine the affairs of America with those of other nations until this
nation would be sucked into a world-government arrangement.
Colonel House knew, however, that America could not become a province in
a one-world socialist system unless America's economy was first
socialized. Consequently, House laid the groundwork for "positive"
domestic policies of government too--policies which could gradually
place government in control of the nation's economy until, before the
public realized what was happening, we would already have a socialist
dictatorship.
The following passages are from pages 152-157 of _The Intimate Papers of
Colonel House_:
"The extent of Colonel House's influence upon the legislative plans
of the Administration [Wilson's] may be gathered from a remarkable
document.... In the autumn of 1912, immediately after the
presidential election [when Wilson was elected for his first term]
there was published a novel, or political romance, entitled _Philip
Dru: Administrator_.
"It was the story of a young West Point graduate ... who was caught
by the spirit of revolt against the tyranny of privileged
interests. A stupid and reactionary government at Washington
provokes armed rebellion, in which Dru joins whole-heartedly and
which he ultimately leads to complete success. He himself becomes a
dictator and proceeds by ordinance to remake the mechanism of
government, to reform the basic laws that determine the relation of
the classes, to remodel the defensive forces of the republic, and
to bring about an international grouping or league of powers....
"Five years after its publication, an enterprising bookseller,
noting the growing influence of House in the Wilson Administration,
wrote with regard to the book: 'As time goes on the interest in it
becomes more intense, due to the fact that so many of the ideas
expressed by _Philip Dru: Administrator_, have become laws of this
Republic, and so many of his ideas have been discussed as becoming
laws.... Is Colonel E. M. House of Texas the author?' ...
"Colonel House was, in truth, the author....
"'Philip Dru' ... gives us an insight into the main political and
social principles that actuated House in his companionship with
President Wilson. Through it runs the note of social democracy
reminiscent of Louis Blanc and the revolutionaries of 1848....
"Through the book also runs the idea that in the United States,
government is unresponsive to popular desires--a 'negative'
government, House calls it....
"The specific measures enacted by Philip Dru as Administrator of
the nation, indicated the reforms desired by House.
"The Administrator appointed a 'board composed of economists ...
who ... were instructed to work out a tariff law which would
contemplate the abolition of the theory of protection as a
governmental policy.'
"'The Administrator further directed the tax board to work out a
graduated income tax....
"Philip Dru also provided for the 'formulation of a new banking
law, affording a flexible currency bottomed largely upon commercial
assets.... He also proposed making corporations share with the
government and states a certain part of their earnings....
"'Labor is no longer to be classed as an inert commodity to be
bought and sold by the law of supply and demand.'
"Dru 'prepared an old age pension law and also a laborer's
insurance law....'
"'He had incorporated in the Franchise Law the right of Labor to
have one representative upon the boards of corporations and to
share a certain percentage of the earnings above the wages, after a
reasonable percent upon the capital had been earned. In turn, it
was to be obligatory upon them (the laborers) not to strike, but to
submit all grievances to arbitration.'"
Need it be pointed out that "Louis Blanc and the revolutionaries of
1848," on whom Colonel House patterned his plan for remaking America,
had a scheme for the world virtually identical with that of Karl Marx
and Frederick Engles--those socialist revolutionaries who wrote the
_Communist Manifesto_ in 1848?
* * * * *
In 1918, Franklin K. Lane, Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of the Interior,
in a private letter, wrote, concerning the influence of 'Philip Dru' on
President Wilson:
"All that book has said should be, comes about.... The President
comes to _Philip Dru_, in the end."
The _end_ is a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat, identical with
that which now exists in the Soviet Union. We have already "come to" a
major portion of Colonel House's program for us. The unrealized portions
of the program are now promises in the platforms of both our major
political parties, they are in the legislative proposals of the
Administration in power and of its leaders in Congress; they are the
objectives of the Council on Foreign Relations, whose members occupy key
posts in Government, from the Presidency downward, and who dominate a
vast network of influential, tax-exempt "educational" agencies, whose
role is to "educate" the Congress and the people to accept the total
socialist program for America.
The Committee for Economic Development (which created the Commission on
Money and Credit) is the major propaganda arm of the Council on Foreign
Relations, in the important work of socializing the American economy.
