| Subject: | [socialcredit] request | | Date: | Wednesday, December 13, 2006 04:11:16 (-0800) | | From: | William B. Ryan <w_b_ryan @.....com>
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The excerpt below, from the essay, "Soldiers in the
'Brave Army of Heretics' - Social Credit in America
1933-1943," references a lecture that Douglas
delivered at the New School for Social Research in New
York City, on or about April 23, 1934.
Does Wally or anyone else have a transcript of that
lecture which he might forward to me? Or perhaps also
the transcript of the WJZ and NBC network broadcast?
-----------------------------------------
...[Senator] Cutting had begun reading Social Credit
literature, he was in contact with Orage, and
contributed money both to New English Weekly and to
New Democracy. He thought about the necessity of
transferring control of banking from the invisible
minds operating the Federal Reserve to the state. In
January 1934 Cutting was publicly advocating the
creation of a national bank with a state monopoly on
the issue of credit.
Cutting‘s agenda could only partially be considered
Douglasite since the senator did not advocate a
national dividend or a price rebate. Additionally
Douglas had been against nationalization of credit,
since this process would have concentrated power in a
state monopoly and hence would have been restricting
the liberty of the individual, which to Douglas was
the supreme value. However, since Douglas had not
clearly specified the concrete mechanism of the
decentralized credit authority he believed in, his
supporters took the state control of credit to be the
only method through which the wealth of the nation
could be computed and the dividend adjusted to
production and services. In June 1934, Cutting,
together with the Congressman Wright Patman of Texas,
pushed a bill through Congress which advocated the
creation of a national bank to absorb and replace the
existing Federal Reserve and monopolize the credit
system of the country. Its aims were ”to regulate the
value of money in pursuance of article 1, section 8,
paragraph 5 of the Constitution of the US; to create a
Federal Monetary Authority; to provide an adequate and
stable monetary system; to prevent bank failures; to
prevent uncontrolled inflation; to prevent
depressions; to provide a system to control the price
of commodities and the purchasing power of money; to
restore normal prosperity and assure its continuance”
(Cutting 101). The article 1 section 8 paragraph 5 of
the Constitution, which Cutting was referring to, gave
Congress the right and privilege to issue money and
control its value. It was a provision of creating
state money, which would have made the government
independent from private banking. The bill provided
for the nationalization of the 6500 member
institutions of the twelve Federal Reserve banks
through the purchase of the stocks. In time, the
10,000 non Fed banks would be brought into the system
as well. Cutting’s goal was ”to put the Government in
control of the banking business of the US” (Cutting
101). Though the bill was not strictly Douglasite, in
the sense that it did not go all the way towards
implementing the national dividend or the subvention
of prices, [Ezra] Pound supported it in what he
conceived o be a step in the right direction.
Since Social Credit was being discussed
internationally, not only in the United States, but
also in Canada, the year 1934 was highly propitious
for Douglas to cross the Atlantic and spread his ideas
by means of a conference tour. Additionally, he could
use his contacts to gain new converts to his ideas.
Douglas’s visit in America in spring 1934 could become
the highlight of the year for the movement.
Unfortunately, the high hopes were rather
disappointed. After having conferred with Father
Coughlin on April 22, Douglas attended a reception in
his honor hosted by Cutting, where he could meet
several senators and congressmen to be won over by his
ideas.8 Douglas, however, did not dazzle. Cutting
reported dryly to Pound a month later ”I am afraid
there were few conversions [...]. As an expositor the
Major is a little less aggressive than is customary in
this partibus infidelium” (Cutting 128).
-
8 ”On April 22 Major Douglas and Father Coughlin,
whose personal following exceeds that of any Hollywood
queen, and whose weekly broadcasts are now based upon
Social Credit, conferred together in Washington for
several hours. Next day Douglas returned to New York
by air to deliver his lecture in the New School for
Social Research, after which he again went to
Washington. On Wednesday he was the guest at a
luncheon at the Brookings [sic] Institute, and in the
evening he was guest of honour at a supper given by
Senator Cutting. A list of the forty-four people
present would furnish a striking testimony to the
upward spread of interest in Social Credit in the
United States: they included Senators Black, Bone,
Borah, Clark, Frazier, George, La Follette, Norris,
Nye, Shipstead, Thomas, Wagner, and Wheeler;
Representatives Speaker Rainey, Busby, Dies,
Goldsborough, Lewis, Kvale, Patman, and Steagall;
Administration officials Chapman, Collier, Peek, and
Hopkins, and publicists Gardner Jackson and Farmer
Murphy. On the following day Major Douglas was back in
New York to broadcast over station WJZ and NBC
network.” (Note in the NEW 31 May 1934. Heymann 322).
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