The British covertly supported the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood, appreciating that its theme was that the “Quran is our constitution” - i.e., no nation-states, no sovereign countries, no nationalism.

British Creation and Control of Islamic Terror: Background to China’s Defeat of Terror in Xinjiang

by Mike Billington

https://larouchepub.com/other/2020/4702-british_creation_control_of_is.html

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2020/eirv47n02-20200110/28-34_4702.pdf

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From: Tragedy & Hope

by Carroll Quigley

Pg. 324: the powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank, in the hands of men like Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Charles Rist of the Bank of France, and Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world.

https://thirdworldtraveler.com/Banks/Tragedy_Hope_excerpt.html

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How the British Invented Color Revolutions

As the British Empire shifted from a colonial to a neocolonial system, it had to develop quieter, more discreet methods for removing rebellious vassals

https://richardpoe.substack.com/p/how-the-british-invented-color-revolutions

How the British Invented George Soros

Puppetmaster or Puppet? Strongman or Frontman? Inside the Soros Psyop

https://richardpoe.substack.com/p/how-the-british-invented-george-soros

EXCERPTS:

Lord William Rees-Mogg set forth his globalist beliefs in a series of books co-written with U.S. investment writer James Dale Davidson.

In The Sovereign Individual (1997), the authors prophesied that “Western nations” would soon “crack apart in the manner of the former Soviet Union,” to be replaced by tiny jurisdictions “akin to city-states” which would “emerge from the rubble of nations.”15

The authors predicted that, “Some of these new entities, like the Knights Templar and other religious and military orders of the Middle Ages, may control considerable wealth and military power without controlling any fixed territory.”

As in the days of “feudalism,” wrote Rees-Mogg and Davidson, “low-income persons in Western countries” would survive by attaching themselves to “wealthy households as retainers.”16

In other words, the lower classes would return to serfdom.

This was all for the best, the authors wrote, as it would allow the “ablest people” — i.e. the “top five percent” — to live where they liked and do as they liked, free from loyalties or obligations to any particular nation or government.

“As the era of the ‘Sovereign Individual’ takes shape,” the authors concluded, “many of the ablest people will cease to think of themselves as party to a nation, as ‘British’ or ‘American’ or ‘Canadian.’ A new ‘transnational’ or ‘extranational’ understanding of the world and a new way of identifying one’s place in it await discovery in the new millennium.”

George Soros named his network of Open Society Foundations in honor of his London School of Economics (LSE) professor Karl Popper, whose theory of “open society” guides Soros’s activism to this day.

Popper’s 1945 masterwork, The Open Society and Its Enemies, is a philosophical defense of imperialism, specifically of British liberal imperialism, as espoused by LSE’s founders.

The Fabian socialists who founded LSE believed that British expansion was the greatest civilizing force in an otherwise barbarous world.

In his book, Popper expressly defended imperial conquest as a first step in wiping out tribal and national identities, to clear the way for a “Universal Empire of Man.”

By the 1990s, privileged families like Rees-Mogg’s had grown tired of hiding. They yearned for the good old days, when they could live openly in their castles and command their serfs.

Oxford political scientist Hedley Bull played to this crowd when he predicted, in his 1977 book The Anarchical Society, that, “sovereign states might disappear and be replaced not by a world government but by a modern and secular equivalent of… the Middle Ages.”

Bull’s forecast of a new medievalism resonated with British elites.

As the Soviet Union collapsed, Rees-Mogg and others of his class began openly celebrating the end of the nation-state and the rise of a new feudalism.

Restoring the feudal order is, in fact, the true and hidden goal of globalism.

PHYSICAL ECONOMY -- Part I

There is no task more urgent for the American Congress, and the American people, than to immediately put in place an emergency economic recovery program based on the principles of the American System of Economics. There is one big problem: Virtually no one in this country outside the LaRouche movement, seems to understand what the American System of Economics is!

I would be misleading if I were to say that I could convey the full substance of the American System in the series of columns of which this is the first. A working understanding of the subject actually requires a mastery of the major economics writings of Lyndon LaRouche, who proceeds both epistemologically and philosophically from the root of the matter. However, it is possible to prepare the ground for you, as citizens, to grasp what must be done, both by defining what the American System is not, and by providing some historical grounding in the crucial principles, as they were put into practice.

Let’s start with a shocker: the American System of Economics is not capitalism.

- British Lies -

In his ``Man’s Original Creations’‘ paper, published in June of this year. Lyndon LaRouche wrote:

``In contrast to contemporary European constitutions and systems, the actual form of society which the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Federal Constitution, with its crucial Preamble, define the U.S. economy to be, is neither capitalism nor socialism, but what U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, among others, defined as The American System of political-economy. What the British system, and the Karl Marx it trained, defined as `capitalism,’ was the British imperial form of Anglo-Dutch, Venetian-style ultramontane rule by a financier oligarchy. This was the system established by the victory of the Anglo-Dutch financier oligarchy, centered in the power obtained by the British East India Company through the February 1763 Treaty of Paris, which concluded the preceding, mutually ruinous `Seven Years War’ among the powers of continental Europe. From 1848 on, the power of the old feudal systems of Europe, such as those of the decadent Habsburgs, were largely absorbed in what became, increasingly, the appendages of the Anglo-Dutch Liberal monarchical system. The power in this imperial system was located in that financier oligarchy which became known as the Synarchist International of the 20th century, the same Synarchist International whose cabal of private bankers gave us Mussolini, Hitler, and World War II.

``The European system, which the credulous of the world have accepted as what they describe as `the capitalist system,’ is, in fact, usually the system of tyrannical rule which the private financier-oligarchical syndicates of Europe and elsewhere have exerted as a power placed legally above the authority of governments, through arrangements often described today as `independent central-banking systems.’|’‘

In fact, during the course of the 20th century, the whole concept of the American System of Economics, which had been known by name through the bulk of the 19th century, virtually disappeared. Instead, the London and Austrian schools of economics invaded our universities, and embedded the paradigm of socialism (or communism) vs. capitalism, left vs. right, class vs. class.

In fact, these options represent no choice at all. For as LaRouche said, both depend upon a reductionist concept of economics which denies the fundamental source of wealth in a physical economic system: the creative powers of the human mind.

- American Beginnings -

Although rooted in concepts developed in Europe, from the Italian Renaissance through Gottfried Leibniz, and substantially foreshadowed in the early Massachusetts Bay Colony, the American System of Economics did not fully develop until after the American Revolution. For it was not until this time that there was developed the sovereignty of a government, which had the power to carry out the economic policies.

Two individuals epitomize the thinking that led to the establishment of the American System: Benjamin Franklin, and our first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton. Not surprisingly, both of these Founding Fathers have known connections to the Leibnizian networks in Europe which developed the science of physical economics. Crucially, both also played indispensable roles in devising and enacting the U.S. Constitution which established the moral, political, and legal framework for accomplishing their economic goals.

Franklin’s economics is wildly misunderstood by those who choose to identify it by his Almanac adages (``A penny saved is a penny earned’‘). To the contrary, Franklin’s economic policy was based on building institutions of scientific learning, establishing banking institutions which would fund productive industry (including manufactures), building infrastructure, increasing wages, and promoting population growth.

While there was nothing in Franklin’s program that Hamilton would have disagreed with, it fell to Hamilton to devise the specific government programs and institutions--the national bank, the tariff, and the prospectus for internal improvements--which actually came to be known as the American System by the time of the early 19th century. It is these programs, in contrast to the laissez faire which most so-called economists identify as the ``American way,’‘ which we will be discussing as the series progresses.

The ‘American System’ Means Sovereignty, Not Free Trade

PHYSICAL ECONOMY -- Part II

Nothing shows the ignorance of an economist or a historian more than the assertion that the American System of economics is based on the ``principle’‘ of free trade. Yet this assertion has largely prevailed in the last decades of popular culture and ``learning’‘ in the United States, with the result of instilling an academic excuse for the hatred of government by even those citizens who absolutely depend upon government functioning the most.

It was ``free trade’‘ that the American Constitution, and the economic system which it enabled to be brought into being, was founded against. And had ``free trade’‘--specifically the British system of control of trade which was dominating the world even after the end of the American Revolutionary War--not been curbed by the establishment of the Constitution, the funding system, and the Bank of the United States, there would have been no American Republic, and thus no roadblock to the global British imperium.

- `Free Trade’ Assumptions -

The assumptions behind ``free trade’‘ in fact go back to Aristotle, who defined the subject of economics as merely an extension of managing a household budget. Under this concept, each family simply seeks to manage its affairs for its own benefit, and leaves the management of the society as a whole to the ``invisible hand,’‘ or, more likely, the very visible fist of the rich and powerful overlords who have amassed the greatest wealth and resources through the exercise of force. The result is an oligarchical society, controlled by a handful of the very rich, who seek primarily their own interests, not that of society as a whole. And there is no organized force, except another oligarchical one, which is prepared to stop their depradations!

The contrary notion of economy, which was developed during the 15th-Century Italian Renaissance, and further elaborated by the great scientist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, understands the subject of economics to be the general welfare of society as a whole, and its ability to reproduce and improve itself. Under this concept, individual families or cities are not left to fight out their fate against others, but are obliged to participate in governing bodies which, more or less scientifically, devote themselves to knowing and implementing the policies which promote the general welfare of all.

Much more, of course, could be said on this subject, and has been by leading economist Lyndon LaRouche. Readers are referred to www.larouchpub.com, where an archive of his major writings, and attacks on free trade, can be found.

But the two fundamentally antagonistic assumptions behind the ``free trade’‘ system, on the one side, and the ``general welfare’‘ system on the other, can be readily grasped by the layman. Under the ``free trade’‘ universe, man is pitted against man, with all his bestial instincts mobilized for survival at the expense of others. Under the ``general welfare’‘ universe, man is a human being concerned with promoting good for his society as a whole, not only in the present, but in the future. And this ``good’‘ is scientifically knowable through his constant improvement of nature, and himself.

Establishing the United States

The victory of the American colonies in the War of Independence by no means ended the domination of the British imperial ``free trade’‘ system, even on these shores. The British continued to use their domination of the seas, and their developed manufacturing sector, to flood the rest of the world with goods, and, to the extent possible, to prevent the emergence of other manufacturing centers. Great Britain wanted the rest of the world to serve as her plantation, providing the raw materials she needed at the lowest possible price, and she was prepared to deploy her resources to preserve that arrangement.

The British policy in the mid-1780s was devastatingly successful. Not only was France, her only potential superpower rival, pushed into signing a free trade agreement that favored the British, but the various American colonies were being pitted against one another by British trade policies. While providing different concessions to different colonies, the British were being guided by a unified intention: keep the colonies at each others’ throats, and prevent their development as a unified nation with the ability to defend and improve itself. In a word, reconquest.

And the name of the policy by which they hoped to accomplish this aim, was ``free trade.’‘

Thus, when Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and others began to organize, and correspond around the project of replacing the ineffective Articles of Confederation with a Constitution of the United States, they were not simply talking about a ``good idea.’‘ What they understood is that, unless they created continental and governmentalinstitutions which were devoted specifically to promoting the general welfare of the colonies as a whole, the British Empire was going to destroy everything that had been won in the Revolution.

First and foremost, the new nation had to have sovereignty over its economy. That meant controlling its currency, controlling its trade, controlling its debt, and controlling its economy as a whole. The idea of being able to defend the United States against foreign powers, when the United States did not have the ability to raise funds, or to provide basic economic security for its population, from the basics of food and clothing, to the infrastructure required to maintain and improve the economy, was recognized to be a sick joke.

Thus, the U.S. Constitution itself was established with an explicit commitment, in its Preamble, to provide for national sovereignty, the general welfare, and the nation’s posterity--to preserve the nation against British ``free trade.’‘

The ‘American System’ Requires That A Nation Control Its Own Currency

PHYSICAL ECONOMY -- Part III

Under Hamilton’s American System, the key to the determination of economic value is the human creative intervention that produces physical product and alters the land. A productive economy must encourage individual creative discoveries, which discoveries have the power to transform that economy. The use of credits, distributed through a banking system, is the primary way such creative ``enterprise’‘ can be encouraged.

Hamilton set out to erect a national economy based on these principles. Just as Lyndon LaRouche must deal with a nation which is effectively bankrupt, under a stifling debt load, Hamilton took over a United States encumbered with debt to foreign lenders who had financed the Revolution, and then the government under the 1783 Articles of Confederation; this debt problem was compounded by the huge debt loads of the various states. Under these circumstances, Hamilton’s first task in building a productive economy was to defend the sovereign public credit of the United States.

To do that, he had to consolidate the debt under the new sovereign government of the United States.

- Defending Public Credit -

In response to a Congressional mandate to propose a way out of this morass, Hamilton issued his famous ``Report on Public Credit’‘ in 1790; in it he proposed, for the sake of repairing the nation’s credit to ensure its future necessary ability to borrow, that all war debts of the states be assumed by the Federal government, and that the government place the ``full faith and credit of the United States’‘ behind all its debt obligations, without restriction. Foreign creditors and others were to be told that they would be paid, as rapidly as prudence permitted, and that the government and future governments were committed to this repayment, as soon as the United States had the ability to make good on its obligations by the improved performance of the economy.

While establishing the sanctity of U.S. sovereign debt obligations, Hamilton also ridiculed the idea that government should operate on a ``pay as you go’‘ basis, without borrowing. The incurring of debt, so long as it was judged to be in the national interest and for the promotion of the General Welfare, was sound economic policy; a debt obligation which might appear to be a negative, a debit, on some accountant’s balance sheet, was capable of being transformed into a positive or ``a credit,’‘ beneficial to the economy, by creating the capability to generate a ``profitability’‘ well beyond its own mere repayment. Such a debt had a ``cycle’‘ which, if set at a proper length, would ensure its repayment, and would produce a benefit in productive economic activity whose real worth was far greater than the debt’s principle and interest. (In this way, Hamilton, like LaRouche, distinguishes between short-term debts, which have maturations of a few years or less, and either do not tend to add to longer-term increased capacity for productive economic activity and/or are for purposes of ``speculation,’‘ and long-term debt with a 25-50 year cycle, for productive investment.)

While discussing the ``positive’‘ qualities of debt, Hamilton also warned against any simple-minded resort to incurring debt that was not carefully scrutinized according to the principle of investing in the ``General Welfare’‘; any debt is an obligation to pay by the United States that must be met--and which, if properly managed, creates greater benefit to the nation, than to the lender:

``To justify and preserve their [lenders’] confidence; to promote the increasing respectability of the American name; to answer the calls of justice; to restore landed property to its due value; to furnish new resources both to agriculture and to commerce; to cement more closely the union of states; to add to their security against foreign attack; to establish public order on the basis of an upright, liberal policy. These are the great and invaluable ends to be secured, by a proper and adequate provision, at the present period, for the support of public credit.’‘

Hamilton also insisted that the credit extension not be limited by deposits of ``hard currency,’‘ coin, or metals--that is, gold, silver, etc.--and that paper currency would serve the purposes of the nation. However, as the Constitution dictates, only the Federal government can be responsible for emission of such paper currency, because only the Federal government can assure its stability. Credit, he told Congress, is the means to place money into circulation; credit, when offered for sound economic purpose, not only assures the lender of repayment, but, through advancing the economic well-being of the nation, makes its currency valuable and enhances our standing among nations.

The Hamilton report, especially its recommendation for the assumption of state debt, stirred up a bitter debate, with opponents, mostly in the Southern states, led by James Madison of Virginia, a former ally of Hamilton in arguing for a strong central government and for ratification of the Constitution, claiming that the Constitution did not specifically grant the Federal government this power, and that Hamilton was unfairly discriminating against states that had prudently dissolved their debts. But the Treasury Secretary realized that his debt assumption and reorganization was the only viable pathway to establish the credit of the new nation, and would not give in. Eventually, the report, debt assumption and all, was adopted in 1791, by way of a famous ``barter deal’‘--in exchange for Southern votes for its passage, Hamilton organized President Washington to support the location of capital of the new nation in a special district on the Potomac, rather than in the North.

The ‘American System’ Requires a National Bank

PHYSICAL ECONOMY -- Part IV

Once the new government of the United States had assumed central responsibility for its debts (see previous column in this series), the next step was for it to assume responsibility for generating credit which would be available for building the nation, and assuring prosperity for current and future generations. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton proposed to fill this need in his ``Second Report on Public Credit,’‘ otherwise known as the ``Report on the National Bank.’‘ In it, he laid out the need for the establishment of a public bank, partly funded by the U.S. government debt, and regulated by the U.S. Treasury, which would provide both the basis for a national currency, and a source of capital for long-term investment to promote the general welfare.

The Bank of the United States, as the new institution was known, was intended to free the country from dependence upon foreign or private interests, and provide the means by which the country could grow. Hamilton called the Bank a ``nursery for public wealth,’‘ and conceived of its operations not primarily as an adjunct to Federal finances, but as a resource to permit private entrepreneurs to invest in the nation. His political descendants, among them nationalists such as Mathew Carey, Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln, considered the National Bank to be, along with tariffs and internal improvements, the touchstone of the American System of Economics.

Because the Bank of the United States was responsible to the government, was partially owned by the government, and was capitalized largely by government debt, it was a regulated body, which not only had to carry out its operations in order to make a profit for its shareholders, but also was constrained to invest for the benefit of economic growth in the physical economy of the nation. Those who opposed it were primarily from the ranks of plantation owners and other large land-holders, who saw in the creation of the Bank an institution that would promote manufacturing and industrialization. Indeed, industrialization, a sine qua non for making the new nation economically independent of the Empire which it had just defeated, was precisely what Hamilton was up to when he proposed the national bank, as his subsequent ``Report on Manufactures’‘ made clear.

A bank--any bank--in Hamilton’s view, was only as good as the judgment of its directors and administrators in discriminating sound ventures from purely speculative ones. But Hamilton does not want to over-regulate such creative judgment, by listing what a bank can and can’t do; this, he fears, would cripple its operation and require constant changing, since judgments of what is in the national interest at specific times, will (and should) change; instead, he proposes to establish ``guideposts’‘ that should direct such judgments. For example, Hamilton recommended that to avoid speculation in real estate, the National Bank be prohibited from lending for real estate purchases or from owning or holding property, other than the land and improvements for the Bank’s offices and branches. Human intellect must otherwise discern the sound from among many possible investments, but priority must be given to the enhancement of physical production or ``public improvement’‘ (i.e., infrastructure).

- Turning Debt into Credit -

To generate the starting capital for the National Bank, Hamilton proposed that it sell $10 million in subscriptions (shares) denominated at $400 each, and available to individuals, as well as ``bodies politic’‘; the shares would then be allocated a dividend, as and when deemed fit by the Bank’s directors.

The shares were payable one quarter in currency, gold or silver, and three-quarters in instruments of U.S. sovereign debt, carrying 6% interest (which was among the debts assumed from the states and other lenders; see previous section). In that way, Hamilton was assuring the fungibility of the assumed U.S. debt. Further, Hamilton proposed that President be authorized to subscribe to the Bank with $2 million in sovereign U.S. debt, while then borrowing from the Bank an equal sum payable in equal installments, over a 10-year period, or in such larger payments as the government deemed fit.

Thus, Hamilton was capitalizing a bank with debt--an impossibility from an accountant’s standpoint. But, this was not just any debt: It was the sovereign debt of the United States of America, and as such had the full faith and credit of the nation behind it. The sovereign debts of the United States (or any nation) are not merely a liability on some accountant’s ledger book; they are potential assets, awaiting guaranteed repayment. Repaid by what? Why, by the revenues created by the productive economy of the nation, for which they generate investment capital (through the Bank, and through their fungibility as an asset) to increase the wealth of the nation! Hamilton has turned what financiers and their flaks like Adam Smith consider a ``dead’‘ financial instrument--a debt--into a living, breathing part of the economy: productively invested capital with the potential to create physical wealth.

In fact, through the structure of the Bank of the United States, Hamilton was wedding the nation’s private interests to the public, in such a way that the physical economy of the nation would benefit, with a stable currency, low interest rates, long-term investment, and a secure economic future. Those who opposed the Bank sought a contrary future, as experience would show.

Hamiltonian Statecraft: No “Marriage” with Wall Street

By Nancy Spannaus

https://americansystemnow.com/hamiltonian-statecraft-no-marriage-with-wall-street/

AMERICAN SYSTEM NOW

by Nancy Spannaus

https://americansystemnow.com/author/nancyspannaus/

Nancy Spannaus Books on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07P62R3CK

Benjamin Franklin sailed to England in the spring of 1757, the official political representative of the British colony of Pennsylvania. It was 19 years before America would declare its independence from the British Crown.

When Franklin took up residence there in July 1757, Great Britain was very backward. There were virtually no roads between cities, no canals, and no railroads. Iron, cloth, or grain could only be shipped overland in the saddlebags of a packhorse, and this only when there was relatively little mud. All manufacturing took place on a small scale by local operatives or in rural homes. London was wealthy from world trade and finance, but it was the capital of an undeveloped country.

The project to industrialize Britain, begun shortly after Dr. Franklin’s arrival, was initiated by a small circle of his collaborators, and was carried to fruition under his leadership.

It was then the last few years of the reign of King George II. The king’s grandmother, Electress Sophie of the German state of Hanover, had been the protector of the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. Her succession to the English throne was arranged by Leibniz and his allies, the pro-American republican circles of Irish statesman and author Jonathan Swift. But Sophie had died too soon, and her intended English crown was taken by her boorish son George I, a tool of the British Empire ``Venetian party,’‘ the oligarchy that ran the slave and opium trades. George I died in 1727; his son George II, who died 1760, was succeeded by the infamous George III.

The Leibniz-Swift faction had crumbled in England; the imperial cabinet was run by Nero-like members of the openly Satanic ``Hell-Fire Club.’‘ This government was now forbidding the American colonies to develop manufacturing, or to expand to the west. Franklin was determined to create a thriving agro-industrial America, as the necessary basis for eventually securing independence. If some kind of manufacturing could be started here in the center of the British Empire, it would be that much harder for the ruling clique to snuff it out generally.

Franklin was already famous in England, and feared by the government, as a scientist and political leader of the colonists. His published experiments had clarified the nature of electricity. He had created the American Philosophical Society, the first organization uniting the colonies in any fashion; its subcommittees were now at work planning the creation of (illegal) native industries.

Corresponding with a worldwide circle of sympathetic leaders in science, art, religion, politics, and the military, Franklin was chief of intelligence for the American nation, then in the process of its creation.

Though its results were to be of spectacular benefit to the general population, the project we report on here, was at times subject to extreme harassment, and had to be carried out with great caution, even secrecy. We report what is known of Franklin’s movements and contacts in the opening phase of the project.

Franklin obtained an introductory letter from Cambridge University Greek and Hebrew professor John Michell, a pioneer seismologist, astronomer, and magnetic scientist. Michell’s letter addressed to Matthew Boulton, Jr., son of a buckle manufacturer: ``to introduce ... the best Philosopher of America, whom you are already very well acquainted with though you don’t know him personally.’‘

No later than the summer of 1758, Benjamin Franklin and Matthew Boulton, Jr., began joint work on electricity, metallurgy, and the harnessing of steam power. Their collaboration, at times surreptitious and subject to police surveillance, continued until Franklin’s death in 1790. Franklin became the inspiration, tutor, science adviser, and political counselor to a select group of Boulton’s friends in Birmingham, including potter Josiah Wedgwood, and Boulton’s physician, Erasmus Darwin.

The Industrialization Of Manchester

The first task of the Franklin circle was to create an industrial city, with access to cheap fuel. In the process of building Manchester, England’s first industrial center, the Franklin associates would initiate low-cost transportation for all goods, the sine qua non for an industrial nation. For these purposes, they would use a young, sympathetic, but not very wealthy duke of Bridgewater, whose estate came to be managed by the Franklin circle.

John Gilbert, a former apprentice in the shop of Matthew Boulton, Sr., and a lifelong intimate of his son, was hired in 1757 as the manager of the duke of Bridgewater’s lands and coal mines at Worsley. Gilbert’s brother, Thomas Gilbert, was already estate manager for the allied Bridgewater and Gower families.

In that year of 1757, the 21-year-old Francis Egerton, Third Duke of Bridgewater, came into possession of his inheritance, which included lands in London, and the Worsley estate located in an agricultural area some ten miles west of the market town of Manchester. John Gilbert convinced the new owner to cut a canal from the coal mines eastward to Manchester. Studying the layout of the mines and the land to the east, Gilbert turned the perennial problem of mine flooding into a technologically unprecedented aid to navigation. He proposed that canal digging should commence underground, in the mine itself, and proceed out through the side of a hill. Newly mined coal could thus be loaded directly onto barges, while the mine’s drainage would help maintain water levels in the overland canal.

Manchester then had only about 6,000 houses, and no factories requiring coal for steam power, which did not yet exist. Wood was used for hearth fires throughout England. There was no ``market’‘ whose logic Bridgewater was obeying when he decided to pursue such a construction project; and there were no other canals in England. But the duke’s imagination had been well prepared for this adventure. He had gone to Europe as a pupil and ward of Robert Wood, a passionate devotee of Homer and Classical Greek civilization. Wood tamed the teenaged duke’s carousing, and immersed him in the works of the Renaissance Christian humanism. He learned engineering and science at the Lyons academy and studied Florentine painting in Rome. The young duke viewed the canals of Holland, and closely inspected the great Languedoc Canal across France. The Languedoc had been surveyed by Leonardo da Vinci (who died in 1519), but it was built by Colbert in the late 1600s, using locks designed by Leonardo.

Excitedly agreeing to John Gilbert’s proposal, the Duke Francis devoted his life to the construction of canals. Preparations began secretly, with initial purchases of land into Manchester. An act was put through Parliament, for the right to compel landowners along the canal route to sell Duke Francis their property. The price of coal from the Worsley mines was fixed by law at no more than four shillings per hundredweight, compared to the pre-canal average price of seven or eight shillings. Freight tolls were also set by law, and manure was to be toll free on the canal.

The duke was not a ``capitalist,’‘ but a heavily encumbered landowner: He exhausted his personal funds early in the construction effort. In order to raise funds, the Gilbert brothers sold very small denomination bonds to local merchants, while the duke borrowed from his tenants. No backing came from London banks. Indeed, there was no net profit in the enterprise for some 15 years, though Bridgewater eventually made a large profit on the canal system, after decades of labor. Duke Francis routinely paid fair prices to landowners displaced for the canal. He hired many coal miners, paid them good wages, and got decent living conditions for his workers in new cottages.

The canal was begun in 1759 and completed into Manchester in 1761. Thousands of people began moving into the city and starting families there, with a secure supply of cheap Worsley coal for warm houses. And there were well-paying jobs: with a new labor supply and cheap fuel, a great number of profitable new manufacturing shops were set up. A greatly expanded canal system, and steam-powered machinery, would before long complete the amazing, virtually overnight creation of an industrial center.

By 1790, workmen from the new textile mills could be seen walking Manchester’s streets, five-pound notes protruding ostentatiously from their hats. Yet 50 years later, that very city was famed for the horrible poverty and cruelty in its mills, and for the so-called Manchester School of economic thought--the radical free-trade doctrine which claimed that the unrestricted freedom to do ill to one’s neighbor was the cause of England’s technical development, that poverty and misery resulted from new technology, not from the crime of those who had taken over in place of the inventors.

More Canals, And Nation-Building Power

After the success of the Bridgewater canal was demonstrated, the entire Boulton-Franklin group swung into action. A partnership of the duke, the Gilbert brothers, Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, and Matthew Boulton, was eventually formed to extend the canal from Manchester to the port of Liverpool, and then to push on to connect Hull, Bristol, and London.

Wedgwood’s partner, Thomas Bentley, and Erasmus Darwin wrote pamphlets in an effort to expand the British people’s aspirations towards economic progress. Josiah Wedgwood placed the following newspaper notice:

``That great genius and Father of his Country, the Czar Peter, being well informed of the extensive Utility of Inland Navigation to the Growth of Commerce, completed a Canal between Petersbourg and the Wolga, at an incredible Expence, thro’ an uncouth and arduous Country. The States of Holland owe their very Existence, as well as their opulence and power, to their numerous Canals.

``And the French Nation, our Rival in Arts and Arms, have already much availed themselves by navigable Cuts of vast Extent, and of amazing Advantage to their Commerce ... that of Languedoc is a most stupendous Work’‘ (St. James’s Chronicle,May 16-18, 1765 (transcription courtesy of the Trustees of the Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston, Staffordshire).

After feverish negotiations, planning and lobbying, a bill authorizing the cutting of the partners’ canal to Liverpool was steered through the Parliament, ending in a Commons committee whose chairman was Thomas Gilbert.

Meanwhile, Benjamin Franklin had started the group on a new project--to coordinate the development of a practical steam engine: From London, Franklin wrote to Boulton (May 22, 1765):

``to introduce my Friend’‘ Dr. William Small, ``to your Acquaintance ... an ingenious Philosopher, & a most worthy honest Man’‘ and to ask ``if any thing new in Magnetism or Electricity or any other Branch of natural Knowledge has occurred to your fruitful Genius since I last had the Pleasure of seeing you, you will by communicating it, greatly oblige.’‘

Small, a native Scot, had emigrated to Virginia in 1758 to take a science and mathematics teaching assignment at William and Mary College. There Dr. Small, the Platonist law professor George Wythe, their student Thomas Jefferson, and Gov. Francis Fauquier, formed a regular string quartet. Franklin’s friendship with Dr. Small probably began in 1763 when Franklin visited Williamsburg, during his brief return to America. A hostile administration at the college soon afterwards forced Small to leave his post; Small and Franklin went to England in 1764. The following year, Small accepted Dr. Franklin’s momentous assignment.

On Franklin’s recommendation, Matthew Boulton instantly accepted William Small as his personal physician and overall industrial manager. Boulton had inherited a buckle-making shop upon his father’s death in 1759. He then built what was to become England’s first great manufacturing plant, the Soho works outside Birmingham, with power supplied--temporarily--by a water wheel. Now that Small had come from America, the pace of activity at the Soho plant increased dramatically.

In February 1766, Dr. Franklin gave his blunt testimony in Parliament against the notorious anti-American tax known as the Stamp Act. He warned that the British Empire would be destroyed if it persisted in looting the colonies. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act on Feb. 22, 1766, to the delight and applause of the world’s republicans. On that same historic day, Matthew Boulton wrote to Franklin from Birmingham, asking for his comments on the steam engine which Boulton and Small had built and had sent to Franklin in London:

``The addition you have made to my happiness in being the cause of my acquaintance with the amiable and ingenious Dr. Small deserves more than thanks.... I [introduce] to you my good friend Mr. Samuel Garbett ... a Zealous Advocate for Truth & for the rights of your oppress’d Countrymen....

``My engagements since Christmas have not permitted me to make any further progress with my fire-engines but, as the thirsty season [i.e., the dry season when the water levels were too low to provide power to the factory] is approaching apace, necessity will oblige me to set about it in good earnest. Query,--which of the steam valves do you like best? Is it better to introduce the jet of cold water at the bottom of the receiver ... or at the top? Each has its advantages and disadvantages. My thoughts about the secondary or mechanical contrivances of the engine are too numerous to trouble you with in this letter, and yet I have not been lucky enough to hit upon any that are objectionless ... if any thought occurs to your fertile genius which you think may be useful, or preserve me from error in the execution of this engine, you’ll be so kind as to communicate it to me....’‘

Erasmus Darwin wrote to Boulton on March 11, 1766, inquiring what Franklin had thought of the model steam engine and what he had suggested to improve it.

Franklin replied to Boulton on March 19:

``excuse my so long omitting to answer your kind Letter ... consider the excessive Hurry & Anxiety I have been engaged in with our American Affairs....

``I know not which of the Valves to give the preference to, nor whether it is best to introduce your Jet of Cold water above or below. Experiments will best decide in such Cases. I would only repeat to you the Hint I gave, of fixing your Grate in such a Manner as to burn all your Smoke. I think a great deal of Fuel will then be saved, for two Reasons.

``One, that Smoke is Fuel, and is wasted when it escapes uninflamed. The other, that it forms a sooty Crust on the Bottom of the Boiler, which Crust not being a good Conductor of Heat, and preventing Flame and hot Air coming into immediate contact with the Vessel, lessen their Effect in giving Heat to the Water. All that is necessary is, to make the Smoke of fresh Coals pass descending through those that are already thoroughly ignited. I sent the model last week, with your papers in it, which I hope got safe to hand.’‘

Franklin here was addressing a central question in steam engineering. Certain primitive devices were already in use, involving hot water vapor, such as the Newcomen engine. But only a tiny proportion of the energy in the fuel was translated into delivered power. This problem was to be solved definitively at Soho.

The canal partners meanwhile pushed ahead. They at length prevailed in Parliament and were allowed eminent domain to build south, completing the link from Manchester to Liverpool. The new law required toll-free shipment of road-building materials, so that all the national transport facilities could grow simultaneously.

Boulton, the Gilberts, and Bridgewater now initiated canal projects all over England, and ``canal mania’‘ changed the face of the island. Britain converted at once to the use of coal from distant mines for fuel, instead of burning local stands of timber. The mass manufacture of iron and steel was now practicable.

The World’s First Steam Engine Business

The Scottish mechanic-engineer James Watt was employed in 1767 to survey for the Forth and Clyde Canal. He went to visit the Soho works and met there with the manager, Dr. William Small. They talked of Watt’s own recent experiments with steam power in Scotland. Dr. Small wrote to Watt, Jan. 7, 1768, proposing the creation of a new firm:

``you should settle here, and Boulton and I assist you as much as we could.... I have no ... doubt of your success, nor of your acquiring fortune, if you proceed upon a proper plan as to the manner of doing business.... I should not hesitate to employ any sum of money I can command on your scheme....’‘

While working as scientific instrument-maker for the faculty at Glasgow University, Watt had studied French, German, and Italian, and had applied himself zealously to the study of music. He learned to repair violins, guitars, and flutes. He studied harmonic theory, and, in building first a model, and then a full-scale organ, he devised new means of regulating its stops, tuning, and air pressure.

Watt then studied the available French and Italian literature on steam research; he conducted rigorous experiments on gas dynamics.

While repairing a broken Newcomen engine, he conceived the separate condenser, the eventual basis of a practical steam engine. He led the steam away from the main cylinder, liquefied it with a cold jet, reheated and brought it back into action, while the cylinder could remain hot and do more work with less fuel.

As part of the negotiations to set up the world’s first steam engine business, William Small prepared a patent for Watt, which was tentatively approved on Jan. 6, 1769. With constant encouragement by Dr. Small, Watt finally moved to Birmingham in 1774; the partnership of Small, Boulton, and Watt, under Small’s patient and scientific management, pressed on and completed their first successful machine late that year. Watt was frequently depressed and despondent. Over the years, his return to an active working role was several times revived by the pleas, threats, and rewards of Small and Boulton. The Soho group invested perhaps £50,000 in the development, with no real profits until the 1780s.

The Soho steam engine became the driving force for the English industrial revolution only after a last, crucial improvement was made. At first, the piston was packed with stuffing material, to close the gap with the cylinder wall and prevent the loss of steam pressure and force. The cast iron cylinder could never be shaped evenly for a tight fit around the piston. Boulton proposed to ironmaster John Wilkinson that his cannon-boring machine tool be modified to produce an engine cylinder.

Wilkinson’s boring mill succeeded brilliantly, and Soho now made powerful, efficient steam engines, which Wilkinson used to run his furnace bellows, and to turn his machines. Here was the birth of many industries at once. Wilkinson produced all the tools and machine parts for Soho, and Wilkinson and Boulton jointly launched modern English copper mining. Ironically, English high-efficiency steelmaking, its origin closely identified with Wilkinson, Watt, and the Franklin republican circle, was later used by the British Empire as an instrument of nineteenth-century trade war against the American republic.

A Great Stride In Chemistry

Ironmaster John Wilkinson’s involvement with the Birmingham group arose on the basis of political and personal ties. His sister Mary and brother William were both pupils of the dissenting clergyman and schoolmaster, Joseph Priestley, who had married Mary Wilkinson in 1762. Priestley was to become celebrated as the discoverer of oxygen, after Benjamin Franklin made him a scientist.

The Wilkinson family, Thomas Bentley, and Josiah Wedgwood had patronized Priestley’s early teaching career. The latter’s devotion to reason and humanity led him to attack the government’s church, and its modes of worship. He became a Unitarian and was perhaps theologically confused, but he remained a Christian, though he was to suffer greatly for it.

In December 1765, Priestley was introduced to Franklin in London. The American took the 32-year-old schoolteacher under his wing, and worked Priestley’s nascent research interests into a passion for natural science as the most effective means for mankind’s advancement.

On Franklin’s request, Priestley wrote The History and Present State of Electricity, setting forth Franklin’s discoveries in the field as the basis of further scientific work. The book lauded the genius of Italian physicist Giambattista Beccaria, whose precise experimentation and calculations had proven Franklin’s theory of single-fluid, positive and negative electricity:

``All that was done by the French and English electricians, with respect to lightning and electricity, fell far short of what was done by Signior Beccaria at Turin.’‘

Beccaria’s follower Alessandro Volta later invented the electric battery after much collaboration with Priestley.

His book a success, Priestley was elected to the British Royal Society, on Franklin’s nomination. Papers that the Englishman Priestley afterward wrote for that society were submitted for him by the American, Franklin, his political and scientific guide.

Priestley’s work had immense global implications. He isolated the element in the air which supports life through respiration. He discovered how plants use the products of respiration; that plants renew the breathable element; and how light causes the growth of plants’ green substance.

The Anglophile establishment has falsely identified Joseph Priestley with the methodology and general outlook of nineteenth-century radicals such as the degenerate Jeremy Bentham. In 1775, when war was breaking out with the American colonies, Priestley was subjected to a campaign of slander as a purported plagiarist. Bentham joined that attack with his own criticisms of Priestley.

The scientist replied to a Bentham proposition that the friction of clouds causes lightning. Priestley said:

``He will excuse me if I observe, that I find no sufficient friction to produce electricity in the manner that he supposes. The motion that is perceived in small clouds during a thunderstorm seems to me to be the effect of preceding electricity.’‘

In 1780, he became in effect a paid staff member of the Boulton group, collaborating with Watt, Wedgwood, and others on diverse technical projects.

During a 1774 tour of continental Europe, Priestley met Antoine Lavoisier, and told the great French chemist of his discoveries regarding life processes. Lavoisier later gave the name ``oxygen’‘ to Priestley’s breathable element, and developed the chemical science of combustion.

Franklin depended heavily on Lavoisier to help swing the French decision to arm and ally with the Americans, in their War of Independence. Lavoisier’s chemistry was essential for the successful manufacture of the gunpowder behind the American bullets. Lavoisier was beheaded during the French Revolution Reign of Terror.

The End Of The Republican Enterprise

The firm of Small, Boulton, and Watt was incorporated in 1774, as the American Continental Congress was first meeting. War approached, and the climate chilled for republican activities in England. ``Treason!’‘ was cried against open friends of the colonies; mob violence and prosecution threatened them. Benjamin Franklin was himself repeatedly insulted and menaced in public gatherings; his Birmingham junto came under minute surveillance.

William Small died suddenly on Feb. 25, 1775, at the age of 41. No one has bothered to assign a cause to his death. Under circumstances of terror, Small’s body was thrown into an unmarked grave. Franklin left England forever, a few days later.

Matthew Boulton wrote to James Watt about Small:

``The ... curtain has fallen and I have this evening bid adieu to our once good and virtuous friend for ever and ever. If there were not a few other objects yet remaining for me to settle my affections upon, I should wish also to take up my abode in the mansions of the dead.’‘

After Small’s death, the Birmingham group was secretly organized as the Lunar Society; only Priestley would ever speak openly about it, many years later.

Canal partner Josiah Wedgwood was publicly identified with the American cause, though he had to be very cautious. His pottery plant struck two heroic portrait medallions in 1777: the American commander, George Washington, and the Revolution’s global coordinator, Benjamin Franklin. After the war, Wedgwood produced medallions depicting a Negro slave with his chains broken, and sent several to Franklin for his use as America’s anti-slavery leader.

Matthew Boulton, under close scrutiny, made a proper parade of his loyalty to the Crown. Yet Franklin wrote Boulton from his wartime French headquarters on July 25, 1780, paying for the fine paper Boulton had sent him, and ordering three letter-copying machines invented by James Watt, about which Boulton had informed him.

Franklin’s networks made other technological breakthroughs. Clergyman Edmund Cartwright invented the power loom in 1784, and applied Boulton and Watt engines for the first time to textile manufacturing. Cartwright’s motive was explicitly that of a republican Christian: Increased productive power would dignify the lives of the workers. Edmund Cartwright later invented a wool-combing machine. His inventions were to be of great manufacturing importance, but he was ousted from productive business by creditors. Edmund’s brother, Maj. John Cartwright, founded The Society for Constitutional Information in 1780. Major Cartwright had refused a commission to fight the Americans, declaring that as human rights come from God, they cannot be taken away by any man.

Boulton and Watt toured France in 1787 as guests of the French government. English ironmaster John Wilkinson now taught the French the art of cannon-boring, supplied them with artillery and other vital military equipment, and helped build the Paris waterworks.

By 1791, the British oligarchy had mounted a broad counter-campaign against the republican movement. Their improvised mob terror was devastating France; U.S. President George Washington’s administration was barraged with slander against the nationalist chief, Alexander Hamilton. With Britain poised for another war with America’s ally, France, the Birmingham junto came under the long-expected attack.

The slogan was, ``Down with the French Revolutionists,’‘ on July 14, 1791, as an officially sanctioned ``rioting mob’‘ sacked and burned Joseph Priestley’s Birmingham house and laboratory, and two churches where he preached. Troops led by Lord Shelburne’s Scottish lieutenant Henry Dundas then invaded Birmingham to ``restore order.’‘ King George III said he was sorry for the disturbance, but was glad it had happened to Priestley. The Priestley family was forced to emigrate to America.

After the Birmingham riot, James Watt attended the next Lunar Society meeting wearing a pistol for protection. But the society was crushed, ceased functioning, and soon disbanded. Cartwright’s Society for Constitutional Information came under police attack and infiltration. Society member Tom Paine, the Englishman whom Franklin had recruited to the American cause, escaped to France.

The open-ended project for science and industry, which could easily have been extended to develop the entire world in short order, was aborted in England. The enterprises begun in the 1760s and 1770s had created such immense public wealth that they could only be controlled, not cancelled. Britain would not again introduce strategically important technology to the world.

THE CHINESE MODEL FOR AMERICA’S CANALS - ROBERT FULTON by Anton Chaitkin

Engineer Robert Fulton, anxious to guard America’s newly won independence, told his countrymen to use the method of ancient China: build a system of artificial waterways for internal commerce.

In his 1796 “Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation”, Fulton said that China’s status as a great nation was due largely to the grand canal, commissioned centuries before by the central Chinese government. Farmers received supplies, and sent food to city dwellers, on the canal. Like a healthy main blood-artery, the 800 mile canal unified China by promoting prosperous trade throughout the kingdom.

Since China could feed and clothe its workers without imports, it could keep free of foreign control.

Encouraged by Benjamin Franklin and President George Washington, Fulton learned canal-building in England from Franklin’s old friends, creative engineers whose careers had been stifled by the British police. Fulton then campaigned for rapid American national growth through a canal system of both state and private enterprise. The republic needed beneficial private companies, Fulton said, which must differ from the British East “India [opium sellers] or Guinea [slave traders] Company...who blindly extirpate one half of the human race to enrich the other.”

In those days the British Navy policed all the oceans, preventing other nations’ commercial development. With American secret service money provided by Alexander Hamilton, Robert Fulton went to France and designed submarines intended to sink the British Imperial fleet.

Back in America, Fulton crusaded for industrial and military strength through waterway development. The world remembers him chiefly for building the first commercially successful steamboat, in 1807. He then campaigned for the building of a canal to open the American interior. This great project was postponed as America entered its second war against imperial Britain in 1812, and Fulton built crude steam frigates for the tiny U.S. navy.

Robert Fulton died in 1815, just as the state government of New York began construction of the Erie Canal. Fulton had accurately predicted the wonderful effect of the China-model project on America’s national power. Completed 10 years later, the Erie Canal instantly created new cities and farming regions in New York State, opened the west to settlement, and made New York City rich with the products of the whole country.

More canals were then built by the national and state governments. New settlers moved immediately into the regions of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin along the lines of the new canals. They were now in cheap and fast communication with suppliers in the East and with markets around the world. The canal-born pioneer settlements soon became the agricultural and industrial center of the American economy.

HENRY CAREY RIPPED BRITAIN’S “FREE TRADE” LOOTING SYSTEM

Excerpts from Henry Carey’s “The Harmony of Interests”

Henry C. Carey, largely written out of today’s ``revisionist’‘ history books, is to be credited, perhaps more than any other single individual, with pursuing the policies which kept alive the American System. From the late 1840s until his death in 1879, Carey organized in support of Alexander Hamilton’s dirigist system of political economy. His leadership in that effort, especially as exercised through Abraham Lincoln’s Treasury Department, enabled much of the nineteenth-century technological development of the United States to take place.

Henry Carey’s background is rooted in republican humanist traditions. His father, Mathew Carey, was an Irish republican revolutionary, strongly influenced by circles who were, in turn, influenced by Jonathan Swift. Mathew Carey was kicked out of Ireland for ``defaming the British’‘ when he resurrected Swift’s Modest Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures. He then made his way to France, where he worked with Benjamin Franklin and General Lafayette. Upon his arrival in the United States, Carey became an ardent supporter of Hamilton.

The following are selections from Henry Carey’s The Harmony of Interests: Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial, first published in 1851, and reprinted by Augustus M. Kelley, New York, 1967. The subheads correspond to Carey’s own chapter titles.

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How protection tends to increase production and consumption

A great error exists in the impression now very commonly entertained in regard to national division of labour, and which owes its origin to the English school of political economists, whose system is throughout based upon the idea of making England ``the workshop of the world,’‘ than which nothing could be less natural. By that school it is taught that some nations are fitted for manufactures and others for the labours of agriculture, and that the latter are largely benefited by being compelled to employ themselves in the one pursuit, making all their exchanges at a distance, thus contributing their share to the maintenance of the system of ``ships, colonies, and commerce.’‘ The whole basis of their system is conversion and exchange, and not production, yet neither makes any addition to the amount of things to be exchanged. It is the great boast of their system that the exchangers are so numerous and the producers so few, and the more rapid the increase in the proportion which the former bear to the latter, the more rapid is supposed to be the advance toward perfect prosperity. Converters and exchangers, however, must live, and they must live out of the labour of others: and if three, five, or ten persons are to live on the product of one, it must follow that all will obtain but a small allowance of the necessaries or comforts of life....

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Why is it that protection is required?

The object of the colonial system was that of ``raising up a nation of customers,’‘ a project ``fit only,’‘ says Adam Smith, ``for a nation of shopkeepers.’‘ He was, however, inclined to think, that even for them it was unfit, although ``extremely fit for a nation whose government was influenced by shopkeepers.’‘ As early as the period immediately following the Revolution of 1688, we find the shopkeeping influence exerted for the ``discouragement’‘ of the woolens manufacture of Ireland; and while the people of that unfortunate country were thus prevented from converting their own wool into cloth, they were by other laws prevented from making any exchanges with the fellow-subjects in other colonies, unless through the medium of English ports and English ``shopkeepers.’‘

Such being the case, it was little likely that any efforts at combination of exertion among distant colonists, for rendering labour more productive of the conveniences and comforts of life, should escape the jealous eyes of men whose shopkeeping instincts had prompted them to the adoption of such measures in regard to nearer ones. The first attempt at manufacturing any species of cloth in the American provinces was followed by interference on the part of the British legislature. In 1710, the House of Commons declared, ``that the erecting of manufactories in the colonies had a tendency to lessen their dependence upon Great Britain.’‘ Soon afterwards complaints were made to Parliament, that the colonists were setting up manufactories for themselves, and the House of Commons ordered the Board of Trade to report upon the subject, which was done at length. In 1732, the exportation of hats from province to province was prohibited, and the number of apprentices to be taken by hatters was limited. In 1750, the erection of any mill or other engine for splitting or rolling iron was prohibited; but pig-iron was allowed to be imported into England duty-free, that it might then be manfactured and sent back again. At a later period, Lord Chatham declared, that he would not allow the colonists to make even a hob-nail for themselves....

We see thus, that the whole legislation of Great Britain, on this subject, has been directed to the one great object of preventing the people of her colonies, and those of independent nations, from obtaining the machinery necessary to enable them to combine their exertions for the purpose of obtaining cloth or iron, and thus compelling them to bring to her their raw materials, that she might convert them into the forms that fitted them for consumption, and then return to the producers a portion of them, burdened with great cost for transportation, and heavy charges for the work of conversion. We see, too, that notwithstanding the revocation of a part of the system, it is still discretionary with the Board of Trade, whether or not they will permit the export of machinery of any description....

The whole system [of British free trade] has for its object an increase in the number of persons that are to intervene between the producer and the consumer--living on the product of the land and labour of others, diminishing the power of the first, and increasing the number of the last; and thus it is that Ireland is compelled to waste more labour annually than would be required to produce, thrice over, all the iron, and convert into cloth all the cotton and wool manufactured in England. The poverty of producers exists nearly in the ratio in which they are compelled to make their exchanges in the market of Great Britain....

The manufacturers of India have been ruined, and that great country is gradually and certainly deteriorating and becoming depopulated, to the surprise of those people of England who are familiar with its vast advantages, and who do not understand the destructive character of their own system.

The impoverishing effects of the system were early obvious, and to the endeavour to account for the increasing difficulty of obtaining food where the whole action of the laws tended to increase the number of consumers of food and to diminish the number of producers, was due the invention of the Malthusian theory of population, now half a century old. That was followed by the Ricardo doctrine of Rent, which accounted for the scarcity of food by asserting, as a fact, that men always commenced the work of cultivation on rich soils, and that as population increased they were obliged to resort to poorer ones, yielding a constantly diminishing return to labour, and producing a constant necessity for separating from each other, if they would obtain a sufficiency of food. Upon this theory is based the whole English politico-economical system. Population is first supposed to be superabundant, when in scarcely any part of the earth could the labour of the same number of persons that now constitute the population of England obtain even one-half the same return. Next, it is supposed that men who fly from England go always to the cultivation of rich soils, and therefore everything is done to expel population. Lastly, it is held that their true policy when abroad is to devote all their labour to the cultivation of those rich soils, sending the produce to England that it may be converted into cloth and iron, and they are cautioned against any interference with perfect freedom of trade as ``a war upon labour and capital.’‘

Colonization is urged on all hands, and all unite in the effort to force emigration in the direction needed to raise up ``colonies of customers.’‘ It is impossible to read any work on the subject without being struck by the prevalence of this ``shopkeeping’‘ idea. It is seen everywhere. Hungary was to be supported in her efforts for the establishment of her independence, because she was willing to have free trade, and thus make a market for British manufactures. The tendency of the Ricardo-Malthusian system to produce intensity of selfishness was never more strikingly manifested than on that occasion.

We thus have here, first, a system that is unsound and unnatural, and second, a theory invented for the purpose of accounting for the poverty and wretchedness which are its necessary results. The miseries of Ireland are charged to over-population, although millions of acres of the richest soils of the kingdom are waiting drainage to take their place among the most productive in the world, and although the Irish are compelled to waste more labour than would pay, many times over, for all the cloth and iron they consume. The wretchedness of Scotland is charged to over-population when a large portion of the land is so tied up by entails as to forbid improvement, and almost forbid cultivation. The difficulty of obtaining food in England is ascribed to over-population, when throughout the kingdom a large portion of the land is occupied as pleasure grounds, by men whose fortunes are due to the system which has ruined Ireland and India. Over-population is the ready excuse for all the evils of a vicious system, and so will it continue to be until that system shall see its end....

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How protection affects commerce

Men are everywhere flying from British commerce, which everywhere pursues them. Having exhausted the people of the lower lands of India, it follows them as they retreat toward the fastnesses of the Himalaya. Afghanistan is attempted, while Scinde [Sindh] and the Punjab are subjugated. Siamese provinces are added to the empire of free trade, and war and desolation are carried into China, in order that the Chinese may be compelled to pay for the use of ships, instead of making looms. The Irishman flies to Canada; but there the system follows him, and he feels himself insecure until within this Union. The Englishman and the Scotsman try Southern Africa, and thence they fly to the more distant New Holland, Van Dieman’s Land, or New Zealand. The farther they fly, the more they must use ships and other perishable machinery, the less steadily can their efforts be applied, the less must be the power of production, and the fewer must be the equivalents to be exchanged, and yet in the growth of ships, caused by such circumstances, we are told to look for evidence of prosperous commerce!

The British system is built upon cheap labour, by which is meant low priced and worthless labor. Its effect is to cause it to become from day to day more low priced and worthless, and thus to destroy production upon which commerce must be based. The object of protection is to produce dear labour, that is, high-priced and valuable labour, and its effect is to cause it to increase in value from day to day, and to increase the equivalents to be exchanged, to the great increase of commerce....

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How protection affects the farmer

...Let us look now to what would be the effects of the adoption of perfect freedom of trade, as urged upon the world by England. It could not fail to be that of riveting upon the world the existing monopoly of machinery for the conversion of the products of the farm and the plantation into cloth and iron, closing the factories and furnaces of Russia, Germany, and the United States, and compelling the people who work in them to seek other modes of employment, and the only recourse would be to endeavour to raise food. There would then be more food to sell; but who would buy it?

The producers of the world have been, and they are now being, sacrificed to the exchangers of the world; and therefore it is that agriculture makes so little progress, and that the cultivators of the earth, producers of all that we consume, are so universally poor, and so generally uninstructed as to their true interests....

The object of protection is that of diminishing the distance and the waste between the producer and the consumer; thereby enabling the producer to grow rich, and to become a large consumer of cloth and iron.

There is a perpetual complaint of over-production, and it is a matter of rejoicing when, by reason of short seasons, or any other occurrence, the crop is diminished 200,000 or 300,000 bales, the balance producing more in the market of the world than could otherwise have been obtained for the whole. No better evidence need be desired that there exists some error in the distribution.

Over-production cannot exist, but under-consumption may and does exist. The more that is produced, the more there is to be consumed; and as every man is a consumer in the exact ratio of his production, the more he can produce the better will it be for himself and his neighbour, unless there exist some disturbing cause, preventing the various persons desiring to consume from producing what is needed for them to effect their exchanges with the planter, to the extent that is necessary to their comfort.

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How protection affects the landowner

In Europe ... population is held to be superabundant. Marriage is regarded as a luxury, not to be indulged in, lest it should result in increase of numbers. ``Every one,’‘ it is said, ``has a right to live,’‘ but this being granted, it is added that ``no one has a right to bring creatures into life to be supported by other people.’‘ Poor laws are denounced, as tending to promote increase of population.... Labour is held to be a mere ``commodity,’‘ and if the labourer cannot sell it, he has no ``right’‘ but to starve--himself, his wife, and his children.... Such are the doctrines of the free-trade school of England, in which Political Economy is held to be limited to an examination of the laws which regulate the production of wealth, without reference to either morals or intellect. Under such teaching it is a matter of small surprise that pauperism and crime increase at a rate so rapid.

Every colony of England would gladly separate from her, feeling that connection with her is synonymous with deterioration of condition. Every one would gladly unite its fortunes with those of our Union, feeling that connection with us is synonymous with improvement. The reason for all this is, that the English system is based upon cheap labour, and tends to depress the many for the benefit of the few. In our system, it is the many who govern; and experience having taught them that prosperity and free trade are inconsistent with each other, we have ``free trade’‘ tariffs with protective duties of thirty percent, and likely to be increased. The colonies are ruined by free trade, and they desire annexation, that they may have protection.

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How protection affects the labourer

In England, the power to obtain food, clothing, or iron, for labour, is small, and it tends to diminish with ... every diminution in the proportion that applies itself to production, because with each such step there is a necessity for greater exertion to underwork and supplant the Hindoo, whose annual wages even now are but six dollars, out of which he finds himself in food and clothing. With every step downwards, labour is more and more becoming surplus, as is seen from the growing anxiety to expel population, at almost every present sacrifice....

Here lies the error of communism and socialism. They seek to compel union, and to force men to exchange with each other, the necessary effect of which is to sink the whole body to the level of those who are at the bottom.

So too, is it with nations. The industrious community that raises food and is dependent on the idle one that makes iron must give much of the one for little of the other. The peaceful community that raises cotton and is dependent on the warlike one that raises silk, must give much cotton for little silk. Dependence on others for articles of necessity thus makes a community of goods, and the sober and industrious must help to support the idle and the dissolute--nations as well as individuals....

The policy of England has tended to produce communism among nations. She has rendered herself dependent upon other communities for supplies of the articles of prime necessity, obtaining her rice from the wretched Hindoo, her corn from the Russian serf, and her wool from the Australian convict, neglecting her own rich soils that wait but the application of labour to become productive.

The necessary consequence of this is a tendency downwards in the condition of her people, and as it is with those of England that those of this country are invited to compete, it may not be amiss to show what is the condition to which they are now reduced by competition with the low-priced labour of Russia and of India.

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How protection affects morals

The whole tendency of the [free-trade] system is to the production of a gambling spirit. In England, it makes railroad kings, ending in railroad bankrupts, like Henry Hudson. If we could trace the effect of the great speculation of which this man was the father, we should find thousands and tens of thousands of husbands and wives, parents and children, utterly beggared to build up the fortunes of the few, and thus increase the inequality of social condition which lies at the root of all evil. If we examine it here, we see it ... sending thousands of boys and girls to our cities--the former to become shopmen, and the latter prostitutes, while hundreds of thousands are at the same time making their way to the West.... With every step of our progress in that direction, social inequality tends to increase. The skilful speculator realizes a fortune by the same operation that ruins hundreds around him, and adds to his fortune by buying their property under the hammer of the sheriff. The wealthy manufacturer is unmoved by revulsions in the British market which sweep away his competitors, and, when the storm blows over, he is enabled to double, treble, or quadruple, his already overgrown fortune.... The system tends to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The coal miner of present year works for half wages, but the coal speculator obtains double profits, and thus is it ever--the producer is sacrificed to the exchanger....

The whole system of trade, as at present conducted, and as it must continue to be conducted if the colonial system be permitted longer to exist, is one of mere gambling, and of all qualities, that which most distinguishes the gambler is ignorant selfishness. He ruins his friends and wastes his winnings on a running-horse, or on a prostitute.

In England, a large portion of the people can neither read nor write, and there is scarcely an effort to give them education. The colonial system looks to low wages, necessarily followed by an inability to devote time to intellectual improvement. Protection looks to high wages that enable the labourer to improve his mind, and educate his children. The English child, transferred to this country, becomes an educated and responsible being. If he remain at home, he remains in brutish ignorance. To increase the productiveness of labour, education is necessary. Protection tends to the diffusion of education, and the elevation of the condition of the laborer....

If we desire to raise the intellectual standard of man throughout the world, our object can be accomplished only by raising the value of man ... throughout the world. Every man brought here is raised, and every man so brought tends to diminish the supposed surplus of men elsewhere. Men come when the reward of labour is high, as they did between 1844 and 1848. They return disappointed when the reward of labour is small, as is now the case. Protection tends to increase the reward of labour, and to improve the intellectual condition of man.

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Conclusion

Much is said on ``the mission’‘ of the people of these United States, and most of it is said by persons who appear to limit themselves to the consideration of the powers of the nation, and rarely to think of its duties. By such men the grandeur of the national position is held to be greatly increased by having expended sixty or eighty millions upon a war with a weak neighbour....

The English doctrine of ``ships, colonies, and commerce’‘ is thus reproduced on this side of the Atlantic, and its adoption by the nation will be followed by effects similar to those which have been already described as existing in England. There, for a time, it gave the power to tax the world for the maintenance of fleets and armies, as had before been done by Athens and by Rome, and there it is now producing the same results that have elsewhere resulted from the same system: poverty, depopulation, exhaustion, and weakness.

Two systems are before the world; the one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labour of all; while the other looks to increasing the proportion engaged in the work of production, and diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with increased return to all, giving the labourer good wages, and to the owner of capital good profits. One looks to increasing the quantity of raw materials to be exported, and diminishing the inducements to imports of men, thus impoverishing both farmer and planter by throwing on them the burden of freight; while the other looks to increasing the import of men, and diminishing the export of raw materials, thereby enriching both planter and farmer by relieving them from payment of freight. One looks to giving the products of millions of acres of land and of the labour of millions of men for the services of hundreds of thousands of distant men; the other to bringing the distant men to consume on the land the products of the land, exchanging day’s labour for day’s labour. One looks to compelling the farmers and planters of the Union to continue their contributions for the support of the fleets and the armies, the paupers, the nobles, and the sovereigns of Europe; the other to enabling ourselves to apply the same means to the moral and intellectual improvement of the sovereigns of America. One looks to the continuance of that bastard freedom of trade which denies the principle of protection, yet doles it out as revenue duties; the other by extending the area of legitimate free trade by the establishment of perfect protection, followed by the annexation of individuals and communities, and ultimately by the abolition of customs-houses. One looks to exporting men to occupy desert tracts, the sovereignty of which is obtained by aid of diplomacy or war; the other to increasing the value of an immense extent of vacant land by importing men by millions for their occupation. One looks to the centralization of wealth and power in a great commercial city that shall rival the great cities of modern times, which have been and are being supported by aid of contributions which have exhausted every nation subjected to them; the other to concentration, by aid of which a market shall be made upon the land for the products of the land, and the farmer and planter be enriched. One looks to increasing the necessity of commerce; the other to increasing the power to maintain it. One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world.

Such is the true mission of the people of these United States. To them has been granted a privilege never before granted to man, that of the exercise of the right of perfect self-government; but, as rights and duties are inseparable, with the grant of the former came the obligation to perform the latter. Happily their performance is pleasant and profitable, and involves no sacrifice. To raise the value of labour throughout the world, we need only to raise the value of our own. To raise the value of land throughout the world, it is needed only that we adopt measures that shall raise the value of our own. To diffuse intelligence and to promote the cause of morality throughout the world, we are required only to pursue the course that shall diffuse education throughout our own land, and shall enable every man more readily to acquire property, and with it respect for the rights of property. To improve the political condition of man throughout the world, it is needed that we ourselves should remain at peace, avoid taxation for the maintenance of fleets and armies, and become rich and prosperous. To raise the condition of women throughout the world, it is required of us only that we pursue that course that enables men to remain at home and marry, that they may surround themselves with happy children and grand-children. To substitute true Christianity for the detestable system known as the Malthusian, it is needed that we prove to the world that it is population that makes the food come from the rich soils, and that food tends to increase more rapidly than population, vindicating the policy of God to man....

To substitute true Christianity for the detestable system known as the Malthusian, it is needed that we prove to the world that it is population that makes the food come from the rich soils, and that food tends to increase more rapidly than population, vindicating the policy of God to man.

HENRY CAREY AND WILLIAM McKINLEY: THE AMERICAN SYSTEM Vs. BRITISH SYSTEM FREE TRADE LOOTING by Marcia Merry-Baker and Anton Chaitkin

What Is the American System?

U.S. citizens, and even economists and historians in this country, have often never heard of the “American System” of economics which made our nation great. Worse yet, many confuse it with the British System of free trade and looting.

In the nineteenth century, however, our leading statesmen not only understood the American System, but promoted it, and campaigned for it, in their political speeches. They understood that our nation, even the world, was in a life or death battle against the British System of economics.

Americans must understand that their noble identity lies in fighting the British system of economics. That is the only pathway out of the current crisis.

Here, we begin a series of articles explaining the American System in the words of national leaders who implemented it, such as Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln. We begin with from the writings and speeches of President Lincoln’s economics adviser, Henry C. Carey, and President William McKinley, both before and after he entered the White House in 1896. The ferocity of the political battle between America and our historical adversary Great Britain, an implacable adversary of American System economics, is attested to by the fact that McKinley, America’s 25th President, was assassinated by British-linked anarchist Leon Czolgosz, six months after his election to a second term in 1900. The Anglophile Teddy Roosevelt, who reversed all of the Lincoln-McKinley economic policies, took office.

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From Henry Carey’s Harmony of Interests, 1851

Henry C. Carey, adviser to Abraham Lincoln, and perhaps the leading American System economist, wrote extensively exposing the failure of the British free trade approach and demonstrating the success of the American System. The following comes from Henry Carey’s book,The Harmony of Interests, written in 1851.

``Much is said of `the mission’ of the people of these United States, and most of it is said by persons who appear to limit themselves to the consideration of the powers of the nation, and rarely to think of its duties.

``Two systems are before the world; the one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labour of all; while the other looks to increasing the proportion engaged in the work of production, and diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with increased return to all, giving to the labourer good wages, and to the owner of capital good profits. One looks to increasing the quantity of raw materials to be exported, and diminishing the inducements to the import of men, thus impoverishing both farmer and planter by throwing on them the burden of freight; while the other looks to increasing the import of men, and diminishing the export of raw materials, thereby enriching both planter and farmer by relieving them from the payment of freight. One looks to compelling the farmers and planters of the Union to continue their contributions for the support of the fleets and armies, the paupers, the nobles and the sovereigns of Europe; the other to enabling ourselves to apply the same means to the moral and intellectual improvement of the sovereigns of America. One looks to the continuance of that bastard freedom of trade which denies the principle of protection, yet doles it out as revenue duties; the other to extending the area of legitimate free trade by the establishment of perfect protection, followed by the annexation of individuals and communities, and ultimately by the abolition of custom-houses. One looks to exporting men to occupy desert tracts, the sovereignty of which is obtained by aid of diplomacy or war; the other to increasing the value of an immense extent of vacant land by importing men by millions for their occupation. One looks to increasing the necessity for commerce; the other to increasing the power to maintain it. One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other in increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world.

``Such is the true mission of the people of these United States.... To raise the value of labour throughout the world, we need only to raise the value of our own.... To improve the political condition of man throughout the world, it is that we ourselves should remain at peace, avoid taxation for maintenance of fleets and armies, and become rich and prosperous.... To diffuse intelligence and to promote the cause of morality throughout the world, we are required only to pursue the course that shall diffuse education throughout our own land, and shall enable every man more readily to acquire property, and with it respect for the rights of property. To substitute true Christianity for the detestable system known as the Malthusian, it is needed that we prove to the world that it is population that makes the food come from the rich soils, and food tends to increase more rapidly than population, thus vindicating the policy of God to man.”

Carey attacked British Free Trade economics as a system that destroys national agro-industrial productivity, reduces consumption, destroys freedom, and causes war:

``Two systems are before the world: on the one hand, that which is denominated protection, and on the other that which is denominated free-trade.

``A great error exists in the impression now very commonly entertained in regard to national division of labour, and which owes its origin to the English school of political economists, whose system is throughout based upon the idea of making England `the workshop of the world,’ than which nothing could be less natural. By that school it is taught that some nations are fitted for manufacturers and others for the labours of agriculture, and that the latter are largely benefitted by being compelled to employ themselves in the one pursuit, making all their exchanges at a distance, thus contributing their share to the maintenance of the system of `ships, colonies, and commerce.’ The whole basis of their system is conversion and exchange, and not production, yet neither makes any addition to the amount of things to be exchanged. It is the great boast of their system that the exchangers are so numerous and the producers so few, and the proportion which the former bear to the latter, the more rapid is supposed to be the advance towards perfect prosperity. Converters and exchangers, however, must live, and they must live out of the labour of others: and if three, five, or ten persons are to live on the product of one, it must follow that all will obtain but a small allowance of the necessaries or comforts of life, as is seen to be the case.

``The object of free-trade is proclaimed to be the increase of commerce, but commerce withers under it.

``We thus have here, first, a system that is unsound and unnatural, and second, a theory invented for the purpose of accounting for the poverty and wretchedness which are its necessary results.

``The object of what is now called free-trade is that of securing to the people of England the further existence of the monopoly of machinery, by aid of which Ireland and India have been ruined, and commerce prostrated. Protection seeks to break down this monopoly, and to cause the loom and the anvil to take their natural places by the side of the food and the cotton, and that production may be increased, and that commerce may revive....

``The object of protection has been, and is, to restore the natural tendency by which industrial manufacturing takes its place by the side of the producer of food (national self-sufficiency), thus reducing substantially transportation fees and middle men sales costs and bringing about the stabler self-sufficient communities and nations.”

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McKinley vs. Free Trade

William McKinley was a U.S. Congressman in 1882 when he spoke on the tariff policy, and on the social conditions won for the people by nationalists associated with Abraham Lincoln. McKinley distinguished between a low tariff for purposes of collecting tax revenue only, and a higher tariff which deliberately protects native industries against trade war by foreign powers.

McKinley asked his fellow Congressmen: who originated the free trade, low tariff policy?

``Who has demanded a tariff for revenue only.... What portion of our citizens? What part of our population? not the agriculturalist; not the laborer; not the mechanic; not the manufacturer; [there is] not a petition before us, to my knowledge, asking for an adjustment of tariff rates to a revenue basis.”

Congressman McKinley answered his own question:

``England wants it, demands it--not for our good, but for hers; for she is more anxious to maintain her old position of supremacy than she is to promote the interests and welfare of the people of this republic, and a great party in this country voices her interest.... She would manufacture for us, and permit us to raise wheat and corn for her. We are satisfied to do the latter, but unwilling to concede to her the monopoly of the former.”

The future President then explained why the British system was not appropriate to the United States:

``...|Free trade may be suitable to Great Britain and its peculiar social and political structure, but it has no place in this republic, where classes are unknown, and where caste has long since been banished; where equality is a rule; where labor is dignified and honorable; where education and improvement are the individual striving of every citizen, no matter what may be the accident of his birth, or the poverty of his early surroundings. Here the mechanic of today is the manufacturer of a few years hence. Under such conditions, free trade can have no abiding place here.”

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American System Agriculture

Five years later, on Dec. 13, 1887, Congressman McKinley spoke to a farmers’ organization called the Ohio State Grange. He set forth the political reasoning behind his agricultural policy. It was the policy of the American Revolution, and of Abraham Lincoln, who had given free land to family farmers. It was an argument for the practical realization of the democratic republic, against the European feudal system. What McKinley said is still valid today against the British-Swiss food cartels, and a rebuke to populists misguided by British anti-industrial propaganda:

``Tell me how land is held, and I can tell you almost to a certainty the political system of the coutry, its form of government, and its political character. When land is divided into small farms, the property ... of those who till them, there is an inducement, ambition, and facility for independence, for progress, for wider thought and higher attainments in individual, industrial life. Over such a population no government but a free one, under equal laws and equal rights, with equal opportunities, can exist for any length of time. The small farm, thoroughly worked, was the ancient model, commended by the early sages and philosophers; as old Virgil put it, `Praise a large farm, cultivate a small one.’

``We must avoid in this country the holding of large tracts of land by non-resident owners for speculative purposes, and set our faces like flint against alien land-holding in small or large tracts. Our public domain must be re-dedicated to our own people, and neither foreign syndicates nor domestic corporations must be permitted to divert it from the hallowed purposes of actual settlement by real farmers.

``One of the great lessons of history is that agriculture cannot rise to its highest perfection and reach its fullest development without the aid of commerce, manufactures, and mechanical arts. All are essential to the healthy growth and highest advancement of the others; the progress of one insures the prosperity of the others. There are no conflicts, there should be no antagonisms. They are indispensable to each other. Whatever enfeebles one is certain to cripple the rest.”

Congress passed in 1890 a great protectionist tariff bill, which was known as the “McKinley Act,” in honor of its author who was the principal spokesman for the nationalist policy. McKinley commented that his 1890 Act had “no friends in Europe.”

Having been elected Ohio’s governor, William McKinley spoke in Boston Oct. 4, 1892, on the purposes of his legislation. He showed how the strong-central-government economic system, identified with American Revolution and with Lincoln’s American Union, improves life for the common people, as compared to the British Free Trade system:

“We ... are opposed to British political economy.... Free trade shaves down [the workingman’s] labor first, and then scales down his pay by rewarding him in a worthless and depreciated State currency.”

On the question of federal government control of currency and credit, McKinley told the Boston crowd:

“The currency of this country should be as national as its flag. It should be as unsullied as the national conscience and as sound as the government itself. And there is not a business man or working man, no matter to what political party he belongs, if he will honestly vote his convictions, who will not vote against the party that proposes to re-establish a system under which this country lost millions upon millions of dollars. We have had all the Confederate currency we want. We are for a United States currency in some form for all time in the future. We are not only opposed to Confederate currency, but we are opposed to British political economy. We not only fight for our industries and our labor, that they may be prosperous and well-paid, but we insist that when they have earned their money they shall be paid in a dollar worth full one hundred cents. When a workingman gives ten hours a day to his employer--ten full hours--he is entitled to be paid in a dollar worth full one hundred cents. Free trade shaves down his labor first, and then scales down his pay by rewarding him in a worthless and a depreciated State currency.”

On the protective tariff, McKinley said:

``[Anti-nationalists say] that protection is unconstitutional.... I know of but one constitution which it violates and that is the constitution of the Confederate [slave] States.... But we are not operating under it. That instrument went down under the resistless armies of Grant and Sherman and Sheridan, and the constitution of Washington and Lincoln was sustained.

“Unconstitutional?.... They do not seem to know that the man who made the first Protective Tariff law we ever had, in 1789 ... made the Constitution of the United States. James Madison, a member of the Constitutional Convention, and who afterwards became President ... reported that bill to Congress. It passed the House of Representatives, composed ... largely of members of the Constitutional Convention[,] ... unanimously, and passed the Senate ... by a vote of five to one, and in that body were a large number of men who made the Constitution itself. And that Protective Tariff law was signed by George Washington, President of the United States.

“They put into the preamble of that law ... `We levy these duties to raise money to pay the debts of the government; to provide money for the expenses of the United States, and to encourage and protect manufactures in the United States....’

“Ah, but [the anti-nationalists] say, if you had not had the Protective Tariff things would be a little cheaper. Well, whether a thing is cheap or dear depends upon what we can earn by our daily labor. Free trade cheapens the product by cheapening the producer. Protection cheapens the product by elevating the producer. Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man.

“[It is said] that protection is immoral.... Why, if protection builds up and elevates 63,000,000 [the U.S. population] of people, the influence of those 63,000,000 of people elevates the rest of the world. We cannot take a step in the pathway of progress without benefitting mankind everywhere. Well, they say, `Buy where you can buy the cheapest’.... Of course, that applies to labor as to everything else. Let me give you a maxim that is a thousand times better than that, and it is the protection maxim: `Buy where you can pay the easiest.’ And that spot of earth is where labor wins its highest rewards.

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America Booms

“What has this Protective Tariff law of 1890 done? Why, it has increased factories all over the United States. It has built new ones, it has enlarged old ones.... [For example, we] used to buy our buttons made in Austria by the prison labor of Austria. We are buying our buttons today made by the free labor of America. We had 11 button factories before 1890; we have 85 now. We employed 500 men before 1890, at from $12 to $15 a week; we employ 8,000 men now, at from $18 to $35 a week.

“...|Well, but, they said, this tariff law of 1890 was going to increase the price of necessaries of life, and was going to diminish the wages of labor. It has done neither. The necessities of life are cheaper today than they were 18 months ago. The commodities that go into the household of every man and woman are cheaper today ... and the price of labor has increased to some extent.”

The McKinley Act of 1890 was a serious blow to British global power. Teddy Roosevelt’s intimate friend and guide, British diplomat Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, complained in a letter to London:

“We must count on the present tariff for a year and a half at least ... probably for much longer. We must reconcile ourselves to it and look for new markets. A serious aspect of it is the reciprocity clause, which drives us out of the W[est] Indies and S[outh] America.”

McKinley was elected President in 1896, campaigning against the British Free Trade doctrine. He immediately put through Congress yet another bill increasing the tariff protection for American industry.

In the years of McKinley’s presidency, the U.S. economy surged ahead.

Comparing 1896 (the last year of his pro-Free Trade predecessor) to 1901 (when McKinley was murdered), the average value per hectare of farm production increased 48 percent, while industrial and mineral production increased as follows: copper +31 percent, lead +50 percent, coal +53 percent, zinc +73 percent, iron ore +80 percent, cement +111 percent, steel +155 percent, railroad rails +156 percent. (1) The dollar value of production increased, for locomotives and railroad cars +73 percent, musical instruments +125 percent, farm equipment +149 percent, ships and boats +211 percent, electrical equipment (industrial and commercial) +271 percent; meanwhile, the average hourly earnings for workers in all U.S. industry increased by an estimated 10 percent. (2)

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Notes

• 1. Guetter, Fred J., Statistical Tables Relating to the Economic Growth of the United States(Philadelphia: McKinley Publishing Co., 1924).

• 2. Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789-1945 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1949).

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Captions

``Two systems are before the world.... One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system ... the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world....”

Henry C. Carey, economics adviser to Abraham Lincoln.

William McKinley, 25th President of the United States.

``Free trade cheapens the product by cheapening the producer. Protection cheapens the product by elevating the producer. Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave.”

``Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man.”

The British system: Southern blacks work the cotton fields in 1879, more than 15 years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

U.S. Steel Corporation

The American System: (left) U.S. steelworkers around the turn of the century; (right) the Manchester Locomotive Works in Manchester, N.H., circa 1870.

HENRY CLAY: NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT MUST TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER DEBT PAYMENTS by Anton Chaitkin

On Feb. 2, 3, and 6, 1832, Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky delivered a speech, entitled “In Defense of the American System, Against the British Colonial System.” Clay defended the American System of government-guided development of industry, from the attack of British agents of influence in northern and southern states.

Henry Clay had recently completed a term as U.S. Secretary of state (1825-29), in which post he had ably advanced and defended the joint interests and independence of the new republics in North and South America, urging the adoption of the anti-colonial principles of the American Revolution for all developing nations.

The instruments of the American Svstem included: the Bank of the United States -- run by American nationalists -- controlling speculators and guaranteeing cheap credit for farmers and developers; tariffs to protect home industry against foreign trade war; and growing government expenditures for the creation of roads, canals, and rail lines.

South Carolina was threatening to secede from the Union unless the protective system were ended. The anti-national (”Free Trade” or what would today be termed a “pro-free market”) movement was led by the former U.S. Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin of Switzerland. During his own long reign at the Treasury (1801-14), Gallatin had canceled the Founding Fathers’ industrial development program and had virtually dissolved the American armed forces, using the money instead to “try to pay off the national debt.”

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“[The] decision on the system of policy embraced in this debate, involves the future destiny of this growing country. One way...it would lead to deep and general distress; general bankruptcy and national ruin; the other, the existing prosperity will be preserved and augmented, and the nation will continue rapidly to advance in wealth, power and greatness....

“Eight years ago, it was my painful duty to present to the other House of Congress, an unexaggerated picture of the general distress pervading the whole land. We must all yet remember some of its frightful features. We all know that the people were then oppressed and borne down by an enormous load of debt; that the value of property was at the lowest point of depression; that ruinous sales and sacrifices were everywhere made of real estate [such as forced sales of farms]; that stop laws and relief laws [i.e., debt moratoria] and paper money were adopted to save the people from impending destruction; that a deficit in the public revenue existed, which compelled Government to seize upon, and divert from its legitimate object, the appropriation to the sinking fund to redeem the national debt....

“[Today by contrast] we behold cultivation extended, the arts flourishing, the face of the country improved, our people fully and profitably employed...a People out of debt; land rising slowly in value, but in a secure and salutary degree; a ready, though not extravagant market for all the surplus productions of our industry; innumerable flocks and herds browsing and gamboling on ten thousand hills and plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses; our cities expanded, and whole villages springing up, as it were, by enchantment; our exports and imports increased and increasing; our tonnage [shipping], foreign and coastwise, swelling and fully occupied; the rivers of our interior animated by the perpetual thunder and lightning of countless steam boats; the currency sound and abundant; the public debt of two wars nearly redeemed; and, to crown all, the public treasury overflow- ing....

“This transformation of the condition of the country from gloom and distress to brightness and prosperity, has been mainly the work of American legislation, fostering American industry, instead of allowing it to be controlled by foreign legislation, cherishing foreign industry....

“It is now proposed to abolish the system, to which we owe so much of the public prosperity...I have been aware that, among those who were most eagerly pressing the payment of the public debt, and, upon that ground, were opposing appropriations to other great interests [i.e., to pay debts develop and defend the nation, there were some who cared less about the debt than [preventing] the accomplishment of other objects. But the People- of the United States, have not coupled the payment of their public debt with the destruction of the protection of their industry....If it is to be attended or followed by the subversion of the American system, and an exposure of our establishments and our productions to the unguarded consequences of the selfish policy of foreign Powers, the payment of the public debt will be the bitterest of curses. Its fruit will be like the fruit “Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste “Brought death into the world, and all our woe, “With loss of Eden.” “ ...[There] is scarcely an interest, scarcely a vocation in society, which is not embraced by the beneficence of this system [of govemment promotion and deliberate development].... “ ...When gentlemen have succeeded in their design of an immediate or gradual destruction of the American System, what is their substitute? Free trade! Free trade! The call for free trade, is as unavailing as the cry of a spoiled child, in its nurse’s arms, for the moon or the stars that glitter in the firinament of heaven. It never has existed; it never will exist....

“Gentlemen deceive themselves. It is not free trade that they are recommending to our acceptance. It is, in effect, the British colonial system that we are invited to adopt; and, if their policy prevail, it will lead, substantially, to the recolonization of these States, under the commercial dominion of Great Britain. And whom do we find some of the principal supporters, out of Congress, of this foreign system? Mr. President, there are some foreigners who always remain exotics, and never become naturalized in our country: whilst, happily, there are many others who readily attach themselves to our principles and our institutions....

“But, Sir, the gentleman [Albert Gallatin...or Henry Kissinger?] to whom I am about to allude, although long a resident of this country, has no feelings, no attachments, no sympathies, no principles, in common with our People. Nearly fifty years ago, Pennsylvanias took him to her bosom, and warmed, and cherished, and honored him; and how does he manifest his gratitude? By aiming a vital blow at a system endeared to her by a thorough conviction that it is indispensable to its prosperity. . . .

“To [recommend] the. . . theories by Mr. Gallatin...to favorable consideration. . . [South Carolina’s Senator Robert Y. Hayne] has cited a speech by my Lord Goderich, addressed to the British Parliament, in favor of free trade....I dislike this resort to authority, and especially foreign and interested authority, for the support of principles of public policy. I would greatly prefer to meet gentlemen on the broad ground of fact, of experience, and of reason; but since they will appeal to British names and authority, I feel myself compelled to imitate their bad example. Allow me to quote from the speech of a member of the British Parliament, bearing the same family name with my Lord Goderich...: “It was idle for us to endeavor to persuade other nations to join with us in adopting the principles of what was called ‘free trade.’ Other nations knew...what we meant by ‘free trade’ was nothing more nor less than...to prevent them, one and all, from ever becoming manufacturing nations....The policy that France acted on, was that of encouraging its native manufactures, and it was a wise policy; because if it were freely to admit our manufactures, it would speedily be reduced to the rank of an agricultural nation; and therefore a poor nation, as all must be that depend exclusively upon agriculture. America acted too upon the same principle with France. America legislated for futurity -- legislated for an increasing population...since the peace, France, Germany, America, and all the other countries of the world, had proceeded upon the principle of encouraging and protecting native manufactures.”

“But I have said that the system nominally called “free trade”...is a mere revival of the British colonial system, forced upon us by Great Britain during the existence of our colonial vassalage. The whole system is fully explained and illustrated in a work published as far back as 1750, entitled “The trade and navigation of Great Britain considered, by Joshua Gee”....In that work the author contends--

1. “That manufactures, in the American colonies, should be discouraged or prohibited...we ought always to keep a watchful eye over our colonies, to restrain them from setting up any of the manufactures which are carried on in Britain; and any such attempts should be crushed in the beginning: for, if they are suffered to grow up to maturity, it will be difficult to suppress them....

2. “The advantages to Great Britain from keeping the colonists dependent upon her for their essential supplies...not one-fourth part of their product redounds to their own profit: for, out of all that comes here, they only carry back clothing and other accommodations for their families; all of which is the merchandise and manufacture of this kingdom....

“All these advantages we receive by the plantations, besides the mortgages on the planters’ estates, and the high interest they pay us, which is very considerable; and therefore very great care ought to be taken, in regulating all affairs of the colonists, that the planters be not put under too many difficulties, but encouraged to go on cheerfully.”

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But the British colonial authorities had taken no heed of warnings, and had squeezed the American colonists beyond their endurance. The Americans had fought back in the Revolution of 1775-1782. British cavalrymen had broken into and ransacked the house of the four-year-old Henry Clay, who watched while enemy soldiers thrust swords into the grave of his recently-dead father, looking for treasure.

Senator Clay remembered these scenes, while recommending to his countrymen the American over the British system of economics.

THE LESSONS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN by Rochelle Ascher

Rochelle Ascher submitted the following speech to the annual conference of the International Caucus of Labor Committees and the Schiller Institute in Vienna, Virginia on Sept. 5. Her speech was delivered on her behalf by her husband John. Ascher, the first associate of Lyndon LaRouche to be convicted in the Virginia ``get LaRouche’‘ political trials, began serving her 10-year sentence on June 15. She is appealing her frameup to the U.S. Supreme Court.

There has not been in American history, until Lyndon LaRouche, a man such as Abraham Lincoln. When we look at the situation in the world today, and that in the U.S., the situation Lincoln found himself in was equally, if not more, devastating. Surrounded by traitors on all sides, with a totally bankrupt economy, he acted as no one expected him to act. The economic mobilization carried out during those four years, under conditions of brutal war in which more Americans died than in World Wars I and II combined, is unparalleled in U.S. and, possibly, world history.

When Lincoln was elected, he received no electoral votes in 15 states and no popular votes in 10. While he received 1.8 million votes, his three opponents together received 2.8 million. In the four months before his inauguration, five states seceded from the Union--the rest of the Confederacy shortly thereafter. By the time he took office, civil war was only weeks away.

The U.S. was bankrupt. For 30 years it had been the victim of British economic measures. Jackson’s dismantling of the Bank of the United States, followed by Polk’s Independent Treasury Act of 1846, and the free trade treason of Presidents Van Buren, Tyler, Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan, had placed the U.S. totally under the control of the Baring and Rothschild-allied New York banks of Astor and Gallatin. In 1857, the U.S. went totally bust; the banks collapsed, factories closed, business came to a standstill. Hunger and unemployment were widespread. The Treasury was empty. Congress had not been paid.

The Buchanan administration, as Anton Chaitkin has amply documented, was indistinguishable from the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite. These freemasonic traitors had been working actively for months to disarm Northern federal arsenals while equipping the Southern rebel states. Citizens demonstrated throughout Northern cities, as tons of military hardware were stolen and shipped south for an attack on the U.S., with the connivance of the vice president and at least three cabinet members.

Lincoln’s Gethsemane

The most telling description of the situation the country faced following Lincoln’s election appears in an interchange between Lincoln himself, and one of his closest friends, Judge Gillespie, in the days before the inauguration:

“...Gillespie,’‘ said he, ``I would willingly take out of my life a period in years equal to the two months which intervene between now and my inauguration to take the oath of office now.’‘ ``Why?’‘ I asked. ``Because every hour adds to the difficulties I am called upon to meet, and the present administration does nothing to check the tendency toward dissolution. I, who have been called to meet this awful responsibility, am compelled to remain here, doing nothing to avert it or lessen its force when it comes to me.’‘

I said that the condition of which he spoke was such as had never risen before, and that it might lead to the amendment of such an obvious defect in the federal Constitution.

``It is not of myself I complain,’‘ he said, with more bitterness than I have ever heard him speak, before, or after. ``But every day adds to the difficulty of the situation, and makes the outlook more gloomy. Secession is being fostered rather than repressed, and if the [secession] doctrine meets with a general acceptance in the border states, it will be a great blow to the government.’‘

Our talk then turned upon the possibility of avoiding a war. ``It is only possible,’‘ said Mr. Lincoln, ``upon the consent of this government to the erection of a foreign slave government out of the present slave states....

``I see the duty revolving upon me. I have read, upon my knees, the story of Gethsemane, where the Son of God prayed in vain that the cup of bitterness might pass from him. I am in the Garden of Gethsemane now, and my cup of bitterness is full and overflowing....’‘

I then told him that as Christ’s prayer was not answered and His crucifixion had redeemed the great part of the world from paganism to Christianity, so the sacrifice demanded of him might be a great beneficence. Little did I then think how prophetic were my words to be, or what a great sacrifice he was called upon to make.

President Lincoln received news from Fort Sumter that it was threatened the very morning after his inauguration. For the next 1,503 days, he mobilized as if drinking from that cup of Gethsemane every single day.

With Lincoln invoking the full powers of the presidency, the Civil War created the emergency conditions for Lincoln and his Whig advisers to carry out the most sweeping reorganization of the economy along American System principles since the founding of this country three-quarters of a century earlier.

Today, as we look around the world, particularly at the situation in eastern Europe, Lincoln’s lesson to us--the reinstitution of the American System under emergency conditions--must be understood.

The breathtaking economic development program which Lincoln designed not only saved the nation and won the war, but remained in effect long enough after his assassination for the U.S. to become the world’s greatest industrial power and to remain so for years to come.

