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2530 discharged their clerks to pay up, and, since they were unable to buy for lack of money, the factories closed down and discharged their employees, and thus was once more crucified on the cross of gold—money—the farmer and the laboring man, their purchasing power and consuming power paralyzed because they had that secret meeting on the 18th day of May 1920, these wizards of finance, these hounds of monopoly and vultures of greed.

They took away from us the circulating medium of exchange, the lifeblood of trade and industry, our money and our credit. And so the campaign to pay went on and on. Every time we paid the banker a dollar, he sent it to the Federal Reserve banks to be destroyed, burned up, or perhaps not exactly burned, but thrown into a vault and locked up. which means the same thing so far as the money is concerned. It might as well have been burned.

Or else the banker locked it in his own vault, in order to make his bank safe, to increase his cash reserve. And even with their best efforts, 15,000 of our banks went broke, and all of them would have gone broke had we not come to the rescue in 1933. And the check-book money, based on credit—it vanished like the dew before a summer sun. And so the campaign went on and on, and in a short time it reflected more drastically on agriculture, because agriculture has no protection. Its prices are decidedly governed by supply and demand. The farmers were selling their products for one quarter of the cost of production. It could end only in bankruptcy. And so it followed; farm after farm was sacrificed on the block of bankruptcy. Thousands and hundreds of thousands went into bankruptcy, until at the present time, as I said in the beginning, peace has its horrors no less than war.

A dollar in the hands of selfish greed and money monopoly is more dangerous, more powerful than shot or shell, than sword or gun. The old unequal battle went on and on. The power of capital and predatory money monopoly, centralized in the modern Frankenstein, the Federal Reserve Banking System, privately owned, against the toiling masses, the great producers of all wealth.

Now let me reply once more to my good friend, the Congressman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Focht. In answer to his question, let me repeat that the reason we have not overcome this disastrous depression is because we have not all yet recognized what the trouble is. We do not know the cause. We are like children groping in darkness. And until we know the cause, we can never effect a cure. We have failed to recognize the fact that money measures value by its own abundance. We have failed to recognize the function of money that measures the sweat of the brow of man. We have failed to recognize the little old principle of Adam Smith. They called him the father of political economy, when he said, in common language—

A little simple example that is true in principle.

And now, my friends, I want to return and repeat once more those outstanding facts relative to the crime of May 18, 1920, when the people were robbed of their money, the lifeblood of their trade and commerce, that bankrupted the Nation. I want again to recall the words of the Comptroller of the Currency, our old, white-haired friend, John Skelton Williams, the ex-officio member of the Board, the great friend of humanity, when he once more warned the Federal Reserve Board of the Federal Reserve bank, and said to them, in substance, this: "Gentlemen, you cannot take away from the people their money. Don't you realize they have promised to pay in dollars, and even now there exists less than one-tenth of the amount necessary to meet the people's obligations? Don't you realize our banking system is built on a foundation like a mist, a cloud, or a shadow, a little spark called confidence, that exists only in the brain of man, and that when you take away from the people $2,000,000,000, one-fourth of the basic money of the Nation, you will snuff out this little spark, and the whole financial system will fall and you will bankrupt our banks and wreck our whole economic system?"

They answered him and said—and by the way, they are still saying the same thing, and there are those in Congress who are helping them say it; it is the sole object of Wall Street, and I speak of Wall Street as a symbol of human greed, as it is considered in the minds of the American people—they answered him and said, in substance, this: "We have too many small banks, and what we need is a strong chain system of banking", implying, with headquarters in New York and Wall Street, the cancer at the heart of our great Government.

And once more John Skelton Williams arose. Let me again repeat. It is so important. It sets out the fact so absolutely and definitely. He said to the members of the meeting in substance this: "Don't you see that the farmers and the laborers have mortgages on their homes and farms, and that they will wake up some morning and find all that is left of their homes and farms is the mortgage, and some day they will know that by creating this scarcity of money you thus wiped out their equity?"

But the meeting went on practically undisturbed except for the objections of John Skelton Williams and one or two other bankers who as yet had not had all of their conscience removed.

Mr. HILL of Washington. What was the reply to John Skelton Williams?

Mr. BINDERUP. Oh, yes; the reply to John Skelton Williams was in substance this: "The farmers and laborers have made a lot of money throughout the war and after the war, and they will stand the shock." They knew it was a shock. Yes, Governor Harding, of the Federal Reserve Board, said, at the meeting, "This is a drastic remedy, but we believe it is necessary."

Mr. COLDEN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BINDERUP. I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. ].

Mr. COLDEN. The gentleman has referred to a certain meeting May 18, 1920. I would like to ask the gentleman to include in his remarks a copy of those minutes which may be pertinent to the speech he is making, including the names of the representatives who were present.

Mr. BINDERUP. I thank the gentleman very much for his suggestion and his contribution. In reply, may I say that the minutes of this meeting are very long, and would take up a number of pages of the Congressional Record, which I fear might be objectionable.

Mr. COLDEN. Just include the parts that are pertinent to the gentleman's remarks.

Mr. BINDERUP. Yes, I am including these in my remarks; and one of the first days, from this floor of Congress, I will give you the name and business connection of each banker present.

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion may I say the remedy, it is a glorious remedy—the cure, and it is a simple cure—for these disastrous depressions that have wrecked our great Nation 26 times, lies in knowledge that is light and wisdom that is power. By the past we shall know the future. The past is the prologue. Know the cause of these disastrous depressions, and know that all depressions, all panics, are man made, just by a few men interested in keeping the control of money; inflating by bankers lending a credit money, fountain-pen money, figures on the book, lending dollars that do not exist, that have never been made; lending an intangible thing, a vision, a dream of a dollar, and then asking payment in something else—a dollar that is tangible, it has never been made, it does not exist. Impossible my friends, impossible; inflating by the use of the debt of the United States—Government bonds and the debts of the people as the basis of our money—inflating and raising prices to an unreasonable level, and then all at once having a meeting, as they did in Washington, D. C., on the 18th