HE Federal Reserve System is the visible hand of the Invisible Empire picking the pockets of the producers of real wealth. It is the most leviathan parasite engrafted upon—and grafting on—production in the world's history. It is an industrial vampire sucking industry's life blood down its bottomless maw. Its greed is fathomless, its rule is ruthless and its lust for power is insatiate.
It is openly and avowedly run and managed in the interest of a so-called "superior class." It has a cynical contempt for the public—whom it ruthlessly plunders. It believes—and practices the belief—that it was instituted for the promotion and protection of superior privileges; that wealth is produced for its exploitation; that production of values exists for its parasitical plunder; that Shylockery is a virtue and that the fruits of industry belong not to its producers but to its despoilers.
Property-owners, property-earners and property-producers are but its puppets whom it plunders at will. By monopolizing and juggling money—the mere symbol of wealth—it destroys the value of real wealth. It has but one interest in the public whom it hypocritically professes to serve and that interest is expressed in the query "How much will the people stand?"
There is nothing with which to compare it for it stands alone in the world's history as the most gigantic plunderbund ever conceived in predacity's womb. Czardom at its height and Kaiserdom at its zenith never held a tithe of the real power held by the Federal Reserve System. It is the perfected fruit and flower of financial high-bindery, industrial plunderbund and applied Shylockery. Under the cloak and mantle of the law it reaches forth its paws of predacity and pouches filcheries which are simply stupendous.
That is briefly what the much touted and saccharinely adulated Federal Reserve System really is. Abraham Lincoln, the greatest human intellect which ever functioned on this planet, prophetically drew its portrait in these words: "It (the Civil War) has been indeed a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before even in the midst of the war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
That is the true portrait, drawn by a master hand, of the Federal Reserve System.
In subsequent chapters you will see the birth of the monster, its ruthless methods of plunder, its machinery of despoilment, its monopoly of money and credit, its pawnbrokery and Shylockery and its huge mounds of pillage.
And in looking it over don't overlook the fact that you, you yourself—whatever may be your part in American industry—are laying tribute on the Federal Reserve altar of Mammon. You can't escape its net of pillage. Amid its mounds of gold, currency and securities—the hugest ever massed together on this planet—your contribution is there. Your brain or your brawn, or both, have added to its lootage. If you live and toil in the U.S.A.—in whatever capacity—your "mickle" adds to the "muckle"—of its stored pillage.