Lincoln’s policies as President were a result of a 30-year fight by him for the reinstitution of the American System against British free trade. Without going through the history, suffice it here to say that he did not arrive at this out of the blue--as a young man he was a student and devout admirer of [Henry] Clay and Mathew Carey. In his first election day speech, at the age of 21, he announced his commitment to the American System: ``My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal improvements system and a high tariff.’‘

He led the fight for internal improvements for eight years in the Illinois state legislature and for a national bank and protective tariff as the national spokesman for the Whig Party during every presidential campaign and his own single term in Congress. But he was not in a position to implement these policies until under the emergency conditions of a wartime mobilization, when he was able to force them through.

Lincoln’s history as an American System economist is virtually blacked out of the history books. The other problem is that no historians understand what Carey and Lincoln and we understand--that slavery and free trade belong to a single evil system--which had to be defeated.

Formed in response to Kansas-Nebraska, the Republican Party was anti-slavery, but many of its leaders were rabid free-traders. Carey and Lincoln knew that it was an absolute necessity to win the platform fight at the 1860 convention to not only attack slavery, but to include a total commitment to Hamiltonian American System economics. Carey and Lincoln spent four years organizing for such a policy. Much of this agitation was initiated by the Home Protective Union of Pennsylvania, of which Carey was president. The four years of organizing paid off: Of the 17 planks adopted, 8 dealt with slavery, the rest with the political economy of the American System, including reestablishing the Bank of the United States, railroads, internal improvements, and restoration of a protective tariff.

Fighting the British-backed New York banks

So, what was it that Lincoln did that forced the British to murder him?

When Lincoln took office, Congress was out of session. The only available means Lincoln had to finance the war effort was to go to the Associated Banks of New York, run by British agents Gallatin and Astor. The government depended upon these banks for specie, and the government budget was financed through the sale of bonds to these banks. America was then mortgaged to Britain, as the U.S. debt was sold overseas to the Rothschild and Baring banking houses.

But, Carey and his circles organized an alternative, whose spirit was set forth by Lincoln in his famous Dec. 3, 1861 ``Annual Address to Congress.’‘ The significance of this address cannot be overstated, as the British were well aware.

Lincoln’s emergency economic measures included:

1. a nationally regulated private banking system, which would issue cheap credit to build industry;

2. the sale of long-term, low-interest bonds (5:20s) to the general public and to the nationally chartered banks;

3. the increase of tariffs until industry was running at full tilt;

4. government construction of railroads into the middle South, promoting industrialization over the Southern plantation system--what Carey called ``a peace-winning program’‘ to industrialize the South.

The national banks were intended to serve a useful purpose by being both investors in the future wealth of the U.S. through the purchase of 20-year bonds at 5% (the 5:20s) and through the issuance of long-term, low-interest loans to manufacturers, as well as by acting as a medium for the circulation of currency. Instead of selling the U.S. debt to the British, the citizens would buy the debt. The policy was identical to Hamilton’s: The debt would be the basis for credit for industrial development.

James Gallatin, the New York Associated Banks, and their friends in the British government went nuts. On Dec. 28, 1861, they suspended specie payment to the government. They suspended payment of gold owed to their depositors, and stopped transferring to the government the gold which they had pledged for the purchase of government bonds. The banks of other cities immediately followed suit. They came to Washington to present their alternative to Lincoln: high-interest bonds to be sold to the European banking syndicates; deposit of U.S. government gold in private banks for the investment use of the bankers; and a tax on basic industry to finance the war.

Lincoln showed the bankers the door, something which could be usefully repeated all over the world today.

While Lincoln fought the Eastern bankers, the Treasury issued several hundreds of millions of new greenbacks. Jay Cooke was employed to become sole agent for the 5:20 bonds. Carey’s associates Colwell and Elder prepared the propaganda to sell the bonds, and were appointed to posts in the Treasury Department. Cooke sold over $1.3 billion worth of bonds to the citizens of the U.S. between 1862 and 1865.

The original bill authorizing the sale of the 5:20 bonds contained no provision for paying the interest on the bonds in gold. If the bill as prepared by Thaddeus Stevens’s House Ways and Means Committee had passed the Congress, it would have had the effect of severing the domestic economy of the U.S. from the British early in Lincoln’s administration.

The British pound sterling at the time was the world reserve currency. But, before the bill was passed, August Belmont and James Gallatin worked out a compromise with Congress which allowed the bonds to be purchased with greenbacks, but the interest to be paid in specie.

This compromise was the first step in pegging the value of the U.S. national currency, the greenback, to gold, and allowed August Belmont and other New York merchants engaged in the export-import trade to speculate in gold through the Associated Banks and thus create fluctuations in the greenback as measured by the British gold standard.

Lincoln had to bring the national banks under his control, out of the condition of anarchy and treason. Lincoln succeeded, through the enactment of two bills, the National Currency Act of February 1863, and the National Banking Act of June 1864.

Since the time of Andrew Jackson’s removal of government deposits from the Bank of the United States, there was no national bank and no national currency, which, in effect, meant no national sovereignty. Each bank issued its own notes. In January of 1862, there were 1,496 banks in the U.S., 7,000 legitimate notes and 5,500 counterfeit notes. The specie payment on these notes was now suspended.

Banks had no one in the federal government to answer to--only state banking inspectors, who were frequently bribed. The banks had little or no capitalization or reserves, and operated often solely on the connections of the bank’s chairman. Banks promoting the most outrageous schemes and responsible to no one were the order of the day. The large private banking houses, like the House of Morgan, used large credit lines from Europe to add to the chaos.

Lincoln attacked the British dominated banks through the following steps:

• First of all--strict federal supervision of bank chartering, eliminating chaotic state banking practices. State chartered banks fell from 1,466 to 297, while federal banks increased to over 1,600.

• Secondly--regulations were imposed covering minimum capitalization, reserve requirements, the definition of bad debts, reports on financial condition and identity of ownership and other elements of safety to depositors. Every bank director had to be an American citizen, and three-quarters of a bank’s directors had to be residents of the state in which the bank did business. Interest rates were limited by state usury laws, with the maximum allowable rate set at 7%.

• The third step concerned the control of currency. There were to be two kinds of legal money: greenbacks and bank-issued notes. Government-authorized bank-issued notes were strictly regulated. Banks were required to deposit bonds with the Treasury to qualify as a circulator of notes, and strict specie and money reserves were also required.

During the war, $450 million in greenbacks were issued. It is doubtful the war could have been won without the issuance of the greenbacks. By creating $450 million worth of greenbacks, Lincoln increased, by increasing government credit, government spending by 300%! The revolutionary nature of the greenbacks, of putting a nation in charge of its own currency, cannot be overstated. The Venetian system of finance was based upon limiting payment to gold, and controlling the gold supply, as was the Venetian-inspired British system.

Revolutionary improvements

The other key elements of the American System, beyond the national banking system, which Lincoln implemented were the system of protective tariffs and internal improvements.

• Protectionism: Congress passed the Morill Tariff in early 1861, the highest protective tariff to date, then through the middle of 1864, new tariff bills, pushing rates even higher, were introduced and passed. By the end of the war, the average rate on goods subject to duty stood at 47%, compared with 18.8% at the start of the war.

• Infrastructure and internal improvements: In 1862, the U.S. Congress chartered and pledged grants of land and subsidies to finance the construction of the first transcontinental railroad.

After Lincoln’s assassination, Congress continued to finance massive railroad construction. The effect of this on the nation’s future was astounding. In the second half of the 19th century, the railroads, along with the steel industry, were the ``science drivers’‘ of the American economy. The technology of railroad production involved pneumatic brakes, blasting through and grading tracks on inclines through mountains, the making of durable bridges to ford rivers, and the abundant use of different grades of iron and steel. The connection of the country by rail increased traveling speed two to three times, allowing rapid development of the West. Railroad mileage went from 45,000 miles in 1865 to 167,000 in 1890. By 1900, the U.S. had over 193,000 miles, more than all of Europe combined. The number of patents issued rose from 883 in 1850 to over 14,000 in 1876.

Additionally, Lincoln proposed and saw implemented measures for a national and international network of telegraphic communications, the development of the Land Grant College system, establishing the state college system for instruction in agronomy and the mechanical arts, the creation of the National Academy of Sciences, ``to investigate, examine, experiment and to report upon any subject of science or art,’‘ and the U.S. Coast Survey, which quickly became the largest employer of physical scientists in the U.S., with the largest budget ever allowed a scientific bureau connected with the government.

Lincoln also organized a new Bureau of Navigation in 1862, which totally revolutionized the U.S. Navy. He also, saw to the creation of the Department of Agriculture, whose purpose, as Lincoln stated in his famous 1859, Wisconsin State Agricultural Society speech was, ``to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before.’‘ As a result, Lincoln revolutionized American agriculture. Through Lincoln’s policies, wheat and corn production tripled in the three decades following the Civil War.

With such measures, and the passage of the Homestead Act opening up vast areas of the American West for settlement, and his Immigration Act, recruiting waves of new immigrants, Lincoln guaranteed development for decades to come.

Standardization and mass production were introduced for production of war matériel, starting with uniforms and coats. This was the first time clothing had ever been produced outside of cottage industries. Steel production, which essentially did not exist in the United States before Lincoln, grew by leaps and bounds. The Bureau of Labor reported in 1886 that in the previous 20 years, productivity had increased 40-80% in agricultural implements, footwear, in machines and machinery, and other areas.

The U.S. population almost tripled between 1860 and 1902: from 31 million to 92 million. Immigrants flocked to and were welcomed into the United States. Finally, the U.S. shifted from a rural to an urban society. Philadelphia became the leading industrial city in the U.S., and possibly in the world. Chicago was transformed from a small town into a major urban center in a few years.

Free trade traitors counterattack

But the British-allied Northern bankers and their congressional spokesmen forced several compromises, while the British government itself organized every possible opposition.

Frantic over the American System financial policy, the British began a massive organizing drive in the U.S. in support of free trade. John Stuart Mill and Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone controlled the Cobden Clubs--Britain’s worldwide agitators for free trade. These were heavily deployed into the free trade wing of the Republican Party and abolitionist movement.

There was speculation on Wall Street to depreciate the greenbacks, by Belmont and other New York merchants engaged in export-import trade.

The second compromise forced on Lincoln was his appointment of British agent and rabid free-trader Hugh McCullough as first Comptroller of the Currency, which he had to do to get enough votes to pass the National Banking Act. Lincoln appointed McCullough in March of 1865, one month before the war’s end.

Lincoln and Carey were quite aware of the problem created by such compromises. Several steps were taken. First, at Lincoln’s request, Thaddeus Stevens authored a bill to outlaw all sale of gold in the New York Gold Room.

Just three days before Lincoln’s death, McCullough initiated an attack on Lincoln with an open letter to Carey in the Chicago Tribune, in which he called for a reduction of the protective tariff, an immediate return to specie (elimination of the greenback), and contraction of the currency. The article was accompanied by the following excerpt from the London Times:

``He [McCullough] is what few Americans are; a sound political economist. He has studied the philosophy and theory as well as the practice. To read his letters and treatises anyone who did not know that he was American might imagine that he was an Englishman or a Scotsman, who had never embraced the delusion so prevalent on this side of the Atlantic, that as the resources of America are not half developed it is competent to American statesmen to run riot in world experiment and set as defiance the dearly bought experience of older communities. McCullough is, as far as his published opinions testify, a worthy successor of Adam Smith, Mill, Ricardo....’‘

Lincoln responded with a brutal attack on McCullough--and was killed three days later. In fact, just before his assassination, Lincoln and Carey were making major moves to wipe out some of the most pernicious British-controlled New York banks. They had already severely restricted their speculative real estate loans by law.

In fact, on the day he was assassinated, Lincoln was considering the problem of how to combat speculation by bringing the national currency (the greenbacks) up to par value without contracting the supply. He was planning to break with the British gold standard altogether. At Lincoln’s request, Carey wrote a series of open letters to Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax that were titled, ``How to Defeat England without Fighting Her.’‘ Carey argued against the heteronomy with which U.S. economic policy was carried out. Carey said that Lincoln had been forced to put his signature to bills that he did not consider in the national interest.

Carey called for the creation of a national economic policy planning body under the control of the Executive branch, which Lincoln did set up shortly before his death, called the Commission on Revenue.

The corrupt Johnson administration

Lincoln’s assassination constituted a virtual coup d’état. The British had succeeded in wiping out with a single bullet the hope of the world.

Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, in his inaugural address, signaled a total reversal of Lincoln’s economic policy. He called Lincoln’s tariff ``a clearly recognized outrage.’‘ He concluded his inaugural with the statement: ``Free trade with all the markets of the world is the true theory of government.’‘

Almost the entire Johnson cabinet were outright British agents or corrupted by British ideology. In late 1865, McCullough officially announced his intention of reversing the American System and all that Lincoln fought for. His policy was to rapidly contract the national currency (the greenback) and return the nation immediately to specie payments and direct taxation of productive wealth (looting) to pay off the national debt. Within the context of a policy which called for destroying the nation’s industrial base to pay off foreign debts, any positive program for reconstruction of the South was impossible.

The congressmen and senators allied with Carey launched a counterattack in defense of Lincoln’s program--that action, even if rear guard at times, was responsible for the continued growth of American industry and the scientific development of the last three decades of the 19th century, which turned this nation into the most technologically advanced nation in the world.

Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon LaRouche

In conclusion, Abraham Lincoln, like Lyndon LaRouche today, demanded that leadership required for taking responsibility directly upon our shoulders.

In his Second Annual Address to Congress in 1862, he said:

Fellow citizens,

The fact that Lyndon LaRouche sits in a federal prison, while the fate of 6 billion souls depends on his freedom and the implementation of his economic policy, defines the task at hand.

If Lincoln could do it, with what he faced, so, too, can we. We must free LaRouche to bring back to this dying nation and this dying world that for which Lincoln and so many others gave their lives--

“FREE TRADE IS FOR BARBARIAN TRIBES” - SPEECH GIVEN DURING THE TARIFF DEBATES OF 1852 by Thaddeus Stevens

Congressman from Pennsylvania Thaddeus Stevens, who during the Civil War and the period of ``reconstruction’‘ afterward was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and Republican majority leader, was a staunch supporter of the economic outlook of Henry Clay’s ``American System.’‘ He was a central figure in 1861 in the re-establishment of those American System policies, ensuring that the war could be successfully prosecuted, and with it allowing for the most massive economic expansion in this nation’s history. He was, as well, the central figure in the effort to ensure that those policies would be continued after the war, and that the institutions of the South shaped by British free trade would be eliminated from American soil. This speech, in opposition to free trade, given in the tariff debates of 1852, makes clear the outlook that the ``American System’‘ core of the Republican Party had toward such questions.

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The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Rantoul] supports these grants to railroad companies on the principles of free trade. It is not my intention to discuss at much length the doctrine of free trade. That has been so amply done of late, both orally and in writing, as to become tedious.

But although the theory has been much discussed, it has never been reduced to practice, except among barbarian tribes. I think gentlemen cannot point to a single highly-civilized commercial and manufacturing nation capable of producing the raw material, that has ever adopted it. Every highly-cultivated nation has made the protection of domestic industry the special care of Government. It has been found by the experience of more than twenty centuries that the protection of domestic manufactures by prohibitions, discriminating duties, and commercial regulations, has been, and is, the true, natural, and wise policy of nations, or all history is a lie. It is a mistake to suppose that the elevation of one national interest is the depression of others, as is more than insinuated by the Baltimore platform [platform of the Democratic Party--ed.], which is intended, not only for all kinds of men, but for every fowl of the air, fish of the sea, four-footed beasts, and especially for every creeping thing to stand upon. All classes of national industry, like the arts and sciences, are bound together by one common band. All flourish or languish together.

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Manufactures come first

Manufactures, in every age, have been the especial handmaid of agriculture and commerce. Select from history any example that you please--take Tyre, which was perhaps as highly commercial as any nation of her time. She was also the furthest advanced in manufactures. Many of her fabrics have scarcely ever been excelled. Her dyes have passed into proverb. She transplanted her policy with her colony to Carthage, which soon became a powerful--the most powerful maritime nation of her time. The same cause has produced the same effect wherever it has existed in ancient or modern times--at Syracuse, at Genoa, and Venice. But the most powerful example of the influence of manufactures on the commerce and wealth of nations, is to be found in the case of Holland.

Up to the end of the reign of Charles I Holland was the workshop of Europe. Her ingenious and industrious mechanics and manufacturers produced not only enough for their own country, but large surpluses to export to other nations. That surplus furnished employment for a large number of her own vessels, which took her fabrics to other countries, and brought back rich cargoes, not merely for her own consumption, but for the supply of neighboring markets. While other nations were trafficking in the bulky raw materials of little value, she was dealing in the same material, increased a hundred fold in value by the industry and skill of her people. Thus she commanded the market of every country, and not only enriched her mechanics and manufacturers, but her traders and shippers became merchant princes. She had more wealth than any other nation, and her commercial marine exceeded in number the ships of all the other nations of Europe together. Her war vessels also exceeded that of any other nation. All this wealth, all this commerce, all this power, was produced by a country of small circumference and with little agricultural advantages. It was done by manufactures alone. How did she lose this superiority, and what country has gained it, and by what means?

Whatever else may be said of the English Puritans, it is certain that the Commonwealth under Cromwell produced some of the ablest statesmen of the world.

England, at that time, was a poor nation, with but few manufacturing establishments. Her wise men saw that her insular position, and her small territory, rendered it impossible for her to become rich and powerful except through commerce and manufactures....

England has acquired all this power, wealth, and grandeur through her protective policy alone. And now she preaches ``free trade’‘ to others--to young nations! And there are found shallow dupes who swallow the bait!

It is often objected to a protective tariff, that it is for the benefit of the rich capitalists. This argument, I know, is never used by statesmen, or writers on political economy; but often by demagogues, who fancy themselves statesmen.

Now, sir, it is easy to show that protection against foreign competition is mainly for the benefit of the laborer. True, it helps the capitalist; for it is impossible to benefit labor without aiding capital, and it is impossible to benefit capital without aiding labor.

I have said that protection would principally benefit labor. The chief value of most manufactured articles consists in labor. Take iron for an example. The cost of a ton of pig-metal in the most favorable locations in this country, is about $20. The capital invested consists of the real estate--the furnace and land for fuel and ore. Of the $20 cost, the labor in producing the ore, coal, and smelting, amounts to about $18 per ton. Not more than $2 is capital. Any protection given to iron is given to the laborer in the proportion of $9 to $1 to capital.

The whole of the labor, to be sure, is not done by the collier, the miner, and the furnace hands--a part of it is the labor of the farmer, the miller, and the butcher, who supply the grain, beef, and other provisions. Still, the protection is mainly to the laborious industry of the country. So it is with fabrics of cotton and wool. The value of the raw material is increased by the labor of the operatives from 4 to 20 times. And a great part of the value of the raw material is the effect of labor, not capital. Whoever, therefore, sustains the protection of domestic industry, sustains the labor of the people; whoever opposes it, votes for their oppression and poverty.

I have said that every branch of national industry is dependent on every other, and partakes of its prosperity or depression. But, perhaps no class is so largely benefited by protection as the farmers, as none contributes so largely to the power and independence of nations. If it were necessary that either commerce or agriculture should sacrifice something to the other, let it be commerce. It is possible to push foreign trade too far. Cicero, in his treatise on the Republic, says that the reason of the great weakness of Carthage, was that she gave too much attention to her shipping, and neglected agriculture. The wealth of the farmer arises from his surplus products. And their value depends upon a ready, a handy, and a constant market. The nearer to his farm you bring that market, the better for him. The farmer who must send his produce from Pennsylvania to England for a market, must deduct from the price the cost of freight. The farmer in Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois, who sends his to the sea-board, and thence to Europe, finds half the price consumed in carriage. If each had as good a market in his own State, he would save all that expense, and double his profits.

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How to build the home market

How are you to create that market? In the same way that other nations have done. Build up manufacturing villages, towns, and cities in your own land. Your surplus provisions now go to a distant market, to feed those who make your cloths, your cottons, and your iron. If those consumers were within ten mile of you, instead of three thousand or four thousand miles, how much more profitable would farming be! Give the home market to your own manufactures, and you would find flourishing cities filled with consumers springing up on your numerous water-falls, from Maine to Missouri. So it was that England built Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Glascow, and all her other manufacturing cities. Under this system not only would such establishments exist in the Atlantic States, but they would swarm in the vast world that lies north and west of the Ohio.

The true policy of this country is to build up large manufacturing and commercial cities on the great lakes and the waters that feed the Mississippi. There is perhaps no country in the world of equal extent more fertile than that valley. A few years will fell the forests, and reduce it to cultivation. Where will that vast grain-growing country find a market for its products?

One gentleman [Mr. Rantoul] advises them to build railroads, and send it to New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, instead of consuming it at home; but they should recollect, that when they have got it there, they will find no market. They have simply taken it to the place of embarkation to a European market--a poor and uncertain market. They are taught that the true policy is to raise the raw material, of great bulk and little value, to carry five thousand miles to a precarious market! They are not even to encourage a market for it in Pennsylvania, New York, or Massachusetts.

It seems to me that the interest of the Northwest is, to find their market beyond the Alleganies; why should not the shores of the great lakes and rivers become the seat of the great manufacturing and commercial towns and cities, as well as the shores of Euxine and the Baltic?

Suppose all the people of the West to be agriculturists, and to bring their produce to the Atlantic cities for a market, what would be the effect on the farmers this side of the Alleganies--of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York? The Eastern market would be glutted by Western produce, and the prices so depressed as to destroy the farming interests of the Middle States. Land in Pennsylvania and New York would greatly sink in value, and all stimulants to industry be taken away. Surely this free trade is a lovely system, which not only casts its blight on the manufacturer and laborer, but reduces real estate to half its value!

It is a question of serious import, whether this country will ever become sufficiently manufacturing to produce enough for her own consumption, and furnish for exportation. It is very certain that under the free-trade system she never will. It is just as certain that she may soon become so if she follows the system which gave England her present preeminence. Take iron, and see how England fostered its growth from infancy to its present gigantic stature.

THE LEGACY OF FRIEDRICH LIST’S “NATIONAL SYSTEM OF POLITICAL ECONOMY” by Lawrence Freeman and Marsha L. Bowen

Friedrich List (1789-1846) lived and consciously deployed himself as part of three republican networks that were at political war with the British empire: the Prussian Reformers movement in Germany, the Ecole Polytechnique of France, and the heirs of the American Revolution. After being imprisoned at the behest of Prince Metternich for his attempts at reforms in Wurttemberg, the German-born List was invited by the French hero of the American Revolution, General Lafayette, to join him on his triumphal tour of the United States in 1825. List lived in Pennsylvania for several years, where he worked with the Careys, Henry Clay, and John Quincy Adams to build the fight for protective tariffs for industry. After 1830, he returned to Germany to implement the American System there. Known as the ``Father of the German Railways,’‘ he was perhaps the most outspoken opponent of free trade in the world. His book The National System of Political Economy, translated into numerous languages, has served since 1841 as a manual on how to fight the evils of British cosmopolitan ``free trade’‘ system of looting to build an empire.

Opposing the physiocratic notion of the landed oligarchy and the British-Swiss-Venetian banking interests, List believed that the creative powers of human mentation were a nation’s greatest wealth. When he had returned to Europe, he wrote that the greatest book he had read in America was the book of life: to see the potential of a new republic for growth, if put under proper economic policies. The economic policies of List are alive today in the battle in Europe to build the ``Productive Triangle’‘ railway project envisioned by Lyndon LaRouche.

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Refutation of Smith

In his first Letter from Reading to the General Convention at Harrisburg, in 1827, List stated that he would concentrate on ``the refutation of the theory of Adam Smith and Co., the fundamental errors of which have not yet been understood so clearly as they ought to be.”

``It is this theory, sir, which furnishes to the opponents of the American System the intellectual means of their opposition.... Boasting of their imaginary superiority in science and knowledge, these disciples of Smith and Say are treating every defender of common sense like an empiric whose mental power and literary acquirements are not strong enough to conceive the sublime doctrine of their masters.’‘

List admonished Americans to stand up in print for the theoretical superiority of their doctrine against the authority of Smith and his French counterpart J.B. Say, pointing out that Smith’sWealth of Nationsnever addresses the issue of national economy at all, but instead puts forward the utopian thesis of a universal republic.

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Battle for protectionism

According to the British free-traders, any form of protectionism used by a country to foster the growth of its own agro-industrial sectors is in violation of ``pure,’‘ unfettered competition. The British themselves never practiced this nonsense. List pointed out that

``England was unwilling to found settlements in Asia in order to become subservient to Asia in manufacturing industry. She strove for commercial supremacy, and felt that of the two countries maintaining free trade between one another, that one would be supreme which sold manufacturing goods, while that one would be subservient which could only sell agricultural produce. In her North American colonies, England had already acted on those principles in disallowing the manufacture in those colonies of even a single horseshoe nail, and still more, that no horseshoe nails made there should be imported into England.’‘

But England insisted on free trade for its colonies. List continued:

``Accordingly, England prohibited the import of goods dealt in her own factories, the Indian cotton and silk fabrics.... Not so much as a thread of them would England permit to be used. She would have none of the beautiful and cheap fabrics, but preferred to consume her own inferior and costly stuffs....

``She was, however, quite willing to supply the continental nations with the far finer fabrics of India at lower prices, and willingly yielded to them all the benefit of that cheapness; she herself would have none of it.’‘

In short, free trade was merely a tool to enforce economic backwardness. This practice went to nearly comical lengths, as List reported:

``So late as the year 1750 a hat manufactory in the State of Massachusetts created so great a sensation and jealousy in Parliament, that it declared all kinds of manufactories to be `common nuisances,’ not excepting iron works, not withstanding that the country possessed in the greatest abundance all the requisite material for the manufacture of iron.’‘ Ultimately, he continued, ``The monopoly of all manufacturing industry by the mother country was one of the chief causes for the American Revolution; the tea duty merely afforded an opportunity for its outbreak.’‘

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The nation-state

List insisted that the sovereign nation-state must be recognized as essential for a healthy economy:

``Between each individual and the entire humanity, however stands the nation, with its special language and literature, with its peculiar origin and history, with its special manners and customs, laws and institutions, with the claims of all these for existence, independence, perfection, and continuance for the future, and with its separate territory; a society which, united by a thousand ties of mind and interests, combines itself into one independent whole.... As the individual chiefly obtains by means of the nation and in the nation mental culture, the power of production, security, and prosperity so is the civilization of the human race only conceivable and possible by means of the civilization and development of the individual nations.... A nation in its normal state possesses one common language and literature, a territory endowed with manifold natural resources, extensive and with convenient frontiers and a numerous population.’‘

Protectionism is the battleground where the unity of national sovereignty and economic development becomes most clear. U.S. tariffs were simply necessary to allow the growth of essential industry, like iron production, shipbuilding, etc. If England could use its economic and military muscle to flood the world with cheap products, then how was any nation to develop its own means of production except by protecting and nurturing manufacturing industries? Developing indigenous industry, List argued, provides jobs, stable prices, an expanding home market for goods, protection from foreign manipulation, and the basis for realizing new technologies, which would also lead to increased productivity in the agricultural sector.

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What is wealth?

Adam Smith claimed to believe that each individual, in pursuing his own interest, automatically promotes the interests of all, and therefore, any sovereign effort by the state to ensure the prosperity of its people is wrongful interference. List quoted Smith’s dictum that:

``Restrictions on trade imposed on behalf of the internal industry of a country, are mere folly; every nation like every individual, ought to buy articles where they can be procured the cheapest; in order to attain to the highest degree of national prosperity, we have simply to follow the maxim of letting things alone (laisser faire et laisser aller).’‘

With the insistence that the exchange value of a commodity is its true wealth, the British Liberals return man to a talking animal simply instinctively pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. List counterposed to this economically empty notion, his superior theory of productive power:

``The causes of wealth are something totally different from wealth itself. A person may possess wealth, i.e. exchangeable value; if, however, he does not possess the power of producing objects of more value than he consumes, he will become poorer. A person may be poor; if he, however, possess the power of producing a larger amount of valuable articles than he consumes, he becomes rich. The power of producing wealth is therefore infinitely more important than wealth itself; it insures not only the possession and the increase of what has been gained, but also the replacement of what has been lost. This is still more the case with entire nations (who cannot live out of mere rentals) than with private individuals.’‘

List elaborated three principal components to his theory of the productive power: a) the capital of nature, b) the capital of productive matter, and c) the capital of mind. He placed the greatest importance on the third. The relationship between man’s powers of reason, acting on the physical universe through the force of productive manufacturing, is not explainable from the standpoint of simple exchange value.

Adam Smith was a materialist, List explained:

``If he had followed up the idea `productive power,’ without allowing his mind to be dominated by the idea of `value,’ `exchangeable value,’ he would have been led to perceive that an independent theory of the `productive power’ must be considered by the side of a `theory of values’ in order to explain the economical phenomena. But he thus fell into the mistake of explaining mental forces from material circumstances and conditions, and thereby laid the foundations for all the absurdities and contradictions from which his school suffers up to the present day.’‘

The mere quantity of labor, or labor time as Marx put it, which corresponds to the notion of exchange value, cannot account for the great historical evolution of mankind, because these constructs are rooted in materialism. List recognized that the creative activity of man is fundamental to the growth of nations:

``If we consider mere bodily labor as the cause of wealth, how can we then explain why modern nations are incomparably richer, more populous, more powerful, and prosperous than the nations of ancient times? The ancient nations employed (in proportion to the whole population) infinitely more hands, the work was much harder, each individual possessed much more land, and yet the masses were much worse fed and clothed than is the case in modern nations. In order to explain these phenomena, we must refer to the progress which has been made in the course of the last thousand years in sciences and arts, domestic, and public regulations, cultivation of the mind and capabilities of production. The present state of the nations is the result of the accumulation of all discoveries, inventions, improvements, perfections, and exertions of all generations which have lived before us; they form the mental capital of the present human race, and every separate nation is productive only in proportion in which it has known how to appropriate these attainments of former generations and to increase them by its own requirements.’‘

List’s lifelong dedication to constructing railroads flowed from these principles. First of all,

``only by means of thoroughly good transport can every district or province convey the surplus of its peculiar products to all other provinces, even to the most distant ones, and procure in return supplies of the peculiar products of the latter.’‘

If there were no roads, canals, and trains, there would be no markets, and without industry, farmers would still be peasants. But railroads and infrastructure also bring the power of science and manufacturing to all parts of the country, breaking up and transforming pastoral modes of existence with the more cultured and educated activities of city life.

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Manufacturing powers of the nation

From List’s The National System of Political Economy:

Manufactures are at once the offspring, and at the same time the supporters and nurses, of science and the arts. We may observe how little the condition of raw agriculture puts sciences and arts into requisition, how little of either is necessary to prepare the rude implements which it employs. It is true that agriculture at first had, by yielding rents of land, made it possible for men to devote themselves to science and art; but without manufactures they have always remained previate treasures, and have only extended their beneficial effects in a very slight degree to the masses. In the manufacturing state the industry of the masses is enlightened by science, and the sciences and arts are supported by the industry of the masses.

There scarcely exists a manufacturing business which has no relations to physics, mechanics, chemistry, mathematics, or to the art of design, etc. No progress, no new discoveries and inventions, can be made in these sciences by which a hundred industries and processes could not be improved or altered. In the manufacturing state, therefore, sciences and arts must necessarily become popular. The necessity for education and instruction, through writings and lectures by a number of persons who have to bring into practice the results of scientific investigations, induces men of special talents to devote themselves to instruction and authorship. The competition of such talents, owing to the large demand for their efforts, creates both a division and cooperation of scientific activity, which has a most beneficial influence not merely on the further progress of science itself, but also on the further perfection of the arts and industrials. The effects of these improvements are soon afterwards extended even to agriculture. Nowhere can more perfect agricultural machines and implements be found, nowhere is agriculture carried on with so much intelligence, as in countries where industry flourishes. Under the influence of manufactures, agriculture itself is raised to a skilled industry, an art, a science.

The sciences and industry in combination have produced that great material power which in the new state of society has replaced with tenfold benefits the slave labor of ancient times, and which is destined to exercise on the condition of the masses, on the civilization of barbarous countries, on the peopling of uninhabited lands, and on the power of the nations of primitive culture, such an immeasurable influence--namely, the power of machinery.

A manufacturing nation has a hundred times more opportunities of applying the power of machinery than an agricultural nation. A cripple can accomplish more by directing a steam engine than the strongest man can with his mere hand.

The power of machinery combined with the perfection of transport facilities in modern times, affords to the manufacturing state an immense superiority over the mere agricultural state. It is evident that canals, railways, and steam navigation are called into existence only by means of the manufacturing power, and can only by means of it be extended over the whole surface of the country. In the mere agricultural state, where everybody produces for himself the greater part of what he requires, and consumes himself the great part of what he produces, where the individuals among themselves can only carry on a small amount of goods and passenger traffic, it is impossible that a sufficiently large traffic in either goods or passengers can take place to defray the costs of the erection and maintenance of the machinery of transport.

New inventions and improvements in the mere agricultural state are of but little value. Those who occupy themselves with such things in such a state fall themselves, as a rule, a sacrifice to their investigations and endeavors, while in the manufacturing state there is no patch which leads more rapidly to wealth and position than that of invention and discovery. Thus, in the manufacturing state genius is valued and rewarded more highly than skill, and skill more highly than mere physical force. In the agricultural state, however, excepting in the public service, the reverse is almost the rule.

FRIEDRICH LIST AND THE “AMERICAN SYSTEM” OF ECONOMY

Adapted from Friedrich List: Outlines of American Political Economy in Twelve Letters To Charles J. Ingersoll. Commentary by Michael Liebig.

Captions and Displays

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``The present condition of nations is a consequence of an accumulation of all discoveries, inventions, improvements, perfections and efforts of all generations which have lived before us; they form the capital of mind of living humanity, and each nation is only productive to the degree in which it assimilates these achievements of earlier generations and knows how to enhance them with its own achievements...’‘ --Freidrich List

Marquis de Lafayette
List met Lafayette in Paris in 1824, where the great general invited List to accompany him on a tour of America, planned for the following year. Lafayette visited the U.S. in the summer of 1825, as the ``nation’s guest,’‘ in gratitude for the Lafayette’s key role in the American Revolution. At the beginning of June 1825 Lafayette met List in Albany.

Archiv für Kunst und Geschichte
List’s drawing of his vision of a railroad train, made in Germany before there were any railraods built.

Library of Congress
A rail locomotive used by Union forces in the Civil War.

List promoted national development of infrastructure and was himself directly involved in building railroads in Pennsylvania: ``Without interference of national power there is no security ... no canals and railroads, no national roads. Industry entirely left to itself, would soon fall to ruin, and a nation letting everything alone would commit suicide.’‘

John Quincy Adams
Adams was a strong proponent of the American System. The first railroad line in the U.S. was opened during his presidency, while the construction of roads and canals was also pushed ahead.

Andrew Jackson
Jackson’s real political positions, were often difficult to make out, but he showed his true colors, when he abolished the Second National Bank of the United States.

Alexander Hamilton and the First National Bank of the United States
As the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, Hamilton established the dirigist Bank of the United States, to finance national economic development through internal improvements, what we call today, infrastructure.

Adam Smith
Smith’s Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, in opposition to the American Revolution, and in defense of British free trade, such as the chattel slavery illustrated here.

An advertisement for the sale of African slaves.

In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith asserts than man is driven by his baser instincts: ``hunger, thirst, the passion that unites the two sexes, the love of pleasure, the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for their own sake, and without any considerations of their tendency to those beneficent ends which the great Director of Nature intended to produce by them.’‘

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; Christian Huyghens; Denis Papin

A Steamboat, on the Delaware River, opposite Philadelphia. One of the ``heat-powered machines’‘ Leibniz and his circle promoted more than 100 years earlier.

Leibniz actively followed the development of the first heat-machines. Early work in this direction was done by Christian Huyghens (1629-1695) in Holland, who was in personal contact with Leibniz. Denis Papin (1647-1714) developed the first functioning steam engine between 1690 and 1706. Leibniz wrote to Papin: ``I am enthused by the good progress of your fire machine, because I think, once it will have reached perfection, it can be very useful. Therefore, it wouldn’t matter if it would earn only one third of the expenses.’‘ And Papin wrote to Leibniz, that ``the new invention will enable one or two men, with the help of heat power, to do more work than several hundred rowers.’‘

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

John F. Kennedy adresses 35,000 at Rice University on progress in the U.S. space program.

A renewed debate on economic policy has erupted in the United States, in which the programs of Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy--using the power of government to ``promote the general welfare’‘--are back on the agenda.

Felix Rohatyn
In November 1991, the New York banker, Felix Rohatyn, stated: ``We have just experienced the end of a decade characterized by the greatest speculation and financial irresponsibility. Financial deregulation, easy money, loose banking oversight, together with the degradation of our system of values have brought about a religion of money and greed ... The financial speculators have turned our country into a casino.’‘

The following is adapted from Friedrich List; Outlines of American Political Economy in Twelve Letters to Charles J. Ingersoll, Dr. Böttinger Verlags-GmbH, Wiesbaden, 1996. -- Available from Benjamin Franklin Booksellers, Leesburg, VA. Call 1-800-453- 4108.

Commentary by Michael Liebig

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Friedrich List (1789-1846) set foot on American soil on June 9, 1825. In January 1825, List had been released from the prison of Hohenasperg in the vicinity of Stuttgart. List spent six months in that prison as punishment for having ``slandered’‘ the government institutions of Württemberg. The fact that List was persecuted in the kingdom of Württemberg, in a case of blatant judicial abuse, was due chiefly to the direct and personal initiative of the Austrian Chancellor, Prince Metternich (1773-1859). Ten years later, when List returned to Germany as a Consul of the American Government, Metternich wrote: ``List is known to be one of the most active, most insidious, and most influential revolutionaries,’‘ who was sentenced to a ``dishonorable punishment’‘ on account of his ``revolutionary activity.’‘ List, according to Metternich, was an ``escaped convict,’‘ and Prussia and Austria ought to be equally interested in seeing to it ``that List’s plans do not come to fruition.’‘

List’s release from prison in January 1825 was, de facto, linked to the annulment of his German citizenship: he was only released on condition that he accept exile in the United States. Following the refusal of French authorities to grant List a residency permit, he and his family left Europe on April 26, 1825.

During a trip to Paris at the beginning of 1824, before his imprisonment, List had made the acquaintance of the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834). The meeting was arranged by List’s fatherly friend, the publisher Johann Friedrich Cotta (1764-1832). On that occasion, and also several times susequently, General Lafayette wrote to List, inviting him to accompany him on a tour of America, planned for the following year, as a way of escaping political persecution in Europe.

When Lafayette visited the United States in the early summer of 1825, he did so as the ``nation’s guest,’‘ which was an expression of gratitude for the important role Lafayette had played at the side of General Washington in the American War of Independence. At the beginning of June 1825 Lafayette met List in Albany.

List was cordially received by the celebrated, 67-year-old general. He traveled with him through the United States for the following three months, during which time, Lafayette introduced List to the leading circles in America. Among others, List met Mathew Carey (1760-1839), Charles Ingersoll (1782-1862), and Henry Clay (1777-1852), who was to have a lasting influence upon American politics as Speaker of the House, U.S. Senator from Kentucky, Secretary of State, and co-founder of the Whig Party, which supported the American System. List also met President John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) and the Andrew Jackson, who would later become President.

Later that year, List bought a farm near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His attempt at farming was a failure, however. In the summer of 1826, he moved with his family to Reading, a little town northwest of Philadelphia. List lived there until his departure for Europe in 1832. In Reading, List began writing for the Readinger Adler (Reading Eagle), a newspaper with extensive influence in Pennsylvania at the time. Founded in 1796, this German-language paper had some 2,500 subscribers by 1826. Most of List’s articles for the Adler were unsigned, but his journalistic work familiarized List with manifold issues of economic and political life in the United States.

List wrote:

``Here you see rich and powerful states arise out of the wilderness. It was here, that it first became clear to me, how the economy of a people develops step-by-step. A process which required a succession of centuries in Europe, unfolds here in front of our eyes--the transition from a condition of wilderness into animal husbandry, then into a developed agriculture, followed by manufacturing and commerce. Here you can observe how the landowner’s income increases gradually, from nothing at all, to considerable levels. Here, the simple farmer understands the practical means for elevating agriculture and his income, far better than the shrewd scholars in the Old World; he seeks to draw manufacturers and industries into his vicinity.... ‘’

In addition to a certain financial security, the position of editor at theAdleralso provided List with considerable political influence. The German-speaking residents of Pennsylvania were a decisive force in elections, not only in that state, but also at the national level. List was aware of that factor, and his columns in theAdlerfrom 1826 to 1830 are eloquent testimony to his influence.

To be able to appreciate List’s positions on important issues of American politics in the appropriate context, it is useful to recall political developments in the United States at that time. By the 1820s, those who had played leading roles in the Revolution were gone from the political stage. At the same time, the conflict between the predominantly free-trade orientation of the southern states and the northern states of the Union, which were more inclined to the protectionist tradition of the Founding Fathers, escalated.

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In 1825, John Quincy Adams was elected sixth president of the United States. Adams, as Secretary of State, had contributed to the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine of American foreign policy. In that doctrine, the United States declared that the intervention of European powers was considered illegitimate for the entirety of the American hemisphere.

Active Government

At the same time, Adams was a strong proponent of the ``American System’‘ of economic policy, i.e., he favored a policy of active government promotion of agriculture, industry and science. The first railroad line in the U.S. began operating during his presidency, while the construction of roads and canals was also pushed ahead. Adams also promoted the exploration and surveying of the western territories of North America all the way to the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Adams believed in the primacy of the Federal Government over that of the states.

Adam’s election was very controversial, however. Neither Adams, nor any of his opponents: Andrew Jackson, W.H. Crawford or Henry Clay, achieved a majority in the Electoral College. Thus, the House of Representatives decided the election. But the vote in the House did not go to Jackson, who had won the popular vote, but to Adams, who ranked second. Following Adam’s election, Jackson founded the party of the ``Democratic Republicans,’‘ while Adams and Clay formed the party of the ``National Republicans,’‘ from which the Whig Party emerged in 1828. Adams and Jackson were two completely contrary characters, the first proper and honorable, the second a populist, which earned him the nickname of ``Old Hickory.’‘

In the second British-American war of 1812-1814, Jackson had won a number of battles against the British, enhancing his popularity. But he advocated the British-style, free-trade interests of the southern states, although not openly at first. He opposed the economic policy of the ``American System’‘ and promoted states’ rights, against the federal government.

With Jackson’s populism, and the sophisticated way in which he coupled his policies to his own personal charisma, his real political positions, especially his economic policies, were often difficult to make out. Jackson even proposed extremely high protective tariffs while campaigning for the presidency in 1828. His pragmatism paid off when he was elected.

Jackson showed his true colors, however, when he ordered the closure of the Second National Bank of the United States. We will elaborate on the importance of the National Bank in greater detail below. Here, suffice it to say, that the National Bank was a cornerstone of the American System, since it allowed the Federal Government to finance its economic policy decisions. On October 1, 1833, Jackson ordered the withdrawal of the deposits of the Federal Government from the National Bank, and the institution ceased to exist.

Jackson also began to lower the protective tariffs, but without running the risk of abolishing the system of tariffs altogether. Jackson’s presidency ended in January 1837 amidst a severe financial and economic crisis. Friedrich List also lost his American wealth in this crisis.

We have dealt with the presidency of Andrew Jackson in some detail not only in order to sketch the back-and-forth battle between the Anglophile party of the free-trade faction and the party of the ``American System,’‘ but because of the role List played in Jackson’s presidency.

Nothing would have been more obvious than for List to have joined the party of Adams, and to have supported his re-election. Adams, after all, was a proponent of the ``American System.’‘ But List supported Jackson and even used his editorial influence at the Adler to Jackson’s benefit. The support of the German immigrants in Pennsylvania was a crucial factor in Jackson’s election to the presidency in 1828. These German-Americans tilted the scales in favor of Jackson, since the proportion of votes for Adams in the East and for Jackson in the South were approximately equal.

When List visited Jackson later in the White House, the president expressed his gratitude for the ``staunch support’‘ of the ``German citizens of Pennsylvania.’‘ When List became an American citizen in 1830, Jackson’s gratitude took the form of promising List a position as Consul in the foreign service of the United States. List did in fact become Consul to Hamburg, Baden and Leipzig -- all unpaid positions. But his effectiveness as Consul was constantly undermined by systematic intrigues on both sides of the Atlantic, up to the point that List left the Consular Service in 1837.

It is difficult, even today, to come to a conclusive evaluation of List’s motives for supporting Jackson. Jackson’s charismatic personality and his populist policies, demanding democracy for the simple people, must have impressed List so strongly, that his otherwise sharp political judgment suffered from that impression.

Railroad Building

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Another decisive and important complex in List’s American period concerns his activities on behalf of railroad construction. List himself reports: ``An enterprise was offered to me, which prevented me from devoting my time to literary pursuits for a long time. Politics and writing in North America are not very lucrative vocations; he who wishes to commit himself to them, but is not naturally wealthy, seeks to secure his existence and his future first of all by means of some enterprise. I, too, found it advisable to follow this maxim and the opportunity to that end was provided by my acquaintance with railroads, which I had already made earlier in England, a fortunate discovery of new coal deposits and a no less fortunate purchase of the land upon which these deposits were located.’‘

List had been very interested in the railroads in America, which were just then beginning to develop, and in the Adler, List wrote constantly and approvingly on the most recent news of progress in this area of transportation technology. In 1827, List also began his correspondence with the Bavarian Superior Mining Councilor, Josef Ritter von Baader (1765-1841) in Munich, an important proponent of railroad construction in Germany. Some of List’s letters were published in the Augsburger Allgemeinen Zeitung. In these letters, List discussed the projects for road, canal and railroad construction in America, in order to demonstrate the advantages of railroad transportation.

The coal deposits, mentioned above, were in Berks County, Pennsylvania. These deposits could be exploited economically, only if cheap and efficient transportation to the larger cities in eastern Pennsylvania could be created. A railroad would have to be built reaching at least as far as the Little Schuylkill River.

From December 1828 onward, List devoted his energies primarily to the Little Schuylkill Navigation, Railroad and Canal Company, where he took an active part in the management. Listed planned to extend the short Little Schuylkill line initially to Reading, and thence to Philadelphia. In List’s design for the project, these railroad lines were to be part of a comprehensive north American railroad system. In 1829 List’s time was taken up with the difficult negotiations on financing, which were concluded in November of that year; construction then began on the railroad; it opened at the end of 1831.

List’s experience with the Little Schuylkill line was to be of immense importance for his later work in Germany. In the Foreword to his National System of Political Economy,’‘ List writes:

``I previously knew the importance of means of transportation only from the standpoint taught by the theory of values; I had only observed the effect of transport businesses in particular instances and only with respect to the expansion of the market and the reduction of prices for material goods. Only now did I begin to consider it from the point of view of the theory of productive forces and in its total effect as a national transportation system, consequently, according to its influence upon the entire mental and political life, social intercourse, the productivity and the power of nations. Only now did I recognize the reciprocal relationship which exits between manufacturing power and the national system of transportation, and that the one can never develop to its fullest without the other.

``Thus was I able to study this material -- this I dare to claim -- more comprehensively than any other economist before me had done, and to cast a clear light upon the necessity and the utility of entire national systems of railroads, and I did this before any economist in England, France, or North America had thought of considering these matters from this higher standpoint.’‘

On November 8, 1830, List was nominated to the position of American Consul in Hamburg. He traveled to France and Germany. When the Senate of the city of Hamburg refused to accredit him, and when he also was not confirmed by the Congress in Washington, he returned to the U.S. in October 1831. In July 1832 List was nominated Consul to Baden, whereupon he left the United States with his family.

List wrote about his desire to return to Germany:

``The relationship I have to my fatherland is like that of mothers with crippled children: they love them all the more, the more crippled they are. Germany is the background of all my plans, the return to Germany.’‘

Battle for the American System

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When List arrived in America, a battle over economic policy was raging, in which, to simplify somewhat, the issue was the following: Were the United States to be primarily an exporter of raw materials and agricultural products (cotton, tobacco, grain) on the world market dominated by England, or would the country have an economic policy based upon the development of its own internal market, which would combine the development of agriculture with the priority of development of industry and infrastructure? The former point of view marched under the flag of ``Free Trade,’‘ while the second embodied a commitment to the American System of development of national ``productive forces.’‘

When List employs the term ``American political economy,’‘ he is pointing to economic policy in the broader sense. The United States emerged as an independent republic, primarily because the Founding Fathers around Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and George Washington (1732-1799) were determined no longer to accept the dictates of British colonial power, which compelled the thirteen colonies in North America to export raw materials exclusively, and to import finished goods only from England. London’s prohibition, enforced with military might, against the founding of larger craft-businesses and manufactures, so that the colonies could provide for their own finished products, and the attempt to enforce the import of British finished products by the colonies, was the central issue leading to the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution.

It is not generally known, that Adam Smith (1723-1790) launched a direct polemic against American independence, in his Wealth of Nations. In a threatening tone, he warned the American colonies to drop their designs for creating an independent economic base, above and beyond agriculture. This, Smith’s main work, was published in 1776, thus simultaneous with the beginning of the War of Independence.

Smith wrote:

``It has been the principal cause of the rapid progress of our American colonies towards wealth and greatness, that almost their whole capitals have hitherto been employed in agriculture. They have no manufactures, those household and coarser manufactures excepted, which necessarily accompany the progress of agriculture, and which are the work of the women and children in every private family. The greater part, both of the exportation and coastal trade of America, is carried on by the capital of merchants who reside in Great Britain. Even the stores and warehouses from which goods are retailed in some provinces, particularly in Virginia and Maryland, belong, many of them, to merchants who reside in the mother country, and afford one of the few instances of the retail trade of a society being carried on by the capital of those who are not resident members in it. Were the Americans, either by combination or by any other sort of violence, to stop the importation of European manufactures, and, by thus giving a monopoly to such of their own countrymen as could manufacture the like goods, divert any considerable part of their capital into this employment, they would retard instead of accelerating the further increase in the value of their annual produce, and would obstruct instead of promote the progress of their country towards real wealth and greatness. This would be still more the case, were they to attempt, in the same manner, to monopolize to themselves their whole exportation trade.’‘

Thus, the original economic policy motivations of the American War of Independence were once again on the agenda, albeit in somewhat altered form, during List’s stay in the United States. Once again, it was not a matter of economic policy issues in general, but of issues of ``political economy’‘, which immediately impinged upon the political existence of the United States. The predominant political faction in the southern states wanted Free Trade, i.e., agricultural exports to Great Britain and unbridled imports of cheap English finished products into the U.S. In the North as well, however, especially in New York and Boston, there were politically influential, commercial and financial interests, who also supported Free Trade. Albert Gallatin, Treasury Secretary under Presidents Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and James Madison (1751-1836), represented this tendency.

The proponents of the ``American System’‘ wanted state-promoted economic development of the domestic market by means of the combined growth of agriculture, industry and infrastructure and they wanted to secure this domestic development with protective tariffs, which were naturally directed primarily against Great Britain.

A half-century following the Declaration of Independence, the outcome of this battle between the anglophile free-traders, and the representatives of the American System, was to decide whether the Union would continue to grow as a nation and an economy, or whether it would become weaker and weaker until it ultimately broke apart. The issue was ultimately whether Great Britain would be able to regain control over its erstwhile colonies by means of its trade policy, which it had failed to accomplish twice, in 1776-1783 and again in 1812-1814, with military means.

This political reality is reflected in the Outlines most clearly. As List explicitly and repeatedly emphasizes in these letters, there is an immediate connection between domestic and foreign policy, on the one hand, and the level of development of the national productive forces on the other hand. The growth of the productive forces signifies, simultaneously, the growth of national security domestically, and abroad. List refers to the War of Independence repeatedly in the Outlines, and also to the British-American war of 1812-14. He speaks of the free traders, sarcastically, as those who want to buy their weapons ``cheaply’‘ from the enemy when it comes to war.

In the 1820s, Thomas Cooper, Professor of political economy at South Carolina College, authored a propaganda piece in favor of the free trade and slavery as the foundation of the cotton-export economy of the southern states. A speech which Cooper delivered on July 2, 1827, exemplifies how closely the issues of free trade and slave-economy were connected to the issue of the national existence of the United States:

``I have said, that we shall ‘ere long be compelled to calculate the value of our union; and to enquire of what use to us is this most unique alliance? By which the South has always been the loser, and the North always the gainer. Is it worth our while to continue this union of states, when the North demands to be our masters and we are required to be their tributaries? The question, however, is fast approaching to the alternative of submission or separation.’‘

Although it would be 34 years before the party of free trade and slavery in the southern states broke openly with the Union and instigated the Civil War, Cooper’s words indicate, that the danger of that secession was already looming during List’s stay in the United States.

Friedrich List and Adam Smith

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The core of the Outlines is their biting polemic against Adam Smith. For List, Smith is the ``spiritual rector’‘ of the ideology of Free Trade and opposition to state guidance in the national economy. List emphasizes, time and again, that there is a profound contradiction between Smith’s postulates, such as his representation of how the allegedly exemplary and superior British economic system functions, and the reality of the British economy. The British System of Adam Smith, as List shows, is only suited to exports aimed at preventing other, still underdeveloped economies from developing and expanding their own productive forces. The development of the maritime fleet (``Navigation Act’‘ of 1651), the development of the textile industry, and other branches of exports, England owed to the targeted intervention of the government, which certainly did not rely upon a policy of Free Trade for the growth of Britain’s domestic economy. British manufacturing, as List showed, was always and strictly protected by the British government against foreign competition. To the purpose of obtaining and securing its hegemonic position in world trade, England always employed political and even military power without flinching. Americans had to understand -- as List said of Smith in a speech on November 3, 1827, in Philadelphia -- that ``his system, considered as a whole, is so confused and distracted, as if the principal aim of his books were not to enlighten nations, but to confuse them for the benefit of his own country.’‘

As List himself writes, he had developed a clear position against Adam Smith and ``his stubborn admirers,’‘ particularly in Germany, even before he settled in the U.S.

List wrote:

``However this teacher of national economy [Smith] is esteemed in other respects, all of his merits can not compensate for the immeasurable damage which the fable of so-called free trade, which he has implanted in the ears of our theoreticians, has caused. Smith’s basic error consists in the fact, that he ascribes a productive power to capital, although only labor produces, with the assistance of a greater or lesser capital. I have, indeed, fought against this theory in earlier essays, written for the Association of Commerce, but the subject deserves a more thorough treatment, one based upon the words of the founder of this school.’‘

In the fourth letter of the Outlines, List emphasizes that he would present only a ``short exposition’‘ and not a ``scientific development’‘ of the fundamental conceptual errors in Adam Smith’s theory. List did provide a thorough refutation of Smith in his later works. In the Outlines, List nevertheless strikes at the core of Smith’s theory when he writes, that Smith and the Frenchman, Say [Jean Baptiste Say, 1767-1832, French political economist], ``entirely misapprehended the aim of political economy. This object is not to gain matter, in exchanging matter for matter, as it is... in the trade of a merchant.’‘ Smith and Say ``treat, therefore, principally of the effects of the exchange of matter, instead of treating of productive power.’‘

Smith’s negation of productive forces leads to his ignoring ``the causes of its rise and fall in a nation.’‘ Smith therefore also pays no attention to ``the true effect of the different component parts of productive power.’‘ Without any differentiation, Smith calls the ``existing stock of matter’‘ by the ``general name of capital,’‘ and to this he attributes a downright ``omnipotent effect.’‘ Smith refuses to consider, that ``the productiveness of this capital depends upon the means afforded by nature, and upon the intellectual and social conditions of a nation.’‘

Thus, according to List, ``the productive powers of a nation’‘ are based upon a ``capital of nature,’‘ a ``capital of mind’‘ and a ``capital of productive matter. The greater part of the productive power consists in the intellectual and social conditions of the individuals, which I call capital of mind.’‘ Among these, List numbers ``industry, instruction, enterprising spirit, perseverance, armies, naval power, government.’‘ If these conditions are met, then ``it is reasonably to be expected that it [the nation] can acquire the necessary skill to complete in a short time its productive power by these manufactories’‘ and also to achieve the ``political power’‘ to protect its productive forces.

A surplus of ``capital of nature,’‘ people, and mental capital, as well as material capital, were already available in the United States. No other country in the world had such favorable conditions.

The conception of ``mental capital’‘ as the key conception of his theory of productive forces, and this theory itself, is dealt with more broadly in List’s Natural System and in the National System. The first sketch of this theory in the Outlines becomes clearer, however, in light of the following quotes from the Natural System. It becomes apparent that List’s notion of ``mental capital’‘ describes scientific-technological progress as the basis for economic development. Science, applied to the thus continuously improved instrumental forces of production, is productive power.

``The present condition of nations is a consequence of an accumulation of all discoveries, inventions, improvements, perfections and efforts of all generations which have lived before us; they form the capital of mind of living humanity, and each nation is only productive to the degree in which it assimilates these achievements of earlier generations and knows how to enhance them with its own achievements...’‘

``The more a person learns how to use the forces of nature for his own purposes, by means of perfecting the sciences and the invention and improvement of machines, the more he will produce.’‘

``If, however, the nation guarantees and secures the establishment and continuous development of manufacturing forces by means of a good system of tariffs, then not only does the first, the greatest, and the most useful division of labor emerge in the nation, that between agriculture and industry, but it assures a progressive growth also for the future of these two branches of activity, since by means of their activity, they will elevate each other mutually, and provide each the most secure guarantee against any backwards movement.’‘

``The concentration and reciprocal effect of industry and agriculture conjoin in a growth of productive powers, which increases more in geometrical than in arithmetical proportion.’‘

In contrast, Adam Smith utterly lacks a deeper comprehension of scientific-technological progress and of economic growth. For Smith, the division of labor itself, and frugality, are the decisive driving forces of the growth of the ``wealth of nations.’‘ Smith understands ``division of labor’‘ in the sense of the allocation of manual steps of labor in the production of goods. Technical innovation in the process of production, as the initiator for the division of labor, plays no role at all in Smith’s conception. The division of labor in the economy interests Smith only with respect to processes of exchange, i.e., commerce. Technological innovations in production, and the invention of new products, as the real cause of the social division of labor and economic growth, are beyond Smith’s ken.

Smith, touted as the ``father of the industrial revolution,’‘ has no comprehension of technological progress. There had been prototypes of the steam-engine since the early 18th century. In 1769, seven years before the publication of the Wealth of Nations, James Watt developed the first fully operational steam-engine, but Smith makes no reference whatsoever to the steam-engine and its enormous economic potential. Smith, instead, is concerned that improved, and, therefore, initially more expensive machines, might reduce the profits of the entrepreneurs. Smith wants to use cheap and simple machinery in labor-intensive forms of production. He argues that the use of improved machines binds capital which could have been more profitably employed elsewhere:

``A certain quantity of materials, and the labour of a certain number of workmen, both of which might have been immediately employed to augment the food, clothing and lodging, the subsistence and conveniences of the society, are thus diverted to another employment... It is upon this account that all such improvements in mechanics, as enable the same number of workmen to perform an equal quantity of work, with cheaper and simpler machinery than had been usual before, are always regarded as advantageous to every society.’‘

For List, the idea that lowering the standard of living of the working population can increase economic wealth, is an absurdity. While Adam Smith pleads for reducing wage-costs and for lengthening the working time -- ``capital formation’‘ by ``saving’‘ -- List states: ``Bad nutrition just generates a stunted and feeble work force and destroys the productive capacities of succeeding generations.’‘

Smith’s Axiom of Ignorance

In the Philadelphia speech mentioned above, List assaults the second axiomatic dictum of Smith’s system: theaxiom of ignorance.Smith claims that, apart from being able to accept the effect of the mechanism of the free market, the development processes of a national economy are not accessible to the human mind. The efficacy of the market mechanisms, i.e., the price-mechanism of supply and demand, is usually described with the mystifying expression of the ``invisible hand.’‘

According to Smith, human beings have ``a strong desire’‘ to find out ``the proper means’‘ of bringing about ``universal happiness’‘ or ``the welfare and preservation of society.’‘ This desire is opposed by the ``weakness of his powers,’‘ ``the narrowness of his comprehension’‘ and the ``slow and uncertain determinations of our reason.’‘ It thus follows, that ``Nature has directed us to the greater part of these by original and immediate instincts: hunger, thirst, the passion that unites the two sexes, the love of pleasure, the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for their own sake, and without any considerations of their tendency to those beneficent ends which the great Director of Nature intended to produce by them.’‘

Any effort to know which goes beyond this is not the affair of human beings. Such an attempt to know, according to Smith, will always be assaulted by countless illusions. For no human wisdom or knowledge will ever be sufficient to achieve the capability of comprehending the lawfulness behind the development of an economy as a whole.

From this follows Smith’s categorical claim, that it is impossible to reasonably form that which one can not know. It were thus absolutely impossible to steer the economic activity of ``private people’‘ in the direction of ``employments most suitable to the interest of the society’‘. Smith further writes:

``The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority, which could safely be trusted to no single person, to no council or senate whatever, and would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.’‘

In the sixth letter of the Outlines, List discusses Smith’s anti-dirigist postulates more directly, and also explains the factors which determine the growth or decline of national economies:

``An individual, in promoting his own interest, may injure the public interest; a nation, in promoting the general welfare, may check the interest of a part of its members. But the general welfare must restrict and regulate the exertions of the individuals, as the individuals must derive a supply of their strength from social power... It is bad policy to regulate everything and to promote everything, by employing social powers, where things may better regulate themselves and can be better promoted by private exertions; but it is no less bad policy to let those things alone which can only be promoted by interfering social power.

``Look around, and you see everywhere the exertions and acts of individuals restricted, regulated, or promoted, on the principle of the common welfare. The commonplace of laissez faire et laissez passer, invented by a merchant, can therefore only be alleged sincerely by these merchants.

“This principle would only be true if individual and national interest were never in opposition. But this is not the case... Notwithstanding an absence of liberal institutions may be extremely injurious to a full development of the productive powers of a nation, some classes may find their reckoning in this bad state of things. The nation may suffer from an absence of manufacturing industry, but some people may flourish in selling foreign manufactures. Canals and railroads may do great good to a nation, but all waggoners will complain of this improvement. Every new invention has some inconvenience for a number of individuals, and is nevertheless a public blessing. A Fulton may consume his whole fortune in his experiments, but the nation may derive immense productive power from his exertions. An individual may grow rich by extreme parsimony, but if a whole nation would follow his example, there would be no consumption, and, in consequence, no support of industry. The more the individuals of the southern states endeavor to supply the low price of cotton in England by planting greater quantities, the less will cotton bring in England; the less will the nation derive income from that branch of industry. Individuals may become rich by hazardous bank schemes, but the public may lose by them.

``Without interference of national power there is no security, no faith in coined money, in measures and weights, no security for the health of seaports, no security for the commerce at sea by the aid of a navy, no interference for the citizens in foreign seaports and countries by Consuls and Ministers, no titles to land, no patents, no copyright, no canals and railroads, no national road. Industry entirely left to itself, would soon fall to ruin, and a nation letting everything alone would commit suicide.’‘

As List repeatedly emphasizes in his American writings, the conception of the state which he favors, is expressed in the American Constitution in clear words. The American Constitution obliges the government and the Congress to act in order ``to promote the general welfare.’‘ This is not an abstract postulate: it is the responsibility of Congress to employ the taxes collected, other fee and customs duties for the general welfare, in order to ``create the greatest quantity of common welfare in the interior and the greatest quantity of security as regards other nations.’‘ The government has ``not only the right, but it is its duty’‘ to do so, List writes in the second letter.

List thus does battle for the right of nations to economically develop, to increase their prosperity and their political power, but not in the sense of a destructive nationalism which seeks to enrich itself at the cost of other nations, but solely through the development of its own ``productive powers.’‘

Alexander Hamilton and the “American System”

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Lists’s basic conceptions, which had already crystallized at the beginning of the 20s, underwent a more profound development under the impression of the specific conditions in the United States, about which he wrote:

``The best book one can read in this new country on the subject of political economy, is that of life itself... I have read this book eagerly and diligently and I have attempted to bring the lessons learned thereby into accord with the results of my earlier studies, experiences and reflections.’‘

List was profoundly influenced by American economic theory. The quality, indeed the very existence of this American economic theory -- the ``American System’‘ -- has been largely displaced in public consciousness today. The key figure for the economic theory and policy of the ``American System’‘ is undoubtedly Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), who was Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795 under George Washington. It was Hamilton who first coined the notion of ``productive powers.’‘ Hamilton is the author of three crucial works in the history of economic theory: Report on Public Debt (1790), Report on a National Bank (1790) and Report on Manufactures (1791). The core of the three reports can be summarized as follows:

• The government of the United States must pursue an active or dirigist financial and economic policy.

  Hamilton refers to the Preamble of the American Constitution, which obliges Congress and government ``to promote the general welfare’‘ and to Article 1, Section 8 which ``gives Congress power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, excises, payment of debts, and provide for common defence and general welfare; borrow money, regulate foreign and domestic commerce; establish rules of bancruptcy and naturalization; coin and regulate value of money; ... declare war; raise and support armies and militia; provide and maintain a navy...’‘

  According to Hamilton, ``the intrinsic wealth of a nation is to be measured, not by the abundance of the precious metals contained in it, but by the productions of its labor and industry.’‘ Consequently, ``the state of agriculture and manufactures, the quantity and quality of its labor and industry must influence and determine the increase or decrease of its gold and silver,’‘ and not the reverse.

  A National Bank is to be created to increase the national wealth, which promotes the development of ``productive powers’‘ (agriculture, manufactures, infrastructure) with credits as a government institution.

  The capital base of the National Bank must not be limited to the currently available volume of precious metals, but must include assets in the form of debt titles of the U.S. Government. Thus may the volume of credit issuance be extended as appropriate to the productive potential of the economy.

  The promotion of inventions, ``mechanic improvements,’‘ new machines and plant for industry, is necessary. This can be achieved by means of credits of the National Bank, state subsidies and state contracts. These state-promoted improvements contribute to expanding manufactures and industry, and thus create new jobs and secure the sale of domestic agricultural produce on the domestic market.

  ``Protecting duties’‘ against competing, cheaper products from abroad are legitimate and necessary in order to protect the domestic production which is in the process of growth, but not yet capable of competing internationally. Protective tariffs must, however, be well considered and measured, they must not have the effect of causing lethargy, but must have a stimulating effect.

  Improvements in transportation infrastructure, especially the construction of roads, bridges, canals, is a priority task of the state at the federal, state and local levels of government, because they reduce the costs of production and create the conditions for a real domestic market.

The practical application of these principles of Hamiltonian economic policy allowed the United States to quickly overcome its financial and economic turmoil, into which it had fallen in the aftermath of the War of Independence. The National Bank played a prominent role in the consistent economic development which followed. The Bank opened its doors on December 12, 1791. Under the pressure of the slave-holding cotton and tobacco planters and their exporters, the National Bank was abolished in 1811. Following the second American-British war of 1812-1814, however, the Second National Bank of the United States was founded in 1816, and it exerted a similarly stimulating and growth-promoting influence on the American economy as its predecessor.

Mathew Carey

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Following the assassination of Alexander Hamilton in 1804 in a duel, Mathew Carey (1760-1839) became the driving force of the American System in politics and journalism. Carey was from Ireland, where in his youth, he came into conflict with the British occupation regime there. He was exiled and then traveled to France, where he collaborated with Benjamin Franklin. After a brief sojourn back in Ireland, Carey went to the United States and settled in Philadelphia, where Franklin, too, spent the last years of his life.

Carey became involved in intense political-journalistic activity in support of Hamilton’s economic policy. He published newspapers and a number of essays, brochures and books. He was also active, for a number of years, on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia branch of the National Bank. In 1819, Carey founded the ``Society for the Promotion of National Industry at Philadelphia.’‘

In an 1819 essay, in which he polemicizes against Adam Smith, it becomes quite clear how closely Carey associates his own thinking with that of Alexander Hamilton. He calls Smith the ``Delphic Oracle of political economy.’‘ The practical application of Smith’s ``poisonous theory’‘ would necessarily lead to economic collapse, the impoverishment of the population and the loss of national independence.

In 1826, Mathew Carey was the co-founder of the ``Society for the Promotion of Manufactures and Mechanical Arts in Pennsylvania.’‘ Friedrich List was introduced to the people who founded this Society by General Lafayette in 1825. The Society proved to be of crucial importance for List’s work in the United States. List’s Outlines, which is composed in the form of correspondence, is directed to the vice-president of the Society, Charles Jared Ingersoll. List met Mathew Carey personally a number of times and read his works. The Society provided for the republication and circulation of Hamilton’s three Reports, with a Foreword by Carey. List studied Hamilton’s essays and quotes them in the Outlines as well as in other writings composed in America and in the National System.

Developing the Productive Forces

In the third letter of theOutlines, List names the historical personalities who explicitly promoted an economic policy aimed at the development of the productive forces, i.e., the development of their ``national economies: the English King Edward III (1327-1377); the English Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603); the French ``Minister of Economy’‘ Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683); the French economist Baron de Turgot (1727-1781); the Prussian King Frederick II (1740-1786); the Austrian Emperor Josef II (1741-1790); the British statesmen William Pitt (1708-1778) and Charles James Fox (1749-1806); Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821); as well as the Americans George Washington (1732-1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), and Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804).

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With the exceptions of Turgot and Hamilton, the list consists exclusively of political personalities. List prominently cites the Frenchmen, Charles Dupin (1784-1873), and Jean Antoine Chaptal (1786-1832) as exemplary economists.

In the National System, List pays special attention to the Italian economist, Antonio Serra (born 1570, date of death unknown). Serra’s Discourse on the Sources of the Wealth of Nations without Gold and Silver Mines (Naples, 1613) is, indeed, a very important contribution to the development of modern economic theory. Serra distinguishes two categories of wealth creation, the accidenti propri and accidenti communi. The former denote the creation of wealth by (a) the availability of gold and silver mines, (b) particularly favorable geographical conditions, fertile soil, and (c) a geographical position which favors trade.

But these three conditions -- accidenti propri -- apply only for few nations. Thus, the accidenti communi are decisive. These are: (a) crafts and manufactures, (b) the ``quality’‘ of the population in the sense of mentality, education and culture, and (c) the predominant policy of the state. These accidenti communi or ``subjective’‘ factors are valid for each nation and any economy, quite apart from raw material resources, geography, and climate.

Crafts and Manufactures

For Serra, crafts and manufactures are the most important sources of wealth, even more important than agriculture. Nature still plays the dominant role in agriculture, while the crafts and manufactures are directly determined by human labor and the human mind. Thus, the production of the products of the crafts and manufactures can be increased, practically without limit, and these products can also be transported over long distances. The increase of production of the products of the crafts and manufactures is decisively determined by the educational level of the population. The policy of the state must, therefore, provide that economic knowledge in the production of the products of the crafts and manufactures is broadly proliferated.

Serra emphasizes the superiority of those finished products ennobled by human labor to raw materials and semi-finished products from agriculture and mining. The state must, therefore, see to it, that the main emphasis in the domestic economy is put on the crafts and manufactures. These refined products -- and not raw materials -- must be exported.

Serra’s economic theoretical and political principles were already applied in the 15th century in France under the government of King Louis XI (reigned 1461-1483). Louis XI was directly influenced by the Florentine Renaissance, and defined the state by the principle of the common good -- le bien public, bonum commune or commonweatlh.

This truly revolutionary reconception of the notion of the state as a nation-state, or republic is explicitly contained in Louis’ book, The Rose-Bush of War, a form of instruction on government written for his son.

On the basis of the principle of the commonwealth, Louis XI created the first modern nation-state and the first modern national-economy, in which the priority lay upon increasing the wealth of the nation state as a whole, not only that of the royal dynasty, the feudal class, and a small layer of traders. Under Louis XI, it became a goal of economic policy to increase the wealth of the state by bringing about the general elevation of the material and cultural conditions of life of the population. It was recognized, that an uneducated and dulled population, one bound to tradition, would not be capable of increasing the national wealth.

Under Louis XI, a unified coinage was introduced. His system of taxation favored urban crafts and an early form of urban manufactures; it penalized the unproductive layers of society, including the nobility. Immigration of skilled foreign labor was promoted; improvement of the streets and ports was begun; measures were introduced regulating conditions of labor, hygiene and law, and which reduced the arbitrary power of lesser authorities.

National-economic policies, based on the principle of the commonwealth, were continued following Louis XI by Jean Bodin (1520-1596). Bodin was more an economic theoretician, who systematically explored the instruments at the disposal of the state for promoting the increase of national wealth.

Among these, protectionist measures played a prominent role: imports of foreign, finished products, and exports of domestic raw materials were to be taxed; the import of raw materials and the export of domestically produced, or refined, finished products, was financially promoted.

For Bodin, too, the specific promotion of urban manufacturing with royal privileges, grants and commissions, state subsidies for new inventions and tools, reduced taxes, the introduction of norms and controls of the conditions of labor, all had a high priority. Needless to say, these principles were then also inherited in the French economic policy of Jean-Baptiste Colbert in the 17th century.

The Early Cameralists and Leibniz

See Appendix:What Is Cameralism?

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The just sketched economic policy ideas in France and Italy also formed the basis for the early cameralists in the German-speaking areas of Europe. Leading cameralists were Melchior von Osse (1506-1557), Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626-1692), Johann Joachim Becher (1635-1682), Philip Wilhelm von Hoernigk (1640-1714), and Johann Daniel Krafft (1624-1697).

As already mentioned, the notion of ``productive forces’‘ comes from Alexander Hamilton. The content of this fundamental concept can easily be traced back to Louis XI, Bodin, and Colbert. The same holds for the early German Cameralism. One of the large ``black holes’‘ in the history of economic theory is the exceptional role played by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) in early German Cameralism and, thus, the role he played in the formulation of the economic theory of productive powers. Today, Leibniz’s importance for economics is forgotten, Leibniz is acknowledged as a philosopher, mathematician, and scientific organizer. Hardly anyone except a few scholars knows the ``political Leibniz.’‘ The suggestion, that Leibniz made an essential contribution which -- albeit indirectly -- influenced Hamilton and List, is most often met with incredulity.

Leibniz not only met Colbert personally many times, he had an active relationship with the Cameralists Becher, Hoernigk, and Krafft even prior to these meetings. With Krafft, who visited the English colonies in North America in the 17th century, Leibniz had a lifelong friendship. Between 1668 and 1673, Leibniz was in the service of the Mainz Elector Prince Johann Philip von Schoenborn (1605-1673). Leibniz wrote a number of essays on economic theory and policy in this period, works which are of fundamental importance for the theory of productive powers, or ``physical economy.’‘ In the following, we shall sketch how Leibniz solved the central question of economic theory which could not be solved between the mid-15th century and the mid-17th century.

For Leibniz, the content of economics is the promotion of the common good. He speaks of bonum commune, bonum publicum, or ``welfare of the fatherland.’‘ The takeoff point for his economic investigations is the issue of the nature of human beings, which is determined, for Leibniz, by man’s being in the image of God, imago viva Dei. Thus, man is characterized by creative reason, and love of God and his fellow man (caritas).

Leibniz’s image of man is, thus, contrary to the modernist conception, elaborated by Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759) and then, in the Wealth of Nations. Smith’s ``economic man’‘ is a person whose thought and deeds are determined primarily by the pleasure principle, greed, striving for domination as well as a natural inclination to exchange. Since the intellect of human beings is weak and limited, it is arrogance, according to Smith, to attempt to promote or guide the development of a national economy according to criteria of reason. Therefore, the ``invisible hand’‘ sees to it, that instinctual and egotistical behavior in the process of exchange at the market, leads nevertheless, to the general good.

For Leibniz, the love of the neighbor and reason are not arbitrary criteria: human nature is endowed with these qualities, such that ``natural communities are maintained and promoted.’‘ The negation of this potential of human nature necessarily has a destructive effect upon the existence of social formations. That is true of the family as well as for larger social communities. The material and intellectual-psychological reproduction of the family is lawfully only possible on the basis of the love of one’s neighbor and Reason. Egoism, as the ordering principle in the family, would necessarily destroy that family. What is true for the family, says Leibniz, is also true for nations and national economies. Thus, the existence of populations whose ``social systems of value’‘ are based on egotism, greed, or domestic exploitation and imperialism abroad, can not be secured over the long run.

Leibniz was a realist who had no illusions about the widespread negation -- individual and social -- of the inherent potential of human beings. Leibniz looked upon the modern ``post-Christian’‘ image of man and society, as elaborated by Adam Smith, as a self-destructive folly.

Creative Reason and the Common Good

For Leibniz, creative reason, the second characteristic of the nature of human beings, must be directed to the common good. Progressing scientific knowledge of nature, research and discovery, must be consummated in good deeds and works for the improvement of the spiritual and material conditions of life of the general population. Scientific knowledge, according to Leibniz, must result in the promotion of improvements of ``mechanics’‘, ``the material of labor,’‘ and thus the ``nourishment of the poor.’‘ The ``handcrafts’‘ must be improved with ``machines,’‘ ``iron and steel works,’‘ and, in general, new ``instruments,’‘ to which end ``everything in chemistry and mechanics should be tested.’‘ ``Manufactures’‘ should be established, which efficiently refine raw products. This may also contribute to an ``extermination of price increases.’‘ ``Trade and Commerce must be initiated, which begin with the sciences which have the advantage, that they are inexhaustible and their employment makes nothing more expensive.’‘

The emigration of impoverished layers of the population must cease, which must instead ``be given work so that they can feed their wives and children.’‘ Idle land must be ``populated by families and put to use’‘. A general education for the broad population must be established. Improvements in medicine are necessary, especially to eradicate epidemics. The realization of this economic program, says Leibniz, is not an ``utopian chimera.’‘ His proposal, he insists, is not to compose a utopia like Campanella (1568-1639), Thomas Morus (1478-1535), or Francis Bacon (1561-1626). It is easily comprehensible, that the expenditures and the costs involved by his proposals, are far less than the economic benefits for the general population which would ensue from them.

``With a moderate fund and some slight measures of support’‘, this ‘’[economic] machine can be set into motion. Then a continuous economic metabolism will conserve and increase the fund.’‘ Welfare will grow ``continuously,’‘ ``without end.’‘ There is no upper limit to the growth of the economy.

The proposals and remarks just cited, are from Leibniz’s Memorandum on Society and Economy of 1671, in which he proposed the creation of a German Academy of Sciences and Arts. But Leibniz’ ``Societät’‘ is no academy in the sense currently understood: it is a center for science and research, a ``think-tank’‘ which also carries out broad ranging steering and guidance functions for the economy. Leibniz’s ``Societät’‘ might be seen as a predecessor of the French Commissariat du plan under General de Gaulle (1890-1970).

In that sense, the Memorandum on Society and Economy coheres with the level of development at that time in economic theory in Italy, France, and Germany. It was known, that population growth is a prerequisite for the growth of the labor-power of a nation, and thus also for the growth of national economic wealth. But it was also recognized, that the mere extension of the available volume of labor power in the sense of manual labor of more people, together with that of animals, wind, and hydropower, would not be sufficient to provide for lasting increases in economic wealth.

In 1662, Johann Joachim Becher published his Political Discourse: On the Causes of Growth and Decline of Cities and States. He wrote there, that a growing population is the prerequisite of growth, but that the growth of population must go hand in hand with the growth of agricultural and other production. Becher distinguished the goods-producing (``nourishing’‘) classes in agriculture and manufactures, which he calls ``the healthy body of the economy,’‘ from the ``superstructure,’‘ the government, administration, the church, arts and sciences. Becher recognized, that certain proportions must prevail between these two main classes. Becher also made a number of proposals for detailed improvements in agriculture, mining and manufactures.

But Leibniz understood, that economic development requires fundamental technological progress, and not only incremental improvements. Leibniz recognized, that the economic base-technology had to be fundamentally changed. In Leibniz’s lifetime, the basis for the economy was still human muscle-power, animal-muscle-power, waterwheels, and windmills. These sources of power moved simple machines and means of transportation. The efficiency of these available potentials of power could not be essentially expanded by means of incremental technical improvements. The power-potentials available would have to be qualitatively and quantitatively extended by a technological revolution.

In his Memorandum on Society and Economy, Leibniz writes: ``Since the movement of all machines derives either from the weight of the earth, from the inseparability of water, from the power of compressed or decomposed air, or from fire,’‘ the aim must be to subjugate these elements to ``the human yoke.’‘ The aim is ``to subjugate nature to art.’‘

In order to bring about a fundamental improvement of manufactures and the instruments of the handcrafts, one must have ``continuous and efficient fire and movement’‘ available, ``as the basis of all mechanical effects.’‘ Thus, all ``ideas and concepts, one’s own and those of others, must be tested, and this must not be procrastinated,’‘ Leibniz writes in the same memorandum. Leibniz thus understood the necessity of a power machine, if there were to be a decisive development of the economy.

Early “Heat Machines”

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Leibniz actively followed the development of the first heat-machines. Early work in this direction was done by Christian Huyghens (1629-1695) in Holland, who was in personal contact with Leibniz. Denis Papin (1647-1714) developed the first functioning steam engine between 1690 and 1706. Leibniz and Papin corresponded on this development.

Leibniz wrote:

``I am most happy to learn that you insist on developing these fire machines, for it seems to me one of the most important endeavors in mechanics.’‘

Leibniz to Papin in another letter:

``I am enthused by the good progress of your fire machine, because I think, once it will have reached perfection, it can be very useful. Therefore, it wouldn’t matter if it would earn only one third of the expenses.’‘

And Papin wrote to Leibniz, that

``the new invention will enable one or two men, with the help of heat power, to do more work than several hundred rowers.’‘

Leibniz understood, that scientific-technological progress could, and must, qualitatively and quantitatively, extend the power-potential of the economy. The power machine, with its continuous high degree of efficiency, makes it possible to employ tools, machines, and means of transportation, which extend production and transportation by orders of magnitude. It is this insight which makes Leibniz the actual founder of the economic theory of productive powers or ``physical economy.’‘

There is no specific evidence, that List knew of Leibniz’s economic policy writings, but the following quote, from List’s Natural System, demonstrates how close List and Leibniz were, conceptually, with respect to the notion of productive powers: ``Mental work is, in social economy, what the soul is to the body. By means of new inventions, it continuously increases the power of the human being. Let us here recall only the achievements of the few to whose work we owe the invention and perfection of the steam engine....They have provided a small number of people with the power which had required millions of hands earlier.’‘

Conference of the Friedrich List Society
September 1931

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We take the opportunity here to include a reference to the economic and finance policy debate in Germany during the world economic crisis in the 1930s, which -- in contrast to Keynes -- was directly connected to the economic policy conceptions of List and Hamilton. The transcript of the secret conference of the Friedrich List Society of September 16-17, 1931, was published for the first time in 1991. The issue at the conference was the possibility and consequences of expanding credit issuance in order to boost German economic activity under conditions of world economic crisis. In addition to Reichsbank president, Dr. Hans Luther (1879-1962), some 30 leading economists, bankers, industrialists and economic politicians participated, including Prof. Edgar Salin (1892-1974), co-publisher of List’s Gesammelte Werke (Collected Works).

The keynote speech was given by Dr. Wilhelm Lautenbach (1891-1948), a high official in the Economics Ministry, and an important, although now little known economic theorist. He was a member of the Friedrich List Society and took part in every one of its conferences during the years 1928-32, where priority issues of the German economy were discussed.

In Lautenbach’s memorandum,``The Possibilities of Boosting Economic Activity by Means of Investments and Expansion of Credit,’‘ he writes, ``The natural course for overcoming an economic and financial emergency’‘ is ``not to limit economic activity, but to increase it.’‘ Lautenbach distinguished two emergency situations: on the one hand, there were emergencies out of which ``tasks for production ensue.’‘ As an example of this kind of emergency, he cited a war-economy, the conversion from war-production to peace-time production, or also the ``reconstruction of Japan following the great earthquake’‘ in 1923.

On the other hand, there were economic and financial emergencies of national and international dimensions, in which it was clear, in general, that ``we should and want to produce more. But the market, the sole regulator of the capitalist economy, does not provide any obvious positive directives.’‘

The economic emergency of the second category -- a depression and/or a collapse of the financial system -- was characterized by the ``paradoxical condition,’‘ that ``despite curtailed production, demand is less than supply and thus leads to the tendency to decrease production further.’‘ Under conditions of depression, there are normally two economic policy reactions. The first was a policy of deflation: the budget deficit is reduced by cutting state expenditures, prices and wages are lowered. At the same time, credit is restricted. If credits are not curtailed, low interest rates would lead to an outflow of foreign capital, which endangers the exchange rate and produces yet greater scarcity of available capital for the domestic economy.

Lautenbach thought it was practically impossible to reduce taxes in a depression, because the tax base had already contracted and public budgets were already strained for resources. All of these measures, according to Lautenbach, produce ``new and large losses of capital for the individual entrepreneur in commerce and industry’‘, it makes them ``uncompetitive and insolvent’‘, compels a ``reduction of production and layoffs of the workforce in large dimensions’‘, and also leads to ``a deterioration of the status of the banks.’‘

The reduction of public expenditures is doubly counterproductive, since public contracts and mass purchasing power are further reduced. The reduction of wages has an initially favorable effect upon exports, but it causes a far greater reduction in demand in the domestic economy. ``The adjustment to reduced demand by correspondingly reducing prices causes losses... and draws additional reductions of production in its wake.’‘ Thus, the growing unemployment, effects an acceleration of the downward spiral of the economy. Thus, Lautenbach argued, the deflationary policy will ``inevitably lead to complete economic and political catastrophe.’‘

But, in a depression, there are ``surpluses of commodities, unused production capacities, and unemployed labor.’‘ The use of this ``largely unused latitude for production’‘ is ``the actual and most urgent task of economic policy, and it is simple to solve, in principle.’‘ The state must ``produce a new national economic demand,’‘ which, however -- and this is the condition -- ``represents a national investment for the economy. One should think of tasks like... public or publicly supported works which signify a value-increase for the economy and would have to be done anyway, under normal conditions.’‘ Lautenbach was thinking primarily of transportation infrastructure in this connection (roads/highways and railroads).

How to Finance Public Works

Then Lautenbach posed the question: ``Since long term capital is available to us, neither on the foreign, nor on the domestic market, how are such projects to be financed?’‘ And, he adds, ``reasonable public works are already neglected,in times of deep depression, due to the empty treasury.’‘ If there is no possibility to finance the projects through the state treasury, nor through capital markets, ``the conclusion to be drawn, ought not be, that it is impossible to realize projects of this sort.’‘

But how? Lautenbach makes the initial observation, that ``liquidity is chiefly a technical, organizational issue. Banks are liquid when they are sufficiently supported by the Reichsbank.’‘ The degree of actual claims upon the Reichsbank in the credit expansion of the private banks for financing measures to create jobs and investments, was always only a fraction of the total credit volume provided for these projects. Lautenbach proposed, that the Reichsbank give the banks a ``rediscount guarantee’‘ for the bonds for financing the ``economically reasonable and necessary projects.’‘

The short-term credit financing by means of discountable, prolongable bonds for creating jobs and investments, had a direct and an indirect effect. The realization of the projects, financed by credits, signified an increase of production with the productive utilization of machines, raw materials and operating materials. The demand for capital goods would increase. The financial situation of the businesses would relax, and thus also the situation of their banks. The realization of the projects on credit would entail payment of wages to newly engaged labor, which would have the effect of generating additional demand for consumption goods.

Lautenbach proceeded on the assumption, that ``the stimulating effect of the primary credit expansion’‘ for financing infrastructure projects, would effect ``a stimulating movement in total production’‘ in the economy. The initial boost of infrastructure and investment projects would lead to the ``upward conjuncture’‘ of the entire economy. The utilization of unused capacities of production would have the effect of increasing economic productivity. The improvement of tax-income would enable the state to shift to a long-term management of the original liquidity provided to pre-finance the projects.

To the fear, that credit-financing of infrastructure projects would incur the risk of inflation, Lautenbach said that such projects are ``rational and unobjectionable from an economic standpoint.’‘ These projects represented ``in a material sense real economic capital formation.’‘ The credit-financing would result in the creation of real economic values. Lautenbach furthermore emphasized that the expansion of credit and the expansion of production in infrastructure projects are disproportional. ``The extent and rate of the expansion of production’‘ grows at much higher rates than the ``degree and rate of credit expansion.’‘ Here, Lautenbach was apparently thinking of a ``productive multiplier effect.’‘

In summary, Lautenbach said,

``by means of such an investment and credit policy, the disproportion of supply and demand on the domestic market will be alleviated and thus total production once more provided with a direction and a goal. If we neglect to undertake such a policy, we will inevitably be heading in the direction of continuing economic disintegration and a complete disruption of our national economy, into a condition which then, in order to avoid domestic political catastrophe, one will be compelled to undertake a strong increase of new, short-term public debt for purely consumptive purposes, while today we have the instruments, by means of utilizing this credit for productive tasks, to bring both our economy and our public finances into balance once more.’‘

Had the Lautenbach Plan of 1931 been implemented, economic and political conditions would have prevailed two years later, under which the National Socialists would not have had a chance to come anywhere near seizing power. The Israeli historian of economics, Prof. Avraham Barkai (born 1921) is correct, when he writes, that a real historic chance did exist to prevent the Nazis from seizing power,

``if earlier governments, economists and politicians had freed themselves of the chains of outmoded economic and financial principles, and if they had applied anti-cyclical economic policies earlier.’‘

It ought to be obvious, that the Lautenbach Plan bears a great conceptual resemblance to the way in which the National Bank of Alexander Hamilton functioned. This plan also demonstrates a real-economy-oriented approach to problems of financing, which is typical of Friedrich List. It was certainly not accidental, that the Friedrich List Society sponsored this conference, with this theme, and with such a circle of participants. The strengths of List’s economic policies are evident also and particularly under conditions of severe economic crisis, when, quite directly, the social and political existence of a nation depends upon the utilization of the unused and debilitated productive forces.