* * * * *
Paul G. Hoffman is the father of CED. Hoffman, an influential member of
the CFR, was formerly President of Studebaker Corp.; former President of
Ford Foundation; Honorary Chairman of the Fund for the Republic; has
held many powerful jobs in government since the days of Roosevelt; and
is now Director of the Special United Nations Fund for Economic
Development--SUNFED--the UN agency which is giving American tax money as
economic aid to communist Castro in Cuba. Hoffman, in 1939, conceived
the idea of setting up a tax-exempt "economic committee" which would
prepare new economic policies for the nation and then prepare the public
and Congress to accept them.
Hoffman founded the Committee for Economic Development in 1942. The
organization was incorporated in September of that year, with Paul G.
Hoffman as Chairman. Major offices in the Committee for Economic
Development have always been occupied by members of the Council on
Foreign Relations--persons who generally have important positions in
many other interlocking organizations, in the foundations, in the big
corporations which finance the great interlock, and/or in government.
* * * * *
Here are the Council on Foreign Relations members who joined Paul
Hoffman in setting up the CED in 1942:
William Benton (former U.S. Senator, now Chairman of the Board of
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_; former Assistant Secretary of State;
Trustee and former Vice President, University of Chicago)
Will L. Clayton (founder of Anderson, Clayton & Co., Houston;
former Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Under Secretary of State
under Roosevelt and Truman; Eisenhower's National Security Training
Commissioner)
Ralph E. Flanders (former United States Senator)
Marion B. Folsom (Eisenhower's Secretary of the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare; many other positions in the
Roosevelt and Truman Administrations; Board of Overseers, Harvard)
Eric A. Johnston (former Director, Economic Stabilization Agency;
many other positions in the Roosevelt-Truman-Eisenhower
Administrations; former Director and President of U.S. Chamber of
Commerce; now President of the Motion Picture Association of
America)
Thomas B. McCabe (former Lend-Lease Administrator; former Chairman
of the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System; President of
Scott Paper Company since 1927)
Harry Scherman (founder and Chairman of the Board, Book of the
Month Club, Inc.)
* * * * *
Here are Council on Foreign Relations members who were Chairmen of the
Committee for Economic Development from 1942 through 1959:
Paul G. Hoffman, 1942-48
Marion B. Folsom, 1950-53
Meyer Kestnbaum, 1953-55 (President, Hart Schaffner & Marx;
Director, Fund for the Republic; Director, Chicago and Northwestern
Railroad)
J. D. Zellerbach, 1955-57 (Eisenhower's Ambassador to Italy;
President and Director of Crown-Zellerbach Corp.; Chairman of the
Board and Director, Fibreboard Products, Inc.; Director, Wells
Fargo Bank & Union Trust Co.)
Donald K. David, 1957-59 (Dean, Harvard University; Trustee of the
Ford Foundation, Carnegie Institute, Merrill Foundation; Board of
Directors, R. H. Macy & Co., General Electric Corp., First National
City Bank of New York, Aluminum, Ltd., Ford Motor Co.)
Of the CED Board of Trustees listed in the CED's 1957 Annual Report, 47
were members of the Council on Foreign Relations.
* * * * *
The Research and Policy Committee of the Committee for Economic
Development is the select inner-group which actually runs the CED. In
1957, the following members of the Research and Policy Committee were
also members of the Council on Foreign Relations:
Frazar B. Wilde, Chairman
Frank Altschul (Chairman of the Board, General American Investors
Corp.; Vice Chairman, National Planning Association; Vice
President, Woodrow Wilson Foundation)
Elliott V. Bell (former economic adviser to Thomas E. Dewey; former
research consultant to Wendell Willkie; now Chairman of the
Executive Committee, McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Inc.; Publisher
and Editor of _Business Week_; Director of Bank of Manhattan Co.,
New York Life Insurance Co., Carrier Corp., Trustee of the John S.
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation)
William Benton
Thomas D. Cabot (former Director of Office of International
Security Affairs, State Department; now President of Godfrey L.
