HILAIRE BELLOC—Economics for Helen, London, 1938, chapter entitled “Usury”; The Jews, 2nd edition, Constable, 1937; Monarchy, A Study of Louis XIV, Cassel, 1938, Preface, pp. vii and viii, and chapter entitled “Monarchy,” pp. 3-17. Belloc, besides being a distinguished man of letters, was one of the outstanding historians of the English-speaking world in this century. Far from being any anti-Semite, he had a Jewish secretary, and in writing his The Jews seemed to be concerned as much for the welfare of the Jews as for that of gentiles....?
A.K. CHESTERTON—The New Unhappy Lords, An Exposure of Power Politics, 4th revised and expanded edition, 1972, Britons Pub. Co. American edition, with an Introduction by General P. A. del Valle, Pub. by Omni Pubs., Hawthorne, Calif. “A.K.,” as he was long known by all those who came to be counted among his friends, was in my judgment the most brilliant, illuminating, and reliable journalist of our day. Inevitably, much of his best work went into his paper Candour, The British Views-Letter, of which he was the founder and editor. His book very effectively brings into high relief the part played by the Money Power in shaping and determining the direction of the modern world. When I consulted him for books that would furnish me with reliable information about the Money Power, he recommended especially the next two books in this present list, and sent me his own copies of them.
A.N. FIELD—All These Things, Nelson, New Zealand, 1936. Reprinted by Omni Publications, 1963. His mastery of money problems was evidenced by his being called to witness before the special commission that was appointed to look into the question whether New Zealand should accept a central bank, such as our Federal Reserve. His All These Things is a mine of well-documented information. His The Truth about the Slump carried Mr. Chesterton’s unqualified endorsement, and was also recommended by Prof. Soddy.
JEFFREY MARK—The Modern Idolatry, An Analysis of Usury and the Pathology of Debt, Chatto & Windus, 1934. This book is largely based on Prof. Frederick Soddy’s Wealth, Virtual Wealth And Debt (for Soddy, see toward the end of this list), but it is very much easier reading. I found its 200 pages a marvelously clear and illuminating analysis of our Money System, the best introduction for the beginner that I know of. A reprint (with different pagination) was brought out in Bombay. But so far as I am aware, both editions have long been out-of-print, and copies of the book must be hard to find. However, a copy is (or long was) available in the Reference Room of the main Public Library in New York City. I hope that a new edition may soon be brought out by Omni. Recommended not only by Mr. Chesterton but also by Prof. Soddy.
GERTRUDE M. COOGAN—Money Creators, Sound Money Press, Chicago, 1935. A reprint is now available from Omni. This book, also, I found exceedingly informative and thought-provoking, and it was unequivocally and unreservedly endorsed by Senator Robert L. Owen, who wrote the Foreword to it. Sen. Owen was a man of very large banking experience. He established the first national bank chartered in Oklahoma, was its President for 10 years and one of its Directors for 45 years in succession. Also, he was a member of the U.S. Senate for 18 years, and for 12 years the Chairman of its Committee on Banking and Currency. He drafted the original Federal Reserve Bill, but, as he tells in his Foreword to Miss Coogan’s book, his efforts to make this an act to “promote a stable price level” were circumvented and frustrated by the development of “secret hostilities . . . the origin of which at the time (he) did not fully understand.” Of this last, I shall have much to say in due course. In his view, the Bill as passed was a national disaster. It threatened the welfare of every man, woman, and child in the United States as it had not been threatened even during the World War. Thoroughly aroused, he felt the necessity of trying to gain the attention of the American public. It was at this point that the manuscript of Miss Coogan’s book came into his hands. Some indication of the warmth of the endorsement he gave it may be gathered from the following excerpts from his Foreword to it:
“The facts that Miss Coogan was awarded a Master’s Degree in Economics and Finance by Northwestern University, was for eight years a Security Analyst for the Northern Trust Co. of Chicago, that from the beginning she had a deep desire to understand the fancied enigma of money, have given her a great insight into money science. . .