It also ought to be clear, that the Lautenbach Plan was certainly no mere economic historical episode. Its relevance for today is direct. This will become clearer as we now turn to the current economic policy discussion in the United States.

The Debate over the American System in the United States Today

A profound debate on the fundamentals of economic policy occurred recently (1995-1996) in the American public domain. In the following, we shall sketch how this debate unfolded, because we believe that it is not an ephemeral phenomenon. What is at stake, is whether or not the United States will continue the neoliberal economic policy of the past 25 years, or whether a far-reaching change will be introduced in economic policy. The key issues in this debate are the ``economic insecurity’‘ of the middle class, reductions in the real income of the majority of the population, stripping of industry, ``free trade,’‘ ``globalization’‘, and financial speculation, as well as the role of the state in economic policy.

The issue of the threatening collapse of the financial system is increasingly at center stage, for the gap between the exponential growth of financial aggregates and stagnating or shrinking real economic factors, is growing ominously. In fact, the issue is not whether there will be a systemic financial crisis, but when.

A return to the economic policy principles of the American System is under discussion as an answer to the cited symptoms of crisis. In this debate, the economic policy of Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, are associated with the American System, but there are increasing references to Hamilton, Carey and List. To avoid misunderstanding here, it should be noted, that the economic policy of Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy were, in fact, firmly embedded in the tradition of the American System. The new economic debate is, indeed, characterized by some party-tactical maneuvering and also political inconsistency, but, as will become clear in the following, this debate bears an uncanny resemblance to the fundamental economic policy arguments at the time of Alexander Hamilton and Friedrich List. For this reason, it seems justified, even necessary, to sketch this debate in rough outline.

Lyndon LaRouche has played the central catalytic role, intellectually and politically, in this new debate on economics in the United States. Currently (Spring 1996), the political center of this debate, lies in a group of leading Democratic Senators and Congressmen around Senator Edward Kennedy. There are individuals also in the Republican milieu who are beginning to take their distance from the neoliberal ideology of the ``free market’‘ and the ``Conservative Revolution.’‘

The ``Conservative Revolution’‘

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The influence of ultraliberal economic policy in the U.S., reached a high point during the presidency of George Bush (1988-1992). The chief intellectual source of this economic policy was the radical free-market economic, or ``Thatcherite’‘ ideology of the Mont Pelerin Society, which bases itself on the Viennese economic ideologue, Friedrich von Hayek. A number of institutions, among them the Heritage Foundation, launched a broad propaganda offensive at the end of the 1970s in favor of an ultraliberal, economic ideology. The military and military-technological requirements, under conditions of the East/West conflict, had set strict limits to the actual application of such Thatcherite economic policy in the U.S. during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. But under George Bush, reduction of industrial capacities (``downsizing’‘), income reduction for the majority of the population, and unemployment gained the upper hand. In parallel, corporate profits (``shareholder value’‘) increased by radically reducing the costs of material and personnel in production. Tax reductions for the higher-income earners were forced through, which, together with the deregulation of the financial markets, became an important factor in the exploding financial speculation. The free-trade policy allowed imports to grow, and the balance of trade deficit deteriorated further. ``Downsizing’‘ in a number of particularly crucial branches of industry, such as machine tools, made this branch of industry practically disappear.

In November 1991, the New York banker, Felix Rohatyn, stated: ``We have just experienced the end of a decade characterized by the greatest speculation and financial irresponsibility. Financial deregulation, easy money, loose banking oversight, together with the degradation of our system of values have brought about a religion of money and greed ... The financial speculators have turned our country into a casino.’‘

It was chiefly economic and social factors which led to the defeat of George Bush’s bid for reelection in 1992. But under the presidency of Bill Clinton, there was once again a neoliberal counter-movement in the interim congressional elections in November 1994, which called itself the ``Conservative Revolution.’‘ The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, assumed the role of leader in this movement. Gingrich’s ideological-political program for the ``Conservative Revolution’‘ became known as the ``Contract with America;’‘ its chief contents were:

• Radical free-trade policy, consistent promotion of ``globalization’‘ in the financial and commodities sectors, while also demonizing protectionism;

• Propaganda for the ``post-industrial’‘ (actually anti-industrial), ``information society’‘;

• Reduction (``downsizing’‘) of the federal government and government authorities, privatization and deregulation of various functions of the state, particularly in the economic area, radical rejection of all forms of ``dirigism’‘ in economic policy;

• ``Balancing’‘ the budget by means of draconian and comprehensive cuts in social services; annulment of social services for the elderly, disabled, and the poor at the federal level, propagandizing for a social-darwinist, paradigm shift.

• Tax reductions for the higher income earners (’‘capital gains tax’‘); relaxation or annulment of controls on financial speculation; support for ``shareholder value’‘ corporate policies.

Resistance vs. the Conservative Revolution

The program of the Conservative Revolution is a radical counter-design to the American System. It was inevitable, that resistance would develop against such a neoliberal battle-program, and it did. LaRouche was the first to launch a targeted counterattack against the Conservative Revolution. He demonstrated, that the economic ideology embodied in the Contract with America, corresponds precisely to the ``British System,’‘ and is, therefore, diametrically opposed to the American System.

Moreover, the program of the Conservative Revolution is anti-constitutional, it contradicts not only the spirit but also the concrete stipulations of the American Constitution, and that not only with respect to the provisions for the general welfare. LaRouche countered Gingrich’s demagogy on the ``balanced budget:’

``The problem of the budget is not that we are spending too much money. We are not spending any more money than we had planned in the 1960s. But the real economic base in businesses and for workers, and thus the tax base, has collapsed in the meantime,’‘

he said.

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) also moved into open opposition to the Conservative Revolution. Speaking before the National Press Club in Washington on January 11, Kennedy said that the core of every economic policy had to be ``jobs, the expansion of jobs, good jobs, well paid.’‘

FDR and JFK

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Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy understood, that economic growth is the driving force of the American nation, the Senator asserted.

``I believe in free enterprise, but I believe in active government too ... A federal program is not the solution to every problem. But there continues to be an important federal role in solving the problems of our society by investing in people and the infrastructure needed for our country to succeed and our citizens to thrive. To believe otherwise is hostile to the basic values of our country and to the historic concept of ‘we the people’ in our constitution. We must not rob the people of the resource of government. It is their government, and we must make it work for them ... People want government to be lean, not mean. There is a large difference ... between using government to promote the general welfare and misusing it to pander to the powerful and punish the powerless ... We must also resist our opponents’ mindless anti-government vendetta against regulation, a rhetoric leading to an across-the-board assault on government that hides a multitude of injustices and indifferences.’‘

With the beginning budget war in the fall of 1995 and the paralysis of the Federal Government, there was a shift in mood of the American population against the ultraliberal ideology of the Contract with America. It became obvious, that Gingrich’s draconian budget cuts, in the name of the ``balanced budget,’‘ were not only aimed against the poorest at the fringes of society, but especially against the broad middle class of working and retired people. For the first time since the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, African-Americans began to articulate themselves once again in the fall of 1995. The peaceful and disciplined Million Man March in October 1995 in Washington, D.C., signified the beginning of the rebirth of the Civil Rights Movement, and economic and social issues were the crucial factor [here too.

In the Fall of 1995, the American trade union movement woke up out of a daze of nearly 20 years. The issue for the new activist trade union policy is not only to reverse the pattern of reduced membership and improving incomes for the members. The new trade union leadership seems determined to actively intervene into the debate over the larger issues of economic policy and to influence policy in the direction of Roosevelt and Kennedy.

Appendix:
What is Cameralism?

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Following the Renaissance Council of Florence in 1439-40, which established principles for the science of statecraft, a school of thinkers developed who called themselves cameralists,since they formed chambers of advisers to local rulers. The task of the cameralists was to advise rulers on correct policies, especially in economics.

Their thinking spread from Italy into France and thence throughout Europe. Cameralists, or commonwealth adherents, in England played a direct role in transmitting these ideas to the American colonies where, with the benefit of great distance from the European oligarchy, a distillation of their republican ideas was put into practice.

The core concept behind cameralist statecraft was that the prosperity of a state depended upon the adoption of policies which fostered the improvement, materially and spiritually, of the citizenry.

Thus, as opposed to a situation of virtual war between rulers and their subjects, there was conceived to be a scientifically knowable common interest between them. The first purpose of the ruler was to provide for the prosperity of his subjects.

The cameralists are sometimes known as the school of statecraft or economics which based itself on expanding the population. This was based on their view that each individual was a net producer, rather than a mere consumer, of goods, and that the source of wealth in society is not raw materials or land, but the productive powers of labor of individuals. It was a short step from there to the requirement to improve that productive power, through education and infrastructure and technological advance.

For more on cameralism, see Nancy Spannaus’ article:“The Roots of the American System: From Cameralism To The American System”,The American Almanac, 1996.

THE FIGHT TO BRING THE “AMERICAN SYSTEM” TO 19th CENTURY RUSSIA by Rachel Douglas and Barbara Frazier

A Russian edition of Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 Report on the Usefulness of the Manufactories in Relation to Trade and Agriculture was published in St. Petersburg in 1807. Minister of Finance D.A. Guryev sponsored the pamphlet. In an introduction, Russian educator V. Malinovsky wrote, ``The similarity of American United Provinces with Russia appears both in the expanse of the land, climate and natural conditions, in the size of population disproportionate to the space, and in the general youthfulness of various generally useful institutions; therefore all the rules, remarks and means proposed here are suitable for our country.‘’

Malinovsky and Guryev belonged to a faction of Russian scientists and statesmen who cherished the legacy of the programs Gottfried Leibniz drafted for Tsar Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century. The Russian Academy of Sciences was founded according to Leibniz’s design, and, while it had been subjected to many assaults and subversions of its scientific and nation-building agenda, by British- and Venetian-linked political and science figures, it remained a center of Leibnizian endeavor. Members of the Academy corresponded with America on scientific research, and closely watched the creation of the American republic. An Academy member, Franz Epinus, drafted the Treaty of Armed Neutrality, under which Russia and other continental European powers protected shipping during the American War of Independence.

At the time that Guryev commissioned the translation of Hamilton, there was a struggle for influence over the young Tsar Alexander I. Friedrich Schiller’s brother-in-law, Wilhelm von Wolzogen, was in St. Petersburg for five years to prepare the marriage of Alexander’s sister to a prince of Weimar, which took place in 1804. Wolzogen held seminars for the royal family. Schiller himself began a play called Demetrius, where he posed, in a Russian setting, the truth that a nation can only be great, if its leaders and the whole nation obey ``that which is beautiful in humanity.’‘

A few years later, Freiherr vom Stein and other Prussian reform leaders would be training the Russian Army against Napoleon and attempting to educate Tsar Alexander in statecraft. In 1809, the young John Quincy Adams arrived as American Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia, where he had long talks with the tsar about the protection of neutral shipping and how to limit British power on the high seas. As one result, Alexander interceded with Denmark, to stop detaining American ships as ``British.’‘

John Quincy Adams found a kindred intellect in Count N.P. Rumyantsev, the Russian chancellor. Rumyantsev, who told Adams, ``Our attachment to the U.S. is obstinate,’‘ lobbied for further anti-British initiatives. In 1812, he wrote a memorandum in favor of developing Russian trade with the rebelling Spanish colonies in South America. Adams reported home that the State Council’s rejection of Rumyantsev’s proposal was due to ``a lurking English influence working at bottom.’‘ When he was ousted from power in 1813, Rumyantsev told Adams, ``I could say that my guts are American; and were it not for my age and infirmities, I would go now to that country.’‘

The spread of culture

In education and culture, this faction was trying to make of Russia something other than the ``gendarme of Europe’‘ it became after the 1815 Treaty of Vienna. Leading German scholars, including the philologist Adelung, worked in St. Petersburg. Minister of Justice Derzhavin, a poet, was involved in the early stages of a great translation project, to put Greek and other classics into Russian. Count Rumyantsev was a bibliophile, whose collection became the kernel of the huge Moscow-based library, known in the twentieth century as the Lenin Library. (As of 1991, this largest library in Europe has suffered an unknown extent of destruction, as the collapsing former Soviet economy left it with no lights, minimal staff, water dripping onto the books, and cracks in the walls.) Malinovsky became the first headmaster of a secondary school called Tsarskoye Selo Lycée, whose original curriculum plan mandated two three-year courses: Russian, French, German, and Latin grammar (one collaborator on the project proposed to include Greek); religion, ethics, and philosophy; arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, and physics; history, geography, writing, literature, and rhetoric; art, dance, fencing, riding, and swimming. Count A.K. Razumovsky, the Minister of Education, gutted the curriculum. What did a diplomat or civil servant need with chemistry and astronomy? he demanded. Even more objectionable to him would be the study of ``philosophical opinions on the soul, ideas and the world,’‘ which would confuse the youths. And Greek, Razumovsky insisted, was not needed by any Russian diplomat, who would fare quite well with French.

Rumyantsev’s faction lost the struggle on policy. Alexander I became the Tsar of the Holy Alliance, negotiated at Vienna with Metternich and Castlereagh, by Venetian- and British-pedigreed diplomats in the Russian service: Giovanni Capodistria, Napoleon’s cousin Pozzo di Borgo, Count Nesselrode, and that same Count Razumovsky. (Razumovsky, who opposed the study of Greek, was notorious for his inability to speak even Russian well.)

Especially after the murder, in 1837, of Tsarskoye Selo graduate Aleksandr Pushkin, the great poet who strove to make the Russian language capable of expressing universal ideas, Russian culture plunged into a relative dark age.

But it was impossible to expunge the knowledge that had been gained about the drawbacks of British economics. Pushkin’s novel in verse, Yevgeni Onegin, showed how this was common knowledge, when the poet mocked his phony hero, Onegin, like this:

Branil Gomera, Feokrita,
Zato chital Adama Smita
I byl gluboki ekonom.

He cursed out Homer and Theocrites,
But read Adam Smith instead,
And was a profound economist.

Even during the era of the Holy Alliance, various Russian officials were protesting that without industrialization, Russia would suffer from its excessive dependency on Europe. For forty years after the Congress of Vienna, including the 1825-55 reign of Nicholas I, Russia kept a stiff protective tariff. Absent agrarian reform and a thorough industrial program, however, the tariff by itself would not guarantee strong national development. On the contrary, Russia under Nicholas plunged deep into debt to finance its ``gendarme’‘ military machine. The House of Stieglitz, court bankers to the tsar, arranged millions of rubles in loans from Baring, Hope and other London and Amsterdam banks, to finance the Russian military. British banks also had financial control of the first Russian railroad, built from St. Petersburg to Moscow in the 1840s, although Maj. G.W. Whistler, formerly of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was the project’s master engineer.

The Crimean War (1853-56) left Russia bankrupt. This violent falling out with England also opened the door for a resuscitation of Russia’s American connection.

Rapid industrialization

By the late nineteenth century, the American System was the cornerstone of economic development in the U.S. (increasingly under attack after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln), Japan, and Russia. In Germany and France, political factions were seeking to bring their nations into accord with such policies. There was a potential alliance of industrial republics, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which would have destroyed the British Empire’s trade and financial hegemony. The efforts to disrupt that potential, by the British and their allies on the continent, marked the road to World War I.

In Russia, measures begun during the 1860s alliance between Tsar Alexander II and President Lincoln helped to save the United States from dissolution in the American Civil War (the tsar sent the Russian Navy to protect American ports from the British), and placed at the disposal of Russian entrepreneurs the most advanced scientific and technological know-how, and economic science. In the decades that followed, a small but powerful faction in the Russian Ministry of Finance and among the country’s entrepreneurs fought to copy the American System, against bitter opposition from the Russian landed nobility, backed by British and other international financiers.

As a result, Russia’s industrial development in the 1890s was among the most rapid in the world.

Tsar Alexander II’s abolition of serfdom in 1861 was the first step to prepare for Russia’s large-scale industrialization. His regime then launched an overall economic plan, including financial reorganization, agronomy research, development of the petrochemicals industry, and building of a nationwide transportation and communications infrastructure centered on railroads.

At that time, over 95% of the population was illiterate. There was virtually no skilled labor. The landed nobility clung to the most primitive forms of cultivation, making Russian agriculture among the least productive in the world. The nobility forced onerous conditions for the abolition of serfdom, namely the payment of ``redemption’‘ fees by the peasants in compensation to their former masters.

Mikhail A. Reutern, a student of Henry Carey’s economics, which was promoted in St. Petersburg by U.S. Ambassador to Russia Cassius Clay, became minister of finance in 1862. He placed Russia on a unified budget and a central bank was created to control all currency and revenue. Prior to this, there had been no uniform tax levy system. Reutern also established the currency, which had been wrecked after the Crimean War. Reutern emphasized that ``without railways and mechanical industries, Russia cannot be considered secure in her boundaries.’‘

The foremost statesmen who promoted the American System in Russia were the scientist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev (see accompanying article), otherwise known for his development of the Periodic Law in chemistry, and his friend and ally, Count Sergei Witte, Russian Finance Minister from 1892 to 1903. Their polemics in connection with the adoption of the protective tariff of 1891, and other writings, expound the economic ideas of Hamilton and List, as they were fought for in Russia at the turn of the century.

Hamilton’s Ghost Haunts Washington From Tokyo -- Excerpts From The Leaders of the Meiji Restoration by Kathy Wolfe

Shocking as it seems, the nation of Japan is the greatest living ``success story’‘ today of Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List, Henry Carey, and the American System of Political Economy. It is Hamilton’s success, in Japanese form, which has come back to haunt a United States now grown weak and decadent by its rejection of Hamilton’s programs.

Despite ignorance of most Americans and Japanese today of the facts, modern Japan was founded when a handful of Japanese intellectuals, lead by Yukichi Fukuzawa, Toshimichi Ökubo, and Shigenobu Ökuma, created an American System Renaissance in Japan in the 1860s and 1870s, modeled on Abraham Lincoln’s programs. Traveling to the United States, Germany, and Europe, and bringing back with them American advisers and professors, this Japanese elite based themselves explicitly on the writings of Hamilton, Friedrich List, and Henry Carey.

They adopted List’s term ``American System’‘ for their plan to promote national industrial production, technology, and the elevation of the common man through education. List and Carey were widely translated into Japanese. ``America is our Father,’‘ wrote Fukuzawa in his newspaper. Without the ``U.S.A. as chaperone of Japan,’‘ Japan might have been just another colonial satrapy, wrote Ökuma in his Fifty Years of the New Japan.

To found such an American System, these Japanese patriots, born noblemen but ardent supporters of the American Constitution, formed an army to subdue the feudal Tokugawa warlords and restore central government to the young Emperor Meiji in 1868, an event known as the Meiji Restoration. Behind the new government were the leading students of Henry Carey, who later dubbed themselves the Meiroku (Sixth Year of Meiji) Society. During the next quarter-century as a result of their adoption of Hamiltonian economics, Japan crushed feudalism, created a Constitution and parliament, doubled its population, built a national railroad, founded modern universities, and more than quintupled industrial and agricultural output.

The Meiji leaders were explicitly opposed to the British free trade system of usury. They were consciously allied with the Lincoln forces in America, the Christian republican movement of Dr. Sun Yat-sen in China, and humanists in Korea to create a community of American System nations in Asia, in order to halt Britain’s Opium Wars which were enslaving the continent.

While it is often said that the Meiji imitated only the trappings of the West, buying a few machines but remaining internally an Asian despotic culture, in fact Fukuzawa and his collaborators rose to the level characterized by Friedrich Schiller as ``a patriot and a world citizen.’‘ They realized that only by promoting the highest ideas developed by humanity, many of which originated in European Christian civilization but which belong to all men, could they save Japan from subjugation by the British fleet as suffered by the rest of Asia.

In order to do this, Fukuzawa wrote in his Jiji Press newspaper, it would be necessary to join western culture and ``to liberate Japan from the dregs of Chinese philosophy’‘:

``The final purpose of my work was to create in Japan a civilized nation as well equipped in both the arts of war and peace as those of the West. I acted as if I had become the sole functioning agent for the introduction of western culture....

``I regard the human being as the most sacred and responsible of all orders, unable therefore, in reason, to do anything base. So in self-respect, a man cannot change his sense of humanity, his loyalty or anything belonging to his man-hood, even when driven by circumstances to do so....’‘

Later, in the twentieth century, it was Britain which broke up the Japano-American alliance, and then obliterated all word of it from the modern record. Just as the British attempted to break up the United States itself by financing the Confederacy in the Civil War, Britain sought to prevent the development of any industrial state in Asia which might follow the American model, and refuse to kneel to the British Empire. After the Meiji Restoration, Britain feared that an alliance of the technology of the United States and Japan might end the British System. To these ends the British created the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and eventually World Wars I and II.

We present here the facts which Britain has tried to cover up for a century, in terror that the United States and Japan might ally again to re-industrialize the world based upon our common Hamiltonian heritage.

The collapse of Chinese feudalism

The tremendous job done by the Meiji intellectuals is underlined by contemporary accounts of the disaster to which 500 years of Chinese-model feudalism had brought Japan by 1800. The population had been held at zero growth for hundreds of years at the 30 million level, by food control, a caste system, serfdom, the prohibition of travel and trade, and widespread infanticide.

Society was divided into two large castes, overwhelmingly the commoner castes (91%), mainly illiterate peasants and the nobility. The basis for rule was food control. During the seventeenth century, the Tokugawa war lords at Edo (Tokyo) had made themselves Shogun (military dictator) by force and taken power from the Imperial Court at Kyoto. They held the peasants as serfs, tied permanently to the land, forced to pay a large proportion of their rice crop to the local lord (daimyo) who in turn paid a large portion of his aggregate collection to the Shogunate.

By the early 1800s, this feudal structure of looting had broken down, creating widespread famine, epidemic, and anarchy. The Meiroku intellectuals acted to break Japan from that Chinese-model feudalism, the worst imperial tyranny ever known to man. Most western tracts on the Meiji Restoration falsify this completely. They claim the Meiji sought to forge a Chinese-style Imperial Dynasty to rival the British Empire, and were forced to do so only by the invasions of western fleets. They claim that the Meiji nobility created the regime to perpetuate their own feudal power structure, with no larger moral concerns for their population. Thus, most western texts claim, a pro-Nazi fascist movement in Japan in the 1940s was the direct outcome of the Meiji Restoration.

This is a lie. The Meiji patriots built a state on the American constitutional model, for which the emperor was needed to unify the nation in the face of anarchy.

Both the Meiroku leaders and the American Lincoln republicans were well aware that the British were militarily attacking the Americas and Asia simultaneously, with the Opium Wars and the British finance for the Confederacy in the Civil War. The unloading of opium by the force of British gunboats upon China during the Opium War of 1840-42, which led to Britain’s first colonial possession in East Asia, Hong Kong, caused tremendous concern in Japan and the United States, as did the Taiping Rebellion in China against Britain’s Manchu puppet regime (1850-65) and the Indian Mutiny (1857-59).

The United States fought Britain with a policy for spreading civilization around the globe through commerce and industry which could help foster new republican nations to ally with America, not by military occupation, drugs, and looting. This was behind U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry’s sailing into Tokyo Harbor in 1853.

``When we look at the possessions in the East of our great maritime rival England, and at the constant and rapid increase of their fortified ports, we should be admonished of the necessity of prompt measures on our part,’‘ Perry wrote before sailing to Japan for the first time in 1853.

``Fortunately the Japanese and many other islands of the Pacific are still left untouched by this unconscionable government; and some of them lie in the route of a great commerce, which is destined to become of great importance to the United States. No time should be lost, in adopting active measures to secure a sufficient number of ports of refuge.’‘

The Benjamin Franklin of Japan

The intellectual leader of the Meiji Renaissance was Yukichi Fukuzawa. During the 1840s and 1850s, Fukuzawa was a member of the Dutch Studies movement, a group of young intellectuals who flocked to the Dutch colony at Nagasaki, the only venue to learn western science under the Shogun feudal dictatorship. There they studied the works of Johannes Kepler, among other leading western thinkers.

In 1858, ten years before the Meiji era, Fukuzawa founded Keio University on part of his clan’s estate near Tokyo, the first university in Japan. As soon as he was able, he staffed it with American professors from the school of Henry Carey and Mathew Carey.

In 1860, Fukuzawa visited America; in 1862, Europe; and in 1867, America again. The 1860 trip was clandestine as it was illegal under the Shogun feudal lord. After his 1867 visit, Fukuzawa brought back as many American books as he could carry.

Fukuzawa never joined the government, but concentrated on founding universities and newspapers, including Japan’s first newspaper, the Jiji Shinpo, in 1871. His friends from the Dutch Studies movement formed the first ``Hanbatsu Cabinet’‘ at the restoration of the Emperor Meiji in 1868:

Toshimichi Ökubo, the ``George Washington of Japan,’‘ forged a faction for the American System within the Japanese elite. The first minister of finance in 1868, he became vice envoy of Japan in the first Meiji government mission to the United States and Europe, the Iwakura Mission of 1871-73. He founded the Industrial Production Board, the precursor of today’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

Shigenobu Ökuma, Ökubo’s successor as finance minister, was the Alexander Hamilton of Japan. He set up a banking system modeled explicitly on Lincoln’s Hamiltonian system, beginning with his foundation of the First National Bank of Japan in 1873.

Prince Tomomi Iwakura, a leader of the Imperial Sanyo (Council of Advisers) was the first prime minister and headed the Meijis’ first mission to the United States and Europe in 1871. The Education Decree promulgated by Iwakura in 1872 created the first public school system in Asia.

Arinori Mori and Tetsunosuke Tomita, Japanese consuls in Washington and New York, respectively, worked closely with Carey in the U.S. and traveled frequently to Japan to assist in the restoration. Tomita commissioned the first Japanese translations of the works of Carey and List.

The National Bank

Toshimichi Ökubo led the drive for a Hamiltonian banking system and American-style industrialization. Upon his return from America in 1873, on the advice of Washington’s adviser in Tokyo, Erasmus Peshine Smith, a student of Lincoln’s economic adviser Henry Carey, Ökubo founded the Ministry of Home Affairs and set up within it the Industrial Promotion Board. Ökubo placed his friend Shigenobu Ökuma, another intellectual leader, as finance minister, and they founded the First National Bank of Japan the same year.

Without the national banks, of which Ökuma set up a series during the 1870s, explicitly modeled upon Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 First National Bank of the U.S., Japan could never have industrialized. Japan thus became the first nation in Asia to found an independent state bank. For this reason alone, the British, who always owned the central bank of the nation they occupied, such as the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in China, were unable to crush Japan.

Ökuma took his cue from Hamilton who, in his 1790 ``Report on a National Bank,’‘ solved the crisis of the huge American Revolutionary War debt. The Continental debt, he wrote, should be used as specie, that is, be circulated as currency, and could be capitalized, used as the capital of a national bank, to then issue a much greater sum of credit for industrialization (see p. 15).

In Meiji Japan, the state was the source of credit, for feudalism had left Japan with few private money lenders, almost no money economy, little national debt, and no industrialists. Where were they to begin?

Ökubo and Ökuma constructed a solution, based on Hamilton’s solution to the Continental debt, which eradicated feudalism in Japan in less than a decade. They abolished the ownership of Japan’s land by the feudal samurai nobles, ``reverting’‘ ownership to the nation in 1871. They did this by creating a national debt, paying the nobles in new government paper--a vast transfer completed by force of arms where necessary by 1876.

The government then urged the samurai to put their new sums of capital into creating new industries. Ökuma’s Ministry of Finance created additional government debt credits to aid these new industrialists, and also to capitalize a national bank, in which the samurai were encouraged to deposit their cash.

Ökuma never hesitated to run large government deficits to industrialize, unlike International Monetary Fund-run Third World governments today, which put book-balancing before eating. The new government debt credits were issued in amounts as large as half again the amount of annual tax receipts.

On the urging of the American advisers to beware of British plans for financial control, foreign loans were tightly regulated. When President Ulysses S. Grant visited Japan in 1879, he cautioned Ökuma and the Emperor Meiji himself against all foreign borrowing. ``Look at Egypt, Spain, and Turkey,’‘ he said, ``and consider their pitiable condition.... Some nations like to lend money to poor nations very much. By this means they flaunt their authority, and cajole the poor nation. The purpose of lending money is to get political power for themselves.’‘

Japan borrowed virtually nothing abroad, i.e., from London, from 1870 to 1897, and only then because British agents in Tokyo had dragged Japan into a war against China, for which loans became needed.

When Ökuma later became finance minister again, he acted to ensure that Britain’s Hongkong and Shanghai Bank could also not manipulate Japan through trade from the outside. He founded the Yokohama Specie Bank in 1887 as a Meiji government monopoly over all dealings with foreign countries. All foreign loans to the Japanese government were done in the form of purchases of bonds of the Yokohama Specie Bank, a Hamiltonian mechanism whereby debt was turned into state credit for industry. Furthermore, the Yokohama Bank took over the finance of all foreign trade, previously exclusively financed by Britain’s Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, which broke the British monopoly on the foreign exhange market in Asia. Only when British assets in Tokyo forced through the 1902 alliance with Britain against Fukuzawa’s Russian ally Count Witte did Japan allow British banks to operate freely inside the country.

Hamiltonian industry

The speed with which the Meiroku Society overthrew feudalism and built a nation was astonishing, and due to the Fukuzawa group’s realization that Hamiltonian economics was a universal scientific method. This science could be used by all humanity, just as scientific inventions like electricity and the steam engine belong to the human race--those with the brains to apply them.

The industrialization of Japan is perhaps one of the best examples in history of Hamilton’svoluntarism. These intellectuals conceived of the state first, and then created it, demonstrating that such things can be done in any nation with the quality of mentalleadership to buck British ``free trade’‘ dogma.

The Meiji in fact avoided elevating the few big feudal merchant houses, such as Mitsui and Co., which were close to the British. Instead, they created new industrialists from the ex-samurai, under the direction of Ökubo’s Industrial Promotion Board.

``The Industrial Promotion Board had three divisions: Agriculture, Commerce, and Industry, but the policy aimed at an organized unity. While in foreign trade and shipping the formation of private companies was encouraged, in agriculture and industry, state intervention was more extensive. Public experimental stations, model factories, and educational institutions, built by the Board for Technical Improvement and Industrial Promotion, initiated and directed industrial activies from above. Hence the need for experienced foreign employees,’‘

reported a contemporary account.

From 1873 to 1882, some 310,970 samurai received public bonds equivalent to over $113 million (1880 dollars), and 200 new corporations were established as a result of government loans and encouragement, creating shipbuilding, construction, cement, fertilizer, salt works, textile mills, and other companies. In 1873, Ökubo fostered Japan’s first independent shipping company, Mitsubishi, founded by Yataro Iwasaki, an ex-samurai provided by Ökubo with large government loans. A shipping company was needed, Ökubo wrote, to stop Britain’s total domination via the P&O Line over Japane’s transportation system.

Throughout the 1870s, Ökuma intervened to assure the exapansion of the Mitsubishi fleet. In 1874, the government purchased 13 steamers and gave them to Mitsubishi. During the British-instigated Satsuma samurai rebellion, Mitsubishi alone was able to transport the troops needed to save the Meiji regime. The government expanded it into a maritime academy, a marine insurance agency, a warehousing chain, and a major coal-mining concern.

The government itself also operated the overwhelming majority of heavy industries until well after the turn of the nineteenth century in a manner often advised by American System economists. In 1875, government-operated factories accounted for 56% of the total number of factories, 75% of the total horse power of energy used, and 88% of the manufacturing employees. The government built a railway system nationwide, a chemical industry, a shipbuilding industry, and so on. As these militarily and strategically critical new industries became capable of standing on their own without being destroyed by foreign dumping, the Meiji government sold them off to the private sector.

America as the protector of Japan

The American alliance was a joyful collaboration to the Meiji intellectuals, and a military necessity, which had nothing to do with plagiarization. If the United States had not protected the young Japan, it could never have remained independent in a world where Britain sought to occupy Asia by opium and force. As Shigenobu Ökuma wrote in Fifty Years of New Japan:

``Fortunately, helping hands were not wanting, ready to chaperone Japan in her debut upon the world stage. The friendly part which the United States took for its Japanese protégé especially deserves mention. Indeed, this spirit has pervaded all her proceedings toward Japan from the very first. Commodore Perry, while outwardly overbearing, entertained friendly sentiments toward our country. He scored the idea of following the submissive methods of the Hollanders, but neither did he agree to the proposal of a Russian admiral to coerce Japan by force.

``His diplomacy was as adroit as it was magnanimous, and this wise precedent was followed by the first minister which his country sent us, for Townsend Harris was the confidant and adviser of the Japanese government in the new business of diplomacy. It was he who advised Japan to forbid the introduction and use of opium, thus enabling her to keep clear of this source of national disaster. ‘’

In 1869, the Dutch-American missionary Guido Verbeck became the first foreign Japanese government employee, at the recommendation of Ökubo and Ökuma, as a legal adviser to the emperor and a teacher at the Kaisei School in Tokyo. Such foreign employees totaled over 500 by 1873.

From 1871 to 1877, Ulysses S. Grant sent State Department official Erasmus Peshine Smith to act as the official economic adviser to the Meiji regime. Smith advised Ökubo and Ökuma on Carey’s system for protective tariffs and development of domestic industries. ``The Japanese statements appear to have sound notion upon the policy of encouraging the protection of native industry,’‘ Smith wrote home. By the time he left Japan, ``The American System of protectionist economic theory had become generally common thinking among Japanese statesmen, government officials, and philosophers,’‘ as one Japanese historian put it.

From the leaders of the Meiji Restoration

Shigenobu Ökuma

Shigenobu Ökuma founded the First National Bank and the basic credit policies of the Japanese Ministry of Finance. He transformed the Japanese feudal system into a modern banking system, using a credit policy directly modeled upon the manner in which Alexander Hamilton transformed the Continental debt of the American colonies into credits for a major industrialization program through his first National Bank of the United States.

After the British assassination of Ökubo, Ökuma, who was no technocrat economist but a universal mind and a patriot, took over as the leader of Japan’s Meiji faction. In 1881, he forced the creation of a Parliament and the creation of a modern Constitution for Japan.

In his ``Proposal Concerning the Abolition of the Fief System by the Issuance of Government Securities,’‘ dated March 20, 1876, Ökuma proposed to turn all remaining samurai into industrialists by issuing them government securities for use in investments:

The feudal system for nobles and warriors dates back a long time.... Warriors who were especially talented were given a stipend or other annual award by the state. These samurai were to occupy themselves solely with military service, with no need to go into agriculture, industry, or mercantile professions. With the establishment of the feudal system, this fief-right came to be hereditary, and for the past several centuries a large amount of the government’s rice crop has been used up in these allowances ... which is truly a misfortune for the nation.... For the government to spend its revenues on them without getting any real use from them not only harms the nation but causes the samurai to doubt the government.... The people complain vehemently, and their minds are very disturbed....

As the samurai have already surrendered political power to the new regime ... it is due time that contracts concluded during the feudal era be canceled.... Since the annual revenue of the government is meant to be used for the nation’s public purposes, especially at the present time when many many offices are to be equipped at once ... useful state enterprises must be established and encouraged by making full use of economic measures in accordance with the national ability to do so. This is the basic principle of national economy. Despite this fact the government has always been in want of capital ... because the government has divided the revenue into three portions, and a third of it has been used for the payment of feudal fiefs and stipends....

The first thing to be done is to regard all the fiefs and stipends of nobles, samurai,and even commoners, as debts of the government. In order to redeem these all within thirty years, government securities should be issued and, whether the fiefs were hereditary, lifetime, or for a limited term, the securities are to be limited according to the acts attached herewith.... An interest rate should be given annually of perhaps five, six, or seven percent according to par value, and the capital sum should be repaid (by the government) in the sixth year, as far as the means of the government allow....

At that time, it is obvious that upon receiving all at once an enormous amount of money equivalent to several years payment ... those who wish to pursue their own livelihood can go into the appropriate enterprise.... Even those who cannot make up their minds will take into account that there is now a limit to their funds, and in the end plan some way to support themselves. In this way the accumulated customs of several hundred years will all at once be changed, terminating the abuse of providing for a useless group with valuable assets, and succeeding instead in making a useless group occupy itself in useful occupations.

In addition, at present there are many bankruptcies among our major merchants and businessmen, causing the circulation of currency to slow nationally, and drying up the source of capital. At this time, if the above measures were put into effect, these evils would be readily remedied, simply by issuing government securities for approximately 150 million yen or more. [In the 1870s, the yen was equal to one U.S. silver dollar, so this was a huge sum--ed.] It would serve in a positive way to create better currency circulation, and would kill two birds with one stone. I therefore humbly propose the above along with a draft of the decree, the acts concerned, and other materials attached herewith.

Toshimichi Ökubo

Toshimichi Ökubo created the Ministry of the Interior and set up the Industrial Promotion Board (Kangyo Ryo), precursor of today’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

His main writings deal with 1) industrialization and the building of government model factories; 2) promoting exports and improving their quality; 3) development and construction of a merchant marine; 4) expansion of government credits to industry; and 5) increasing agricultural productivity, improving education, and fostering land reclamation.

His praise of England’s ``protectionism’‘ here is half diplomacy and half tongue-in-cheek, for Ökubo was not only clearly an American protectionist, but he describes dirigist laws promulgated in England during the Tudor Renaissance of the sixteenth century, long before Britain was occupied by Venice and became the free trade capital of the world.

Ökubo founded the Tomioka Silk Mill in 1872, the first state-owned factory in Japan, with the assistance of Phillippe Brunat, a textile expert sent to Tokyo by the French government to train Japanese engineers and workers in mechanical reeling and other textile machinery construction and operation.

Proposal of Toshimichi Ökubo, ``Concerning Industrial Enterprises for Increasing Production,’‘ May 1874:

Generally speaking, a country’s strength depends on the wealth or poverty of its people, and the latter is closely related to the volume of national production. The volume of production originates in the industriousness of the people, but if we go back to the true source of that strength, we find that no industry has ever been independent of the guidance and encouragement of the government and its officials. If I may say so, imperial prosperity grew between 1868 and 1873, and the evil customs and old abuses which had for some hundreds of years been deeply entrenched, were thoroughly eradicated, with not a trace left.... Since that time, the various strong points of other countries have been studied widely ... and rapid progress has been made in civilization....

Nothing is more urgent for the government at this time, than the promotion of industry and trade, the provision of the essentials for the population. By essentials, I mean the means of production. Without such productive assets at hand, everyone, high or low, scrambles for his means of subsistence, leaving no time to care for anything else.... Looking at the present situation, we see that ... the people still lack the essentials for producing prosperity, and the government’s encouragement of industry is inadequate. Those who are responsible for the people should ponder this carefully, then establish methods for procuring everything necessary for the maintenance of the population, from the profits of industrial products, to the conveniences of land and water transport routes ... and make this the core of the government’s policies.

To cite an example, England is but a very tiny country. But being an island, possessing bays and ports and mineral resources, the government considered it their greatest duty to take advantage of these and use them to their fullest. The king and his subjects all have tried to use the advantages of the world’s waterways to foster their domestic industries. They courageously passed a novel, special Navigation Act, which banned any imports of foreign goods, unless brought on British ships, and prohibited the use of foreign ships for transportation of goods between the country’s ports. One purpose was to increase the number of British ships and to have the people become well-trained in navigation.

Another reason was to block in this way the haphazard intrusion of foreign goods, so as to protect and foster domestic industries. It has been many years since the measure was taken, and now the number of ships has greatly increased.... Since then their industries have grown extremely prosperous and domestic products are now more than sufficient to meet domestic demands. At this point, they have removed the prohibition and allowed free trade.

There are many similar examples in other foreign countries of the governments properly protecting the people and encouraging their own industries.... We should not necessarily imitate slavishly what England has done....

It is the duty of the ministers of the central government to lead and inspire our docile people to industriousness, and the endurance of hardships, in order to create industrialization. I request your Reverence to determine a policy, study the natural blessings of our country, and investigate which products are to be increased, and what kind of industries are to be encouraged and concentrated upon. The policy should be to initiate industrial enterprises for increasing production, by setting a standard appropriate to the people’s temperament, and their level of knowledge. In this way no one will be indolent, none will be left without a fitting place to work; in this way the people would enjoy immense prosperity. If the people enjoy such prosperity the country will grow rich and powerful as a result....

Encouraging industries for export

Proposal of Toshmichi Ökubo, ``Concerning the Need for Encouraging Industries for Export,’‘ 1875:

The natural resources of a nation are first developed by agriculture, and then by industries. However, if manufactured goods were bought and consumed only by the few, how could we promote agriculture and encourage industry? That which mediates between agriculture and manufacturing on one side, and consumers on the other and distributes the goods, is commerce.... Thus to promote agriculture and industry, we must expand the distributive system of commerce, so that there will be no bottlenecks.

Since the opening of ports in the country, trade with foreign countries has been mostly in the hands of foreign merchants, so that our merchants have not been free from domination by them. There are certainly a few who, starting out as very small merchants, have become involved in large-scale trading in Yokohama, but they rise and fall, one after another, and yet not one can possibly compete with foreign merchants, nor stay in the market.

One of the reasons is that they are not accustomed to trade with foreign countries. Another is that they have only such small capital, that they cannot survive for long. If they are not accustomed to trade with foreign countries, their outlook is inevitably narrow. If they do not possess sufficient funds, how can they think about long-term business? They, therefore, are apt to engage in narrowminded small tricks, or obtain good fortune by chance. As a result they are unable to escape domination by foreign merchants, and finally lose their entire fortune....

If this continues, how can we some day have merchants who can sufficiently compete with foreign traders? We have recently been importing foreign goods, more than we export our own goods, so that the national power is in an endless process of losing, and our nation may, in the end, fall into bankruptcy if this trend continues.

Since 1868 the Imperial Court has realized this, and established an Office of Trade to promote commerce, and made government loans to several companies. But these have mostly failed to prosper in their business, and their willingness to improve is almost nil, so that the Ministry of Finance last year ordered them to repay the public funds loaned them.

Because our silkworm eggs and silk were the two products most desired abroad, the government established a system of standards, to suppress those of bad quality, and award those of high quality, for there were many of poor quality and many fakes. The government also introduced a reeling machine at the Tomioka Silk Mill, to raise the standards of the workers and protect and encourage the silk industry. But these measures were the objects of many complaints from foreigners, and the government was forced to abandon the project.

The cooperation of government and merchants, however, awoke the population to the necessity and convenience of such cooperative undertakings. As a result, hundreds of such companies have been established, and flourish today. The Tomioka Silk Mill has not yet been able to make ends meet, but has served the purpose of enhancing the fame of our silk industry abroad, raising the quality of silk at home, and stimulating other private companies to set up reeling machines....

[Ökubo describes the recent bankruptcy collapse of the foreign-owned Onogumi silk traders near Tokyo, due to a ``quick profit’‘ mentality, which had caused mass unemployment in the Yokohama port area and a panic by Japan’s private lenders, who were afraid to make loans for less than 40% annual interest rates--ed.] Thus the Onogumi affair affects not only the locale of its main office and branches but the entire country. The resulting financial collapse has now become the greatest obstacle to our foreign trade.

Our plan now consists in having our merchants ship, and sell, our exports by themselves, directly to foreign countries, freeing themselves from the control of foreign traders. The urgency for opening to our merchants a means to sell abroad is clear, but the current great financial difficulties make it most difficult to persuade them. If we hesitate, however, and lose this chance to expand in the American market, there will be no other such chance.

Thus it is that the government should now take the appropriate initiative for a while, to find a mechanism to sell our goods abroad, expanding this step by step, so that [this new mechanism] ... shows its profit to our merchants. Of course, the government itself must not be involved in business. Hence, it must persuade a few companies to do so, loan them the capital to set up an agency in Yokohama, and let this agency contact companies in foreign countries to sell our goods. If this business progresses well, the government should encourage it to set up branches in foreign countries to expand....

There are two problems commonly raised here. One is that since 1868, few companies for which the government has provided the investment funds have functioned well. The other is that such a project might conflict with the interests of private merchants in Yokohama, creating in the future a conflict between government and private profits. Having taken all this into consideration I assert, however, that whether an enterprise succeeds or not, is far more dependent upon how it is conducted, and the quality of men conducting it, than upon whether the capital comes from government or from private companies....

One must invent the most careful and scrupulous ways to prevent conflict of interest. The government must clearly define the conduct of such businesses, and set all accounts and money transactions under the supervision of government officials.... Then, when in the future a stage is reached in which the business becomes so profitable that other companies become envious, the government should, since its plan will have been accomplished, then entrust the business to the private sector. I also therefore submit to you here, an outline of the means, methods, the amount of legal capital, and the aim of such an enterprise.

HOW HENRY CAREY AND THE AMERICAN NATIONALISTS BUILT THE MODERN WORLD by Anton Chaitkin

The following speech was given May 10, 1997, by historian Anton Chaitkin at an FDR-PAC Seminar. American Almanac also printed the keynote speech to the same event by Lyndon LaRouche. The speech has been edited for publication.

The Eurasian Land-Bridge policy that Lyndon LaRouche pioneered in today’s world, is a program for world economic recovery. The struggle for this policy, and against it, is at the center of world politics today--again! Because, it was in the center of world politics a century ago, and there are some things that you need to know about that time to understand what’s going on today.

The British Empire pushed the world into World War I to stop, essentially, this program from going into effect then. They and their allies sponsored the rise of Hitler, in Germany, looking forward to another war, for similar reasons, in the 1930s and ‘40s.

I’m going to describe the original land-bridge efforts, which were at the center of world affairs for several decades, from the Civil War, into the beginning of the 20th century. This program was the initiative of Henry Carey, and both American and foreign associates of his all throughout the world, and under his leadership. These were nationalists, and they worked to create powerful nation-states to form modern nations, as allies against the British Empire. The plan was that these were to be modern, high-wage, fully industrialized, fully sovereign nations. That’s what we wanted.

And, the Americans, Carey and his allies, succeeded, except to the extent that London was able to prevent the rise of some of these nations, or, to turn some of these nations against others.

The surviving evidence that we have in our hands right now, shows that this conflict, between the American nationalists and their allies, on one side, and the British Empire on the other, that this conflict was particularly fierce in China, in Russia, in Germany, in Italy, in Ireland, in Japan, in Thailand, in Mexico, in Colombia, in Peru, in Canada, and in Australia; and obviously involved the fate of Africa, and the rest of the world.

The nationalist initiative, similar to what we are doing today, caused the world’s great technological development in that period, which is most of the technology we have today. And this development was finally aborted, it was stopped, pretty much cold, scientifically, technologically, and politically, until the present initiative.

The fight for this policy, and against British Free Trade, really defines the true history, the little-known history of the world’s great nations, the people who are now faced again with the same issues and the same types of decisions as then.

The planners of this world development crusade were the people who had sponsored Abraham Lincoln: his Presidency. They were the established leaders of the United States in those days. They were industrial leaders, military leaders, scientific and political leaders; and by about 1902, British-allied financiers had kicked them out of leadership; had displaced them, the nationalists, from power, within the United States.

The way of thinking of these patriots, which was the heritage of the American Revolution, was at that point fading from the U.S. national memory, around the beginning of this century. And under the two Presidents who were loyal to London, whom Mr. LaRouche mentioned, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the United States--which had been made powerful by their opponents, by nationalists, not by these dupes of London--the United States functioned as a British pawn under these pro-British Presidents.

By 1905, until 1914, the leaders in Russia and China and Japan and Germany were left rudderless in the world. The American Republic, which had fought powerfully to develop their nations, had disappeared. There was no American republic, by the time World War I came around. That is, the American republic was simply a shell that was being operated by London policy, instead of the political force that had put into motion the development of these other nations, by the principles of the American Revolution. And so, the statesmen of the world were floundering about in this terrible situation of World War I.

Henry Carey and The Nationalist School

The economist Henry Carey, who lived from 1793 to 1879, was America’s most famous economist, and the world’s most famous living economist in the period of the American Civil War, and afterwards. Henry Carey’s writings were translated into many of the European and Asian languages, and with his predecessors, Friedrich List, and Henry Clay, and Alexander Hamilton, he was the main representative of the American School of Economics, or the Nationalist School, as opposed to the British School of Economics, which was represented at that time by John Stuart Mill--a very evil and famous man--and earlier writers, such as Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo and Adam Smith. Carey was the representative of the Nationalist School throughout the world.

In the May 2 issue of the Executive Intelligence Review, we have published a large package of articles, celebrating what we are discussing now, with some really ground-breaking historical material, which ought to play some significant role, especially as we continue to develop this story, in decisions to be made around the world.

I wrote some of this; the historians Graham and Pam Lowry contributed some really ground-breaking work; Bill Jones, provided the behind-the-scenes history of collaboration among Russia, China and Japan; and other European collaborators have contributed to this. We have used manuscript collections, archives, that are easily available to historians, and yet have been off-limits, untouchable material, because of the special relationship between England and America until this time.

Abraham Lincoln was shot in 1865, just when the United States had won the Civil War. But his program was continued by his faction, a nationalist faction in American politics, which was the faction of the original American Revolution. They were then in control of American politics.

This nationalist faction was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the leadership group that had been continuously in that city from the time of Benjamin Franklin, who set it up. It also included George Washington’s chief military officers. This was a leadership group, in politics and the military, that was the core of the American natonalists, all the way through to the end of the 19th century.

They had a program of government-sponsored railroads, public education, government-sponsored and -directed science, protection and development of industry (paid for by high protective tariffs), and aid to family farmers, including scientific, and other aid. Lincoln was a student of Henry Carey, who was the leader of the nationalists, and was, himself, an active member of the Carey faction in politics, throughout his political career.

In 1846, when Lincoln went into Congress, he wrote notes on tariffs. Lincoln said that the British doctrine of Free Trade bankrupts the country and destroys its industry. Lincoln wrote about ``useless labor.’‘

What is ``useless labor?’‘ he asked. It’s somebody who works to carry products from another country to this country, if you could make those products here with as high a quality and using American labor. Or merchants, or insurance and other things that handle those kinds of products; that’s useless labor. So he said that the government must have protection of American industry, or you have bankruptcy and destruction of the country. That was Lincoln’s policy throughout his life.

The Economic Policy that Elected Lincoln

Henry Carey wrote the economic platform on which Lincoln was elected President. Carey supplied the officials to the Lincoln administration who implemented this radical nationalist program of Lincoln’s, and of Carey’s, for high tariffs, that built our first United States steel mills, and brought about a vast mobilization of our country during the Civil War. So we came out of the Civil War stronger than we went into it: not a usual course for civil wars.

Lincoln built a transcontinental railroad. It was finished after he was murdered; finished to California, in 1869. The government put $64 million cash into it, and it was built mainly by the Army. Then, the second Lincoln transcontinental line, the Northern Pacific to Seattle, was started up.

At this point, around 1869, with the new military and economic power behind them, these American nationalists tried to develop, and began to develop, Europe and Asia, technological and political progress in other parts of the world, in order to extend the Union victory in the Civil War. Why? Because they had to deal with the political power of the main enemy of the United States, the British Empire, who had backed the Confederacy, the slaveowners’ rebellion, in the Civil War.

So, you want to create allies, who are powerful, in the rest of the world. The first steps were taken right after the Civil War, focussing on two United States allies at that time, that we wanted to build up as powers: Russia and Japan.

By 1869, Henry Carey was personally responsible for U.S. policy, for both countries. His newspaper writings, before the Civil War, had turned American opinion in favor of Russia, when Russia had a war with England, 1854. He wrote that we should back Russia against England, in the Crimean War. Carey had made an ultra-secret trip to Russia in 1859, just before the Civil War broke out here. We were headed for a crisis. He wanted to get the Russians ``on board’‘ as an ally, to make sure that we were going to have cooperation, as the crisis emerged in our country.

Russia did send ships, their Navy, to help us face down the combined Confederate-British-French enemy.

In 1869, Henry Carey gave a send-off dinner for Andrew Curtin, the former governor of Pennsylvania, now the new American ambassador to Russia. Attending this dinner in Philadelphia, were the Russian delegation to the United States, the chief United States railroad builders, and the machine-tool builders.

At that dinner, General Joshua T. Owen proposed that the Tsar of Russia build a railroad line to the Pacific Ocean, with a gauge to match our new Pacific railroad.

General Owen said, ``We have discovered that true glory is only to be attained, through the performance of great deeds, which tend to advance civilization, and develop the material wealth of people.’‘ And he called for ``girdling the globe with a tramway of iron,’‘ to strengthen Russia, and to ``outflank the movement made by France and England for predominance in the East, through the Suez Canal; and America and Russia, can dictate peace to the world.’‘

In the next few years after this, contracts were signed by members of Carey’s political machine in Philadelphia, to send Philadelphia-made locomotives to Russia.

American Revolution in Japan

Now, the previous year, 1868, Japan had had a revolution. It set up the modern Japanese government. Under Prince Iwakura, this revolution overthrew feudalist warlords, created a modern central government, and it was guided by Japanese students of Henry Carey.

The Japanese consuls in America at that time worked very closely with Carey. One of those consuls commissioned the first Japanese trasnaltions of Carey’s works, and another went back to Japan and set up the Meiroku (Sixth Year of Meiji) Society, which organized the economic thinking of Japan, for American System economics, as opposed to British economics, British Free Trade. So the American and Japanese allies in this Careyite movement actually led Japanese industrial development from that time on. The Americans advised the Emperor, and helped to identify Japanese mineral resources, plan exports, and design a tariff strategy, so that Japan wasn’t simply a victim of genocide such as Britain was practicing against China at that time.

In March of 1872, representatives of the new Japanese government arrived in Philadelphia, escorted by United States Army officers. The leaders of the city of Philadelphia published a pamphlet called the ``Diary of the Japanese Visit to Philadelphia in 1872.’‘ It described, as they put it, ``the mission on which these pioneers of an advancing state of civilization in their own country were engaged.’‘

On the first page of that pamphlet, published by the leaders of Philadelphia, they said that before the United States began to aid Japan’s development, Japan was closed to world commerce. Why? Because of the empires, the European empires’ outrages against Japan.

And this is the way the Philadelphia leaders, the American nationalists, described this: They said that ``the least concession’‘ by the Japanese ``made to the foreign trader’‘ brought in ``that aggressive policy, that arrogance, and grasping spirit of monopoly which have ever followed the British footfall on foreign soil,’‘ so that, the Japanese, before then, had closed up, ``as a means to preserve its national and political autonomy.’‘ But, now they were opening up again, in cooperation with a U.S. effort to develop Japan, not destroy it, as the British were doing. That was the American idea, as opposed to our principal enemy, the British Empire.

The first stop on this visit of the Japanese to Philadelphia was the Baldwin Locomotive Works, the world’s largest capital goods organization at that time.

The Japanese went in there and inspected the engines, the machine tools, the foundries where the metal was made, and the plans for the locomotives. They did this in order to buy all those types of things, and also to build these locomotives themselves with U.S. assistance.

We have in Washington, at the Smithsonian Insitution, a wonderful set of books, in the Archive center. These are the order books of the Baldwin Locomotive Company. You can go see these things. They show a complete record for evey single locomotive built by the main locomotive company. Thousands of locomotives, throughout the 19th century; all the specifications of the locomotive, how it was made, what the parts were, the principal metals, the price, the terms of sale, where it was going to be delivered, what country, at what port was it landed.

You wonder, how does a locomotive get somewhere, except on a track? Well, it goes on a boat, just as Lincoln brought the first locomotive to Illinois, when he was a state legislator there. There wasn’t any track from the east coast to there, so they had to put it on a boat. Because all railroad-building is political. You get a good political leader, he builds a railroad. And if there is no good political leader between there and here, you have to float it on a boat to get it there, right?

So Lincoln made Illinois the center of American industry, by political policy. The same thing was going on all around the world, when Lincoln’s policy faction was in control, and, it was principally through this locomotive company. The locomotives were the ``engine of development.’‘

Locomotives Shipped Around the World

We see in the order books, Baldwin’s shipments of locomotives to American railroad lines, to Russia, to Japan, China, Australia, Mexico, Brazil. This was a calculated program of economic development. That is, the people who ran this company were politically motivated.

The Balwin company was only one part of a conglomerate, a whole set of institutions. Probably the biggest money-maker was the Pennsylvania Railroad, the largest railroad company.

Also in this conglomerate, controlled by the same people, was the Franklin Institute for Scientific and Tecnological Research. This was the organization set up by Matthias Baldwin and others in this group, whose leader, in the mid-19th century, was Alexander Dallas Bache, the great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin. This was all part of Franklin’s personal organization, continuing after the American Revolution, taking the spirit and the ideas of that revolution onward.

Bache and this institution collaborated directly with the great German scientists, Humboldt, Gauss and Weber, in a worldwide organization of the highest science on the planet; and the U.S. headquarters was here, in Philadelphia.

Other parts of this one, functioning unit in Philadelphia were the University of Pennsylvania, controlled by Carey and his friends at that time; machine tool companies: the greatest one was that of William Sellers; the Carnegie steel company, and other Carnegie organizations; all in effect one partnership, interlocked, working together for common goals.

The business leaders of this group called themselves, the ``Philadelphia Interests,’‘ opposed to Wall Street, at war against Wall Street, because Wall Street was always just a bunch of British financial bloodsuckers who hated the United States.

The heart of the United States military and industrial machine was this Philadelphia operation, and the guiding light of this was Henry Carey.

So Prince Iwakura, leader of the Japanese revoltuion, and his party of visitors came to Philadelphia, 1872.

They met with the banker, Jay Cooke, who was the U.S. government’s principal banker at that time. Cooke was not Wall Street. He sold U.S. bonds to the public; that’s how they financed the Civil War, not Wall Street. The Japanese were preparing a treaty with the U.S., and a huge loan. They were negotiating connections with the Northern Pacific Railroad in Asia. Cooke was also negotiating the annexation of Canada at the time. The German ambassador to the United States was helping in this process, building that Northern Pacific, so they named the terminus of the railroad after the German Chancellor, Bismarck (the capital of North Dakota is still Bismarck), because of the international project that was going on, for this land-bridge.

This was not something the British were going to stand for. They struck with real fury. The newspapers came out with slanders against this whole project, against Jay Cooke, and against the railroad operations. They said that he was bankrupt. They stopped his credit. They had anti-railroad scandals in Congress, which you probably have read about, if you have studied some of the history of this period.

British Free Trade Causes 1873 Depression

The Congress turned yellow, turned chicken, cut off the funds, cut off subsidies, cut off support for this kind of project. There was a terrible crash when the Jay Cooke banking house closed down. The United States went into the 1873 depression, and joined the rest of the world, which was in a depression because of British free frade hegemony that had plunged everybody into unemployment, all over the world.

But Henry Carey, at the age of about 80, did not quit. He fought back with tremendous bold initiatives that changed the face of the world. He put out a pamphlet in 1876, entitled ``Commerce, Christianity and Civilization Versus British Free Trade,’‘ better known by its subtitle, ``Letters in Reply to the London Times.’‘

This pamphlet was circulated by Carey’s friends overseas. It was a call to arms for world development! It especially attacked the British destruction of China, through the opium trade, the principal point in the pamphlet; Carey wanted to illustrate, ``what do you mean by `Free Trade’? Oh, you mean this crime.’‘

The pamphlet was a response to a London Times editorial, that had complained that the viewpoint of ``Mr. Carey, of Philadelphia ... has been ``repeated in hundreds of magazines and newspapers, and ... endless orations, and has affected the economical policy of the Union ... and is held by multitudes....’‘

The London Times warned that Free Trade, which they called ``English political economy,’‘ is rejected by the Americans, and other countries under the influence of ``ignorant,’‘ ``imbecile,’‘ ``dishonest,’‘ ``heretics,’‘ [aside] such as ourselves.

This Carey pamphlet, used poetry by Robert Burns, on its cover:

``Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel’s as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
And foolish notion.’‘

It said that the British rulers ought to try to see themselves as others see them. It would protect us from many a blunder, if we see ourselves as others do. In other words, they should see themselves as pirates, dope pushers and mass killers. That is the idea of the pamphlet.

He said that the British monarchs, heads of Church of England, sanctioned and pushed opium smuggling to China, using bribery, fraud, perjury, and violence, against the valiant self-sacrificing attempts of Chinese leaders stop it. That they waged two Opium Wars to compel the dope to be thrust onto China. They seized Hong Kong in the first Opium War, and the rest of that colony, Kowloon, in the second Opium War.

Why did Britain seize Hong Kong? As a depot for dope smuggling, that was the whole purpose of it; and today, they are crying tears in Britain about having to give that up.

Principally, as in the pamphlet’s title, Carey mocked the British empire’s religious pretense, that they claimed to be Christians. He wrote about their racist arrogance: where they portrayed this bloody so-called Free Trade as ``great Reformer’‘; that is what they called their own policy.

He went through the looting of India by the British, the destruction of India’s independent economy. They had set up India as the base for growing opium, dope, to be sold to China, to be forced on China by war. That was the Free Trade system.

The London Times also had terrible hypocrisy which the pamphlet blasted, because they praised the efforts of the so-called ``human rights’‘ groups of the time, led by the British government, that were hypocritically campaigning against slavery in Africa, after they had just supported the South in America’s Civil War. Whereas they are imposing on China the worst possible slavery that exists: dope. And he went through the social situation in England, the poor masses, and the bored, lazy aristocrats, which was very similar both to the Roman Empire and to the southern states of the United States. It’s all in this pamphlet.

He described the British free-trade system, wrecking much of the world economy. But, he said, the United States has now overthrown Negro-slavery, and America, and some other countries, under protectionism, are developing home industries, on purpose, with government interference in the market, and we are going to succeed economically because of that.

The Fight for Germany

Carey’s followers in Germany used this pamphlet, and other American initiatives, to fight for a dramatic policy change in Germany, then ruled by Chancellor Bismarck, who, unfortunately, had come under British policy in the late 1850s, 1860s and early 1870s, and they had no way to get out of the terrible depression. Germany was not a great power in the world, industrially. So, it was in a mess, just like it is in a policy mess today, with Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

It was also split along religious lines. The government of Germany was attacking the Catholic Church. They were being manipulated into this, within the Church, and against the Church. It’s very similar to the problem today, where you have many governments that are led to say that that ``we have to concentrate on fighting off the Muslim enemy; we can’t get involved in development efforts, because there’s this radical Islam somewhere.’‘ We now read about this as a ``Clash of Civilizations;’‘ we have this southern ``religion’‘ problem.

In those days, the southern religion was the Catholic Church, which was a large part of the German population. So they were being pushed into this frenzied situation, a real mess. Also, socialists were agitating the workers in Germany, to say that the industrialists were their main problem.

So now, the German nationalists, coordinating closely with Henry Carey and his circle, and with the new Pope Leo XIII, when he came into leading the Catholic Church, fundamentally reshaped German national policy.

They adopted a high tariff, to replace free trade. They had the government, in this new policy, supervise a huge industrial and technological development program. They dropped the anti-Catholic policy. And they adopted a protection for workers, various forms of social security. This is back in the 1870s and 1880s. And Germany joined the United States as the motor of world development.

Let us now look a bit behind the scenes, to get some insight into how things work in the world.

In late 1875, Chancellor Bismarck met with an industrialist named Wilhelm von Kardorff, a man completely unheard of today. He was the head of a small, pro-Carey party in Germany, spreading Henry Carey’s works there. And Bismarck gave the green light to this man, to go ahead and organize industrialists, farmers and other people, to push for a nationalist program.

We have in the archives, in the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the letters from these people inside politics in Germany, to Henry Carey, describing how this works. Kardorff used this pamphlet, translated it, and got it all around, the attack on the British dope pushing in China, British free trade.

It was this American initiative that flipped the German policy and made Germany a great power. What was the American initiative? When America’s nationalists alerted the leaders of other countries, in Germany, for example, to the danger of the British Empire, that’s what sent Germany into its final great leap to becoming a modern industrial power.

They set up high protective duties; in 1879 they passed high tariffs. Smelting and machine works increased 30%. Employment went up 40%. Wages increased. The government sponsored formation of cartels of different companies, which joined together to pool laboratories. They set up banks whose only purpose was to build industry, not speculation, not usury. This was part of a completely government-guided system. It was not communism. The idea was, we are going to deliberately develop, and they built canals, ports and so fort.

Meanwhile, very idealistic Americans and Germans joined together in a crash program to bring electricity to the world. That was part of this program, this political program. That’s how the world got electricity.

We had, in 1876, the 100th anniversary of the American Revolution, of the Declaration of Independence. We celebrated that by staging the most important world’s fair that’s ever happened. It was a political event, of highest consequences. It was organized by Henry Carey and his circle. Why did they hold it in Philadelphia? Well, that had been the capital of the Revolution, and it still was. And the government of the United States made this our national celebration.

This had a profound impact on Germany, as well as the rest of the world.

This Centennial exposition, a World Fair, celebrated Man’s freedom as absolutely connected to industrial development. That is, technological power, national power, increased power over nature: absolutely inseparable from human freedom.

The free-trade faction, the Gingrich faction of that day, tried to stop the fair. Senator Sumner of Massachusetts cut off the funding for it, declaring that President Grant was overstepping his authority to invite foreign nations: to the celebration of America’s centennial! Sumner died, though, and they got away with it.

100,000 At Centennial Opening

One hundred thousand people gathered for the opening celebration, standing in front of the beautiful Memorial building, which was built for the Centennial exposition. Millions attended the Centennial overall.

The main exhibition building was massive, with a 21-acre room inside, and, there were 249 buildings.

In the center of the main building, there was a bandstand for concerts. Above it, hanging from the ceiling, was a very curious display, that illustrates the principle of the land-bridge: a gigantic sort of air car, with the two dignified figures of Confucius and Mohammad, giving the sense that our projects would reach out to the parts of humanity they represented.

There was a statue of a freed slave. The United States had just come through the Civil War successfully, and the rest of the world had an increased admiration for the United States because we had abolished slavery. And because in that struggle, which had involved 200,000 black soldiers, we had developed the most powerful military machine in the world.

The arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty were on display. The Statue of Liberty was built for this Centennial fair. But it never got set up until some years later in New York harbor, a gift from France. This Centennial was the celebration of human freedom on this planet.

On display were hundreds and thousands of machines, including a giant I.P. Morris blast device for making steel. This blast engine delivered 170 cubic feet of air per second to a furnace.

One of the beautiful Baldwin locomotives at the Centennial, is now on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution, in the Arts & Industries building, on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Baldwin built those locomotives at considerable expense for the Centennial, for political reasons, to display to the world.

Right next to the Baldwin display was the Corliss engine, whose steam devices were in another building, so it was totally silent. This turned all machinery on display. This was the world’s largest engine at the time. They turned it on and off so people could see the power over nature that was being exhibited.

The Japanese put up their own building in the fair. There were some racist attitudes on the part of spectators when they started this. They were using some methods, that were less than the highest level of machinery, to put it up. But when the people saw the quality of the workmanship and design of this building, they had tremendous admiration and the Japanese became very, very popular there.

A Baldwin locomotive was placed on display, in Osaka, Japan, many years later. We continued to pour out these locomotives for the development of these countries.

Lady Lynda Chalker [today’s British ``Overseas Development’‘ Minister] would not have liked the exhibit of Egypt and Sudan. The motto on their building read, ``The oldest people of the world, its morning greeting to the youngest nation.’‘ President Grant was depicted at the exhibit, in a published drawing, being greeted by the Egyptians and the Sudanese.

The Centennial’s famous Memorial Building had, possibly, the largest temporary art exhibition, that ever took place: thousands of American and European works of art, many of which, on loan from Europe, were brought over on U.S. Navy ships.

The Memorial Building was built by a German immigrant architect, Herman Schwarzmann. The German Reichstag building was copied from the Centennial Memorial building, and was built a few years later.

The head of the German delegation to this Centennial, was Franz Reuleaux, a professor of machine building. He came to Philadelphia, and spent several months conferring with the Carey people and the industrial and political leaders there. Reuleaux became world famous for writing a sharp attack on Germany’s industrial backwardness, Germany’s subservience to British free trade policies, and its reputation for producing ``cheap, and therefore bad’‘ products. This head of the German delegation wrote a book called Letters from Philadelphia, first serialized in the newspapers, attacking the petty chauvinism in Germany under its free-trade and oligarchical policy, attacking the stupid militarism, which doesn’t equal military power.

Reuleaux was a professor of machine building who introduced his students to Schiller’s universal history teaching, to teach them about machines. He said that America produced excellent machines because its workers were very highly paid, intelligent and motivated, and because America had a protective tariff.

Adolf Hitler had a response to this. In 1940, just after Hitler launched the invasion of Russia, Hitler commented, ``We were busy as bees’‘ (now this is an Austrian hippie, and he’s saying ``we Germans’‘), we were able to mass produce goods. They were cheap, but at first they couldn’t have the quality of the English products. We were beginners, and didn’t know the secrets of production. That’s how, at a world’s fair in Philadelphia, German production got the attribute, `cheap and bad.’|’‘ But then, Hitler went on, three industries were developed, chemical, electrical and optical, in which `our’ work was superior to the English in quality.

Well, that’s ironic. Because, how did Germany develop their industrial power? Not with slave labor, as Hitler had. Not with cheap chauvinism, like Hitler. But, by developing under a nationalist idea, which celebrated man’s freedom, as opposed to free trade. The British say, you can only be for free trade, or you can be for authoritarian dictatorship, communism or fascism. That’s all there is.

Idealism is the Only Practical Policy

No! Nationalism built the world, and it was an idealistic nationalism; that was the only practical step for mankind. Everything else failed. Total idealism was the only practical thing.

Russia’s exhibit at the Centennial showed some of their machines, and the works of the Practical Technological Institute of St. Petersburg, and of the Imperial Technical School. They were showing off the beginnings of their industrial development at that time.

We have a copy of the Baldwin Locomotive company advertisement poster, in the Russian language, with ``Baldwin’‘ written in big Russian characters across the top, which was circulated around Russia in about 1880.

There was a Hawaii section at the fair. Hawaii was an independent country at that time. The head of the Hawaiian delegation was a missionary, originally from America, named Samuel Damon, who would later play a role in the Chinese revolution that set up the present Chinese nation (not the communist aspect).

This man Damon, wrote that racial harmony would prevail in Hawaii, ``if we continue to treat man as man, irrespective of color or race; but a war will come,’‘ he wrote, just before the Civil War, ``when the wicked doctrines of the London Times are allowed to prevail, and the Anglo-Saxon is allowed to displace an [allegedly] inferior race in the interests of trade and civilization.’‘

This Rev. Damon, head of the Hawaiian delegation, had educated the Japanese youth, Manjiro, who as the first Japanese English-speaker, translated for the 1850s U.S. naval expedition opening up Japan.

The moment the Centennial Exposition opened in May, 1876, a young inventor named Thomas Alva Edison moved into his ``invention factory,’‘ that had been set up by the Carey people, who backed him. In a sense, he was their employee: they sponsored, and financed, and protected him. This laboratory was at Menlo Park, New Jersey. Edison, as a very young inventor, displayed his first, telegraphic inventions at the Centennial exposition.

A couple of years later, we find Professor George Barker, the head of the Franklin Institute’s research, and young Thomas Edison, out on an astronomical trip, in the American west. It was there that the Carey and the Bache people, this Philadelphia group, through Professor Barker, asked Edison to invent the electric light, and develop electric power for the public, challenging him to do that.

Before long, Edison held a press conference to announce that he was going to electrify the world.

A German named Emil Rathenau came to the Centennial. And a few years later Rathenau and Thomas Edison set up a partnership. Rathenau founded the Edison Electric Company in Germany, as a partner of Edison and these Carey people. Between them, Edison and Rathenau brought electricity to Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Japan and China. And of course, the United States and Germany. They made Germany’s Berlin, the capital of the Russian electrical industry. [Emil Rathenau was the father of Walther Rathenau, who, in 1922, worked out the Rapallo accord, between the German Republic and the Soviet Union].

Meanwhile, another partner of Edison, and of the Carey circle, Frank Sprague, introduced electric street cars, and subway trains to the United States.

Another person you never heard of: Wharton Barker (not to be confused with Professor George Barker, mentioned above, who was not a direct family relation). He was a central figure in the projects from here on out; this is a Carey insider in Philadelphia. It was at his house that the dignitaries from these other countries met, when they came to the Centennial, just like they might come into Leesburg today [to meet with its most celebrated resident, Lyndon LaRouche] to talk about what they’re going to do.

In 1878, Wharton Barker was hired by the Tsar to build warships for the Russian navy in the Philadelphia shipyard. He then went to Russia to plan the industrialization of South Russia, with the Bethlehem Iron/Steel company, which was owned by his uncle, Joseph Wharton.

Barker also supervised the Irish revolution unit of the Carey circle, that is, the Irish in America, as well as Ireland, working together with this little circle, set up something called the Clan na Gael. One of their central people went from Philadelphia to Ireland in 1878, and organized 20,000 feuding Irishmen into a central revolutionary organization called the ``Irish Republican Brotherhood.’‘ Together with their Clan na Gael in the United States, which shipped arms and money to Ireland, the Brotherhood continued to be the main organization of Irish nationalism (out of which the Sinn Fein was created), until Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, who worked for that organization, established the nation of Ireland right after World War I.

Assassination Stops the War Against England

The plan was that the United States and Russia together, would make war on England, and there would be an Irish uprising. That was what these men were organizing for. Unfortunately, Tsar Alexander II, and Wharton Barker’s candidate for president, James Garfield, whom Barker put in the White House, both were assassinated within a few months of each other.

A fellow named Terence Powderly was part of this little inner circle in Philadelphia. He is well-known, historically, as the head of the first mass organization of working people, called the ``Knights of Labor.’‘ Under Powderly’s leadership, it grew from a little secret society, to 800,000 members, black and white, women and men, immigrants and natives, employed and unemployed.

Its purpose was, for the workers to study political economy, and to defend the rights of workers against employers, who were mindlessly attacking them. That’s how Powderly is known: as the most famous labor leader in that era. He introduced, as a leader of labor, the concept of a mass organzation of workers, not socialist. He was a Careyite, part of his inner circle, and he was the treasurer of the ``skirmishing fund’‘ of the Clan na Gael that sent the guns to Ireland for the Carey organization.

Powderly was not known for his political activities, in this circle of American nationalists. We have a copy of a letter from Terence Powderly to Wharton Barker, a banker in Philadelphia, and they are conniving in the running of American politics.

One of their projects was the development of the submarine, paid for by the ``skirmishing fund.’‘ They paid a man named John Holland to build the first submarine for the Irish revolution. Then, the U.S. navy hired him to build its submarines, a little bit later.

The British didn’t like this. They got the Canadian Catholic Church to tell the Pope, ``Don’t allow this!’‘ Because these guys were organizing workers, in Britain, and Canada, while they were doing all these other initiatives.

But the new Pope, Leo XIII, was on Powderly’s side, and worked in tandem with Carey’s American nationalists.

The British Magazine, Puck, ran a vicious cartoon, attacking the Knights of Labor, and attacking Cardinal Gibbons, who had worked to get Vatican protection for Powderly. This British cartoon depicted scandalously ugly and ignorant workers, stoning a poor scab, and the Catholics should be ashamed to participate in this.

Another British Puck cartoon showed Pope Leo XIII as a lunatic supporting Irish revolution and worker uprisings, because he was on the same side as the American nationalists.

And it was because of this combination, really, that Germany got this social security system--health insurance, pensions--for the workers, in the 1880s.

The Trans-Siberian railway was finally built by the Russians in the 1890s, under the finance minister Count Sergei Witte, who was an advocate of the American nationalists’ economic policy, as opposed to the British. The Baldwin company provided the locomotives; Carnegie steel provided the rails, and so forth. This was a joint American and Russian project.

When the U.S. President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, bringing in Teddy Roosevelt, that cut off American assistance to this type of project; now, the British-loving faction was in control of America.

We have a copy of the contract signed by Wharton Barker’s representative Eugene Mitkiewicz, with the Chinese government in 1886, to build railroads all over China; the contract is in the Wharton Barker papers at the Library of Congress.

The plans were to develop a national bank for China, and to build railroads, telephone lines and modern industry throughout China. We have a copy of the map Wharton Barker drew, of the plans for this railroad system: an American-instituted, massive development project for China.

The British came down in a virtual military attack against this deal. They circulated press lies: you might hear this today, ``Chinagate’‘ today, against our President, against the Chinese.

What did they say about this then? First, ``there’s no such contract.’‘ And when the Chinese said, ``yes, there is,’‘ the British said, ``yes, there’s a contract, but it’s fraudulent.’‘

When the Chinese said, ``no, it’s not fraudulent,’‘ they said ``the Chinese have cancelled it.’‘ And they kept the pressure up. The same paper would say all those different things!

The British government finally exerted terrible pressure. They had their Navy, and they had a bad U.S. President, Grover Cleveland. The press was full of racist anti-Chinese filth, and the British forced a cancellation of this project finally. Barker tried again later, in 1895. He was called back to China by the Chinese viceroy; they worked out another deal, for a $125 million program, 5,000 miles of railroad lines, to develop a navy, a merchant marine, steel mills and locomotive plants. That was also shut down, stopped by the British.

The Railroad Gazette, in 1899, ran a photograph of Baldwin Locomotive parts, boilers, and items in crates, unloaded on the dock, in China, in the port city of Newchang.

It didn’t work out. China had a very weak, corrupt, Manchu dynasty, that fell under the complete domination of foreigners, particularly the British.

At the same time, in Hawaii, these American nationalists had a last bastion of their influence, while American government was coming under the dominance of British policy. And they put together an organization in Hawaii, led by one of their protégés, their young friend, named Sun Yat-sen, Sun’s organization was built up in Hawaii at the house of Frank Damon, whose father Rev. Samuel Damon ran the Hawaii delegation to the Centennial.

Frank Damon had been in Berlin as a Hawaiian embassy leader, during the period that the Carey circle was working so hard over there. Damon provided money and support and even military training to the beginning of Sun Yat-sen’s organization. Sun used Hawaii as his base to make his revolutionary movement in China, which proclaimed the Chinese Republic just before World War I.

Sun Yat-sen had the same goals as Carey, and the same ideas as Lincoln: massive economic development, tremendous railroads and other infrastructure were called for.

This idea of the meaning of this kind of program is what Franklin D. Roosevelt had, and FDR’s politics against Churchill is what was inherited by this new Chinese leadership, after America had kind of gone to sleep in the world, So they have left this legacy to us now, that we are now reviving in the world.

Captions

The author addressing the FDR-PAC meeting May 10.

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``The economist Henry Carey, was the world’s most famous living economist in the period of the American Civil War, and afterwards. His writings were translated into many European and Asian languages, and with his predecessors, Friedrich List, Henry Clay, and Alexander Hamilton, he was the main representative of the American School of Economics, or the Nationalist School, as opposed to the British School of Economics.’‘

Tsar Alexander II, the ally of Lincoln and Carey said, ``I shall accept the recognition of the independence of the Confederate States, by France and Great Britain as a casus belli.’‘ Russia sent it’s Navy to defend the Union. Shown here: Russian sailors in New York harbor.

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Philadelphia’s Baldwin Locomotive Works proudly displyed several shiny steam engines in Machinery Hall of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, held in Philadelphia. The immense Corliss steam machine, which ran all the machinery on display, can be seen in the background.

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100,000 people gathered for the opening celebration of the Philadelphia Centennial, in front of the beautiful Memorial Hall, which still stands today. It built by a German immigrant architect, Herman Schwarzmann, who design was copied by the architects of the German Reichstag, built just a few years later.

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There was a statue of a freed slave. The United States had just come through the Civil War successfully, and the rest of the world had an increased admiration for the United States because we had abolished slavery. And because in that struggle, which had involved 200,000 black soldiers, we had developed the most powerful military machine in the world.

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The arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty were on display. The Statue of Liberty was built for this Centennial fair. But it never got set up until some years later in New York harbor, a gift from France. This Centennial was the celebration of human freedom on this planet.

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President Ulysses S. Grant, greeted by representatives of Egypt and Sudan (Soodan). The motto on their building read, ``The oldest people of the world, its morning greeting to the youngest nation.’‘

The moment the Centennial Exposition opened in May, 1876, a young inventor named Thomas Alva Edison moved into his ``invention factory,’‘ that had been set up by the Carey people, who backed him. This laboratory was at Menlo Park, New Jersey. Edison, shown here with his “Edison effect” lamp, had, as a very young inventor, displayed his first, telegraphic inventions at the Centennial exposition. Before long, Edison held a press conference to announce that he was going to electrify the world.

Hamilton Influenced Sun Yat-Sen’s Founding of the Chinese Republic by Michael O. Billington

One of the slogans displayed prominently by the youth who defied death at Tiananmen Square in the days preceding June 4, 1989 was, ``You cannot fool all of the people all of the time.’‘ This quote from Abraham Lincoln evoked in the mind of every Chinese patriot the legacy of the father of the Chinese Republic, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Dr. Sun had based his fundamental principles, known as the ``Three Principles of the People,’‘ on the concept presented by Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address: ``government of the people, by the people, and for the people,’‘ an historical connection which Dr. Sun never failed to present, proudly, to any audience. In fact, Sun Yat-sen considered this concept to be the connection between his view of a world truly governed by Christian morality and reason, and the profound truths of the Confucian tradition which had governed China for 3,000 years.

Dr. Sun saw the founding of the American republic as the most advanced expression of the effort to create a society governed by agapé, the Christian notion of the love of God, truth, and mankind. He compared it to the Confucian notion of a ``Great Commonwealth,’‘ where man would govern himself on the basis of ``jen,’‘ the Confucian term that approximates the Greekagapé.

A Christian world view

Sun gave primary credit for the successful development of the United States to the work of Alexander Hamilton, both in his role as the head of the Federalist fight for a Constitution and for his economic policies. He believed that responsibility rested with the government for the development of the physical infrastructure and the creation of a credit system necessary for successful agricultural and industrial progress. The success of such a system had proven itself in the progress of the United States. Said Sun: ``The U.S.’s wealth and power have not come only from the independence and self-government of the original states, but rather from the progress in unified government which followed the federation of the states.’‘

A Christian, Dr. Sun shared the Renaissance view of the American Founding Fathers that the role of science was found in the command in Genesis for mankind to ``bring dominion over nature.’‘ He wrote: ``The advance of science has made it possible for man to usurp the powers of nature and to do what natural forces have done.’‘ This, he believed, is the basis for social progress.

He attacked equally the two dominant systems that had developed in opposition to the American system: the free trade model of Adam Smith and the Marxist model of dictatorship and class warfare. Sun had the ``advantage’‘ of having seen the massive death and destruction imposed upon his nation over the previous century by the British under the banner of ``free trade,’‘ and thus appreciated Hamilton’s repeated warnings that such free trade arguments were simply a ruse for colonial economic domination and looting. Hamilton, said Sun, was concerned about ``liberty and equality pushed to excess,’‘ and ``founded the Federalist Party which advocated the centralization and not the diffusion of sovereign power.’‘ He described the U.S. Constitution as ``the first complete constitution in human history,’‘ and adopted the policy of strong centralized government with a separation of powers in his own proposed Constitution for the struggling Chinese Republic.

In his highly developed programmatic proposals for the International Development of Chinawritten in 1921, Sun reflected the Hamiltonian rejection of Adam Smith’s free trade dogma:

``All matters that can be and are better carried out by private enterprise should be left to private hands, which should be encouraged and fully protected by liberal laws.... All matters that can not be taken up by private concerns and those that possess monopolistic character should be taken up as national undertakings.’‘

For these major projects, especially, ``foreign capital, foreign experts and organizers, and gigantic methods have to be adopted.’‘ He added that the unbridled competition of the Adam Smith school had proven to be

``a very wasteful and ruinous system.... It has been discovered by post Darwinian philosophers that the primary force of human evolution is cooperation, and not struggle as that of the animal world.... If we still retain the custom of free competition or laissez-faire, it will be like encouraging a lame man to contend with an automobile in a race.’‘

Sun did not merely plead for assistance from the developed nations for the development of China. Like the circles around Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin, who saw that the building of a true republic in the New World was a step toward saving Europe from the impending Dark Age under the destructive oligarchical forces centered in England, so Dr. Sun saw that the western nations were on a suicidal course, and that unless the rapid technological development of the poor nations of the colonial world were taken on as a priority by the West, then further self-destruction was in store. Like Lyndon LaRouche, Sun recognized that the massive development of the Third World was the necessary centerpiece for any serious effort to stop the cycle of depressions and wars in the West.

The U.S. had the potential, following World War I, to replace the British imperial system and return to American System principles, consistent with those of Hamilton. ``But unfortunately,’‘ said Sun, ``the U.S. has completely failed in peace, in spite of her great success in war. Thus the world has been thrown back to her pre-war condition. The scrambling for territories, the struggle for food, and the fighting for raw materials will begin anew.’‘ The West refused to heed his advice, or to support his proposals--and, as he had warned, a new, more horrible depression and war ensued.

“A sheet of loose sand”

Sun also studied the heated debates by Hamilton and his collaborators with the spokesmen for ``pure democracy’‘ and libertarianism. He had seen how the British, under Bertrand Russell’s direction, had moved into China in 1919 after the Versailles Treaty had sold out China and inflamed the Chinese people. Using the arguments of the British liberals and the French Enlightenment, Russell helped create a counterculture, a ``new age’‘ cult of irrationalism, and a terrorist movement which ultimately produced the horror of Maoist China. Sun warned against ``a group intoxicated with the new culture which has begun to reject the old morality.’‘

He attacked Thomas Jefferson for accepting similar arguments from J.S. Mill, Rousseau, and others. The application of Mill’s ``extreme liberty for the individual’‘ would create a society that is like ``a sheet of loose sand,’‘ said Dr. Sun. He praised the U.S. for following the Hamilton model, while pointing out that libertarian ``pure democracy’‘ had seized control of the French Revolution. In a haunting passage, almost a premonition, of the Maoist Cultural Revolution 50 years later, Sun describes the French Revolution:

``No one in the country dared to say that `the people’ did not have intelligence and power; if one did he would be accused of being a counter-revolutionist and would be immediately brought to the guillotine. The result was that a mob tyranny was instituted. Anarchy followed, society was panic stricken, no one was sure of his life from morning till evening. Even a member of the revolutionary party might, because of a careless word which offended the multitude, be sentenced to death.’‘

Class war a “disease”

This ``tyranny of the mob,’‘ like the bestial Darwinian notion of ``survival of the fittest,’‘ could only lead to a false materialist sense of reality and to the collapse of society, Sun warned. ``From ancient times until now, man has exerted his energies in order to maintain his existence. And mankind’s struggle for continuous existence has been the reason for society’s unceasing development, the law of social progress. Class war is not the cause of social progress, it is a disease developed in the course of social progress.’‘ Marx thus knew nothing of the real process of social progress, concluded Dr. Sun: ``Marx can only be called a social pathologist, not a social physiologist.’‘

Dr. Sun published his economic policies under the title Plans of National Reconstruction, with the dirigist measures developed by Hamilton as his model. The ``regulation of capital’‘ was his central conception, utilizing both regulated private capital and the development of state capital to promote industry and launch large infrastructure programs in communications, railways, waterways, mining, and manufacturing.

With the vision of the expansion in the western U.S. as a guide, Sun mapped out the criss-crossing of the vast Chinese interior with railroads. Dams across the great river systems would provide power and eliminate the massive death and destruction of recurring floods. These plans are still largely untouched, 70 years later, and are still today the core necessity for preventing yet another holocaust upon the Chinese people.

The current regime in Beijing is clinging to power through terror, while ``opening up’‘ to the West by adopting the same failed form of free trade policies which Hamilton attacked 200 years ago. Under the tutelage of Henry Kissinger and associates, Deng Xiaoping and the reformers have created free trade zones for unregulated exploitation of cheap labor and speculation, while the basic industry and agriculture of the nation slides into collapse. In explicating his ``Three Principles of the People,’‘ Sun Yat-sen defined the ``nurture of the people,’‘ rather than short-term profit, as society’s true aim.

THE VERSAILLES THESIS -- The Roots of WWI, and WWII

Conference Speech by Webster Tarpley, Schiller Institute Food For Peace Conference, Chicago, Illinois, February 22-23, 1992.

I would like to attempt to illustrate the Versailles thesis in a certain amount of detail. I would say to people at the beginning, the best seats are emphatically here in the front part of the auditorium, because if you don’t see these maps, it will be a little difficult to follow. So I urge you if you can, come up to the front.

The Versailles thesis has been referred to several times in the course of today’s proceedings already, and it is, in short, the idea that the world system or world order which is presently collapsing around our ears, is rooted above all in the events of the First World War between 1914 and 1918; and then in the Versailles Treaty of 1919, actually in the Peace of Paris of 1919.