Cabot, Inc.; Director of John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co.,
American Mutual Liability Insurance Co.; Trustee, Hampton
Institute, Radcliff College; member of the Corporation of
Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Walker L. Cisler (former member of the Atomic Energy Commission,
Economic Cooperation Administration, Military Government of
Germany; now President of Detroit-Edison Co., Trustee, Cornell
University)
Emilio G. Collado (former State Department career official; now
Treasurer, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey)
Gardner Cowles (former Domestic Director, Office of War
Information; now President, _Des Moines Register & Tribune_, Cowles
Magazines, Inc.--_Look_, etc.--)
Donald K. David
William C. Foster (former Under Secretary of Commerce, Deputy
Secretary of Defense; now Executive Vice President, Olin Mathieson
Chemical Corp.)
Philip L. Graham (former law secretary to Supreme Court Justices
Stanley Reed and Felix Frankfurter; now President and Publisher of
_The Washington Post and Times Herald_)
Meyer Kestnbaum
Thomas B. McCabe
Don G. Mitchell (Chairman of the Board, Sylvania Electric Products,
Inc.)
Alfred C. Neal (former official, Office of Price Administration;
now member of the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Bank of
Boston; President of CED)
Howard C. Petersen (former council to Committee to Draft Selective
Service Regulations; Assistant Secretary of War; now President,
Philadelphia Trust Company; Trustee, Temple University)
Philip D. Reed (many positions in the Roosevelt and Truman
Administrations; member, U. S. Delegation to UN Conference at San
Francisco, 1945; now Chairman, Finance Committee, General Electric
Co.; Director of Canadian General Electric Co., Bankers Trust Co.,
Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.)
Beardsley Ruml
Harry Scherman
Wayne Chatfield Taylor (many government positions including
Assistant Secretary of Treasury, Under Secretary of Commerce;
presently an economic adviser)
Theodore O. Yntema
* * * * *
In its annual report for 1957, the Committee for Economic Development
boasted of some of its past accomplishments and its future plans.
Mr. Howard C. Petersen, Chairman of the CED's Subcommittee on Economic
Development Assistance (and a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations) said that his committee originated the idea of creating the
Development Loan Fund, which was authorized by Congress in Section 6 of
the Foreign Aid Bill of 1957, which Eisenhower established by Executive
Order on December 13, 1957, and which may be the most sinister step ever
taken by the internationalist foreign-aid lobby.
In 1956, when President Eisenhower requested an appropriation of
$4,860,000,000 for foreign aid, he asked Congress to authorize foreign
aid commitments for the next ten years. Congress refused the ten-year
plan. In 1957, the internationalists' ideal of a _permanent_
authorization for foreign aid was wrapped up in the Development Loan
Fund scheme.
Only a few Congressmen raised any question about it. Below are passages
taken from the _Congressional Record_ of July 15, 1957, the day the
Development Loan Fund was discussed in the House.
Congressman A. S. J. Carnahan (Democrat, Missouri) floor manager for the
Foreign Aid Bill, rose to explain Section 6, which established the
Development Loan Fund, saying:
"The United States, in order to provide effective assistance [to
all underdeveloped countries of the world] ... must have available
a substantial fund upon which it can draw. The fund must be large
enough so that all of the underdeveloped nations of the free world
will feel that they will have an opportunity to participate in it.
"We cannot wisely say that we should make a small amount available
the first year and see how things work out. If we are able to offer
assistance only to the select few, we will inevitably antagonize
many other countries whose future friendship and cooperation will
be important to us ... in addition to an initial authorization of
an appropriation of $500 million, the bill includes authorization
for borrowing from the Treasury $500 million beginning in fiscal
1959, and an additional $500 million beginning in fiscal 1960."
Thus, Congressman Carnahan, arguing for foreign aid, outlined some of
the absurd fallacies of foreign aid: namely, if we give foreign aid at
all, we must provide enough so that every foreign government in the
world will always be able to get all it wants. We can exercise no choice
in whom we give or lend our money to. If we give only "to the select
few" we offend all others.
Congressman H. R. Gross (Republican, Iowa) asked a question:
"What interest rate will be charged upon the loans that are to be
made?"
Congressman Carnahan:
"The legislation does not designate the interest rate."
Mr. Gross:
"What will be the length of the loan to be made?"