“I found this young American woman had a masterful knowledge of the so-called money enigma.
“. . . This book is worthy of careful study by American citizens who wish to understand the principles that govern the value and the volume of money in the United States and other countries. It contains scientific truths—not quackery,
“. . . This writer is informed. The information is sound. It has been digested. It is written in an attractive way with an engaging style, and it conveys to the American people truths of the very first magnitude.”
ROBERT McNAIR WILSON—Promise To Pay, An Inquiry into the Principles and Practice of the Latter-Day Magic Called Sometimes High Finance, Routledge, 1934. A small book for the beginner. In his Preface, the author says: “In the following pages an attempt has been made to describe the money system so that its principles maybe grasped easily by anyone above the age of sixteen years.” Recommended by Prof. Soddy. Two other very excellent and highly readable books by Mr. Wilson are his Monarchy or Money Power, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1933, andThe Mind of Napoleon, Routledge, 1934.
EZRA POUND—Impact, Regnery, 1960. Who’s Who in America, 1969-70, described Pound as “a principal founder and moving spirit of modern poetry in English,” and Wilmot Robertson said that he “probably exercised more influence on modern literature than any other poet.” This collection of Pound’s prose is packed full of arresting and incisive and provocative observations on all sorts of subjects, none more so than those on the Money Power. His fervid denunciations, together with his lucid and persistent statements of the simple and essential principles of a really honest money system (combined, to be sure, with other features of his life no less repugnant to the would-be masters of the world) led to his being given the American equivalent of a sentence to Siberia. But to the end, he was never silenced.
JOHN R. ELSOM—Lightning over the Treasury Building, Meador, Boston. Reprint available from Omni. Not as well documented as I should like, probably because it was written primarily for the common man (who usually has an aversion for notes!), but it is simple, clear, goes to the heart of things, and is an eye-opener. Recommended by Mr. A.K. Chesterton.
CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS—The Breakdown of Money, An Historical Explanation, Sheed & Ward, 1934 (Endorsed by Prof. Soddy); The Two Nations, A Financial Study of English History, Routledge, 1935 (recommended by Mr. Chesterton). These books deal primarily with the British situation, but basically the problems remain the same however much the scene changes. Though I have yet to finish reading these two books, I include them here because they are of good repute, and I have liked what I found in them.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, WOODROW WILSON, HENRY FORD, and THOMAS A. EDISON. Quotations from the published utterances of these men in regard to finance and financiers will appear in my text and need not be quoted here.
SIR ARTHUR KITSON—The Bankers Conspiracy, Which Started the World Crisis, Elliot Stock, London, 1933; and A Fraudulent Standard, first published in 1917, reprinted by Omni in 1972. Mr. Kitson, after having won fame as an inventor and holder of some 500 patents, abandoned a lucrative business career to devote the last 40 years of his life to lecturing, writing and crusading on money reform. In his very first book, A Scientific Solution of the Money Question, Boston, 1894, he “called attention to the fraudulent character of the so-called ‘Gold Standard’ of Value, and to the impossibility of any commodity functioning in its commodity capacity, as either a just measure or an honest expression of exchange-values.” He declared the gold standard to be “legalized fraud, a delusion and a snare.” (See A Fraudulent Standard, Omni, pp. v, viii.) Prof. Soddy recommends five of Mr. Kitson’s books, whom he calls “the doyen of British Monetary Reformers.”
LOUIS T. McFADDEN—Collected Speeches (before Congress). After becoming President of the Pennsylvania Bankers’ Association, he was for 12 years Chairman of the Finance and Currency Committee of our House of Representatives. His scathing exposure of the treasonous operations of the Money Power under the eyes of the nation is believed by many to have led to his assassination.
EUSTACE MULLINS—His The Federal Reserve Conspiracy (Kaspar & Horton, New York, 1952) and H.S. Kenan’s The Federal Reserve Bank (Noontide, 1969) are both excellent for their revelation of the unholy secrecy and treachery in which our Federal Reserve Bank was conceived and eventually brought into the world. Mr. Kenan’s book has valuable lengthy excerpts from McFadden’s speeches about the operations of the international bankers.
