Posted on 03/23/2010 8:10:34 AM PDT by Liberty Ship
Thirty Seven Wall Street
New York
Dearest Mother,
How is your Democratic faith holding out under the Roosevelt regime? The banking and investment business is very hard hit and of course dealing in Government Bonds is almost at a standstill and much more risky than before the gold purchase program.
However, I am not one of the more rabid critics of what has been done to date. I only fear the inability to stop. France had such an experience during the Directoire – the inflation began on a controlled basis about 1789 and continued with terrible effect until the Consulate of Napoleon. This period was also a fine example of “Gresham’s Law” of cheap money.
I also have some fear that certain of the “Brain Trust” are using the power conferred by the emergency to carry out a professional plot to carry out political society far to the left without authority from or the real knowledge of the majority of intelligent people. As I have little faith in this Congress as now made up I feel we have to trust Roosevelt to limit the scope of the “experiment.”
I do hope you have a restful Thanksgiving and that I shall soon hear you are well on the road to complete recovery.
Much love, Allen
Thanks for this..Very interesting..I guess there is “nothing new under the sun,” regarding the left in America.
Thank you for posting it.
I know people HATE this, but TRUTH does NOT EVOLVE.
History repeats itself all the time. The problem is people are constantly rewriting it so the TRUTH is hidden.
Amazing how the letter could be easily used to describe what’s happening today. History repeating itself.
Reminds me of that old saying “those who are ignorant of history are destined to repeat it.”
Now I know why the liberals have destroyed the teaching of history in our schools, they don’t want people to realize what they’re trying to do has failed in the past.
My paternal Grandfather — a manufacturer and real estate investor — was similarly inclined.
File this either under “What is past is prologue” or “Everything old is new again.”
This letter came to my attention many years after my grandfather went to his final reward. I am saddened that he never knew that some of us down-liners inherited his outrage gene. I am further saddened that he and I never had a chance to discuss these matters.
In the approximately once per generation economic excesses and insanity – almost always triggered by the existence of un-backed fiat paper “money” – a minority of citizens living through the madness grasp what’s going on. But only a small handful speak out about it.
I have been speaking out about it since my late friend Tupper Saussy introduced me to Roger Sherman.
I am proud that my grandfather was also one of those who spoke out.
Unfortunately, few have either the desire or capability to grasp the nexus of the problem let alone try to affect the necessary changes.
Yet we persist as the alternative is too grim to contemplate.
And if you don’t think YOU will not be impacted or – like Neal Boortz –think you can “outrun” what’s coming, that flapping sound you may hear are some very BIG buzzards coming home to roost — at YOUR house!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIo8FJJMps8
**************
Coshocton, Ohio
May 13, 1938
Mr. Uncle Sam
c/o Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
Washington, D.C.
My Dear Uncle:
I am in receipt of a letter dated May 5th, from Mr. Morgenthau, which letter he signed as your Secretary of the Treasury. According to the dictionary, a Treasury is, among other things, a place in which stores of wealth are deposited, and as there does not seem to be any wealth in your Treasury, it would seem that he should have signed the letter as your Treasurer of the Deficit, as, according to the dictionary, a Treasurer is, among other things, an officer who receives the public money and disperses it and, as he has dispersed a great deal more money than he has received, he is in charge of a Deficit, instead of being in charge of the Treasury.
In his letter, he attempts to persuade me that I should lend you some money by buying Savings Bonds and he states that more than 1,260,000 people own more than $1,600,000,000 maturity value of these bonds, in addition to which, I understand that you owe about $36,000,000,000 on various other kinds of bonds and notes, and that you have a contingent liability of additional billions. In his letter, he states that the savings bonds mature in ten years from the date of issue, and that they may be redeemed for a stated amount at any time after sixty days from the date of issue. This all sounds very impressive, but when these bonds mature, or in case an effort is made to have them redeemed previous to maturity, I am wondering what you will exchange for them. Will it be food, clothing and housing, or will it be 59 cent dollars of some other much greater reduced value, which dollars, as was the case with the German Mark, under similar conditions, may be of value mainly as waste paper?