The thesis goes on to specify, that World War I itself was the consequence of British geopolitical geostrategic decisions that were made in the period around 1870, in the wake of the American Civil War. That the British, from 1870 to 1914, actively sought a general conflagration for the purpose of destroying civilization and for preserving the British Empire as against the challenges that had emerged.

Now the theme in this is constantly, the British quest for the single empire. Lyndon LaRouche referred to it before, I believe, the idea of a single new Roman Empire, an empire that would encompass the entire world, which would be under the ultimate domination of what the British considered to be an Anglo-Saxon master race. It would be oligarchical, colonial, imperialistic, malthusian, condemn large areas of the world to depopulation, poverty, and so forth; the preservation of the British Empire.

As we will see, the British came very close to establishing just such a single empire in the period between about 1848 and 1863. That is a period that we’ll look at in some detail, because it’s a period that’s very like our own today, a period when the British--the Anglo-Americans--come close to establishing this kind of universal domination, the new Roman Empire.

In the course of this, I will have to simplify some things. We can certainly clarify some of those in the discussion, and I will have to proceed somewhat from the point of view of the British thrust in these directions, and you’ll see the areas that pop up. We will also see the irony of history, that if the British came between 1850 and 1860, they came close to establishing their worldwide dominion, the irony is that then blew up in their faces, especially around the events of the American Civil War, the Russian cooperation with Lincoln during the Civil War, already referred to, to the point where by about 1870, the British had to fear a convergence of the United States, Russia, and united Germany, in such a way that the future of the British Empire would have been put into jeopardy, that British world domination would have been ruled out forever.

In the course of this, as you’ll see--and this is Lyn’s tremendous merit, to be able to do this under the conditions that he’s working--we will develop a radically new view of the last 200 years of history, which you will not find in any textbook, and indeed from the point of view of this concept, you can see what a tissue of lies the history of the last 200 years, as presented in Anglo-American sources actually is, and in particular, the official U.S. version of World War I and World War II, which is a complete tissue of lies, and any idea of German war guilt for World War I has to go out the window, and it has to yield to the idea, that World War I was a British creation which the British schemed for the best part of a half century, to bring about.

Using the aids of modern technology here...[MAP NO. 1: Europe as redrawn at Congress of Vienna, 1815]

The question is, where do you start some kind of a review like this? We could usefully start it at the time of the American Revolution. What I thought we would do, though, is to skip to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, simply specifying that in the period before the Napoleonic Wars, in the period before 1815, the British were able to extend their colonial domination to vast areas of the world, including India and so forth, with of course the new nation, the United States, standing out as a barrier, as a challenge, to British imperialism. So let us leap to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, what many people know as the Europe of the Congress of Vienna, as you see here. This was Europe as the map was redrawn by the oligarchs gathered at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. So here’s our starting point.

Remember that in the world outside of Europe at this point, the British dominate. They rule the seas, the only significant challenge comes from the United States. Here’s Congress of Vienna Europe. Notice Poland is completely submerged, Italy is divided, the Turkish Ottoman Empire extends far into continental Europe; and in the middle of everything, you’ve got this crazy quilt of Germany divided into dozens and dozens of petty states. Notice also that Belgium has been added to the Netherlands.

This is the Europe that you associate with Metternich, Prince Metternich, the guy who was ruling here in Vienna at that time, the chief minister of the Hapsburg Court. This is the Europe of the Holy Alliance. It is a condominium in which the British are obliged to co-exist with Metternich and the kinds of Central European oligarchs that he represents. Metternich is a very, very ugly figure, needless to say. The British are forced to deal with him almost as an equal. However, what you see--and this is I think a characteristic of this period, after about 1820, the British begin to drop out of the Congress of Vienna system. They stop going to the congresses, they stop signing the declarations, and rather what they do is to assume a position of splendid isolation and at the same time to foment revolutions against all of their alleged allies on the continent of Europe. And in particular, the names of Mazzini, Karl Marx, Bakunin, the First International Workingmen’s Association, plus all of the French socialists, Louis Bland, Fourier, and all these other people; this is all a society of British agents for the destabilization of Metternich and company on the continent of Europe.

The British started a revolution here, in Serbia--they created that revolution in 1817. They created modern Greece in 1821; and the word went out from London, that the British oligarchs would support everybody’s revolutions, except, of course, their own. And they fomented these things, and this is what gave birth to the revolutions of 1848.

I have to caveat this, by saying 1848 is also other things. There are a lot of very good people active in 1848, but the general thrust of the British policy, is clearly this.

Let me just show you what happened in 1848, in case people have forgotten this. Basically, every government in Europe was overthrown. The French July monarch was overthrown in favor of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, a British agent and adventurer; every government in Italy was overthrown. In particular Mazzini succeeded in creating his Roman republic, forcing the pope to flee; Metternich himself was forced to flee from a revolution in Vienna; you had Kossuth in Hungary; every government in Germany was overthrown--not necessarily the monarch, but certainly the prime ministers--similar things in Spain, and so forth. The only country that escaped this was Russia, where there was no internal revolution.

With one fell swoop, the British had succeeded in overthrowing every government on the continent of Europe, in particular forcing Metternich to disguise himself as an Englishman and flee to London.

[NEXT MAP: 1848]

Here is this extremely interesting period between the 1848 revolutions and the turning points of the American Civil War, and this is something you won’t find in any history book. This is an absolutely original concept that LaRouche has developed.

Let us look at the tremendous worldwide offensive of the British imperialists back in the 1850s.

First of all, free trade. Where did free trade ever come from? Free trade was introduced by the British in 1846 and in the following years. Before that, as you may remember, they had Corn Laws. Very high tariffs to keep the price of grain extremely elevated, but this was then turned around, because they could look forward to the idea of being able to loot the world and therefore have free trade.

The British were able to install their puppet, Napoleon III. He had studied the wars of Napoleon I, his ancestor, and he concluded that Napoleon’s big mistake was fighting the British, so as so often happens in the history of French imperialism, here’s a French imperialist who believes, that the way to have a French empire, is to be a junior partner to the British. That’s exactly what he did. This is then acted out in the Crimean War, where the British and the French join together to invade Russia, the only country that had survived those 1848 destabilizations.

We’ve also got, in terms of a worldwide offensive, a reorganization of British rule in India. This is the famous Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, which led to the end of the direct rule of the British East India Company out there, and the creation of a British Viceroy of India.

In China, the Second Opium War fits precisely into this period. This is the British grabbing a whole series of ports and other bases on the coast of China, and it was clear at the time that they were about to go into China to partition the entire country.

And Kansas. How does Kansas fit in? Well, Kansas is the beginning of the American Civil War. Bleeding Kansas, with gangs of pro-Confederate and pro-Union, or pro-slavery and pro-abolitionist groups, fighting it out in a continuous bloodletting. Filibustering expeditions by proto-Confederates into Latin America, and the creation of this Hapsburg/Maximilian Empire in Mexico. You look at this together, there’s not one continent of the entire globe where the British are not in a tremendous offensive. The idea is that the single empire is within their grasp.

Now, pause for a second. It’s very similar to today. If you look at this, it looks like the British on paper have wrapped up the entire world. And you could say today, if you look at the map, if you calculate, you could say, well, it really looks like the Anglo-Americans have dominated the world, and that the Anglo-Americans will continue to dominate the world for the next century. But let me just anticipate that it’s not going to be so.

[MAP OF CRIMEAN WAR]

Here’s the Crimean War. Here we are on the Black Sea, and what do we find here? The Ottoman Empire, of course; Russia up here, so who goes in? The British and the French bust through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and they actually invade the Crimea here. This was one of the largest amphibious war operations, the largest up to that time to be sure. And they succeed in defeating the Russian Army, although what they find is, that their forces are not significant enough to push further inside the country.

[MAP OF BALACLAVA]

This is the city of Balaclava. If you remember, Tennyson’s ``Charge of the Light Brigade’‘? This is one that Fred Wills could quote at great length. The charge of the Light Brigade took place here. This is the British invasion fleet, Anglo-French invasion, and there are some very large Russian forts in the background, and that’s what the British threw their Light Brigade against. So here we are in the Crimean War.

[MAP]

Maximilian! Remember him? The Hapsburg heir who was placed on the throne of Mexico by a French army, sent by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte? There he is.

The idea was to begin to reintroduce direct colonialism, by British or by British puppet states, into Mexico, Central America, and Ibero-America in general.

[INDIA]

In India, as we saw, the Sepoy Mutiny led to a vast reorganization of British colonialism in the area, sending out a viceroy from London and before too long, Queen Victoria was proclaimed ``Empress of India,’‘ with this great empire, ruling over maharajahs and other local potentates.

We have to pay special attention to the 1850s in the United States, and Lyn has been very emphatic about this.

If you look at the United States in the 1850s, then you have to conclude that the place was a dead duck-lost. Why?

Let’s start with the leadership. Let’s look at the great series of presidents: Millard Fillmore, starting in the 1850s; Franklin Pierce, the ancestor of Barbara Pierce, Barbara Bush; and James Buchanan. This was the president under whose term the Civil War actually began to break out. Someone said that this shows that one President Buchanan was enough.

What happened under these? This is typical.

Here’s Jefferson Davis, wearing his uniform of major general of the United States Army. He was not just a major-general; he was secretary of war under these administrations.

So what you had under presidents like Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan, was that the Confederate traitors, like Jefferson Davis--members of the British Scottish Rite Freemasons, proto-Confederate slaveholders, traitors, the scum of the earth; they could make great careers in the United States Army. And, of course, later on, this was the same Jefferson Davis who became the president of the Confederate States of America, that despicable puppet state.

And again Lyn has warned us: Don’t be fooled by the Confederacy. Don’t be fooled by that Sir Walter Scott aura of chilvalry and J.E.B. Stuart wrapped up in God knows what that’s palmed off as the ethos of the Confederacy. This was based on human slavery, this was one of the most despicable, proto-fascist states that has ever been seen on the face of the earth. Davis was the president.

People like Ulysses S. Grant, that you see here, could not make a career in the Army. It’s interesting to see, that while Jefferson Davis was getting promoted, generals like Sherman and Grant were forced out of the U.S. military service, and had to go into business, they had to go into the private sector, to try to earn a living.

Here’s a typical Confederate. We’ve talked a lot about him. Judah P. Benjamin: he was the secretary of the treasury of the Confederate States of America. At the end of the Civil War, he fled to Britain, where he lived. This is precisely the kind of British imperialist agent that you find in the upper reaches of the Confederate government. He is, of course, an agent in particular of the Rothschild family of London, and this mixture of what you would have to call Zionism and Confederacy today, that animates an organization like the Anti-Defamation League. That’s exactly what this is. The ADL today continues the characteristic mentality of Judah Benjamin.

And then, you look in the Union officers corps. How about this guy? He thinks he’s Napoleon, or he’s checking if he’s still got his wallet. That’s George McClellan, who, in 1862, 1861-62, was the commander of all the Union armies. And here he is at Antietam.

This is the battle where McClellan had a good chance to destroy the Confederate Army under Lee. But he refused to do that. McClellan refused to attack on many occasions, because he wanted a negotiated peace. He said, ``I can sit down with Robert E. Lee and work this out, and Abraham Lincoln doesn’t really belong in this, because he doesn’t understand these things the way I do.’‘ This is an interchange, where Lincoln is basically telling him, ``Why didn’t you pursue Lee? You could have destroyed him on the battlefield, and you refused to do it, now the Civil War’s going to go on for three more years.’‘

Here’s the way this was viewed in a cartoon of the day. This is pro-McClellan propaganda. Here’s Lincoln on the one side and Jefferson Davis on the other, and here’s George P. McClellan who’s trying to reconcile them, mediating between them if you will. And of course he was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1864; and if it hadn’t been for Sherman at Atlanta and Phil Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley and the naval battles off Cherbourg, France, then he might have won, and that would have been the end of the Union--because that was the idea, that the negotiated settlement would leave the Confederate States of America in existence, as a British puppet state.

Now, let’s look at the way in which this world, which seemed lost, blew up in the face of the British.

A reforming czar in Russia, Alexander II. He came in in the midst of the Crimean War, just as his country was under tremendous attack, came in with a vast program of reforms, in particular, the freeing of the serfs in 1851. Then we’ve got the turning-point year 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation, the twin Union victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg especially, and, as we will see, the arrival of the Russian fleets in New York and San Francisco.

The Seven Weeks’ War. This is one that’s hardly known. This was the defeat of Austria by Prussia, which was the immediate prelude to the complete unification of Germany. The collapse of Maximilian’s Hapsburg Empire in Mexico; German unification completed. And as we’ve stressed, what came out of these events, this tremendous turnaround of the 1860s, when all seemed to be lost, was a convergence of the United States, Russia, and Prussia--or call it Germany by that time--which attracted the attention of key forces in Japan and China. If you go back to Japan in this period, the reforming forces in Japan divide pretty much between pro-American and pro-German.

Here was the potential for a new combination in the northern hemisphere, the United States, Russia, Prussia, plus China and Japan, that would have been sufficient to dominate the world, and finish off the British Empire once and for all. Let’s take a look at how this went.

Of course, the principal figure in this is Abraham Lincoln, who administered one of the most severe defeats that British imperialism has ever had to absorb in the last 200 years.

This is Lincoln’s ambassador. This is the original Cassius Clay, Cassius Clay of Kentucky. He was the Union ambassador to St. Petersburg at the time of the Civil War, and he secured really the only military assistance from any foreign power for Lincoln and for the Union.

This is Admiral [] The photographer here is Mathew Brady, and Mathew Brady, the great Civil War photographer, had his studio in New York City. And here’s Admiral [], the commander of the Russian Atlantic fleet. Did he come all the way to have his picture taken? Obviously not.

The Russian fleet arrived in September and October. It sort of came in one ship after another, over a period of a couple of weeks. In September and October the Russian Atlantic fleet arrived in New York City, and they had been ordered by the Czar to place themselves under the command of Lincoln in case of war between Britain, and France on the one side, and the Union on the other. Russia was going to join in that war. They had just fought the Crimean War against the British and the French, and they were ready to continue fighting.

Similarly, another Russian fleet came to San Francisco, and spent the winter of 1863-64.

Here is another photograph by Mathew Brady. These are actual sailors of the Russian Atlantic fleet, who came into New York City in the fall of 1863, and played a key role in the saving of the Union, because this was a token of the fact, that if, for example, Napoleon III sent an army to fight the United States, then he would probably have to deal with Russia, on the continent of Europe. As Gideon Welles, the secretary of the navy for Lincoln in those days said: ``Thank God for the Russians.’‘

Here’s that other one that I just mentioned. This is a war that in the United States you almost never hear about. here is a war between Prussia on the one side, and Austria on the other. And this is the Seven Weeks’ War. The Prussian army was capable, within a period of about 50 days, of vanquishing the Austro-Hungarian forces. I think what the interesting thing about this is, this took place in 1866. What has never really been looked into, is the relation of Gettysburg on the one side, with German unification on the other. Would it be possible for Germany to have been unified, if Lincoln had not won the Civil War? I would submit to you, that Gettysburg and Vicksburg are key turning points of world history, also in the sense that they opened the door to the unification of Germany.

One interesting fact. The kingdom of Hanover, here, which is, of course, where the British royal family comes from, was an island. It had ceased to exist as a result of this war. The Prussians simply put an end to the existence of Hanover. I can assure you the British didn’t like that; they would have done something about this, if they had not been so thoroughly defeated in the U.S. Civil War.

Here’s unified Germany. Again, if you look at this map with the colors, you can see the crazy quilt that had existed, Bavaria down here, Baden-Wurttemburg over here, Mecklenburg-Schwerien and so forth; this was now brought together as one powerful unified national state by 1871. So, U.S., Russia, Prussia.

However, the British Empire was, of course, very powerful at this point. Many people think, they tend to situate the British Empire high point back in the days of George III. Well, these are figures from 1909 and they will show you, that in 1909, the British dominated one-quarter of the population of the world in the British Empire. One-quarter of the world’s population were subjects of the British Empire and about one-fifth of the world’s land surface. There are other accounts that will tell you it’s about 25 percent of the population, and indeed 25 percent of the land surface. Remember that the British Empire got even bigger after the First World War by absorbing German colonies, so much so that the entire coastline of the Indian Ocean, was completely British controlled. This was then called ``the British Lake.’‘

And there, of course, is the old Brzezinski arc of crisis, which is simply the axis of British colonialism around the Indian Ocean.

What could the continental Europeans do to resist this kind of British domination?

Well, this is the railway system on the continent of Europe at about 1900. I think one interesting thing to us as you look at us, is that it’s clear there are three key points in the European railroad system. There’s Paris, there’s Berlin, and there’s Vienna. That’s Budapest over there, think of that as a kind of second center. The only thing that comes close is Milan, but then you’ve got the Alps here, with a low density of railroads up there.

So it’s clear that a European infrastructure and railroad triangle, here, does comprehend the densest area of industrial and infrastructural development. At the same time, there were railroads being built out here into the Russian Empire; and in particular, we have to mention here, the great Count Sergei Witte, who grew up as an employee of the Russian imperial railway system. He worked first of all in the railway ministry, became transportation minister, later finance minister. And what he promoted, was the building of this Trans-Siberian railway, the greatest infrastructural project of the 19th century, greater even than Lincoln’s transcontinental railroad, and as you see it goes all the way from St. Petersburg up here, all the way across Central Asia; the original form of it went across Manchuria to Harbin and then to Vladivostock; later on, a second line was added up here, to avoid Chinese territory. It linked up to the Chinese railway system--for example, from Harbin to Beijing and to these other areas here, Darien, Port Arthur, and so forth.

There is also a Russian system, as you see, just to follow this a little bit, there’s a second railway system which is called the Transcaspian, which gets right down to the base of the Caspian Sea, comes right across to Iran, and--look--here’s British imperialism in India, coming up against the Russian Empire, with just this little Afghani buffer state in between.

So look at this tremendous ability of Witte’s project to reach out and create an actual Eurasian railroad bloc. As was mentioned before, Witte’s strategic concept was that France, Germany, Russia should not fight each other. They should make an alliance against Britain in particular. That would have spared them all of the carnage of World War I, and it would have robbed the British of their geopolitical strategy. The British geopolitical strategy, of course, was to dominate the United States, dominate Japan if they could, and then go into the so-called heartland, and play the forces of the heartland against each other, play France against Germany, Germany against Russia, and so on down the line. Witte’s strategic concept would have made World War I impossible.

And here’s the other great railroad project. This is now the Berlin to Baghdad Railway. You only see the Asia Minor part of it here, the Balkan and Asia Minor parts, but suffice it to say that this started in Berlin, came down here through the Hapsburg dominions, across the Bosporus on barges; went through Anatolia, through what is today Syria, and then into Mesopotamia, Iraq, reached Baghdad, reached Kirkuk, Mosul, Basra, and finally Kuwait. And this was going to be built between about 1900 and 1915. It was never completed; this would have provided an alternate route to India; it would have challenged the British domination of their empire lifeline; this was primarily the idea of Georg von Siemens of the German industrial family but it was pursued also as a goal of German foreign policy. And if you put together the two maps that I’ve just shown you, the Trans-Siberian Railway and this Berlin to Baghdad railway, this would have made Berlin the rail hub of the universe, with the ability to call on an entire Eurasian hinterland, and of course this the British were determined to avoid at all costs.

Now some people may ask: If the British decided in 1870 or thereabouts, if Disraeli, Gladstone, Lord John Russell, Queen Victoria, and a few other people sat down at the table and said, ``Well, let’s have World War I,’‘ and they did that in 1870, and that’s about what they did, why did it take so long for World War I to come about?

I would simply point to a couple of questions of Bismarck’s foreign policy. The guy who superintended the creation of united Germany was, of course, Bismarck. He’s a mixed figure: part monster, part realpolitiker. Bismarck as a realpolitiker, was a great realist. He knew that there could be no general war in Europe, as long as Germany and Russia maintained good relations. This picture you see up here is the alliance system created by Bismarck. And you can see the result of it is, that Germany has plenty of allies; France has none; France cannot start any wars--these pro-British governments in Paris--and the British are forced to stay off the continent of Europe pretty much. And in particular I would stress the good relations between Berlin and St. Petersburg, between Germany and Russia, first under the so-called alliance of the Three Emperors--Dreikaiserbund--and then the so-called Reinsurance Treaty.

So from 1870 to 1890 or thereabouts, this is what Europe looked like.

The bottom part shows what happened when Bismarck was forced out of the scene and the lunatic Emperor William II (this is Kaiser Wilhelm, this is the guy you remember from the World War I period, when he came in). Kaiser Wilhelm did not understand, he rejected the importance of an alliance with Russia. This allowed France to make an alliance with Russia in 1894 and very soon after that, the British were brought into this, and you have the Triple Entente of Russia, England and France, all directed against Germany; Germany is left with only one real ally, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this was not a good ally, with allies like this you don’t really need enemies, and the way for World War I was actually clear.

The other thing to stress about this is the colonial rivalry in Africa. Lyn has talked about the Fashoda incident of 1898, there it is. The British wanted to unite a strip of territory from Cairo all the way down to the Cape. This was the way the British wanted to put Africa together. There were some French imperialists who said no, we’re going to start over here in Dakar, and go to Djibouti; and these two groups clashed in Fashoda and the mentality that won out on the French side under Theophile Delcassé was the idea, that if you wanted to have an empire, you’ve got to do it with the British because you’re not strong enough to do it against them, therefore, make a deal with British imperialism, that’s the key to the Entente Cordiale of 1904.

With that, everything is ready for World War I. Here you see Europe as it was in July and August of 1914. The Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire here; the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and, as you see, a very large Germany.

The British had played this Eastern Question card, the Eastern Question meant their desire to destabilize the Ottoman, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

The thing that we have to stress about the way the war was conducted, is that the United States fought on the wrong side. That’s one of the key turning points in which the twentieth century went wrong. It was wrong for France to ally with the British against Germany; but it was doubly wrong for the United States to go into World War I on the side of the British. The catastrophes of this century would have been avoided to a very large degree if, for example, the United States had gone in on the side of Germany. That would have made all the difference. That would have created a much better world than the one that we’re confronted with today.

And here’s the fighting. You see these fighting fronts? There’s a western front over here, there’s a tremendous eastern front, an Italian front, there’s a Balkan front, there’s a Russian-Turkish front out here, and look: even out here, there was a Kuwait front. Norman Schwarzkopf, where are you? This was done by the British. They tried to get to Baghdad--they didn’t get there either.

And, of course, the reality of World War I is that this is the greatest single tragedy, the greatest single hecatomb of western civilization. Nine million dead. These are French troops getting out of their trucks. They’re going to go fight the battle of Verdun, where, over a period of 6 or 8 months, several million men were killed.

It’s about 9 million killed outright, 20 million wounded, and if you add in the Spanish flu and a few other things, you get up into the area of about 25 million to thirty million dead as a result of World War I. And the majority of that, was Germany and France, the two most developed countries of western Europe.

Here is now the Europe that emerged after the Peace of Paris, so this is now Versailles, we’re now in the midst of Versailles, bringing World War I to an end. You can see the changes that have been made, a very large Poland up here, a rather large Czechoslovakia, a large Rumania, a fairly large Hungary. Notice also that Yugoslavia has been created--probably the most typical territorial change of Versailles, this Peace of Paris of 1919, is the existence of Yugoslavia.

You can also see the creation of Finland and Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, up here in the Baltics.

This territorial system that came out of this, was vastly unpopular. Nobody was really satisfied with all of this. It awakened desires on the part of various groups, nobody liked it, it was fought in particular by Ataturk in Turkey, there was a mass movement in China against the idea that the German colonial possession were transferred to the Japanese under this same treaty. In Italy, there was so much discontent that this led to the rise of fascism, similarly in Germany, and so on down the line.

Here’s Germany as it came out of World War I. Notice the areas that were taken away; and now, of course, the Oder-Neisse line over here is the border of Germany.

I would stress in the Versailles system: the way in which the Ottoman Empire was partitioned in 1919. This was all the Ottoman Empire. Everything that you think of as being the Middle East--including Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia; all of these were created at the Peace of Paris--in particular the Treaty of Sevres. Israel took a little bit longer to create, but basically the mandate of Palestine under the British is what then later became Israel. Also notice Serbia up here.

Hungary, Austria: this empire ceased to exist. Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Slovenians, Croatians, and others, departed this empire, and, of course, I have to apologize for this map, this is a U.S., sort of pro-Woodrow Wilson map, because it lists ``Yugoslavs’‘ as Serbs, Croatians, and Slovenes, and, of course, that’s precisely what Yugoslavia was all about. This did not have anything to do with the wishes of those involved. This was a reward to Serbia by the British and their friend, Woodrow Wilson.

And Russia: the Russian Empire was dismembered. Here we see Finland taken off, the Baltic States taken off, Bessarabia, today Moldova taken off; areas in the Transcaucasus taken off. The Russian Empire has already been through one dismemberment in the 20th century. It’s now going through the second dismemberment. And we must warn, that unless economic dirigistic policies are introduced in these new states, to make them viable, to make them prosperous, to make them stable, then, as Helga was saying earlier, there is every danger, that those states will then be re-engulfed by a Russian Empire within about 15 or 20 years, or even less. In this case, it took about 15 or 20 years, for the Russian Empire to make its comeback under Stalin.

The other thing about Versailles that I would like to stress very much, is the financial arrangements, because here we can really see the degree to which today’s world is an extension of the Versailles System.

Germany, under the Treaty of Versailles, was required to pay $32 billion of reparations. It was said that the Germans bore the war guilt; that they were responsible for World War I. Big lie! But the reason for the big lie, was that they had to pay $32 billion--it’s hard to calculate that in today’s terms. Those were gold dollars, those were real dollars, maybe $32 trillion is some idea of what that would have meant today, and because of the 5 percent interest rates, this was going to be paid over about 60-70 years. By one calculation, the Germans would have wound up their payments about 1990. They would have just finished paying for World War I two years ago.

This was going to go up to about $100 billion because of the accrued interest over the period. So let’s say, $100 trillion of reparations.

The French had borrowed $25 billion during the war, and the British and the French had borrowed about $10 billion from the United States. So here’s the merry-go-round. Germany, of course, was not allowed to export. They were kept blockaded for a long time. They had to pay these reparations to the British and the French. Notice that the French had to also pay the British. The French and the British then paid the United States, and the Wall Street bankers, under the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, then refinanced the Germans, so that they could keep paying. And that is a system of usury and destruction. It, of course, meant that the heart of Europe would be economically depressed; that Germany would be depressed, economically, that there would be no development of the Third World as a result of European capital goods being sent out. It virtually guaranteed fascism and bolshevism advancing against the middle class societies; and it had within it the seeds of World War II. In other words, what Lord Keynes said about this, that it would require economic slavery in Germany, was absolutely accurate. It was a way of squeezing Germany until you could hear the pips squeak, as Keynes said.

So let’s just summarize what we’ve gone through on this Versailles System.

What we’ve done here, is to compare the Versailles arrangements of 1919 with the Yalta arrangements of 1945, which have now collapsed. The Versailles System had a League of Nations. Who was in the Security Council? The U.S., Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. Those were the Big Five. The U.S. didn’t even join it, but the British wanted to run the world that way, as a condominium. And, of course, under the U.N., we’ve got the Security Council.

Under Versailles, you have the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. It’s still there. This is widely considered today to be more powerful than the IMF and the World Bank and the other institutions that were then put up under the Yalta system after the Second World War. We’ve mentioned this $32 billion in reparations, the $10 billion in war debts, the immense internal debts of all these countries. After the Second World War this was the démontage of German industry, simply taking it out, primarily by the Russians, but above all, the conditionalities of the IMF as they have been imposed on the former colonial sector.

Continuing this comparison. Under Versailles you had a war guilt clause saying that Germany was responsible for World War I, and under Yalta, the same thing. Collective guilt. Every German is responsible for everything that Hitler did. Typical on the geographic changes that I’ve just mentioned, Yugoslavia is a very typical one. Under Yalta, it’s the Germanies not simply cut down, but even divided.

And then, look at the Middle East as one example of what this meant for the Third World. Under the League of Nations there were these mandates. The British got the mandate of Palestine. That then became Israel. The British Foreign Office with the Balfour Declaration announced that it was going to create the state of Israel. This was then included in the secret British-French Sykes-Picot accords, and finally the Treaty of Sèvres, which was the treaty with the Ottoman Empire.

What does that lead to? To your typical Yalta arrangement of endless wars of Israel against the Arab states. All these Middle East wars, 1948, 1956, 67, 69, 73, the Iran-Iraq War of ‘80, and finally the Gulf War of 1991.

That brings us pretty much up to the present time.

I haven’t been able, for reasons of time, to go into certain postwar events that are better known. A couple of things to say in conclusion.

What is the purpose of all this? Why did the British insist on this? The British insist on a world system or a form of organized chaos, which is what you see here, based on an irrational principle of arbitrary power. Oligarchy. The idea that the British royal family, the British house of Lords, the British aristocracy and oligarchy, have the God-given right to rule. The Anglo-Saxon master race. And they can inflict suffering on the entire rest of the world in the name of this lunatic, imbecilic principle of their power. Therefore, the purpose of this entire system, is to crush humanity. Sure, you can say, it’s really directed against Germany to keep the Germans down, to keep them divided. To keep the Germans and the Russians at each other’s throats; to keep the French and the Germans at each other’s throats. It also implies that the United States is subjected to colonial rule, which you see.

So all of these great nations are humiliated, each in its own way, by this Versailles System. But the purpose of it ultimately is to crush the entire human race, because one of the effects of this entire system, is the poverty and economic backwardness of the developing sector today, which is directly due to these Versailles and Yalta arrangements.

We also have to ask ourselves: What is the center of evil in the world? Well, for a while there was Hitler and the Nazis. This was certainly very evil; Mussolini and the fascists. The Bolshevik Party has gone out of existence--Stalin’s party, Lenin’s party is really no longer there, it could be reconstituted, I suppose. Mao and his heirs in China are still in power, but it looks like their future is going to be a limited one. So ultimately, you have to ask yourself: What is the problem of evil in the 20th century in particular, because it has turned out not to be fundamentally, in the last analysis, any of those, but rather, the British oligarchy. British geopolitical thinking. The idea of dividing the world along these lines, and creating a series of endless wars.

We also have to recall, as we saw back in the 1850s, that when the British seemed to be on the verge of taking everything, that is the moment when the intrinsic weaknesses of their system, pop out. As Lyn said the other day, this is an Anglo-American system that destroys its enemies, to be sure, but it destroys its sponsors and its owners with an even greater certitude. It’s a system that literally devours its own flesh--as you see today, when it looks like the Anglo-Americans are ready to take over the entire world, but at the same time they’re collapsing internally so fast, that it is clear that they will not be able to impose any permanent world order of any type.

And I think finally, what it means for us, is that this is a tremendous opportunity, because there is now a complete political and strategic vacuum and economic vacuum, all around the world. There is a vacuum of ideas; there’s a vacuum of strategy, a political vacuum--look at the Democratic candidates for president, five-pack, the dwarves, and you can see that that is a vacuum of personalities, policies, and ideas. And Lyn has always stressed, that this is now the time to advance to fill that vacuum with the kind of solutions which his candidacy, and our organizations uniquely represent.

I am, for my own part, convinced, that there will be breakthroughs for Lyn’s presidential candidacy during the course of this long season, the primary season from now until June; the presidential season that goes all the way to November. There will be breakthroughs. When and how, I do not know. But we must take advantage of the fact, that the systems that have controlled the world in a certain manner of speaking, for the past 70-80-90 years, that these are now collapsing in front of our eyes, creating tremendous political opportunities.

Lyn has also stressed, that you cannot engage in politics today, unless you have this kind of a scope--unless you go back to the Congress of Vienna, 1848, the British drive toward the single empire, and then that convergence of Lincoln, Alexander II, and united Germany that gave the British such a scare that they started World War I and created the Versailles System.

The Largest Empire In the History of the World by Jeffrey Steinberg

“Before she set out on her Diamond Jubilee procession, on the morning of 22 June 1897, Queen Victoria of England went to the telegraph-room at Buckingham Palace.... It was a few minutes after eleven o’clock. She pressed an electric button, an impulse was transmitted to the Central Telegraph Office in St. Martin’s le Grand; in a matter of seconds, her Jubilee message was on its way to every corner of her Empire. It was the largest Empire in the history of the world, comprising nearly a quarter of the land mass of the earth, and a quarter of its population. Victoria herself was a Queen-Empress of such aged majesty that some of her simpler subjects considered her divine, and slaughtered propitiatory goats before her image.’‘
--James Morris, in Pax Britannica (London: The Folio Society: 1992)

In the minds of the political, industrial, and intellectual elites of the overwhelming majority of nations of the world today, there exists a deadly dangerous myth: that the British Empire has disappeared from the face of the Earth; and that Great Britain, the United Kingdom, is of little consequence in world affairs.

According to this fairy tale, Britain’s royal family is a powerless relic of days gone by, collecting its modest pension, fulfilling its ceremonial obligations, and, perhaps, drawing in a few tourist dollars, to justify its upkeep. In the extreme version of this Big Lie, today’s Britain is cast in the role of a benign force in world affairs, a ``friend of the downtrodden,’‘ and ``diligent defender of human rights.’‘

Even the recent, shameless public displays of marital infidelities by Queen Elizabeth II’s ``Baby Boomer’‘ offspring, and the voluminous ``soap opera’‘ news coverage that they have generated, have only added to this mis-evaluation. (When dealing with hereditary monarchies, decadence can never be reliably used as an indicator of decline. Rather, it must be understood as a way of life. See, for example, 18th Century British intelligence figure Jeremy Bentham’s ``In Defense of Pederasty,’‘ the companion piece to his more widely known ``In Defense of Usury.’‘ These two documents convey an efficient definition of the monarchical-oligarchical outlook.)

In the minds of many leading world figures, including in Russia, the ``enemy image’‘ of the British Empire of old, has been replaced by that of a modern ``imperial power,’‘ the United States of America.

The authorship of both of these complementary hoaxes--the demise of the British Empire, and its replacement by the U.S.A. as the new ``Great Satan’‘--is traceable to Britain’s own vast propaganda and intelligence apparatus, associated with such institutions as British Broadcasting Corp., Reuters News Service, the Hollinger Corp., the Tavistock Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Oxford and Cambridge universities, the British Commonwealth, and His Royal Highness Prince Philip’s World Wildlife Fund. With the recent enthusiastic revival of the century-old Anglo-French Entente Cordiale, French intelligence agents and propagandists have joined in the America-trashing campaign, especially inside Russia.

From Khartoum, to Moscow, to Buenos Aires, among policymakers and culture-shapers, this British-orchestrated game of historical revisionism has taken deep root. Its disorienting effect has opened the door to possibly grave and irreversible policy blunders.

Hence, this EIR strategic study.

Strategic Importance of Debunking the Myth

If the human race is to survive the coming global financial and monetary blowout, without going through a protracted New Dark Age, in which billions needlessly die, it will be necessary for the United States, Russia, and China--as the three great world powers today--to revive the World War II alliance against the British Empire, which was the cornerstone of the late U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s post-colonial strategic vision.

The first order of business of such a revived ``FDR Coalition,’‘ is to dump the International Monetary Fund (IMF) system and organize a new set of global financial and monetary agreements, based on sound principles of national banking and scientific and technological progress. These principles formed the basis for the U.S. Constitution and what came to be known, during the nineteenth century, as the American System of Political Economy.

Although neither Russia nor China ever achieved the full status of nation-statehood, there are powerful forces inside both countries today, that aspire to such a circumstance. They are potential natural allies of the United States in an anti-world government, anti-British Empire, anti-IMF concert.

To achieve that goal, the circumstances of the collapse of that Roosevelt policy must be grasped.

With the untimely death of FDR on April 12, 1945, a great moment found a little man, FDR’s successor and Winston Churchill’s willing dupe, Harry S Truman. Truman succumbed to Sir Winston’s vision of a postwar Anglo-American strategic partnership--the proverbial ``British brains,’‘ joined with ``American brawn.’‘ He approved the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even though the Japanese emperor had sent clear signals (via the Vatican and certain reliable U.S. Office of Strategic Services personnel) that Japan was prepared to surrender, and even though American military strategists were aware that Japan had already been effectively defeated, largely through the effects of a successful U.S. naval embargo.

With Churchill’s 1947 ``Iron Curtain’‘ speech in Fulton, Missouri, the last prospects of Russian-American and Sino-American cooperation were scotched, and the Cold War was on.

Under Cold War conditions, and, as the result of the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Lord Bertrand Russell’s scheme for using thermonuclear terror (``mutually assured destruction,’‘ or MAD) as a battering ram against the nation-state, and as a weapon for forging a one-world government, under United Nations rubric, proceeded apace.

At only one point during the Cold War era, during the John F. Kennedy Presidency, was there a glimmer of hope of the United States breaking from the Russellite paradigm. Twenty years before Ronald Reagan, President Kennedy invoked the idea of ``peace through strength’‘ and strategic defense, launched the Apollo program to put a man on the Moon, and revived facets of the American System of Political Economy, through investment tax credits, and the printing of U.S. Treasury bills, the first step in a move that, had he lived, would have likely led to a severe curtailment of the independent power of the Federal Reserve System. Kennedy paid with his life for this break with Britain and with the Russellite one-world empire. Lord Russell and British intelligence figure Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper, in 1964, launched the ``British Who Killed Kennedy Committee,’‘ the first ``critique’‘ of the Warren Commission report, to ensure that London’s hand in the JFK murder and coverup was never exposed.

With a very few exceptions, the United States, and the world, have been in an accelerated economic and cultural decline ever since the Kennedy assassination.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, bringing to an end the Cold War, defined a moment of great opportunity. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and her obedient lap-dog, U.S. President George Bush, instead accelerated the drive to implement Lord Russell’s ``world government,’‘ calling it ``the new world order.’‘ They set about imposing, upon the states of the former Warsaw Pact, IMF conditionalities, as harsh as those which spread genocide in Africa, Asia, and Ibero-America over the previous 15 years. With the 1991 ``coalition’‘ war against Iraq, the precedent was set for the final implementation of the new empire.

These plans were disrupted, however, with the 1992 election of William Jefferson Clinton as President of the United States. President Clinton, with some institutional backing, has broken the Anglo-American ``special relationship,’‘ and gotten into what Lyndon LaRouche has described as ``a war and a half’‘ with the British....

The first step is to bust up the prevailing mythology that the British Empire is a thing of the past.

Alive and prospering

The British Empire is very much alive and well today. Behind closed doors at such locations as Chatham House, the London headquarters of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA), blueprints for the consolidation of one-world empire, drawing upon the resources of the British Commonwealth and the United Nations Organization (UNO), have already been drawn up, and construction is under way.

The fact that the most powerful nations on Earth (not including the British Empire, which is not a nation)--the United States; a temporarily impaired, but thermonuclear-armed Russia; and China--have, so far, stood impotent in the face of IMF diktats, and made no effort to prevent the formation of the World Trade Organization, the ``third leg’‘ of the United Nations world financial dictatorship, illustrates the extent to which supranational world government is already a reality.

The United Kingdom itself has very little to do with the new British Empire. England, Scotland, Wales, and, especially, Northern Ireland, are today little more than slave plantations and social engineering laboratories, serving the needs of a collection of families, numbering no more than 3,000-5,000 people, who live and work in and around the City of London, a one-mile-square financial and corporate district, which represents the greatest concentration of financial power ever assembled in one location.

These families constitute a financier oligarchy; they are the power behind the Windsor throne. They view themselves as the heirs to the Venetian oligarchy, which infiltrated and subverted England from the period 1509-1715, and established a new, more virulent, Anglo-Dutch-Swiss strain of the oligarchic system of imperial Babylon, Persia, Rome, and Byzantium.

Among their own ranks, these financier oligarchs refer to themselves as the Club of the Isles, after the original ``Prince of the Isles,’‘ Edward Albert (King Edward VII), the son of Queen Victoria, who orchestrated the Crimean War, the Opium Wars, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I, to consolidate Britain as the primus inter pares (first among equals) of the European monarchies and feudal families. The Club of the Isles, under the direction of the British monarchy, draws in resources and personalities from the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Italy, and orchestrates the actions of a caste of terminally Anglophilic Americans, typified by Henry Kissinger and former President George Bush.

To begin to understand the breadth and scope of the British Empire today, it is necessary to look first at the British Commonwealth, as the Club of the Isles is itself looking at it.

In 1995, the RIIA published Discussion Paper 60, by Katharine West, titled ``Economic Opportunities for Britain and the Commonwealth.’‘ West, an Australian professor and business consultant on retainer with Chatham House, made a compelling case, that the 52 nations that comprise the British Commonwealth have the potential to dominate every regional economic bloc in the world, from the Group of 77, to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), to the Organization of African Unity (OAU), to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and, even the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Commonwealth, which includes one of every three nations on this planet, comprises the largest single voting bloc in the UN General Assembly, making the Warsaw Pact at the height of Soviet Russian power, pale by comparison (see Figure 1).

The City of London dominates the world’s speculative markets (see (Table 1). A tightly interlocking group of corporations, involved in raw materials extraction, finance, insurance, transportation, and food production, controls the lion’s share of the world market, and exerts virtual ``choke point’‘ control over world industry.

In a recent column in the Club of the Isles’ flagship publication, the London Times, Washington, D.C. Sunday Times bureau chief James Adams candidly admitted that the banking houses in the City of London are now laundering $400 billion per annum in illegal narcotics profits. The British Commonwealth subsumes many of the world’s most notorious flight-capital and hot-money havens. The Mont Pelerin Society, the radical-free market secret organization founded in 1947 by Friedrich von Hayek, and patronized today by Prince Philip, maintains the most accurate accounting ledgers on the world’s underground economy. How is that possible? Because the Club of the Isles, since the era of the Opium Wars against China, and the escapades of Lord Palmerston’s personal agent Giuseppe Mazzini in the last century, has been the leading sponsor and controller of global organized crime.

The importance of Club of the Isles control over organized crime cannot be understated. Lord William Rees-Mogg, a life peer in the House of Lords, a former editor-in-chief of the London Times, and British intelligence’s current chief case officer for the propaganda war against U.S. President Clinton, has written recently that the world is moving into a post-industrial ``Third Wave’‘ paradigm, which will see the erosion of nation-states, and their replacement by a form of one-world ``electronic feudalism.’‘ In Rees-Mogg’s Brave New World, only 5% of the population, the ``cognitive elite’‘ or what he calls the ``Brain Lords,’‘ will prosper and enjoy the fruits of modern technology. The vast majority of peoples of the world are doomed to a life of misery.

To prevent social unrest under these brutal conditions, the British financier oligarchy has gone to great lengths, since the Kennedy assassination, to foster a drug-rock-sex counterculture, that creates, in the words of Aldous Huxley, as ``a concentration camp of the mind.’‘ From the ranks of that counterculture, Prince Philip, his World Wildlife Fund, and its ``1,001 Club’‘ adjunct, have recruited a radical environmentalist movement, a neo-pagan gang like the Hitler Youth of the 1920s.

To achieve world empire, as Prince Philip has admitted, 80% of the world population must be eliminated within two generations. Over 4 billion people are to die to realize the Windsor/Club of the Isles New Dark Age!

Treat this report as a combat manual for a war against the British Empire. The survival of all nations, and billions of human beings, depends on victory over this new empire, and that victory begins with knowledge of the nature of the enemy.

The following is recommended additional reading that is not from “The American Almanac” by Lyndon LaRouche and the Executive Intelligence Review.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO LONDON

The origin of the Anglo-American Deep State Establishment began with the death of Cecil Rhodes in 1902 and the implementation of his Last Wills that resulted in the creation of the Anglo-American Pilgrims Society in 1902, the British Imperial Press Conference of 1909, the creation of the Round Table Movement in 1910 which led to the creation of the British Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in 1920 and its U.S. subsidiary, the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921.

The Origins of the Deep State in North America Part I: The Round Table Movement by Matthew Ehret

https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/01/27/origins-of-deep-state-part1/

How Cecil Rhodes Fathered the Modern Globalist Movement: a Timeline by Barbara McKenzie

https://stovouno.org/2019/02/21/how-cecil-rhodes-fathered-the-modern-globalist-movement-timeline/

STUNNING REVELATIONS PROVE MEDIA IS MUCH MORE DANGEROUS THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE

https://aim4truth.org/2019/09/13/origins-of-fake-news/

LILLIAN SCOTT TROY (1882-1964): AN UNSUNG HEROINE OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC

https://americans4innovation.blogspot.com/2022/07/lillian-scott-troy-1882-1964-unsung.html

The 24-step Pilgrims Society Corporatist Imperial Federation Strategy to Return America to British Rule

https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/library/1912-02-17-The-24-step-Pilgrims-Society-Corp-Imperial-Fed-Strat-to-Return-America-to-British-Rule-by-Lillian-Scott-Troy-by-Hon-J-Thorkelson-MN-1940-SF-Leader-GPO-George-Mason-Feb-17-24-1912.pdf

Steps Toward British Union, a World State, and

International Strife—Part IV

EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. J. THORKELSON OF MONTANA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Monday, August 19, 1940

https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/library/1940-08-19-GPO-CRECB-1940-pt-17-v86-1-Steps-Toward-British-Union-a-World-State-and-International-Strife-PTS-I-IX-Remarks-of-Hon-J-Thorkelson-MN-House-of-Reps-Gov-Printing-Off-Aug-19-1940.pdf#page=15

THE PILGRIMS SOCIETY: A STUDY OF THE ANGLO- AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT; ROCKEFELLER, MELLON, LUCE, ROTHSCHILD, CECIL, WINDSOR, THE FEDERAL RESERVE, WWII, THE CIA, AND SO MUCH MORE

By: Joël van der Reijden

https://isgp-studies.com/pilgrims-society-us-uk

THE PILGRIM SOCIETY & ENGLISH-SPEAKING UNION

https://watch.pairsite.com/pilgrim.html

Pilgrims Society

By Joël van der Reijden

http://www.truedemocracy.net/hj31/37.html

John Winthrop, "Reasons to Be Considered for Justifying the Plantation in New England" (1629)

Winthrop's policy statement, circulated as an organizing tract for the great 1630 migration to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony, is the earliest formulation of the principles and goals of Christian economy for the project of forging a republic in the New World. The excerpts below highlight the rejection of the oligarchical system, and the commitment to a continental republic, which later flourished under "the American System."

This land [of England] grows weary of her inhabitants, so as man who is the most precious of all creatures is here more vile and base than the earth we tread upon, and of less price among us, than a horse or a sheep, masters are forced by authority to entertain servants, parents are forced to maintain their own children, all towns complain of the burden of their poor though we have taken up many unnecessary, yea unlawful trades to maintain them. And we use the authority of the law to hinder the increase of people as urging the execution of the state against cottages and inmates and thus it is come to pass that children, servants and neighbors (especially if they be poor) are counted the greatest burden which if things were right would be the chiefest earthly blessing.

The whole earth is the Lord's Garden and he hath given it to the sons of men, with a general condition, Gen: 1.28. Increase and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it, which was again renewed to Noah, the end is double, moral and natural, that man might enjoy the fruits of the earth and God might have his due glory from the creature, why then should we stand here striving for places of habitation (many men spending much labor and cost to recover or keep sometimes an Acre or two of land as would procure them many hundred as good or better in another country), and in the mean time suffer a whole Continent, as fruitful and convenient for the use of man, to lie waste without any improvement.

Cotton Mather, "Some Considerations on Bills of Credit" (1691)

Following Charles II's revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Charter in 1684, the colony no longer had sovereign powers to mint its own currency, issue subsidies for the development of mining and manufacturing, regulate its trade, and enforce its prohibitions against usury. All of these measures had been integral to the impressive rates of economic growth in republican Massachusetts. The overthrow of royal Gov. Edmund Andros in 1689 was followed by renewed assertions of Massachusetts' authority to promote its economic development, including a pamphlet by Increase Mather, Cotton's father, who was negotiating a new charter in London.

The elder Mather's ``New England Vindicated from Unjust Aspersions'' argued that Massachusetts must have authority to control its own currency and credit, and direct its own capital into the development of mining and manfacturing.

Cotton Mather's 1691 pamphlet was designed to rally support in Massachusetts for the issuance of paper currency in the form of public bills of credit, and attacked "the great indiscretion of our Countrymen" who refused to accept them.

Now what is the Security of your Paper-money less than the Credit of the whole Country?|... Certainly, Sir, were not people's heads idly bewhizled with conceits that we have no magistrates, no government, which we can call our own, I say if such foolish conceits were not entertained, there would not be the least scruple in accepting your bills as current pay.... [Otherwise], we are reduced to Hobbes his state of Nature.

Benjamin Franklin, "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge Among the British Plantations in America" (1743)

With renewed hostilities between Britain and France during the War of Austrian Succession, America's republicans geared up for a rare opportunity to break the joint Anglo-French containment of any efforts to develop the continental interior. In the guise of promoting Britain's interests in her colonies, Franklin's call to arms led to the founding of the American Philosophical Association in 1744, as a nation-building scientific conspiracy in the tradition of Leibniz.

Two of the association's leading founders, James Alexander and Robert Hunter Morris, were protégés of Robert Hunter, former colonial governor of New York (1710-19) and close friend of Jonathan Swift, Leibniz's major political ally in the English-speaking world. The sons of Alexander and Morris played major roles in America's battle for independence; and John Stevens, one of Alexander's grandsons, became the most distinguished inventor of the young American republic.

The first drudgery of settling new colonies, which confines the atttention of people to mere necessaries, are now pretty well over; and there are many in every province in circumstances that set them at ease, and afford leisure to cultivate the finer arts and improve the common stock of knowledge. To such of these who are men of speculation, many hints must from time to time arise, many observations occur, which if well examined, pursued, and improved, might produce discoveries to the advantage of some or all of the British plantations, or to the benefit of mankind in general.

But as from the extent of the country such persons are widely separated, and seldom can see and converse or be acquainted with each other, so that many useful particulars remain uncommunicated, die with the discoverers, and are lost to mankind; it is, to remedy this inconvenience for the future, proposed,

That one society be formed of virtuosi or ingenious men, residing in the several colonies, to be called The American Philosophical Society, who are to maintain a constant correspondence.

That Philadelphia, being the city nearest the centre of the continent colonies, comunicating with all of them northward and southward by post, and with all the islands by sea, and having the advantage of a good growing library, be the centre of the Society....

That these members meet once a month, or oftener, at their own expense, to communicate to each other their observations and experiments....

That the subjects of the correspondence be ... new and useful improvements in any branch of mathematics; new discoveries in chemistry, such as improvements in distillation, brewing, and assaying of ores; new mechanical inventions for saving labor, as mills and carriages, and for raising and conveying of water, draining of meadows, &c., all new arts, trades, and manufactures, that may be proposed or thought of; surveys, maps and charts of particular parts of the seacoast or inland countries; course and junction of rivers and great roads, situation of lakes and mountains, nature of the soil and productions; new methods of improving the breed of useful animals; introducing other sorts from foreign countries; new improvements in planting, gardening, and clearing land; and all philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of things, tend to increase the power of man over matter, and multiply the pleasures and conveniences of life.

Nathaniel Ames, "A Thought Upon the Past, Present, and Future State of North America" (1757)

The topical essay for Ames's Almanack for the year 1758, published in Massachusetts at the end of 1757, when Britain's forced involvement on the side of the American colonies during the French and Indian War put the issue of westward development irrevocably on the table. Ames offered an inspiring vision of America's future course.

Our numbers will not avail until the Colonies are united.... If we do not join Heart and Hand in the common Cause against our exulting Foes, but fall to disputing among ourselves, it may really happen as the Governour of Pennsylvania told his Assembly, "We shall have no Priviledge to dispute about, nor Country to dispute in."

...|Here we find a vast Stock of proper Materials for the Art and Ingenuity of Man to work upon.... So Arts and Sciences will change the Face of Nature in the Tour from hence over the Appalachian Mountains to the Western Ocean ... -- the Rocks will disclose their hidden Gems,--and the inestimable Treasures of Gold and Silver be broken up. Huge Mountains of Iron Ore are already discovered; and vast Stores are reserved for future Generations: This Metal more useful than Gold and Silver, will employ millions of hands, not only to form the martial Sword, and peaceful Share, alternately; but an Infinity of Utensils improved in the Exercise of Art, and Handicraft amongst Men. Nature thro' all her Works has stamp'd Authority on this Law, namely, "That all fit Matter shall be improved to its best Purposes." -- Shall not then those vast Quarries, that teem with mechanic Stone,--those for Structure be piled into great Cities,--and those for Sculpture into Statues to perpetuate the honor of renowned Heroes; even those who shall now save their Country.

O! Ye unborn inhabitants of America! Should this Page escape it destin'd Conflagration at the Year's End, and these Alphabetical Letters remain legible,--when your Eyes behold the Sun after he has rolled the Seasons round for two or three Centuries more, you will know that in Anno Domini 1758, we dream'd of your Times.

COLBERT’S LEGACY TO THE AMERICAN SYSTEM

by Anton Chaitkin

Yorktown, the last great battle of the American Revolution, was won by the allied forces of America and France. Lacking an industrial supply base, politically disorganized, the new American republic had nevertheless survived through years of patient and resolute struggle. To develop national power in their shaky new country, American leaders would be instructed by what the first treasury secretary called the ``indefatigable endeavors'' of the seventeenth-century French statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert.

At the war's end, the Americans had not yet formed the necessary central government. Col. Alexander Hamilton had been General Washington's chief aide, coordinating military intelligence for the alliance. On April 8, 1782, Hamilton wrote an article for the New-York Packet, No. 5 in his series called ``The Continentalist,'' explaining the need for a strong Union government. In this article, Hamilton set forth the economic tradition which the American leaders would use to develop their country, under the necessary energetic government:

``Trade may be said to have taken its rise in England under the auspices of Elizabeth; and its rapid progress there is in a great measure to be ascribed to the fostering care of government in that and succeeding reigns.

``From a different spirit in the government, with superior advantages, France was much later in commercial improvements, nor would her trade have been at this time in so prosperous a condition had it not been for the abilities and indefatigable endeavors of the great Colbert. He laid the foundation of the French commerce, and taught the way to his successors to enlarge and improve it. The establishment of the woolen manufacture, in a kingdom, where nature seemed to have denied the means, is one among many proofs, how much may be effected in favor of commerce by the attention and patronage of a wise administration. The number of useful edicts passed by Louis XIV, and since his time, in spite of frequent interruptions from the jealous enmity of Great Britain, has advanced that of France to a degree which has excited the envy and astonishment of its neighbors.''

Colbert's coup d'état

It was in 1661 that Jean Baptiste Colbert began the organization of lawful government in France. Colbert (b. 1619) had been the coordinator of secret intelligence for Cardinal Mazarin, the French royal family's prime minister. Colbert was a student of the strategies of Cardinal Richelieu, the previous prime minister, who had built a national army of 100,000 men, while battling the feudal nobility who recognized no real French nation and no law above their own power. Richelieu's ``Grand Design'' had envisaged a world of great nations, empowered by rising culture and education.

When the prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, died in 1661, King Louis XIV was only 23 years old, and Colbert had already served as a confidential counselor for him and his family since Louis's early childhood. Colbert took advantage of the moment to create an entirely new regime.

Immediately, he opened an investigation of the Superintendant of Finance, Nicolas Fouquet, who had long served as an intermediary for the blackmail of the international and regional bankers against the king. They might loan money to the king, according to their unpredictable conditions, but he was treated as an individual and was subjected to fraud; there was no French sovereignty.

Colbert proved the corruption and treason of Fouquet and of many bankers with whom he had worked. Fouquet's faction had actually planned a violent takeover by the aristocrats. Fouquet was imprisoned, and a debt moratorium was declared, freeing the young king from three or four years of debt strangulation.

Program for a great nation

Colbert waged all-out political war against the corrupt French nobility. He created a single nationwide code of law, and set up courts where nobles who robbed, oppressed, and murdered the peasants were put on trial. He conducted inquiries into the legitimacy of titles to nobility. Thousands were deemed fraudulent, and the losers joined the ranks of taxpayers. Many had to go to work, rather than simply collecting a myriad of taxes from the people of their region. Now only the government had the authority to collect taxes, and its finances were conducted in an orderly and lawful fashion.

Far from wishing to build up a vast state bureaucracy, Colbert pointed to the masses of idlers and parasites whose gradual absorption into the work force would solve France's economic problems. In a memorandum to the king dated Oct. 22, 1664, Colbert explained that the glory of the king would be established by ``taking action in proportion to great objectives.... It is necessary to reduce the professions of your subjects as much as possible to those which can be useful to these grand designs.

``These are agriculture, merchandise [production and distribution of goods], and soldiers and sailors.

``... [Your Majesty should] be working at the same time to diminish, gradually and insensibly, the [number of] monks and nuns.... The two professions which consume a hundred thousand of your subjects uselessly and without contributing to your glory, are financiers and lawyers.

``... The administration of justice ... imposes a heavy and tyrannical yoke, using the authority of your name, on all the rest of your people.''

His ``Memorandum on the Reformation of Justice,'' of May 15, 1665, renewed this appeal.

France had no significant manufacturing capability. Dutch merchants, financed by the old Venetian nobility, carried most of the world's commerce in their ships. The Dutch trade cartel bought masses of commodities, stored them in their warehouses, and then dumped them at will into French and other markets. French home industry was constantly undercut.

Colbert imposed tariffs imposed on imported goods, but lifted the tolls and taxes which the local aristocracy had imposed on road and river shipments within France, which had made Frenchmen foreigners to one another. A great canal was cut, linking the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, as first proposed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1516. In supervising the construction and improvement of roads and waterways, Colbert asked his builders to make their works so good that they would ``last eternally.''

Under chief engineer Sebastien Vauban, fortresses were constructed by the latest standards, defining and protecting France's frontier. The forts called forth, for their supply, the construction of new highways and canals.

The government started factories, and pushed private entrepreneurs to take them over or to build their own. Royal grants were provided for private enterprise; credit from money-lenders, which otherwise circled endlessly through government paper speculations, was encouraged to go to the new productive enterprises. Teachers and craftsmen, Protestant and Catholic, were brought in from all of Europe to tutor France's development, and to help manage its new factories.

Colbert was most jealous of his country's reputation for the export market. Standards were set and enforced. On first offense, a manufacturer caught in fraud or the production of shoddy goods would be held up to ridicule; a specimen of his cloth might be ``hung in effigy'' in the public square. Repeated offenses were dealt with more severely.

A future for man's mind

Colbert's promotion of home industry, and his boosting of exports over imports of manufactures, has been mislabeled ``mercantilism'' by historical writers, the most notoriously fraudulent of whom was Adam Smith. Unlike Smith's concocted ``mercantilists,'' Colbert sought not simply to pile up gold and silver in France, but to develop a national culture of technology and trade, which would lift France out of the mire of localist ignorance.

Colbert's administration sponsored the construction of a merchant fleet, to carry French goods abroad, and to service French colonies in Canada and elsewhere. To protect this commerce, the number of royal warships was expanded, from less than 20, to 250. His policy for Canada, though ultimately stymied, was similar to that of the English colonists in America, and in striking contrast to ``imperialism.'' He sought to populate Canada with settlers, to concentrate at first in the East in new cities and modern farms, and to intermarry with the American Indians. He recruited and sent women to marry the French soldiers already in Canada, hoping to spur rapid population growth. Above all, he opposed the merchant oligarchy in the fur trade, which deliberately kept settlers away or spread them thinly in the wilds, where they intoxicated and looted the Indians.

Science policy

In 1666 Colbert organized the French Academy of Sciences. He brought in the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens as the Academy's president. The scientists working and studying under Colbert's sponsorship formed the core of leadership in the development of mathematics, physics and chemistry for the next three centuries.

Colbert's protégé Denis Papin was assigned to study under Huygens, as was the young German, G.W. Leibniz. Papin and Leibniz collaborated to develop the first working steam boat; unfortunately, Papin and his model boat ended up in the hands of the British establishment, which managed to suppress steam power for another century. Huygens, the founder of the wave theory of light, taught mathematics to Leibniz, and in 1675 Leibniz completed the groundwork for his invention of calculus, the foundation of all modern mathematics.

In 1675 Leibniz demonstrated his new calculating machine to the French Academy; it could multiply, divide, and take square and cube roots. He received three orders for the machine, one for the king, one for the Royal Observatory, and one for Minister of Finance Colbert.

Leibniz's pioneer work in the science of thermodynamics--the study of the potential of violent force to be tamed and put to use by man--was up and advanced a century later by Lazare and Sadi Carnot in the Ecole Polytechnique, which later taught engineering to the American military.

Colbert died in 1683. His program of economic, scientific and cultural development was quickly aborted. But in two decades he had turned France into a great power, and had demonstrated to the world how a nation creates its own destiny.

In 1661, an English youth named William Penn was thrown out of Oxford University, having been caught participating in an underground republican study group. Penn's father, an admiral, sent him to France to study. There young William spent two years watching, and perhaps taking part in, Colbert's life-and-death struggle with the aristocracy. In 1683, the year of Colbert's death, Penn founded the City of Philadelphia.

THE ROOTS OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM:

From Cameralism, to the American System of Economics

by Nancy Spannaus

It would be a only a small exaggeration to say that the American population has undergone a lobotomy relative to its real history. Americans in general have absolutely no knowledge of the distinct and positive qualities of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the American System of Economics, and where they come from. Many have actually bought the line that British free trade lackies like Adam Smith and John Locke, were part of the positive heritage of this country. Such ignorance has created a very dangerous weakness that anti-American zealots parading as patriots--such as Congressman Newt Gingrich and Senator Phil Gramm--are currently able to exploit.

The actual lineage of the American System is the concept of the Commonwealth, an idea which emerged with force out of the period of the Italian Golden Renaissance, which was itself based on the Platonic republican tradition from the Greek classical period as well as Christianity. The concept of the Commonwealth was built on the idea that a sovereign nation state must be dedicated to the education and improvement of its population through scientific and technological progress. It was an idea that defined a positive role for the state, in its fostering of conditions that would benefit the individual, and which understood the individual for the first time in history, as being made in the image of God the Creator, and thereby policy.

If you understand the principle of the commonwealth, you then understand the coherence of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, and the undeniable fact that the fledgling American republic was a rejection of John Locke and British free trade policies, and an embrace of republican values. If you know the real history of the commonwealth tradition, you then understand where the concept of "general welfare" in the U.S. Constitution comes from, and how it commits the United States to rejecting the Confederate Constitution and its modern-day imitators. You are able to resolve the allegedly irreconcilable conflict between the interest and freedom of the individual and of states, through the concept of a republican nation state based on God's natural law.

Historian Christopher White and I first sought to document this assertion in a book published in 1977, entitled The Political Economy of the American Revolution. (PEAR) The book was comprised primarily of documents from the work of those who created the commonwealth movements in France and England in the 16th and 17th centuries, and from their successor tradition in America--in particular Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. [fn1]

Since that time, with the aid of economist-philosopher Lyndon LaRouche and many of his and our associates, the picture has been filled out considerably. [fn2] The fundamental breakthrough was made in the period of the 1439 Council of Florence, which saw not only an explosion of creativity in the arts and science, but also in the understanding of statecraft. A school of thinkers developed who called themselves cameralists, since they formed chambers of advisers to local rulers. The task of the cameralists was to devise the policies which would guide the ruler in economic policies in particular.

Their thinking spread from Italy into France (Louis XI to Jean Bodin to Jean-Baptiste Colbert) and Germany-Austria (von Osse to Seckendorff to Leibniz to von Justi and Sonnenfels). These thinkers, as well as commonwealth adherents in England, played a direct role in transmitting the idea to the American colonies where, with the benefit of immense distance from the oligarchy, a distillation of their republican ideas were put into practice. It was a great, though by no means perfect, step toward the realization of the ideas of the Renaissance.

At the present time, the American population -- degraded in its self-conception as well as its culture and living standards--is in great danger of betraying its heritage. The opponents of the American Revolution knew that, if they destroyed the ideas, that they could destroy the reality. In the following pages are traced the leading intellectual heirs of the American republic and its system of economics and statecraft. In most cases, it is very difficult to find mention made of them, much less their writings, in any history or economics book, and even in libraries. Yet, an understanding of the thinking of these men is absolutely integral to understanding what the United States of America represented in its founding, and what it must again represent today.

The Cameralists in Italy

It is likely that the republican notions of statecraft that arose in the Italian Renaissance derive from the wide-ranging work of that era's most seminal figure, the Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa.[fn3]The Cardinal's groundbreaking work in science was supplemented by writings on statecraft, and the museum dedicated to his life in Bernkastel Kues contains a display on his pioneering ideas of representative government. In the same period a Platonist of Greek nationality, George Gemisthos Plethon, was active in Florence, and discussing the principles by which a proper government must deal with different sections of society--agriculture, manufacturing, and traders--in order to provide for the general welfare.

The core concept behind cameralist statecraft was the fact that the prosperity of a state depended upon the adoption of policies which fostered the improvement, materially and spiritually, of the citizenry. This was a revolutionary idea at the time--and in many parts of the world today. It meant that a ruler had to devise a means of increasing wealth by making the citizenry more productive, but not by looting them. It meant changing from a situation where the vast majority of the population were slaves, or virtual slaving beasts, to one in which people were assumed to be educable and improvable--and therefore to a state policy which sought to implement such a policy.

Thus, as opposed to a situation of virtual war between rulers and their subjects, there was conceived to be a scientifically knowable common interest between them. The first purpose of ruler was to provide for the prosperity of his subjects.

At the highest level, with the cameralists there came into being a school of statecraft and economics based upon the idea that man's nature was to be imago viva dei, in the living image of God. Man's innate dignity and his creative capabilities were not simply to be recognized in church, but to be understood as the foundation for sound economic and social policies.

The cameralists are sometimes known as the school of statecraft or economics which based itself on expanding population. This was directly related to their view that each individual was a net producer, rather than a drain on society, and that the source of wealth in society is not raw materials or land, but the productive powers of labor of individuals. It was a short step from there to the requirement to improve that productive power, through education and infrastructure and technological advance.

The 18th century cameralist Antonio Genovesi put it this way: "The first aim of Political Economy is the increase in population. The most important part of Political economy is to discover through what means one can increase the population. The way to increase the population are manufacture and the improvement of agriculture through the teaching and application of agricultural mechanics." (see Liebig)

The most prominent Italian cameralist was Antonio Serra, who wrote his "Treatise of the Sources of Wealth of State without Gold or Silvermines" in 1613. [fn4] We know explicitly that Serra's work was known to the German Hamiltonian Friedrich List (19th century), but undoubtedly his work around Naples also spread to France, Germany, and Italy much earlier. Serra distinguished two kinds of wealth: "accidenti propri" and "accidenti communi." "Accidenti propri" he categorizes as follows: 1) wealth from bullion coming from gold and silver mines; 2) wealth resulting from an extraordinary geographical endowment, such as fertile agricultural land; and 3) wealth from extraordinarily strategic location for trade, as in the case of Venice. But clearly none of these sources of wealth can provide a general concept of how to create wealth, Serra argued, since only a few states are endowed with these special characteristics.

Then Serra discusses "accidenti communi," which he describes as follows: 1) crafts and manufactures; 2) the quality of the population; and 3) the character of the policy of the state. These are elements of policy which any state can develop properly, regardless of geographical, climatological, or related conditions. Serra defines crafts and manufactures as the most important element for creating wealth, above agriculture. He argues that this is true because they guarantee a surplus, unlike agriculture, since they depend upon human work alone, not nature; because they can be expanded almost without limit; and because they can be transported over long distances.

Improving the quality of the population is the second policy Serra discusses. This means that the state has an interest in improving and educating people, and giving them the capability to learn and advance. His associate, Tomaso Campanella, expressed the concept this way:

"God's will is that science is taught not only to noble men but to all people... Isn't that painter painting better who knows mathematics and other sciences, compared to the one knowing only the craft of painting? In the same way the wise man cultivates the land more profitably than the ignorant peasant, who knows nothing about the pecularities of soil, water and air, or the different seeds, plants, grasses, etc.... If bricklayers, shoemakers and other craftsmen would know about scientific ideas on the subject and proceedings of their work, and therefore rely not only on tradition, we would have better workers and happier life."

The third determinant of the state's prosperity is whether the government, or ruler, followed such policies.

What we see in Serra, overall, is an anti-oligarchical policy--one that demands constant progress for the population as a whole, and an active effort by the state to create conditions permitting that progress.

The French Cameralist School

While there were many Italian Renaissance influences into France, including through the Brothers of the Common Life and other institutions and individuals who influenced the great Louis XI,[fn5]one of the major theorists of the school of national economy (or national economic development) which came out of this, was Jean Bodin (1539-1596). Bodin's work, and that of his better known successor, Louis XIV's General Controller of Finances Jean-Baptiste Colbert, are extensively reviewed by Christopher White in the PEAR book, and therefore will be merely summarized here.

Bodin begins from the concept that an expanding and improved population is the major basis for wealth, and then asserts that the growth of wealth depends upon increasing the amount of work done on nature (i.e. crafts and manufactures). Both of these ideas led him to reject the leading practice of the day--looting bullion to increase wealth. Instead he had to insist upon the state taking actions to promote an increase in knowledge by the population, and an increase in the means by which the population could produce wealth--through tax policy, education policy, subsidies, and so forth.

These policies were continued with Colbert in particular, who used his period of political power to unify the French nation with infrastructure, to promote self-sufficiency in necessities such as food and clothing, and to foster technological advance through academies, fairs and so forth.

Colbert was a direct influence on Alexander Hamilton, America's first Treasury Secretary and the explicit founder of the American System of Economics. Colbert's policies are generally considered the prototype of mercantilism, meaning state protection of industries against the free trade, or trade war, and the control of terms of trade. What is usually ignored, however, is that the Colbertian--and American--view of mercantilism was not undertaken in pursuit of buying cheap and selling dear (effectively theft), but for building up the productive power of the nation.

The German Cameralist School

German cameralist writings have been traced to the period as early as 1555, when Melchior von Osse, a court judge in Leipzig, wrote his "Testament."[fn6]Von Osse outlined the obligations for a ruler who wished to run a prosperous, successful state. Here is a sample of his thought:

"A lord and ruler is in three respects under obligations to the people divinely intrusted to him, namely, that he should maintain the same in good prosperous circumstances, which occurs when the people live virtuously, and some among them are promoted to learning, and to good arts, and many wise and learned people are in their numbers, from whom the rest may receive good instruction, and they are not left to wander in the darkness of ignorance, and everything through which such promotion of things useful to the community is hindered in either prevented or averted by the ruler."

Von Osse's ideas should not be thought of as abstract. He was fighting specifically for policies of caring for widows and orphans, of controlling prices for necessities if they went out of reach, and of curing abuses in prisons and courts--all policies which could teach Gingrich a few things today. His successors, like Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626-1692), were even more explicit--demanding government provisions for doctors, clean water, sewage treatment, a good education, the abolition of usury, suppressing parasites (such as gamblers), and providing the means by which everyone could make a decent living. Von Seckendorff wrote two major books on cameralist theory and policy, The German Prince's State, and The Christian State.

The concept of "general welfare" as the touchstone of public policy in the cameralists is so clear that even those who deny the universal nature of this school of statecraft, like author Albion W. Small, feel forced to deal with it. [fn7]

Another leading cameralist in the 17th century was Johann Joachim Becher (1635-1682), a doctor who traveled throughout Europe, and collaborated with many leading scientific intellects, including Christiaan Huyghens and that towering genius Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who worked at the same Mainz court at which Becher resided in the 1660s and 1670s.

Becher wrote a "Political Discourse - On the actual reasons determining the growth and decline of cities, states, and republics. How to make a state populous and productive and to make it into a real Societam Civil." The piece is remarkable in its explicit advocacy of the Christian principle underlying a successful state, what today is only advocated by LaRouche in his Science of Christian Economy. [fn8] The preamble cites Genesis I:28, with its injunction to "Be fruitful and multiply...." And in describing the role of government, he says "Government is said to be the means by which man is enabled to live according to his nature, which is created in the divine image."

Becher conceives of society as being divided into three parts--its soul, its mind, and its body. The soul is comprised of the government and the church; the mind of the scientists and teachers, and the body of the peasants, craftsmen and merchants. The health of the soul and the mind are absolutely dependent, Becher insists, on the health of the three productive classes, the peasants, craftsmen and merchants. To define the right proportions, Becher uses the following beautiful image:

"Just as when one is to play on a violin, one must first examine and tune each string, so when its sustenance is to be assured to a community, attention must be paid to every sort of human being that there is, and nothing appears to be more remarkable than that in many places no thought whatever is given to these most difficult points."

Becher promotes a policy of growing population, nourished by an increased living standard. He targets three systematic enemies of this objective--monopoly, polypoly, and propoly. Monopoly, he notes, checks population and is therefore evil. Polypoly, which means the unrestricted competition for scarce resources (including jobs), reduces living standards too much. And propoly, which means a society in which individuals amass huge quantities of goods for speculation, divides the community.

What a difference from today's free marketeers, or from the oligarchs of the time--who wanted to see wages driven down to the lowest possible level, and let the economy be dominated by the speculators or monopolists!

Nor was Becher, a doctor, limited to mere administrative or political affairs. The concluding chapters of his Discourse surveys 14 major areas of physical economy which must be attended to, and he also wrote several books on mining, chemistry, and mechanics.

Becher's father-in-law, Philip Wilhelm von Hornick, was also a leading German (in this case Austrian) cameralist. Differentiating between private and public economy, von Hornick developed 9 rules of public economy, most of which involved ensuring maximum production of national necessities at home, minimum dependence on foreign nations, and full exploitation of domestic natural resources.

The Genius of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

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Working closely with Becher and von Hornick was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz is primarily known as a philosopher and scientist, but his role as a genius in statecraft cannot be overlooked. Leibniz, like Benjamin Franklin after him, was at the center of massive international political networks which intervened on behalf of the republican idea of statecraft. Because of his work in physics and technology, as well as philosophy and science, LaRouche describes him as the founder of modern economic science.

Leibniz wrote two seminal documents on economic policy. The first was composed in 1671, while he resided at the court of Count Johann Philipp von Schoenborn in Mainz. It is called "Society and Economy," [fn9] and in it can be found the very antithesis of the free market economics which runs rampant today. The second is a proposal for founding an academy for the promotion of arts and science, within which Leibniz's ideas of how a society should progress are outlined at some length.

"After all, is not the entire purpose of Society to release the artisan from his misery?" Leibniz asks in his short, and admittedly incomplete, essay on Society and Economy. He then outlines the principles by which this aim can be accomplished, which include ensuring that the farmer gets a fair price for his produce, and that there is no shortage of food. He also argues that individuals be provided with sufficient resources to care for their families.

With the proper measures, Leibniz says, "we eliminate a deep-seated drawback within many republics, which consists in allowing each and all to sustain themselves as they please, allowing one individual to become rich at the expense of a hundred others, or allowing him to collapse, dragging down with him the

hundreds who have put themselves under his care." What is striking about Leibniz's view in this small sketch is its total opposition to the views of British economy which argue that only need, misery, or punishment will force a person to work hard. Leibniz argues as follows:

"One might object that artisans today work out of necessity; if all their needs were satisfied,then they would do not work at all. I, however, maintain the contrary, that they would be glad to do more than they now do out of necessity. For, first of all, if a man is unsure of his sustenance, he has neither the heart nor the spirit for anything; will only produce as much as he expects to sell (which is not very much given his few customers); concerns himself with trivialities; and does not have the heart to undertake anything new and important. He thus earns little, must often drink to excess merely in order to dull his own sense of desperation and drown his sorrows, and is tormented by the malice of his journeymen."

A good description of industrial England, or even the poor in the U.S. cities today? To prevent such problems, Leibniz promotes a policy of full employment, adequate wages, continual conferences of scholars, universal education, and the promotion of morality in all locations.

Leibniz's longer discussion of principles of economy comes within his 1671 paper called "On the Establishment of a Society in Germany for the Promotion of the Arts and Sciences." [fn10] The extensive introduction to a listing of specific measures in this paper makes explicit the philosophy underlying his economic measures: the fact that man is created in the image of God. We quote briefly:

"For God creates rational creatures for no other reason but that they should serve as a mirror, in which His infinite harmony would be infintely multiplied in some respects...." "Now reason and power can be used for the glory of God principally in three sorts of ways, exactly as I can meet a men in three sorts of ways; that is, with good words, good thoughts, and good works...."

Leibniz explores all three ways of serving God, first as orators and priests, second as natural philosophers (or scientists), and third, as moralists and politicians. The highest value he puts on the third, because the moralists and politicians establish the framework of society which facilitates the other two kinds of professions. For example, he notes, "evil institutions, carelessnesses, and distractions" are permitted to make useful discoveries useless to people, if the moralists and politicians don't do their work. His inspired description of the worthy task of statecraft goes as follows:

"... the third way to seek the glory of God, namely those who serve Him as moralists, as politicians, as those who guide public affairs, is the most perfect, since those not only endeavor to find the radiance of God's glory in nautre, but also seek to emulate Him through imitation; and thus seek to honor Him not only through praise and devoltion, or with words and thoughts, but also with good works, not only to consider and good He has done, but to sacrifice themselves to Him and offer themselves as an instrument and through that to do more good for society and in particular for the human race, as the best of all visible creatures, in those things which we have the power to effect, and for which we are ordered and created.

"These are the ones who apply the discovered wonders of nature and art to medicine, to mechanics, to the comfort of life, to materials for work and sustenance of the poor, to keeping people from idelenss and vice, to the operations of justice, and to reward and punishment, to preservation of the common peace, to the increase and welfare of the fatherland, to the elimination of times of shortage, disease, and war (insofar as it is in our power and is our responsibility), to the propagation of true religion and fear of God, indeed, to the happiness of the human race; and who endeavor to imitate in their domain what God has done in the world."

After this motivation, Leibniz details his ideas on how manufactures should be improved, commerce should be improved, and the arts and sciences should be promoted and improved. Under the first, he includes his crucial concept of "continuous cheap fire and motion as the basis of all mechanical effects," as well as a listing of the various divisions of manufacturing which he describes as "all those invention which help the working people doing manual labor." [fn11]

Under the section on commerce, Leibniz deals with the mercantilist principles against free trade, including the need for food reserves, for immigration, for a bank, and government measures to promote innovation in manufacture.

Under the "promotion and improvement of arts and sciences," Leibniz insists upon the collection and publication of ideas and experiments, an education system available to the poor and orphans as well as to others, and the improvement of medical sciences.

Clearly, what Leibniz is talking about in this paper is the germ form of a society or a national economy based on scientific and technological progress. It is composed from the standpoint of the responsibility of political leaders, or government, to provide the basis for every citizen to contribute to society, and be cared for by society. From this plan comes the idea of the "general welfare" of society, as opposed to a Hobbesian universe of each citizen against the other, or a government limited to minimal interference in each person's affairs. There is a higher purpose to society, and the economic system must serve it.

From Leibniz to America

The influence of Leibniz's ideas went far beyond Germany. He had correspondents in the American colonies, in England, in Russia, and many other places, too numerous to mention here. And although the British and other oligarchical forces did their best to wipe out his name and ideas, they did not succeed.

The standard line of incompetence these days, of course, is that the American economic system and revolution were the spawn of the English moral philosophers John Locke and Adam Smith. Yet, even a short glimpse at the ideas of these two characters, in relation to the founding institutions and acts of the fledgling republic, should disprove this notion.

John Locke was not unknown in America. As a member of the Board of Trade appointed by King William of Orange, he had advocated revoking the charters of all the American colonies, a royal dictatorship over their economic activity, and a ban on the manufacture of any finished goods. [fn12] He had also at one time drafted a constitution for the colony of South Carolina, which declared the purpose of the government to be the defense of "life, liberty, and property." Part of that "property," of course, was the population of slaves, as Locke did not find that institution at all incompatible with his idea of the liberties of Englishmen. Locke's constitution also established a hereditary nobility (outlawed by the U.S. Constitution, you'll recall!) After about 18 years, Locke's constitution was abandoned. [fn13]

But the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution did not follow Locke's lead in either respect. Not only did it anticipate the development of an industrial nation, but the inalienable rights which the Declaration asserted were the Leibnizian "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Leibniz, himself a lawyer among other vocations, considered happiness as the "end" of society, and to be the object of the highest form of law. "The most perfect society is that whose purpose is the general and supreme happiness," he wrote in a piece on natural law. [fn14] In a longer piece on "Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice," written in 1702-3, Leibniz distinguishes three levels of law: the ius strictum, equity, and piety. [fn15]The crafting of the U.S. Constitution, especially the statement of purpose in the Preamble, reflects a higher concept of law that mere contracts or equity, and thus stands in the Leibnizian, not Lockean, tradition.

Of course, one can find innumerable American revolutionaries, as well as Tories, who quoted Locke and his ostensibly anti-absolutist views during the period of the Revolution and the formation of the Constitution. But that does not relieve you of the obligation to look at the content of the ideas. There may be many "patriots" today who adhere to the slogan "Life, Liberty, and Property," but the patriots of the American Revolution were about a higher moral purpose.

Even more outrageous is the argument that the economic system of the most advanced colonies, and the early Republic, followed the ideas of Adam Smith and English liberals. Smith's Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, and it was a polemic against everything the American colonists were fighting for--the right to manufacture and achieve economic development, most prominently. While Smith permitted the central government to play a role in defense, his explicit argument on the economy was to keep the government out, and let the private entrepreneurs (might we say privateers?) do what they would without interference. Although such a free trade outlook was not at all England's imperial practice, Smith was writing for the mickeys, such as us Americans. We were supposed to buy it, and continue to let England dominate world finances and trade.

But the American System of Economics, which Franklin represented before the founding of the Constitution, and Alexander Hamilton directly represented afterwards, was at direct loggerheads with Smith's propaganda. Nothing demonstrates this more directly than the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, with its commitment to "form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity". Under Smith's philosophy, we had no right to talk about the "general welfare" as a conscious aim of government policy, much less put the federal government in charge of promoting it.

To the contrary, the ideas of the government's role in promoting the general welfare of the citizenry had to come from another tradition--the tradition of Leibniz, Colbert, and their English cothinkers.

The Cameralist School Continues

While the United States of America is the only republic to have been founded in the spirit of the cameralist tradition, the tradition survived in Europe, primarily in Germany and Austria.

In 1727 the first professorship of Cameralism was established at Frankfurt am Oder. The first individual to hold that position was Justus Christoph Dithmar, who began as a professor of history. With the appointment came the idea that there was a cameral science, dealing specifically with how to raise and improve the income of the principality, and apply it for the maintenance of the community.

One of Dithmar's successors, George Heinrich Zincke, described the "new" science as follows:

"Cameral science is a learned and practical science, first, of inventing, improving, and introducing all sorts of good police (sic) laws and institutions drawn from the nature and condition of the means of livelihood of a land; second, a science partly resting upon die Oconomie (economics), partly upon special rules and maxims which set forth the rights and duties of a ruler, of wisely, prudently, rightly, and skillfully founding, maintaining, increasing, and administering the necessity, comfort and riches of a land, and at the same time and thereby the ready means needed by the ruler for the good of the state and its ruler." [fn16]

The most famous of the official cameralists, however, was Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi, who had a widely variegated career from the Austrian Court of Maria Theresa to Gottingen, Denmark, and Berlin. Justi, who wrote the book Staatswirtschaft in 1758, conceived of himself as a "universal cameralist.". The first principle of his profession he described as follows: "Hence follows the first and universal principle, namely all the governmental activities of a state must be so ordered that by means of them happiness of the state must be promoted." [fn17] He argued that "subjects do not exist for the sake of the ruler," and the ultimate aim of the republic has to be the common happiness of the population.

The state's happiness depends upon providing conditions of freedom, assured property, and flourishing industry to the population, Justi said. That means that the state has to have enough wealth to make such a provision. He proceeds to outline various ways to increase the wealth of the state--all of which could usefully be studied by the decorticated professionals called "economists" today.

The first way is to increase population. Justi says, "The larger the number of people living in the country therefore, the greater will be the means and power of the republic. Hence the duty of the ruler to promote an increase of population."

The second way is to provide for flourishing commerce, manufacturing and trade. Justi was clearly thinking of dirigist measures here, as he writes, "A wise ruler will not leave the food supply and employment of subjects to take care of themselves, but will see that they are systematically made abundant." He also argues that medicine, municipal sanitation, and food hygiene be enforced. He also discusses the need to regulate trade, and the need for good infrastructure, like harbors, roads, rivers, canals, and a postal system. He insists upon the promotion of domestic production.

Justi is fully confident that an emphasis on such objectives will increase necessary state revenues. As he puts it, the "best and surest means to increase revenues comes from encouraging the laboring class."

The last prominent self-professed cameralist was Joseph von Sonnenfels, an Austrian who lived between 1733 and 1817. Sonnenfels was a great promoter of industry from the theoretical standpoint that the development of manufacturing was a boon to increasing population, and to increasing the component of "artificial labor," i.e. technology, in society. Sonnenfels, unlike many other cameralists, is cited in economics textbooks, What we know today as the Vienna school of economics--a slew of British liberal monetarists--has done its best to bury or subvert practically every tenet of Sonnenfels' thinking.

The American System of Economics Today

It is not necessary for American or other national political leaders today to rush into the local library, dust off their German and Italian, and read the cameralist school of economics. Fortunately, they can turn to the much more elaborated and advanced work of the physical economist in their tradition, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

But it is critical, in this time of extraordinary failure of economics to serve and improve the human condition, to know that there is a tried and tested tradition of moral economics, Christian economics--a tradition which found its expression in the first hundred years of the America republic, and can therefore be revived today.

FOOTNOTES:

1. [return to text] Spannaus, Nancy & White, Christopher. The Political Economy of the American Revolution, Campaigner Publications, Inc., New York, 1977.

2. [return to text] Two full-length books and innumerable magazine articles have been produced from the voluminous researches of members of the International Caucus of Labor Committees, the philosophical association based on LaRouche's ideas. The books are: The Civil War and the American System, America's Battle with Britain, 1860-1876, by W. Allen Salisbury, EIR, Washington, D.C., 1992; and How the Nation was Won, America's Untold Story 1630-1754, Vol. 1, by H. Graham Lowry, EIR, Washington, D.C., 1988.

3. [return to text] Wertz, Jr., William F. "Man Measures His Intellect Through the Power of His Works," How Nicolaus of Cusa' revolution in the Platonic Christian concept of natural law laid the basis for the Renaissance invention of the modern nation-state, in Fidelio, Winter 1994, vol. III, no. 4.

4. [return to text] The quotes from Serra and other cameralists (not including Leibniz) come from an unpublished speech given in the early 1980s by Michael Liebig of EIR's German affiliate.

5. [return to text] "The Commonwealth of Louis XI", by Pierre Beaudry, American Almanac, July 3, 1995.

6. [return to text] The following history of cameralist writers, with the exception of the material on Gottfried Leibniz, comes from The Cameralists, The Pioneers, by Albion W. Small, University of Chicago Pres, Chicago, 1909. While Small maintains the inaccurate view that cameralism was merely a pragmatic, rather autocratic reaction to the situation in the German feudalities, he is one of the few English writers on this subject, and includes invaluable quotations from original sources.

7. [return to text] Small, op. cit., p. 86.

8. [return to text] LaRouche, Jr., Lyndon. H., The Science of Christian Economy, Schiller Institute, Washington, D.C. 1991.

9. [return to text] Published in Fidelio, vol. 1, no. 3, Fall 1992, p. 54.

10. [return to text] Published in Fidelio, vol. 1, no. 2, Spring 1992, p. 63-69.

11. [return to text] This section of the Society paper is not included in the Fidelio, but comes from the unpublished speech of Liebig, op.cit.

12. [return to text] Lowry, H. Graham, op. cit., p. 75.

13. [return to text] Marshall, John, The Life of George Washington, vol. 1, The Citizens' Guild of Washington's Boyhood Home, Fredericksburg, Va., 1926, pp. 154-159.

14. [return to text] Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, "On Natural Law," in Leibniz, Political Writings, translated and edited by Patrick Riley, Cambridge University Press, 1972, 1988, p. 77.

15. [return to text] Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, "Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice," in Leibniz, Political Writings, op.cit. p. 45-64.

16. [return to text] Small, Albion W., op.cit., p. 254.

[return to text] Ibid., p. 310. Other quotations from von Justi are from the same source.

What is The “General Welfare”?

by Edward Spannaus

``We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.''

The commitment to promote the general welfare of all persons, as opposed to protecting the interests of a narrow section or class of the population, encapsulates what is most unique about the United States of America--that it is the only modern nation-state republic founded on this principle.

Lyndon LaRouche has identified the principle of the general welfare as the only legitimate basis for the authority of government. A useful summary may be found, for example, in LaRouche's article, ``Will the U.S.A. keep its sovereignty?'' published in the November 19, 1999 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

LaRouche emphasizes that our United States republic ``came into existence as direct heir of those anti-oligarchichal, anti-Roman, Platonic principles of natural law'' which were first affirmed in the founding of the first nation-state republics during the late 15th Century: France under Louis XI, and England under Henry VII. LaRouche describes the source of this law as ``a combination of the Classical Greek, republican heritage, with those doctrines, respecting the universal notion of human individuality, which were promulgated by Jesus Christ and his Apostles, notably the Epistles of the Apostle Paul.''