VINCENT VICKERS—Economic Tribulation, John Lane, 1941. Reprinted in 1960 by Omni. Vickers was for many years a very high-placed figure in the British banking system, and from 1910 to 1919 was even a Director of the Bank of England. But in the Foreword to his Economic Tribulation, a “world-famous book on money-reform,” he tells of “that day in 1926 when . . . I felt it my duty to explain to the Governor of the Bank of England, Mr. Montagu Norman, that ‘henceforth I was going to fight him and the Bank of England policy until I died.’” And this he did, spending the next 15 years pressing upon the Western world the “necessity for a reform of the money system.” Just before his death, he declared his conviction that “the existing system is actively harmful to the State, creates poverty and unemployment, and is the root cause of war.”
With this may be compared the statement of Robert H. Hemphill, former credit manager of the Federal Reserve Bank, Atlanta, Georgia, that the banking problem “is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it is widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.” See his Foreword to Prof. Irving Fisher’s book 100% Money.
GARY ALLEN—Two articles, “The Bankers” and “The Federal Reserve,” originally published in American Opinion, reprinted as one booklet by Western Islands, Belmont, Mass., 1970. As I recall, Mr. Chesterton, in something he wrote not long before his death, showed his respect for Gary Allen’s qualities as an investigator. Also, most recently, there is his best-seller None Dare Call It Conspiracy, Concord Press, Seal Beach, Calif. It contains a very arresting and well-documented body of significant facts.
Among the most constructive works on the Money Question are those of the three authors with whom I will conclude this list.
C.H. DOUGLAS, known all over the world as the founder of Social Credit. Perhaps his most influential books have been Social Credit, now available as an Omni reprint, and The Brief For The Prosecution, K.R.P. Pubs., Liverpool, 1945.
SILVIO GESELL—The Natural Economic Order, Free Economy Pub. Co., Huntington Park, Calif. In this, he proposed a new monetary system. H.G. Wells said of him: “Gesell’s name will be a leading name in history once it has been disentangled.” Prof. Soddy declared him “a voice in the wilderness—a Genius.” Prof. Irving Fisher’s Stamp Scrip gives a clear treatment of the Gesellist economy.
FREDERICK SODDY—Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt, Dutton, 1933. A reprint may be available from Omni. Prof. Soddy was a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University, “father of nuclear fission,” a Nobel Prize laureate, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, England’s highest scientific honorary body. Stuart Chase, in reviewing his book, said that it might prove to be “one of the most important books ever written.” Having come to feel that he must reach an understanding of our money system, Soddy spent two years studying what its proponents had to say for it, only at last to find himself facing the fact that he “could make nothing of it.” And “then one day,” he went on to say, “the truth dawned on me. What I was studying was not a system but a confidence trick.” Basically, the whole thing was a swindle, dependent for its successful operation on keeping people deceived.
Thus was brought home to him the necessity of making his approach to the problem independently of all orthodox authorities. Out of the ensuing research came his book, and by the time he had reached page 14 he stated bluntly that our money system “has become easily the most powerful tyranny and the most universal conspiracy against the economic freedom of individuals and the autonomy of nations that the world has ever known.” By the time he finished his book he had made his case, and was stating it in terms even more extreme and severe. He also declared, let me add, that “the solution [to which his searching investigation of the Money Question led him], as was to be expected, . . . proved to be most ordinary incontrovertible common sense, requiring nothing more than that to prove it” (p. 22).
I have found two other books by Prof. Soddy very valuable. Money Versus Man he himself describes as “a succinct account of [his] Wealth, Virtual Wealth And Debt.” Also, it is much easier to understand, and in it Soddy seems more deeply involved, personally, than in his larger work. The other book, The Role of Money (Harcourt, 1935), on pp. 213-4, contains a valuable list of recommended books on the Money Question.
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