MAMMON DOMINATES THE NATIONS.
The debt habit has been diligently cultivated and encouraged, until
the nations are enslaved. Public bonds imply bondsmen, and the nations
are no longer free. There is a mortgage upon the inventive genius,
industry and productive energy of the world.
Usurers greatly prefer an organized government as a debtor. The
individual may die, but a nation's debts bind from age to age, are
bequeathed by the fathers to the children, and thus descend from
generation to generation. The bonds of no corporation, however great
and rich, can be so secure. They embrace special industries, while
national debts are a claim upon every industry and a mortgage upon
every foot of soil, and every dollar of present personal property, and
of all that may be produced in the whole realm.
If we express the world's indebtedness, the national debts, in the
terms of our currency, as nearly as we can reduce the currency of
other nations to such an expression, we find the national debts as
follows, in 1890:
Denmark $ 33,004,722
Great Britain 3,848,460,000
United States 915,962,112
Germany 1,956,217,017
Austria-Hungary $2,666,339,539
France 4,446,793,398
Russia 3,491,016,074
Italy 2,324,826,329
Spain 1,251,433,096
Netherlands 430,539,653
Belgium 360,504,099
Sweden 64,220,807
Norway 13,973,752
Portugal 490,493,599
Greece 107,306,518
Turkey 821,000,000
Switzerland 10,912,925
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These debts aggregate $22,955,386,008
Hundreds of millions have been added to these national debts in the
last ten years. Nearly every nation has increased its indebtedness,
possibly no nation has decreased it, and others, like China, with its
recent great loan, and little Korea, with its twelve millions, must be
added to the list. The debts of the nations of Europe have been
increased until they now amount in the aggregate to twenty-three
billions. The debts of the nations of all the world have increased
one-half since 1890, and now aggregate thirty-three billions.
These great national debts are practically perpetual, and though they
may be at so low a rate of interest as three per cent., they absorb
the energies of the people, and, like a glacier grinding over the
earth, crush all beneath them.
Public debts are incurred to relieve the present wealth of the burden
of present duty. Debts place the whole burden on producers of the
future. They relieve those who hold the wealth now, but are a draft
upon those who make the wealth that is to be.
An individual incurring debt places a mortgage upon his productions;
by a pledge of future production he relieves himself of the strain of
the present.
A family incurs debt; a part of the members of the house are strong
and capable of productive labor, and a part are not; the whole burden
of the payment comes upon the productive members of the home. The weak
and helpless and the indolent, though strong, bear no part of the
burden. This family has a home, and a mortgage is placed upon it to
secure the present needs. The burden of paying the interest on this
mortgage, and the final payment of the principal, is wholly on the
capable and industrious members of the family.
National debts are incurred to relieve the present wealth of the
burden of present government calls and obligations, and to roll it
upon those who shall produce wealth in the future. So the debt of a
city, state, or nation is a present relief to property holders, by
placing the producers under future obligations.
A street in a city is to be paved; no additional tax is levied; but
bonds are issued running twenty years.
This relieves the present wealth of the burden, placing it upon those
who shall produce the wealth that shall be in twenty years.
The expenses of a great war must be met. Present taxes may be slightly
increased, but to meet the burden consols or public bonds are issued
to be paid at a distant date. This relieves the present wealth, but
binds it upon those who shall be the producers of wealth in the
generations to come. Hume says, "The practice of contracting debts
will almost invariably be abused by every government. It would
scarcely be more imprudent to give a prodigal son a credit with every
banker, than to empower statesmen to draw bills in this manner on
posterity."
These public bonds are the golden opportunity of the usurers. Not only
is their wealth relieved of all burden, but it affords an opportunity
of profitable investment with the best possible debtor. They can pose
as enterprising citizens, and urge great public improvements, and at
the same time gain a most sure and profitable investment. They can
pose as patriots in time of war, and urge that it be pressed with
energy at whatever cost of treasure and blood. It is not their blood
that is shed, nor their wealth that is wasted. It gives them the
opportunity of binding their burdens on the nation for the producers
of the coming generations to carry.
Usurers never wish public debts paid. They wish them issued for as
long time as possible, and then reissued, or the time extended before
they are due. This is done by the figment called refunding, as if it
were a concession and favor to a poor debtor. It is but a device to
keep the burden on the public back. It is not a financial feat and
triumph for the chancellor of the exchequer to refund a public debt.
He but yields himself as a tool to the usurers to continue their
loans. They resist the payment when due, but when an officer is found
willing to extend them before they are due all trouble is avoided and
the accretions of interest are not interrupted for a day.
