OUR money masters, the Federal Reserve Board at Washington and the twelve tentacular Federal Reserve Banks in their regional satrapies, staged in 1920 the greatest financial debacle in human history. They were, and they are, as much your money masters, as was ever a slave-holder the master of his human chattel. Your labor and the produce of your labor—in whatever capacity you worked—were, and are today, as completely under their control as was ever the labor and the production of the labor of slavery before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation chiseled chains. So long as you exist in the U.S.A. and the Federal Reserve System exists, the lash of these money masters will writhe over your back and you must cringe under its sting. Make no mistake about that. No sceptered king nor bedizened kaiser ever wielded a tithe of the power which rests in the cunning brains and in the ruthless edicts of these money masters.
Here are the facts. Read first these quotations from their own lips and from their own pens which prove that these Federal Reserve oligarchs deliberately staged the greatest financial debacle in all human history. Nothing in human history approaches it for cold-blooded, wanton, ruthless slaughter of values.
"Credit must be brought under effective control."
"The Board (meaning the Federal Reserve Board) will not hesitate to use every statutory power to regulate currency and credits."
"Our present task therefore is to proceed with the deflation of credits as rapidly and as systematically as possible."
If for "deflation" you read "destruction" you get the real intent and the real meaning of these ichor-veined assassinators of real values. Don't let these word jugglers and these money jugglers confuse you with their lacquered language. When they say "inflation" what they really mean is increase of values and when they say "deflation" what they really mean is destruction of values.
The tragedy was staged in 1920—about fourteen months after the World War was closed—but it didn't get going good and strong until the summer and fall of 1920. After the summer had arrived, after grain and cotton were in the ground, after cattle and sheep were on the ranges, after merchants' stocks were on the shelves, after factories had run at full capacity and after all producers and merchandisers were hopelessly committed and couldn't retrace their footsteps, the lash fell. Or to change the figure the trap wasn't sprung until every foot was within its iron ring.
The first proof of a murder is the corpse and here are the corpses of murdered values just as they were struck down by the Federal Reserve bludgeon. Look at them.
| 1920 No. 3. | Chicago Corn | New Orleans Middling Cotton |
| January | 1.47 | .40 |
| May | 1.98 | .40 |
| June | 1.83 | .40 |
| July | 1.53 | .39 |
| August | 1.53 | .33 |
| September | 1.29 | .27 |
| October | .87 | .20 |
| November | .80 | .17 |
| December | .73 | .14 |
| 1921 | ||
| January | .65 | .14 |
| February | .63 | .13 |
| March | .61 | .11 |
| April | .55 | .11 |
| May | .60 | .11 |
| June | .60 | .11 |
| July | .60 | .11 |
| August | .55 | .12 |