Mr. Carnahan:
"The legislation does not designate the length of the loans. The
rules for the loans, which will determine the interest rates, the
length of time the loans will run, the size of the installment
repayments, and other administrative details, will be taken care of
by the Executive Department."
Congressman John L. Pilcher (Democrat, Georgia) made the point that the
manager of the Development Loan Fund, appointed by the President, could
lend money to:
"any foreign government or foreign government agency, to any
corporation, any individual or any group of persons."
Congressman Carnahan:
"That is correct."
Congressman Pilcher:
"In other words, it would be possible for an individual to borrow
$1 million or $5 million to set up some business in some foreign
country, if the manager so agreed; is that correct?"
Congressman Carnahan:
"If they met the criteria set up for loans."
Congressman Pilcher:
"The manager ... has the authority to collect or compromise any
obligation in this fund. In other words, he can make a loan this
month and if he so desires he can turn around and compromise it or
cancel it next month which is a straight out grant in the disguise
of a soft-loan program."
Congressman Porter Hardy, Jr. (Democrat, Virginia) said:
"The manager of the Fund has almost unlimited authority to do
anything he pleases."
Congressman Barratt O'Hara (Democrat, Illinois), trying to quiet fears
that this bill was granting unlimited, uncontrollable power to some
appointed manager, said that the blank-check grant of authority was not
really being made to the fund manager at all. The power was being given
to the President of the United States, and the manager would merely
"perform such functions with respect to this title as the President may
direct."
Congressman Gross said:
"That is more power than any President should ask for or want the
responsibility for."
Congressman Leon H. Gavin (Republican, Pennsylvania) pointed out that we
already have 5 or 6 lending agencies in this field: The International
Co-operation Administration; the Export-Import Bank; the International
Bank; the International Monetary Fund; the International Development
Corporation; and the World Bank. Why, then, do we need this new one, the
Development Loan Fund?
Congressman Walter H. Judd (Republican, Minnesota) had already answered
that question, explaining that Development Loan Fund money would go to
foreigners who could not qualify for loans from other agencies.
Congressman Gross said that all foreign nations which will borrow from
this Fund could get all the American private capital they need if they
had political systems which made lending to them sensible or feasible.
In short, the Development Loan Fund (which the Committee for Economic
Development boasts paternity of) is a scheme for giving American tax
money to foreigners who have proven themselves such poor credit risks
that they cannot obtain loans even from other governmental and UN
agencies--and who will use the money to line their own pockets and to
build socialistic enterprises which will eliminate possibilities of
freedom in their own land, and will compete in world markets with
American enterprise.
* * * * *
In its 1957 annual report, the CED also boasted about the work of its
Area Development Committee. At that time, the two leading members of
this particular committee of the CED (who were also members of the
Council on Foreign Relations) were Mr. Stanley Marcus, President of
Neiman-Marcus Co., in Dallas; and the late Dr. Beardsley Ruml, widely
known New Deal socialist "economist." Mr. Jervis J. Babb, Chairman of
the CED's Area Development Committee (President of Lever Brothers
Company) said:
"The new area development program, approved by the Trustees [of
CED] at their May [1957] meeting in Chicago is underway....
Already, close relationships have been established with
organizations, both public and private, that are conducting
research and administering programs relating to area
development....
"Five of CED's College-Community Research Centers ... have been
selected as a starting point of CED's area development pilot
projects. The five centers are: Boston, Utica, Alabama, Arkansas,
and Oklahoma."
The CED's Area Development work has brought CED personnel into close
cooperation with the collection of tax-exempt "municipal planning"
organizations housed in a Rockefeller-financed center at 1313 East 60th
Street, Chicago, which has become national headquarters for the
production and placement of experts--who fabricate "progressive"
legislation for government at all levels; who rewrite our "archaic"
state constitutions; and who take over as city managers, or county
managers, or metropolitan managers, or regional managers whenever people
in any locality have progressed to the point of accepting government by
imported experts as a substitute for government by elected local
citizens.
In other words, through the Area Development activities of the Committee
for Economic Development, the invisible government of America--the
Council on Foreign Relations--has a hand in the powerful drive for
Metropolitan Government. Metropolitan Government, as conceived by
socialist planners, would destroy the whole fabric of government and
social organization in the United States.