Out of this, came the central principle upon which ``the authority, powers, and responsibilities of the sovereign nation-state republic were premised ... the notion of `general welfare,' or commonwealth.'

``The authority of the sovereign state lies solely in its indispensable role in promoting the general welfare of all persons, as Genesis I, and the Christian apostolic mission define all persons, as made equally in the image of the Creator of the Universe, and thus equally subjects of the obligation to promote the welfare of both the living and their posterity,'' LaRouche wrote, adding that, ``Only sovereign government has the means to promote the conditions of the general welfare respecting all of the people and all of the land-area, both for the living and future generations,'' and that thus, the existence of such sovereign nation-state republics is shown to be ``the morally required condition of mankind.''

This stands in opposition to those forms of oligarchical rule, in which the government is the private property of a ruling oligarchy, either a feudalistic, landed oligarchy, or a financier oligarchy of the sort that the British monarchy represents today. In such cases, governments exist to preserve the power and wealth of such oligarchies, and not to promote the general welfare of all citizens.

From the original colonizations of the Americas, those two outlooks have been in conflict; they are perhaps best expressed in the contrast between the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the Winthrops and Mathers, versus the Carolina colonies, whose constitution, written by John Locke, created a hereditary nobility, and ensured the primacy of property, including slave property.

What we shall do here, is to trace how the General Welfare clause became such a crucial element of the Constitution, looking back, both to the early colonial period, and then examining what the concept meant to the Founding Fathers (notably Alexander Hamilton), and others who shaped the political and economic life of the republic in the early 18th Century. Finally, we shall see the triumph of the Hamiltonian notion of the general welfare during the fight over President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s.

Today, that commitment has been largely abandoned, both among ``New Democrats'' of the Al Gore type, and among the dominant grouping among Republicans, whose radical free-market policies stand in the utmost contrast to the Lincolnesque principles on which the Republican Party was once based.

The Federal Constitution

The importance given to the General Welfare clause by the Framers is demonstrated by the fact that it appears, not once, but twice, in the United States Constitution--first in the Preamble, as a statement of the purpose of the Constitution, and then again in Article I, Section 8, which sets forth the substantive powers of Congress.

The clause was taken over from the Articles of Confederation, the preliminary Constitution of the new United States, during the period of the Revolution, until the adoption and ratification of the Constitution of 1787. The Articles of Confederation declared in Article III (the equivalent of a Preamble) that:

``The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare....''

The Framers of the United States Constitution repeated the General Welfare clause in Article I, Section 8, for the purpose of giving it some teeth, by ensuring that Congress could raise and expend funds for the general welfare. This corrected a near-fatal defect in the Articles of Confederation: the Articles incorporated the concept of the general welfare, but failed to provide for its implementation.

How did this provision for the general welfare get into the Articles of Confederation? It was proposed by Benjamin Franklin to the Second Continental Congress in 1775. But to see why Franklin considered it to be so important, we have to go back almost a century and a half earlier, to John Winthrop and the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The battle for a continental republic, based upon the notion of the general welfare, is properly dated from the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Winthrop sought a republic, where human beings would be more highly valued than land, and in which the earth would be improved for the benefit of its citizens.

In a 1629 treatise, Winthrop decried the degeneration of England, and called for the establishment of a republic in the New World:

``This land [England] grows weary of her inhabitants, so as man who is the most precious of all creatures is here more vile & base than the earth we tread upon, and of less price among us, than a horse or a sheep.... [W]e use the authority of the law to hinder the increase of people ..., servants & neighbors (especially if they be poor) are counted the greatest burden which if things were right it would be the chiefest earthly blessing....

``The whole earth is the Lord's garden & he hath given it to the sons of men, with a general condition, Gen: 1.28. Increase and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it, which was again renewed to Noah. The end is double, moral and natural, that man might enjoy the fruits of the earth and God might have his due glory from the creature. Why then should we stand here striving for places of habitation ... and in the meantime suffer a whole Continent, as fruitful and convenient for the use of man, to lie waste without any improvement.''[fn1]

In 1637, Winthrop wrote that ``the essential forme* of a common weale or body politic such as this is,'' should be: ``The consent of a certain company of people, to cohabitate together, under one government for their mutual safety and welfare.''

Foreshadowed here is the commitment to the ``common defense and the general welfare,'' enshrined in the Preamble to the new Constitution of the United States, drafted exactly 150 years later.

Winthrop explained: ``The wellfare of the whole is not to be put to apparent hazard for the advantage of any particular members''--a very precise repudiation of an oligarchal form of society.[fn2]

The first effort to unite the colonies was the formation of the New England Confederation in 1643. Its constitution, the ``Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England,'' were later cited by Franklin when he drafted the proposed ``Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union'' in 1775.

In the 1643 Articles, the equivalent of a preamble, or statement of purpose, read:

``The said United Colonies for themselves and their posterities do jointly and severally enter into a firm and perpetual league of friendship and amity for offense and defense, mutual advice and succor upon all just occasions both for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the Gospel and for their own mutual safety and welfare.''

Presaging Alexander Hamilton's proposals of 150 years later, in 1640 the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony voted for subsidies for textile manufacturing, and other subsidies designed to promote manufactures. The General Court also provided for the construction of an iron mill with blast furnaces, and rolling and slitting mills. (It could only export goods after the colony's needs were met--a measure we will come across again in Hamilton's proposals.) In 1647, the Saugus Iron Works was established, the first automated, integrated industrial complex in the New World.

Benjamin Franklin's `Junto'

Benjamin Franklin personifies the continuity from the Puritan Commonwealth in Massachusetts to the American Revolution, through his work in the Pennsylvania colony.

And Franklin, arguably more than anyone else in our history, embodies the promotion of the general welfare: witness his creation of the Junto, his founding of the American Philosophical Society, his promotion of public works, etc., in Philadelphia.

Franklin was born into a Puritan family in Boston in 1706. Early on, he became a protégé of Cotton Mather, and he declared Mather's 1710 An Essay Upon the Good as the book which had influenced him more than any other. In 1714, Mather had proposed the creation of a bank to promote economic recovery and to create a solid system of credit.

In 1727, Franklin issued his proposal for the ``Junto'' in Philadelphia, as a ``club for mutual improvement.'' The idea was expanded with the 1744 creation of the American Philosophical Society, which grew out of Franklin's ``Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge Among the British Plantations in North America.''

{Useful} knowledge is the key to Franklin's proposal, for its purpose was to promote the general welfare through the development of what we would today call science and technology. Thus, there were always to be, among the members of the Society in Philadelphia, ``a physician, a botanist, a mathematician, a chemist, a mechanician, a geographer, and a general natural philosopher.''

The members were to meet at least once a month, and correspond among themselves as well as with members in other colonies, concerning horticulture, mines and minerals, useful improvements in mathematics and chemistry, labor-saving mechanical inventions, all new arts and manufactures, surveys, maps and charts, animal husbandry, and ``all philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of things, tend to increase the power of man over matter, and multiply the conveniences or pleasures of life.''

Similar notions were included in his proposal for the creation of an Academy in Philadelphia, which grew into the University of Pennsylvania--modelled on Göttingen University in Germany. As Franklin said in his proposal, a good education for youth is ``the surest foundation of the happiness both of private families and of commonwealths.'' The object was to produce men ``qualified to serve the public with honor to themselves and their country.''

Franklin's proposal readily calls to mind an earlier proposal by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, ``On the Establishment of a Society in Germany for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences,'' written in 1671.[fn3] In this wonderful essay, Leibniz argues that ``charity ... is nothing other than that love of the public good and universal harmony,'' and that men should let themselves be used ``as instruments for the glory of God and, what is the same thing, for the common good, and for the nourishment, ease of labor, comfort, instruction, and enlightenment of their fellow man, for discovery, research, and improvement of creatures....''

Those to whom God has given reason and power together, he demonstrates, can use these in three ways for the glory of God, with good words (i.e., orators and priests), with good thoughts (i.e., those who make new discoveries of nature), or with good works (through public affairs or politics). The latter, Leibniz contends, is the most perfect way to seek the glory of God, and to honor Him, by offering themselves as an instrument to do good for society.

``These are the ones who apply the discovered wonders of nature and art to medicine, to mechanics, to the comfort of life, to materials for work and sustenance for the poor, to keeping people from idleness and vice, to the operation of justice, and to reward and punishment, to the preservation of the common peace, to the increase and welfare of the fatherland, to the elimination of times of shortage, disease, and war ... and to the happiness of the human race....''

Leibniz then suggests that among the most efficient means of carrying out such activities directed for the common good, is the creation of a society or an academy through which useful knowledge can be shared and promoted.

One cannot but notice the coincidence of the objectives sought by this great philosopher, with those outlined in the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States.

Leibniz versus Mandeville

It is worth our while, at this point, to explore a bit further, the links between the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania colonies, and the Leibniz networks in Europe, and to also touch upon an hitherto unexplored facet of the combat between these networks and one of the foremost adversaries of the general welfare--the progenitor of the radical free-marketeers, Bernard Mandeville.

As Graham Lowry's book, How the Nation was Won[fn4] demonstrates, William Penn's agent James Logan was a correspondent of Leibniz, and Logan recruited Germans to emigrate to Pennsylvania through the Leibniz networks in Germany, particularly through Dr. Hermann August Francke of Halle. Francke, himself a correspondent of Cotton Mather and a collaborator of Leibniz, organized the German emigration to New York and Pennsylvania starting in 1709; that Pennsylvania migration spilled into Western Maryland and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia as well.

Francke was a professor of Greek and Oriental languages at Halle, and was also a theologian and a pastor, and he built up the famed Halle Stiftung--the Halle Institutions--consisting of schools, the Orphan House, eventually an Oriental Institute, and so on. Francke also was key in organizing the faculty at Göttingen University--Germany's leading scientific center--which Franklin later visited, in 1766, and used as a model for the University of Pennsylvania.

Francke carried on an extensive correspondence with Cotton Mather in New England, which Francke's son Gotthilf later continued with Cotton's uncle, Samuel Mather. The principal subjects of Francke's correspondence with Mather, and of his correspondence generally, were missions and charity-schools--the latter serving to educate and uplift the children of the poor.

Francke's correspondence with Cotton Mather continued from 1709 to 1724. Francke's letter of Dec. 19, 1714, The longest letter which is translated is Francke's letter of Dec. 19, 1714, which was reprinted in the third edition of his Pietas Hallensis, which became the basis of Mather's ``Nuncia bona e terra longinqua'' (``Good News from a Distant Land'') of 1715, contains a detailed description of the institutions at Halle and their growth, including the Oriental Institute.

Francke became a powerful influence upon Mather, as reflected in many of Mather's writings. Mather's Bonifacius, An Essay Upon the Good--which had a great influence on Franklin--was in large part based upon Francke's descriptions of the Halle Institutions.

Looking at this correspondence, it is clear what Bernard Mandeville--the evil godfather of today's free-market fanatics--was attacking in his 1723 ``Essay on Charity and Charity-Schools.'' Francke, in fact, had set up the Halle Institutions, including its charity school, in direct opposition to the English model of the poor houses--which were work houses, poor houses, and penal institutions, all combined in one.

Graham Lowry has shown that Mandeville was a key figure in the satanic Hell-Fire Club which was deployed against the Mathers and republicanism; and in 1724, young Ben Franklin was deployed to London on an intelligence-gathering mission, as part of which he met Mandeville.

The two overriding themes of Mandeville's writings are: (1) that selfishness and licentiousness are not evil but are a social good (``private vice equals public virtue''), and (2) that it is not only wasteful, but it is counterproductive and harmful, to attempt to educate or improve the lower classes.

Whereas later writers of the anti-general welfare school tried to present the same views in somewhat more respectable trappings, Mandeville openly put forward his bestial, satanist views in the most explicit fashion. His best-known work is The Fable of the Bees, which was first published as a poem in 1705, with the title, ``The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves turn'd Honest.'' In 1714 it was published as The Fable of the Bees: or Private Vices, Publick Benefits followed by a commentary, ``An Inquiry in the Origin of Moral Virtue.'' Another edition was published in 1723, along with the evil ``Essay on Charity and Charity Schools.'' Still another edition came in 1728-29.

Mandeville attacked the charity-schools as a waste of time and worse, for as he said, the longer boys continue in this easy sort of life of learning, ``the more unfit they'll be when grown up for downwright Labour.''

``Going to school is idleness as compared to working,'' Mandeville wrote; and he insisted that the wealth of a nation depended on the maintenance of a large class of miserable and impoverished laborers to do society's drudge work. Any effort to educate them or improve their situation, would only make them less willing to work for a pittance, or to enlist in the military.

The contrast to the idea of the general welfare could not be more stark:

``It is impossible that a Society can long subsist, and suffer many of its members to live in idleness, and enjoy all the ease and pleasure they can invent, without having at the same time great multitudes of people that to make good this defect will condescend to be quite the reverse, and by use and patience inure their bodies to work for others and themselves besides.''

Mandeville's writings were instrumental in the workhouse ``reforms'' of 1722, which set up the ``privatization'' of the previously-public workhouses, under which entire families were forced to leave their homes and live--separately--in the workhouses in order to obtain relief.

Mandeville's fundamental contention, which endeared him to the likes of Adam Smith, and ``Austrian School'' (now ``Chicago School'') founders Friedrich von Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises, was that any attempt at a ``grand design'' or an effort to plan men's actions for the common good, is folly.

As he argued in The Fable of the Bees, man, like the industrious bee, performs selfish actions ``in the small''--which lead to the greatest good in the ``large'':

``Thus every part was full of vice,
yet the whole mass a paradise.
``...their crimes conspired to make them great.
``...the worst of all the multitude,
did something for the common good.''

Von Mises, in his book Theory and History, adopts Mandeville's bestial view, stating that during the Enlightenment, eminent philosophers stopped ``brooding about the hidden purpose of Providence in directing the course of events,'' and began to look at things from the standpoint of acting men, rather than from the standpoint of plans ascribed to God or nature. This is best illustrated by Adam Smith, says von Mises, but to understand Smith, ``we must first refer to Mandeville.''

``The older ethical systems were almost unanimous in the condemnation of self-interest,'' von Mises wrote. ``Referring to the Sermon on the Mount, they exalted self-denial and indifference with regard to treasures which moth and rust corrupt, and branded self-interest as a reprehensible vice. Bernard de Mandeville in his Fable of the Bees, tried to discredit this doctrine. He pointed out that self-interest and the desire for material well-being, commonly stigmatized as vices, are in fact the incentives whose operation makes for welfare, prosperity, and civilization.''

``Adam Smith adopted this idea,'' von Mises declares.

Indeed, some 60 years later, the writings of Alexander Hamilton would explicitly repudiate Adam Smith's defense of free trade and the ``invisible hand,'' just as the Francke-Mather correspondence represented the Christian counterposition to the radical egoism of Mandeville's equation of ``private vices'' with ``public virtues.''

Articles of Confederation

On June 21, 1775, Franklin submitted to the Continental Congress a draft of ``Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union.''[fn5]The first draft stated in Article II:

``The said United Colonies hereby severally enter into a firm League of Friendship with each other, binding on themselves and their Posterity, for their common Defense [and Offense], against their Enemies for the Security of their Liberties and Propertys, the Safety of their Persons and Familes, and their [common and] mutual and general Welfare.''

Article IV proposed the annual election by each Colony of Delegates to a ``General Congress.''

Article V laid out the powers and duties of the General Congress, including that: ``The Congress shall also make [and propose] such general [Regulations] Ordnances as tho' necessary to the General Welfare, particular Assemblies [from their local Circum-] cannot be competent to;'' and it mentions our general Commerce, the general Currency, Posts, the armed Forces, and officers, civil and military, of the general Confederation.

Article VI said that ``All charges of Wars, and all other general Expenses, to be incurr'd for the common Welfare, shall be defray'd out of a common Treasury....'' but to be supplied by each Colony. [Brackets indicate words crossed out in the hand-written original--ed.]

Herein lay one of the greatest weaknesses of the Confederation--that it could legislate and spend for the general welfare, but it did not have the power to directly raise money for the general welfare, instead being reliant upon the good will of the states.

Action on Franklin's draft was among the items of unfinished business when the Second Continental Congress adjourned in December 1775.

On June 7, 1776, the third session of the Continental Congress adopted a resolution containing an early and brief version of the Declaration of Independence, and at the same time, resolved that a plan of Confederation should be prepared and transmitted to the respective colonies. On June 11, a committee was appointed to prepare the Articles. On July 12, the committee brought in a draft, which retained the clause pertaining to the ``mutual and general Welfare.''

But Franklin's Article V, the broad grant of power to the Congress to provide for the General Welfare, was no longer in the draft. The new draft provided that the Confederation could raise naval forces and make requisitions for land forces, but that it could not impose taxes or duties unless nine colonies assented.

Further changes were made during the next two years. The final Articles of Confederation were submitted to the various states for ratification in November 1777. A committee drafted a circular letter to accompany the draft Articles, which said that although it would be difficult to accomodate the opinions and wishes of so many different states, that ``this is proposed, as the best, which could be adopted to the circumstances of all.''

Many objections were raised, and many amendments proposed. They were all rejected, for fear that the Articles would never be ratified. In June 1778, a copy, engrossed for ratification, was prepared; it was ratified by every state but Delaware and Maryland. Delaware ratified in 1779, and Maryland on March 1, 1781--at which point the instrument finally took effect--only seven months before Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown.

The Articles were the best that could be done under the revolutionary circumstances of 1775-77, but their weakness had become so apparent during the Revolution--the ragged, freezing, and starving Army at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78 was the most painful expression of this--that moves were soon underway to amend them, or create a new instrument, which led to the convening the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

That was, without question, one of the most remarkable assemblages ever known to mankind; unfortunately for us today, its deliberations were conducted in secret, and we have only fragmentary notes of what took place.

The Constitutional Convention

At the beginning of the deliberations in Philadephia at the end of May 1787, the Virginia Plan was presented by Gov. Edmund Randolph, which provided for a national government, but under the guise of amending the Articles of Confederation. The first resolution submitted by Randolph, was that the Articles ``ought to be so corrected & enlarged as to accomplish the objects proposed by their institution; namely, `common defence, security of liberty, and general welfare.'|''[fn5]

Much of the early debate in the Convention revolved around the legislative branches and representation. Speaker after speaker argued that the British system could not be our example. James Wilson of Pennsylvania, for example, is reported to have argued: ``The British Government cannot be our model. We have no materials for a similar one. Our manners, our laws, the abolition of entails and of primogeniture, the whole genius of the people, are opposed to it.''

And George Mason of Virginia, for example, in arguing for the election of the larger branch of the legislature by the people, said that the new system had to provide for the rights of every class of the people, that the Framers should ``provide no less carefully for the rights and happiness of the lowest than of the highest order of citizens.''

One of the more lengthy reported speeches in this vein was delivered by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, who noted that there were in the United States ``fewer distinctions of fortune & less of rank, than among the inhabitants of any other nation.'' While there was much talk about the British Constitution, Pinckney contended that the ``most distinguishing feature'' of the British Government is ``the balance between the Crown & the people'' which cannot be part of the new Constitution the the United States. In fact, he argued, ``the people of the United States are more equal in their circumstances than the people of any other Country.''

Pinckney pointed out that the people of the United States were very different from those of any state in either the modern world, or the ancient world. ``Our true situation,'' Pinckney declares, ``appears to me to be this.--a new extensive Country containing within itself the materials for forming a Government capable of extending to its citizens all the blessings of civil & religious liberty--capable of making them happy at home. That is the great end of Republican Establishments.''

From time to time, the Convention came close to breaking down in petty squabbles over narrow interests, and the more far-sighted leaders had to remind the participants of their historic responsibility to create a system to serve the {general} interests.

In sentiments later to be echoed by Chief Justice John Marshall, James Madison had to remind the members of the Convention that they were engaged in ``framing a system which we wish to last for ages.'' Hamilton ``concurred with Mr. Madison in thinking we were now to decide for ever the fate of Republican Government; and that if we did not give to that form due stability and wisdom, it would be disgraced & lost among ourselves, disgraced & lost to mankind for ever.''

Franklin at one point urged the assembly to pray and seek divine guidance, lest they succeed no better than did ``the Builders of Babel ... divided by our little partial local interests.'' If we failed, Franklin urged, ``mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.''

During one of the many contentious debates between representative of the smaller and larger states, Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania beseeched the assemblage to consider the general or higher interest. Madison's notes describe Morris's speech:

``He [Morris] came here as a Representative of America; he flattered himself that he came here in some degree as a Representative of the whole human race; for the whole human race will be affected by the proceedings of this Convention. He wished gentlemen to extend their views beyond the present moment of time; beyond the narrow limits of place from which they derive their political origin. If he were to believe some things which he had heard, he should suppose that we were assembled to truck and bargain for our particular States.... He wished our ideas to be enlarged to the true interests of man, instead of being circumscribed within the narrow compass of a particular Spot.''

It wasn't until July 17, after the contentious issues of the legislature and representation were either resolved or set aside, that the Convention came back to the question of the powers of Congress. Roger Sherman, a Puritan from Connecticut, wanted the legislature to have the power to make laws binding on the people of the United States in all areas concerning the general interests or general welfare of the Union.

On July 26, the various resolutions adopted by the Convention were referred to the Committee on Detail, which was charged with developing a comprehensive draft. However, the draft which was reported out of the Committee on August 6 did not contain the General Welfare clause, either in the Preamble, or under the powers of Congress.

Because of disagreements over whether to give a general grant of powers to Congress, the Committee on Detail instead had produced a listing of enumerated powers. Sherman offered a resolution providing for a general grant of power, which was one of the provisions which went again to the Committee on Detail; on August 22, that Committee recommended that Congress be given the power ``to provide, as may become necessary, from time to time, for the well managing and securing the common property and general interests and welfare of the United States in such manner as shall not interfere with the governments of individual states....''

Drawing on the Virginia Plan and also Sherman's motion, this ``general welfare'' clause then went to the Committee on Unfinished Parts, on August 31. That Committee moved the ``general welfare'' clause to the first clause, thus providing that the legislature could lay taxes, duties and impost ``to pay the debts and provide for the common defence & general welfare, of the U.S.''

An illuminating anecdote provides a window into the discussion: Charles McHenry of Maryland suggested the inclusion of a power to enable the legislature to erect piers for the protection of shipping and as an aid to navigation. Gouverneur Morris advised McHenry that this could be done under the General Welfare clause.

The almost-final draft, probably written by Gouverneur Morris, restored the General Welfare clause to the Preamble (following the style of the Articles of Confederation), and repeated it in Article I, Section 8--where it remained.

The `General Welfare' Clause

From the time of the drafting of the Constitution up to the present day, the General Welfare clause has been the subject of fierce disputes, with the side of the Founders taken by the ``nationalist'' faction which supported a strong government with adequate powers to promote economic expansion and industrial growth.

We see these battles raging over the ``American System'' measures of internal improvements, tariffs, etc. during the early 19th Century and the Civil War; we see it in elimination of the General Welfare clause in the 1861 Confederate Constitution (see box), and we see it prominently in the 20th Century in the fight over the New Deal. The conflict over the general welfare--absolutely fundamental as to the nature of our Republic--is still simmering today.

To examine how the concept of the General Welfare was understood by the dominant tendency among the Founding Fathers, the Framers of the Constitution, and leading jurists such as John Marshall and Joseph Story, shows the foolishness of those self-styled modern-day ``conservatives'' who babble about the ``original intent'' of the Constitution, as if it had been written by Adam Smith or Friedrich von Hayek.

The definitive exposition of the General Welfare clause was in Hamilton's ``Report on Manufactures,'' issued in December 1791.

However, as early as February 1791, Hamilton had treated the subject of the general welfare in his ``Opinion on the Constitutionality of the National Bank''--written after Washington's Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, and his Attorney General Edmund Randolph, had both declared the creation of a national bank unconstitutional.

In his ``Opinion on the Bank,'' Hamilton argued that the powers of the national government ``ought to be construed liberally, in advancement of the public good,'' and that they must be defined by ``the nature and objects of government itself.''

Hamilton noted that Jefferson had argued, in opposing the bank, that Congress can only levy taxes to pay the debts, or to provide for the welfare of the Union. But this is no argument against a national bank, Hamilton says. ``It is true that they [Congress] cannot without breach of trust, lay taxes for any other purpose than the general welfare, but so neither can any other government. The welfare of the community is the only legitimate end for which money can be raised on the community.''

The only restriction, Hamilton continues, is that money thus raised, cannot be applied for any merely local purpose. ``The constitutional {test} of a right application must always be, whether it be for a purpose of {general} or {local} nature. If the former, there can be no want of constitutional power.... Whatever relates to the general order of the finances, to the general interests of trade etc., being general objects are constitutional ones for {the application} of {money}.'' (emphasis in original)

This is further elaborated in the ``Report on Manufactures,'' in which Hamilton declares that the general interests of Learning, of Agriculture, of Manufactures, and of Commerce, are all within the purview of the General Welfare.

Hamilton argued that the wealth, the independence, and the security of the nation are all connected to the prosperity of manufactures. As opposed to the free traders of the time--or what we would call the ``globalizers'' today--Hamilton contended that: ``Every nation ... ought to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply. These comprise the means of {Subsistence, habitation, clothing, and defence.}''

``The possession of these is necessary to the perfection of the body politic; to the safety as well as to the welfare of the society .... The extreme embarrassments of the United States during the late War, from an incapacity of supplying themselves, are still matters of keen recollection,'' Hamilton wrote, urging that this was the next great work to be accomplished, lest the United States again face the same situation in a future war.

Hamilton also strenuously disputed the false but popular notion that ``though the promoting of manufactures may be the interest of a part of the Union, it is contrary to that of another part,'' particularly as that argument was made with respect to the northern and southern regions of the Union. In fact, Hamilton argued, manufacturing is in the {general} interest of the entire nation, and ``the {aggregate} prosperity of manufactures, and the {aggregate} prosperity of Agriculture are inimately connected.'' (emphasis in original)

Hamilton also addressed the issue of cognition and its relation to the national wealth: ``To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.... Every new scene which is opened to the busy nature of man to rouse and exert itself, is the addition of a new energy to the general stock of effort.''

Hamilton proposed aggressive measures to promote domestic manufacturing, including tariffs, the maintenance of monopolies, the prohibition of some imports, the prohibition of exports of certain raw materials necessary for domestic manufacturing, pecuniary bounties and premiums, a system of regulation of standards and inspections; development of a payments system; and promotion of a system of transportation of goods. As to using public funds, he argued that there is no better purpose ``to which public money can be more beneficially applied than to the acquisition of a new and useful branch of industry; no Consideration more valuable than a permanent addition to the general stock of productive labor.''

Hamilton declared unequivocally that the Federal government had the right to promote manufactures under the General Welfare Clause of Article I, Section 8. The objects for which Congress can raise money, Hamilton explained, ``are no less comprehensive then the payment of the Public debts, and providing for the common defense and the general Welfare.''

He continued:

``The terms `general Welfare' were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which Preceded; otherwise, numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union to appropriate its revenues should have been restricted within narrower limit than the `General Welfare' and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification or of definition.''

Hamilton then says that it is left to the discretion of the legislature to determine what matters concern the general welfare, adding: ``And there seems to be no room for a doubt that whatever concerns the general interests of {Learning,} of {Agriculture,} of {Manufactures,} and of {Commerce,} are within the sphere of the national Councils, {as far as regards an application of money.} (emphasis in original)

In his Final Address to the Congress in 1796, George Washington endorsed Hamilton's view.

Washington noted that ``Congress have repeatedly, and not without success, directed their attention to the encouragement of Manufactures,'' and he argued that much more needed to be done, especially invoking the idea of the dangers of the country remaining dependent on foreign supply.

Washington also argued that, ``with reference to individual, or National Welfare, Agriculture is of primary importance,'' and he proposed the creation of institutions for promoting agriculture through ``premiums, and small pecuniary aids, to encourage and assist a spirit of discovery and improvement.''

Fight Over the American System

As Hamilton emphasized over and over again, the national government cannot promote the general welfare unless it has the power to do so. This was not a settled issue in the early years of the Republic--indeed, to some, it is still yet not a settled issue today.

It fell to John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States from 1801 to 1835, to ensure that the Hamiltonian view was established as our fundamental law. Marshall's 1819 opinion in the case involving the National Bank, {McCulloch v. Maryland,} is a milestone for the confirmation of the national government's exercise of its power to promote the general welfare--and, it is also clear, to carry out its Manifest Destiny as a Continental Republic, ``from sea to shining sea.''

The background of the case was as follows. The second Bank of the United States was created in 1816, after the refusal of Congress to recharter the Bank on the eve of the War of 1812. But the bank was horribly mismanaged, and the Monroe administration pursued free trade and a veto of internal improvements. By the beginning of 1819, the Bank of the United States had collapsed, insolvencies and bankruptcy fraud were rampant, and the credit system and the economy as a whole were in utter chaos.

The case before the Supreme Court grew out of the attempts by the state of Maryland (among others) to tax the operations of the Bank. In his ruling reaffirming the power of Congress to establish a national bank--and repudiating the attempt of Maryland to destroy it--Marshall drew directly on Hamilton's arguments in the ``Opinion on the Constitutionality of the Bank.''

Marshall began in the logical place--the Preamble to the Constitution. Remarking on the conditions under the Confederation, Marshall wrote, the states themselves were competent to form the Confederation. ``But when, `In order to form a more perfect union,' it was deemed necessary to change this alliance in to an effective government, possessing great and sovereign powers, and acting directly upon the people; the necessity of referring it to the people, and of deriving its power directly from them, was felt and acknowledged by all.

``The government of the Union, then ... is emphatically and truly a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from then, its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit.''

(If this has a familiar echo, it should. By some accounts, Abraham Lincoln's ``of the people, by the people, for the people'' is derived directly from Marshall's opinion in the bank case.)

Against the so-called ``strict constructionists,'' (or nominalists, we could call them), Marshall argued that the nature of a Constitution is such ``that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated,'' and that everything else flows from that. Otherwise, a constitution would contain such an immense amount of detail, that it would be nothing but a legal code, ``and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind.''

Thus, although we don't find the word ``bank'' or ``incorporation'' among the enumerated powers of government, he writes, we do ``find the great powers to lay and collect taxes; to borrow money; to regulate commerce; to declare and conduct war; and to raise and support armies and navies.''

The happiness and prosperity of the nation require not only that the general government has ample powers, but that it has ample means for their execution. ``Throughout this vast republic, from the St. Croix, to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, revenue is to be collected and expended, armies are to be marched, and supported.'' Are we to adopt a construction of the Constitution, he asks, that would make it impossible to transfer revenues from one part of the county to another?

(Interestingly, this expansive statement is delivered just at the time of the Onis Treaty, by John Quincy Adams with Spain, was part of Adams' ``Manifest Destiny'' plan for a U.S. Continental Republic.)

From there, Marshall develops the critical point: that the Constitution confers upon Congress all the powers ``necessary and proper'' to carry out its purposes.

The subject at issue, Marshall writes, ``is the execution of those great powers upon which the welfare of a nation essentially depends.'' Those who granted those powers, certainly intended to ensure their beneficial execution. ``This provision is made in a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.''

Finally, Marshall comes to his conclusion--which is so crucial for the exercise of the General Welfare clause:

``Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional....''[fn6]

Another authoritative source, for an understanding of how the General Welfare was understood in the first part of the 19th Century, is Joseph Story'sCommentaries on the Constitution,first published in 1833. Story was from Massachusetts, and originally opposed the Federalists, but he came to be John Marshall's strongest ally on the Supreme Court, and attempted as best he could to carry on Marshall's work after Marshall's death.

In his discussion of the Preamble, Story notes that the Preamble does not confer any substantive powers to the central government, but rather, it is a statement of intent and purpose, which can certainly be called upon in interpreting other elements of the Constitution. He then reviews the six objects spelled out in the Preamble.

In his discussion of promoting the general welfare, Story gives as examples: tariffs (which the states cannot do effectively), the collection, distribution and expenditure of revenue, and internal improvements, such as roads and canals which are much better undertaken by the general government, and the post office.

Story observes that the separate states cannot carry into being any great or comprehensive plan for the general welfare; agriculture, commerce, and manufactures may each have to give up something, but each will benefit from a general system, as they have already. An unlimited commerce between states, he asserts, is a blessing of almost inconceivable value; each then looks after the interests of all, rather than its own narrow territory.

FDR’s “New Deal”

Strange as it may seem, it was not until 1936, that the Supreme Court based a ruling explicitly on the General Welfare clause. In the first such case, {U.S. v. Butler}, the Court invalidated the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), in a case challenging crop-reduction payments financed by a processing tax.

In May of 1935, the Supreme Court had struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act, and now it took aim at the AAA. Arguing before the high court, Soliciter General Stanley Reed urged that the General Welfare clause of Article I, Section 8 should be broadly construed to emcompass whatever was conducive to the national welfare. And Reed argued what seems obvious, that the agriculture crisis was a {national} crisis. But that was not so obvious to the Court, which held that agriculture was ``a purely local activity.''

The majority on the Court said that, yes, the General Welfare clause is a broad grant of power, but that the crop-reduction scheme was particular, not general, and that regulation of agriculture was outside the powers of Congress, as a power reserved to the states.

In a succession of rulings, the Supreme Court determined that agriculture, manufacturing, construction, coal mining, and almost any form of economic activity, were {local} and beyond the realm of Federal regulation, as were the wages and working conditions of those employed in those activities. It seemed for a short time that the Court was saying that the states {could} regulate such activities, but then the Supreme Court struck down a New York State minimum-wage law as also being unconstitutional.

This was the situation Roosevelt faced as he began his second term, and what led him to propose his scheme to ``pack the Court,'' to change its composition. He proposed this shortly after his Second Inaugural Address, delivered on January 20, 1937--the address best known for his exclamation that ``I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.''

FDR described the situation at the time of his first inauguration, four years earlier, and then recalled why the Constitution had been written and a strong Federal government established:

``We of the Republic sensed the truth that democratic government has innate capacity to protect its people against disasters once considered inevitable, to solve problems once considered unsolvable.... We refused to leave the problems of our common welfare to be solved by the winds of chance and the hurricanes of disaster....

``This year marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Constitutional Convention which made us a nation. At that Convention our forefathers found the way out of the chaos which followed the Revolutionary War; they created a strong government with powers of united action sufficient then and now to solve problems utterly beyond individual or local solution. A century and a half ago they established the Federal Government in order to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to the American people.

``Today we invoke those same powers of government to achieve the same objectives.''

Two weeks later, determined to find a way to overcome the obstructions placed in his path by the reactionary Justices who were blocking every effort of the Federal government to address the crisis, FDR proposed his plan to reform the Supreme Court.

Roosevelt took his case against the Supreme Court directly to the people, in a Fireside Chat on March 9. He warned there was a danger of another 1929, and said that national measures were necessary prevent this and to complete the recovery program, and that these were measures that only the national government could undertake.

FDR urged the people to re-read the Constitution, saying that, ``Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again.''

``It is an easy document to understand when you remember that it was called into being because the Articles of Confederation under which the original thirteen states tried to operate after the Revolution, showed the need of a national government with power enough to handle national problems,''

the President told the nation.

``In its Preamble, the Constitution states that it was intended to form a more perfect Union and promote the general welfare,'' Roosevelt said, adding that the powers given to Congress could be best described as being ``all the powers needed to meet each and every problem which then had a national character and could not be met by merely local action.

``But the framers went further,'' FDR continued. ``Having in mind that in succeeding generations many other problems then undreamed of would become national problems, they gave to Congress the ample broad powers `to levy taxes ... and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.'|''

That was the underlying purpose of the patriots who wrote the Constitution, Roosevelt went on, ``to create a national government with national power, intended, as they said, `to form a more perfect union ... for ourselves and our posterity.'|''

But, said Roosevelt, this is now being thwarted by the courts, so to ``save our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries,'' he presented his bold plan.

Hamilton Vindicated

As it turned out, Roosevelt's call to arms was sufficient to reverse the nation's course. In May of 1937, the Court issued two rulings on the same day affirming New Deal programs on the basis of the General Welfare clause. (``The switch in time that saved nine,'' it has been called.) First, the Court upheld the unemployment tax and compensation provisions of the Social Security Act, in deciding the case {Steward Machine Co. v. Davis}. Associate Justice Benjamin Cardozo cited the magnitude of unemployment, noting that the states had been unable to give the requisite relief, and that the unemployment problem ``had become national in area and dimension.

``There was need of help from the nation if the people were not to starve,'' Cardozo wrote. ``It is too late today for the argument to be heard with tolerance that, in a crisis so extreme, the use of the moneys of the nation to relieve the unemployment and their dependents is a use for any purpose narrower than the promotion of the general welfare.'' At the same time, again citing the General Welfare clause, the Court upheld the old-age benefits provisions of the Social Security Act. In this case, {Helvering v. Davis,} Justice Cardozo expressly adopted the Hamiltonian view of the general welfare power, as opposed to that of Madison.

``The conception of the spending power advocated by Hamilton and strongly reinforced by Story has prevailed over that of Madison,'' Cardozo wrote. He said that in response to the nationwide calamity that began in 1929, Congress had enacted various measures conducive to the general welfare, including old-age benefits and unemployment compensation. Only a national, not a state, power can serve the interests of all, Cardozo declared.

Thus was proclaimed, a long-overdue vindication of the determination of the dominant group of the Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution, and of all those who had gone before, in the American colonies and in Europe, to create a republic based on the concept of the general welfare.

Notes

*All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation within quotes, is preserved from the original texts.

1. H. Graham Lowry, ``|`The Eyes of all People Are Upon Us,'|'' EIR, Jan. 28, 2000.

2. John Winthrop, ``A Declaration in Defense of an Order of Court Made in May 1637.''

3. Spannaus & White, The Political Economy of the American Revolution, Executive Intelligence Review, 2nd edition, 1996, p. 214.

4. H. Graham Lowry, How the Nation was Won, Executive Intelligence Review, 1988

5. All quotations are from Madison's notes, as reported in Winton Solberg, ed., The Federal Convention and the Formation of the Union of the American States, 1958.

6. The ``necessary and proper'' clause (sometimes called the ``elastic'' clause), and the General Welfare clause have always gone hand-in-hand. This was acknowledged, in modern times, in the landmark {Buckley v. Valeo} case in 1976, in which the Supreme Court upheld the public financing of Presidential elections on grounds of the General Welfare clause.

   Harkening back to the key 1936-37 Supreme Court decisions which upheld New Deal legislation based on the General Welfare clause, the Supreme Court said in 1976 case that in passing the matching funds provision for presidential primaries, that ``Congress was legislating for the `general welfare'--to reduce the deleterious influence of large contributions on our political process, to facilitate communication by the candidates with the electorate, and to free candidates from the rigors of fundraising.''

   In rebutting the arguments by the opponents of the campaign financing law, the Supreme Court said that the General Welfare clause is not a limitation on Congressional power, but: ``It is rather a grant of power, the scope of which is quite expansive, particularly in view of the enlargement of power by the Necessary and Proper Clause''--and here the Court cited Marshall's opinion in the bank case.

American Prometheus: Who Made the USA A Great Power?

by Anton Chaitkin

The American Prometheus, Part I

In the Aeschylus play, Prometheus explains his battle with the Olympian gods-perhaps these gods stand for the aristocratical families who wished the mass of men to live in darkness, or to be slaughtered and replaced by some new "superior" race:

"Soon as even he had seated himself on his father's throne, [Zeus] forthwith assigned to the deities their several privileges and apportioned unto them their proper powers. But of wretched mortals he took no heed, but desired to bring the whole race to nothingness and to create another, a new one, in its stead.

"Against this purpose none dared make stand save I myself-I only had the courage; I saved mortals so that they did not descend, blasted utterly, unto the house of Death. Therefore am I bent by so grievous tortures, painful to suffer, piteous to behold.

."..I caused mortals no longer to foresee their doom.... I caused blind hopes to dwell within their breasts.... and besides it was I that gave them fire.... and therefrom they shall learn many arts."' Plato, speaking through Protagoras, says that "Prometheus ... found the other animals well off for everything, but man naked, unshod, unbedded, and unarmed ... Prometheus therefore ... stole from Hephaestus and Athena the gift of skill in the arts, together with fire-for without fire it was impossible for anyone to possess or use this skill-and bestowed it on man. In this way man acquired sufficient resources to keep himself alive, but had no political wisdom.... But into the dwelling shared by Athena and Hephaestus, in which they practiced their art, he penetrated by stealth, and carrying off Hephaestus' art of working with fire, and the art of Athena as well, he gave them to man."' [1]

The twin gifts of Prometheus have always been inseperable: political wisdom (republican statecraft), and command of the knowledge of nature's fires. Prometheus once found a congenial home in America, and may yet again.

At the end of the American Civil War, General of the Army Ulysses S. Grant sent troops under General Philip Sheridan to the Texas-Mexican border. Supplying the Mexican patriot forces of President Benito Juarez with military equipment, Grant thus helped expel the Europeans whose armies had invaded Mexico in 1862, who had imposed the Hapsburg "Mexican Emperor" Maximilian.

U.S. Grant's aide, Adam Badeau, described the relations between the General and Matias Romero, Juarez's ambassador to the United States:

"Romero, though of the Latin blood, was an American and a republican, the representative of a country that had been attacked at the same time, and, as Grant believed, in the same interest as the Union.... When Grant arrived in Washington, after the surrender of Lee, Romero promptly called on him, and Grant informed the Minister of the purport of his orders to Sheridan ... From this time the Northern soldier and the Southern diplomatist worked in harmony. Grant ... was extremely annoyed at the delay in the action of our own Government and thought the French Emperor should have been notified at once to withdraw his troops from Mexico. He had many conferences with the Mexican Minister on the subject; even expressing a desire to go at the head of an army himself and assist the Mexicans in driving out the invader....

"I [Badeau] was present at many of the conversations of these allies, and had especial charge of those of their papers which Grant was unwilling to expose to ordinary official inspection... Romero furnished Grant with constant information from his own Government and country, and many an intercepted dispatch have I translated, predicting or discussing events in Europe as well as Mexico ... and even the intrigues in the United States which complicated our own politics with those of Mexico.

"When at last the end of the feeble empire came Grant often told me his views. He was very stern, and thought that the pretender to a throne should be punished as severely as any other traitor. Because Maximilian was of royal blood did not lessen his offense.... He more than once said in my hearing that Maximilian ought to die; and he told me that he made the opinion known to Romero, who he supposed found means to communicate it to his Government; not of course in official documents, for diplomatists are not in the habit of entrusting such secret matters to public dispatches; they have other channels than those accessible to Congressional resolutions. But although neither Grant nor Romero chose to commit himself by recorded expressions, Grant always believed that his tacit condemnation of the invader had its weight.... Grant believed it necessary to show European monarchists that they could not with impunity attempt to set up institutions on this continent menacing to our own; he thought the blow offered to Mexico was in reality meant for this country; and he considered that no such effectual lesson could be taught imperial enemies of this republic and of all republics, as the punishment of a princely offender."[3]

President Lincoln had been murdered at the war's end, and Secretary of State William H. Seward was no longer under Lincoln's restraining hand. Seward now worked for a British-allied New York and Boston political faction representing all that Lincoln had fought against. Mexican Ambassador Romero had suspected treachery from Seward and had worked directly with Lincoln when possible during the war; now General Grant worked directly and secretly with the Mexican republicans.

The New York Times screamed bloody murder at the news of Maximilian's execution in 1867:

"There is not a man anywhere, with a spark of honorable feeling in his nature, who will bear this news without emotion,-without sympathy for this noble and gallant young prince, and detestation for the monsters who have glutted their vengeance in his blood."[4]

The principal owner of the Times, Leonard Jerome, had long been a personal friend and admirer of the Hapsburgs. The Times had called for the annexation of Mexico, as a "compensation" for the secession of the South from the Union in 1860, which the Times would allow to be a permanent secession:

"Ignorant and degraded as they are, the Mexicans ... [neverthe- less] would regard the people of the free North as benefactors and deliverers from anarchy and revolution."[5]

William Seward had meanwhile counseled President-elect Lincoln to let the South go in peace.

Lincoln chose instead to fight for the Union. The mobilized Americans defeated the plans of European imperialists for a worldwide Plantation System, which was supposed to embrace Asia, Africa and the Western Hemisphere; a system of Peasants, in various forms of slavery, and Lords. The leaders of secession also vainly attempted "filibusters," the armed conquest of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. The United States was to have been an overseer in this slave system, or it was to have been crushed.

Victorious industrial republicanism would demonstrate to the imperial enemies what free men could accomplish. In the twenty years following the Civil War, the victors launched technological innovations of a sweeping and unprecedented nature, calculated to benefit mankind. Since we have made no similar progress since the end of that extraordinary period; since what they did must, for mankind's future, be repeatable today; it should be instructive to inquire into the lives of some key figures in this republican industrial revolution.

The Railroad as the Driver

General William Tecumseh Sherman, who with General Grant had planned and achieved the Union's military victory, was shifted West at the war's end to command the Division of the Mississippi. For the next four years, Sherman's chief responsibility was to inspect, oversee and protect the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, the Union Pacific. President Lincoln had signed the law organizing this national project, which Sherman himself had previously long promoted. It was paid for with huge grants of federal land and more than $50 million of government money, while private investors bought in with about $4 million.

Many of the railroad workers had served under Sherman, and still wore their Union uniforms; many of the railroad's executives had been Sherman's officers. The chief engineer, retired General Grenville M. Dodge, had been Lincoln's advisor as to the route the first Pacific line was to take. Sherman now constantly conferred with Dodge on the progress of the road.

At odds with the government over its punitive Reconstruction policy, Sherman in 1867 criticized the movement of troops into the defeated South, a transfer which depleted the railroad guard force. [6] Yet Sherman met with the western Indians and on the whole maintained peace with them, aided by General Philip Sheridan, now shifted from his earlier pre-Juarez duties on the Rio Grande. Sherman contributed greatly to the settlement of the Navajos, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Arapahos and Comanches onto reservations in the 1870s.

Western railroad construction lay at the heart of republican postwar strategy for American industrial development. In 1867, a very optimistic, eager 30-year-old retired general named William Jackson Palmer, and his 21-year-old chief assistant Edward Hibbard Johnson, headed a survey team along the 32nd and 35th parallels. General Palmer was the construction manager for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, mapping routes through New Mexico and Arizona to the Pacific coast, several times leading his men to dodge or lightly skirmish with hostile Indians. In 1868 he reported on the vast resources of the southwestern U.S.

The Kansas Pacific route ran southward of the pioneer Union Pacific. It was an enterprise of the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose president J. Edgar Thomson had sent Palmer and his assistant Johnson out west. Under Gen. Palmer's direction the Kansas Pacific was extended from Kansas City, Missouri, reaching Denver, Colorado, in August, 1870; the last 150 miles were completed in 150 days.

William J. Palmer was born in Kent County, Delaware on Sept. 18, 1836. The state of Colorado celebrates the 150th anniversary of his birth this year, for he is well known there as one of the greatest of that state's founders. Given the shameful hold of anti-technological political forces over present-day Colorado, however, it might be fairer for them to forego any celebration, leaving a remembrance of Palmer to those actively seeking industrialization-such as the Mexicans, for whom Palmer's life holds great meaning.

Palmer grew up amongst his Quaker compeers in Philadelphia. At eighteen he joined an engineering group surveying for the location of the Hempfield railroad in Washington County, Pennsylvania, just southwest of Pittsburgh. On behalf of relatives in the railroad business, Palmer went to England in 1856 to study British railroad and mining operations. His letters back home show a growing excitement about the possibilities of utilizing new rail, iron and, especially, coal technologies in the United States.

He was also disgusted with British labor practices. He toured the Cornish mines, ankle deep in scalding water:

"Ten steps further, when every step seems to be a measure of your life. There is a little hollow in the rock. That... is where [a] little boy [miner] laid down and died.... Strangers visiting the depths very generally lose 5 or 6 lbs. weight. The miner not so much, because he is used to it. But he can never work in any other mine, or at the surface again-he is tied down to 1,500 feet. 35 is an average of their life. Their wages averages 62 1/8 cents a day."

Palmer wrote to his parents:

"I shall return to your shores a ten-fold better American (as such) than I left it, and with fuller confidence in the principle of human equality and Republicanism generally than, I think, I should ever have felt had I never visited aristocratic England."[7]

Palmer had met Pennsylvania Railroad president J. Edgar Thomson in England-Thomson was also spying out the latest British technology. Young Palmer explained to Thomson that coal could replace wood as the railroad's fuel source. The PRR was then in an "ecological" crisis, burning 60,000 cords of wood per year and rapidly stripping the right-of-way of all trees. Palmer promised that he would devise a box to take most of the smoke out of coal combustion. The thankful Thomson hired Palmer as his private secretary in 1857, and the Pennsylvania became the first American railroad to convert to coal.

Over the next four years, Palmer was most concerned with the problems of efficiency and power in combustion. Among his collaborators in experimental industrialism were the PRR vice president Thomas A. Scott; Scott's assistant Andréw Carnegie, an immigrant from Scotland one year older than Palmer, who had learned from his avidly republican family to love the poet Robert Burns and the U.S.A.; and Evan Pugh, just back from a European education which included Göttingen University and some study under Justus Von Liebig, the father of German and American bio-chemistry.

A relative of Palmer's studying in Freiburg, Saxony, had written him a glowing introduction to Evan Pugh as a genius whose experience could aid Palmer materially. Pugh and Palmer worked together on furnace layouts and coal chemistry.

Pugh was meanwhile building up the "Farmers' high school" (founded in 1855) of which he was president. Thomson and the PRR financially underwrote Pugh's school and backed it in the state legislature with the railroad's substantial lobbying clout. In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant College bill; Pugh's school was awarded the state's federal grant money by the legislature, and it was rechartered as the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania. President Evan Pugh raised the school, renamed Pennsylvania State College in 1874, into one of the premier centers of American technology. Only in recent years has Penn State fallen under the sway of Malthusian, anti-technology radicals.

The Franklin Legacy

Benjamin Franklin had created, in colonial Pennsylvania, many institutions devoted to the spread of Augustinian civilization. His American Philosophical Society and his Pennsylvania Society for Manufacturing and the Useful Arts sought to develop America's industrial skills and, ultimately, its national power. Franklin's political economy expressed the role of America as the outpost and vanguard of human progress: he called for high wages, plentiful cheap credit and maximum industrial enterprise. During the Revolution, Franklin wrote to the Irish about tariffs as a protection of national sovereignty. His world renown as an experimental and theoretical scientist was coupled with his role as America's grand political strategist. In Franklin, the world saw scientific progress and republican statecraft as one and the same thing.

Franklin's nationalist outlook was carried forward by Alexander Hamilton into the new Federal Government, with the Bank of the United States (located in Philadelphia), increasing protectionist tariffs and public works. Franklin's Philadelphia remained the center of the republican faction, not only for the U.S.A. but in many respects for the untire world. Irish revolutionary emigre Mathew Carey, after serving as a printer in Franklin's French headquarters, was sponsored in business by the Marquis de Lafayette and President George Washington. Carey's Philadelphia publishing house was the first and for a long time the largest in America. A Roman Catholic, Mathew Carey published the first Catholic Bible in America.

Philadelphia was the U.S. capital from 1790 to 1800. Around Carey and his fellow publisher William Duane there gathered in that city a growing number of Ibero-American statesmen and diplomats, concerned to build free nations in the Catholic regions south of the U.S. border. Among them were supporters of the 1810 Mexican revolution of the Catholic priest-republicans Hidalgo and Morelos. The most famous in this group was Manuel Torres, a Spanish nobleman and an emigre from Colombia whose national cause he had adopted.

Following the second U.S. war with England (1812-1815) Torres, Duane and Carey educated American republicans including President James Monroe, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Speaker of the House Henry Clay on the viability of independent republics in South America. They warned of the danger of British and other European intervention in this hemisphere.

William Duane, an Irishman with important Erasmian Catholic connections in England, had been arrested and thrown out of India by the British authorities for printing attacks on the East India Company. Having been born in the American colonies, which had since revolted against that same East India Company oppression, Duane had returned to America and taken up journalism in Philadelphia.

Duane's newspaper Aurora exposed British intentions in Spanish America, describing the London-based imperialist "revolutionaries" Aaron Burr and Francisco Miranda. Burr was in exile after his arrest by President Thomas Jefferson, having been charged with treason for trying to set up a new British-backed empire comprising Mexico and half the U.S.A. Miranda had proposed a similar new empire to William Pitt in the 1790s. Duane continually warned of British encouragement of hostility between the United States and Spanish America. In opposition to the British, Duane, Carey and Torres foresaw the emergence of powerful free republics throughout the Western Hemisphere, allied and economically and militarily invincible.

In 1822 President Monroe accorded U.S. recognition to five Spanish-American nations, and received Duane's and Carey's friend and guest Manuel Torres as charge d'affaires from Colombia, the first official diplomatic representative of any lbero-American nation. The following year the President proclaimed his anti-colonial, anti-British Monroe Doctrine.

Meanwhile Mathew Carey launched a systematic attack on the economic outlook of Adam Smith, the Free Trade policies preferred by the British East India Company, and the murderous anti-population theories of Thomas Malthus. Carey's political economy, adopted by his student Henry Clay and dubbed by Clay the "American System," revived the dirigistic measures of Hamilton, and now comprehended the industrial, scientific and cultural development of free republics throughout the Western Hemisphere. German economist Friedrich List studied under Mathew Carey in Philadelphia for many years, then returned to Germany to build the republican movement and the Customs Union, the first step toward German nationality.

The American System briefly held power in the 1820s with President John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State Henry Clay, ambassador to Mexico Joel Poinsett, and Nicholas Biddle as president of the Philadelphia-based Bank of the United States. In the 1830s and 1840s, a succession of rotten Democratic presidents, and two quickly dead Whigs, repeatedly reduced the nation to chaos and depression.

But Philadelphia's Franklin tradition remained strong. Mathew Carey's son Henry C. Carey wrote economics books and pamphlets from a Christian humanist standpoint, pressing the attack against Malthus and British imperial looting policies in India and Ireland, against the British opium trade, against the spread of negro slavery, proposing the harmony of interests of capital and labor, and of North and South.

Illinois Whig politician Abraham Lincoln, a follower of Henry Clay's hemispheric American System ideas, studied Henry Carey's texts and had Carey write the economic core of the 1860 Republican Party platform, on which Lincoln ran for the presidency.

Around Henry Carey there gathered the Philadelphia group of republican industrial, financial and literary collaborators, preparing themselves for a revival of American industrial creativity.

There was banker Jay Cooke. There was ironmaster Joseph Wharton, head of the American Iron and Steel Institute, lobbying for protective tariffs. And there was the Pennsylvania Railroad, by the time of the Civil War America's largest corporation. Typical of this Philadelphia faction, PRR President J. Edgar Thomson committed all available financial resources to construction, maintenance and development of the railroad and allied enterprises. He did not play games with stocks and bonds, and would not tolerate any of his associates or employees doing so. At his death in 1874, Thomson controlled about one billion dollars in corporate entities; yet his personal net worth was in the hundreds of thousands. There was no paper pyramid-he had plowed it all back into construction and development.

Philadelphia at War

When the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency in 1860, William J. Palmer was 23 years old, and private secretary to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. During the previous year, pro-slavery thugs had threatened to set fire to a meeting of a Philadelphia lecture club organized by Palmer. He and his friends had put their lives on the line to defend their freedom of speech. Rioters clashed with the 600 police outside; Palmer as bodyguard for the invited speaker, and club-wielding Judge William Kelly (later Henry Carey's main ally as Congressman "Pig Iron Kelly") as chairman subdued the thugs inside. In August 1860, Palmer was elected Secretary of the Philadelphia Young Men's Re- publican Club. His close friend Isaac Clothier, later the founder of the Strawbridge and Clothier department store, described the campaign in a retrospective letter:

"Thousands of young Republicans all over the North formed associations under the general name of Wide Awakes, and wearing oil-cloth caps and carrying torches marched in military array to the political meetings of the times. These Clubs ... helped to infuse a spirit into the Republican movement which perhaps contributed largely to its success. Many a night ... Palmer and I marched in uniform with the local Philadelphia body-the Republican invincibles-to meetings held in Philadelphia and different points within fifty miles of the city, where we went by train, returning home often in the early morning.... Those uniformed and marching companies were the precursors of the regiments which, carrying musket and bayonet instead of the torch, sprang into being six months later at Lincoln's call."

The following March 4, 1860, President-elect Lincoln passed through Philadelphia and raised the flag over Independence Hall, on the way to his inauguration in Washington, D.C. But PRR operations chief Thomas A. Scott advised Lincoln to change his plans. Intelligence reports showed that the Baltimore Sun was whipping up an anti-Lincoin mob, egging them on to a possible assassination when Lincoln's train was to pass through Baltimore. Scott proposed that Lincoln go back to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and travel from there, in disguise, directly to Washington, to arrive before the press knew what had happened. Lincoln followed this plan, and his inauguration was guarded by 15,000 soldiers and police. The Baltimore Sun changed its editorial line slightly, from attacking Lincoln as dangerous and worthy of death, to branding him a lunatic, and criticizing his security precautions as cowardly! Perhaps this is the model for the current press coverage of Lyndon LaRouche's presidential campaign.

The Pennsylvania Railroad was now placed at the disposal of the Union. Lincoln chose Thomas A. Scott as Assistant Secretary of War in charge of Transportation and Communication; Scott brought his assistant Andréw Carnegie to Washington with him. Their first job was to move troops to the defense of Washington through Maryland, where secessionist mobs had destroyed most of the rail lines. Carnegie was injured while replacing some sabotaged telegraph wires, and arrived on the first troop train into Washington with blood streaming down his face. Scott and Carnegie built the rail and telegraph lines and the bridges linking Washington D.C. with Virginia, securing the capital city and allowing Union troops to operate on the offensive southward. Carnegie organized the Union telegraph office, using mostly Pennsylvania Railroad personnel for operators. He then returned to Pittsburgh to direct the western Pennsylvania war operations of the PRR. Thomas Scott remained as Assistant War Secretary, running some of the crucial movements of Union troops in 1862 and 1863.

William J. Palmer recruited and trained the elite Pennsylvania 15th Regiment cavalry corps, who moved in advance of Union armies, scouting, spying, crashing through enemy camps. In this manner he prepared the Union forces' intelligence at Antietam in 1862. He was afterwards captured behind Confederate lines, imprisoned and nearly executed as a spy. Exchanged, he rejoined the fighting and led his regiment at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. Palmer's regiment made a unique contribution to the success of Sherman's march towards Atlanta:

General Palmer was responsible for:

"examining and mapping out the country in advance of the army ... [for which] he was peculiarly fitted by his early training as a civil engineer. In this scouting service nothing escaped his vigilant eyes: the character of the soil upon which the roads were made; their general directions; the strength of the bridges, the depth of the streams, all were carefully noted and sketched, and were absolutely reliable. Every officer in the regiment was directed, yea compelled, to be thus observing." [8]

Building a New World

At the close of the war, General Palmer was sent west, along with his assistant and chief telegrapher Edward H. Johnson. For four years Palmer and Johnson were to map out and construct the PRR subsidiary, the Kansas Pacific Railroad.

The Philadelphia republican faction, centered around the Pennsylvania Railroad, was now engaged in a mammoth project of nation-building. Lincoln had given them the green light for devel- opment. In the face of continual British trade war, protective tariffs were set at around 50%, allowing steel mills to be built for the first time in America. Railroad companies were given large land grants to assure long term investment in their construction. After Lincoln's murder, his easy-credit policy had been partially maintained, despite outraged cries from international financiers. The Public was still reading two wartime pamphlets printed by banker Jay Cooke and written by Henry Carey's disciple, Treasury Statistician/tariff expert William Elder, on the benefits of credit expansion for industrial development.

By 1871, J. Edgar Thomson and his financial partners Scott, Carnegie and Palmer controlled the Union Pacific Railroad, the first transcontinental line which had been completed with the Golden Spike two years before.

Andréw Carnegie's Keystone Bridge company was replacing wooden railroad bridges with new iron ones. Between 1868 and 1874, Carnegie, Thomas Scott and J. Edgar Thomson combined to build the first bridge across the Mississippi River, at St. Louis; the partners built at least two other Mississippi bridges, giant pioneering enterprises at the time, together with the rails and equipment to connect them to existing rail lines.

The Pennsylvania railroad grew at a furious pace. President J. Edgar Thomson poured money into the purchase of the new American steel rails, in the long run cutting maintenance costs compared to the old iron rails. The PRR underwrote the establishment of young George Westinghouse's Air Brake Company in 1869, and immediately contracted for the new automatic technology for all the line's cars. They could now run much longer trains at higher speed, without sending brakemen across the top of moving trains to screw down brake levers car by car. Pennsylvania railroad tonnage doubled between 1870 and 1873; by the time of Thomson's death in 1874, the line and its subsidiaries comprised 6,000 miles, running from New York to Chicago, down to Washington and through much of the Midwest and South.

The partners' banker, Jay Cooke, was building the second transcontinental line chartered by Congress, the Northern Pacific, from Duluth, Minnesota on Lake Superior, out to Puget Sound, on the Pacific coast in Washington State.

Jay Cooke had sold nearly three billion dollars worth of small denomination U.S. bonds during the four years of the Civil War, appointing 2,500 subagent salesmen. He had outflanked the Wall Street and London financiers who tried to blackmail President Lincoln for war credits (they wouldn't sell U.S. bonds-after all, might there soon be no United States?) It had been an un- precedented "sales drive" appealing with great success to the patriotism of the average citizen. Cooke now began to use similar methods, raising loan capital from public subscription, in order to open up a vast area of undeveloped territory. With his railroad, the northern great plains, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific northwest could be occupied by settlers under Lincoln's free homstead and industrial land grant programs.

Upon the completion of the Kansas Pacific Railroad line through to Denver in 1870, meanwhile, William J. Palmer, backed by PRR president J. Edgar Thomson, quit the Kansas Pacific and launched a bold new venture. He created the Denver and Rio Grand Railroad, proposing to build it from Denver, Colorado, in the American Rockies, south to El Paso, Texas, and through to Mexico city. In 1871, Palmer, his Kansas Pacific fellow executive Josiah Reiff, and Philadelphian George Harrington, formerly Lincoln's Assistant Treasury Secretary, set up the Automatic Telegraph Company. It was to compete with the monopoly Western Union Company, which was a political intelligence front for anti-American international financiers. Palmer sent his assistant Edward H. Johnson back east to supervise the Automatic's work, and they hired the 24-year-old Thomas Alva Edison to invent their technology. This was Edison's first serious financial backing as an inventor. We will return later to the story of Edison's sensational achievements, the victory of New World republicans against European oligarchs.

Joint Development -- or None at All

The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad was designed to launch simultaneously the economic development of the American west and of Mexico. The D & R G's first annual report, published in 1873, stated in unmistakable terms Palmer's strategic purposes with respect to Mexico:

"It has been a part of the plan of this company, from the inception, to extend its line southward from El Paso along the Rocky Mountain plateau to the City of Mexico and the tropical plantations of the adjacent coasts.

"The heart of that republic with its nine millions of people was as naturally and surely our objective point, as the Pacific slope of the United States with its 700,000 population was the proper objective of the Pacific Railroad when it started across the plains from the banks of the Missouri River.

"En route, the development of the rich mines of Chihuahua, Durango, Guanjuato ... and the State of Mexico, of the ... wine and cotton district of northern Mexico, of the tin and iron deposits of northern Durango, of the pineries of the Sierra Madre, of the great wheat field of Central Mexico, as large as that of California, is sure to furnish a large local trade of itself, sufficient to warrant the extension of the road.

"But when the connection is made, an enormous through traffic will spring up between the heart of Mexico, with its harbors on two oceans, and the Rocky Mountain country of the United States-Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, California; indeed, the greater part of that vast and rapidly growing region lying between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean, to which this trunk north and south line, and the several Pacific railroads crossing it, will render it accessible. The Mexican tropics are the only tropics reachable by railroads from the United States. To reach all others, the sea must be crossed.

"Our New West will get its sugar, coffee, tobacco, rice, rum, molasses, indigo, olive oils, drugs, nuts, and spices, gums, tropical fruits of all kinds, cotton, cocoa, coquito for oil, cochineal, india-rubber, mahogany and a great variety of other hard and precious woods, ropes, tarpaulins, matting and paper (made of the maguey fibre), oysters and fish, dye-woods, soap, leather and saddles, salt and saltpetre, the ornamental Mexican earthenware and statuettes, seeds of all kinds to exchange for northern varieties, cheap horses and mules, and bullion, from Mexico; and, in return, will send back a thousand articles of domestic and agricultural use now unknown to the Mexicans-iron plows, shovels, cooking-stoves, grates, ranges; also mining machinery and implements of all kinds, sugar, cotton, and woolenmills and brick machines, wagons and carriages, general hardware, and all sorts of tools, bar-iron and steel, wire, guns and pistols, pipe, furniture, butter, hams, cheese, lard, grapes, apples, bush and other temperate fruits, not to be had there, wines and brandies from the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico, ice, choice stallions and bulls, etc., to improve their degenerate breeds, cotton and woolen goods, and innumerable other necessities and luxuries from which the people of Mexico have been almost entirely cut off, in consequence of their topographical isolation. The manufactured part of this list, and articles of s#ill generally, will at first come by this route from Chicago and St. Louis, but in a few years from the works at Canon City, Denver, Pueblo, and Albuquerque, in Colorado and New Mexico.

"In the course of time, as the artisans of Mexico become skilled, as capital there takes a manufacturing turn, as coal mines are opened, and iron works and a more complex kind of manufactures are established, many things will be made there which, for the first few years, must be imported; but, by that time, the very growth which this would indicate will render necessary an interchange manifoldly larger......"

Financing for the D & R G's United States construction came from Palmer's allies in Philadelphia and Colorado, and from sympathetic small capitalists in England. No outside banking house was involved.

In the summer of 1871, Gen. Palmer acquired 10,000 acres at the foot of Pikes Peak, and on this site built the city of Colorado Springs. For no particular religious reason, but to prevent his city from degenerating into violence and disorder like many prairie towns, saloons were banned. Palmer explained,

"My theory for this place is that it should be made the most attractive place for homes in the West, a place for schools, colleges, science, first class newspapers, and everything that the above imply." [10]

Beauty, order and culture were Palmer's objectives in Colorado Springs. The results have been permanent. Palmer was the principal founder there of Colorado College, and Colorado Springs is today the home of the North American Air Defense Command Headquarters and the United States Air Force Academy.

Palmer envisioned the Colorado of the future as rivalling Pittsburgh and Chicago in industrial power, and the best European cities for beauty. As the D & R G was built, Palmer's Central Colorado Improvement Company opened up many coal and iron mines along its route. The steel mills he set up in Pueblo began providing rails for his construction. Such heavy industry as has been built in Colorado is largely due to his efforts.

Rather than collapsing into a post-Civil War depression, the United States had been freed to expand its industries and agriculture in a way the world had never before seen. In this remarkable period:

• the yearly production of Lake Superior iron ore went from 193,000 tons (1865) to 1,195,000 tons (1873);

• pig iron production, at 823,000 tons in 1865, was no better than it had been in 1847!-but by 1872 it had reached 2,548,000 tons;

• rails produced went from 318,000 (1865) to 893,000 tons (1872);

• coal increased from 24 million (1865) to 58 million tons (1873);

• the number of patents, which had been stable in the range of 3-4000 per year from 1858-1864, rose to 6,099 in 1865, to 12,201 in 1867, remaining at about that level until 1881;

• the freight rate for a bushel of wheat sent from Chicago to New York was $22 by water vs. $44 by rail in 1867, $24 by water vs. $33 by rail in 1872; further progress dropped the rail freight price down to $14 by 1881, so the competing water price fell to $8;

• immigration averaged 385,000 per year from 1869 to 1873, compared to 168,000 per year from 1855 to 1865;

• the average hourly wage in the United States rose by about 19 percent between 1865 and 1872, while basic commodities such as coal, copper, com and cotton receded in price from wartime to approximately prewar levels".

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Imperial Counterattack

The European anti-republican aristocracy recoiled in shock and dismay at the possibility of American methods transforming the world, possibly ridding the world of oligarchs. Boston writers such as Henry Adams and the Transcendentalists, expressing their preference for earlier centuries, their revulsion at "crass materialism," put a gentle face on the Europeans' ugly hostility science, reason and rising living standards. The Americans would have to be stopped.

A construction company named Credit Mobilier was set up in 1864 to expedite the building of the government-financed Union Pacific Railway. The chief organizer of this company was a very strange individual named George Francis Train, supposedly acting as an agent of Union Pacific Vice President T. C. Durant. The principal stockholder in Credit Mobilier was the banking firm of Levi Morton and Bliss. In the midst of the post-Civil War construction boom, "reformers" began circulating stories of corrupt acts between Credit Mobilier and the U.S. Congress. In 1872 the scandal resulted in a congressional inquiry. Some congressmen were censured, others, especially pro-development men such as James G. Blaine, were tarred with the corruption brush but exhonerated. From that point on government officials feared doing anything whatsoever on behalf of railroads and related industrialism.

The reader may jujdge for himself if the notorious Credit Mobilier was deliberately concocted to brake the progress of American expansion, if he is given certain facts about the main players.

We reproduce here a highly favorable biographical sketch of George Francis Train, who organized Credsit Mobilier:

"...born in Boston ... 1829.... entered the counting house of Enoch Train & Co., shipping merchants of Boston, and at the age of twenty one he was placed in charge of a branch house in Liverpool....[In 1854 he] established in Melbourne, Australia, the house of George F. Train & Co., meanwhile visiting all parts of the orient [at this time the opium trade was the principal joint business of Boston and British merchants in the Far East].... During the celebrated Beecher-Tilton trial [in London during the U.S. Civil War he wrote attacks] defamatory of ...the church and society, and was imprisoned in the Tombs for six months for indecent writing, being finally released on the ground of harmless lunacy. At the time of organizing the Union Pacific Railroad Co., he remarked to D'Israeli, the Prime Minister of England, 'You go to India by your Suez Canal; I'll go home, build a railway across the continent, and beat you to the goal'.

"True to his word, he broke ground at Omaha, Neb., for that vast enterprise, and rode in the first train on the complete railway....[Despite] foreclsure proceedings [against his Nebraska property]...his title was established...on the ground that, as he had been declared insane by another court, his property could not pass from him except at the instance of a legal guardian. Having been adjudged insane, however, he could not take legal occupancy of the property.... He never shakes hands, and for years he spoke to no adult, save from the lecture platform...[He was] promionent in the organization of the Credit Mobilier and Credit Forcier schemes...Lately he has written all his communications in what he terms 'psychic verse,' a style which is unique.... Always an agitator and orator, he is credited with having been one of the prime instigators of the Paris Commune of 1871...Mr Train died in ... 1904."[12]

Meanwhile the principal owner of Credit Mobilier, who escaped with a reputation (among Anglophile historians) as spotless as the robotic Mr. Train, was the banking firm of Levi Morton and Bliss. The London office of Morton Bliss was headed by Sir John Rose, otherwise a representative of the British Foreign Office. In 1871 Sir John negotiated with the U.S.A. over American claims to damages for having had the U.S. merchant fleet sunk by British-built warships during the Civil War. Throughout the 1870's, Morton Bliss participated in the British banking syndicate along with Drexel-Morgan, Seligman and Belmont-Rothschild, blackmailing the U.S. government to pay off Civil War bonds in gold or face wholesale dumping of American securities.

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A Different Kind of Catholic

Now we shall digress momentarily, to introduce the next participant in the imperial counterattack. There was in Philadelphia an important alternative, in the wide spectrum of what has passed for Roman Catholicism, to the tradition of Mathew Carey. It was the Catholicism of the Orders (some of them really predating Christianity, such as the Benedictines), as represented by the Drexels. Francis Martin Drexel was born in 1792 in the town of Dornbirn, province of Vorarlberg, in the western finger of Austria that borders on Germany, Lichtenstein and Switzerland. His father, a merchant, was an officer of the unsuccessful Tyrolese revolt against Napoleon's occupation of Austria in 1809. Drexel traveled into Switzerland and worked as a house and wagon painter. From Switzerland, as his base for five years, Drexel slipped into Paris, the enemy capital, for at least one several weeks visit. Upon the downfall of Napoleon late in 1814, Drexel returned to Austria.

Francis Martin Drexel immediately painted a life-size portrait depicting the Hapsburg Emperor Francis kneeling in prayer together with Czar Alexander after their victory over Napoleon. This masterpiece was hung in a triumphal arch over the town, through which the Emperor rode. Drexel was presented to his beloved Emperor, who supposedly conversed with him about his painting abilities.

Drexel left Austria for good the following February, 1815, and travelled to the United States, landing in Philadelphia-the very headquarters of the evil and dangerous republicans. He had left Austria just after the world was informed that America's second war with England was over. Now the New World would be challenged by the Holy Alliance of the Hapsburgs and the Russian Czar, with Britain playing its own anti-republican game in tandem.

Francis M. Drexel established himself as a portrait painter in Philadelphia. In an autobiographical fragment, he complains that around 1824 he was the object of an organized libel campaign which destroyed his reputation. It appears that the attorney for his opponent, in the court case which resulted, was William John Duane, son of the William Duane who championed the freedom of Spanish America. (This younger Duane would several years later be appointed Treasury Secretary by President Andréw Jackson, but would be fired after refusing to withdraw the government's deposits from the Bank of the United States.)

All his friends being now suspicious of him -- in what particular way he does not specify -- Drexel was forced to depart the scene. He took ship to South America, where he travelled from 1826 to 1830 as a "portrait painter" for an astonishing variety of diplomatic, political, military and commercial dignitaries, including perhaps the entirety of the British Empire's agents on that continent. He managed to send $12,545 back to Philadelphia during this period. At one point Drexel was arrested in Peru on suspicion of being "the spy who spoke German and posed as an artist."

Drexel was back in Philadelphia from 1830 to 1835, with little visible means of support. He then travelled in Mexico, during the Texas independence struggle, returning to Philadelphia in 1837. The Bank of the United States having been closed, there was a terrible financial panic that year ... and it was curiously enough precisely at this point that Herr Francis M. Drexel, our Austrian house painter-cum-intelligence officer, opened up his banking house.

With its quite apparent foreign backing Drexel and Company prospered greatly, taking advantage of the wild gyrations of banknote values now that there was no longer any national U.S. currency. Enormous profits were made by Drexel during the 1857 panic, by identical methods. Francis M. Drexel died in 1863, run over by a Pennsylvania Railroad train; his sons Anthony J. Drexel and Joseph Drexel took over the family firm. The following year Anthony Drexel bought the Philadelphia Public Ledger newspaper.

Early in 1871 Anthony Drexel met in London with his close ally, British banker Junius S. Morgan. They prepared a final strategy for the destruction of the Philadelphia republican industrialists. In May, 1871, Drexel invited J.S. Morgan's son John Pierpont Morgan, then stationed in New York, to visit him in Philadelphia.13 The new firm of "Drexel, Morgan & Co." was established-Drexel bought the corner of Broad and Wall Streets in New York and built there what became known as the House of Morgan.

The new firm went to war right away. Jay Cooke's Northern Pacific Railroad operations had been slowed by congressional timidity in the face of the Credit Mobilier Scandal. Cooke's contracted bond salesmen in Europe-the houses of Rothschild, Baring and his own partner Hugh McCulloch-had somehow failed to sell any of his large denomination railroad bonds. Now Drexel's Philadelphia Ledger began shamelessly and relentlessly blasting Cooke as a bankrupt, as a bad investment risk. Drexel's campaign struck its target with explosive effect.

Jay Cooke & Co. folded and closed its doors on Sept. 18, 1873. Within two days the Northern Pacific and most other American railroad construction halted. The new steel mills shut down, banks collapsed, stocks crashed. In this Panic of 1873, the Philadelphia industrialists were totally removed from the transcontinental railroad business. The overall pace of development in the American economy was never again to be recaptured. The goals of thick settlement along the western routes of transcontinental railroads were changed by the men who took over the lines. This is how the British Newcomen Society de- scribes what happened with the Drexel, Morgan firm during this dramatic transitional period:

"By 1873, Drexel, Morgan & Co. achieved a major position in the distribution of U.S. Government bonds, a field that previously had practically been dominated by the Philadelphia banking firm of Jay Cooke. This was accomplished by working closely with Levi Morton's firm in New York, which was allied with the Rothschilds abroad. After Cooke was forced into bankruptcy by the Panic of 1873, the Drexel-Morgan firm held an unrivaled position in this field of finance. Morgan, within a few years of his admission as a partner, had become the dominant member of the firm. To the United States Treasury, he could now offer distribution facilities of demonstrated effectiveness represented by a combination of Drexel-Morgan capital, the machinery of J.S. Morgan & Co. in London, and Drexel Harjes & Co. in Paris, and he could also offer international distribution through Levi Morton and the Rothschild firm.

"Foreign connections continued to be the cornerstone of Drexel-Morgan success and were to remain of major importance for many years to come, as long as Europe continued to provide capital for financing American development "[!]

This account goes on to portray Drexel-Morgan as the great reorganizer of almost all American railways, ending "opportunism" and "chaos." The Drexel family had another great interest, in accordance with their Hapsburg orientation: they lavishly sponsored the establishment of the anti-industrial Benedictine order throughout the American midwest and among the Indians.

Continuous financial warfare, culminating in the Drexel-Morgan induced Panic of 1873, destroyed the great Philadelphia organizing muscle of American industrial development. The Pennsylvania Railroad men were expelled from the board of the Union Pacific, and lost the Kansas Pacific and the Texas Pacific railroads as well. J. Edgar Thomson died under tremendous strain in 1874. The PRR thenceforth "knew its place," while Morgan and his allies took over and eventually dismantled the U.S. rail system.

But three projects of the Philadelphia republicans survived the Panic and the 1870s foreign seizure of American credit facilities. The significance of these projects would reach to all future generations. The first was the inventive career of Thomas Edison. The second was the steelmaking of Andréw Carnegie, which began in earnest at the very bottom of the depression of 1873. The third was the spectacular, bloody campaign of General William J. Palmer, Matias Romero, Carnegie, and their political ally James G. Blaine, to tie the development of the U.S.A. to that of Mexico and other hemispheric republics.

General Palmer had sent his assistant Edward H. Johnson back from Colorado in 1871, to supervise the work of the new Automatic Telegraph Company, founded by Palmer and Josiah Reill, the Kansas Pacific treasurer. Johnson hired 24-year-old reputed genius Thomas Alva Edison, to improve or replace the telegraph equipment with which the Automatic hoped to compete against Western Union. The Palmer group learned a bitter lesson in 1873; through Edward H. Johnson in particular, the backing and guidance they would provide to Edison was to prove decisive.

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Who Was Edison?

The father of Thomas Edison, innkeeper Samuel Edison, Jr., was indicted for high treason against the British Crown, in absentia. In two and a half days, Sam Edison had run more than 80 miles through the forest, pursued by dogs and royal soldiers. He escaped from his native town of Vienna, Ontario, Canada, to safety across the U.S. border. Now Sam Edison and other "rebel leaders" were ordered to give themselves up to the colonial authorities for trial, to be executed or exiled to Tasmania. But Sam stayed in the Detroit area for some time, early in 1838, working with the Canadian republican movement across the border.

Canadian patriots in predominantly French-speaking Quebec, known then as Lower Canada, and English-speaking Ontario, known as Upper Canada, had demanded self-rule from the British government. The Speaker of the Assembly in Lower Canada, Louis Joseph Papineau, had defined the aims of the movement in Ninety-Two Resolutions sent as a petition to King William IV in 1834: break up the oligarchy of speculative landholders who stopped impoverished Canadians from owning land; secure the rights of the Canadians to republican institutions as the United States had won them. [14] Papineau was a Roman Catholic in the mold of the Lafayette international movement, as was Mexico's Benito Juarez-he held that Christianity must be the moral bedrock of the state, and, not contradictorily, that priests must have no political power.

Lord John Russell, Bertrand Russell's grandfather, had answered the Ninety-Two Resolutions with Ten Resolutions on behalf of the British government -- the Canadians, said Russell, had no rights; they were, after all, subjects. Papineau's demands were echoed by republican parliamentarian William Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada. Despite British tactics of pitting the Canadian co- lonials against each other on language and religious lines, republicanism had developed strongly in the two sections. Canadian patriots looked to nationhood, independent or in combination with the U.S.A.

But agent provocateurs thrust themselves forward. Staged riots and military clashes gave the new Queen Victoria's forces pretexts for attacking the unprepared, unarmed republicans, arresting their leaders and executing many. Papineau and Mackensie fled to the United States.

Sam Edison had been a patriot political leader in Ontario, who was training and drilling a citizen militia when the 1837 Rebellion broke out on British terms.

Sam moved on from Michigan to Milan, Ohio, where his son Thomas Alva Edison was born in 1847. Sam, skilled in several lines of mechanical labor, introduced his son to the power of machines, and taught him to read serious literature. Sam's favorite historical figure was Tom Paine, General George Washington's pamphleteer in the American Revolution. Reading with his father, Thomas Edison made Tom Paine a sort of model for his own life-for Paine was an inventor as well as a statesman, an engineer who built America's first iron bridges.

In recent decades only one "sympathetic" biography of Thomas Edison has appeared, written by Matthew Josephson, otherwise the author of The Robber Barons. Josephson, a socialist with a preference for aristocratic Anglo financiers like J.P. Morgan who could impose "order" on "disorderly" capitalism, lies ruthlessly about political questions. He reiterates, without a shred of evidence, that Thomas Edison hated his father, that his father had no influence over him. Josephson says "several years after" Thomas Edison's marriage on Dee. 25, 1871, Edison "happened to write" to his father asking him to come to New Jersey to live with Thomas and his wife. But on at least two occasions less than a month after this marriage, Jan. 6 and 14, 1872, Samuel Edison signed as a witness for some of Thomas's early inventions. [15] Sam Edison lived until 1896, to the age of 92, remaining sharply political all his life. He worked with Thomas Edison in many capacities into the 1890s, through the most important period of the inventor's life. Sam despised Wall Street, as did his son.

Josephson, an expert in American financial history, deliberately misidentifies the Philadelphia-based owners of the Automatic Telegraph Company as agents "of the sinister Jay Gould" -- a Wall Street high-roller who was at war with Palmer and his associates.

Other Edison biographies are worse, painstakingly separating the inventor from any particular social outlook or purpose. A celebrated recent book entitled a Streak of Luck 16 portrays him as a kook, whose success was due in great measure to luck. The author does however briefly mention the "anti-Wall Street" Philadelphia financial group.

Edison's contract with General Palmer's Automatic Telegraph Company gave him the wherewithal to work, and to bargain with their richer competitor Western Union for occasional other work without being owned by them. Western Union bought inventions only in order to silence a potential challenge to their communications monopoly, and suppressed or deployed them as necessary.

The basic technical problem was that only one message at a time could be sent across a single set of very expensive poles and wire. Edison's first great assignment was to perfect a system whereby two, and then several messages could go simultaneously over the same wire.

To develop his "quadruplex," Thomas Edison explored from scratch the geometry of electric current. His inventiveness began with his questions-what kind of work was nature prepared to do to transform itself on our behalf? When the Automatic Telegraph Company gave him $40,000, Edison spent it in a flash for experimental equipment, and for books on all previous experiments in automatic telegraphy and automatic mechanisms. Edward Johnson described him sitting

"with a pile of chemical books that were five feet high when laid one upon another. He had ordered them from New York, London and Paris. He studied them night and day. He ate at his desk and slept in a chair. In six weeks he had gone through the books, written a volume of abstracts, made two thousand experiments ... and produced a solution, the only one that could do the thing he wanted." [17]

Hardly "luck"!

Financier Jay Gould bought out and took over the Automatic Telegraph Company in 1873-after Edison had done the magnificent work to create the quadruplex. Western Union and Gould's Automatic then pulled Edison back and forth. But Edward H. Johnson stayed by his side, as Edison's chosen executive versus the Wall Street sharks, and General Palmer's agent in England, Col. George Gouraud, represented Edison as well.

Here are a few capsule portraits of the sharks, who were rapidly taking over the entire U.S. economy.

• Jay Gould's telegraph executive, Thomas T. Eckert: He was placed by Secretary of War Stanton in charge of the Union telegraph office, some time after that office was started by Andréw Carnegie. On April 14,1865, President Lincoln, finding him- self short of protection for his planned visit to the theater that night, asked Stanton to give him the burly Eckert as a bodyguard. Stanton said no, he would need Eckert for telegraph business; this, it has been demonstrated, [17] was not in fact true.

  Lincoln, not satisfied, went to Thomas Eckert himself and asked him point blank to escort him to the theatre. Eckert said no, he would be too busy. That night the unprotected Lincoln was murdered. Stanton, working through the New York Times, immediately launched a furious attack on General William T. Sherman as a "traitor," and cancelled the Lincoln-Sherman plan for a postwar reconciliation with the South.

  After Gould's telegraph interests were merged with Western Union, Eckert rose to become Chairman of the Board of Western Union.

• Tracy Edson, Vice President of Western Union, the man who introduced Edison to that Company and who "handled Edison's case":

  During the Civil War, Edson was president of the American Bank Note Company. While still executing his prewar contract to print U.S. treasury notes, he printed Confederate banknotes and bonds on the order of Gazaway Bugg Lamar, chief Confederate agent in New York. He was never jailed, and remained a director of American Banknote until 1876, employing as his postwar president Albert Goodall, the personal freemasonic representative of Britain's Prince Edward VII.

• "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, after 1871 the co-controller of Western Union with J.P. Morgan:

  Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit steamship company equipped and transported soldier of fortune William Walker to Central America in 1855. Walker declared himself dictator of Nicaragua, rein- stated slavery and called for European colonial protection against the United States. When he also stole Vanderbilt's boats, the Commodore subsidized a general war in the region which killed over ten thousand people, overthrowing Walker and recovering his boats.

  It is probably significant that Augustus Schell was the postwar legal advisor for Vanderbilt's companies, Augustus' brother Richard Schell was the financial adviser, and his other brother Frederic Schell was Vanderbilt's stock broker. Augustus Schell had been the political boss of the secessionist wing of the New York Democratic Party, before and during the Civil War. He was the national chairman of the Breckenridge-secessionist Democrats in 1860. As Collector of the Port of New York in charge of U.S. customs there from 1858 to 1860, Schell oversaw the reopening of the negro slave trade; approximately one hundred slave ships per year embarked from New York for Africa under his protection. Schell was never arrested-he replaced the pro-Union "Boss" Tweed as head of New York City's Democratic Party after a New York Times expose campaign destroyed Tweed.

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Sound and Light

Thomas Edison severed his relations with the Gould-Controlled Automatic Telegraph Company in 1875. The following year, Canadian republican Sam Edison, Jr., aged 72 years, supervised the construction of a new type of laboratory for his son. With Philadelphian Edward Johnson as his chief executive assistant, Thomas Edison occupied his new "invention factory."

Alexander Graham Bell, backed by Boston opium czar John Murray Forbes, had invented a toylike telephone device. It was somewhat better than two cans on a string, and could be used with difficulty over a short distance. Edison went to work with his own chosen and trained staff to perfect the telephone. Around 1877 he invented the carbon microphone, and his transmitter translated sound into electrical signals and back again. He had made the telephone practical.

Edison now set out to flank the Boston-Wall St.backed Bell Company; Mr. Bell himself had dropped out, having lost interest in inventing after his toy came out. The Edison Telephone Company of Great Britain was created with the help of General Palmer's London agent Col. Gouraud, and Edison's business manager Edward Johnson. With his own factory-based library as a physics and chemistry school, he trained mechanics who would know his devices so thoroughly they could put them together under any conditions. A man applying for a job with Edison was told, "People ask what we pay and how long you have to work. Well, we don't pay anything and you have to work all the time;" the man enthusiatically responded, "I'll take it!"

George Bernard Shaw, then aged 23, happened to be hired by the Edison Co. in its race to install British telephones. Shaw wrote with a mixture of awe and fear about the invasion of Edison's technical cadres:

"These deluded and romantic men gave me a glimpse of the skilled proletariat of the United States.... They worked with a ferocious energy which was all out of proportion to the result achieved. Indomitably resolved to assert their republican manhood by taking no orders from a tallhatted Englishman [with] his conviction that they were ... inferior and common persons, they insisted on being slave-driven with genuine American oaths by a genuine free and equal American foreman. They utterly despised the artfully slow British workman who did as little for his wages as he possibly could ... [but who] had a deep reverence for anyone whose pocket could be tapped by respectful behavior. They adored Mr. Edison as the greatest man of all time ... in science, art and philosophy, and execrated Mr. Graham Bell ... as his Satanic adversary.... They were free-souled creatures ... with an air of making old England hum which never left them...." [19]

With what the world then acknowledged as the Bell-Edison telephone going to market, Edison asked the question, What if you call someone, and he is not in? The voice must be somehow preserved-the principle of the telephone answering machine. So he invented the phonograph. In December 1877, his Swiss-German machine builder John Kreusi made the device according to the in- ventor's specifications, after immense labor by Edison and his workers. Edison recited "Mary had a little lamb" into the thing, and his very voice came back, prompting a frightened German oath from Kreusi, and startling Edison --

"I was always suspicious of anything that worked perfectly the first time."