Those who hold the bonds of a nation direct its destinies. The nation
borrowing is servant to the lender, just as an individual. The nation
compromises its freedom and becomes the slave of its bond-holders. The
usurers use their power for the advancement of their own material
interests, and hold all other purposes of government as inferior to
their own ends. This subordination of a people, to the creditors, is
fatal to republican and constitutional governments; the form may be
preserved for a time, but the substance of free government has
departed.
The concentration of wealth carries with it the concentration of
power, and is inimical to republican institutions. A proper
distribution of wealth and power must be preserved or popular
government is put in jeopardy.
The first bank of deposit and discount was the Bank of Venice, in the
republic of Venetia. It continued its existence for six hundred years,
until the government that gave it life itself perished. From its long
continuous business, and its success as a bank, it has been spoken of
in every work on banking as a model. It began its association with the
republic in 1171, and dominated it, sapping its life, and assuming
its functions, until the bank practically ruled the state, and when
one fell both perished in 1797. The usurers received their hold on the
state in a time of the greatest need. The republic had been
impoverished by the crusades, and was in dire financial straits.
Advantage was taken of this by the usurers to so bind the bank and
state together that when one lived the other must, or both must die
together. Stock in the bank was a loan to the state at four per cent.
annual interest. The union seemed to promise great prosperity for a
time, but really absorbed all the republic's vitality during the last
hundred years of their life.
Venetia was at the first a pure democracy. The Doge was elected by the
people and administered the government, himself being the responsible
head. He, later, chose advisers, or a cabinet, to be associated in the
responsible duties. After this, and about the time of the association
with the bank, a representative council was elected by the people, and
the government was administered by the Doge and this council. This was
gradually transformed from a government of the people to an oligarchy;
and as the years passed there were no steps taken toward a return, but
the authority and power was more and more centralized. The ruling
class was, in a hundred years, limited to those families enrolled in
the "Golden Book." In another hundred years the government was in
control of the "Council of Ten." Later the secret tribunal of three
was the terror of the people and the instrument of their oppression.
The republic was only such in name, the people were deprived of all
voice in the government, and the Doge became a puppet to obey the
ruling cabal.
Shakespeare went to Venice to find his typical usurer in Shylock the
Jew. He found there also his typical Christian, Antonio. Antonio was a
benevolent great soul, who loved his friends, supported all
benevolences, and hated the usurers. Shylock hated him because he
would lend without interest, and was constantly reproving him for his
usurious practice.
The contest between the usurers and the people of the Venetian
republic was a struggle for the life, but the usurers never relaxed
their hold. They dominated until the end.
Another great triumph of the usurers was in England at the time of
great need. William and Mary had been placed upon the throne by the
Protestants, but were in need of money to carry on the struggle for
its complete establishment. This was the usurers' opportunity. Former
kings, in like straits, had confiscated the wealth of the usurious
Jews, Lombards and Goldsmiths, and appropriated their property as a
penalty for their unchristian practice, but William and Mary entered
into a contract with them to gain their assistance, giving them
special privileges to secure a permanent loan. They were to loan the
crown 1,200,000 pounds sterling. This was never to be repaid, but
interest at the rate of eight per cent. per annum was to be paid
forever. This loan was a marvel of success. There was a great rush of
usurers to place their money with the crown as a perpetual loan at
that rate of increase. Their usuries, which had hitherto been counted
dishonest gain, were henceforth to be honorable, and they esteemed as
patriots.
Thus, the first Protestant power in the world was established in the
hands of usurers, and bound to continue associated with them forever.
The story, by Macauley, of the establishment of the Bank of England,
is familiar to all students of English history.
This bank is a great corporation; the Board of Directors is composed
of twenty-six members, who elect their own successors, and thus it is
entirely independent. It makes laws for its own direction in the name
of the people or defies their control. In 1797 it secured an order
from the privy council ordering itself to suspend specie payment. It
obeyed its own order promptly, and at the same time announced their
strength and that the order would be temporary; but for one excuse and
another it was continued for twenty-five years.