* * * * *
Metropolitan Government would eliminate the individual states as
meaningful political entities, would divide the nation into metropolitan
regions sprawling across state lines, and would place the management of
these regional governments in the hands of appointed experts answerable
not to local citizens but to the supreme political power in Washington.
(For detailed discussion, see _The Dan Smoot Report_, April 13 and 20,
1959, "Metropolitan Government--Part One," and "Metropolitan
Government--Part Two.")
Through the Area Development activities of the Committee for Economic
Development, the Council on Foreign Relations has supported the Urban
Renewal program.
Urban Renewal with federal tax money was authorized in the National
Housing Act of 1949, and enlarged in scope by amendments to the Housing
Acts of 1954, 1956, and 1957; but it did not become a vigorously
promoted nationwide program until late 1957, after the Council on
Foreign Relations (through the CED) started pushing it.
* * * * *
Urban Renewal is a federally financed program of city planning which
requires city governments to seize homes and other private property from
some citizens and re-sell them, at below cost, to real estate promoters
and other private citizens for developments that the city planners
consider desirable.
Under the ancient, but awesome, right of eminent domain, city
governments do not have the power to take private real estate from one
citizen for the profit of another citizen. But in November, 1954, the
Supreme Court in an urban renewal case, said that Congress and state
legislature can do anything they like to the private property of private
citizens as long as they claim they are doing it for public good.
Federal urban renewal has opened rich veins of public money for graft,
corruption, and political vote buying; and it is destroying private
property rights under the pretext that clearing slums will eliminate the
causes of crime. Moreover, urban renewal authorizes the seizure not just
of slum property, but of all private property in a whole section of a
city, for resale to private interests which promise to build something
that governmental planners will like.
Federal urban renewal--since the Council on Foreign Relation's CED
started supporting it--has become a national movement with frightful
implications and dangers. (For detailed discussion of urban renewal, see
_The Dan Smoot Report_, September 29, 1958, and October 6, 1958.)
* * * * *
In its 1957 Annual Report, the Committee for Economic Development gave
details on its educational work in public schools and colleges. This
work was, at that time, carried on primarily by the CED's
Business-Education Committee, and by two subsidiary operations which
that Committee created: the College-Community Research Centers and the
Joint Council on Economic Education. From the 1957 Annual Report of the
Committee for Economic Development:
"CED's efforts to promote and improve economic education in the
schools are of special appeal to those who are concerned ... both
with education and the progress of the free enterprise system. The
Business-Education program and the numerous College-Community
Research Centers it has sponsored, together with the use of CED
publications as teaching materials, represent an important
contribution to economic education on the college level.
"In the primary and secondary schools, the introduction of
economics into teaching programs is moving forward steadily, thanks
largely to the Joint Council on Economic Education which CED helped
to establish and continues to support....
"The Business-Education Committee continued in 1957 its work with
the College-Community Research Centers and with the Joint Council
on Economic Education.
"The Joint Council's program to improve the teaching of economics
in the public schools is now operating in 39 states, and the 25
college-community research centers active last year brought to more
than 3000 the number of business and academic men who have worked
together on economic research projects of local and regional
importance....
"In its work, the committee [Business-Education Committee] is
finding especially valuable the experience gained through the
operation of the College-Community Research Centers. These centers
are financed partly by CED, partly by the Fund for Adult Education
[a Ford Foundation operation] and partly by locally-raised
funds....
"The Joint Council [on Economic Education] is making excellent
progress in training teachers and incorporating economics education
in all grade levels of public school systems. In addition to its
national service programs, the Council has developed strong local
or state councils which not only help guide its work but last year
raised more than $500,000 to finance local projects.
"CED helped to establish and works closely with this independent
organization [Joint Council on Economic Education] which is now
conducting four major types of activities.
"1. _Summer Workshops for Teachers._ These working sessions,
sponsored by colleges and universities, provide three weeks
training in economics and develop ways to incorporate economics
into the school curriculum. Over 19,000 persons have participated
since the program began.
"2. _Cooperating School Program._ Twenty school systems are working
with the Joint Council [on Economic Education] to demonstrate how
economics can be incorporated into the present curriculum....