Edison had been partially deaf since age twelve. But he trained his concentration so that he could hear the entire musical overtone series, and was able to perfect his phonograph. He loved Beethoven and hated Wagner, but in the early days he was actually against using the phonograph for music. Since his instrument could not reproduce a really beautiful sound, he was afraid it would only be used for bad popular entertainment, and preferred its limitation to education and business purposes.

As soon as the phonograph was tested successfully, Edison put on a demonstration for members of Congress at the home of James G. Blaine's niece in Washington.

Edison's fame now spread quickly throughout the world. Jumping at his opportunity, Edison immediately escalated. He announced to the press that he planned to electrify the major cities, supplying power to heat and light homes and businesses, to run electric elevators and trains, to power industrial machines. None of the processes that he described existed; there was no important manmade electricity except that from batteries. Over the next months, he drove himself and his staff to create the means for industrializing and civilizing the world. It was to be a contest with nature, and with Wall Street, which Edison and the world won.

To be continued

---

FOOTNOTES

1. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, translated by Herbert Weir Smith, Harvard University Press, 197j, p. 237-239.

2. Plato, Protagoras, translated by W.K.C. Guthyie, in The Complete Dialogues of Plato, Princeton University Press, 1973, 321 c-e, p. 319.

3. Badeau, Adam, Grant in Peace: From Appomattox to Mount McGregor, A Personal Memoir; Books for Libraries Press,19??

4. New York Times, editorial, July 2,18 67.

5. New York Times, editorial, Dec. 26, 1860.

6. Lewis, Lloyd, Sherman: Fighting Prophet, Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1932, p. 595-599. Lincoln, Grant and Sherman had met at City Point, Virginia, to plan the peaceful reunion of the seceded states, the first step toward Lincoln's plan for southern railroad and industry building. But Lincoln was murdered almost immediately after this meeting, and the New York-Boston axis worked in tandem with the old southern aristocracy to keep the south rural and backward.

7. Quoted in Fisher, John S., A Builder of the West: The Life of General William Jackson Palmer, The Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, 1939, D . 46.

8. Colorado Springs Gazette, Sunday, March 14, 1909.

9. Elder, William, "How the Debt May be Paid -- the Wealth, Resources and the Power of the People of the United States," and "How Our National Debt May Be A National Blessing."

10. Quoted in Fisher, p. 200.

11. These are government figures presented in Guetter, Fred J. and McKinley, Albert E., Statistical Tables Relating to The Economic Growth of the United States, McKinley Publishing Co., Philadelphia, 1924.

12. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, James T. White and Co., New York, 1921.

13. John Pierpont Morgan, then 34 years old, was the maternal grandson and reverencer of poet- preacher John Pierpont, who had been Aaron Burr's employee and family tutor between Burr's killing of Alexander Hamilton and his mercenary war on Louisiana.

14. The 92 Resolutions were reproduced from original documents, without charge and at great speed, by the staff of the Canadian National Archives and Library in Ottawa. Written in English and French, they have apparently never been published, at least not in English.

15. See Thomas Edison's notebooks, on microfilm at the Edison National Historic Site, West Orange, New Jersey.

16. Conot, Robert, A Streak of Luck: The Life & Legend of Thomas Alva Edison,Seaview Books, New York, 1979.

17. Quoted in Josephson, Matthew, Edison, McGraw Hill Book Company, New York, 1959, p. 94.

18. Eisenschiml, Otto, Why Was Lincoln Murdered?, Halcyon House, New York, 1939, p. 32-39.

19. Shaw, George Bernard, The Irrational Knot, preface, quoted in Josephson, Edison, p. 154-55.

The American Prometheus, Part II

Philadelphia and Germany

Part I of this series [New Solidarity, Aug. 1, 1986] described the post-Civil War industrial construction of the victorious Lincoln Republicans, who moved the U.S.A. towards great power status. Their political and commercial base was Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia, home of economist Henry Carey and the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad.

They were opposed by financiers of the British and European oligarchy, who engineered financial collapse and scandals to crush America's state-assisted development. In the 1870's the weakened nationalists launched new technological projects -- the American steel and electrical industries -- and attempted simultaneously to spread American development throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Their opponents eventually seized control of the nationalists' new industries, stopped their further advancement, and broke off the republican, technology-spreading relationship of the United States to the less-developed nations. In recent years the U.S.A. has slid backwards from industrialism towards a New Age utopia of nature-worship. Meanwhile the same international financial faction which aborted U.S. development has imposed misery on the Third World countries, with usurious debts ruling out science and factories.

Knowing precisely how America pulled itself up into great national power in the first place, should assist other nations who wish to do the same or better for themselves today. It will be instructive as well for Americans who are determined to reverse decades of physical and moral decline.

Before proceeding with the story of this industrial explosion of the 1860's to the 1880's, we must "peel the onion" -- go still another step beyond what the anti-republican academics have retailed as American history. We have already described a nationalist commercial faction, operating with the sponsorship of a nationalist government, which deliberately created U.S. industry; no Free Market per se ever built anything. But looking behind our industrialists, the Philadelphia Interests so-called, we find a single organization, at once political, military, commercial-industrial and scientific, waging war for national survival. The pattern we discern here may perhaps be looked for in the history of any nation's development.

A strikingly handsome portrait of science pioneer Alexander von Humboldt is on display in the library of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Humboldt paid a famous visit to that very place in 1804, cementing his ties to the new American republic to which he was so passionately attached.

Benjamin Franklin had visited the University of the Royal Society of Science at Göttingen in 1766, three years before Humboldt's birth. Franklin, already celebrated globally for his scientific leadership in the rude American colonies, had just bested the British crown in a Parliamentary hearing on the Stamp Tax (both a license and a tax on all American transactions). Under interrogation, the American representative denounced British looting policies and made it clear his country would develop with or without the British:

Q: "What used to be the pride of the Americans?"

A: "To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain."

Q: "What is now their pride?"

A: "To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make new ones. [fn1]"

Threatened with violent colonial protests, the British government repealed the Stamp Act in February-March of 1766. That summer Franklin was telling the Germans all about it, and discussing with his fellow republican scientists the future destiny of America. From Göttingen and Hanover the story of the colonies' fight for liberty spread immediately through German books and newspapers.

The American Revolution which began a decade later was championed by republican artists such as Mozart and Beethoven. In his play Cabal und Liebe, Friedrich Schiller showed resentment for the princes' sale of Germans as mercenaries to the British against Washington. Schiller's Weimar circle, including his close friends, the brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, echoed Franklin's nationalist example. They would nurture science to new heights in the first half of the 19th century, while they fought against the oligarchs for an elusive German republic.

Transatlantic Political Science

In 1804, 14 years after Franklin's death, Alexander von Humboldt repaid Franklin's memorable Göttingen visit by arriving in the United States at Philadelphia, and proceeding to Dr. Franklin's American Philosophical Society. The gathering discussed Humboldt's just-completed five year expedition to South America and Mexico, and aspects of the new sciences which he was in the process of creating: meteorology; oceanography; botany and geology as "books" in which to read the history of the earth; the mapping of the earth's magnetic field, and his discovery of the decrease of the field's intensity from the poles to the equator.

In Mexico the previous year Humboldt had reviewed and applauded the work of geologist Andrés Manuel Del Rio (1764-1849), a Spaniard who had become his friend in Germany. Sponsored by the humanist court of Spain's Carlos III, Del Rio had studied in the Freiburg Mining Academy, Humboldt's school, and with chemist Antoine Lavoisier in Paris; he fled the French Terror in disguise after Lavoisier's arrest and murder by Marat and the mob. Del Rio had gone to colonial Mexico in 1794 and organized the teaching of science and engineering in the new School of Mining, creating the basis for a modern mining industry in Mexico. After Mexican independence, Del Rio was to follow Humboldt's path to the American Philosophical Society. He would remain in Philadelphia five years (1829-1834), serving as president of the new Geological Society of Pennsylvania, then return to Mexico to fight for scientific development.

In 1804, Philosophical Society member Charles W. Peale accompanied Humboldt from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., for his visit with Society member, President Thomas Jefferson. Humboldt soon afterward returned to Germany. That same year, 18-year-old Nicholas Biddle, son of a Philadelphia banker, went to Paris as an unpaid secretary to the American legation.

Though his father was a Federalist, and a friend of Aaron Burr, Biddle was becoming an ardent republican, a nationalist. The warring British and French were seizing defenseless American ships at sea; the British kidnapped and impressed into their navy thousands of American merchant seamen. Nicholas Biddle's brother James had been imprisoned by Libyan terrorists (the "Barbary pirates") when his ship the U.S.S. Philadelphia had gone aground off Tripoli.

On a wartime intelligence collecting tour through northern France and Switzerland during the summer of 1805, Biddle was accompanied by George Gibbs (1776-1833) of Newport, Rhode Island. Gibbs also collected rocks; he later sold his a collection of 12,000 specimens to Yale, and Gibbs and his family were to be important intelligence contacts in Connecticut for the Philadelphians.

The young American agents went on through Italy separately, and Biddle then made an extraordinarily bold trip alone to Greece. En route on a Greek ship, Biddle encountered a strange Greek priest who had been smuggled aboard in Naples. He told Biddle that he had lighted a set of lamps in Constantinople by shooting fire from out of his beard. He also possessed a piece of Christ's original cross, and the relic was, fortunately, completely fireproof. When Biddle doubted his story, Biddle and his baggage were thrown off the boat in Sicily. [fn3]

Finally arriving in Greece, with no modern maps or guides, he relied on his previous rich studies in ancient Greek history and literature to find his way among the islands and the towns which had survived the ages. He reported home his fears of Russian penetration into Europe, his disgust with the British for stealing Greek national art, and his lament for the fall of Greek civilization into barbarity.

Nicholas Biddle met with the Marquis de Lafayette in the summer of 1806, and finished his assignment at America's Paris legation in January, 1807. He was asked by James Monroe, then U.S. minister to Great Britain, to serve as his temporary secretary. During the ambassador's tense negotiations for an end to Britain's war on American shipping, young Biddle was virtually adopted into Monroe's family in London. A famous episode, treasured by Monroe, occurred when the 20-year-old Biddle attended a party with some Oxford dons; the "colonial" explained to the outclassed, speechless academics the essential differences between ancient and modern Greek language. On his homeward trip Biddle carried letters from Monroe to President Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison. Biddle thereafter retained the closest ties, as of family, with Monroe.

The U.S. finally declared war against Great Britain in 1812. But the American war effort was hampered by a British fifth column among New England merchants, draining the country of gold, stopping credit, selling British war bonds and preaching Northern secession. Meanwhile the charter of Alexander Hamilton's Bank of the United States had expired in 1811, leaving the economy at the mercy of anti-American financial interests.

"Moneyed Aristocrats"

Having been elected to the Pennsylvania state senate in 1810, Nicholas Biddle had joined Philadelphian Mathew Carey's vigorous campaign for a second Bank to be chartered, to protect American financial independence.

Biddle's call for national banking had been sharply republican, and prophetic:

"Without credit or money, while your commerce is stopped and your manufactures languish....[in] the total want of money, the demand for specie will place the poorer classes at the mercy of the rich, and the great money lenders will issue abroad to prey upon their fellow citizens. In the general submersion of small traders, the only beings who will be seen floating on the wreck are those very 'monied aristocrats' whom the [anti-Bank] resolutions denounce with such indignation." [fn2]

Britain's 1814 invasion and burning of Washington led to a political uprising by the partisans of all-out war. James Monroe became Secretary of War and virtual commander in chief in September, 1814. A firm advocate of a new Bank, Philadelphian Alexander J. Dallas, was installed as Secretary of the Treasury the following month. Encouraged by Mathew Carey's 1814 Olive Branch, honest Federalists deserted their corrupt party and came out openly for the war effort.

Philadelphia and Connecticut

Biddle's old fellow U.S. intelligence agent and geologist, Col. Geo. Gibbs, had married Laura Wolcott, whose father Oliver Wolcott (1760-1833) had been Federalist Alexander Hamilton's chief assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Wolcott's family tradition was rather raucously patriotic: his father Oliver Wolcott, Sr. (1726-1797) signed the Declaration of Independence, and had dragged a lead statue of King George III from New York back to Connecticut for the ladies to melt into bullets. In the treasury, the younger Wolcott implemented much of the nationalist, dirigist policy designed by Hamilton. He had been a "Hamiltonian" Treasury Secretary for both Washington and John Adams following Hamilton's 1795 resignation. He stayed loyal to Hamilton when Hamilton campaigned against President Adams's renomination by the Federalists in 1800. Hamilton thus gave the election to Jefferson; the Federalists, whom Hamilton knew to be fatally corrupt with British influence, never recovered.

The Gibbs-Wolcott household was one of the centers for the resistance by American patriots to New England treason during the War of 1812. Oliver Wolcott formed a personal alliance with Mathew Carey to break what Wolcott called the "perverted" Federalist Party in New England, and distributed Carey's book, the Olive Branch.

Wolcott prepared the Connecticut militia to deal with the anti-war Hartford Convention, opening Dec. 15, 1814, in case it should attempt an insurrection.

The Hartford Convention was undercut midway through by the ending of the war. The treasonable but harmless anti-Union resolutions which they issued were answered by a Pennsylvania state legislature declaration composed by Nicholas Biddle.

In 1817 Oliver Wolcott was elected governor of Connecticut. He instituted a thorough reform of the state, sweeping out the pro-British aristocrats and presiding over a convention which wrote a new state constitution. Wolcott was elected ten times to one-year terms as governor.

At the commencement of the Wolcott regime, in 1817, his son-in-law Col. George Gibbs proposed to Yale University Professor Benjamin Silliman the establishment of an American nationalist-oriented scientific publication. Gibbs had previously provided the massive mineral collection which formed the material basis for Silliman's successful Yale lectures. Silliman, the son of a Revolutionary War general, had been sent in 1802 to the University of Pennsylvania to pre-train, in chemistry, physics and medical fields, for his Yale teaching duties. He was made a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1805. Like Biddle, Silliman made a European tour in 1805-06, visiting Great Britain and Holland, but was deterred by the war from entering Germany. He first met Gibbs in Newport in 1807. At Gibbs' urging, Silliman founded The American Journal of Science and Arts in 1818.

A Second Bank of the United States was established in 1816, during the Treasury administration of Alexander Dallas. Nicholas Biddle was appointed president of the Bank in 1823 by James Monroe, who was then finishing his second term as U.S. President.

The Presidency of John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) and Biddle's Bank, as it then came to be known, combined to give the country a period of free flowing credit and great prosperity. Aside from New York State's Erie Canal, completed in 1825, the greatest energy for national development was in Philadelphia itself.

Nicholas Biddle and Mathew Carey formed the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvements in 1824. They immediately sent the gifted architect of the Bank, William Strickland, to England to investigate public works there. Strickland reported that railroads must soon replace canals as the predominant form of transportation. Biddle's Bank then financed the beginning of rail construction in America. Mathew Carey's Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of National Industry meanwhile inundated the entire country with Carey's own pamphlets calling for high tariffs. A national protectionist congress met in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1827, and in 1828 the Congress passed just what Carey had been demanding. The new law was called the Tariff of Abominations by its enemies -- it caused a surge of American factory construction, turning even New England toward manufacturing.

The Birth of the Lazzaroni

As was noted in Part I, William J. Duane, briefly Treasury Secretary in 1833, refused to cooperate with Andréw Jackson's attack on the Bank of the U.S. But Roger Taney was nominated to the Treasury post by Jackson simply to pull the government's deposits out of the Bank, and they brought down the financial system of the Founding Fathers altogether.

Chaos reigned in 1837, economic and political demoralization. The tariff system was gone with the Bank, and the British merrily dumped goods into the still predominantly agrarian U.S.A.

William J. Duane, lawyer for the immensely wealthy Stephen Girard, won a court battle, after Girard's death in 1831, to control his estate for the benefit of the public. A trust fund for a Girard College was established, with Nicholas Biddle as Chairman of the Board. In 1837, Biddle, using this fund, sent Alexander Dallas Bache to Europe for two years, to study European education, and to orient himself for leadership of the coming generation, for what was to be a long fight.

Alexander Dallas Bache, age 25, and his cousin Franklin Bache were the leading descendants of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, with enormous attendant prestige (see Franklin-Bache Family Tree). Alexander had graduated with highest honors from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point at the age of 19.

He had served in the Army Corps of Engineers for three years, teaching at West Point and helping construct Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island; he married Nancy Fowler of Newport. From 1828, Bache was professor of natural philosophy and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, until in 1836 Nicholas Biddle made him President of the projected Girard College and sent him to Europe.

While teaching in 1830, Bache had made experiments in the observation of the earth's magnetism, based in a small building attached to his home. This work was carried out as faithfully as possible on the model of two German scientists then working at Göttingen University, mathematician-astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) and physicist Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804-1891).

On his European trip (1837-38) Bache worked with Gauss, recognized as the founder of modern mathematics, to prepare instruments which Bache would use for further experiments in the United States. Bache also met and lived for some little time with Alexander von Humboldt. In this household he became an expert in the consumption of German wine, from then on exporting it. And he gained from Humboldt, Gauss and Weber a programmatic outlook for scientific work which would have profound consequences for America and the world.

Upon his return Alexander Bache wrote a 666 page report on Education in Europe, published in 1839 and widely celeberated, describing the German, French and British schools of the day. The opening of Girard College being delayed, Bache was hired as Philadelphia's superintendant of public schools. He organized the city system along Prussian lines, and himself became the first principal of the new Central High School, whose format was quickly copied in other American cities. Under Bache's leadership Central High developed a unique national reputation for excellence and involvement in science which carried into the 20th century.

In 1840 Bache established a magnetic observatory station at the new Girard College, which functioned for the next five years, one of about thirty similar institutions throughout the world. From 1840 to 1843, in the summers, Bache did a magnetic survey in the Pennsylvania region. His program was designed by Gauss and Weber through their Magnetischeverein (Magnetic Union), established in 1836.

Under the Germans' guidance, Bache was meanwhile assembling a tiny leadership body of American scientists, jovially called the Lazzaroni -- Italian for beggars. Bache was the "chief" of this science and intelligence grouping, which functioned together, for the single purpose of national development, with the rest of the Philadelphia top command: political economist Henry Carey, and the industrial leaders grouped around the Pennsylvania Railroad.

In 1843, Bache was appointed Superintendant of the United States Coast Survey. Over the next quarter century, with increasing appropriations and political backing, he used the Survey as a cadre training unit and Washington power base. By the time of the Civil War, the Lazzaroni group dominated Harvard and Yale Universities, the U.S. Navy, and all American science. With the fall of the Philadelphians in the 1870's, the universities, the Navy, and American science were to fall with them.

The central figures in Bache's organization were [4] :

• 
  

• mathematician Benjamin Peirce (1809-1880);

• chemist Oliver Wolcott Gibbs (1822-1908);

• naval officer Charles Henry Davis (1807-1877);

• astronomer Benjamin Apthorp Gould (1824-1896);

• and Bache's personal aide John Fries Frazer (1812-1872).

The other Lazzaroni members were:

• naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), whose career was carefully managed by the central figures in the group;

• Greek scholar Cornelius C. Felton (1807-1862), who died too soon; and

• physicist Joseph Henry (1797-1878), most important as part of Bache's Washington power base.

• Chemists Frederick Augustus Genth (1820-1892) and Benjamin Silliman, Jr. (1816-1885), were important close allies.

Harvard, and the U.S. Navy

Benjamin Peirce was the son of Harvard University's librarian and historian. At the time of Peirce's birth, John Quincy Adams was Harvard's most distinguished teacher. Adams was U.S. minister to Prussia from 1797 to 1800; he negotiated a treaty of friendship and commerce with Prussia in 1799. While there Adams avidly studied German culture and mingled with its leaders in the Weimar circle, including the Humboldt brothers.

Back home, John Quincy Adams advised President Thomas Jefferson about the anti-U.S. intrigues of members of Adams' own Federalist Party in New England, the Boston merchants self-proclaimed "Brahmins." This clash with the British agent grouping occured while Adams was United State Senator from Massachusetts (1802-1808), and Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard (1806-1809). As a means of countering the dominant British cultural outlook -- atheism, utilitarianism -- Adams taught his students the sharp contrast between Socratic reason and sophistry, and introduced at Harvard the classical German culture for which he was America's foremost spokesman.

Benjamin Peirce graduated from Harvard in 1829, one year after a republican revolt in Boston forced the resignation of Harvard's cynical Brahmin-backed president, John T. Kirkland. Peirce tutored mathematics from in 1831-32, then was Harvard's professor of astronomy and mathematics from 1833 to 1880, universally recognized as America's best mathematician. From 1829 to 1839 Peirce revised the translation and commentaries on the Celestial Mechanics of P.S. Laplace. In 1842 he was made a member of the Franklin-Bache family's American Philosophical Society. Peirce was in touch with the Germans at Göttingen, whom he, like Dallas Bache, clearly understood to be his scientific mentors.

Peirce's thinking was diametrically opposite to the trancendentalist romantics who dominated Harvard in the 1830's and 1840's. He spoke to a national science meeting [fn5] about the Fibonacci series (the golden section) one could see in the placement of successive leaves on a stem, their angles being in the ratios 1/3, 1/4, 2/7, 3/11, 5/18, 8/29, etc.; and in the ratios of the orbital periods of the planets. Peirce explained that the closely similar, purposive arrangement in botany and astronomy demonstrated that one Mind created the universe, and that our minds should strive to see that purpose.

Charles Henry Davis, had left Harvard in 1823 to join the navy. Returning to Harvard between cruises, he married Benjamin Peirce's sister-in-law in 1841, and was appointed to the Coast Survey in 1842. The following year Dallas Bache became his boss at the Survey, while Benjamin Peirce and his associates founded the Harvard Observatory.

In 1844 Peirce's star pupil, Benjamin Apthorp Gould, graduated from Harvard. His grandfather had fought in the Revolution, at Lexington and Bunker Hill, had seen the British surrender at Saratoga, and was captain of the guard at West Point when British spymaster Major André was captured. His father was a classical scholar and principal of the Boston Public Latin School. Following Gould's graduation from Harvard, he studied for one year in Berlin, and for a year in Göttingen with Gauss and others. Upon his return to America with his doctorate he was, by all accounts, "fired up" with determination to emulate the German scientists.

In 1846 Professor Peirce drew up a faculty reolution calling upon Harvard's new President, Edward Everett, to open a separate school of science. Later that year, Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz arrived in Boston. Agassiz had been a renowned researcher on geology and glaciers and publisher on embryology, paleontology and anatomy, who had been patronized by Alexander von Humboldt since they had met in Paris in the 1820's. His prestige would count heavily at Harvard.

Also in 1846, on the recommendation of Alexander Dallas Bache, Princeton geophysics teacher Joseph Henry was installed as the first director of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The Lazzaroni had to compromise with Smithsonian founder Robert Dale Owen, the cultish British socialist. Owen was allowed to spend potential research money on a garish building of Owen's design, but Bache's man was allowed to run the Institution.

In 1847, during a period of enormously popular public lectures by Agassiz, Alexander Dallas Bache ordered Lieutenant Charles Davis to take Agassiz out on the U.S.S. Bibb to cruise off Cape Cod for research purposes. In 1848, with pressure from Peirce and Bache, Harvard hired Agassiz as professor of zoology. Lt. Davis moved in down the street from Agassiz, and became so much his protector and practical manager, that Mrs. Agassiz called Davis the professor's "prime minister" [fn6].

Peirce, Bache and Agassiz were now pulling together important talent at Harvard. The Lawrence Scientific School, begun in 1847 on the urging of Peirce and Agassiz, hired Eban Horsford, a former student in Germany of Justus Liebig, as the first head of its analytical chemical laboratory. In 1849, the U.S. Congress appropriated funds to establish the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac at Harvard. This important naval publication was directed by Charles Henry Davis, with Benjamin Peirce as its mathematical consultant, and Benjamin Apthorp Gould, back from Germany, as its consulting astronomer. Both Peirce and Gould worked on longitudinal determinations in the Coast Survey at Harvard from 1852 onward.

The combination of the Harvard Observatory, the Almanac and the Survey work made Harvard a base for growing scientific influence in the navy, in direct competition with the recently established Naval Observatory and its unwholesome director Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873). Maury was a main enemy to the Lazzaroni, a leader of the oligarchical faction corrupting the antebellum U.S. armed forces. Throughout the 1850's Maury sponsored filibusters -- mercenary attacks on Mexico and other Ibero American republics. In 1861, Maury was to join the Southern rebellion as its top naval "scientist" and a weapons negotiator with Great Britain. After the Civil War, Maury would join the hated Emperor Maximilian in Mexico as commissioner of immigration!

It is noteworthy that while Bache and his circle despised Maury, the Bache family were personally close friends with Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson Davis, in the prewar years when Davis was a leading Southerner but not a Rebel.

Escalating Conflict

Benjamin Peirce wrote to Bache in 1851, "Gould has had the official offer of Professorship at Göttingen, with a promise of Gauss's influence to obtain the...directorship of the observatory." [fn7] But Gould declined the offer, wanting above all to develop science on this side of the Atlantic. In 1855 Peirce, Bache and Gould founded the Dudley Observatory, which was intended to be part of a new national university in Albany, New York. The Lazzaroni partners were made a scientific advisory council, while local capitalists backed the effort as trustees. Under Benjamin Gould's direction, the observatory was projected as a major center of "pure research" in astrophysics, nothing immediately "practical." Naturally, a showdown very quickly developed.

Led by Albany and New York City banker Thomas Olcott, the trustees denounced Gould's direction of the observatory as undemocratic: its telescope was not to be used for public entertainment, and its results could not be understood by the average man. As Olcott complained to Bache, "we cannot here erect a throne above the majesty of the people." [fn8]Curiously, this same Olcott two decades before had been the main organizer of a national propaganda attack on the Bank of the United States. The cry in 1831 had been that Biddle's Bank was "undemocratic," that it did not allow "private enterprise" and "the little man" room to participate in finance. Olcott was backed by the Brown Brothers and Prime, Ward and King (agents for Britain's Barings). They would force the U.S. Bank to close -- or to be moved to New York to be under their factional control (the latter alternative was accomplished in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve). In 1835 Olcott reportedly lost thousands of dollars selling short on U.S. Bank stock, when Biddle's side outmaneuvered him. [fn9]

The Lazzaroni fought for their project, and in 1859 were reduced to barricading themselves in the observatory building. But the trustees got a court order, battered down the door, and threw Dr. Gould out in the snow. Under new management, the observatory fell to mediocrity and obscurity.

But Benjamin Apthorp Gould's great life work was still far in the future. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888) known as the Schoolteacher President of Argentina, was a friend of the United States and preferred to think of himself as an Abraham Lincoln. President Sarmiento invited Gould to Argentina in 1870, along with other foreign science personnel. Beginning immediately, Gould built the national observatory at Cordoba, a great interior city to which Sarmiento had completed a railroad only in 1869. Gould, and the staff he trained, mapped, for the first time ever, the skies of the Southern Hemisphere, charting over 70,000 stars during fifteen years of labor.

As the Civil War approached in 1860, the Lazzaroni were able to place one of their own members, Cornelius C. Felton, as President of Harvard itself. Felton, a translator of Grotius, Homer and Aeschylus, and a popularizer of Greek history, backed Peirce and Agassiz to the hilt and opened the way for real scientific achievement by Harvard teachers. The Boston Anglophile faction was, for the moment, completely displaced at the school. Unfortunately, Felton suffered a presumed heart attack on the way to Washington in February, 1862. He died in the Philadelphia home of his brother, whose central role with the Philadelphia industrialists will be discussed below.

Some Wartime Science

A new Bureau of Navigation was organized in 1862 and Charles Henry Davis was made its head. In this position Davis was director of the Naval Observatory and its hydrographic functions, consolidating in loyal hands all that Maury and his faction had controlled before the war. On February 11, 1863, Rear Admiral Davis, Alexander Dallas Bache and Joseph Henry were appointed sole members of a Permanent Commission of the Navy Department, enjoined to advise the navy on "questions of science and art." On March 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill incorporating the National Academy of Sciences, to "investigate, examine, experiment, and to report upon any subject of science or art." Alexander Dallas Bache was the National Academy's first president, and 50 incorporating founders were chosen by Bache, Peirce and Davis. The National Academy was a Lazzaroni project.

Beyond advising the president and his administration, the Lazzaroni contributed significantly to victory through the use of their research, and the deeds of their students.

Charles Henry Davis's place as commander of the Mississippi Squadron was taken by David Dixon Porter. The new commander and his step-brother David Farragut were to be the leading architects of naval success for the Union.

The father of David Dixon Porter (and stepfather of Farragut), Boston-born David Porter, had been captured and imprisoned in Libya along with Nicholas Biddle's brother in the grounding of the Philadelphia. He was released with Biddle, and settled and married in Philadelphia. He became a prime mover there in the inter-American republican group including Manuel Torres and William Duane. He smashed up Britain's Pacific whaling fleet during the War of 1812, and was captured in desperate battle with the British navy off the coast of Chile. In 1826 he moved to Mexico and became Commander in Chief of the Mexican Navy. He developed and disciplined the Mexican forces for battle with Spain, and escaped several assassination attempts. David Porter was later U.S. minister to Turkey for many years, fighting the British head-to-head for the predominance of republican institutions in the Middle East.

The son David Dixon Porter was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1813. He passed three years with his father in Mexico, then as a Mexican naval officer (age 15) he fought gallantly and was captured by the Spanish in a battle off Cuba, finally returning home in 1829. Over the next three decades Porter worked alternatively with the Coast Survey, both with Bache and his predecessor, and on other naval duties. With the work of Peirce, Gould and others in the 1850's, the hydrography of the Survey became a potent weapon. This was, after all, the heart of Bache's tradition. The Pacific current which flows off the west coast of South America bears the name of Alexander von Humboldt, who first measured its temperature. But Bache's great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin, had years before then precisely mapped the Atlantic's Gulf Stream. The American Revolutionaries, sailing across the ocean with knowledge of this strong current, were thus enabled to outrun the uninformed British by a matter of weeks.

Bache's Coast Survey, by mapping the entire national shoreline, and by teaching higher mathematics to naval personnel, gave the Navy the ability to amaze, surprise and depress the enemy. David Dixon Porter, for example, learned to do calculus in his head. He could thus know where a sand bar ought to have been deposited by river and ocean currents, by looking at even an outdated Coast Survey chart. (One of his more famous, outrageous stunts, was the sailing of an entire fleet of river warboats many dozens of miles through a forest -- which had been flooded with rain.)

The confident scientific outlook of Admirals David Dixon Porter and Charles Henry Davis led them to give crucial backing to inventor John Ericsson's armored turret ship, the Monitor. Porter and his friends noted with particular emphasis that with the deployment of this new ship in 1862, the wooden British navy, in particular, had become obsolete.

Gibbs and Yale

Thomas Hill, a friend of Peirce and Agassiz, succeeded Cornelius Felton as President of Harvard in 1862 and continued Felton's ambitious science policy. In 1863 Lazzaroni member Oliver Wolcott Gibbs took charge of the chemistry work at the Lawrence Scientific School. He was the son of Nicholas Biddle's friend Col. George Gibbs; and the grandson and namesake of Oliver Wolcott, the aide to Alexander Hamilton who had broken the oligarchy in Connecticut.

Benjamin Peirce wondered whether Gibbs's appointment was "worthwhile...when we see that the whole thing must [eventually] fall into the hands of imbeciles" -- as Harvard did, in the end. But during his tenure, Oliver Wolcott Gibbs was perhaps the most effective and beloved science teacher in American history. His portrait in bas-relief is wrought upon the doors of the west entrance to the Capitol in Washington.

After graduating from Columbia College in New York, Gibbs had worked briefly at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1841 or 1842, and returned to New York for a medical degree. From 1845 to 1848 he studied chemistry in Berlin, Giessen and Paris. He became an exponent of the research and instructional methods of his teacher at Giessen, Justus Liebig, who had also taught Gibbs's predecessor boss at the Lawrence School, Eban Horsford. Liebig himself had been sponsored and placed at Giessen by Alexander von Humboldt, who shifted the young chemist out of Paris in the 1820's when the École Polytechnique was no longer viable as the center of republican science. At Giessen, Liebig founded agricultural chemistry and the science of artificial fertilizers. What Gibbs brought to Harvard was the Liebig system of hands-on research for students, in resposible, sophisticated original research by the side of master chemists.

From 1849 to 1863, Wolcott Gibbs taught at the new City College of New York. Throughout the 1850's, Gibbs was associate editor and foreign correspondent for the American Journal of Science and Arts, founded in 1818 at the suggestion of Gibbs's father. Through this medium communication was maintained with European science. Gibbs and his fellow editor Benjamin Silliman, Jr., helped bring German-trained teachers into Yale in the heyday of the Lazzaroni, the 1850's and 1860's. When Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School opened in 1847, Lazzaroni pressure began operating for a similar school at Yale. What became the Sheffield Scientific school was thus born in the 1850's.

The first dean of the Sheffield School was Justus Liebig's student John A. Porter, who developed the courses in agriculture and nutrition. During the Civil War, under Lincoln's Land Grant College Act, both the Harvard and Yale institutions got federal government funding as state colleges. Another pupil of Liebig's, William H. Brewer, was the professor of agriculture at Sheffield from 1864 to 1903. His colleague S.W. Johnson returned in 1856 from his studies with Liebig, began teaching at Sheffield and translating the latest European works on chemical analysis for American scientists. Johnson later led in the development of the U.S. government's experimental research stations.

Pennsylvania's Industrial Juggernaut

Benjamin Silliman, Jr., published in 1855 a "Report on the Oil Rock, or Petroleum, from Venango County, Pennsylvania". It explained the composition and means of refining of oil from underground, for the owners of some land near Pittsburgh. Four years later, encouraged by this report, Edwin L. Drake started the world's petroleum industry on this land. The Philadelphia Interests would then fight a losing battle with British-backed John D. Rockefeller, for control of the new resource whose development they had begun.

Coal had preceded oil as the fuel for Pennsylvania's growth. During the last year of the Civil War, 1865, total U.S. coal production was 23.8 million tons. By 1880, this figure had tripled to 71.5 million. Pennsylvania produced 47.1 million tons, or about two thirds of the national total in 1880.

That America's coal industry, and its iron and steel industry, were born and grew up in Pennsylvania, was no accident of geography or "free enterprise." It was rather a result of precise, scientific calculation and government policy.

The Philadelphia-based scientists, in Ben Franklin's tradition, had not neglected to develop highly skilled technical manpower for the use of their home region. The University of Pennsylvania (founded by Franklin), the Franklin Institute, the American Philosophical Society (primarily as an intelligence gathering agency, since its membership per se had become largely honorary by the mid 19th century), and the Bache-organized Philadelphia school system were all put to the task of industrial mobilization. Pro-growth lobbying organizations, particularly the Iron and Steel Association under the control of Henry Carey, completely overlapped and interlocked with the educational process. The industrial owners, in turn, paid for and were themselves a product of the educational system.

The scientists, the industrialists and the literati of the city, taken together as an informal command group, most often met in the dinners of the "Wistar Party." The head of this group, during the entire period of our concern, was Isaac Lea (1792-1886!). He had become the publishing partner of his father-in-law, Mathew Carey, back in 1821. He had two sons named Mathew Carey Lea and Henry Carey Lea. Isaac Lea, whose interests ranged from conchology, to the defeat of British free trade subversion, went to Europe in 1851 and held a several day strategy discussion with the scientific elite of Germany.

The Lazzaroni themselves met mostly in the home of John Fries Frazer, the practical manager of the group. His grandfather, ironmaster Persifor Frazer, served on Philadelphia's Committee of Safety at the outbreak of the Revolution. As a Lieutenant Colonel of Pennsylvania's troops, grandfather Frazer was on Long Island in 1776 arresting New York Tories and suppressing their activities -- something his descendants may have often wished they could do. He fought the British in Canada, he was captured in the Battle of Brandywine, but he escaped to fight at the battle of Monmouth.

Grandson John Fries Frazer graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1830. He was Prof. Alexander Dallas Bache's lab assistant in 1833, assistant to the state geological survey in 1836, and taught in the Philadelphia school system from 1837 until 1844. When Bache went to Washington, Frazer succeeded him as Professor of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania; he held this position until 1872. He edited the Journal of the Franklin Insitute from 1850 to 1866.

Frazer's son Persifor (1844-1909) was in Bache's Coast Survey during the Civil War, 1862-1863. He came home to join the Philadelphia city cavalry for the Gettysburg campaign in 1863, and then finished the war as an ensign in the Mississippi Squadron of David Dixon Porter. After the War young Frazer studied for three years at the mining school in Freiburg, Germany.

With this training Frazer returned in 1869, to serve as mineralogist and metallurgist in the United States Geological Survey under Ferdinand V. Hayden. Frazer wrote "Mines and Minerals of Colorado," published in the 1869 Annual Report of the Survey. This was the scientific encouragement needed by the Philadelphia Interests to back William J. Palmer, several years later, when Palmer began settling Colorado and developing its mining industry. Hayden, a University of Pennsylvania professor of geology from 1865 to 1872, won worldwide acclaim for his exploration and mapping of the mountain west. But his work was opposed by the British faction in Washington, led by Henry Adams. The West was said to be one vast uninhabitable desert, and they sponsored their own surveys under John Wesley Powell to prove it.

At his father's death in 1872, the younger Frazer replaced him for one year as chemistry professor in the University of Pennsylvania. He then spent the rest of the 1870's as assistant to J. Peter Lesley, director of the Pennsylvania's Second Geological Survey. Persifor Frazer was replaced at the University of Pennsylvania by Professor George F. Barker, whose very important career, closely associated with that of Thomas Edison, will be considered below.

Frederick Augustus Genth was another chemistry teacher on the University staff beginning in 1872. Born near Hanau in Hesse-Cassel, Germany, he studied under Justus Liebig and others, and emigrated to Philadelphia in 1848. He operated an analytical chemistry laboratory for nearly half a century. Genth was the official chemist for the Pennsylvania Board of Agriculture, specializing in fertilizer analysis and development, and he wrote more than 70 papers on mineral researches, in American and German journals, from 1842 to 1893. The work recognized as Genth's greatest contribution to science was done jointly with Oliver Wolcott Gibbs in the 1850's, a study of ammonia-cobalt bases.

"Science" Meets "Politics"

J. Peter Lesley (1819-1903) demonstrates in his own career the complete interconnection between the various strategic concerns of the Philadelphia Interests, and thus, of the American republicans.

Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1838, Lesley worked for three years in the state government's geological survey. In 1845-46 he studied theology in Halle, Germany, and travelled. After other jobs in geological surveying for public and private interests, Lesley served from 1856 to 1864 as the secretary of the Henry Carey/Joseph Wharton organization, the American Iron and Steel Association. He was also professor of mining at the University of Pennsylvania from 1859 to 1883, and dean of the science department after 1872. At the same time, from 1859 to 1885, J. Peter Lesley was both Librarian and Secretary of the American Philosophical Society.

Benjamin Smith Lyman became Leslie's assistant in the geological survey of Pensyvlania in 1856, a year after his graduation from Harvard. In 1857 Lyman did research throughout the country for the Iron and Steel Association. J. Peter Lesley sent him to Europe in 1859. Lyman studied two years at the École des Mines in Paris, and one year at the Freiburg school of mining. After his return he worked in Pennsylvania, in many other states, in Canada, and in India. Lyman was hired in 1872 by the Meiji government of Japan. He worked for eight years in geological and topological surveys of the Japanese islands, mapping deposits of iron, coal, silver, copper, gold and oil, and the projected routes of railways.

We may now once again take up the Philadelphia industrialists, being better situated to understand the context of their achievements.

In 1852 the management of the Pennsylvania Railroad, with a charter from the legislature to serve the state, was not moving its construction forward sufficiently rapidly to suit the Whig members of its trustees. The management was replaced by the team of J. Edgar Thomson, formerly chief engineer, and Herman Haupt, formerly general superintendant, who now became respectively president and chief engineer.

Thomson's national leadership, as president of the Pennsylvania Railroad until his death in 1874, was presented in Part I of this series. His early factional supporter and co-executive, Herman Haupt, completed the construction of the railroad through the mountains west to Pittsburgh. Haupt's "General Theory of Bridge Construction" (1852) was widely adopted in American engineering and technical schools.

In 1862 and 1863 Herman Haupt was chief of construction and operation of the military railroads. President Lincoln described a bridge that Haupt built with unskilled soldiers in 1862:

"I have witnessed the most remarkable structure that human eyes ever rested upon. That man, Haupt, has built a bridge across Potomac creek in nine days with common soldiers, and, upon my soul, gentlemen, there is nothing in it but bean poles and corn stalks." [fn10]

The engineering corps organized by Haupt marched through Georgia with General Sherman, allowing the supply of Sherman's forces despite his destruction of every bridge and rail line he came to. They built a celebrated bridge across the Chattahoochee River, 750 feet long and 90 feet high, in four and a half days, using forest timber.

Herman Haupt was hired in 1881 by the new owners of the Northern Pacific Railroad franchise. As general manager, Haupt completed to the Pacific coast the line that had been stopped since Drexel and Morgan bankrupted Jay Cooke in 1873.

Centered around the Pennsylvania Railroad, the "Philadelphia Interests" were, chiefly, corporate owners J. Edgar Thomson, Thomas A. Scott, Andréw Carnegie, William J. Palmer, all of whom were encountered in Part I, and Matthew Baird, William Sellers and Samuel M. Felton. Aside from the PRR, the enterprises they controlled jointly included coal mines, iron foundries and land companies. The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad (managed by Palmer), the National Land Company, the Pennsylvania Steel Company, the Kansas Pacific Railway, the Mexican National Railways (in the years of construction), the Automatic Telegraph Company (later sold off to Jay Gould), and the Westmoreland and the Alleghany Coal companies, can all be fairly considered as simply a single enterprise, with different names for different divisions, or "entitities."

Matthew Baird, a large investor and director in this industrial combination, was a partner, and from 1866 the sole owner, of the Baldwin locomotive works. His firm got the contract for the locomotives for Palmer's lines in Colorado and Mexico, after furiously building engines for the Union forces in the Civil War.

William Sellers, born in 1824, was owner of Sellers and Co. Machine Tools. Since the founding of the American Philosophical Society by Franklin, there had always been a member of the Society in the Sellers family; his great-great-grandfather had observed the transit of Venus for the Society in 1769. In 1864 William Sellers became president of the Franklin Institute, and presented there, his formula for screw and nut threads which was adopted as the standard by the United States government. In 1868 Sellers set up the Edge Moor Iron Company, which made the iron structures for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, and for the Brooklyn Bridge. He was a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania. His relative and junior partner Colman Sellers, who was president of the Franklin Institute from 1870 to 1875, was chief engineer and dynamo designer in the construction of the Niagara Falls power station in the 1890's.

Samuel Felton, brother of Harvard president and Lazzaroni Cornelius C. Felton, had moved to Philadelphia in 1851 from Boston. He was president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad. When PRR vice president Thomas A. Scott advised president-elect Lincoln not to go to Washington by the advertised route, to avoid assassination, Felton put Lincoln aboard his line and got him into the capital for his inauguration. A Baltimore mob sacked the train they had thought Lincoln was aboard. Felton devoted his lines during the war years entirely to troop and supply transport.

After the Civil War, Samuel Felton became president of the Pennsylvania Steel Company, an "entity" of the joint Philadelphia Interests. In 1868 he hired, as chief chemist and then manager, the extraordinary John B.S. Pearse. Born in 1842, Pearse headed the chemical division of the U.S. Army laboratory in Philadelphia the last two years of the war, producing medicines. He studied at the Freiburg school in Germany for a year, and in Styria in Austria, and observed European steelmaking.

The Pennsylvania Steel Company employed Alexander L. Holley in 1867 to construct the Harrisburg plant which was then operated by Pearse. Holley, who had designed naval ordinance during the war, had negotiated with Bessemer in England for his patent rights, and had combined them with the patents of American William Kelley -- whose steelmaking process actually predated Bessemer's. The Harrisburg plant began turning out the first steel rails made in America. Manager John Pearse translated from German the standard work by Peter Tunner, "A Treatise on Roll Turning for the Manufacture of Iron" (1869), and "A Conscise History of the Iron Manufacture of the American Colonies up to the Revolution and of Pennsylvania until the Present Time" (1876). Pearse also became an expert in the playing, construction, woods, varnishes and acoustics of the violin, translating hundreds of documents from French, German, Dutch, Danish, Latin, Italian, Spanish and Russian.

Alexander Holley was hired by Andréw Carnegie for the construction, in the midst of the Panic of 1873, of the world's greatest and most modern plant, the J. Edgar Thomson steel works. The brains, the capital and the experience of the Philadelphia Interests, and the protective tariff which Carey and associates had enacted during the Lincoln presidency, allowed Carnegie to overcome the bear raid on the nation's credit by the European financiers. This was the heart of the great American steel industry, built up by Carnegie over the next decade or so, to the point where the United States emerged as the undisputed leader of world industry.

The Professor and the Inventor

George F. Barker graduated from Yale in 1858 after only two years' study, and taught in Harvard and other colleges until 1865. He then returned to Yale and taught until 1873 in the medical college under the leadership of Benjamin Silliman, Jr.

Barker was hired as professor of chemistry and physics by the University of Pennsylvania in 1873. He was immediately made editor of the Journal of the Franklin Institute, and from 1877 until 1897, Secretary of the American Philosophical Society, mostly under J. Peter Lesley. He was a close companion and dear friend of Professor Frederick Genth until Genth's death in 1893. He was a dinner companion of Joseph Wharton and his "social science" friends (i.e. Henry Carey), according to Barker's correspondence in the University of Pennsylvania archives.

The following letter, copied from the archives, was addressed to Prof. Barker at the Hall of Exhibition, dated October 5, 1874:

"I am informed that you have invited Mr. Thomas A. Edison to appear before your convention with his electro motograph -- I am acting for Mr. Edison & on his behalf thank you cordially for the invitation & if I may have 2 minutes audience with you, will arrange to have Edison meet you at your option as to time & place.

"A reply left at the Telegraph Stand will quickly reach me.

With respect, I am yours,

E.H. Johnson Gen'l Manager Automatic Telegraph Co."

Edward H. Johnson was the assistant to General William J. Palmer who was sent, on behalf of the Philadelphia Interests, to manage the Automatic Telegraph Company. When Johnson hired Edison, the contracted employee quickly outshone the particular company. The Philadelphians then backed Edison's evolution into a fulltime inventor, established in his "invention factory" in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

Professor Barker became Edison's overall science advisor and angel in academic circles. After Edison completed Bell's telephone by inventing the microphone, Barker encouraged Edison in the development of the phonograph. When that was completed early in 1878, Barker arranged for Edison to be invited to the April 18 meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, and Barker and his friends made sure the hall was packed by a warmed-up audience. The first words of the device to the public were, "The Speaking Phonograph has the honor of presenting itself to the Academy of Sciences."

That night a demonstration was held for the press in the Washington bureau of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The next day a demonstration was held for congressmen in the home of James Blaine's neice. The publicity generated within this 24 hour period, all of it organized and managed by the Philadelphians and their republican political allies, made Edison world-famous.

That July (1878), Prof. Barker invited Edison to relax with him on a trip to Wyoming to view a solar eclipse. Edison was to try out against the sun's corona a tasimeter he had invented, a device for measuring minute changes in temperature. During the two months train ride, relaxing and hunting, Barker described to Edison the progress to date on the production of artificial light from electricity. Barker had himself demonstrated for lecture audiences in Philadelphia, on and off campus, the latest lighting devices, batteries and crude dynamos. He was probably uniquely familiar with the problem as it had been dealt with so far by man's technology, and he proposed that Edison tackle and solve the problem.

Back east, Barker took Edison up to Ansonia, Connecticut to visit the factory of William Wallace on September 8. Wallace had invented a powerful dynamo, had coupled it to a water-powered turbine, and had led the generated electric current a quarter mile to the factory's arc lights. Edison inspected the setup and forsaw the great potential power in a proper organization of steam-generated electricity and a closed, incandescent light. When he left with Barker, Edison was determined to light up the world.

The announcements were soon made to the press, that Edison would produce light and power for the cities. To some, this was a very dangerous situation:

"[J.P.] Morgan himself was interested in acquiring British and continental European rights. Since Edison continued to claim to be too busy to go into the city, Morgan caught the train out from New York, and his partner, Anthony Drexel, came from Philadelphia. Early in December, in a clapboard building rising from a muddy field, the elegant, reserved Drexel and the balding, moustachioed, bulbous-nosed Morgan negotiated an agreement for the lighting of Europe.

"In the meantime, Baron S.M. Rothschild of Vienna wrote his New York representative, August Belmont, 'It would greatly interest me to learn whether really there is something serious and practical in the new idea of Mr. Edison, whose last inventions, the microphone, phonograph, etc., however interesting, have finally proven to be only trifles.' [Morgan lawyer Grosvenor] Lowry brought Belmont to Menlo Park the first Saturday in December -- a whistle-stop on the Pennsylvania Railroad had turned into a center of international finance." [fn11]

But the European feudalist financiers, whether Europeans of the New York or the Vienna address, did not actually wish to develop the Edison light and electric companies, of which they were board members. They bought into his enterprises for the power to close them down or contain them. Though Edison, over the next couple of years, invented the myriad of devices needed to generate and distribute electricity from central station to homes and businesses, and set up the first such station at Pearl Street in New York. But the financiers and the lawyers absolutely blocked Edison's power company from expanding across the country. Their money, though, was available by the limitless milllions, for the purchase and combination of existing property such as railroads.

In the autumn of 1884, Edison and his friends staged a "stockholders' revolt" against the Morgan forces. Ed Johnson was put in actual charge of the Edison Company as executive vice president. Production of dynamos and their installation grew rapidly. Large city central power stations rose to 12, in 1884, and to 58 in 1886. They were being installed in Europe, South America and Japan.

Ed Johnson had earlier promoted the light and power system in Europe. At the International Electrical Exhibition in Paris in 1881, Professor Barker, who had been widely demonstrating Edison's work in America, was on hand as a commissioner. A working model of the Pearl Street Station was shown. The budding German industrialist, Emil Rathenau, purchased the Edison patents and set up the Edison General Electric Company of Germany, by which the cities were lit and powered.

In later years, Morgan and his allies came to own the entire electrical industry, and bought up all the new steel industry, preventing any further fundamental progress in those areas. But Edison encouraged an ambitious employee of Detroit Edison Company, Henry Ford, to complete the gasoline-powered automobile Ford was working on. With Edison as a kind of stepfather, Ford made great advances in the organization of labor through his factory innovations. A few years after the development of the American mass-produced automobile, gas engines allowed the Wright brothers to succeed in bringing about manned flight.

But most of the world never received the new technology developed in the United states and Europe. The faction and the philosophy which prevented further basic advances in most lines of work during this century, also stopped would-be prometheans at the borders of the Third World countries.

Footnotes

1. Quoted in Spannaus and White, eds., The Political Economy of the American Revolution, Campaigner Publications, New York, 1977, p. 270.

2. Speech to the Pennsylvania Senate, Jan. 8, 1811, Quoted in Govan, Thomas Payne, Nicholas Biddle: Nationalist and Public Banker, 1786-1844, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1959, p. 31-32.

3. Govan, Biddle, p. 16.

4. Membership roster taken from Miller, Lillian B., et al, The Lazzaroni: Science and Scientists in Mid-Nineteenth Century America, National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1972. I have dropped James Dwight Dana, who may have been a plant by their opponents -- he "encouraged" a revolt by Harvard students against Professor Agassiz.

5. Speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1849, described in Daniels, George H., American Science in the Age of Jackson, Columbia University Press, New York, 1968. From 1848 to 1855 each of the presidents of the AAAS were Lazzaroni.

6. Miller, Lazzaroni, p. 44.

7. Peirce to Bache, Sept. 21, 1851, Peirce papers, Harvard, quoted in Reingold, Nathan, ed., Science in Nineteenth Century America, A Documentary History, Hill and Wang, New York, 1964, p. 161

8. Quoted in Miller, Lazzaroni, p. 51.

9. Govan, Biddle, p. 151, 152, 155, 156, 175, 282.

10. Quoted in the National Cyclopedia of American Biography, James T. White and Co., New York, 1921, Vol X.

11. Conot, Robert, A Streak of Luck, Seaview Books, New York, 1979, p. 129.

American Prometheus, Part III

The USA and Peru’s War of the Pacific - -

America Vs. Imperialists

In the first two parts of this series (New Solidarity, Aug. 1 and Aug. 22, 1986), we saw how Americans made their country a great industrial power after the Civil War. They had regained through war the power to use the government for national development. With federally financed railroads as the technological "driver" of the economy, with productive investments protected by high tariffs, the nationalists set up America's new steel and electrical industries. Their greatest accomplishments were made in the face of concerted opposition by the international financiers.

We saw that the nationalist republicans were organized in Philadelphia, as a group with political, military and commercial aims. With the aid of the most advanced German scientists in geology, metallurgy and chemistry, they built up America's skills for mining and processing iron and coal, and for agro-industry; and in mathematics, astronomy and geophysics as crucial elements of military success.

The European aristocratic oligarchy, represented within the U.S. by their agents in certain Boston and New York families, sought to brake the advance of American development. Trumpeting "Free Trade" and various anti-capitalist slogans simultaneously, they scandalized and financially wrecked the developers (we might accurately rename their philosophy, Free[dom from] Enterprise). They won restrictions on the government's power to issue credit and to subsidize railroads. Their own international banking syndicate increasingly usurped the position of arbiter of America's financial affairs.

In Part 3 we will observe the fight between the Americans and the European oligarchs over the role America would be permitted to play in the less developed countries. American nationalists -- Prometheans -- proposed to help build up other nations' own capabilities for industrial and scientific achievement. A community of self-sufficient republics could then withstand the wrecking operations of the oligarchs, and eventually free the entire world from their grip.

The anti-republicans proposed that America should instead serve only as an extension of European financiers' power over world development, and that technological "disruptions," such as America's revolutionary steel and electrical complexes, should cease -- both in the United States and in the tropical countries.

This dispute over America's global purpose came to a dramatic showdown in 1881. This was effectively the last stand of the American republicans. Today, 105 years later, the U.S.A. is in urgent need of winning virtually the same contest, presented to it in precisely the same arena.

Civilization in Danger

In April, 1861, when Southern separatists fired on Fort Sumter to start America's 1861-1865 Civil War, their European political sponsors were already on the march globally with new imperial adventures, threatening to drag the world back into the Dark Ages.

The British countered India's 1857-58 Sepoy Rebellion with the reinvasion and crushing of the Indian subcontinent, saving the source of their opium. They were simultaneously engaged with their French ally, Napoleon III, subduing China in the 2nd Opium War (1857-60), saving the market for their opium amongst the ungrateful Asians. The British allowed Napoleon III, meanwhile, the franchise to conquer Indochina (1858-1867), sowing the seeds for the American disaster a century later.

The instant the United States was tied up by insurrection, the European imperialists jumped to attack the unprotected southern flank of the Americas. Announcing their resolve to force debt payments from the government of Benito Juarez, the armies of Britain, France, Spain, Austria and Belgium invaded Mexico late in 1861. The British and Spanish withdrew in April, 1862, and the Mexicans defeated the French army at Puebla in May, 1862. Napoleon III reenforced the invasion and captured Mexico City early in 1863 -- just following U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation for the millions of negro slaves held by the insurgents.

In June of 1864, the Hapsburg Prince Maximilian was installed as Emperor of Mexico. That same Spring, 1864, the navy of Spain attacked Peru, annexed Peruvian islands, and declared Spain's right to recolonize Peru.

In the following year, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay were sponsored by the British in a genocidal war against Paraguay, killing over half the Paraguayans and breaking up that country's attempts to industrialize itself on the U.S. model.

When the rebel slaveowners surrendered to U.S. forces in 1865, the restored threat of American power helped to repair the situation south of the border. The French, pounded by Juarez's U.S.-equipped army, withdrew and left Maximilian to be executed. The Spanish dropped their pretensions to reconquer their long-lost Peruvian colony.

Neither oligarchical versions of history, nor the later political defeat of America's republicans, should divert us from understanding the American Civil War as the central theatre of a global war between freedom and slavery.

World Development to 1880

A monument to the ideals of victorious republicanism was erected in 1869 in the National Cemetary at Gettysburg, where Abraham Lincoln had delivered his famous wartime Address. Liberty stands atop a pillar, whose base is surrounded by the figures of War, History, Plenty and Peace.

War is represented by a veteran in repose on a cannon which has seen hard use, his hand open in the hope of peace, his demeanor that of a watchful citizen-soldier rather than a militarist.

History has a book open on her lap, with the pyramids of Egypt and the columns of classical Greece cut in bas-relief.

Plenty holds a sheaf of wheat; a violin, sheet-music and a painter's pallette are by her side.

Peace is a clear-eyed mechanic holding a gear, standing next to a frieze of an industrial plant. A globe is surrounded by mariner's ropes and tools, and the motif of the pyramids is repeated, celebrating the completion during 1869 of the Suez Canal.

French engineer-diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps had directed the Canal construction for the previous decade, despite the objections and attempted interference of the British. The khedive of Egypt commissioned Giuseppi Verdi to compose an opera in honor the opening of the Suez Canal; his "Aida" was first produced in Cairo in 1871.

Lesseps' interest in organizing Suez, a partnership of the peoples of France (whose subscriptions paid half the cost) and Egypt (whose labor built it), cohered with his family's tradition.

Ferdinand's grandfather Martin de Lesseps was French consul general in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great, when Russia and other European powers formed the League of Armed Neutrality, helping France ally with the American colonies against Britain.

Ferdinand's father Matheu de Lesseps was director of French secret intelligence in the Middle East during the Napoleonic wars, competing with the British for influence in the Islamic world. After Napoleon's defeat, despite the subjection of France to Britain and allied continental oligarchs, Matheu de Lesseps managed to have himself appointed Consul in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he lived from 1818 to 1822. He negotiated with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams a commercial treaty between France and the U.S.A.. He was in a position to counsel the Philadelphia-based American nationalists on strategic affairs, as a member of their American Philosophical Society. His friendships with the Egyptians later helped his son Ferdinand launch the Suez project, while his contacts in Philadelphia, the center for exile Spanish American patriots, would give Ferdinand the background for a similar enterprise in the New World.

At an 1875, international congress of the French Geographical Society, an organization once chaired by Alexandre von Humboldt, Ferdinand de Lesseps announced his interest in cutting an interoceanic canal through Central America. "Lazzaroni" nationalist Admiral Charles H. Davis, chief of the U.S. Naval Observatory, had sent a representative to the Paris meeting. The U.S. Navy wanted a canal for maximum mobility of its fleet, to be able to challenge Britain for naval supremacy in the Western Hemisphere. Apparently for just this reason, the British and their friends in New York and Boston opposed the canal, as long as America played an anti-colonial role in the region.

In 1880 Lesseps toured the United States to drum up American support for his new Panama Canal Company. Pennsylvania industrial figures -- Andréw Carnegie, steel engineer Alexander Holley, and the wife of crippled Brooklyn Bridge builder Augustus Roebling -- turned out to a testimonial dinner at Delmonico's in New York, the hall decked out in French and American flags. Everywhere Americans hailed Lesseps as a hero. He chose Secretary of the Navy Richard W. Thompson, a nationalist disciple of Henry Carey, as chief promoter and chairman of the Canal Company's American Committee.

Lesseps asked for American subscriptions to the stock of the company; he would be happy, he said if Americans bought a majority interest, and the company's headquarters was established in Washington or New York. But J.P. Morgan got control of the U.S. sale of its stock, and not a single share was to be sold in the United States. President Rutherford B. Hayes, under the influence of the Morgan-Rothschild international banking syndicate which had forced through Specie Resumption the previous year, turned a cold shoulder to Lesseps. Hayes declared that the Monroe Doctrine was adverse to "foreigners" building an interoceanic canal. He fired Navy Secretary Thompson for associating with the French canal effort.

The French company began digging the Canal through Colombia's Isthmus of Panana in February, 1881. The President of Colombia at the time, Dr. Rafael Nunez (1825-1894), was an exceptionally well-educated statesman. A Free Trade advocate during his earlier career, Nunez left Colombia in 1863 and spent two years in the United States covering the Civil War as a journalist. Here he was confronted with the great constitutional question, centralized republican institutions, for the enduring power of an independent nation, versus decentralization in the form of states' rights or regional autonomy. This was precisely the question facing his own country, where Nunez' British-influenced Liberal Party took the side of states rights, championing the outmoded Colombian constitution that prevented national development.

It was in the great arena of the war in North America that Nunez apparently first distinguished for himself the political realities of the nation-state from the Free Trade dogmas of British liberalism.

Nunez wrote from New York on November 2, 1864:

"...the true conservative will be he who keeps this country [the U.S.A.] standing and saves it in its present crisis...In all political societies, as in everything else, a conservative element is indispensible as a principle of existence and of progress.

"In the passionate language of parties, all the elements of this type may be confused with inaction and even with retrogression. And I say confused, because there is as much difference between the one and the other, as between good and bad, between truth and falsehood...The conservative element in this country has been the principal of national unity, fortunately and with foresight counterposed since the first years after Independence, to the dissolving doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of the States.

"This principle of national unity combined with, but superior to, privileges of local government, is the soul of the Constitution; and proof of this is that in the presidential election, the states do not vote with equality, but only in respect to their populations; and that the Constitution was not dictated by the States as independent entities or sovereignties, but by the people of the states collectively. 'We (says the Constitution) the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, etc., etc., ordain and establish this Constitution.'

"The first Constitution [after the Revolution, i.e. the Articles of Confederation] had the character of a pact between sovereign States; but...all the influential men of that epoch, led by Washington...[won the establishment of the] second and final Constitution, under whose rule since 1787, the career of the United States has been so marvelous, that it is impossible to avoid recognizing the excellence of this mechanism."

Nunez goes on to discuss the economic reality behind the states rights rhetoric of the "feudal gentlemen of the South." They have exaggerated "the liberal Jeffersonian legacy" to preserve their hold on the commerce of the nation, exerted through 4 million negro slaves, worth, as assets, at least $4 billion, and much more in the product of their labor. [1]

Nunez spent many more years abroad, working and studying in England and in Continental Europe, before returning home. As president of Colombia in 1880-1882, and 1884-1886, he proclaimed a fully nationalist program in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List, Henry Carey and Lincoln. It was in this Colombia of Rafael Nunez, that Lesseps began to build the Canal through the Colombian province (state) of Panama.

American Nationalism vs. The State Department

As the republican nationalist group, based in Philadelphia, forged ahead with the industrialization of the United States after the Civil War, they planned for the extension of that construction effort into the republics to the south. William J. Palmer, a gallant freedom fighter before and during the war, projected a railroad route from Colorado through to Mexico City. His intentions regarding Mexico were the same as towards Colorado, whose high-quality, capital-intensive industries he was busy developing.

Palmer absolutely distinguished his plan from that of an imperialist, whose policies either kill or impoverish the victims of his looting. Palmer's project, backed by the Careyite nationalists, was designed to expand wealth-producing capabilities and living standards simultaneously in the United States and Mexico. The 1873 annual report of Palmer's Denver and Rio Grande Railroad stated:

"when the connection is made, an enormous through traffic will spring up between the heart of Mexico, with its harbors on two oceans, and the Rocky Mountain country of the United States -- Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, California....

"[In return for a mass of imports from Mexico, our] New West will....send back a thousand articles of domestic and agricultural use now unknown to the Mexicans -- iron plows, shovels, cooking-stoves, grates, ranges; also mining machinery and implements of all kinds, sugar, cotton, and woolenmills and brick machines, wagons and carriages, general hardware, and all sorts of tools, bar-iron and steel, wire, guns and pistols, pipe, furniture, butter, hams, cheese, lard, grapes, apples, bush and other temperate fruits, not to be had there, wines and brandies from the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico, ice, choice stallions and bulls, etc., to improve their degenerate breeds, cotton and woolen goods, and innumerable other necessities and luxuries from which the people of Mexico have been almost entirely cut off, in consequence of their topographical isolation. The manufactured part of this list, and articles of skill generally, will at first come by this route from Chicago and St. Louis, but in a few years from the works at Canon City, Denver, Pueblo, and Albuquerque, in Colorado and New Mexico.

"In the course of time, as the artisans of Mexico become skilled, as capital there takes a manufacturing turn, as coal mines are opened, and iron works and a more complex kind of manufactures are established, many things will be made there which, for the first few years, must be imported; but, by that time, the very growth which this would indicate will render necessary an interchange manifoldly larger...."

Palmer sought the cooperation of the Mexican government for his railroad construction project. To this end, he agreed to avail himself of the services of Gen. William S. Rosecrans, who had been U.S. ambassador to Mexico in 1868 and 1869. Upon assuming office as U.S. President, Ulysses S. Grant had removed Rosecrans from his post. Grant had earlier removed Rosecrans from his position as commander of the Army of the Cumberland, after Rosecrans' flight from the battlefield of Chickamauga.

Rosecrans stayed on in Mexico, negotiating with the government of President Benito Juarez for railroad concessions. Though Juarez was said to have reached an understanding with Roscrans, Juarez died in July, 1872, and the deal was never fully agreed to by the Mexican government.

Palmer, frustrated in his plans throughout the 1870's, fired Rosecrans as his representative and worked directly with the Mexicans himself, and through his own man James Sullivan. He was able to start work on the Mexican National Railway, of which he was the designer and pioneer builder, only during the 1880's.

The delay, occasioned by Rosecrans' failure to consummate a deal with the Mexicans, was to prove fatal to the cause of republican industrial development of Mexico. The real sponsor of Gen. Palmer's project within Mexico was Mattias Romero, Benito Juarez's ambassador to the U.S. There were, of course, Mexican opponents to the railroad development, who proposed, under blatant British influence, that Mexico "protect itself" from its northern neighbor by depopulating the entire area of northern Mexico, preserving it as a desert through which nothing could be transported!

But beyond this opposition, there was a very ugly, secret side to Rosecrans, which Juarez and other patriotic Mexican leaders probably suspected. This is revealed in a letter, never before published, written from Rosecrans in Mexico City to Secretary of State William Seward, dated Feb. 28, 1869. This was less than a week before the inauguration of President Grant, who would replace both Seward and Rosecrans.

In this letter, which we have copied from the State Department archives, Rosecrans called for the United States to intervene in Mexico in order to overthrow the government of Benito Juarez:

"The present Government of Mexico arrived here and assumed full control of Mexico nearly two years ago....What have they done? By refusing them Amnesty, they have lost the support of that very large and intelligent body of Mexicans compromised by supporting or acquiescing in the Empire [i.e. the European invasion and occupation, 1861-67], and have inspired them with hatred and ill will. They have persecuted the religion of the people[.] Churches whose charitable foundations for the support of schools, hospitals and worship had been confiscated...conscientious people have lost hope as well as confidence in their Justice....They have lost the confidence of all the foreign, and most of the Mexican capitalists and businessmen [Juarez still refused to put payment of foreign debts above the industrial development of his desperately poor people -- AHC], as well as the large property holders....The army is demoralized and discontented; public Justice notoriously retarded or corrupted; the public highways infested with robbers and kidnappers....

"The late experience of European intervention having proven unsuccessful, and our friendship and trade offering more advantages to European nations than any likely to be derived from political intermeddling with the affairs of Mexico, the liberty and the duty of such intervention in its affairs as may be consistent with Justice, humanity, and our own interests, will not only have their consent, but will be urged upon us at no distant day.....

"The present government while apparently the legal representative, neither represents the intelligence, the conscience, the prosperity, or the business of the Nation...

"It is weak, vacillating, corrupt, and while of necessity appearing firmly [sic] to us it fears and secretly opposes the introduction of American Commerce, industry, population and enterprise, and will base its policy on the low passions and prejudices of the Mexicans, and has no firm intention of opening the country to emigration from the United States....

"Officers of the cabinet have advised public creditors to take small percentages on their claims as a full payment. Nor does the future promise better results....While the Government is staggering under the weight of pecuniary difficulties to meet ordinary expenses, all the claims of its domestic and foreign debt qre slumbering, even the interest unpaid. What hope [sic] in this cabinet to meet these impending obligations in which our citizens will soon be largely interested?

"Almost the entire foreign element here, the chief capitalists and large land owners, the Imperialists, and the conscientious Catholic, would be glad to have American intervention in any way, that would place the rule in their hands without bloodshed, robbery, and social overturn...."[emphasis added] [2]

Americans vs. Imperialists in Colorado...

The Drexel-Morgan partnership deliberately created the Panic of 1873 as an attack against what its European patrons viewed as dangerous American expansion of railroads and heavy industry. Other, more direct methods were also used to the same end.[3]

The Northern Pacific Railroad construction had stopped because of Jay Cooke's induced bankruptcy. But Gen. William J. Palmer's continuing mid-continent development program stood out as the boldest American effort, matching that other project of the Philadelphia Interests, Andréw Carnegie's Pittsburgh-area steelworks. Palmer's Denver and Rio Grande Railroad was building westward across the towering Colorado Rockies, and southward from Colorado Springs toward New Mexico; it proposed to continue through Albequerque and El Paso. Then Palmer's line from Mexico City would run up to El Paso, and across from Mexico City to the Pacific. Meanwhile Palmer's organization had begun opening Colorado coal fields, and his Central Colorado Improvement Company founded the town of South Pueblo in 1873, where Palmer would initiate the first iron and steelmaking complex in the American West.

During 1873 the financial group formerly known as the "Boston Concern" pushed its long moribund Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad into action against Palmer, suddenly building across Kansas to Grenada just inside Colorado. Their plan was to physically block Palmer's further construction southward toward Mexico, and westward into the Rockies, while preventing his building rairoads in Mexico that might lead to industrial development there.

The Santa Fe Railroad was owned principally by John Murray Forbes and Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, members of the "Boston Concern" who had made their fortunes selling opium in China. They were backed financially by the Baring Brothers bank in England, sponsor of the world narcotics traffic throughout the nineteenth century. Coolidge's father Joseph had been paid $10 million per year by the Scottish firm Jardine and Matheson to run opium past the Chinese police. Forbes was also the leading organizer of propaganda for Specie Resumption, to replace Abraham Lincoln's government credit expansion policy with absolute credit control by the international banking syndicate.

A Santa Fe subsidiary line pushed through from Grenada to Pueblo, Colorado, in 1875. Palmer's efforts at this time were flagging due to the credit squeeze from the Panic. His D. & R.G. did not reach the area of the Colorado-New Mexico border until 1876. By June, 1877, trains were running across the summit of the Sangre de Cristo mountains at La Veta Pass, 9,300 feet above sea level, higher than anything built so far in Europe or North America. Palmer's famous narrow gauge road made this pioneering mountain construction possible.

Throughout the 1870's, the Boston and allied New York bankers waged financial war on Palmer's enterprise. They bought up his stock from the pinched Philadelphia investors. Eastern bondholders tried to close him down in May 1877, but Palmer managed to win refinancing of his debts.

The fireworks began early in 1878 on the Raton Pass, over which the Denver and Rio Grande intended to extend its line from Trinidad, Colorado, across into New Mexico. Officials of the Santa Fe saw that D. & R.G. men were on their way to Raton Pass, so they rushed a group of armed men to occupy the pass. When Palmer's men arrived they were unable to proceed with their work, and were forced to withdraw.

The D. & R.G. was preparing to build a line from Canon City, through the rugged canyons along the Arkansas River, up into the new booming mining town of Leadville. The Boston men learned of Palmer's intentions by, it is said, intercepting Palmer's April 18, 1878 telegram ordering out a construction crew. Officials and workers of the Santa Fe, heavily armed, deployed overnight to occupy Royal Gorge, just west of Canon City. When Gen. Palmer's crews reached the Gorge, they did not withdraw, but displayed their own weapons and took up positions opposite those of the Santa Fe.

With a physical stalemate, the parties entered into a long court battle over the right-of-way. Financial warfare against Palmer continued, however, particularly in pressure through stock market operations. By October, 1878, Palmer was forced to sign a 30-year lease giving operating control of all his existing lines to the Santa Fe. The unbuilt Royal Gorge line was not included, and the armed standoff there continued.

In June, 1879, Palmer won a writ from a Colorado court authorizing him to reposess his railroad. Not surprisingly, the Bostonians had not wished to operate a Colorado railroad at all, and had broken the lease contract by failing to maintain the D. & R.G., and charging rates that effectively prohibited any freight from travelling on it!

When the Bostonians baldly announced that the Colorado court had no jurisdiction in the case, and then stole the county seal with which the writ was to be stamped, Palmer's forces prepared to move. The Santa Fe complained that Palmer planned violence; according to D. & R.G. historians, the militia was actually called out but refused to budge against Palmer.

On the night of June 11, 1879, copies of the writ were distributed to sheriffs in towns throughout the state. Using his own armed men, and sheriffs who were willing to enforce the writ, Palmer seized all the rail lines, train stations, telegraph offices and work depots of the Denver and Rio Grande system. He travelled through the night on a special military command train.

The biggest fight occured in Pueblo. The Bostonians brought in Bat Masterson, marshall of Dodge City, Kansas, with a gang of thugs. Governor C.A. Hunt, a Palmer ally, marched into Pueblo at the head of several hundred of Palmer's coal miners to confront Masterson's gang. A posse of the Pueblo sheriff shot it out at the train dispatcher's office, and more Palmer troops arrived from Colorado Springs. By morning, the whole rail system was in Palmer's hands.

But the court battle went on inconclusively, In April, 1880, a "compromise" signed by Palmer and Santa Fe President Thomas Jefferson Coolidge was ratified in court. The D. & R.G. would not, for the next ten years, build south of Colorado, but Palmer would legally regain his line and could extend it within Colorado and to the west without Santa Fe interference.

Though the Bostonians had stopped Palmer's drive toward Mexico, he promptly used his new notoriety to raise $50 million to build up Colorado. In the three years 1879 to 1882, Palmer built 908 new miles of railroad within the state. In 1880 the South Pueblo Ironworks began operating a Bessemer steel plant and rolling mill; the first rails were produced in April, 1882. The Colorado Coal and Iron Company produced coal, iron ore, pig iron, steel and rails under Palmer's presidency until 1884.

The New York bankers who had refinanced his debts in 1877 renewed the financial war against Palmer in 1881 and 1882, finally taking control of the D. & R.G. board in 1883; Palmer and his associates were forced to resign. The bankers made no pretense of running a railroad. They squeezed it, took a strike in 1885, and delivered the company into bankruptcy. Palmer's Colorado Coal and Iron Company was eventually taken over by John D. Rockefeller as the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, famous for its violent war with the labor force. No more industrial development on any important scale ever again took place in Colorado after Palmer passed from the scene.

...And South of the Border

Working with concessions granted to Gen. Palmer and his agent James Sullivan, the "Mexican National Construction Company" (a Colorado corporation) began building its line in Mexico under a May, 1881 contract for the "Mexican National Railway Company" (also a Colorado corporation). There was at this moment, as we will see shortly, a flurry of activity under a new American presidential administration committed to rapid progress throughout the Western Hemisphere.

By 1883, Palmer had completed rail lines stretching 255 miles north from Mexico City, and 235 miles south from Nueva Laredo, at the Texas border, to Saltillo. The line from the Pacific Ocean had progressed less than 30 miles when it was halted in November, 1882, for lack of funds.

Under the strain of continual financial warfare by the international bankers, Palmer had written in 1878 to his former assistant Edward H. Johnson, who was then Thomas Edison's business manager:

"Edison's last developments beat Aladdin completely. I always declared he could invent anything he wanted to. Give him my compliments, and tell him I wish he would discover for me some mode of building a railway to Mexico without money."[4]

While Palmer was strapped for cash, the Boston group struck in Mexico. From sympathetic parties in the Mexican governemnt, they took over the concession that had previously been granted to Palmer for a rail line from El Paso to Mexico City, forcing Palmer to commence his line from further east, at Nueva Laredo. The Bostonians also got the right to build a Mexico City-Pacific Coast line, generally following the original concession to Palmer.

Though Palmer had surveyed Mexico's rail lines from the beginnning, and had begun construction, he was, at last, completely stalled in Mexico and he was frozen out. His own Mexican National Railway Company was reorganized by British bondholders in 1886.

The lines he was building, and those of the Bostonians, were completed so far as he had mapped them out. The Mexican government took national control over the railroads early in the 20th century. But Palmer's planned use of the rail lines, for industrial development, was aborted in Mexico as it had been in the American Rockies.

Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, whose money had stopped Palmer's railroad from connecting Colorado and Mexico, founded the United Fruit Company in 1899. Coolidge combined Boston-British opium money and the muscle of New Orleans-based Russian immigrant mafiosi. His United Fruit was to carry out the plans of which the secessionist Knights of the Golden Circle had spoken only in secret, hushed tones. Under Teddy Roosevelt's manic glare, tropical countries would become giant plantations, but yielding bananas or coffee instead of cotton. They would not be permitted to follow the liberating example of the United States of America, though the U.S.A. then still remembered how it had recently fought its way to industrial greatness.

Before this tragic lapse in America's Promethean mission, the republican forces were to make one last great stand. The showdown would come in 1881.

The Light of the World?

Thomas Edison was moving heaven and earth, around the clock, to prepare the New York installation of the world's first electric power system. But on election night, in November, 1880, Edison arranged for a brilliant demonstration of the lights surrounding his Menlo Park laboratory, to celebrate the victory of James A. Garfield for President.

Garfield took office in March of 1881, with his chosen Secretary of State James G. Blaine. Abraham Lincoln had been murdered 16 years before, and the friends of Lincoln's nationalist program had struggled to keep the country going forward. Now, particularly with Blaine in Washington, the Americans were once again in the driver's seat in their own country. Europe, and Ibero-America, were tense with expectation.

James Blaine (1830-1893) was born and bred a Pennsylvania Whig. His great-grandfather, Col. Ephraim Blaine, was Commissary General for the Continental Army in Pennsylvania, and fought the cheapskates, thieves and traitors to sustain General Washington's starving army at Valley Forge.

James Blaine's father lived in Western Pennsylvania as a merchant from 1817 on. The family profited from the development of coal lands in the Pittsburgh area. James' mother's sister was married to Thomas Ewing, the renowned Whig Party leader over in Lancaster, Ohio; it was in this Ewing family that young James lived for two years, from 1841 to 1843, spent many other visiting months, and from which he derived his political identity.

As a U.S. Senator in 1836, Thomas Ewing got his stepson, William Tecumseh Sherman, into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; James and the other children called the future general, "Gump." Blaine's Uncle Thomas Ewing was the Treasury Secretary for President William Henry Harrison in 1841, and was prepared to reinstitute the Bank of the United States when Harrison died mysteriously after a month in office. He was Secretary of the Interior under President Zachary Taylor beginning in 1849, but left when Taylor, likewise, died of a mysterious stomach ailment in 1850. The embattled nationalist politics and tradition of Henry Clay of Kentucky were the daily preoccupations of the Ewing and Blaine households, as they were with Clay's follower Abraham Lincoln in Illinois.

Blaine went to college in Kentucky, then moved to Maine. There as a journalist and congressman he fervently supported the war for the Union, while President Lincoln revived and expanded the nationalist policies of the too-soon-dead Harrison and Taylor. Lincoln's outright murder in 1865 profoundly shocked James Blaine, hardening his anti-British resolve. From 1869 to 1876, during the two terms of President Grant, Blaine was Speaker of the U.S. House of Represenatives.

By the 1870's Blaine was the main political representative of his fellow Pennsylvania pro-industrial republicans. He was the close friend of steelmaker Andréw Carnegie; of banker Jay Cooke; of Henry Carey's sidekick, ironmaster Joseph Wharton; and of Tom Scott, Union military railroad organizer and Pennsylvania R.R. executive. They all helped sponsor Blaine's career against the constant howlings of the London, Boston and New York financial communities.

Secretary of State Blaine, recongized as the national leader of the Lincoln Republicans, functioned as the de facto Prime Minister for President James Garfield. Blaine's political program was simple: The U.S. government would promote the development of industry and new technology; in the United States, by high tariffs and subsidies to American shipping; and throughout the Americas, by the construction of North-South railroads, the interoceanic canal, reciprocal trade agreements, and the protection of the hemisphere from imperialist Europe.

The entire hemisphere, from the U.S.A. down to the southern tip of South America, was all at once a theatre of battle, between the American industrial system and the plantation, or colonial system, as the American Civil War had been.

President Rafael Nunez of Colombia was denounced as "half a Yankee" by his opponents. Certainly the canal Ferdinand de Lesseps was building through Colombia's Panama state would benefit the Yankees, in particular their navy. And the U.S. did play a great role in the construction effort -- all the mechanics were Americans, and most of the laboreres were English-speaking blacks, from Jamaica and from the U.S. But with the world commerce that should soon throng to Colombia, Dr. Nunez planned to make his country an industrial power. The government must build railroads to unify the traditionally isolated mock-sovereign states of the Columbian federation. He had already created a national bank on the model of Hamilton and Colbert. Tariffs and trade alliances with neighboring countries would be used as weapons to develop native industry.

The canal construction crews arrived in 1881 under the watchful eye of the British consul in Panama, Claude Coventry Mallet -- of that marvelous clan of British-Swiss master spies who created Aaron Burr, the Scottish Rite and other anti-Hispanic adventurers. The British oligarchs and their friends struck Colombia with fury over the next several years. Financial sabotage by the international bankers magnifified the Canal Company's difficulties with malaria and yellow fever. Colombia's Liberal Party directed an insurrection against President Nunez, led by Free Trade advocates such as the Samper family -- still politically prominent today in the person of narcotics banker Samper Pisano. They invoked the "states rights" doctrine that Nunez had heard from the slaveocracy in the U.S.A., and they likewise threw Colombia into civil war.

During 1885 terrorist mobs, under the thin cover of "anti-centralism", attacked and burned canal construction centers. President Nunez had allied his faction to the Conservative Party to fight the war. By his bitter victory, Nunez was able to proclaim a unified nation, the Republic of Colombia, under a new constitution which has lasted exactly 100 years to the present time.

But the French-led canal effort was crippled. At the 1886 ceremonies dedicating the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French to the American people, Ferdinand de Lesseps reminded his audience that his father had made the first commercial treaty between the two allies more than a half century before. But there was "nobody home" in Washington, no one who could respond to a plea for aid in the failing republican project. The United States had already effectively lost control of its government -- it had been shot away, in combat in Peru.

America's War of the Pacific

There was one rail system in the world higher than William Palmer's Denver & Rio Grande. It traversed the mountain spine of the hemisphere about 3,500 miles southeast of Colorado, in the Peruvian Andes. Engineer Henry Meigs had come down from California to build the breathtaking lines for the Peruvian government in the 1860's and 1870's; the Central railroad crossed the Andes at 15,865 feet.

The great industrial potential of the region was thus just beginning to be developed, when Peru and Bolivia were invaded by the armed forces of Chile, a client state of Great Britain. The ostensible purpose of the Chileans and their British backers in this War of the Pacific was to grab the southern provinces of Peru, and Bolivia's narrow corridor to the sea. This land was rich in nitrate and guano deposits valuable for fertilizer.

The war aims of the invaders, however, soon emerged as nothing less than the destruction of the Peruvian nationality. Like Colombia, and like the ill-fated Paraguayans back in the 1860's, Peru had dared to aim for national industrial development -- with help from those meddlesome Americans.

When the Garfield-Blaine administration started in 1881, Peru had been utterly defeated. Chilean troops occupied the entire coast and had taken Lima in January.

The British-led foreign diplomatic community -- including the U.S. ambassador, Isaac Christiancy -- clamored for Peruvians to accept the inevitable, that they should cede their nitrate provinces, and agree to whatever terms the conquerors imposed. The British recognized a self-appointed dictator named Pierola as a Peruvian head of state, but no constitutional government.

The Peruvian army had disintegrated, which may have had as much to do with treason as with the respective military abilities of the Peruvians and the Chileans. The false-flag W.R. Grace company had served as chief supplier and military advisor to the Peruvian government, while a "pacifist" party in Peru had demobilized and demoralized the country.

With hindsight and the resources of history we are in perhaps a better position today, than were the Peruvians a century ago, to know the precise identity of the W.R. Grace and Company. The Grace family published a lavishly decorated book [5] in 1911, to honor their own wealth and noble lineage. They claim descent from important females going back to 600 A.D. [sic], and importent males back to 1000 A.D.

The family had long served the British as overlords, of the Catholic persuasion, over a section of the peasant population of Ireland. Along came Oliver Cromwell's 1640's revolt against the British crown, and the Grace's estate was taken from them. Some of the menfolk who had fought "the damned republicans" went wandering in Continental Europe, aiding the Catholic Hapsburgs and the exiled Stuart family with newly learned arts of intrigue and cultish underground organization.

With the Restoration the Graces were back in clover, but only temporarily. The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 put Catholics in disfavor. Still threatened with dispossession, the head of the Grace family sought help from his cousin, the Duke of Buckingham. "See here, old chap, there are Catholics...and there are Catholics..." The Duke understood just what Grace meant, and went to plead his case in the House of Lords. This left his visiting cousin alone in Buckingham Palace (this was before it was bought as a residence by King George III) with the Duke's young daughter, who was promptly impregnated. When the Duke discovered the facts, he evicted Grace and dropped his case.

In this frankly humiliating fashion, the Grace family lost some 38,000 acres of choice Irish land and any reputation in Polite British Society. They were forced to readopt the mercenary ways of exile. Indeed, they made a growing fortune as attornies, as landless merchants, and as secret intelligence agents. But their family tradition nourished a hatred against the republican rabble and others who had wronged them, and a burning ambition to recover the noble, ordered world of the past.

William Russell Grace (1832-1904) arrived in Peru with his father, James, in 1851. They brought along 200 Irish servants to work sugar fields. William and his brother Michael used family contacts to develop Grace Brothers & Company into the major British trading firm in western South America. They controlled virtually all shipping on the Pacific Coast, and in coordination with bankers in Lima, Santiago and London, they were the pivot on which rested British political power in the region.

In 1865, after the Americans fought their way back from the British-supplied Southern Rebellion, William Grace established a residence in New York City. He organized W.R. Grace & Co. as a branch of his family's British firm in Peru and London. In 1879 his allies John M. Forbes and the Morgan-Rothschild banking syndicate forced Specie Resumption on the Americans, to squeeze off their credit. Then in 1880, without displaying even a hint of embarrassment, William R. Grace ran for Mayor of New York. Some troublemakers brought up a potential conflict in that "the pirate of Peru" did not appear to be an American citizen. [6] But Grace was in fact elected mayor when Garfield was elected President!

It was into this badly deteriorated situation that Secretary of State James Blaine resolved to intervene with American power. He sent, as minister to Peru, a man in whom he reposed absolute trust. Stephen Augustus Hurlbut had been a political fellow warrior by the side of Abraham Lincoln in Illinois from at least the time of the state Whig convention of 1847. Hurlbut had fought valiantly as a Union general throughout the Civil War[7]. He had served as the first national president of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union veterans organization, as Grant's ambassador to Colombia, and as a Republican congressman.

Stephen Hurlbut, in short, was not a professional diplomat, and cared little about the opinions of enemies of his country. When, in early May, 1881, Secretary Blaine designated Hurlbut to go to Peru, his intentions were obvious to his opponents. On May 23, 1881, Charles J. Guiteau sent a letter to President Garfield:

"...Mr. Blaine is a wicked man, and you ought to demand his immediate resignation; otherwise you and the Republican party will come to grief."[8]

Guiteau shot President Garfield in the Washington train station on July 2, 1881, 4 months after he had taken office. The President did not immediately die, however, and as he lingered, Stephen Hurlbut arrived at his post in Peru.

What is known about Guiteau may be quickly summarized. [9] His father was a devotee of the famous communist cultist John Humphrey Noyes. In 1860, instead of going to college, Charles was sent to Niagara Falls, Canada, and was escorted into the commune run by Noyes in Oneida, New York. Here Guiteau was brainwashed for the entire duration of the Civil War, emerging in 1865.

John Noyes was a sadist, the son of a Tory Federalist Congressman from New Hampshire who sided with the British during the War of 1812; the Noyes fmaily were notorious in Massachusetts during the Revolution as British loyalists, resentful enemies of American independence.

The commune in which Charles Guiteau was destroyed was run on the following lines. All wives were common sexual property, and all sex acts were the subject of official community "criticism" sessions in which each individual was in turn ripped up by his shared mate. John Noyes personally sexually initiated the children of the commune's inmates. Murder was perhaps not a spectacular crime to Oneida graduates, since at their seances they learned that people do not really die after all.[10]

Guiteau's mindbenders were one group among a number of similar operations superintended by Laurence Oliphant, a top British intelligence officer who came to reside on another cult commune in upstate New York toward the end of the Civil War. Coming from service in insurrections throughout urope, and a stint as subcommander of the 2nd Opium War against China, Oliphant had responsibility for recruiting those likely to aid in the "reform of America's corrupt political life;" one of his more famous recruits had been the cynical historian Henry Adams, back in London.