Sir Robert Peel, in 1844, having become convinced of the dangerous and
disastrous influence, expanding and contracting its loans, secured the
enactment of a law to regulate and limit its circulation. This law
was distasteful to the bank, and was, upon its enactment, defied by
open disobedience. It has not only dictated the laws for its own
regulation, but directed both the domestic and the foreign policy of
the government. It has subordinated the public weal to financial
profit. This corporation of usurers manage all the finances of the
kingdom, and has more influence than Crown and Parliament combined. As
a great uncrowned king it dictates the diplomatic policies of the
United Kingdom. Its influence has not been extended to promote
Protestant Christian faith, Jews are not zealous for any Christian
sect; nor for the purpose of lifting up the degraded and enlightening
them; nor in the east has it exercised its power to relieve human
suffering, but its diplomatic policy has been mercenary greed always.
It should be noted that the enlightened Christian people of the United
Kingdom are not the English government. There has been, for two
hundred years, a power behind the Throne, behind Parliament, behind
the people, essentially selfish and commercial. This has controlled
India for profit, while the benevolent people were anxious to
christianize and uplift. It has befriended the Turk while England wept
over the Turkish barbarities. It forced opium upon China while the
Christian people sent missionaries. The people of England love
freedom, yet the government has endeavored to crush it in the American
colonies and everywhere throughout the world, when in conflict with a
selfish commercial policy. The English people cry out against human
slavery, yet in the struggle in the United States, when slavery was in
the balance, the English government earnestly espoused the cause of
those who upheld slavery. The English people rejoiced that the slave
trade in Africa was abolished, yet the government enacted the hut tax,
and compels now the service of the young and vigorous blacks in the
mines, sending them back to their people when their strength declines.
In the establishment of the republic of the United States there was a
strong resistance to any debt or subordination to usurers. The history
of banks in the United States shows a struggle at the birth of the
nation between the usurers, who demanded the management of the
finances, and the people who resisted. This struggle continued for
half a century, when the people triumphed, and for thirty years there
was no hint of a purpose to overthrow what was regarded as the settled
policy of the nation.
The first bank was incorporated in 1791. Its establishment was
strongly resisted, but being urged by the Secretary of the Treasury, a
charter was granted for twenty years. When that charter expired by
limitation in 1811, there was a struggle by the usurers to secure its
renewal, but they were defeated. They did not, however, abandon their
effort. In 1816 they secured the charter of the second bank of the
United States. This charter was also limited to twenty years,
expiring in 1836. There was a tremendous struggle for its renewal, but
the chief executive, backed by a strong political party, so completely
defeated it that the usurers for the time yielded, and for thirty
years the settled policy of the government forbade the alliance with
usurers and the making of any public debt. Many of the leading
statesmen of that period were very pronounced in their opposition.
"The banking system concentrates and places the power in the hands of
those who control it.
"Never was an engine invented better calculated to place the destines
of the many in the hands of the few, or less favorable to that
equality and independence which lies at the bottom of our free
institutions."--J.C. Calhoun.
"I object to the continuance of this bank because its tendencies are
dangerous and pernicious to the government and the people. It tends to
aggravate the inequality of fortunes; to make the rich richer, and the
poor poorer; to multiply nabobs and paupers, and to deepen and widen
the gulf that separates Dives from Lazarus."--Thomas H. Benton.
"I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous
than standing armies. I am not among those who fear the people. They
and not the rich are our dependence for continued freedom. And to
preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with
perpetual debts."--Thomas Jefferson.
"Events have satisfied my mind, and I think the minds of the American
people, that the mischief and dangers which flow from a national bank
far overbalance all its advantages."--Andrew Jackson.
The usurers were compelled to remain under public condemnation during
thirty years, as sentiment was strongly against them and conditions
were not in their favor, but they did not relax their watchful effort
nor abandon hope of ultimate success. When the nation was struggling
to prevent its dissolution in 1861-5, and unusual war measures seemed
necessary to meet the great emergency, the usurers saw their
opportunity and came forward, as they did in Venice and England; they
would loan the government the funds necessary to carry on the war, if
the government would comply with their conditions and grant them the
privileges demanded. They asked that their loan be perpetual, like the
English loan; that they should be freed from the burdens of the
government; that their loan should be free from taxation; that they
should receive their interest semi-annually, and not in the common
legal tender, but in coin; that they be permitted to issue their own
notes as currency to be loaned to their customers; that the government
discredit its own issues and endorse theirs; and that they be given a
monopoly by taxing out of existence all opposition.
These were great demands, and were regarded as extortionate and
oppressive. The struggle was severe, but the enemy in the field was
threatening the life of the nation, while the usurers were urgent and
posing as patriots, that they might accomplish their ends. True
patriots, anxious to defeat the enemy in arms, regarded these usurers
at home as equally the enemies of freedom. They were in a strait
betwixt two foes.