"3. _College Program._ Few students majoring in education now take
economics courses; therefore, 20 leading institutions are working
with the Joint Council [on Economic Education] to develop better
training in economics for prospective teachers....
"4. _High School-Community Projects._ The Joint Council [on
Economic Education] is helping to conduct demonstration programs
which show how students can use community resources to improve
their economics education. For example, the Whittier, California
school system conducted a six-week program to help high school
seniors understand the kind of economy in which they would live and
work. They joined in research studies on regional economic problems
being carried on by the Southern California College-Community
research center...."
The Committee for Economic Development claims that its educational work
in economics is dedicated to progress of free enterprise; and many of
its programs in schools and colleges are educational; but its subtle and
relentless emphasis is on the governmental interventionism that is the
essence of New-Dealism, Fair-Dealism, Modern-Republicanism, and
New-Frontierism--the governmental interventionism prescribed long ago as
the way to socialize the economy of America in preparation for
integrating this nation into a worldwide socialist system.
* * * * *
Paul Hoffman's CED has come a long way since 1942. In 1957, the CED's
College-Community Research Centers had "Projects in Progress" in 33
institutions of higher learning:
Bates College, Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin College,
Brown University, Colby College, Dartmouth College, Emory
University, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration,
Iowa State College, Lewis & Clark College, McGill University,
Northeastern University, Northwestern University, Occidental
College, Pomona College, Reed College, Rutgers University, Southern
Methodist University, Tulane University, University of Alabama,
University of Arkansas, University of Iowa, University of Maine,
University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of
North Carolina, University of Oklahoma, University of Pennsylvania,
University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Utica College of
Syracuse University, and Washington University.
* * * * *
In 1957, the following institutions of higher learning were
participating in the CED's Joint Council on Economic Education "College
Program" to develop training in economics for prospective teachers:
Brigham Young University, George Peabody College for Teachers,
Indiana University, Montclair State Teachers College, New York
University, Ohio State University, Oklahoma A & M College,
Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Syracuse
University, Teachers College of Columbia University, University of
Colorado, University of Connecticut, University of Illinois,
University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, University of Southern
California, University of Tennessee, University of Texas,
University of Washington.
* * * * *
In 1957, the following 20 school systems were working in the CED's Joint
Council on Economic Education "Cooperating School Program," to
demonstrate how economics can be incorporated in the school curriculum,
beginning in the first grade:
Akron, Ohio; Albion, Illinois; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Colton,
California; Dayton, Ohio; Fort Dodge, Iowa; Hartford, Connecticut;
Kalamazoo, Michigan; Lexington, Alabama; Minneapolis, Minnesota;
New York City, New York; Portland, Oregon; Providence, Rhode
Island; Ridgewood, New Jersey; Seattle, Washington; Syracuse, New
York; University City, Missouri; Webster Groves, Missouri; West
Hartford, Connecticut; Whittier, California.
As indicated, the Business-Education Committee of the CED is the select
group which supervises this vast "educational" effort reaching into
public schools, colleges, and communities throughout the nation:
_James L. Allen_, Senior Partner of Booz, Allen & Hamilton; _Jervis
J. Babb_, Chairman of the Board of Lever Brothers, Company; _Sarah
G. Blanding_, President of Vassar College; _W. Harold Brenton_,
President of Brenton Brothers, Inc.; _James F. Brownlee_, former
government official who is Chairman of the Board of the Minute Maid
Corporation, and a director of many other large corporations, such
as American Sugar Refining Co., Bank of Manhattan, Gillette Safety
Razor, R. H. Macy Co., Pillsbury Mills, American Express; _Everett
Needham Case_, President of Colgate University; _James B. Conant_,
former President of Harvard and Ambassador to Germany; _John T.
Connor_, President of Merck & Co.; _John S. Dickey_, President of
Dartmouth College; _John M. Fox_, President of Minute Maid
Corporation; _Paul S. Gerot_, President of Pillsbury Mills;
_Stanley Marcus_, President of Neiman-Marcus; _W. A. Patterson_,
President of United Air Lines; _Morris B. Pendleton_, President of
Pendleton Tool Industries; _Walter Rothschild_, Chairman of the
Board of Abraham & Straus; _Thomas J. Watson, Jr._, President of
International Business Machines Corporation; _J. Cameron Thomson_,
Chairman of the Board of Northwest Bancorporation.