Oliphant conducted his seances, worked with the Western Union organization, and established a vast array of American political and commercial contacts, while Charles Guiteau wandered about, brainless, in the criminal subculture, doing as his "inspiration" directed. Guiteaus's inspiration to murder the president, he told the court, came to him on May 18, 1881.

America and Peru, vs. the Bankers

Upon arriving in Lima, Stephen Hurlbut[11] announced that the United States of America recognized Garcia Calderon as the constitutional president of Peru. He wrote back to Blaine that he would not be following the "questionable habit" of his predecessor, "of calling together the diplomatic corps, and taking counsel on almost all questions, which practically emascualted the United States." The British, in particular, were howling that Hurlbut was "breaking ranks" by recognizing a government that they didn't recognize. Hurlbut immediately set about strengthening national resistance to the invasion, and support for Calderon, who had been chosen by the underground Peruvian nationalist leadership.

Soon after his arrival, Hurlbut sent a memorandum to the Chilean commander, Admiral Lynch, stating that the U.S. would not look kindly upon the breaking up of Peruvian territory. Lynch immediately took this memo to the British and French ambassadors, and two hours later the ambassadors went to see President Calderon -- whose government they had not recognized. They told Calderon that, using their good offices, the Chileans might be persuaded to withdraw, without demanding the cession of territory.

Hurlbut had in fact given a copy of the memorandum to President Calderon as well as to the Chilean commander, so Calderon was able to see the sequence of events and to laugh at the British, who until the Americans butted in had insisted that Peru must surrender its territory.

President Garfield died on Sept. 19, 1881. Hurlbut wrote back to Blaine for instructions. Blaine said only that Hurlbut should persist in the recognition of Calderon. Hurlbut persisted. Enraged Chileans reported that Hurlbut used the U.S.S. "Alaska" to land a brother of President Calderon in Mollendo, with money and instructions for Peruvian resistance fighters. [12] He criticized and counteracted the unwholesome situation in the U.S. legation in Chile: the American ambassador there, Judson Kilpatrick, was mortally ill, and his wife, the daughter of a Chilean government official, represented "American" policy on behalf of the Chileans and British. The Chilean military, meanwhile, arrested Peruvian President Calderon and took him away to Santiago.

On November 29, 1881, Secretary Blaine, still in office, called for a peace conference of all republics in the Western Hemisphere, to convene in Washington one year later. This was the last important exposition of the Monroe Doctrine, representing the thinking of both murdered American presidents with whom Blaine had been associated.

> Face to Face

Ambassador Hurlbut had discussed with the Peruvians the establishment of a coaling station at Chimbote for American naval vessels. He wrote to Blaine on Dec. 7, 1881:

"Sir Spencer St. John the English Minister is behaving very singularly and indecorously in these affairs. He learned the other day in a very vague form, something about the Chimbote Protocol, and has proceeded to the singular length of writing out the points of a 'Secret Treaty' between the United States and Peru, which he is exhibiting in clubs and other public places and which he induces people to believe is genuine.

"In the same spirit he has induced the Chilean authorities to believe or to affect to believe that a 'Secret Treaty' of vast importance has in fact been executed, giving in ownership to the United States the entire bay of Chimbote, and some square miles of territory, and the Rail Road with exclusive civil and military jurisdiction and power to erect fortifications, besides many other exclusive privileges."

Hurlbut wrote to Blaine on Dec. 11, 1881:

"In my last [dispatch] I mentioned the extraordinary conduct of Sir Spencer St. John the British Minister. I have learned since that time that the Chilian government has acted upon this information, and that they have telegraphed to their several Diplomatic agents in America and europe in accordance with the false and exaggerated information furnished them from that source. I am also informed, though I scarcely believe it, that the English, French and Italian ministers here, have given like information to their respective governments. The purpose of these communications is to give color to the idea of annexation or at least protectorate [i.e. over Peru] on the part of the United States.

"Stimulated undoubtedly by this same information, the Chilian Military authorities of this city made a domiciliary visit to the house of Mr. Calderon, occupied by his wife and family, and instituted a severe but ineffectual search for the alleged Treaty. They arrested Mr. Velarde, one of Calderon's late ministers, and demanded a literal copy. Mr. Velarde stated that he had no such document in his possession. They then pressed him to ask for a copy from me....

"Having made up my mind that all this came from the indiscreet and indecent action of Sir Spencer St. John, I addressed him an official note...dated 9 Dec. 1881. This note was sent to him at 8:30 A.M. [Dec. 10] and at 10:30 A.M. he came to my house, and we had the interview, a statement of which I enclose....It is apparent that his sole object was, to make mischief and create an ill feeling throughout America and in Europe against the United States."

The note to St. John read, "I have been informed by several gentlemen of good standing that for some time past, you have exhibited in places of public resort a supposed version of an assumed treaty between Peru and the United States....I request you to admit the representative of the United States into the confidence, you have so liberally bestowed upon the public, and to furnish me a copy of the version alluded to...."

Describing the visit of the British ambassador:

"Mr. St. John came to my house and stated. That he had just received my letter. That he had shown to several persons a draft of a supposed treaty, which he himself had noted down, consisting of six articles. That he had done it as a joke to show the credulity of the Peruvians by embodying in form the rumors currently on the streets. That it was never intended to be serious, and that he had so informed every one to whom he had shown it. That the propositions were so absurd that he never supposed any one would believe them. That he had destroyed the paper and consequently could not give me a copy."

On Dec. 12, 1881, James Blaine was fired as U.S. Secretary of State. His replacement, Frederick Frelinghuysen, immediately cancelled the proposed hemispheric peace conference, to which many nations had already enthusiatically responded, on the grounds that it would invite "European jealousy and ill will"! Blaine later wrote an open letter to President Arthur: "If that movement [for a hemishperic peace congress] is now to be arrested for fear it may give offence in Europe, the voluntary humiliation of the United States could not be more complete, unless we should petition European Governments for the privilege of holding the Congress."[13]

Representative Perry Belmont arranged for a special Congressional investigation, chaired by himself, to investigate the supposed corruption of James Blaine and Stephen Hurlbut. He said he had been slipped revealing information to this effect by the Peruvian ambassador to Washington.

Congressman Belmont's father, banker August Belmont, reflected the British "joke" about America trying to rob Peru, and remarked with relief: "the country might have been plunged into a war with Peru if poor Garfield had not been assassinated. Blaine is about the most unscrupulous politician we ever had since Aaron Burr." [14]

August Belmont was the official American representative of the Rothschilds, and had been the consul general of the Hapsburgs in America. His son Perry was the law partner of George Frelinghuysen, the son of the new Secretary of State. Without blushing, they had their law office in August Belmont's bank building.

Stephen Hurlbut was supposed to testify at Congressman Belmont's hearing, which might have blown out some circuits. But a letter arrived in Washington from U.S. Naval personnel in the U.S. legation in Lima, dated March 28th, 1882:

"A Post-Mortem has this day been held upon the remains of Stephen A. Hurlbut, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America in Peru....[The] slight organic lesions, the only ones found, do not of themselves prove the cause of death; but in connection with the symptoms which preceded death...satisfy us that Stephen A. Hurlbut, died suddenly at the American Legation, Lima, Peru, on March 27th 1882, and that the cause of death was Angina pectoris."

Former Secretary of State James Blaine testified at Belmont's Congressional hearing:

"The Chilian Government has put up by advertisement 1,000,000 tons of guano, which I suppose is worth $60,000,000 in Liverpool and they pledge themselves in the advertisement to pay one-half of it into the Bank of England for the benefit of the English bondholders who put up the job of this war on Peru. It was a put-up job; that is all there was to it; it was loot and booty. It had not as much excuse in this as Hastings and Clive had in India, and England sweeps it all in....The iron-clads that destroyed the Peruvian navy were furnished by England....It is a perfect mistake to speak of this as a Chilian war on Peru. It is an English war on Peru, with Chili as the instrument, and I take the responsibility of that assertion. Chili would never have gone into this war one inch but for her backing by English capital, and there was never anything played out so boldly in the world as when they came to divide the loot and the spoils."[15]

James Blaine was the Republican nominee for President in 1884. New York Mayor W.R. Grace organized the support of the financial community for Blaine's successful opponent, Grover Cleveland. Young Theodore Roosevelt followed the advice of Henry Cabot Lodge and stayed a Republican, so he could help defeat Blaine from within the Party.

The broken government of Peru signed the Grace-Donoughmore Contract in 1890. English bondholders, legally represented by former New York Mayor W.R. Grace, secured a mortgage on the nation of Peru. In exchange for their bonds, they "received outright the silver mines of Cerro de Pasco; the entire output of the guano deposits; five million acres of land containing valuable oil and mineral deposits; as well as the lease of two railways for sixty six years..." [16] No more railroads were ever built in Peru. The southern provinces were annexed by Chile. Peru has remained in poverty, hostage to W.R. Grace and Co. and allied banking interests.

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States upon the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, six months after McKinley and Roosevelt were elected. He reversed all the policies of American republican leaders going back to George Washington. He made war on Ibero America, and closed the American West to further settlement.

Rafael Nunez of Colombia had learned from Abraham Lincoln's battle for the Union, that his nation must be unified for survival. President Teddy Roosevelt, whose family had helped lead the slaveowners' rebellion against the United States, hired a pretend insurrection, for the secession of Colombia's Panama State. His "Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine" spit on the graves of Blaine, and Hurlbut, and Lincoln, and the Americans who died for freedom in the Civil War; T.R. declared that the U.S.A. would enforce debt collections for international bankers, including Grace and his bank -- now known as Citibank.

In response to Peruvian President Alan Garcia's defiance of the International Monetary Fund, the Washington Post of August 21, 1986, editorialized that:

"Peru's current economic decline is a case of bad luck compounded by bad management....The present foreign debt crisis is Peru's eighth since the early 19th century." On the same page, they reproduce a message from the State Department: "Because many Latin Americans have an emotional need to cast stones at foreigners, the myth of imperialist exploitation has grown over the years to extraordinary proportions. Powerful foreigners are thought to be tirelessly scheming to impoverish and subjugate Latin America."

For a long time the Post treated its readers to the campaign of William Russell Grace's grandson, current W.R. Grace President Peter Grace, to cure America's budget deficit with killer austerity. Grace was the "tirelessly scheming" author of the nightmare Gramm-Rudman law, which in today's economic crisis will blow up the U.S.A. like a hydrogen bomb if it is not reversed.

Americans are ready to take back control of their own affairs from the Eastern Liberal Establishment, from Teddy Roosevelt's Trust. It is a nation worth fighting for. It is an idea of the freedom to develop, a global concept which may not in fact be realized until America is once again in American hands.

Footnotes

1. Quoted in Nunez, Rafael, Ensayos Vol. 2: La Reforma Politica En Colombia, published by the Colombian Ministry of Education, 1944, p. xii-xv.

2. This letter is in the microfilmed file of the U.S. legation in Mexico, in the Archives of the United States, Washington, D.C.

3. The account provided here of the Colorado railroad war is taken from Fisher, John S., A Builder of the West: The Life of General William Jackson Palmer, The Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, 1939; and from the Colorado Springs Gazette, commemorative editions from 1901 through 1909, and other newspapers, whose coverage of Palmer is contained in the Palmer Papers microfilm by the Colorado Historical Society which is on deposit in the Pennsylvania State Library, Harrisburg.

4. Palmer, writing from the President's Office of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, 216 S. 4th St., Philadelphia, to E. H. Johnson, March 8, 1878; in the Edison National Archives, West Orange, New Jersey.

5. The Family of Grace, London, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1911, a copy of which is in the Library of Congress, Rare Book division.

6. See the New York Times, various editions in September and October, 1880. Grace said nothing on his citizenship, but the Times thought the matter was settled by the fact that Grace had briefly visited New York many years earlier, as a teenager.

7. We are reliably informed that Gen. Hurlbut had in his command, in the Sixteenth Corps, Army of the Tennessee, the loyal and efficient services of Private James Avery Benton, great-great-grandfather of Mr. Nicholas Benton, the current director of the Washington D.C. office of this newspaper.

8. From the printed copy in the Garfield papers, Library of Congress, excerpted in Peskin, Allan, Garfield, Kent State University Press, 1978, p. 591.

9. See United States of America vs. Charles J. Guiteau, 1881, Library of Congress.

10. Estlake, Allan The Oneida Community: A Record of an Attempt to Carry Out the Principles of Christian Unselfhishness and Scientific Race-Improvement, London, Geroge Redway, 1900.

11. See the correspondence from the American legation in Peru to the Secretary of State, August, 1881 to March, 1882, on microfilm in the Archinves of the United States.

12. The Valparaiso Times of December 24, 1881, reported in Millington, Herbert, American Diplomacy and the War of the Pacific, New York, Octagon Books, 1975, p. 93.

13. Quoted in Hamilton, Gail, Biography of James G. Blaine, The Henry Bill Publishing Co., Norwich, Conn., 1895, p. 521. This is the only decent biography of Blaine, written by his neice -- at whose Washington house Thomas A. Edison first demonstrated the phonograph to the assembled U.S. Congressmen.

14. Quoted in Black, David, The King of Fifth Avenue; The Fortunes of August Belmont, The Dial Press, New York, 1981, p. 645.

15. Sketch of William Russell Grace, Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1931. The very same article declares that Grace "conducted a reform administration" as mayor of New York.

by Lawrence K. Freeman

Printed in The American Almanac, July 14, 1997.

It is now fifty-two years since the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We can only speculate on what the world would have looked like, had Roosevelt lived, after the end of the Second World War. However, what we will document in the following report, is that Roosevelt was determined to force the British to dismantle their colonial empire, and to bend to Roosevelt's American System policies--to be dictated by the United States, at the end of the war.

Roosevelt had intended to use his relationship with Joseph Stalin, the leader of Russia, and Chiang Kai-shek of China, to forge a new postwar alliance: a ``Grand Strategy'' to free the world of the colonial methods of the British, French, and Dutch empires. After Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945, there followed a dramatic turn, away from this perspective, when Harry S Truman became President, and subordinated U.S. strategic policy to the then-weakened, and defeatable, British Empire.

Now a half-century later, Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., world-renowned statesman and physical economist, is working, as the world careens toward disintegration of the global financial and monetary system, to resurrect a new anti-British alliance for a new just world economic order. LaRouche is organizing for a Roosevelt-type alliance today, with Russia and China, to free the world of domination by the same, albeit ``modernized,'' but no-less-evil British Empire. LaRouche's efforts today to bring about this new strategic realignment, although premised on a more profound philosophical understanding, is, nevertheless, historically coherent with Roosevelt's wartime policy towards Britain, and his plans for the postwar period.

But, today, we dare not fail, as we did in 1945. Failure to crush the British Empire's political and financial power in the world today, will be devastating for humanity. Such a failure will guarantee that the world will enter a New Dark Age, as we approach the third millennium.

Truman's capitulation to the British at the end of the war, and his subservience to the United Nations, as an instrument of world power, was completely antagonistic to Roosevelt's anti-British postwar grand strategy. Because the British succeeded in maintaining their Empire after 1945, when they were about to be put in their place by Roosevelt, the world has needlessly suffered through a series of disasters: the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Churchill's instigation of the Cold War and the age of Nuclear Terror; the rock-drug-sex counterculture; and the destruction of the world economy.

Yet, with sufficient positive impulse for development in the world, and enough stored-up capital wealth available, civilization has been able to survive over the past fifty years. That is no longer the case today. We are at the end of the line, so to speak. We are at a historicaldiscontinuity. Either we succeed, behind LaRouche's leadership, to force the British to submit to a new alliance of sovereign nation-states, i.e., what Roosevelt had intended, had he lived, or civilization, as we know it, will cease to exist.

For that reason, this report provides a clear picture of the undeniable, fundamental conflict between the American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the war period from 1941-1945. Since the death of Franklin Roosevelt, this unresolved conflict, between the principles of the sovereign nation-state, represented by the United States, and the oligarchical nature of the British Empire, has, unlike any other conflict in modern times, acted to ``determine'' in one way or another, every significant policy decision, by every nation on this planet for the last fifty years.

There Will Not be Another World War

Roosevelt formed a military alliance with Great Britain, to win the war against Hitler's Third Reich, but he had plans to create a different world, after the war--a world without colonialism. He was acutely aware of the danger, that unless colonialism were finally eradicated, another world war was virtually inevitable. Unfortunately, Roosevelt's grand design for the creation of new, independent nations to populate the world, did not come to be, after the war, due to Truman's capitulation to the British.

Roosevelt's understanding of the threat posed to world peace by the continuation of imperialism, was recorded by his son Elliott in his book, As He Saw It. FDR told his son,

``The colonial system means war. Exploit the resources of an India, a Burma, a Java; take all the wealth out of these countries, but never put anything back into them, things like education, decent standards of living, minimum health requirements--all you're doing is storing up the kind of trouble that leads to war. All you're doing is negating the value of any kind of organizational structure for peace before it begins.''

At the Casablanca conference in January of 1943, Roosevelt was even more emphatic:

``I'm talking about another war. I'm talking about what will happen to our world, if after this war we allow millions of people to slide back into the same semi-slavery! Don't think for a moment, Elliott, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight, if it hadn't been for the shortsighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch. Shall we allow them to do it all, all over again? Your son will be about the right age, fifteen or twenty years from now.''

Roosevelt understood the danger that British imperial policies posed to the world, and he was acutely aware that he would have to deal with this threat, in a forceful manner, at the conclusion of the war. In 1942, Roosevelt quipped, prophetically, to one of his advisors:

``We will have more trouble with Great Britain after the war than we are having with Germany now.''

Roosevelt's ``Four Freedoms''

On January 5, 1941 Roosevelt stood before the Congress, and spoke of ``a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union.'' He presented, as a single concept, both the domestic program for the United States and the principles of his global ``grand design.'' First he spelled out his economic bill of rights:

• Equality of opportunity for youth and for others;

• Jobs for those who can work;

• Security for those who need it;

• The ending of special privilege for the few;

• The preservation of civil liberties for all;

• The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

Roosevelt then articulated the four freedoms that were later that year embodied in the Atlantic Charter.

``In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon the four essential human freedoms:

``The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.

``The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.

``The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants--everywhere in the world,

``The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world."

Roosevelt adds, ``That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our time and generation.''

Two years later, in 1943, Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address, recognized that the American people, ``were wondering a little about the third freedom--the freedom from want.'' They wanted, ``assurance that will extend from the cradle to the grave.'' Roosevelt's economic policies echoed the fifth clause of the Atlantic Charter.

Both Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, and the Atlantic Charter were governed by the same principles as those found in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

In his ``Second Bill of Rights,'' in 1944, Roosevelt once again made clear his hopes for the postwar period: ``And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in theimplementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well being.... ''

The Atlantic Charter: Roosevelt's Grand Design

The fundamental and unbridgeable difference between the United States and the British Empire, is the fact that the United States represents, if imperfectly, the embodiment of the nation-state, and that Great Britain is the modern form of the Venetian oligarchical system of rule. Roosevelt's thinking derives, in part, from the fact that he was born in the last quarter of the 19th century (1882), a period whose culture was dominated by Henry Carey's and Abraham Lincoln's ``American Nationalist Party.''

The assassination of the anti-British U.S. President McKinley at the turn of the century, ended a period (with ebbs and flows) of about 125 years following the Declaration of Independence, of a distinctively American, anti-British world view. It was this heritage, among other factors, that led Roosevelt to envision the postwar period, as a decisive shift away from British colonial policy, to those principles consistent with the American System of Political Economy. International relations among countries would no longer be driven by oligarchical-geopolitical methods, but would instead promote the rights of all nations to develop, according to principles of national sovereignty, guided by a commitment to foster economic growth by maximizing the rate of scientific and technological progress. This would require projectionist and national banking measures to provide for the development of the essential agro-industrial sectors, along with meeting vital infrastructure needs of each nation.

It was obvious to Churchill and the British establishment, that Roosevelt's American Century vision of the postwar period was antithetical to the very existence of their Empire. It came down to this: the determination of the American President to nurture the existence of a community of republican nation-states in opposition to British insistence on maintaining their oppressive colonial system.

This fundamental conflict was more than evident at their meeting in August 1941 at Argentia, Newfoundland, before America's entry into the war. Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the American President, Franklin Roosevelt, had heated conversations over the burning issue of Roosevelt's insistence on guaranteeing sovereignty for those nations still controlled by the colonial empires. Churchill was forced to sign the Atlantic Charter, with its eight articles outlining the principles of freedom and economic development to ensure peace, ``after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny.''

Churchill made clear his reluctance to sign the Charter, when he said to FDR,

``Mr. President, I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire. Every idea you entertain about the structure of the postwar world demonstrates it. But in spite of that, we know that you constitute our only hope. And you know that weknow it. You know that we know that without America, the Empire won't stand.''

There were many fights between the American outlook: a commitment to republican principles concomitant with global economic infrastructural development, and the British insistence that their colonial empire remain intact after the war. For Roosevelt, the Atlantic Charter embodied in embryonic form, his grand strategy for the future, which he maneuvered the recalcitrant Churchill to support.

The Charter, signed by Churchill and Roosevelt on August 12, 1941, outlined the basic rights of nations to independence, peace, economic development and freedom from tyranny. It was seen by those people around the globe, struggling under the brutal boot of colonialism, as a sign of hope. They were inspired by the outlook of the American President and what he had uniquely put forward in the Charter.

As word of its signing spread, Roosevelt became a hero to oppressed people all over the world for his opposition to the imperialist policies of the British, French, and Dutch. Sumner Welles, Roosevelt's Assistant Secretary of State, who worked closely with the President on the wording of the Charter commented years later:

``The principles he had proclaimed in the Atlantic Charter were regarded as a source of hope and as a guarantee of a better day to come.''

Author William Roger Louis, in his book Imperialism at Bay, reports that the original formulation of Article III, authored by Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, read:

``Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; they are only concerned to defend the rights of freedom of speech and thought without which such choice might be illusory.''

Roosevelt added the phrase, ``and they hope that self-government may be restored to those from whom it has been forcibly removed,'' because he thought it was more important to emphasize the restoration of self-government, than to simply defend freedom of speech.

Louis argues that Churchill, in turn, added the phrase ``sovereign rights,'' as an escape clause, to make it inapplicable to the dependent British Empire,'' because the British never considered their possessions, dominions, and colonies, to be sovereign.

The final version of Article III adopted at the conference reads as follows:

``Third, they respect the rights of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.''

British leadership correctly understood that Roosevelt was attempting to use the language of the Atlantic Charter to force an end to British colonialism. As early as 1941, FDR was acting on what he wanted the future--the postwar period--to look like. In the Atlantic Charter, which embodied the principles of sovereign self-government, Roosevelt was was planting the seeds for that future.

The British wanted to believe that the principles of the Atlantic Charter only applied to ``self-government'' for the Nazi-occupied nations, but they knew that Roosevelt emphatically intended to include the colonies of the British Empire. The British Colonial Secretary Lord Moyne tried to convince the War Cabinet of the dangers involved in endorsing the principle of self-determination outlined in Article III, stipulating that it only applied to those ``still not in need of political tutelage.''

Lord Moyne's self-serving interpretation of Article III was that,

``it was, of course used as is obvious from the context, with the nations of Europe in mind. But in the colonies we cannot admit the right of unfettered choice to those who, in the words of the League of Nations Covenant, are `not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world.'|''

The British War Cabinet had the same response:

``The view generally expressed was that the Atlantic Charter ... was directed to the nations of Europe whom we hoped to free from Nazi tyranny, and was not intended to deal with internal affairs of the British Empire.... ''

Although Roosevelt eventually prevailed, he also had sharp disagreements with Churchill over Article IV of the Charter, which reflected the same essential conflict. Roosevelt, working with Sumner Welles in Argentia, in drafting the Atlantic Charter re-wrote Article IV to read:

``Fourth, they will endeavor to further the enjoyment by all peoples to access, without discrimination and on equal terms, to the markets and to raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity.''

It was Roosevelt's personal addition of words ``without discrimination'' and ``of the world,'' that Churchill raised objections to Welles about. Churchill protested, upon reading Article IV, that this formulation would violate the British Ottawa Agreements, which restricted access to economic markets for those outside the Commonwealth. Churchill initially claimed that he did not have the power to agree to this point and threatened to delay the signing of the Charter. Roosevelt instructed Welles, in a letter on August 11, one day before the final meeting between the two leaders, not to change his wording of Article IV.

His letter reads:

``Time being of the essence, I think I can stand on my own former formulas--to wit: access to raw materials. This omits entirely the other subject which is the only one in conflict: discrimination in trade. The fourth [paragraph] would then read ``of access to the raw materials of the world'' etc. For me, that is consistent.''

Roosevelt succeeded in binding the British to a set of principles, which expressed his own unique vision of the future. The Charter was signed even before the United States had entered the war as a combatant, but Roosevelt knew it was just a matter of time before that would happen. The U.S. was already involved in the war through its Lend-Lease program, which supplied the British, through the strength of America's unequaled ``machine power:'' vital planes, tanks, and other war production.

Roosevelt wanted to steer the world onto a different course, one not dominated by colonial-imperialist methods of suppressing nations and looting their natural resources of wealth. So, the axioms set forth in the Atlantic Charter, coupled with his Four Freedoms, were Roosevelt's foreign-policy strategy to realize his Grand Design after the war, a war that the United States had to fight, and had to win, through the revitalization of its full industrial capability. For Roosevelt, the war was not the end, but a necessary action, to insure the potential for his ``American System'' reorganization of the global economy.

Churchill knew, all too well, the implications of the Atlantic Charter for the British Empire. Only a few days after the signing, the Labour Party newspaper, the Daily Herald, carried the headline: ``The Atlantic Charter--It Means Dark Races as Well--Coloured people as well as white, will share the benefits of the Churchill-Roosevelt Atlantic Charter.''

The news of the signing of the Charter affected anti-colonial movements around the globe. According to Louis, within days of signing the document, Churchill received a message from the British Governor of Burma, warning that the Burmese people would use the literal meaning of Article III to call for independence after the war.

In Africa, Roosevelt's Atlantic Charter was praised by Sudan independence forces, as an encouragement to their efforts to liberate their country from the Anglo-Egyptian condominium. Mohamed Ahmed Mahgoub, the first Foreign Minister of Sudan put it this way:

``In the Sudan, we had been reading the liberal literature published in Britain, which spoke of a free world after the war. We had read and studied the Atlantic Charter of Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt after their meetings in August 1941, which declared that after the war all people should have the right of self-determination and self-government--a declaration which Churchill later qualified with his famous remark `I did not become His Majesty's First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the Empire.' We had high hopes that after the war we too would get the right of self-determination and independence.''

Churchill himself tried to alter what he knew to be Roosevelt's intent. Shortly after his signing of the Charter, Churchill attempted to qualify the application of the Atlantic Charter to the British Empire as distinct from those nations under the Nazi yoke:

``So that is quite a separate problem from the progressive evolution of self-governing institutions in the regions and peoples which owe their allegiance to the British Crown.''

Churchill's racist and imperialist attitude came to the surface in his anger at the implications of Article III, for Britain's colonial possessions in the resource-rich African continent. Churchill said that he was sure that it was not meant to apply so:

``that the natives of Nigeria or of East Africa, who could by a majority vote chose the form of government under which they live ... [and] that prior obligations require to be considered and respected and that circumstances alter cases.''

The ``prior obligations'' and ``circumstances'' to which Churchill referred, were the British Empire's intent to control the natural wealth and population of the Nigerian state, which was, and is, economically key to all of West Africa.

Roosevelt was generally distrustful of pro-British attitudes in the State Department, and attempts by the British to win over Department personnel to their side. However, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles had a healthy hatred of British colonialism, and shared Roosevelt's view that Britain's ``Imperial Preference,'' which the British considered a right of the Empire, was in fact a danger to world peace.

In 1942, Stanley Hornbeck, Advisor on Far Eastern Affairs, in an effort to counter Churchill's attempted sabotage of Roosevelt's grand design, wrote to Welles:

``Ought not thought be directed rather to the formulation and publishing of a worldCharter which might be build upon, which might absorb, and which might be the logical, legal and political successor to the Atlantic Charter?''

Hornbeck's draft of the ``Declaration on National Independence'' quoted heavily from America's own Declaration of Independence (in which the word `independence' appeared 19 times) to project America's own experience to ``all the peoples of the world.'' The preamble to this proposed new declaration read in part:

``That the independence of those nations which now possess independence shall be maintained; that the independence of those nations which have been forcibly deprived of independence shall be restored; that opportunity to achieveindependence for those peoples who aspire to independence shall be preserved, respected, and made more effective....''

The draft also included the specific timetable for de-colonization:

``It is, accordingly, the duty and the purpose of each nation having political ties with colonial peoples ... to fix, at the earliest practicable moment, dates upon which the colonial peoples shall be accorded status of full independence.''

Consistent with his earlier efforts, Hornbeck, in December 1943 spoke about the irreconcilable differences between the British and American outlooks:

``In the U.S. we place a much higher valuation upon the concept of political freedom and independence than do the British ... We assume to a far greater extent that various sundry now-dependent or quasi-dependent national groups have capacity for self-government.''

An End to 18th Century Colonial Methods

Roosevelt knew quite well that Churchill would not like his determination to put an end to British colonialism and he told his son, Elliott:

``I think I speak as America's President when I say that America won't help England in this war simply so that she will be able to continue to ride roughshod over colonial peoples. I think that I can see there will be a little fur flying here and there, in the next few days.''

At Argentia in August 1941, Roosevelt confronted Churchill directly in their discussions when he told the British Prime Minister:

``These Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It's because of them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonialized Near East and Far East, are still as backward as they are.''

Churchill, with his neck reddened, responded:

``Mr. President, England does not propose for a moment to lose its favored position among the British Dominions. The trade that made England great shall continue, and under conditions prescribed by England's ministers.''

Roosevelt replied slowly to Churchill, according to his son Elliot's eye-witness account:

``You see, it is along in here somewhere that there is likely to be some disagreement between you, Winston, and me. I am firmly of the belief that if we are going to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the development of backward countries. Backward peoples. How can this be done? It can't be done by 18th-century methods.''

Churchill interrupted, ``Who's talking 18th-century methods?''

Roosevelt answered Churchill directly:

``Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes wealth in raw materials out of a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of that country in consideration.''

Roosevelt continued to lecture the red-faced Churchill on ``American System'' economics:

''20th-century methods involve bringing industry to these colonies. 20th-century methods include increasing the wealth of a people by increasing their standard of living, by educating them, by bringing them sanitation--by making sure that they get a return for the raw wealth of their community.''

Assistant Secretary of State, Sumner Welles, one of Roosevelt's key men, clearly reflected Roosevelt's views on foreign policy. Welles, in his 1942 Memorial Day address, proclaimed that World War II would bring about an end to imperialism:

``If this war is, in fact, a war for liberation of peoples, it must assure sovereign equality of peoples throughout the world, as well as in the world of the Americas. Our victory must bring in its train the liberation of all peoples. Discrimination between peoples because of their race, creed, or color must be abolished. The age of imperialism is ended.''

Secretary of State Hull, two months later, echoed Well's remarks:

``We have always believed--and we believe today that all peoples without distinction of race, color, or religion, who are prepared and willing to accept the responsibilities of liberty, are entitled to its enjoyment.''

Churchill's outlook during the war was, that upon an allied victory, the British Empire would be resurrected as the dominant power in the world, and this governed his relations with the emerging American superpower. Thus, the British knew that they needed the United States to win the war, but Churchill fought Roosevelt throughout the entire war to maintain every inch of Britain's imperial possessions.

The American President, looked at the world from an entirely different hypothesis, one that saw the end of the war as synonymous with the end of all forms of oppression, and the beginning of a new era of development, especially for those countries who had suffered under colonial rule.

Two Opposing World Views: The Case of Africa

In Africa, Roosevelt saw, as we can unfortunately still see today, the horrendous, abysmal conditions of life which have resulted from British rule. When Roosevelt visited British Gambia on the West African coast in 1943, and saw the appalling conditions there, it created a strong image in the President's mind of the truly ugly nature of British colonialism. He later spoke about it in his press conference:

``I think there are about three million inhabitants, of whom, one hundred and fifty are white. And it's most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life.... The natives are five thousand years back of us. Disease is rampant, absolutely. It's a terrible place for disease.

``And I looked it up, with a little study, and I got to the point of view that for every dollar that the British, who have been there for two hundred years, have put into Gambia, they have taken out ten. It's just plain exploitation of those people.''

He told his son after his visit to Bathurst (now Banjul), the capital of Gambia, that workers were paid only fifty cents a day. ``Besides which,'' he added,

``they're given a half-cup of rice. Dirt. Disease. Very high mortality rate.... Life expectancy--you'd never guess what it is. Twenty-six years. These people are treated worse than livestock. Their cattle live longer!''

Roosevelt threatened the British, that he would expose what they were doing in Gambia:

'' ... if you Britishers don't come up to scratch--toe the mark--then we will let all the world know.''

Roosevelt wouldn't let Churchill forget about what he saw in his visit to Gambia. Years later, when he became seriously ill, he quipped to Churchill, that he was sick with ``Gambia fever'' from ``that hell hole of yours called Bathurst.''

Before Roosevelt had ever been to Africa, he understood the enormous potential to create new wealth on the continent through infrastructural development, as opposed to the imperialistic looting policies as practiced by the British, the French, and the Dutch. He talked to Elliott about a plan to irrigate Tunisia that would,

``make the Imperial Valley in California look like a cabbage patch.... The Sahara would bloom for hundreds of miles.''

``Wealth. Imperialists don't realize what they can do, what they can create! They've robbed this continent of billions, and all because they were too shortsighted to understand that their billions were pennies, compared to the possibilities. Possibilities that must include a better life for the people who inhabit this land.''

This was the subject of discussions with the Sultan of Morocco (see box, page 7), and at the Teheran Conference with the young Shah of Iran. According to accounts from his son Elliott, Roosevelt was sympathetic to the plight of Iran, in that its oil and mineral deposits were controlled by the British, and instructed Pat Hurley to draft

``a memorandum guaranteeing Iran's independence and her self-determination of her economic interests.''

Roosevelt's commitment to economic development was explicit in a memorandum he wrote on the eve of the Yalta conference of the need for a ``free port and international railway'' for Iran in the Persian Gulf as part of trans-Asian rail system. Roosevelt wrote:

``Three of four Trustees should build a new port in Iran at the head of the Persian Gulf (free port), take over the whole railroad from there into Russia, and run the thing for the good of all.''

No Return to Colonialism

At Casablanca in 1943, Roosevelt was able to talk to de Gaulle, as well as Churchill again. He was determined not to allow the French to return to their imperialistic practices after the war. Even though there were clear differences between de Gaulle and Churchill, the anti-imperialist Roosevelt knew that the British were sympathetic to France's desire to reoccupy Indochina in order to strengthen their own imperialist plans after the war. Roosevelt was fearful of that the French would attempt to retake their colonies after the war:

``Interests coincide. The English mean to maintain their hold on the colonies. They mean to help the French maintain their hold on their colonies.''

He told Elliott that although de Gaulle expected the Allies to give France back her colonies,

``I'm by no means sure in my own mind that we'd be right to return France her colonies at all, ever, without first obtaining ... some sort of pledge ... of just exactly what was planned.''

When Elliott questioned not returning the colonies, Roosevelt replid,

''How do they belong to France? Why does Morocco, inhabited by Moroccans, belong to France? Or take Indochina.... The native Indo-Chinese have been so flagrantly downtrodden that they thought to themselves: Anything must be better, than to live under French colonial rule. Should a land belong to France? By what logic and what custom and by what historical rule?''

In a conversation with Secretary Hull, Roosevelt said:

``Each case must, of course, stand on its own feet, but the case of Indochina is perfectly clear. France has milked it for one hundred years. The people of Indochina are entitled to something better than that.''

One question this raises is: If ``Roosevelt's scheme'' for the postwar period had been implemented, would the French have been prevented from being involved in Indochina, and might this have spared the United States the nightmare known as the Vietnam War, and its devastating political consequences?

At the Casablanca summit, Roosevelt made clear what he intended for the future:

``When we've won the war, I will work with all my might and main to see to it that the United States is not wheeled into the position of accepting any plan that will further France's imperialistic ambitions, or that will aid or abet the British Empire in its imperial ambitions.''

A few days later he told Elliott:

``I've tried to make it clear to Winston--and the others--that while we're their allies, and in it to victory by their side, they must never get the idea that we're in it just to help them hang on to the archaic, medieval Empire ideas. Great Britain signed the Atlantic Charter. I hope they realize that the United States government means to make them live up to it.''

Roosevelt remained concerned, right up until up his death in 1945, about France's postwar imperialist plans for Indochina, Burns reports:

``Independence for Indochina had become a near-obsession of the President during the past year or two. He told Stalin at Yalta that he had in mind a temporary trusteeship for Indochina, but that the British wished to give it back to France, since they feared the implications of a trusteeship for their own rule in Burma. De Gaulle, he said, had asked for ships to carry Free French forces to Indochina. Was he going to get them? Stalin asked. The President answered archly that he had been unable to find any ships for de Gaulle.'' Regarding his idea of a trusteeship, Roosevelt said that, ``Stalin liked it. China liked the idea. The British don't like it. It might bust up their empire.''

India and Burma

Roosevelt was particularly outraged about the British policy towards India and Burma. One evening, after a day of formal discussions at the Casablanca Conference, Roosevelt told Elliott: ``The look that Churchill gets on his face when you mention India:

``India should be made a commonwealth at once. After a certain number of years ... she should chose whether she wants to remain in the Empire....

``As a commonwealth, she should be entitled to a modern form of government, an adequate health and educational standard. But how can she have these things, when Britain is taking all the wealth of her national resources away from her every year? Ever year the Indian people have one thing to look forward to, like death and taxes. Sure as shooting, they have a famine. The season of the famine, they call it.''

When Churchill got upset over the mentioning of India as one of the countries to be liberated, Roosevelt responded:

``Yes. I can't believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy.''

Even though Roosevelt had advised Stalin not to even bring up the word ``India'' with Churchill, due to the Prime Minister's raw nerve on the subject of India's independence, Roosevelt himself could not resist. Throughout the entire war, Roosevelt had a special concern for India, and was very upset about British treatment of the Indian people. He believed strongly that India should be free from British colonial rule, but he was afraid that, if he pushed this all the way with Churchill, it would rupture their war-time relationship, which Roosevelt thought was absolutely necessary to defeat Hitler's Third Reich. Many of Roosevelt's true intentions to reorganize the world away from colonialism were tempered by his concern to win the war first, at all costs.

It pained Roosevelt to reject appeals from India's leader, Mohandas Gandhi:

``I venture to think that the Allied declaration, that the Allies are fighting to make the world safe for freedom of the individual and for democracy sounds hollow, so long as India, and, for that matter, Africa are exploited by Great Britain, and America has the Negro problem in her own home. But in order to avoid all complications, in my proposal I have confined myself only to India. If India becomes free, the rest must follow, if it does not happen simultaneously.''

China's Chiang Kai-shek also appealed to Roosevelt, ``the inspired author of the Atlantic Charter,'' to pressure Churchill on India, but he rejected this too, on the grounds that, ``any action which slows up the war effort,'' would actually assist Japan.

Every time Roosevelt brought up the subject, Churchill would get red with anger, after all, India was the ``crown jewel'' of the British Empire. Roosevelt told Churchill bluntly that American opinion held the British responsible for the deadlock over the signing of the Charter, ``has been caused by the unwillingness of the British Government to concede to the Indians the right of self-government.''

Author Roger Louis reports it this way:

``The President made no secret that he deplored British Imperialism in India and in all other parts of the world.... Roosevelt's sentiments were genuine. With `almost boyish relish' he would speak of American constitutional history and how the problems of India might be solved by learning the lessons of the American revolution.''

After one of Roosevelt's lectures on what India could learn from America's own colonial experience when it finally became free of British subjugation, Churchill erupted against Roosevelt:

``The President's mind was back in the American War of Independence, and he thought of the Indian problem in terms of thirteen colonies fighting George III at the end of the 18th century.... This was no time for a constitutional experiment ... to determine the future relationship of India to the British Empire.''

Churchill continued,

``Nor was the issue one upon which the satisfying of public opinion in the United States could be a determining factor. We could not desert the Indian peoples by abandoning our responsibility and leaving them to anarchy and subjugation.''

In these remarks, Churchill represented the oligarchy's true feelings of hatred against America. More precisely, it was America's victorious War of Independence from the British Empire, and her emergence as the premiere sovereign nation-state in the world, that threatened the very existence of the Empire, which fueled Churchill's rage.

Roosevelt also understood the importance that Churchill placed on having Burma return to colonialism in that sector of the world:

``The British want to recapture Burma. It's the first time they've shown any real interest in the Pacific war, and why? For their colonial empire!... It's all part of the British colonial question. Burma--that effects India, and French Indochina, and Indonesia--they're all interrelated. If one gets freedom, the others will get ideas. That's why Winston is so anxious to keep de Gaulle in his corner. De Gaulle isn't any more interested in seeing a colonial empire disappear than Churchill is.''

The French had no problem supporting Britain's claim to Burma, because they figured it would help to get Indochina back under French control after the war, and vice-versa.

Colonial Mandates

Roosevelt sought to replace the ``Mandate system'' set up in 1919 with one of ``Trusteeship'' which would be internationally supervised and open for inspection. The British recognized this as another effort by Roosevelt to dismantle their colonial empire, since, as Louis reports: ``At least during the inter-war years the mandates were treated as though they were British colonies.''

Oliver Stanley, head of the British Colonial Office, knew what Roosevelt was up to and objected to having ``a motley international assembly'' look into British affairs. Stanley correctly feared that the United States would put, ``the whole of our Colonial administration under international review.''

Churchill made clear that he would not allow the Empire to be put ``in the dock,'' by having the international community scrutinizing their possessions.

The British paternal defense of their colonial system in Africa, for which we can see the ugly results today, was expressed in a 1923 policy paper on Kenya: ``In the administration of Kenya, His Majesty's Government regard themselves as exercising a trust on behalf of the African population, and they are unable to delegate or share this trust, the object of which may be defined as the protection and advancement of the native races.

``We are the Trustees of many great African Dependencies ... and our duty is to do justice and right between races ... remembering, above all, that we are the trustees before the world for the African population.''

The British knew that the Americans disliked the mandates, because in fact, they saw them as colonies, and the British tried to rationalize this objection to the American position and appease it through semantics. This is expressed in a letter to the Colonial Office in 1944, concerning the United States opposition:

``The tradition stems of course from the Revolution which produced fundamental attitudes, ideas, and symbols that are still at the core of the national thinking ... the attitude springs from this emotional source....

``We can only by-pass this emotion by presenting our policy through ideas and symbols ... which are in line with positive American traditions. Conceptions like `union', `partnership', `self government', `federation' fit this tradition; `trusteeship', `colony', `Empire', `British subject'--any words that smell of subjection--do not.''

The British were not going to let any outsiders hold them accountable for the colonial administration of their mandates and ``they bitterly rejected Americans sticking their fingers into colonial pies.''

Hornbeck said that,

``He felt like replying to the British that it happened to be their pie which was under our nose and which did not smell too good to us ... what becomes of these dependent peoples was everybody's concern.''

Roosevelt's Anti-Imperialist Alliance

Roosevelt knew the war had to be won with the British as allies, but his diplomacy, while he was conducting the war, was premised on the future, which his grand strategy embodied. After the war, he intended to bring into existence a new anti-imperialist alliance, which, unfortunately his untimely death, and the succession of Truman as President, tragically aborted. Roosevelt's vision was to have a new alliance comprised of the United States, Russia, and China, the three most powerful nations, which did not have colonial possessions against the British, French, and Dutch colonial powers. Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's closest aide, reflected this aspect of the President's thinking when he wrote:

``We simply cannot organize the world between the British and ourselves without bringing the Russians in as equal partners. For that matter, if things go well with Chiang Kai-shek, I would surely include the Chinese too.''

Militarily, the British were already weakened, which made the potential for the defeat of their Empire after the war, all the more feasible. A memorandum from the U.S. Joint Chiefs Strategic Survey Committee at the time made the following evaluation:

``As a military power, the British Empire in the postwar era will be in distinctly lower category than the United States and Russia. The primacy of the British Empire in the century before World War I, and her second-to-none position until World War II, have built up a traditional concept of British military power which the British will strive to profit by and maintain in the postwar era.... Both in an absolute sense and relative to the United States and Russia, the British will emerge from the war having lost ground both economically and militarily.''

Sumner Welles, looking at the world in 1946, concurred with this analysis:

``It was evident that Great Britain would be utterly exhausted upon conclusion of the war. These signs were already plain to all who cared to see them that the world order which must then be created would bring freedom to the colonial peoples, and that the liquidation of the British Empire was at hand. The British Commonwealth of Nations itself must undergo a profound transformation in the postwar period as a result of which the mother country's position would become far less dominant.''

Roosevelt was acutely aware that, the United States would be in the dominant leadership position after the war, and would determine the character of the new, postwar, alliance against the imperial practices of the old colonial powers. (There are interesting parallels to the current strategic correlation of forces, and the decisive role that President Clinton and the United States must play in forging a ``New Bretton Woods System'' today).

FDR expressed this to his son Elliott, in the following way:

``Even our alliance with Britain holds dangers of making it seem to China and Russia that we support wholly the British line in international politics. The United States will have to lead, and use our good offices to conciliate ... between Russia and England, in Europe; between the British Empire and China and between China and Russia, in the Far East. Britain is on the decline, China--still in the 18th century. Russia--suspicious of us.... America is the only great power that can make peace in the world stick.''

Roosevelt wanted Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek to know the sharp political and philosophical differences between the United States and the British. In reporting on his meeting with Stalin, he said that,

``the biggest thing was in making clear to Stalin that United States and Great Britain were not allied in one common bloc against the Soviet Union. I think we've got rid of that idea, once and for all. I hope so. The one thing that could upset the applecart, after the war, is if the world is divided again, Russia against England and us.''

The central, anti-British nature of the alliance was made clear by the Chiang's request for Roosevelt's help to prevent the British from moving into Hongkong and Shanghai, while Stalin also agreed to help Chiang against the British.

``The Chinese were very anxious that we agree not to show our air-maps to the British--in fact, they made us promise not to.... It's not hard to appreciate their point of view. They're aware that the British want to look at them for commercial reasons ... commercial, postwar reasons.''

Elliott Roosevelt says that his father pointed ``out that a majority of Chinese think more highly of Japanese colonial policies than they do of British or French or Dutch.'' The Chinese were so fearful of renewed British imperialism after the war that Chiang Kai-shek pleaded with Roosevelt, ``that when Japan is on her knees we make sure that no British warships come into Chinese ports.''

According to author James Burns:

``Roosevelt saw China as the kingpin in an Asiatic structure of newly independent and self-governing nations and hence as the supreme example and test of his strategy of freedom.... Roosevelt at least glimpsed the explosive energy lying dormant in the billion people of Asia.''

Roosevelt fully intended to force British Empire, along with the other imperialist powers to bend to a new era of progress in the second half of the 20th century. He told this to Elliott before the Yalta Conference:

``The point is that we are going to be able to bring pressure on the British to fall in line with our thinking in relation to the whole colonial question. It's all tied up in one package: the Dutch East Indies, French Indochina, India, British extraterritorial rights in China.... We're going to be able to make this the 20th century after all, you watch and see!''

The British were well aware of Roosevelt's organizing for this new alliance and were trying to gather support from other imperialist powers to help protect the integrity of their Empire and their colonial system prior to the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Leo Pasvolsky, the head of the postwar U.S. planning staff, who was involved in the pre-Yalta discussions, has this to say in response to Britain's Colonial Secretary Stanley:

``The British position is clearly designed to win support from other states with colonies in order to offset the support which, they, anticipate, the United States will receive from the Soviet Union and China'' (emphasis added).

Lord Beloff, reports that,

``in a dispatch in 1944, the British Ambassador, in analyzing the British-American tendency to view the United States, Russia, and China as the Great Powers of the future, and the unspoken assumption that the British Empire was falling apart ... that the traditional attacks on colonialism and imperialism ... were now again coming to the fore.''

The decisive issue for Roosevelt, which he had made repeatedly clear throughout the 1941-1945 period, was to rid the world of imperialist-colonial practices in the postwar era, and this was to be supervised by the three emerging non-colonial powers: the United States, Russia, and China.

As Louis reports:

``He found it easier to talk to Stalin and Chiang Kai-chek than Churchill about the future of the British Empire.''

Churchill knew this is what Roosevelt was working toward, and attacked this new alliance again after the Yalta Conference. Churchill was determined not to allow any international intervention to dismantle the Empire's colonies. In March 1945, Churchill bellowed again:

``I should myself oppose ... [that] which might well be pressed upon nations like Britain, France, Holland and Belgium, who have great colonial possessions, by the United States, Russia, and China who have none.''

The dividing line was clearly established.

Churchill: The Empire will Survive

Under Roosevelt's assault, the British leadership were quite hysterical and defensive about protecting ``The Empire'' at all costs. In the summer of 1942, Lord Cranborne, the British Colonial Secretary, who later became the 5th Marquess of Salisbury, remarked: ``The British Empire is not dead, it is not dying, it is not even going into decline.'' He defended the Empire's colonial policy against the Americans:

``Our record was, in general, a good and progressive one, not a thing to be ashamed of, and ... the British had a useful mission to continue in the Colonies.''

Churchill himself responded to non-stop American attacks on the British Empire on November 10, 1942, in his most well known wartime remark:

``Let me however make this perfectly clear, in case they should be any mistake about it in any quarter. We mean to hold our own. I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.''

One can imagine how, upon hearing this, Roosevelt must have had a hearty laugh, accompanied by one of his famous, large smiles.

Lord Lugard, a member of the British elite in formulating colonial policy, and the first British Governor General of Nigeria, immediately rushed off a letter to The Times of London, in an attempt to soften Churchill's remarks, by stating that the British Empire really had the interests of its colonies at heart, and that, ``His Majesty's Government ... as trustees for the dependent peoples would never surrender that trust, which they alone could fulfill.'' The British thought the colonies were their obligations, i.e., their property, not anyone else's business, nor did anyone else have a right to interfere with them.

A month later, in December 1942 Churchill repeated his defense of the Empire, in his more typical, racist and pugnacious language:

``We also have our traditions and as long as I am here, we will hold to them and the Empire. We will not let the Hottentots by popular vote throw white people into the sea.''

Margery Perham, one of a stable of Oxford scholars employed by the oligarchy, wrote two articles for The Times to try to deal with criticisms of the British commitment to maintain their Empire. On November 26, she wrote one of the most elaborate attempts to assuage the anger of Americans at the British:

``It was not to be expected that Americans whose ancestors broke away from the British Empire in 1776 should march to its direct defense without asking themselves and us uncomfortable questions.... America was born out of negation of the British Empire; her democracy has been bred in the tradition of anti-imperialism. When Americans wake up to find their soldiers besides ours in India and Africa, and marshaled, it may be, for the recovery of Burma and Malaya, they have to put their minds suddenly into reverse; and this jarring process has been freely reflected in their Press during the last nine months.''

Academic excursions aside, the British meant to hold what they had. In the December 28, 1942 issue of Life magazine, General Smuts, the Prime Minister of South Africa for the British Empire, repeated the salient point:

``Mother countries should remain exclusively responsible for the administration of their colonies and interference by others should be avoided.''

In December 1944, before the Yalta Conference, when Churchill was going to meet with Roosevelt and Stalin to plan out the postwar period, he found it necessary to warn them of his intent on maintaining the Empire:

``There must be no question of our being hustled or seduced into declarations affecting British sovereignty in any Dominions or Colonies. Pray remember my declaration against liquidating the British Empire.... `Hands off the British Empire' is our maxim and it must not be weakened or smirched to please sob stuff merchants at home or foreigners of any hue.''

Roosevelt's Vision Dies

On April 12, 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, and, tragically for humanity, the potential for a brighter postwar era died with him, as that ``little man,'' Harry Truman, took over the reigns of the U.S. Presidency. The British were confident that with Roosevelt's death, the Empire would live on, and, to the detriment of civilization, it has. All Roosevelt's plans to dismantle the British colonial empire along with the French, Dutch, and Belgium, and his vision of entering a new era of development, especially for the ``colonial sector,'' with the end of imperialist ``18th century methods,'' vanished, instantaneously, with his death.

The Russians also knew that without Roosevelt in the presidency, there was little chance of achieving the economic and political cooperation that Roosevelt had envisioned for the two superpowers after the war. The close relationship between Stalin and Roosevelt, that had developed at the Teheran and Yalta conferences was not going to be duplicated with Truman. The Cold War, the Iron Curtain, would not have happened had Roosevelt not died prematurely; the entire history of the postwar period would have been different. Commenting on the unique relationship between the United States and Russia after Roosevelt's death, Welles put it bluntly:

``The Soviet authorities became persuaded that the United States was now far more under the influence of the British policy than she had hitherto shown herself to be.''

The fact that the United Nations now functions as the vehicle for implementing the policies of the British Commonwealth today, was not what Roosevelt had intended. Contrary to what the U.N. has become: the bastion of world government, responsible for enforcing the most brutal programs to destroy the sovereign nation-state in both the developed and undeveloped sectors, Roosevelt had other ideas. He wanted to use the U.N. for the stated purpose of his anti-imperialist alliance: to eliminate colonial practices throughout world, once and for all.

Roosevelt's idea for the United Nations was not to set up a utopian world government of the type advocated by Bertrand Russell and his crowd, but rather, it was to create an extension of his war-time grand strategy. The U.N. had its origin in 1942, when 26 nations signed a declaration against the enemy Axis powers. In October of 1943, the United States, the USSR, the UK, and China agreed to establish an organization for peace and security at the earliest date. In the Fall of 1944, proposals were drawn up for the new organization, which were further discussed at Yalta Conference. In San Francisco, on April 25, 1945 (thirteen days after Roosevelt had died), 46 countries met, to draw up the Charter which was signed in June, and entered into force on October 24, 1945.

Unfortunately, the U.S. President at the time of the creation of the U.N., was Truman, who was easily manipulated by the British. Roosevelt's idea was that the United Nations would be run by the ``Big Four'' (The United States, Russia, China, and the British), with Britain forced to bend to the principles of the Atlantic Charter and Roosevelt's ideas of ``20th century'' methods of economic development for the ``colonial sector.'' His untimely death before the founding conference, however, robbed history of that brighter future.

Roosevelt's intended purpose for the U.N. was clear, as he discussed it with Elliott:

``The Big Four--ourselves, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union--we'll be responsible for the peace of the world after.... When we've won the war.... It is already hightime for us to be thinking of the future, building for it. France, for example. France will have to take its rightful place in that organization. These great powers will have to assume the task of bringing education, raising the standards of living, improving health conditions--of all the backward, depressed colonial areas of the world.''

Roosevelt had wanted to schedule a trip to England and talk directly to the British people,

``on the need for Britain to put its hopes of the future in the United Nations ... and not just the British Empire and the British ability to get other countries to combine in some sort of bloc against the Soviet Union,''

reports Louis, in his bookThe Transfer of Power in Africa.

With Truman as President, instead of Roosevelt, the British had little to fear. At the San Francisco meeting, previous American determination to rid the world of colonialism and its imperialist economics, ``shifted gradually from one of dismantling the British Empire to one of giving it tacit support.'' Under Truman, ``the fire of anti-colonialism burned much less brightly within the United States government,'' Louis observed.

As a result of the pro-British policies of Truman, the United States effectively turned its back on the world. The promise of Roosevelt's grand strategy to rid the world of ``18th century methods'' was never kept, and civilization has suffered greatly. The abhorrent conditions of life in Africa today, the backwardness that exists in Asia, India, and elsewhere, the suffering of billions of people on this planet, are all the direct result of the change from Roosevelt's anti-colonial policy to Truman's acquiescence to the British Empire.

The United States under Truman turned its back on Roosevelt's former allies. This view was confirmed by Elliott Roosevelt after the death of his father. He laments the broken promises that had been made by Roosevelt to the Chinese and Russians. After the war he said, ``The first warships to enter Chinese ports were British warships.... Faced with a broken American promise, Chiang in turn broke his.''

Concerning Indochina he said:

``How often Father maintained that this colony, liberated in main part by American arms and American troops, should never be simply handed back to the French, to be milked by their imperialists as had been the case for decades. Yet when the British Colonial troops marched in, they took with them French troops and French administrators.''

We Forget That We Were Anti-British

In the strictest sense, our enemy today is same one the United States has been fighting for over two hundred years; the British Empire. It is of major consequence that we had an American President in the personality of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who formulated a grand strategy to defeat America's mortal enemy. How is it, that what we call the ``World War II Generation,'' today acts in ignorance of this historical fact? Millions of men in uniform who served their country on battlefield abroad, and millions of men and women who fought the war on the home front here in the United States, knew the British were our enemy. It was part of our culture in that period. It was natural for Americans to have animus towards the British.

The belief that colonialism was wrong and that countries should be free to govern themselves has always been a matter of principle for the majority of Americans, and one that set us absolutely apart from the British.

The prevalence and openness of this conflict with the British was not simply an esoteric bit of secret knowledge, known only to Roosevelt and his close coterie. It was in the public domain. Excerpts from a full-page Open Letter, approximately 1,700 words in length, by the Editors of Life magazine, addressed ``To the People of England,'' on October 12, 1942 is evidence of the mood of the American population during the war years.

``We Americans may have some disagreement among ourselves as to what we are fighting for, but one thing we are sure we are not fighting for is to hold the British Empire together. We don't like to put the matter so bluntly, but we don't want you to have any illusions. If your strategists are planning a war to hold the British Empire together they will sooner or later find themselves strategizing alone. Take this unhappy matter of the ``second'' front. In a war to hold the Empire together a second front might not be so important at this time. But in a war to assure victory for the United Nations--which means us and Brazil and Costa Rica and Russia and China and all other people who want to be free--it does seem to be most dreadfully urgent....

``So there is one concrete concession that we demand of you, as partners in a battle. Quit fighting a war to hold the Empire together and join us and Russia and your other allies to fight a war to win by whatever strategy is best for all us. After victory has been won, then the British people can decide what to do about the Empire (for you may be sure we don't want it). But if you cling to the Empire at the expense of a United Nations victory you will lose the war. Because you will lose us....

``But you can't understand us at all unless you realize how much principles mean to us. We fought you on principle in the first place. Once again in our history we killed 500,000 of our own sons to establish the principle of freedom for the black man. And there's no use pretending that America is going all out in this war unless it becomes clear to us that this is a war to establish certain principles, and to make them stronger that they were when the war started....

``For instance, we realize that you have a difficult problem in India, but we don't see that your `solution' to date provides any evidence of principles of any kind. In the light of what you are doing in India how do you expect us to talk about `principles' and look our soldiers in the eye?''

Historian Christopher Thorne reports on a survey in 1942, by the U.S. Office of War Information, entitled ``Attitudes Towards Our Allies,'' which showed that anti-British sentiment among Americans was greater than either anti-Russian or anti-Chinese sentiment. Approximately 25% of Americans ``were more or less anti-British'' in December 1942, according to another report.

The British Embassy was so upset about the American public's view of its British ally that the Embassy drew up a list of ``Things Which Americans Hold Against The British'' so they could attempt to counter such hostility. Their list included, ``their imperialism; their class system; their tendency now to `go Red'; their large army which remained in the British Isles, not engaged in any fighting; their defeats and retreats; the superior air of Britons in the U.S.A.''

American skepticism about the real intentions of the British war effort did not diminish as the war went on, and by 1945, ``Over twice as many Americans now felt that Britain was fighting mainly to keep its power and wealth as felt it was fighting to preserve democracy.'' Concerning the Asian theater, ``Americans' historic suspicions of the British empire'' was expressed by referring to SEAC--the South-East Asian Command, as ``Save England's Asian Colonies.''

Today, one would be hard-pressed to find many adults of the World War II generation, who recognize the British Empire is the mortal enemy of the United States. What happened? The World War II generation didn't simply forget. They chose to not remember. The World War II generation shrunk their outlook of the world down to the microscopic concerns of their personal security, career opportunities, and family life. Men who had risked their very lives to save the world from fascism, who had shown extraordinary courage and morality on the battlefield, became very small-minded, very quickly after the war. Roosevelt's death, and replacement by the small-minded Truman, also contributed to the demoralization and pessimism of this generation after the war. Even if the population was not aware of Truman's capitulation to British control, it was clear to many, that he did not share Roosevelt's hopeful vision for the future.

This author was been able to witness this in his own family surroundings, where the obsessive fixation on money, security, and personal happiness became more dominant among those who had behaved ``bigger'' during the war. Correspondingly, the morality of the generation returning from the war descended rapidly during the 1950s. For those Americans who lived through the World War II experience, they had to forget their anti-British attitude during the war, in order to accommodate their small-minded concerns for their lives, after the war. For, if, one remained morally committed to eradicating the world of the disgusting British colonial practices, which everyone was aware of, then a return to the ``normal,'' narrow-minded family life would have been distasteful, if not morally impossible.

Thus, all, but a few, were determined to forget what they knew about the British treatment of their colonies, and, as a result, cowardice began to take over a previously courageous generation.

Yet today, the British Empire still is the most powerful superpower in the world. As we have documented in Executive Intelligence Review magazine, the British Commonwealth (the new name for the Empire) today, which extends to 76 countries, controls 29.1% of the world's population, 23.8%, of the world's land area, and 50% of the financial markets. Through their interlocking corporation, cartels, and banking tentacles they control the majority of the world's raw materials, strategically necessary resources, and precious metals. If one adds to that, their influence in shaping peoples' attitudes and opinions through their control of the British-Canadian-Australian press empires, and influence of such evil entities as the London's Tavistock Institute of Psychiatry; the British Empire is more powerful today than at any time in this century.

Since the death of Roosevelt, the British have controlled large sections of U.S. policy-making institutions and have strongly influenced, if not at times, completely controlled, the office of the President. Henry Kissinger highlighted the fundamental antagonisms between the British and the American outlooks, as they existed in the differences between Churchill and Roosevelt, in his ``Reflections on a Partnership: British and American Attitudes to Postwar Foreign Policy.'' In this address, which Kissinger delivered in Commemoration of the Bicentenary of the Office of Foreign Secretary,'' at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House on May 10, 1982, he noted the following:

``All accounts of the Anglo-American alliance during the Second World War and in the early postwar period draw attention to the significant differences in philosophy between Roosevelt and Winston Churchill reflecting our different histories ...

``Many American leaders condemned Churchill as needlessly obsessed with power politics, too rigidly anti-Soviet, too colonialist in his attitude to what is called the Third World and too little interested in building a fundamentally new international order towards which American idealism has always tended ...

``Franklin Roosevelt, on his return from the Crimean Conference in 1945, told the Congress of his hope that the postwar era would `spell the end of the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, spheres of influence, the balance of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries--and have failed' ...

``Americans from Franklin Roosevelt onward believed that the United States with its `revolutionary' heritage, was the natural ally of peoples struggling against colonialism; we could win the allegiance of these new nations by opposing and occasionally undermining our European allies in the areas of their colonial dominance. Churchill, of course resisted these American pressures.'' (emphasis added)

This address, at the headquarters of the British Empire, is not only remarkable for Kissinger's accurate account of the conflict between Churchill and Roosevelt, but also for the fact that he, of course, sided with Churchill against Roosevelt. Kissinger later on in his remarks, publicly admits his role as servant for the British Foreign Office, while serving as Secretary of State.

As Kissinger makes the relevant point, the entire post-World War II period, which shaped every policy, for every country, over the last fifty years, is nothing but a continuation of the 1941-1945 conflict between Churchill and Roosevelt, which, itself is a continuation of America's successful War of Independence from Great Britain. The lives of the World War II generation, their children, the ``Baby Boomer'' generation, and their children known as ``Generation X'' have all been ``determined'' by this unresolved historical conflict: a conflict between the degenerate, oligarchical outlook of the British Empire, and the opposing, republican principles of the United States, as the leading sovereign nation-state in the world.

Roosevelt clearly knew there had to be end to colonial practices throughout the world, and that the leading institution promoting these inhuman policies, was the British Empire. Uniquely, Roosevelt had achieved the moral high ground, with the principles embodied in Atlantic Charter and his Four Freedoms.

As with most presidents, he had his weaknesses. Among them, was his refusal to publicly expose and denounce the colonial doctrine of the British Empire for fear of disrupting the war-time alliance between Great Britain and America. It was a mistake not to take on the British openly. Britain was no position to buck the United States on this question. Had he done so, he would have had the support of the majority of Americans, and the rest of the world as well.

Roosevelt personally ran United States foreign policy like a military commander. He dictated the policy, and used all his skills to get the Congress and others, to go along with him. Thus, with his premature death, the problems caused by failing to make his disputes with Churchill public, became manifest. He did not prepare the nation to carry out his vsionary policy for the postwar period. Oftentimes in history, the success of a policy depends on the courageous, resolute action of one solitary individual. Unfortunately for civilization, this was true with Roosevelt: he died before he could carry out his policy.

With Roosevelt's death, the moral leadership of the United States rapidly declined, along with the morality of the population, under the British-manipulated Harry S Truman. Roosevelt's death led, not only to a dramatic change in foreign policy, but it affected the way the rest of the world looked at the United States. As our nation's citizens became narrower in their moral outlook after the war, so too, did our stature decline in the eyes of many countries throughout the world.

Reflecting on the failures of the Truman presidency, Welles summed it up this way:

``The United States has ceased to be regarded by the smaller powers as the champion of their legitimate rights in the community of nations. By her failure to support in practice, as she has supported in her official declarations, the principle of the `sovereign equality of all nations, great or small,' she has forfeited much of the added influence which the backing of the lesser powers would have afforded her in pursuit of her objectives.''

Although far from perfect, Roosevelt as President, represented the highest expression of the United States as the foremost anti-oligarchical nation-state in the world. No other President in this century has shown that special quality, to take bold and decisive action in the midst of a profound crisis, with the country gripped by fear. He did so, informed by an understanding of the unique heritage of the United States, so beautifully articulated in the Preamble of our United States Constitution.

It is now time for all adult citizens to act in the self-interest of the United States, and the rest of the world, by defeating the British Empire. We dare not, for the second time in this century, fail to defeat our deadly adversary. Note: All emphasis (boldface type) in quotes, as in original, unless otherwise noted.

Bibliography

• James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 1940-1945, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. New York 1970

• Prosser Gifford, and William Roger Louis, editors, The Transfer of Power in Africa, Decolonization, 1940-1960, Yale University Press, New York and London. 1982

• William Roger Louis, Imperialism at Bay, The United States and the Decolonization of The British Empire 1941-1945,, Oxford University Press, New York. 1978

• William Roger Louis and Hedley Bull, editors, The Special Relationship, Anglo-American Relations Since 1945, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1986

• Elliott Roosevelt,As He Saw It, Duel, Sloan and Pearce, New York. 1946

• Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War against Japan, 1941-1945, Oxford University Press, New York 1978

• Sumner Welles, Where are We Heading?, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London 1946

• ``The Sun never sets on the new British Empire,'' Executive Intelligence Review Special Report, May 24, 1996.

The Other War:
FDR's Battle Against Churchill and the British Empire

by L. Wolfe

Printed in The American Almanac, August 28, 1995.

Introduction

On May 10, 1982, Henry A. Kissinger mounted the podium at Chatham House, the London home of the Royal Institute for International Affairs, to deliver the keynote address for the bicentenary celebration of the Office of the British Foreign Secretary. Kissinger boasted of his loyalty to the British Foreign Office on all crucial matters of postwar policy matters in dispute between the United States and Britain. The crux of his disagreement with his own nominal country, the United States, he told his audience, was the basic dispute in policy and philosophy between ``Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, reflecting our different histories.'' Roosevelt, Kissinger stated, had condemned Churchill as being ``needlessly obsessed with power politics, too rigidly anti-Soviet, too colonialist in his attitude to what is now called the Third World, and too little interested in building the fundamentally new international order towards which American idealism had always tended.''

It is Churchill who was right, and Roosevelt, who was wrong, in these matters, said Kissinger.

While the majority of Kissinger's elite audience was keenly aware of the bitter dispute between Roosevelt and Churchill, a different history has been made available to the average American: a mass of lies and half-truths about a so-called ``special relationship'' between Britain and the United States, based on common ideals, supposedly supported by both Churchill and Roosevelt, and intended to last into the next millennium. This rewriting of history began almost immediately with FDR's untimely death in April 1945, and has continued to this day.

Thus, what was perhaps the defining battle that shaped the course of current history remains unknown to most Americans. It is important that this story now truthfully be told, especially as a young American President has taken the steps to walk away from Britain and the ``special relationship.''

The historical evidence shows that Roosevelt entered into the military alliance with Britain with only one purpose in mind: the defeat of an enemy. The historical evidence also shows that Franklin Roosevelt was committed to dismantling the British Empire--and all other empires--and to replacing them with sovereign nation-states, modelled on the American constitutional republic, in which each citizen would be given, through access to modern scientific education and Western culture, the opportunity to create a better life for himself and his posterity.

It is this view of man, in the tradition of Western Judeo-Christian civilization, that places a value in each sovereign human individual, that the oligarch Churchill bitterly opposed, and that President Franklin D. Roosevelt espoused.

In 1946, as the history of the period was already being rewritten, FDR's son, Elliot, published a short book, titled As He Saw It. With pungency and force, using first-hand acccounts, Elliot told the truth about his father's bitter fights with Churchill, leading the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to state in a contemporary review that the book's central thesis was that Roosevelt saw Great Britain and its imperial system as a far greater adversary to the United States than Russia.

Some historians have charged the younger Roosevelt with inaccuracies in reporting. However, Elliot's reports have been subsequently supported by reams of declassified documents, as well as first-hand accounts from the day. What emerges is the story of a pitched battle between two powerful actors on the stage of history--often fought in the open--over two diametrically opposed visions for the postwar world.

The Protagonists

There is little in the early career or papers of Franklin Roosevelt to suggest that he would emerge as a leading spokesman against British imperial interests. He was a patrician, a cousin of the raving anglophile agent Teddy Roosevelt, a member of a decadently pro-British, American Eastern Establishment. However, by the late 1920s, Roosevelt was, according to his close friend, Ernest Lindley, ``thoroughly anti-imperialist in thought and emotions.''

During the period of his convalescence from an attack of polio (1923-27), during his early 40s, Roosevelt reevaluated his assumptions governing American foreign policy. Having once accepted the use of American military power as a vehicle to secure debt of bankers, Roosevelt, studying Lincoln and the Founding Fathers intensely, began to see such actions as immoral and against the principles on which the nation was founded. In addition, Roosevelt, in published papers, most notably a 1928 article in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) journal Foreign Affairs, stated that moral principles must govern foreign policy, and that imperialist looting was contrary to documents that he regarded as sacred--the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Such views placed him within a faction of American patriots, whose interests were opposed to British imperialism and Britain's minions in the American financial and political establishment, centered around the Wall Street investment bankers, such as the Morgans. These patriotic interests transcended political parties, and included many Republicans as well as Democrats. Within the military, they included such figures as Douglas MacArthur. This patriotic faction was responsible for the drafting in the 1920s of War Plan Red, a contingency planning document for a war with Britain, and they had fought to maintain an independent U.S. naval power. Roosevelt, a former assistant navy secretary, was aware of these plans and disputes with Britain.

Roosevelt's new moral, foreign policy was embodied in his first inaugural and subsequent speeches as the ``Good Neighbor'' policy, first directed toward Ibero-America, but with a more general application to rest of the world. It was further elaborated in his initiation of steps to secure independence for the Philippines, a nation that the United States had ostensibly ``liberated'' from the Spanish, only to hold in thrall and poverty as a colony. In drafting the act that was to guarantee the Philippines' independence by 1946, Roosevelt stated: ``Our nation covets no territory; it desires to hold no people against their will over whom it has gained sovereignty through war or by any other means.''

The last statement was a direct attack on the concept of empire, including the British Empire. Its import was not lost on London. An official message asked whether the statement was meant to imply anything about the British Empire. The State Department, a bastion of British subversion within the American government, replied that it didn't; Roosevelt pointedly refused to respond to the British request to clarify his statement.

Britain's powers-that-be considered Roosevelt's implied attack on the empire unacceptable and dangerous meddling. While there may have been some important disagreements on the form and mechanisms of colonial rule between the ``Colonel Blimps'' of the Colonial Office and more ``enlightened imperialists,'' including those associated with the lords of the Labour Party, there was unanimity on the need to maintain the empire in one form or another, as the bedrock of the Venetian imperial system, whose head was the reigning ruler of the House of Windsor.

Already emerging as a spokesman for the race patriots and imperialists was the Conservative, Winston Churchill, the archetypical ``Colonel Blimp.'' Churchill, who had an American mother, nevertheless hated everything American, especially its republican government and its people's decidedly anti-imperial sense of charity. American civilization is ``doomed,'' he once wrote, by such views, to which fortunately, the less ``sappy'' of the British elites showed no inclination. Where Roosevelt believed in a Christian God, Churchill merely mouthed such beliefs, but spoke in terms of Wagnerian ``gods,'' who punished the good and wicked alike, at whim. In published locations, Churchill criticized the social programs of Roosevelt's New Deal, preferring to promote the survival of the fittest, rather than support by government for the less fortunate.

Here, then is a basic dividing line between the protagonists in our battle for the future of Western civilization. Roosevelt's New Deal program, with all its flaws in implementation, embodied the concept that lawful government must have a commitment to the general welfare of its citizens, especially the least fortunate. As Roosevelt stated it in 1936, it is a commitment to the Christian concept of ``caritas'' or charity, ``that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.

``We seek not merely to make Government a mechanical implement, but to give it a vibrant personal character that is very much the embodiment of human charity.''

Roosevelt, Churchill was to say later, was a man of ``dangerous moral sentiments.''

A Hardening of Views

Unlike Churchill, who openly supported Hitler and especially Mussolini as a matter of policy, until the late 1930s, Roosevelt, although interested in some of the economic programs of the fascists, especially their infrastructure building plans, had little use for the two dictators, and gradually came to see them as a threat to the future existence of Western civilization.

But Roosevelt found himself constrained from playing a more important role in international politics by a number of factors. For one thing, the State Department was effectively run from the British Foreign Office, making accurate policy assessments impossible, and even implementation of presidential policy problematic. The situation was compounded by a lack of competent foreign intelligence estimates, beyond simple military questions, caused by an unreliable and undermanned intelligence service. (Roosevelt, over the course of his presidency, attempted to overcome this through the creation of private intelligence and diplomatic channels.) Further, the American military, weakened by treaty arrangements in the naval area in the 1920s and early 1930s, and further emaciated by the effects of the Great Depression, was incapable of projecting American power in Europe and/or most other parts of the world. This state of affairs was not to be corrected until long after the start of World War II in 1939, and the U.S. mobilization to win this war.

Moreover, the American people were not ready to stand behind a President who wanted the nation to assume global leadership. Years of misleadership and disinformation, circulated by British operatives and their ``anti-British'' dupes, had led America down the blind alley of ``isolationism,'' away from its historic mission of world leadership. Roosevelt saw it as his personal responsibility to reverse this miseducation, and did so through a series of speeches and messages on foreign policy from 1937-41.

In October 1938, as the British led the world down the path towards war at Munich, Roosevelt proposed privately to the British that a conference be held to repudiate the Versailles Treaty and its onerous conditions, and declare the world committed to equal access for all nations to raw materials. The Chamberlain government, sensing that such a conference might turn into an attack on the imperial arrangements that gave the British the exclusive looting rights in their colonies, told Roosevelt to back off. Under pressure from his own State Department to support the British, Roosevelt withdrew the idea.

The outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939 demonstrated the utter bankruptcy of British and French policy. From his letters and correspondence of the period, it appears that the motion toward war had caused Roosevelt to again reevaluate the assumptions of the Versailles system. While it is not clear that he understood the responsibility of the British for creating Hitler and the Nazi state, he did see that the Versailles system--the perpetuation of the British imperial system in another form--was at its root. He had long since given up his former support for the League of Nations, because, as he wrote to a friend in 1936, it was little more than a debating society for the British and their interests; the League, with its mandate system, had, in fact, reinforced the claims of the colonial powers for sovereignty over their empires, while redistributing the colonial ``booty'' from the losing powers of World War I to the victors.

``Imperialism equals war,'' Roosevelt later told his son Elliot. While not the only factor in creating the new world war, the desire of the imperial powers, led by British, to maintain the colonial system had been a major factor leading to the war. Conversely, if, after this war, a just and lasting peace were to be created, the entire edifice of the imperial system had to be dismantled. America would be Britain (and France's) ally in the coming war, but must not agree to allow the British to dictate the shape of the peace, whenever that peace came.

He described these views to Elliot in 1943:

``I've tried to make it clear ... that while we're [Britain's] allies and in it to victory by their side, they must never get the idea that we're in it just to help them hang on to their archaic, medieval empire ideas ... I hope they realize they're not senior partner; that we are not going to sit by and watch their system stultify the growth of every country in Asia and half the countries in Europe to boot.''

The Four Freedoms

With the fall of France in May 1940, Churchill roared into 10 Downing Street as the new prime minister. Almost immediately, he began to barrage Washington with requests for American aid and the rapid entry of the United States into the war. Roosevelt repeatedly and emphatically rejected the increasingly more shrill requests from Churchill for a declaration of war against the Hitler.

Roosevelt, with calculation, declared America in November 1940 to be the ``arsenal of democracy,'' announcing plans for a major conversion of industrial capacity for military production. The need to supply Britain, and later, in 1941, even before the German invasion, the Soviet Union, with weapons was a cover for the President's plans to make America the foremost military power on the face of the earth.

To cover his back, so to speak, and with the recognition that American entry into the war was inevitable, Roosevelt crafted a government of national unity, opening his cabinet prior to the 1940 election (in which he was running for an unprecedented third term) to members of establishment factions whom he knew to oppose basic components of his domestic and foreign policy; however, the consensus among these scoundrels--who included the new Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, the founder of the anglophile Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)--was that Britain had to be saved, and that Germany had to be defeated. They obviously did not agree, nor did his State Department, with his developing anti-colonial strategy, nor his views on building a lasting alliance with Soviet Russia and Stalin. Roosevelt, not naive in political intrigues, knew that Stimson, Dean Acheson (whom he had once fired because of support for British economic policy), Frank Knox, the Navy Secretary, and the others could not be trusted; but, as he remarked to an associate, he would might as well have them in place where he could keep a good eye on them, as they were going to attempt to subvert his policies anyway.

In November 1940, Roosevelt demanded an accounting from Churchill of British financial resources. What came back, in a classified communication, were the details of the London's effective bankruptcy: London could not pay for any aid. Roosevelt's advisers created the Lend-Lease program to meet this contingency, but Roosevelt had all the evidence he needed that Britain was a bankrupt power, dependent upon the United States for survival--and from this position, unable to dictate the terms of the future peace. The future belonged to the United States.

On Jan. 6, 1941, Roosevelt, the President of a nation that was not yet formally at war, presented in his State of the Union address, the principles around which the war was to be fought. The ``Four Freedoms'' speech defined for a whole generation the aspirations that would guide Roosevelt's vision of the postwar world.

After describing the necessary dependency of Britain upon the U.S.A., FDR stated:

``As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone. Those who man our defenses, and those behind them who build our defenses, must have the stamina and the courage which come from the unshakable belief in the manner of life which they are defending. The mighty action that we are calling for cannot be based on disregard of all things worth fighting for...

``For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

``Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.

``Jobs for all those who can work.

``Security for all those who need it.

``The ending of special privileges for the few.

``The preservation of civil liberties for all.

``The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

``These are simple, basic things that must never be lost in the sight of the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations....

Having stated these principles from a standpoint accessible to the average American citizen, FDR universalized them so as to apply to the rest of the world, not from the standpoint of anexisting world,but asprinciples of change,to move the world from its current wretched state to a new and betterpostwarwar.

``In future days, which we seek to secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

``The first is the freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.

``The second is the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.

``The third is the freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants--everywhere in the world.

``The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.

``That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

``To that new order, we oppose the greater conception--the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

``Since the beginning of American history, we have been engaged in change--in a perpetual peaceful revolution--a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions--without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

``This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or to keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

``To that high concept there can be no end save victory.''

Roosevelt deliberately enunciated the word ``everywhere,'' as he repeated it in cadence with each of the Four Freedoms, and in relation to the struggle for human rights and freedom. According to his aide, Sam Rosenman, Roosevelt had dictated the draft of this section of the speech himself. As he dictated, his trusted advisor Harry Hopkins questioned the use of the word ``everywhere,'' saying that the American people didn't care about people in Africa or elsewhere. ``They had better start caring, Harry,'' replied the President.

Later that year, Norman Rockwell's illustrations of the ``Four Freedoms'' were hanging in homes, barber shops and post offices throughout the land.

In March 1941, Roosevelt reiterated those principles, speaking of an end to the subjugation of men by other men. Speaking of the end of the war, FDR stated, ``then our country must continue to play a great part in the period of world reconstruction, for the good of humanity.

``...There never has been, there isn't now, and there never will be, any race of people fit to serve as masters over their fellow men...

``We believe that any nationality, no matter how small, has the inherent right to its own nationhood.''

Roosevelt's remarks, each more provocative that the previous, did not go unnoticed by Churchill. Cables flew across the Atlantic to British operatives to determine how much support Roosevelt might have for his anti-colonial positions among the American people. Churchill did not like what he was told. As Sir Norman Angell reports, Roosevelt was speaking for a majority opinion within the population:

``How could a man like Franklin Roosevelt, of all people, come to hold the [anti-British, anti-colonial] views he did? His view was that of so many of his countrymen who differentiate sharply between the British people and the British government. The British people are regarded generally as decent, honest, law-abiding, freedom loving. But their government is usually represented as a class or caste rule, maintaining often against the will the people, a world tyranny compounded of imperialism, colonialism and power politics which violates all the political morals, and, in particular, denies the elementary human rights of all peoples to be independent like the United States.''

The Atlantic Charter

Roosevelt now sought to have the British ``sign on'' to the principles of the Four Freedoms. He asked for a summit conference with Churchill in early 1941, banking on the latter's desperation and need for American assistance to gain agreement. After delaying the summit for several months, Churchill finally agreed to hold it off the coast of Argentia, Newfoundland on Aug. 13-14, 1941.

While the normal histories of the ``Atlantic Charter'' conference, speak of a ``deepening'' relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt, first hand accounts, including Elliot Roosevelt's, give a different story. The anti-British sentiment within parts of the American delegation permeated the discussions among the working bodies. Elliot recounts one top American military aide telling him that the public ``British love fest'' was phony:

``Love us? All they want is our birthright!''

``The British Empire is at stake here,''

FDR told Elliot as meetings got underway.

``We've got to make it clear to the British from the very outset that we don't intend to be simply a good-time Charlie who can be used to help the British Empire out of a tight spot, and then be forgotten forever.

``...I think I speak as America's President when I say that America won't help England in this war simply so that she will be able to continue to ride roughshod over colonial peoples.''

There were bitter arguments over Roosevelt's plan to provide the Russians with American material support, with Churchill declaring that such aid was wasted, and that Russia--and the aid--would fall to the Germans. But the most intense clash came over the question of the future of the British Empire. Roosevelt initiated the discussion by cleverly turning the British ``free trade'' ideology against themselves, demanding an end to the ``Empire preferences.''

``|`The British Empire trade agreements,'' he [Churchill] began heavily, `are--'|''

``Father broke in. `Yes. Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It is because of them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonial Near East and Far East, are still as backward as they are.'

``Churchill's neck reddened and he crouched forward. `Mr. President, England does not propose for a moment to lose its favored position among the British Dominions. The trade that has made England great shall continue, and under these conditions prescribed by England's ministers.'

``|`You see,' said Father slowly, `it is along in here somewhere that there is likely to be disagreement between you, Winston, and me.

``|`I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace, it must involve the development of backward countries. Backward peoples. How can this be done? It can't be done obviously by eighteenth-century methods. Now--'

``|`Who's talking about eighteenth-century methods?'

``|`Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes raw materials out of a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of the that country in consideration. Twentieth-century methods involve bringing industry to these colonies. Twentieth-century methods include increasing the standard of living, by educating them, by bringing them sanitation--by making sure that they get a return for the raw wealth of their community...'

``|`You mentioned India,' he [Churchill] growled.

``|`Yes, I [Roosevelt] can't believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy.'

``|`What about the Philippines?'

``|`I am glad you mentioned them. They get their independence, you know, in 1946. And they've gotten modern sanitation, modern education, their rate of illiteracy has gone steadily down...'

``|`There can be no tampering with the Empire's economic agreements.'

``|`They're artificial....'

``|`They are the foundation of our greatness.'

``|`The peace,' said Father firmly, `cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of the peace demands and will get equality of peoples...'|''

Meanwhile, Roosevelt was determined to have the British commit themselves now to the principles of the Four Freedoms, knowing that they were incompatible with the continued existence of the Empire. The text of the proposed Atlantic Charter was drafted by Roosevelt ally in the State Department, Sumner Welles; it was fined-tuned in Argentia by Roosevelt.

The Atlantic Charter, as signed by Churchill, states that the signatories ``seek no aggrandizement'' and ``no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned.'' Its most-debated clause states:

``They will respect the rights of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; they will to see the sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcible deprived of them.''

Churchill insisted that this only applied to occupied nations. Roosevelt, however, demanded the inclusion of the termall, meaning that its applicability was universal--it includedallcolonial peoples, including the British Empire.

The British leadership now knew first hand, if they had only feared or suspected as much before, that Roosevelt, as a matter of absolute conviction, was at war with the British Empire. Elliot recounts the following outburst from Churchill:

``Mr. President, I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire. Every idea you entertain about the structure of the postwar world demonstrates it.... But in spite of that, you constitute our only hope. You know it. We know it. You know that we know that without America, the British Empire won't stand.''

The View from Downing Street

When war finally came to the United States, on Dec. 7, 1941, America wasalreadyin a war mobilization that had transformed the nation in less than three years into the world's foremost military and industrial superpower. While publicly no such claims were made, documents from the Roosevelt White House nerve center, its Map Room, were in December 1941alreadydiscussing postwar plans in the Pacific and Europe.

As sat in his map room, surrounded by his most trusted aides, and adjutants, Roosevelt looked upon a world radically different from when he took office. The British Empire was an economic, political, and military shambles, as were all the other empires--the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese. They could not be out back together without the agreement of the American superpower, and Roosevelt would not give that agreement.

Assuming that full weight of American military power were brought to bear, the defeat of the Japanese and Germans was inevitable; the question was how to do this most efficiently, in the shortest period of time, with the least loss of life, with no regard for British colonial interests. FDR was determined to prevent British intriques to dismember or destroy the Soviet Union and to ``disintegrate'' China as a nation-state. In Roosevelt's eyes, both China and Russia were needed as allies to counterbalance the British after the war, to create a stable environment for the dismantling of the imperial Versailles system.

On the other side of the Atlantic, at 10 Downing Street, in Churchill's situation room, similar maps and deployments were on display. Churchill's main goal, however, was to preserve the British imperial system, in one form or another. In that regard, the United States and Franklin Roosevelt represented a greater strategic threat than either the Germans, whose Nazi government had been created by British bankers, or the Japanese, whose royal family was manipulated by British assets; a potential American postwar alliance with the Russians merely enhanced that threat.

Churchill's strategy was to sacrifice part of the empire, including Australia, to the Japanese, to trap the United States in a long Pacific War, that would bleed the nation and last well beyond Roosevelt's lifetime. In addition, the second front in Europe would be delayed to prolong the slaughter of the Russians. Thereby, the British would gain time to regain control over their empire.

Roosevelt, with his eyes fixed on the creation of just postwar order, did not go for the bait.

In a mid-December 1941 conference with U.S. military leaders, he supported plans to anchor U.S. military strategy in the Pacific around the defense of Australia, a nation whom he regarded as crucial to postwar plans for the development of China and the former colonial empires. In early 1942, FDR dispatched Patrick Hurley, the secretary of war in the Hoover administration under whose direction the War Plan Red (against the British) had been maintained and updated, to Australia, to develop close relations with the prime minister, the Australian patriot John Curtin. Hurley and Curtin worked out the plans to have Gen. Douglas MacArthur lead the Allied counteroffensive in the Pacific.

Roosevelt also reportedly gave orders that no American troops were to be deployed to fight for British colonial possessions, no matter how much Churchill raved, except where such deployments might have bearing on the defense of either Australia or China.

"The End of Imperialism"

In December 1941 and February 1942, Churchill flew to Washington for meetings with FDR. During the latter, Roosevelt, according to firsthand accounts, launched into an appeal for the independence of India. Churchill became red in the face, and charged the President with ``meddling'' into empire affairs. Writing in 1950, Churchill let down his guard about his true feeling about Roosevelt:

``The President's mind was back in the American War of Independence and he thought of the Indian problem in terms of thirteen colonies fighting George III at the end of the 18th century...''