Secretary McCullough said, "Hostility to the government has been as
decidedly manifested in the efforts that have been made in the
commercial metropolis of the nation to depreciate the currency as has
been by the enemy."
The opposition to the usurers was very strong and bitter, but the
conditions were in their favor and they gained a decided advantage. In
the Senate the vote stood twenty-three yeas to twenty-one nays. It was
carried only as a war measure. There was an effort to limit the
usurers' privileges to the war and one year after its close. This was
not successful, but their loan was confined to the war debt, and their
time to its payment, limited to twenty years.
This action caused great distress and dark forebodings of evil to many
of the thoughtful. It was setting aside the policy of the nation,
which had been generally acquiesced in as wise and judicious and safe
for many years. The old patriot Thadeus Stevens, in the opening of a
speech in a preliminary skirmish between patriotism and usurers,
said: "I approach the subject with more depression of spirits than I
ever before approached any question. No personal motive or feeling
influences me. I hope not, at least. I have a melancholy foreboding
that we are about to consummate a cunningly devised scheme, which will
carry great injury and great loss to all classes of people throughout
the Union, except one." Later he said, in excuse of the action, "We
had to yield, we did not yield until we found that the country must be
lost or the banks gratified, and we have sought to save the country in
spite of the cupidity of its wealthier classes."
The usurers have never relaxed the hold they secured by this victory,
and have since been continually increasing their power. They obtained
an extension or "refunding" of the war debt, and a renewal of their
charters by the general laws, so their hold is indefinitely extended.
Bonds are no longer limited to the covering of war expenses, but are
issued freely in times of peace. The traditions of the fathers have
been cast to the winds, and their fears derided and their policy
changed. The usurers have been firmly in the saddle for many years,
and have defeated every effort that has been made to unseat them.
The great debts of the nations have brought all mankind into
subjection to the usurers. Those who hold the bonds have the destinies
of the race in their hands. They pervert the ends of government; the
protection of life, liberty and the highest good of all the people;
they make governments their tools to gather and appropriate the
earnings of the many.
They have exalted Mammon upon the throne of the world, and scoff at
the God of heaven, who seeks the poor and needy, and who would in love
lift up every son and daughter of the whole race.
Milton presents Mammon as one of the devils cast out of heaven with
Satan, and as saying in the council of the demons, "What place can be
found for us within heaven's bound, unless heaven's Lord we
overpower?... How wearisome eternity so spent in worship paid, to one
we hate."
The reign of Mammon subordinates character and virtue and liberty and
human life to sordid gain, yet he holds the scepter of power.
He elects legislators and senators. He elects governors or directs
their arrest if they refuse to obey him. He elects presidents and
dictates their policies. He places kings on their thrones and holds
them there while they do his bidding. He strips a Khedive of power,
and yet retains him as a collector of revenue. He steadies the
Sultan's tottering throne, and compels six great Christian powers to
stand by in silence while humanity is outraged. The Armenian's blood
must be permitted to flow because the persecution is by a great
servant, the Sultan, who pays interest on bonds, and his victims are
only freemen. The murder of one hundred thousand Armenians meant
nothing to Mammon. But when the Cretans were persecuted by the same
Sultan, the suffering and bloodshed was soon ordered stopped by these
same six powers, at Mammon's command. The Cretans were servants of the
common master; the Cretan bonds were endangered. The cry of suffering
humanity came up to deaf ears, but the cry of endangered bonds was
heard from afar by this reigning god of wealth.
The little republics of Africa were freemen, and therefore Mammon sees
them strangled with indifference. Mammon gathers the civilized nations
around China and demands that she shall be enslaved by all the bonds
she can safely carry or submit to vivisection and distribution.
This enslavement of the race is not by the destroying of intelligence,
nor by denying the first principles of civil liberty, nor by crushing
the aspirations for freedom, but by producing conditions that make the
application of these principles and the exercise of freedom
impossible. Though the race may increase in intelligence and
theoretically have correct views of personal freedom and civil
liberty, yet the conditions produced necessarily by usury utterly
prevent their realization. The intelligence and aspirations of the
race never were higher than at present, their subjection and
subordination to material wealth was never more complete.
The scepter wherein lies Mammon's power to sway the nations is usury.
When bonds bear no increase his sovereignty is gone. All motive to
involve the nation in debt at once disappears, and the power to
control is lost. Moses' law was divinely wise that forbade interest,
that his people could not be enslaved and might remain a free people
forever.