Note that three of these CED Business-Education Committee
members--Conant, Dickey, and Marcus--are influential members of the
Council on Foreign Relations and have many connections with the big
foundations financing the great CFR interlock.
* * * * *
In addition to the educational work which it discusses in its 1957
Annual Report, the Committee for Economic Development utilizes many
other means to inject its (and the CFR's) economic philosophies into
community thought-streams throughout the nation.
Here, for example, are passages from a news story in _The Dallas Morning
News_, June 30, 1953:
"Dallas businessmen and Southern Methodist University officials
Monday [June 29] launched a $25,000 business research project
financed through agencies of the Ford Foundation.
"Stanley Marcus of Dallas, a national trustee of Ford Foundation's
Committee for Economic Development, said the project would go on
two or three years under foundation funds. After that ... the City
might foot the bill....
"The SMU project--along with several others like it throughout the
nation--is designed to foster study in regional and local business
problems, Marcus commented.
"Here's how the Dallas project will work:
"A business executive committee, composed of some of Dallas' top
businessmen, will be selected. These men then will select a group
of younger executives for a business executive research committee.
This will be the working group, Marcus explained....
"At SMU, several of the schools' chief officials will act as a
senior faculty committee.... Acting as co-ordinator for the project
will be Warren A. Law ... who soon will get his doctorate in
economics from Harvard University."
The "experimental" stage of this Business Executives Research Committee
lasted five years in Dallas. During that time, the researchers filed two
major reports: an innocuous one in 1955 concerning traffic and transit
problems in Dallas; and a most significant one in 1956, strongly urging
metropolitan government for Dallas County, patterned after the metro
system in Toronto, Canada.
* * * * *
In October, 1958, Dr. Donald K. David, then Chairman of the Committee
for Economic Development and Vice Chairman of the Ford Foundation (and
also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations) went to Dallas to
speak to the Citizens Council, an organization composed of leading
Dallas business executives, whose president that year was Stanley
Marcus.
Dr. David told the business men that they should give greater support
and leadership to the government's foreign aid program; and, of course,
he urged vast expansion of foreign aid, particularly to "underdeveloped
nations."
That was the signal and the build-up. The next month--November,
1958--the experimental Business Executives Research Committee, which the
CED had formed in 1953 and which had already completed its mission with
its report and recommendation on metropolitan government for Dallas, was
converted into "The Dallas CED Associates."
Here is a news story about that event, taken from the November 11, 1958,
_Dallas Morning News_:
"A Dallas Committee for Economic Development--the first of its kind
in the nation--has been founded at Southern Methodist University.
It will give voice to Southwestern opinions--and knowledge--on
economic, matters or international importance. Keystone will be an
economic research center to be established soon at SMU.
"A steering group composed of Dallas and Southwestern business,
industrial and educational leaders laid the groundwork for both
committee and center in a weekend meeting at SMU."
The "steering group" included George McGhee and Neil Mallon.
Mr. McGhee (presently Assistant Secretary of State for Policy Planning)
is, and has been for many years, a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations.
Neil Mallon, then Chairman of the Board of Dresser Industries and a
former official of the Foreign Policy Association, founded the Dallas
Council on World Affairs in 1951. Dresser Industries is one of the big
corporations which contribute money to the Council on Foreign Relations.
In the group with Mr. McGhee and Mr. Mallon were five SMU officials, a
Dallas banker, a real estate man, and Stanley Marcus, the head man in
the "steering group" which set up the Dallas Associates of the Committee
for Economic Development.
The first literary product of the Dallas Associates of the CED--at
least, the first to come to my attention--is a most expensive-looking
14-page printed booklet entitled "The Role of Private Enterprise in the
Economic Development of Underdeveloped Nations." The title page reveals
that this pamphlet is a policy statement of The Dallas Associates of
CED. It is little more than a rewrite of the speech which Dr. Donald K.
David had made to the Dallas Citizens Council in November, 1958, urging
business to give support and leadership to the government's foreign aid
programs.