With Churchill continuing to insist that the Atlantic Charter had no relevance to the British Empire, Roosevelt asked Undersecretary of State Welles to deliver an address that would make the universal application of the charter's principles clear as a bell. The speech, delivered on Memorial Day 1942 at Arlington National Cemetery, called the war ``a people's war'' which ``cannot be won until the fundamental rights of peoples of the earth are secured.'' Speaking from a text approved by the President, Welles declared that the system that divided thr world into ``the haves'' and ``the have nots'' must be ended:

``If this war is in fact a war for the liberation of people, it must assure the sovereign equality of peoples throughout the world, as well as in the world of the Americas. Our victory must bring in its train the liberation of all peoples. Discrimination between peoples because of race, creed, or color must be abolished. The age of imperialism is ended. The right of a people to their freedom must be recognized as the civilized world long since recognized the right of an individual to his personal freedom. The principles of the Atlantic Charter must be guaranteed to the world as a whole--in all oceans and all continents.

``And so, in the fullness of God's time, when victory is won, the people of the United States will once more be afforded the opportunity to play their part in the determination of the kind of world in which they will live. With courage and with vision, they can yet secure the future safety of their country and of its free institutions, and help the nations of the earth back into the paths of peace...''

The British ambassador, Lord Halifax, cabled London that Roosevelt was a ``liar'' and no friend of the British; the American President, he said, was leading a crusade against the British Empire and everything it stood for. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, who had come to Washington for talks, cabled Churchill that the Roosevelt position ``contemplates the dismantling of the British and Dutch empires....''

In July 1942, Roosevelt sanctioned a world tour by former 1940 GOP presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, whom he had recruited into a tactical alliance against British imperialism. Willkie carried personal instructions and messages from Roosevelt, and his speeches spoke publicly of the anti-imperial content of American foreign policy. Wherever Willkie went, he spoke of the ``coming tide of freedom'' which would roll back imperialism. On Oct. 6, in Chungking China, he declared ``We believe that this war must mean an end to the empire of nations over other nations. No foot of Chinese soil, for example, should be or can be ruled from now on except by the people who live on it. And we must say so now, not after the war.

The British were furious. Were Willkie's statements American policy, they demanded to know. Roosevelt said nothing and told the State Department to acknowledge only that the President had sanctioned the trip.

On his return to the U.S.A., Willkie delivered a nationwide radio broadcast report on his findings. He declared:

``In Africa, in the Middle East, throughout the Arab world, as well as in China, and the whole Far East, freedom means the orderly but scheduled abolition of the colonial system. I can assure you that this is true. I can assure you that the rule of people by other people is not freedom and not what we must fight to preserve....

``When I say that in order to have peace this world must be free, I am only reporting that a great process has started which no man--certainly not Hitler--can stop. Men and women all over the world are on the march, physically, intellectually and spiritually. After centuries of ignorant and dull compliance, hundreds of millions of people in Eastern Europe and Asia have opened the books. Old fears no longer frighten them. They are no longer willing to be eastern slaves for western profits. They are beginning to know that men's welfare throughout the world is interdependent. They are resolved, as we must be, that there is no more place for imperialism within their own society than in the society of nations. The big house on the hill surrounded by mud huts has lost its awesome charm.''

The next day, Roosevelt was asked at a press conference for his comment on this last section of the Willkie speech. He stated that Willkie had merely restated a well-accepted point, that ``the Atlantic Charter applied to all humanity.''

Churchill could no longer contain himself. On Nov. 10, 1942 he rose in the British Parliament to acclaim the allied landings in North Africa. Instead, he launched into a defense of British war aims, stating that they had not entered the war for profit or the expansion of territory under the Union Jack. Then, he stated,

``Let me, however, make this clear, in case that there should be any mistake about it in any quarter. We mean to hold our own. I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.''

Roosevelt made no direct comments on Churchill's remarks. In a letter to an aide, he wrote:

``We are going to have worse trouble with Britain [after the war] than we do with Nazi Germany now.''

As Churchill fumed, Roosevelt was refining his views on the mechanisms for the transition from the Versailles colonial order to a new order of independence, freedom, and development. He expressed concerns about how to guard the peoples of the colonial world from further exploitation at the hands of the British and other imperialists. But it were not possible to set the colonies free without adequate preparation, or their peoples would be set up for exploitation by other, indirect means.

His answer was a plan to create ``trustees''-- a group of nations--which would guarantee the development of nation-states in the former colonies, while having the sovereignty of those areas reside with their inhabitants. In some extreme cases, where it were impossible to create sovereign nations for reasons of size or location, trustees could create internationally guaranteed ``free ports,'' to be developed for the benefit of all nations.

While there were some within the British elites, including Lord Hailey, who believed that Britain would have to give in to a new type of imperial mechanism developed from the Commonwealth, proposals that would subject the empire to ``trusteeship'' were regarded as tantamount to a declaration of war.

Behind Churchill's back, Roosevelt discussed his anti-colonial strategy with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov when the latter visited Washington in late 1942. He told Molotov that he felt that after the war it was going to be necessary to take colonial possessions away from the mother countries, ``for their own protection.'' Molotov indicated that he was certain that Stalin would agree to these ideas, as he was favorable to other proposals for the postwar world.

Confrontation at Casablanca

It was against this backdrop that Roosevelt prepared for a confrontation on the colonial question with Churchill at the February 1943 Allied conference in Casablanca, Morocco.

It was apparently Roosevelt's own idea that he should make a stop in Liberia on his trip to the meeting. Roosevelt made brief public remarks highlighting the fact that Liberia had been founded by American slaves and was a free nation, but he was outraged at what he saw: substandard living conditions; he privately blamed the State Department for having no policy on economic development for Liberia or for anywhere else in the ``poor'' world, and saw this as undermining his foreign policy.

As embarrassed as FDR was by what he saw in Liberia, he was, according to first hand accounts, visibly shaken by what he viewed in a brief stop in British Gambia. On his arrival at Casablanca, FDR told his son:

``The thing is, the colonial system means war. Exploit the resources of a India, a Burma, a Java, take all the wealth out of those countries, but never put anything back into them, things like education, sanitation, decent standards of living, minimum health requirements--all you are doing is storing up the kind of trouble that leads to war...I must tell Churchill what I found out about his British Gambia today.... This morning at about eight-thirty, we drove through Bathurst to the airfield. The natives were just getting to work. In rags ... glum-looking.... They [his British hosts] told us that the natives would look happier around noontime, when the sun would have burned off the dew and the chill. I was told that the prevailing wages of these men was one and nine. One shilling, nine pence. Less that fifty cents ... a day! Fifty cents a day! Besides which they are given half a cup of rice.... Dirt. Disease. Very high mortality rate. I asked life expectancy. You'd never guess what it is. Twenty six years! These people are treated worse than livestock. Their cattle live longer!... Churchill may have thought I wasn't serious last time [at Argentia]. He'll find out this time.''

We have some idea of what Roosevelt was saying from an account of discussions, at which Churchill was present, with the Sultan of Morocco. Roosevelt, speaking in French, stressed the need for Morocco to develop and control her own resources. To do this, he said, required: ``the elevation of the living standards of Moroccans; only by doing that could Morocco be free of imperial intrigues (Morocco was at the time controlled by the French). The Sultan expressed a desire to obtain modern education and health standards.

``Father pointed out,'' Elliot Roosevelt wrote, ``that to accomplish this, the Sultan should not permit outside interests to obtain concessions which would drain off the country's resources.''

Churchill was described as growing increasingly furious at these comments, and repreatedly tried to change the subject. Roosevelt persisted, telling the Sultan that the postwar world would differ sharply from the prewar world, ``especially as they related to the colonial question.'' The Sultan asked FDR what he meant by ``differ sharply.'' Roosevelt explained that in the past, French and British financiers combined into self-perpetuating syndicates for the purpose of dredging riches out of the colonies; he then said that there were likely large oil deposits in Morocco that needed development. The Sultan said, that while he would like to pursue such possibilities and use the wealth to develop his nation, he was unable to do so without going to the colonial powers, since his country lacked scientists, engineers, and technicians needed to develop a petroleum industry. Roosevelt suggested that the U.S.A. could establish a reciprocal aid program that would have as its purpose the development of skilled engineers and scientists and technicians, using American universities for the training. Roosevelt then suggested that the Sultan could engage American firms to carry out the development program he had in mind, on a fee or small percentage basis. American aid would not be exploitative, said FDR, nor would it ask for control of resources or political institutions.

Churchill was described as ``glowering'' when he left the room.

A year later, in a speech to the Negro News Publishers Association, Roosevelt gave additional description of the conflict with Churchill, referring to his view of colonial rule in Gambia:

``I am taking up with Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the present time--I think that he will see the point--the general thought that the United Nations ought to have an inspection committee of all these colonies that are way, way down the line, that are not ready to have anything to say because the owning country has given them no facilities.

``And if we send a committee from the United Nations, and I used the example of Gambia, to go down to Gambia, `If you Britishers don't come up to scratch--toe the mark--then we will let the world know.

``Well, the Prime Minister doesn't like that idea. And his comeback was: `All right, the United Nations will send an inspection committee to your own South in America.'' (Laughter)

``I said, `Winston, that's all right with me. Go ahead and do it. Tell the world. We call it freedom of the press, and you call it `pitiless publicity'--you can right a lot of wrong with `pitiless publicity.'|''

A Grand Design

Over the course of 1943, FDR became increasingly frustrated with the actions of the State Department, and its special Subcommittee on Dependent Peoples. Rather than put forward his proposals for trusteeship, State Department bureaucrats, meeting with their counterparts in London, came up with unworkable schemes that Churchill knew could never be implemented. In addition, no matter how many times Roosevelt lectured the State Department on the need to avoid postwar regional security arrangements or an over-reaching world government, the proposals for the new United Nations organization were embellished with ``globaloney,'' supported by certain British factions. State was trying to create a new and bigger Versailles system, with a new and bigger League of Nations, Roosevelt told his trusted aides, and he did not want to walk down the failed path of the anglophile agent Woodrow Wilson.

In December 1943, FDR expressed his frustration to his son Elliot:

``You know, any number of times the men in the State Department have tried to conceal messages to me, delay them, hold them up somehow, just because some of those career diplomats over there aren't in accord with what they know I think. They should be working for Winston. As a matter of fact, a lot of the time, they are [working for Churchill]. Stop to think of 'em: any number of 'em are convinced that the way for America to conduct its foreign policy is to find out what the British are doing and then copy that!''

``I was told,'' his son reports the President as stating, ``six years ago, to clean out that State Department. It's like the British Foreign Office....''

``I'll take care of these matters myself,'' was Roosevelt's now usual response on matters of crucial policy. ``I am the only person I can trust.''

The State Department prepared voluminous briefing books and policy papers for the November 1943 Cairo meetings with Chiang Kai-shek and Churchill and the Teheran meetings with Stalin and Churchill. Roosevelt not only left the books behind--he left all State Department officials behind, to stew in Washington!

According to first-hand accounts, Roosevelt went to Cairo with the outlines of a global ``grand design'' for the last stages of the war and the postwar world. The war in Europe was to be ended as quickly as possible, with the cross-Channel invasion of the continent, long postponed by Churchill's maneuvers, implemented at a fixed date certain within six months. In the meantime, full support was to be given to MacArthur's strategy of moving toward Japan, by bypassing strongholds, with no ``sideshows'' as proposed by the British. Japan was to be isolated and effectively destroyed, without a costly invasion of the mainland, by conventional military means. Its collapse was to be insured by a Soviet invasion of Manchuria and possibly Korea, as soon as the war in Europe ended. China was to be maintained as a whole nation, as envisioned by Dr. Sun Yat-sen.

To sweep away colonialism as rapidly as possible, the U.S. would form alliances with the Russians and Chinese, as a block against the fourth allied power, the British. Together, the Big Four, or as FDR called them, ``The Four Policemen,'' would militarily guarantee the peace, with the United Nations organization serving as a coordinating body to promote global economic development.

Roosevelt believed that he could sell this vision to both Stalin and Chiang; if he could do that, Churchill and the British could be dragged kicking and screaming into the new order.

Roosevelt saw it as necessary to attack the defacto imperial alliance between the French and the British; the French, he told his son, while outwardly hating the British, had adopted Britain's imperial outlook, and taken their side on such issues. For that reason, Roosevelt said that he would not allow Indochina to be returned the the French. When his son raised some issue with this, stating that her colonies ``belonged to France,'' the President shot back:

``How do they belong to France. Why does Morocco, inhabited by Moroccans belong to France? Or take Indochina. The Japanese control that colony now. Why was it a cinch for the Japanese to conquer that land? The native Indochinese have been so flagrantly downtrodden that they thought to themselves: `Anything must be better than to live under French colonial rule!' Should a land belong to France? By what logic and by what historical rule.... I am talking about another war, Elliot. I am talking about what will happen to our world, if after this war we allow millions of people to slide back into semi-slavery!''

At Cairo, Roosevelt huddled for hours, alone, with Chiang, while Churchill fumed. He told the Chinese leader that the U.S. was prepared to help make China into a great power, but that Chiang would have to find a way to create a government of national unity with the communists, rather than allow the country to split. He informed Chiang that he was prepared to force the British to return Hong Kong to the Chinese, provided that Chiang would then agree to place it under international trusteeship to operate as a ``free port.'' Roosevelt assured the Chiang that he was prepared to end ``all colonial empires'' in the Pacific, and assured him that this would not be replaced by an American ``imperium.''

In Teheran, in one-on-one meetings with Stalin, Roosevelt told the Soviet leader of his plans to end all empires. Stalin, according to some reports, became scared at the implications. Didn't the President understand that this might mean war, with the British, and explosions in the former colonial sector? he asked. Roosevelt replied that risks were going to have to be taken to create a better world. The two leaders agreed that Indochina would be ``liberated,'' as well as other colonial areas.

Roosevelt, at least according to the records, never briefed an angry Churchill on his dealings with Chiang and Stalin, causing the volatile prime minister to accuse him of ``secret deals.'' However, during the Cairo sessions, Roosevelt made quite clear his intentions, and the two leaders clashed openly. The President demanded that the conference declaration include specific timetables on the independence of British colonies in Asia--which Churchill absolutely refused to consider. Still the draft declaration, as proposed by Roosevelt, pointedly refused to make reference to restoration of any colonies to their former masters

Although the communiqué was better for London that what FDR wished, he came away with the feeling that he had British in retreat. Churchill, in London, found himself under attack in his cabinet for making concessions. ``We did the best we could,'' he told them, cursing at Roosevelt's persistence on the colonial question.

The Global New Deal

Roosevelt returned to the U.S. telling his aides that he believed that they were in the process of ``remaking the world.''

To give economic substance to his postwar vision, he had a number of groups within the government working what was dubbed ``the global New Deal.'' While an examination of the plans finds them disjointed and often partially filled out, one can't help but feel exhiliration at their breath and the boldness of their concepts. Even today, these plans find no parallel in scale, except in the economic programs proposed by Lyndon LaRouche and his cothinkers.

The initiation for each of these plans came directly from Roosevelt. It appears that this President was keenly interested in economic development, and had ideas about how to do it in every corner of the globe.

A small sample of what was under discussion gives a sense of what he was thinking--and what must have scared the living daylights out of Churchill and the British imperialists:

• Starting in 1939, Roosevelt began discussing enormous resettlement projects. These are not to be confused with the British concepts of resettlement used for geopolitical manipulation, or for the creation of artificial states. Roosevelt was proposing huge colonization programs, to develop areas of the world presently underpopulated or undeveloped. Roosevelt's view was that there were large numbers of people--either refugees or others seeking to immigrate--who should be given a ``mission'' similar to the sense of those who colonized the New World. They could be directed to parts of the world that needed ``development cadre.'' Everything that had been thought about these matters, previously, by others, had been wrong, because they were thought of on too small a scale, and without the sense of linking science to the project. Roosevelt proposed that there be surveys done of Asia, Africa, Australia, and North and South America, to determine areas of millions of square miles for resettlement. Plans would then be drawn to develop infrastructure, irrigation systems, cities, farming, etc. The resettlers could come in waves: first those to build the infrastructure, then those to colonize. All should be provided with modern health and living conditions and be paid a fair wage. This would be funded by an international consortia of nations, but that when it was finished, a ``new civilization'' involving millions of people would be growing in places that were previously thought to be uninhabitable. The newly colonized areas would be assimilated into existing nation states where feasible, and could create new states where it wasn't.

• Roosevelt wanted to build a number of superports at key locations on several continents, to help speed world trade. He asked the U.S. military to work on plans for such a port at the head of the Persian Gulf; another would be located in Palestine; others in Southeast Asia; and another in Baja, California. Such ports, while being affiliated with individual nations, would be ``free ports,'' and operated by an international authority, linked possibly to the United Nations.

• Roosevelt proposed the construction of several major rail lines, including lines in China, and a link through China to Russia. He also proposed to build a rail line across Africa (from east to west); and a rail line from the new Gulf superport, through Iran, into Russia and then going east and west.

• The President oversaw plans for canals, in Asia, and a new canal in Central America, and improvements to various international waterways and straits to promote world shipping.

• Water-management and related plans were proposed for Europe, Asia, (including the Ganges-Brahmaputra River System of India); in Europe, these plans were linked to the development of hydroelectric power. Roosevelt commissioned studies to be done for the creation in Africa, Asia, and South America of TVA-like authorities to develop and operate such power grids.

• The most graphic evidence of his concept of large-scale planning paving the way for new peaceful, economic arrangements is in the Middle East. He proposed massive irrigation plans for the Sahara; water, said FDR, could be pumped from abundant underground rivers and streams, for use in a gigantic reforestation project. Oil resources should be developed as a part of this larger project; once water was available, then modern industrial development could take place as well, and the whole area would be transformed. He went so far as to appoint James Landis as director of economic operations for the Middle East and charged him with the responsibility for developing these plans.

• Roosevelt discussed making Iran a ``pilot'' project that would show the world the benefit of applying American ``20th Century'' methods to global development problems. He sent Patrick Hurley there to assess the situation.

• He was not in favor of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (suggesting several other areas for such a state, including Angola), but by late in the war seemed to see no way to avoid it. With that in mind, he proposed that such a state must be a model for economic development programs, that it be given resources to show the efficacy of technology. He proposed, however, that such a state from its inception, work with its neighbors in the context of the kind of economic development program he was generally proposing. Otherwise, there would be no peace in the area. If what he proposed was done, then he foresaw a possible federation of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Trans-Jordan, within which there would be no currency or trade barriers, which would work on cooperative projects in large-scale irrigation, power development, and communications. The economic benefits, FDR said, would provide the basis for the end of Arab-Jew hostility.

Occasionally, he put forward these plans when the British were present, as if to taunt them. One such forum was the Pacific War Council, which met in Washington from 1942 to early 1944, with FDR chairing almost every meeting. At one, he proposed bringing several million people, including Chinese, to Australia. Lord Halifax, the British ambassador became apoplectic.

At another, he laid out far-reaching plans for Asian development. At Roosevelt's direction, the U.S.A. submitted a general plan for postwar development that FDR intended as a model for other areas. Titled, ``After the War: Security,'' it was premised, to anger of Halifax and London, on the end of colonial empires, and was focussed in large part on economic development. It was divided into two general concepts, with specific planks: 1) the coordination of the economies of each country for development purposes and their coordination with other countries in the world; and 2) finance and the matter of payment of obligations. The plan called for the creation of a world standard monetary unit, and suggested that it be called the ``Demo,'' for democracy. Roosevelt, according to reports, enthusiastically presented the proposal, explaining the benefits that each and every citizen would derive.

At one point, Roosevelt began a discourse on debt. He noted that too many Pacific nations had borrowed money from the United States and its private banks to finance their public works. These loans usually called for repayment at high rates of interest, creating long-term indebtedness. He did not want that to happen anymore in the postwar world. FDR said that he wanted to create low-interest credits for projects and programs and wanted to work toward a coordinated plan to eliminate the interest rate problem completely. He proposed that steps be taken by governments to bring this about. Halifax sensed that something bigger was at stake and questioned how there could be such a broad plan only for the Pacific. The President, he said, was proposing major changes that would have impacts on the rest of the financial world, including his own country. ``So be it,'' replied Roosevelt.

The President was asked what economic experts thought of such radical ideas. Roosevelt said that he welcomed ideas from everyone, including the people at this table. He stated that ``cooperative allies'' did not need to be, or need, ``economic experts'' to make their plans work. ``I realize that the `experts' would probably attack this proposition [about debt and interest] with enthusiasm,'' Roosevelt said, ``however, I have come to realize that nearly all taught me in college about economics by the `experts' has been proven wrong!''

Through to the End

Running for an unprecedented fourth term in 1944, Roosevelt used the election campaign to educate Americans about their special responsibility in the creation of the postwar world. It is in the interest of America, he told them in several speeches, to rebuild the world in its image, to give hope and prosperity to millions. The campaign to make the world's population truly free from want, as he had promised in his Four Freedoms speech three years earlier, would mean jobs and prosperity for Americans: It was in our own best interests to see others prosper.

Speaking at the meeting of the International Labor Organization in May, was broadcast nationally, Roosevelt dsecribed the horrors of the British imperial system in Gambia, he said:

``I think that we can get somewhere if we keep that idea of being `agin'--as we say in Irish-American--`against' exploitation everywhere. It would be an awfully good thing for all of us....''

However, Roosevelt balked at enlisting the American people into his fight against Churchill and the British Empire. That would have to wait, he told aides, until after the war was won on the battlefields.

The British responded to the threat Roosevelt represented through the mouth of GOP candidate Thomas Dewey, who was controlled by John Foster Dulles. Dewey claimed that Roosevelt and the New Deal apparatus responsible for his economic proposals were ``communists'' and that Roosevelt, if elected, would turn the country over to the ``Reds.''

Churchill, meanwhile, was prepared to stall. FDR suffered from serious heart problems and hypertension, although his own physicians thought that he could survive through a fourth term. By late 1944, Churchill was in receipt of a secret briefing on the President's health by Churchill's personal physician Lord Moran: Roosevelt had only several months to live, at best, perhaps a year.

(It cannot be ruled out that the British may have had a direct hand in the President's deteriorating health. it is certainly the case that Churchill, through his insistence on two summits in Canada during the height of the campaign, and his delay of the proposed summit with Stalin until it required a precarious, 12,000-mile mid-winter trip to Yalta, deliberately caused strain and helped wear out Roosevelt. Doctors have since stated that the strain of the Yalta trip may have taken several months or even a year from Roosevelt's life.)

At Yalta in February 1945, Roosevelt continued to doggedly pursue the policies that had guided him since 1941. He sought and won from Stalin an agreement to keep China whole, to allow for a coalition government between the Communists and Chiang, and to make it one of the ``Big Four.'' He also gained specific agreement for Russian entry into the war against Japan; for Roosevelt, who was in possession of secret military briefings from MacArthur's spies in Japan, a Russian invasion of Manchuria and attacks on Korea would mean that an invasion of the Japanese mainland was not necessary. (Immediately upon his return to the United States, Roosevelt, in reviewing invasion plans, with MacArthur's full consent, put them all on hold. His son Elliot, as well as others close to him, say that FDR already believed that the military use of the atomic bomb was unncecessary to gain a victory over Japan and would have never consented to its use on populated areas.)

Roosevelt believed that he would be personally able to force Stalin to abide by his agreements; he expressed more fear about duplicity from the British than from the Soviet leader.

The records of the February 1945 Yalta meeting, now public, also show that Roosevelt put on the table his plans to place the British Empire under international supervision, as a step toward dismantling it. According to Elliot Roosevelt, Churchill responded with rage:

``I will never agree to the fumbling fingers of 40 or 50 nations prying into the existence of the British Empire.... While there is life in my body, no transfer of British sovereignty will be permitted.''

On Feb. 23, 1944, during his return from Yalta aboard theU.S.S. Quincy, Roosevelt held an ``off the record'' press briefing for reporters. He told them of his extraordinary plans to make the deserts bloom in the Middle East, using oil resources for vast irrigation programs. Roosevelt explained that, in his mind, this was what the new United Nations was going to be all about.

He then stated that he was not going to allow the French to reclaim Indochina and that Stalin and Chiang were in agreement with him:

``With the Indo-Chinese, there is a feeling that they ought to be independent but they are not ready for it. I suggested at the time, that Indo-China be set up under trusteeship--have a Frenchman, one or two Indo-Chinese, a Chinese, and a Russian because they are on the coast, and maybe a Filipino and an American--to educate them for self-government....

``Stalin liked the idea. Chiang liked the idea. The British don't like it. It might bust up their empire, because if the Indo-Chinese were to work together and eventually get their independence, the Burmese might do the same thing to England. The French have talked about how they expect to recapture Indo-China, but they haven't got any shipping to do it with.

``It [Roosevelt's idea of trusteeship for Indo-China] would only get the British mad. Chiang would go along. Stalin would go along. As for the British, it would only make the British mad. Better to keep quiet, just now.

``Is that Churchill's idea on all territory out there, that he wants it back just the way they were?'' Roosevelt was asked. He replied, ``Yes, he is mid-Victorian on all things like that.''

A reporter asked FDR whether Churchill's position weren't ``inconsistent with a policy of self-determination [as expressed in the Atlantic Charter, for example]?''

``Yes, that is true,'' Roosevelt replied. The reporter informed the President that Churchill had just the other day reiterated that the principles in the Atlantic Charter, including the clause that gave all peoples held against their will a fundamental right to freedom, was ``not a rule, just a guide.''

``Do you remember that speech the prime minister made about the fact that he was not made prime minister of Great Britain to see the empire fall apart?'' a reporter asked the President.

``Dear old Winston will never learn on that point,'' said Roosevelt. ``He has made his specialty on that point. This, of course, is off the record.''

In his last days, Roosevelt was working on plan, which he had preliminarily dubbed ``Food for Peace,'' which involved the unleashing of American agriculture to feed the world, while deploying American technology to make the hungry nations food self-sufficient. He was also preoccupied with trying to prevent the British, in particular Churchill, from staging provocations that would split the United States from Russia, using territorial disputes in Europe as a pretext; at a cabinet meeting on March 16, one of the last attended by FDR, according to the notes of one participant:

``The President indicated considerable difficulty with British relations.... He stated that the British were perfectly willing for the United States to have a war with Russia at any time and that, in his opinion, to follow the British program would be to proceed toward that end.''

Conclusion

On April 12, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, patriot, and enemy of the British Empire, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia. Almost immediately, British agents moved to obliterate Roosevelt's policies and his postwar plans.

Orders that were being prepared for U.S. ships and marines to take Hong Kong and turn it over to the Chinese, were aborted. Other plans to prevent the French from retaking Indochina were cancelled, and American troops in the area were told to stand aside. The imperial flags went back up, as Churchill had been demanding, all over the world.

Later that same month, in San Francisco, the American delegation to the United Nations conference voted against proposals that were aimed at placing the British and French colonial possessions under international supervision and with a definite timetable for independence. America, said delegation leader Harold Stassen, had but one true ally, the British, and we must always stand by her side. The United Nations, taken over by a pack of British agents, including Julian Huxley, soon became a tool for British imperial interests.

In August, President Truman, manipulated by the British agent Henry Simpson, dropped atomic bombs that Roosevelt never planned to use on a nation already prepared to surrender, claiming to ``save'' American lives in an invasion of Japan--which FDR and his top military commanders knew was unncessary.

Not one of the economic development projects proposed by Roosevelt and already in planning stages, ever saw the light of day.

Roosevelt had failed to develop a leadership cadre to carry on without him. This was, in part, because of his own leadership style, which tended to centralize important decision-making in himself and which often manipulated even his closest aides against each other. Ultimately, he found that aides, like Hurley, were unable to generate ideas or policy. He groomed no political successor, and within the patriotic faction which had, sometimes reluctantly, been forced to follow his leadership, there was no one who could hold a candle to FDR.

But, Roosevelt was also unable, because of his own limited comprehension of the history of the ideas that informed his thinking, to explain them in their most profound sense to others. He was a patriot, with great instincts, and human compassion, but he had an imperfect understanding of the history of the conflict that he found himself in the middle of: The battle between the American republican tradition and British oligarchism. Those closest to him, often themselves infected with the disease of anglophilia, failed to understand this fight; and without him present, they were easy pickings for skilled British operatives.

FDR was arguably the greatest American President of this century, who understood how to use the power of the presidency as no individual before or since. He was, as President, the best at organizing the American citizenry behind a program. Yet, though at war with the British Empire and all it stood for, Roosevelt never brought the American people fully into that battle, never told them of the depths of his disagreements with Churchill. He said he was waiting to do this until the war's end, but it never happened. In the absence of a population mobilized against the British, the invidious Harry Truman, handled for the British by Simpson and Jimmy Byrnes, could reverse the direction of Roosevelt's policies. We thus continue suffer the consequences from this fatal error of Roosevelt's judgment.

Notes

In compiling this paper, the author relied, as much as possible, on direct sources, including speeches, transcipts, and reports of meetings and declassified papers from the White House and elsewhere. These primary sources to differed with major published secondary accounts of the period to the point that these secondary accounts are suspect as deliberate disinformation and misdirection. Works which attempted to truthfully address the policy issues are:

• Elliot Roosevelt, As He Saw It. (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946)

• William Roger Louis, Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire 1941-45. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978)

• Robert A. Divine, Roosevelt and World War II. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969)

• Willard Range, Franklin D. Roosevelt's World Order. (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1959)

• Christopher G. Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War Against Japan, 1941-45. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978)

No Kings explained for people who think they're fighting fascism.

You're standing in a crowd on Saturday. You look around and think yeah. No Kings. This is what democracy looks like.

Bro.

You're holding a sign made by a communist billionaire who lives in Shanghai.

You live in a constitutional republic.

Elections. Term limits. A free press that spent four years calling the president a fascist without one journalist being arrested.

The modern left's definition of fascism:

You love your country? Fascist.

You want to enforce the border? Racist.

You think parents should raise their kids? Bigot.

You want to know who's voting in your elections? Jim Crow.

Being patriotic is fascism to the modern left.

But every country has borders and enforces them. 176 countries require ID to vote. That's the definition of a country.

But the Democratic establishment told you otherwise. And you believed them.

Congress has a 15% approval rating. 80% of Americans disapprove. 97% of incumbents got re-elected.

Chuck Schumer. 46 years. Longer than Stalin.

Steny Hoyer. 45 years. Longer than Mao.

Mitch McConnell. 42 years. 5x more than Napoleon.

Nancy Pelosi. 39 years. Longer than Henry VIII.

Maxine Waters. 35 years. Longer than Mussolini.

Bernie Sanders. 35 years. Triple Hitler's entire reign.

Trump. 5 years and 3 months. Won the popular vote and the electoral vote.

But Trump is the king. Okay buddy.

You don't hate kings. You hate kings that aren't yours.

And Saturday they had you in the streets carrying their water.

The Democratic Party installed a president without letting you vote. Biden quit on a Sunday. By Tuesday your queen was crowned.

No primary. No debate. No ballot. First time since 1968.

Three days before your march every Senate Democrat voted against photo ID to vote.

During COVID you carried a vaccine card everywhere like a hall pass from the government just to eat at a restaurant.

But getting a birth certificate or waiting two hours at the DMV to prove you're a citizen before you vote? That's oppression.

The Democratic Party is pro illegal immigration.

Counts non-citizens in the Census. Census determines congressional seats. More non-citizens means more seats means more power. No voter ID means no way to check.

That's how you keep power without wearing a crown.

Biden built a censorship machine.

Pressured Facebook to suppress true information and admitted it in writing. Censored scientists. Censored doctors. Censored JOKES. The Biden White House told Facebook to remove "humor and satire."

They literally went after people for making fun of them. UK does it better tho...

Everything they censored turned out to be right. They just outsourced the silencing to Silicon Valley.

And it doesn't stop at speech.

The extreme left justifies taking children from families.

Six thousand schools rewrite children's identities without telling parents. And the State has the right to intervene.

The Hitler Youth did this. Mao's Red Guards did this. The Soviets built statues of a child who reported his own father.

Same playbook.

During Covid, your bakery got shut down. Church closed. You couldn't hold your dying mother's hand at the hospital.

But thousands packed together during BLM to burn Minneapolis and THAT was essential civic engagement. Obviously.

$2 billion in damage. 25 dead. 2,000 cops injured. 20 states burning. VP Kamala promoted a bail fund for the rioters. No investigation. No hearings.

January 6. One building. Few hours. 1,000 prosecuted. Two years of televised hearings.

Kings decide which violence counts. The left decided.

Charlie Kirk spent his life walking onto campuses asking for honest debate. He was assassinated.

CSIS terrorism database. 2025 is the first year in 30 years that left-wing attacks outnumber right-wing. Yet no one brings this up.

75% of liberal students say preventing a speaker from talking is justified. 27% say violence is acceptable.

Liberals who went to Trump rallies: "I never felt unsafe." "The experience changed me."

Conservatives who show up on liberal campuses get screamed at, blocked, and assassinated.

One side talks. The other side screams.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation marched with you Saturday.

Their stated purpose in their own words: "Revolution." Not reform. Marxism.

The system that killed a hundred million people last century. They had you holding their signs while they said it out loud.

500 groups. $3 billion in revenue. Pre-printed signs. The signs were ready before you were angry.

The money leads to Neville Roy Singham. Billionaire in Shanghai. Attends CCP workshops. Funnels millions through shell companies at UPS mailboxes. Three Congressional committees have subpoenaed him as a suspected CCP foreign agent.

You thought you were fighting for democracy. You were carrying water for Beijing.

"Liberals are leaving the First Amendment behind." Spoken by the ACLU lawyer who defended Nazis in court because it was their constitutional right.

Bill Clinton put 100,000 cops on the street. Reformed welfare. Said illegal immigration is wrong to a standing ovation. Told America the era of big government is over.

Today his own party would call him a fascist.

The 1990s Democrat defended free speech for Nazis. Yours censors doctors for telling the truth.

The 1990s Democrat held open primaries. Yours installed a nominee without a vote.

The 1990s Democrat trusted parents. Yours takes their children.

Historians measure fascism across eight traits. Here's who checks the boxes in 2026:

Censorship of political opposition. Democrats.

Contempt for democratic process. Democrats.

Tolerance of political violence. Democrats.

State ideology forced on families. Democrats.

Corporate-state fusion. Democrats.

Scapegoating and manufactured enemies. Both sides.

Cult of personality. Both sides.

Ultranationalism. Republicans.

Five for the left. One for the right. Two shared.

You marched against kings on Saturday.

You marched FOR kings.

You just didn't know which was which.

Stop being gaslit.

I hope you understand what's at stake.

America declared its freedom from British imperialism on July 4th, 1776 and won the battle to keep that freedom on October 19th, 1781 at Yorktown, but the forces of imperialism have never truly surrendered and persist until this day to take our freedom away from us and to subordinate us under today’s incarnation of imperialism that is Globalism. The Globalists of the world, both foreign and domestic, have been waging a persistent war on America, not with bullets and bayonets, but with filth and anarchy. The Globalists are doing everything they can to instigate “The Great Collapse of Society” so that they can “Build Back Better” their quest for a Global One World New World Order where there are no independent sovereign nation-states and where everyone obeys the dictates spewed out by the Globalist Socialists at the United Nations and the Internationalist Fascists at the World Economic Forum. The Globalists have infiltrated the American political system by taking control over the two political parties so that for decades no matter which political party was in power they always represented the interests and goals of the Globalists, and not the interests of the American citizens. The Democratic Party represents the Globalist Socialists and the RINOs represent the Internationalist Fascists. Democrats and RINOs are Heads and Tails of the same Globalist coin! The Socialists seek centralized control over society and the Fascists seek centralized control over the economy. Thanks to President Donald J. Trump, America now has a third political party, the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, that represents Nationalism and Capitalism. The new MAGA Republican Party fights for Personal Liberty, fights for Personal Rights, fights for the Personal Right to own property, and fights for the Personal Right to pursue Personal Prosperity and Personal Happiness. Just as Benjamin Franklin admonished the woman outside of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania when she inquired following the Constitutional Convention what form of government are we to have and Franklin replied, “A Republic….if We can keep it,” so too 250 years later We the People must remain ever vigilant against the anti-Republic Globalist forces that are trying to take our Constitutional Republic away from US!

From Imperialism To Globalism

https://open.substack.com/pub/william3n4z2/p/from-imperialism-to-globalism?utm_source=direct&r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer

Are You Outraged and Feel a Sense of Disgust and Hopelessness?

https://open.substack.com/pub/william3n4z2/p/are-you-outraged-and-feel-a-sense?utm_source=direct&r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer

By Jonathan Gregory

Washington D.C. - December 8, 2025

In a bold move that's got globalists clutching their pearls, President Donald Trump unveiled his 2025 National Security Strategy, a powerhouse document that shreds the outdated shackles of NATO and exposes the European Union's war on democracy. Clocking in at just 33 pages, this America First blueprint slams the brakes on endless foreign entanglements, prioritizing peace through unyielding strength against real threats like China and Russia. Trump's strategy torches freeloading allies, demanding NATO nations cough up a staggering 5% of GDP for defense or face the alliance's dissolution, finally putting an end to decades of American taxpayers footing the bill for Europe's socialist experiments. As Trump puts it, it's time to pivot from Middle East babysitting to dominating our own backyard, crushing cartels with a revamped Monroe Doctrine and unleashing energy independence through massive drilling initiatives that promise cheap gas and millions of jobs.

The Deep State and their media mouthpieces are in full meltdown mode, with think tanks like CSIS howling that Trump's plan "declares war" on European politics. But let's call it what it is: a long overdue reckoning for the EU's horror show of unstable governments trampling democratic values while pushing open borders, censorship, and Islamist appeasement. Trump's team isn't mincing words, labeling the EU's Ukraine obsession as a pipe dream that drains U.S. resources without reciprocity. Instead, the strategy bets big on economic dominance, slapping tariffs to skyrocket America's GDP from $30 trillion to $40 trillion by the 2030s, reclaiming stolen tech from Beijing thieves, and fostering "mutually advantageous" trade that actually means business on America's terms. Patriots like Elon Musk are cheering this industrial rebirth, while Dems cry "isolationism" from their ivory towers, proving once again that Trump's realism trumps their rainbow fantasies.

As whispers of Venezuela interventions and Taiwan alliances swirl, Trump's NSS is a chainsaw to the uniparty's permanent domination dreams, vowing no more civilizational suicide through euro-centric alliances. Europe is quaking, Beijing is sweating, and true Americans are rejoicing as Trump refocuses on dismantling the welfare state, reclaiming education from Marxist narratives, and preparing our military for homeland defense. This isn't just policy, it's a declaration of independence from globalist parasites who hate our freedoms. With Providence on his side, Trump is preserving the Constitution and our way of life, one strategic masterstroke at a time. America First isn't a slogan; it's the future.

@newsmax

The transition from Imperialism to Globalism was supposed to occur with the creation of the League of Nations following WWI, but American Nationalists in the US Senate wouldn’t approve the infringement on US sovereignty. The Globalists succeeded in creating their Global Governance organization with the creation of the United Nations following WWII. FDR proposed the creation of the UN to abolish colonialism, but then FDR “conveniently” died (assassinated?) and Truman allowed the Globalists to structure the UN in accordance with their One World NWO agenda.

After the fall of Imperialism through Colonialism, then arose Globalism through Fascism + Socialism. Today’s Globalists are the descendants of yesterday’s British East India Company, the original Fascist Public-Private Corporation with Government Authority to Dictate Rules for Living and the Power to Commit Murder of Anyone who Disobeyed! Today’s East India Company exists in the partnership of the World Economic Forum (Fascists) and the United Nations (Socialists). The Globalists seek Global Governance where the WEF will act as Centralized Control over the Global Economy and the UN will act as Centralized Control over Global Society. Both the WEF + UN will dictate how people live their lives, what people will do to benefit the Global Society and Economy, and who gets to LIVE, and who must DIE!

FDR Founded the United Nations To End Colonialism

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2021/eirv48n24-20210611/eirv48n24-20210611_005-fdr_founded_the_united_nations_t.pdf

Who Killed FDR? by Col. L.Fletcher Prouty

http://spikethenewsa.blogspot.com/2013/07/who-killed-fdr-by-col-lfletcher-prouty.html

JFK Vs. The Empire

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2013/eirv40n35-20130906/04-19_4035.pdf

The Coup, Then and Now

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sg9EveTA1yUvucA-LkTdIukvaoLsZLFa/view

Documentary: 1932

https://youtu.be/iPYKyWnfbNs?si=YhxLXfOV_h2wEkzW

The UN and WEF Partnership:

https://duckduckgo.com/?origin=funnel_home_website&t=h_&q=UN+and+WEF+Partnership+&ia=web

Global Governance:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Global+Governance&t=h_&ia=web

WEF Winter Davos in Switzerland

WEF Summer Davos in China

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=WEF+Summer+Davos+in+China&t=h_&ia=web

History of Globalism: The American System of Political Economy Vs The British System of Political Economy

https://open.substack.com/pub/william3n4z2/p/history-of-globalism-the-american?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

The “Global” American System of Political Economy:

Russia, Germany, China, Japan, Ireland

https://open.substack.com/pub/william3n4z2/p/the-global-american-system-of-political?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

American Patriot History Project

https://patriot-project.weebly.com/anton-chaitkin.html#.Y5ZZjeROklR

The American Almanac

https://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/contents.htm#program

How Cecil Rhodes Fathered the Modern Globalist Movement: a Timeline

https://stovouno.org/2019/02/21/how-cecil-rhodes-fathered-the-modern-globalist-movement-timeline/

The Origins of the Deep State in North America Part I: The Round Table Movement

by Matthew Ehret

https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/01/27/origins-of-deep-state-part1/

Background on Government Funding and the Recent Shutdown

In the U.S., Congress must pass annual appropriations bills to fund federal government operations for the fiscal year (FY), which runs from October 1 to September 30. Failure to do so leads to a partial government shutdown, where non-essential services halt and federal employees may go unpaid. To avoid shutdowns, lawmakers often pass Continuing Resolutions (CRs)—short-term funding extensions that maintain spending at prior-year levels while negotiations continue.

The FY2026 budget process faltered, triggering a shutdown on October 1, 2025, due to partisan disputes. Republicans, holding majorities in both chambers, had passed a major "One Big Beautiful Bill" in July 2025—a reconciliation package combining tax cuts and spending changes. Democrats blocked a clean CR, demanding extensions of Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits (set to expire) and reversals of certain spending cuts from the earlier bill. After weeks of stalemate—the longest in history—Congress enacted H.R. 5371 on November 13, 2025, a CR funding most agencies through January 30, 2026, at FY2025 levels. It also included three full-year appropriations bills (for agriculture, legislative branch, and military construction/veterans affairs), back pay for furloughed workers, and protections against workforce reductions.

This CR provides temporary relief but kicks the can down the road, setting up potential drama in early 2026. Enter Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), a fiscal conservative known for colorful critiques of Washington dysfunction.

Kennedy's Proposal: A Second Reconciliation Bill for FY2026 Funding

Senator Kennedy has repeatedly urged the Senate to pursue a **second reconciliation bill** to handle FY2026 funding, explicitly as an alternative to relying on another CR or risking a renewed shutdown in January 2026. He argues this approach would allow Republicans to act unilaterally, bypassing Democratic filibusters and addressing key voter priorities like inflation and cost-of-living pressures without "pandering" to the opposition.

Key Elements of the Proposal

- **Timing and Scope**: Kennedy advocates passing the bill in the coming months (post-CR enactment), targeting implementation for FY2026 starting October 1, 2026. It would fund government operations while incorporating Republican priorities, such as cuts to "wasteful" programs, tax relief extensions, and measures to lower food, health care, and housing costs. He has framed it as a way to "rise to the occasion" on issues Americans face daily, like affording groceries without "selling blood plasma."

- **Why Reconciliation?**: Under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, reconciliation is a fast-track procedure tied to a budget resolution (like S. Con. Res. 7 for FY2025-2034). It limits debate and requires only a simple majority (51 votes) in the Senate, evading the 60-vote filibuster threshold needed for regular bills or CRs. Republicans used it successfully for the July 2025 "megabill," which Kennedy cites as a model: "We don’t need ANY Democratic votes to do this. That’s how we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill."

- **Avoiding Another CR**: Kennedy views CRs as "lazy" bandaids that perpetuate gridlock and fail to deliver bold reforms. He has criticized Senate leadership for ignoring his idea during the recent shutdown, calling the chamber's post-July inaction "zero, zilch, nada." A reconciliation bill, he says, would provide stable, long-term funding without Democratic "leverage" (e.g., ACA demands, which he claims ballooned to $1.5 trillion in spending). Post-CR, he reiterated on November 17, 2025: "We can address the cost of living... by passing another reconciliation bill—and we can do it without relying on the Democrats."

How It Would Work: Step-by-Step

1. **Budget Resolution**: The Senate Budget Committee (chaired by a Republican) would amend the existing FY2025 resolution to include reconciliation instructions for FY2026 spending. This sets topline spending levels and directs committees (e.g., Appropriations) to draft changes.

2. **Committee Drafting**: The Senate Finance and Appropriations Committees would craft the bill, focusing on deficit-neutral or reducing measures (per Byrd Rule limits, which prohibit extraneous provisions).

3. **Senate Passage**: With a GOP majority, it passes via simple majority. No filibuster.

4. **House Coordination**: The Republican-led House would align its version, leading to a conference committee for reconciliation.

5. **Presidential Signature**: President Trump (in this 2025 scenario) signs it into law, funding FY2026 without a lapse.

This process could wrap by spring 2026, avoiding January brinkmanship.

Potential Benefits (Per Kennedy)

- **Efficiency**: Ends reliance on 60-vote supermajorities, which Democrats used to stall the recent CR.

- **Policy Wins**: Allows embedding conservative goals, like deregulation reserves or protecting veterans' rights (a Kennedy priority included in the recent CR).

- **Accountability**: Ties funding to real reforms, not "ego-driven" shutdowns, which Kennedy blamed on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's low poll numbers.

Criticisms and Challenges

- **Democratic Obstruction**: Dems could challenge the budget resolution or use procedural delays, though reconciliation's rules limit this.

- **Byrd Rule Limits**: Provisions must directly affect spending/revenue; non-budget items (e.g., policy riders) risk removal.

- **Deficit Concerns**: The first reconciliation bill increased deficits; a second could face internal GOP pushback from deficit hawks.

- **Political Risk**: Critics, including some Republicans, see it as another "power grab" or pork-laden bill, delaying a full appropriations process (last completed in 1997).

- **Feasibility**: With the CR in place until January 30, urgency is low, but Kennedy warns against complacency: "The Senate needs to get off its ice-cold, lazy butt."

Kennedy ties this to broader accountability efforts, like his November 2025 bills docking congressional pay during shutdowns (e.g., "No Shutdown Paychecks to Politicians Act"). He argues politicians shouldn't "feel less pain" than federal workers or the military.

In summary, Kennedy's proposal is a strategic pivot to Republican unilateralism, leveraging reconciliation's procedural edge to deliver FY2026 funding on GOP terms by October 2026—sparing the public another CR cliffhanger. It's gained traction among conservatives but requires Senate leadership buy-in to advance. As of November 19, 2025, no formal bill text has been introduced, but Kennedy's public push signals it's a live option heading into the new year.

ABSTRACT:

The Universe is limited by the speed of light.  Particles cannot vibrate, oscillate, or spin at speeds faster than the speed of light, and particles cannot move across the Spacetime of the Universe at speeds faster than the speed of light.   This document will make the argument that the Universe came into existence as the result of a “deceleration event” from “something” down to the speed of light, and not as the result of an “acceleration event” from “nothing” up to the speed of light.  Let the “something” be called Apeiron as first conjectured by Anaximander (c. 610–546 BCE), a 6th century pre-Socratic Greek philosopher.  The term Apeiron translates from Greek as “the boundless,” “the indefinite,” or “the unlimited.”  Anaximander proposed that the origin of all things is not a specific element like water, earth, air, or fire, but an eternal, infinite, and indeterminate substance.  I would add to Anaximander’s definition that the Apeiron is an eternal all-encompassing single entity that is indivisible, yet differentiable, and contains within it all the Spacetime and Quantum Fields from which the Universe emerged.  Most significantly, the Apeiron is fluid-like with a wave speed that is faster than the speed of light.  Also, the Apeiron that underlies all Spacetime and Quantum Fields is what makes possible “Wave-Particle Duality” and “Quantum Entanglement,” and supports David Bohm’s “Pilot Wave” and “Quantum Potential” hypothesis.

APEIRON AS THE FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE:

Let the Apeiron, in Leonhard Euler’s words, be the “Fabric of the Universe” and that fabric is composed of Quantum Fields that comprise Spacetime.  As Frank Wilczek said, “All is Quantum Fields.”

Imagine a block of Apeiron with three axes (x,y,z) where x = right-left and y = forward-backward and z = up-down.  Extending perpendicularly from each axis are regularly spaced gridlines that intersect throughout the block.  Let the block of intersecting gridlines represent the Quantum Fields where each gridline represents a Quantum Number that corresponds to each Fermion and Boson particle.  Now let the spacing between the gridlines represent wave speed such that less space between the gridlines represents faster wave speed.

Apeiron (Dark Energy):  Spacing between the gridlines is at a minimum distance representing a wave speed much faster than the speed of light.

Apeiron (Visible Matter):  Spacing between the gridlines is at a distance that represents a wave speed equal to the speed of light.

Apeiron (Dark Matter):  Spacing between the gridlines is at a distance that represents a wave speed faster than the speed of light, but slower than the wave speed of the Apeiron (Dark Energy).

EQUIVALENCE BETWEEN MASS AND ENERGY AND WAVE SPEED:

Einstein’s Equation: E = mc^2

Energy (E) is equal to mass (m) multiplied by the speed of light (c) squared.

Planck’s Equation: E = hf

Energy (E) is equal to Planck's constant (h) multiplied by frequency (f).

Wave Equation: v = fλ or f = v/λ

Velocity (v) is equal to frequency (f) multiplied by wavelength (λ) or frequency (f) is equal to velocity (v) divided by wavelength (λ).

Equivalence between mass (m) and Energy (E) and wave frequency speed (v):

mc^2 = E = hf = hv/λ

Although there is no true equivalence between mass and wave speed, I present this equivalency to show that as mass is increased so is Energy, and as Energy is increased so is wave speed.

My argument is that a massive Universe is more likely to emerge as the result of a “deceleration event” from a “something” (Apeiron) that possesses a tremendous amount of Energy in the form of a very fast wave speed, than is a Universe to emerge as the result of an “acceleration event” from a “nothing.”

 A Universe from Something Vs. A Universe from Nothing

 THE HOT BIG BANG AND INFLATION:

Some 13.8 billion years ago there occurred a “deceleration event” at a point in the Apeiron that caused the wave speed at that point to decelerate down to the speed of light, and that “deceleration event” also caused adjoining Apeiron to decelerate in an outbound propagating spherical wave of decelerating Apeiron.

The initial “deceleration even” was so intense that the Apeiron wave speed at first slowed all the way down to the speed of light along with approximately 5 percent of the adjoining Apeiron, but as the spherical wave propagated outbound the “deceleration event” diminished in intensity and decelerated the wave speed of the next approximately 27 percent of the Apeiron down to have a wave speed that was faster than the speed of light, but still slower than the wave speed of the primordial Apeiron.

The “deceleration event” was the Big Bang and the outbound propagating spherical wave of decelerating Apeiron was the Inflation that resulted in the Universe being composed of approximately 5 percent Visible Matter and approximately 27 percent Dark Matter, and the remaining Dark Energy is the primordial Apeiron.

The tremendous heat of the Big Bang was the result of Spacetime and Quantum Fields coming into existence with the “deceleration event” down to the speed of light, and with Spacetime and Quantum Fields all of the particles of the Inflating Universe also came into existence, and it was the motion of all those emerging particles that was the source of the tremendous heat that made the Big Bang hot.

DARK MATTER AND GALAXIES AND BLACK HOLES AND DARK ENERGY:

At the center of every Galaxy is a Black Hole, and every Galaxy is contained within a Dark Matter Halo.  As Galaxies merge into Clusters of Galaxies, and as individual Galaxies merge into larger Galaxies, so too do their Black Holes merge, and so too do their Dark Matter Halos merge.

The Cosmologically Coupled Black Holes (CCBH) Hypothesis:

Black Holes as “Engines of Dark Energy” which are driving the Expansion of the Universe.

Kevin Croker and Duncan Farrah, along with collaborators like Michael Kavanagh and Kevin Lake, proposed the “Cosmologically Coupled Black Holes (CCBH)” hypothesis in a series of papers starting around 2020–2021. This idea challenges the standard Lambda-CDM model of cosmology by suggesting a novel interaction between Black Holes and the Universe's Expansion.

Core Idea:

In standard General Relativity, Black Holes are isolated gravitational objects. The CCBH hypothesis posits that Black Holes are “cosmologically coupled,” meaning they exert a tiny repulsive force that scales linearly with the Universe's Expansion rate (Hubble parameter). This coupling effectively makes Black Holes carriers of a dynamic form of Dark Energy.  The hypothesis suggests that Dark Energy isn't a separate field (like quintessence) but emerges from the collective effect of all Black Holes in the Universe. As Black Holes form and merge (e.g., via stellar evolution and galaxy mergers), their total “Dark Energy output” grows, potentially explaining the observed acceleration of cosmic Expansion without fine-tuning.

A MODIFIED BLACK HOLE HYPOTHESIS:

As Visible Matter spirals down into a Black Hole it is gradually accelerated in a centrifuge-like process that dissects the Visible Matter into molecules and then atoms and then particles, and by the time the fundamental particles have descended down to the center of the Black Hole, the wave speed of the fundamental particles has been accelerated to a speed faster than the speed of light at which time the fundamental particles are transformed into Dark Energy, which is the primordial Apeiron.

The Dark Energy escapes from the Black Hole as primordial Apeiron, and the escaping Dark Energy is what is driving the Expansion of the Universe.

The time required for Visible Matter to first enter the Black Hole until it is released from the center as Dark Energy is a very long period.  In the early Universe, when Galaxies and their Black Holes first evolved, there was only a small amount of Visible Matter passing through the centrifuge-like process and being accelerated into Dark Energy (primordial Apeiron).  After billions of years, the process is now transforming ever increasing amounts of Visible Matter into Dark Energy (primordial Apeiron), and that accounts for why the Universe is Expanding at an accelerated rate.

THE APEIRON CYCLE HYPOTHESIS:

As the Dark Matter Halos and Galaxies and Black Holes merge, eventually all the Visible Matter will be transformed into Dark Energy.  Visible Matter is actually an excitation of the Quantum Fields in Spacetime and as Visible Matter descends into a Black Hole it is actually the Spacetime and Quantum Fields from which the Visible Matter arose that is descending into the Black Hole.  Once all the Visible Matter has descended into the Black Hole and been accelerated back into the primordial Apeiron, then the Dark Matter Halo will descend into the Black Hole and be accelerated back into the primordial Apeiron.  Lastly, the Black Hole will collapse in on itself transforming the last of Spacetime and Quantum Fields back into the primordial Apeiron.

The current epoch in which the Universe exists is a time when the many galaxies spread throughout the Universe are transforming ever greater quantities of Visible Matter into Dark Energy which is driving the accelerated Expansion of the Universe, but at the same time, the Spacetime and Quantum Fields from which the Visible Matter arose is being decreased as it enters the Black Holes at the center of every Galaxy.

The Apeiron (Dark Energy) is expanding while Spacetime and Quantum Fields are contracting.

The massive quantity of Visible Matter (Spacetime and Quantum Fields) spread throughout the Universe is diminishing, but the contraction is not perceptible due to the merging and clumping of Galaxies and their Dark Matter Halos into larger super clusters of Galaxies and their larger Dark Matter Halos.  Eventually, at some time in the distant future, after sufficient Visible Matter (Spacetime and Quantum Fields) has descended into Black Holes and been transformed into Dark Energy (Apeiron), the gravitational pull of the Dark Matter Halos enshrouding the merging Super Clusters of Galaxies will begin to collapse into just one Galaxy with just one Black Hole at its center.  Finally, the last Dark Matter Halo will descend into the last Black Hole and what was once a Universe of Spacetime and Quantum Fields will have been transformed completely back into the primordial Apeiron.

In this “Apeiron Cycle Hypothesis” the collapse of the last Black Hole will be intense enough to initiate a “deceleration event” at the point of final collapse and that decelerated Apeiron will initiate an outbound propagating wave of adjoining Apeiron to decelerate down to the speed of light.  As the wave propagates further away from the initial “deceleration event” point it will dissipate in intensity, and that “deceleration event” will be the Big Bang and Inflation of a new Universe.

WAVE-PARTICLE DUALITY AND QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT:

Since the Apeiron is an eternal all-encompassing single entity that is indivisible, yet differentiable, and contains within it all the Spacetime and Quantum Fields from which our Universe emerged, then all particles throughout the Universe are always connected through the Apeiron.

 If you think of the Apeiron as a fluid like the ocean, and particles are excitations in the Quantum Fields of Spacetime, which are a “decelerated” subset of the Apeiron, then particles are always in motion as a wave.

When performing the Double Slit Experiment, Apeiron waves of particles will pass through the Double Slits and show a wave-like interference pattern on a distant screen.  Also, many Apeiron waves with just a single particle passing through the Double Slits will add up to show a wave-like interference pattern on a distant screen.

However, if the Apeiron wave is interfered with as the Apeiron wave of particles are passing through the Double Slits, then the Apeiron wave will narrow to the width of the Slits, and the particles will be carried straight through the Slits showing as just two lines on the distant screen.  Also, if the many Apeiron waves are interfered with as the Apeiron waves with just a single particle pass through the Double Slits, then the Apeiron waves will narrow to the width of the Slits and the many single particles will add up to show just two lines on the distant screen.

Since the Apeiron is an eternal all-encompassing single entity that is indivisible, yet differentiable, and contains within it all the Spacetime and Quantum Fields from which our Universe emerged, then all particles throughout the Universe are always connected through the Apeiron.  This connectedness at the primordial Aperion level explains why when two Quantum Entangled particles in superposition are decohered at vast distances across the Universe that their entangled quantum characteristics simultaneously appear.

APEIRON AND DAVID BOHM’S PILOT WAVE AND QUANTUM POTENTIAL HYPOTHESIS:

I believe that the Apeiron fulfills David Bohm’s “Pilot Wave” and “Quantum Potential” hypothesis.

David Bohm’s most famous contribution to quantum mechanics is his revival and development of the pilot wave theory, also known as Bohmian mechanics or the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation.  Originally proposed by French physicist Louis de Broglie in the 1920s as a way to reconcile wave-particle duality, the idea was largely abandoned until Bohm independently rediscovered and refined it in 1952 while working in Brazil.  In this hypothesis, quantum particles (like electrons) are not probabilistic entities as in the dominant Copenhagen interpretation, where particles exist in superpositions until measured. Instead, particles have definite positions and trajectories at all times, “riding” on a guiding or “pilot” wave described by the wave function from Schrödinger’s equation.

The pilot wave is a real, physical field that permeates space and evolves deterministically, influencing the particle’s motion through a “quantum potential” that encodes information about the entire system.  This makes the theory nonlocal—changes in one part of the system can instantly affect distant particles via the wave function—explaining phenomena like entanglement without invoking observer-dependent collapse.  Bohmian mechanics reproduces all predictions of standard quantum mechanics but offers a more intuitive, deterministic ontology by treating particles as classical-like objects guided by the wave, much like a surfer rides an ocean wave. However, it introduces “hidden variables” (the precise particle positions, unknown to observers), which Bohm argued resolve quantum paradoxes while maintaining realism. Despite initial dismissal for being “too philosophical” or equivalent to other interpretations, it has gained renewed interest in recent decades for its potential in quantum computing, chaos theory, and experiments testing quantum foundations.

APPENDIX:

Use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to retrieve responses to inquiries.

 Recommend the Application: Grok xAI or the Website: https://grok.com/c

1. Lawrence M. Krauss and “A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing.”

2. Anaximander and the Apeiron.

3. Leonhard Euler and “The Fabric of the Universe”

4. Frank Wilczek and "All is Quantum Fields?"

5. Explain what Dark Matter is and how Dark Matter forms Halos around Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies, and how Dark Matter Halos merge when Galaxies merge and when Black Holes merge.

6. Explain what Dark Energy is and how Dark Energy causes the Expansion of the Universe.

7. Explain what a Black Hole is and how Black Holes are created.

8. What happens to matter as it spirals down into a Black Hole?

9. Who are Kevin Croker and Duncan Farrah and their Cosmologically Coupled Black Holes (CCBH) hypothesis?

10. Explain how the Universe will cease to exist?

11. Explain Quantum Field Theory.

12. Explain the Standard Model of Particle Physics.

13. Explain Quantum Numbers and provide a detailed description of each particle’s Quantum Numbers.

14. Explain the relationship between Spacetime and Quantum Fields.

15. Explain Wave-Particle Duality.

16. Can a single photon pass through the Double Slit Experiment and show a wave-like interference pattern on a distant screen?

17. In the Double Slit Experiment, how does interfering with the Double Slits result in the photons passing through the Double Slits show up as just two lines on a distant screen?

18. Explain Quantum Entanglement.

19. Explain who David Bohm was and his hypothesis that particles ride on pilot waves.

20. Explain David Bohm’s quantum potential hypothesis and how it explains quantum entanglement.

21. Explain “walking droplet” experiments in fluid dynamics that mimic pilot-wave behavior.

22. It seems to me that Quantum Entanglement is no different than two identical twins being separated before a full nine-month gestation, and then after separation discovering that both twins possess the same physical traits.

23. What is a Quantum Fluctuation and how did it cause a Singularity to evolve into the Big Bang?

24. Explain the evolution of the Universe from the Big Bang and Inflation to present.

25. Explain the Theory of Relativity, including Special Relativity and General Relativity.

26. Explain the frequency and speed and wavelength equation.

27. Explain Planck's Relation (Energy-Frequency Equation).

28. Explain how the motion of a particle creates heat.

The saying is NOT “Happy Spouse, Happy House!”

The definition of Happiness is different for Wives and Husbands:

Happiness for the Wife is when she does what she wants to do.

Happiness for the Husband is when his life is free from conflict and misery.

The second lesson that every man who contemplates getting into a marriage needs to learn, understand, and accept is that the Wife’s domain is ALL of the living space within the home.

The Husband’s domain is the space he gets to occupy while outside of the living space within the home. This means that the Husband’s domain is the space he gets to occupy while at work, while at the gym, while out on the golf course, while sitting in a sports arena watching a game, and while sitting in a bar. If the couple are wealthy enough to live in a home with a garage, then the garage is part of the Husband’s domain because the garage is outside of the home’s living space. If the couple are wealthy enough to live in a home with an office, then the Husband can also occupy the office, IF the Wife consents. If the Wife consents to the Husband occupying the Office, then the Husband may furnish and decorate the Office to his liking, but there’s a caveat, and that is that the Office still exists within the living space of the home, and therefore the Husband is subject to conflict and misery if the Wife does not approve of the Husband’s selection for the Office furniture and decor.

If a man can accept the two lessons of Marriage, then the Marriage has a fighting chance of working and lasting throughout their lifetimes.

Now here’s a secret that every woman and man needs to learn before entering into a Marriage:

How David Rockefeller Created Feminism and Enslaved Humanity

https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/rockefeller-feminism-enslaved-humanity/

How the Rockefellers Re-Engineered Women

https://veteranstoday.com/2017/12/14/how-the-rockefellers-re-engineered-women/

When Government is not thought of as a Business.

An independent sovereign nation doesn’t need to constrain its functioning by imposing on itself a “Balanced Budget” that requires the imposition of taxes and indebtedness for Treasury bond interest payments in order for the government to pay for goods and services.

An independent sovereign nation is not a business with a balance sheet of assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity. The banksters implanted this misconception into the minds of the ruling elite and populace at large with the banksters as the “owners” who reap the profits of taxes that are levied to pay the interest on the bond debt owned by the banksters.

Perhaps the greatest scam perpetrated by the banksters on humanity is that an independent sovereign nation needs to borrow other people’s money to fund its operations.

An independent sovereign nation doesn’t need to borrow other people’s money, doesn’t need to tax the income of its citizens and businesses, and doesn’t need a warehouse full of gold in order to fund its operations.

An independent sovereign nation has the sole authority and power to create money “out-of-thin-air” and infuse that money into the economy by issuing government contracts for goods and services, by issuing government grants for such purposes as research and development, and by issuing loans through the National Treasury Bank.

Consumption Taxes on purchases of goods and services and Property Taxes on consumption of land use should be levied to fund State and Local Government Operations.

YES, THE SOLUTION TO THE NATIONAL DEBT CRISIS HOAX IS TO OUTLAW AND FORBID THE EXISTENCE OF PRIVATELY OWNED COMMERCIAL BANKS, AND ONLY ALLOW THE EXISTENCE OF A NATIONAL TREASURY BANK THAT MAKES LOANS OF MONEY CREATED “OUT-OF-THIN-AIR” AND PAYS INTEREST ON SAVINGS HELD AT THE NATIONAL TREASURY BANK.

THE NATIONAL TREASURY BANK WOULD OPERATE SIMILAR TO AN INTERNET BANK WITH A CREDIT CARD AND SUB-BRANCHES LOCATED IN FEDERAL POSTAL DISTRICTS.

Also, people need to accept that gold & silver are nothing more than soft shiny metals with beneficial electrical and thermal properties, and are aesthetically pleasing to the eyes.

How To End The Federal Reserve & Erase The National Debt

https://open.substack.com/pub/william3n4z2/p/how-to-end-the-federal-reserve-and?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

A New Monetary System with A New National Bank

https://open.substack.com/pub/william3n4z2/p/a-new-monetary-system-with-a-new?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

I am not proposing Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)!

That fact is that an independent sovereign nation doesn’t need to borrow other people’s money by creating bonds “out-of-thin-air” and then selling those bonds to the public, and an independent sovereign nation doesn’t need to tax the incomes of its citizens and businesses, and an independent sovereign nation doesn’t need a warehouse full of gold in order fund its operations.

An independent sovereign nation has the sole authority and power to create currency “out-of-thin-air” by issuing government contracts for goods and services, by issuing government grants for such purposes as research and development, and by issuing loans through a National Treasury Bank.

Today, it is the Banksters who create currency “out-of-thin-air” when they issue loans, and then they profit from the interest collected on those loans. The Banksters also profit from the interest paid by the government to them on the bonds (that were created “out-of-thin-air”) that they purchased from the government.

Bank Reserves are just a “smoke-and-mirrors” gimmick that the Banksters use to fool people into thinking their banks have solvency. A bank doesn’t need Reserves in “storage” in order to create loans out of thin air.

Watch the John Titus YouTube video:

Mommy, Where does money come from?

https://youtu.be/S_dBKAWHHQI?si=Rdax-GrFmQ7zamX6

https://youtube.com/@bestevidence?si=nvQ-XJ_zxRbssjfN

Sadly, the authority and power to create and distribute money is still very much subject to corruption so the Government must maintain its responsibility for oversight to ensure that Government contracts, grants, and loans are only issued in compliance with the laws and regulations that will guarantee integrity, honesty, transparency, and fairness.

In the beginning there was, and still is, a Cosmos composed of Energy, and that ubiquitous Energy has a name called Apeiron in honor of the Ancient Greek philosopher Anaximander.

Apeiron (/əˈpaɪrɒn/; ἄπειρον) is a Greek word meaning "(that which is) unlimited," "boundless", "infinite", or "indefinite" from ἀ- a-, "without" and πεῖραρ peirar, "end, limit", "boundary", the Ionic Greek form of πέρας peras, "end, limit, boundary.”

Apeiron as an origin:

The apeiron is central to the cosmological theory created by Anaximander, a 6th-century BC pre-Socratic Greek philosopher whose work is mostly lost. From the few existing fragments, we learn that he believed the beginning or ultimate reality (arche) is eternal and infinite, or boundless (apeiron), subject to neither old age nor decay, which perpetually yields fresh materials from which everything we can perceive is derived. Apeiron generated the opposites (hot–cold, wet–dry, etc.) which acted on the creation of the world (cf. Heraclitus). Everything is generated from apeiron and then it is destroyed by going back to apeiron, according to necessity. He believed that infinite worlds are generated from apeiron and then they are destroyed there again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeiron

This new definition of Apeiron (Energy) is that of a substance with wave characteristics.

Some 13.8 billion years ago there occurred a “quantum fluctuation” at a point in the Apeiron that caused the frequency speed of the Apeiron at that point to decelerate down to the speed of light (c) which initiated a deceleration of adjoining Apeiron in an outwardly propagating spherical wave of decelerating Apeiron. Prior to the initial deceleration event, the Apeiron (Energy) was in a state of equilibrium where Apeiron (Energy) and matter were equivalent because the Apeiron (Energy) had a wave frequency speed of c^2, as conjectured from Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, E=mc^2. Quantization of the Apeiron (Energy) into the Quanta of the Standard Model of Particle Physics (Quarks, Leptons, Bosons) occurred when the Apeiron (Energy) wave frequency speed decelerated down to just the speed of light (c).

The outwardly propagating spherical wave of decelerating Apeiron (Energy) down to a wave frequency of the speed of light was the Inflation of our Universe, and the resultant emergence of oscillating Quanta created the heat of the Hot Big Bang.

Dark Matter might be Apeiron whose wave frequency didn’t decelerate all the way down to the speed of light, but instead decelerated down to a wave frequency speed greater than the speed of light.

Maybe our Universe is composed of ≈ 4.9% Quanta and ≈ 26.8% Dark Matter and ≈ 68.3% Dark Energy because the initial deceleration of the Apeiron (Energy) wave frequency speed was at first strong enough to decelerate just ≈ 4.9% of our Universe down to the speed of light. As the Inflationary decelerating wave continued propagating outwards its strength dissipated such that the next ≈ 26.8% of Apeiron (Energy) wasn’t decelerated by as much as the first ≈ 4.9% of Apeiron (Energy) and that next quantity of decelerated Apeiron resulted in the Dark Matter, and so on for the Dark Energy?

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12307

The expansion of our Universe began at the same time as the formation of Spiral Galaxies, and at the center of every Spiral Galaxy throughout our Universe is a Black Hole. Maybe Black Holes are where the Quanta are condensed and accelerated back into Apeiron with a wave frequency speed faster than the speed of light? Maybe the new Apeiron being created within the Black Holes at the center of every Spiral Galaxy spread uniformly throughout our Universe is what is causing our Universe to expand uniformly?

Maybe Quantum Entanglement across cosmological distances and at speeds faster than the speed of light is made possible by the Apeiron substance?

Image of the American Patriot

https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/educ/hist/patriot_image_toc.html

What Is An American Patriot?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=eir+larouche+What+Is+an+American+Patriot%3F&t=h_&ia=web

The American Almanac

https://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/contents.htm

The American Patriot History Project

https://patriot-project.weebly.com/anton-chaitkin.html

The American System’s Battle Against British Free Trade

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2008/eirv35n02-20080111/eirv35n02-20080111_056-the_legacy_of_friedrich_list_the.pdf

‘The Olive Branch’: How A Book Saved the Nation

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/eirv34n44-20071109/56-71_744.pdf

http://r.schillerinstitute.org/educ/hist/american_patriot_mcarey.pdf

The Patriot File, Unearthed

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/eirv34n43-20071102/06-16_743.pdf

James Fenimore Cooper and The Society of the Cincinnati

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/eirv34n42-20071026/62-71_742.pdf

How Andrew Jackson Destroyed the United States

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2012/eirv39n49-20121214/04-45_3949.pdf

Andrew Jackson as A Treason Project

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/eirv34n50-20071221/50-63_750.pdf

The American Industrial Revolution That Andrew Jackson Sought To Destroy

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/larouchepac/legacy_url/16274/2012-industrial-revolution-jackson.pdf?1612573251

John Quincy Adams Battles For the American System

https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/educ/hist/american_patriot_jqa.pdf

The American System of Political-Economy

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2022/eirv49n02-20220114/eirv49n02-20220114_033-the_american_system_of_political-lar.pdf

A Step Toward Reviving The American Intellectual Tradition

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2001/eirv28n38-20011005/eirv28n38-20011005_066-a_step_toward_reviving_the_ameri.pdf

The Historic Mission of the United States

https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/economy/phys_econ/2009/pacific_shift.html

The American System of Political Economy that was devised by Alexander Hamilton was based upon a National Credit System (same as Lincoln’s Greenbacks) and Tariffs to protect the fledgling new nation’s nascent industrial development from being crushed by the “free trade” scam system of the British Oligarchy.

Alexander Hamilton, Founder of the American System

https://www.emergingamerica.org/blog/alexander-hamilton-founder-american-system

Alexander Hamilton Vs. Wall Street

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=h_&q=Nancy+Spannaus+Alexander+Hamilton&ia=web

Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683)

https://risingtidefoundation.net/jean-baptiste-colbert-1619-1683/

Colbert’s bequest to the founding fathers

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1992/eirv19n01-19920103/eirv19n01-19920103_020-colberts_bequest_to_the_founding.pdf

How Ben Franklin Organized Our Economic Independence

An extraordinary meeting was held at Benjamin Franklin’s home on Friday, May 11, 1787, to hear an outline for the economic policy and national mission that the United States Constitution should be designed to carry out.

The tight-knit grouping of American nationalists who had directed the Revolutionary War would use this policy paper to instruct the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, scheduled to open three days later…..

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2011/eirv38n41-20111021/56-65_3841.pdf

The Franklin School Starts Modern England

http://the-ultimate-frontier.org/history/Franklin%20School%20Starts%20Modern%20England.htm

Who Was Benjamin Franklin?

The life of Boston-born Benjamin Franklin is generally the leading example historians offer, in arguing that America’s Founding Fathers owed nothing to the nation-building conspiracy begun before 1630 by John Winthrop’s Massachusetts Bay Colony. According to this typical historical fraud, Franklin rejected his own Puritan past, and modeled himself after eighteenth-century British liberalism and French Enlightenment radicalism. Centuries of lying must again be swept aside.

Benjamin Franklin was Cotton Mather’s most gifted protégé. When he moved to Pennsylvania, Franklin also raised the political banner of Jonathan Swift. In 1737, Alexander Spotswood appointed him postmaster of Philadelphia. Franklin became the crucial link between the in-depth republican citizenry of New England, and the strategically placed, republican elite fostered by Spotswood in Virginia. That combination won the American Revolution; but until now, the real story has never been told…..

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2008/eirv35n03-20080118/eirv35n03-20080118_046-who_was_benjamin_franklin.pdf

Nicholas Biddle and the 2nd Bank of the United States

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2012/eirv39n28-20120720/46-68_3928.pdf

How The Nation Was Won

by H. Graham Lowry

https://a.co/d/guj0uoc

This is a book about how men move mountains. The description is not simply metaphorical, concerning America's astonishing feat of forging a superpower out of a continental wilderness. It also applies to an extraordinary political fight, waged for nearly a century before the outbreak of the American Revolu­tion: the battle to break beyond the long barrier of the eastern Appalachian Mountain chain, in order to colonize and develop the vast territories to the west. The vision of developing a continental republic in the New World guided America's colonists as far back as John Winthrop's founding of Massachusetts in 1630. With benefit from the experiences of Captain John Smith, whose similar hopes for such a project in Virginia had failed, Winthrop organized the Massachusetts Bay expedition as a first-stage, space colony might be organized today. He recruited all the skilled persons he could muster, in engineering, toolmaking, construction, and agriculture, to the limits of early seventeenth­ century technology. His small ships also brought hundreds of dedicated colonists and their families, to undertake a nation­-building mission that 'official' opinion of the time consid­ered impossible. Under self-governing powers of independence, the Massa­chusetts colony established an indepth, republican citizenry­ and considerable economic power, during its first half-century of existence. Its influence was spread in varying degrees throughout New England, and even into the Mid-Atlantic colonies. As colonial potentials increased for development be­yond the mountain barriers, the obstacles became less the mountains themselves, and more the combined political and military opposition of forces in both Britain and France. The story of how those obstacles were overcome is the subject of this work. A small group of colonial leaders in America, working both openly and behind the scenes, began implementing a strategy in 1710 for an American 'breakout' beyond the Appalachian and Allegheny mountains. What they accomplished was indispensable to American independence. What they inspired was the mission of nation-building, for which Americans would fight a war to ensure its being fulfilled. In the long struggle between the founding of Massachusetts and "the shot heard 'round the world" at Concord Bridge, that sense of moral purpose was repeatedly tested, yet sustained. The bold and hazardous goal of positioning the colonies to develop the West was attained during the French and Indian War, whose veterans provided much of the leadership for the American Revolution. It may seem presumptuous to describe this account as "America's Untold Story." To the author's knowledge, however, the record of the continuous effort to build a continental repub­lic, from the Puritan founders to the Founding Fathers, has never before been presented, as a coherent, ongoing strategic battle. Yet the evidence is there, that the leading figures who brought America to the point it could successfully assert its independence, had worked to establish the necessary precondi­tions all along. The evidence is similarly abundant, that a great many Americans —long before the Revolution—thoroughly detested British rule, on precisely the issue of Britain's refusal to permit any real development of the continent. In the colonists' minds, Britain's oppression was underscored by its open collusion with France to destroy colonial attempts to develop the interior. Westward colonization efforts, from New England to the Caro­linas, were instant targets for Indian massacres, typically directed by French Jesuit 'missionaries' operating from Canada­ or, on the southern flank, from French outposts in Louisiana. American efforts to remove such threats—through appeals to the monarchy for assistance, or by military measures of their own—were repeatedly betrayed by Britain's ruling circles. These political facts of life were known to generations of Ameri­cans before the Revolution.

Democrats = Globalist Socialists

RINOs = Internationalist Fascists

MAGA = Nationalist Capitalists

Democrats & RINOs are Heads & Tails of the same Globalist coin owned and financed by the Globalist Foundations (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Soros, Gates, etc.)

The destruction of the world is the result of the constant battle between individualism and collectivism that began with the war between Athens (Plato) and Sparta (Aristotle).

Individualism: Nationalism, Republicanism, Constitutionalism, Capitalism

Collectivism: Imperialism, Oligarchism, Fascism

Synarchy Movement of Empire

Book IV Page 45

https://amatterofmind.org/Pierres_PDFs/SYNARCHY_II/BOOK_IV/4._SYNARCHY_MOVEMENT_OF_EMPIRE_BOOK_IV.pdf

Book I & II

https://www.amatterofmind.us/synarchy/synarchy-i-ii/

Book III & IV

https://www.amatterofmind.us/synarchy/synarchy-iii-iv/

The British Oligarchy have been the instigators of all of the death and destruction perpetrated upon humanity ever since the Venetian takeover of England with the in-Glorious Revolution of 1688!

Venice’s War on Western Civilization

https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/fid_91-96/952_venice.html

The Venetian Conspiracy

https://lust-for-life.org/Lust-For-Life/AgainstOligarchy/AgainstOligarchy.pdf

https://tarpley.net/online-books/against-oligarchy/

The American Almanac

https://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/contents.htm

Birth of the Nation State

https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/fidelio_archive/2001/fidv10n02-2001Su/fidv10n02-2001Su_014-nicolaus_of_cusa_towering_genius-hzl.pdf

The Venetian Takeover of England:

A 200-Year Project

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1994/eirv21n16-19940415/eirv21n16-19940415_015-the_venetian_takeover_of_england.pdf

The British Oligarchy’s Fourth War on America

https://open.substack.com/pub/william3n4z2/p/the-british-oligarchys-fourth-war?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

How the British Invented Globalism

Modern globalism was born in Victorian England. The plan was to merge the British Empire and the United States into a single superstate.

https://open.substack.com/pub/richardpoe/p/how-the-british-invented-globalism?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

How the British Sold Globalism to America

The Secret History of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Anglo-American Empire

https://open.substack.com/pub/richardpoe/p/how-the-british-sold-globalism-to?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

How the British Caused the American Civil War

Britain’s Scheme to Partition and Recolonize America in the 1860s

https://open.substack.com/pub/richardpoe/p/how-the-british-caused-the-american?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

The Anglo-American Pilgrims Society (1902)

https://open.substack.com/pub/william3n4z2/p/the-anglo-american-pilgrims-society?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

How the British Invented Communism (and blamed it on the Jews)

https://open.substack.com/pub/richardpoe/p/how-the-british-invented-communism?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

To “Rescue the Republic” you must first know who actually is the enemy of the Republic.

Nationalism/Republicanism/Capitalism/Platonism

- Vs. -

Globalism/Oligarchism/Imperialism/Aristotelianism

The enemy of humanity has always been the British Imperialist Globalist Fascist Oligarchy headquartered in the City of London.

The first step on the path to defeating the British Oligarchy is to teach people the history of their mortal enemy.

Who Are the Globalist Fascist Oligarchy?

https://open.substack.com/pub/william3n4z2/p/who-are-the-globalist-fascist-oligarchy?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

A Long History of British Machinations to Control the Content and Dissemination of News & Information

(Remember: Before Google, everyone used the Encyclopedia Britannica)

https://americans4innovation.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-secret-plot-in-1909-by-anglo.html

https://aim4truth.org/2019/09/13/origins-of-fake-news/

https://open.substack.com/pub/william3n4z2/p/a-long-history-of-british-machinations?r=1kb28q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

William Pritting’s Substack:

https://william3n4z2.substack.com/archive?sort=new

Richard Poe’s Substack:

https://richardpoe.substack.com/

The American Patriot History Project

https://patriot-project.weebly.com/anton-chaitkin.html#.Y5ZZjeROklR

The Bank for International Fascism

[https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2013/eirv40n35-20130906/51-54_4035.pdf](https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2013/eirv40n35-20130906/51-54_4035.pdf)

The Legacy of Friedrich Von Hayek:

Fascism Didn’t Die With Hitler

[https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/educ/hist/1995/von_hayek.html](https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/educ/hist/1995/von_hayek.html)

Synarchism: The Fascist Roots of the Wolfowitz Cabal

History of the synarchist movement and its resurgence

[https://modernhistoryproject.org/mhp?Article=Synarchism](https://modernhistoryproject.org/mhp?Article=Synarchism)

Synarchy Against America

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2003/eirv30n34-20030905/eirv30n34-20030905_024-synarchy_against_america.pdf

Dubya’s Grandpa and Great-Granddad Helped Put Adolf Hitler into Power

[https://larouchepub.com/other/2000/2733_prescott_bush_hitler.html](https://larouchepub.com/other/2000/2733_prescott_bush_hitler.html)

The evolution of the British quest for a One World Global Empire, from John Ruskin to Cecil Rhodes to Lord Milner’s Round Table Group to William Yandell Elliott to Henry Kissinger to Klaus Schwab.

How Cecil Rhodes Fathered the Modern Globalist Movement: A Timeline

https://stovouno.org/2019/02/21/how-cecil-rhodes-fathered-the-modern-globalist-movement-timeline/

Sir Andrew Carnegie and Cecil J. Rhodes:

Planners of Internationalism

https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/library/1967-Sir-Andrew-Carnegie-and-Cecil-J-Rhodes-Planners-of-Internationalism-The-George-Mason-School-of-Correspondence-by-CO-Garshwiler-ed-Education-Information-Inc-1967.pdf

The Kissinger Continuum: The Unauthorized History of the WEF’s Young Global Leaders Program

Sir Henry Kissinger: Midwife to New Babylon

https://canadianpatriot.org/2023/12/21/sir-henry-kissinger-midwife-to-new-babylon/

William Yandell Elliott

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2002/eirv29n03-20020125/eirv29n03-20020125_029-william_yandell_elliott.pdf

William Yandell Elliott: Confederate high priest

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1997/eirv24n49-19971205/eirv24n49-19971205_028-william_yandell_elliott_confeder.pdf

Kissinger and ‘Zbig’: Two Students of One Southern-Fried Fascist

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2001/eirv28n01-20010101/eirv28n01-20010101_039-kissinger_and_zbig_two_students.pdf

The Origins of the Deep State in North America Part I: The Round Table Movement

https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/01/27/origins-of-deep-state-part1/

New Revelations Shed Light on the British Roots of the Deep State

https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/new-revelations-shed-light-on-the?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

The confiscation of the gold was for two reasons. First, FDR was changing the monetary system from one where there was no distinction domestically from internationally. Gold would freely circulate without restriction. Therefore, the confiscation of gold was altering the monetary system moving to a two-tier monetary system with gold only used in international transactions. Consequently, FDR confiscated gold to move to a two-tier system.

What FDR then did was confiscate gold. Ironically, this move was intended to target the bankers rather than the public, as the hunt for spare change is now directed at individuals. FDR sought to prevent the bankers from making a profit and to transfer that profit to the state while funding the New Deal.

FDR had his Brains Trust composed of lawyers who argued for austerity, exactly as they do in Europe today. They were horrified at such a devaluation because they could not understand money and argued to support the bankers. This is the very same policy of the Troika in Europe today –– screw the people and support the bankers. So the confiscation of gold was NOT a door to door hunt for gold from the people, but it was the confiscation of gold from the bankers who could not hide it.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/history/ancient-economies/why-was-the-1933-confiscation-of-gold-a-good-thing/

Did FDR confiscate Americans’ gold in 1933?

https://www.usmoneyreserve.com/news/executive-insights/did-fdr-confiscate-americans-gold-in-1933/

Roosevelt's Gold Program

1933

The Roosevelt administration's policies in 1933-34 regarding gold and dollars were both controversial and consequential.

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/roosevelts-gold-program

FDR’s War on Wall Street

Excerpt from, “Clash of the Two Americas volume 4: The Anglo-Venetian Roots of the Deep State”

By Matthew Ehret

https://a.co/d/4DpXECB

The new president laid down the gauntlet in his inaugural speech on March 4th saying: “The money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit”. FDR declared a war on Wall Street on several levels, beginning with his support of the Pecorra Commission which sent thousands of bankers to prison, and exposed the criminal activities of the top tier of Wall Street’s power structure who manipulated the depression, buying political offices and pushing fascism. Ferdinand Pecorra who ran the commission called out the deep state when he said “this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the United States.”

Pecorra’s highly publicized success empowered FDR to impose sweeping regulation in the form of 1) Glass-Steagall bank separation, 2) bankruptcy re-organization and 3) the creation of the Security Exchange Commission to oversee Wall Street. Most importantly, FDR disempowered the London-controlled Federal Reserve by installing his own man as Chair (Industrialist Mariner Eccles) who forced it to obey national commands for the first time since 1913, while creating an “alternative” lending mechanism outside of Fed control called the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which became the number one lender to infrastructure in America throughout the 1930s.

One of the most controversial policies for which FDR is demonized today was his abolishment of the gold standard.

The gold standard itself constricted the money supply to a strict exchange of gold per paper dollar, thus preventing the construction of internal improvements needed to revive industrial capacity and put the millions of unemployed back to work for which no financial resources existed. Its manipulation by international financiers made it a weapon of destruction rather than creation at this time. Since commodity prices had fallen lower than the costs of production, it was vital to increase the price of goods under a form of “controlled inflation” so that factories and farms could become solvent and unfortunately the gold standard held that back. FDR imposed protective tariffs to favor agro-industrial recovery on all fronts ending years of rapacious free trade. FDR stated his political-economic philosophy in 1934: “the old fallacious notion of the bankers on the one side and the government on the other side, as being more or less equal and independent units, has passed away. Government by the necessity of things must be the leader, must be the judge, of the conflicting interests of all groups in the community, including bankers.”

The Real New Deal

Once liberated from the shackles of the central banks, FDR and his allies were able to start a genuine recovery by restoring confidence in banking. Within 31 days of his bank holiday, 75% of banks were operational and the FDIC was created to insure deposits. Four million people were given immediate work, and hundreds of libraries, schools and hospitals were built and staffed- All funded through the RFC. FDR’s first fireside chat was vital in rebuilding confidence in the government and banks, serving even today as a strong lesson in banking which central bankers don’t want you to learn about. From 1933-1939, 45,000 infrastructure projects were built. The many “local” projects were governed, like China’s Belt and Road Initiative today, under a “grand design” which FDR termed the “Four Quarters” featuring zones of megaprojects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority area in the south east, the Columbia River Treaty zone on the northwest, the St Laurence Seaway zone on the North east, and Hoover Dam/Colorado zone on the Southwest. These projects were transformative in ways money could never measure as the Tennessee area’s literacy rose from 20% in 1932 to 80% in 1950, and racist backwater holes of the south became the bedrock for America’s aerospace industry due to the abundant and cheap hydropower.

Wall Street Sabotages the New Deal

Those who criticize the New Deal today ignore the fact that its failures have more to do with Wall Street sabotage than anything intrinsic to the program. For example, JP Morgan tool Lewis Douglass (U.S. Budget Director) forced the closure of the Civil Works Administration in 1934 resulting in the firing of all 4 million workers. Wall Street did everything it could to choke the economy at every turn. In 1931, NY banks’ loans to the real economy amounted to $38.1 billion which dropped to only $20.3 billion by 1935. Where NY banks had 29% of their funds in US bonds and securities in 1929, this had risen to 58% which cut off the government from being able to issue productive credit to the real economy. When, in 1937, FDR’s Treasury Secretary persuaded him to cancel public works to see if the economy “could stand on its own two feet”, Wall Street pulled credit out of the economy collapsing the Industrial production index from 110 to 85 erasing seven years’ worth of gain, while steel fell from 80% capacity back to depression levels of 19%. Two million jobs were lost and the Dow Jones lost 39% of its value. This was no different from kicking the crutches out from a patient in rehabilitation and it was not lost on anyone that those doing the kicking were openly supporting Fascism in Europe. Bush patriarch Prescott Bush, then representing Brown Brothers Harriman was found guilty for trading with the enemy in 1942!