When considering an application for a loan, the reputation of the prospective borrower is generally considered to be of first importance, and to be real frank about it, your actions during the past five years have not been such as to inspire confidence in you, as in addition to spending in countless foolish ways, a great deal more than your income, you have not been absolutely honorable, truthful and reliable. After borrowing large sums of money upon the promise to repay it in gold, you decided not to do so. In addition, you took from your nieces and nephews all of the gold which we had and buried it in the hills of Kentucky. I am wondering if you think that by planting it, you can cause it to grow in value, or if, like whiskey, you think the quality of it will improve with age. You are also forcing your nieces and nephews to turn over to you large sums of money, which you have promised to save for us and to return to us when old age overtakes us. Instead of saving this money for us as promised, however, you have been spending it as fast as it is received, in what appears to be nothing more or less than a drunken joy-ride.
Even though one of your age and experience should realize that it does no good to prime a broken pump, especially after having tried it for several years without success, you continue to prime the business pump, and to kick and cuss it and work on it with a sledgehammer.
I addition to other things, the frequent use of a hypodermic has done you no good, and probably explains why you penalize and abuse your nieces and nephews who are thrifty and industrious, and reward those who are incompetent and lazy; why you killed five or six million little pigs, even though our political friends are always hungry for pork; and why you destroyed crops of cotton, wheat, corn, etc. to the advantage of producers in other nations.
Like any incompetent spendthrift who violates all the tried and tested laws of economics, there must be a day of reckoning for you at some time in the future, at which time you will find it impossible to pay your debts, or else you will be obliged to pay them in depreciated currency. In either event, it does not appear to be safe or wise to lend you any more money to be used by you in making whoopee and playing Santa Claus. In order to save you from yourself and to prevent the dissipation of what few assets you may have left, a guardian should be appointed for you but this will take time and probably cannot be accomplished previous to 1940.
Your distressed nephew,
Karl W. Bachert
I have been hoping for years to find a contemporary conservative account of Roosevelt and the New Deal. All we learned in school was that there were reactionary revanchists led by that know-nothing McCormick at the Chicago Tribune who tried to stop the flow of history but were unsuccessful.
That letter and a few other things that I have seen lead me to believe that there is much we can learn from the resistance in the 1930s, including perhaps discovering why they were unsuccessful.
Thank you for posting this letter. It is very interesting.
"King Franklin the First"
Very interesting and very touching... and insightful. I especially liked his observation that “The Brain Trust” (think Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod today) are using the “emergency” to go much further left that he could imagine.
My grandfather had similar views and felt that FDR had betrayed his own kind (the rich) with his progressive ways. But my grandfather was shrewd enough to avoid the worst of the crash and then did well during the depression when cash was king.
I remember my father telling me and my siblings (growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s) that history looked kindly on FDR (at that time) because he had changed the path of America forever and it was virtually impossible to put it back on the right path. I can only imagine what he’d be thinking about Obama and today’s insanity.
Archie Bunker: [Maude refuses to get out of Archie’s chair] Well, I got the secret weapon that can lay this little lady right away. Here we go. This country was ruined by Franklin Delano Roosevelt!
Cousin Maude: You’re fat.
Archie Bunker: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt...
Edith Bunker: Archie, you promised never to say that name again in front of Maude.
Archie Bunker: Franklin Delano Roosevelt!
Edith Bunker: [to Maude] He don’t mean nothing. His whole family was for Roosevelt.
Archie Bunker: That was for two terms. But that was it. We didn’t know the guy was going to hold on to the job like a pope!
It was recommended right here on Free Republic a few months ago.
If you FReepmail me your address, I will pass along my copy.
Fascinating, thanks for posting the letter. My father, who died 45 years ago, used to rail against FDR. It’s taken me that long to understand what he was talking about. It’s a shame more of us don’t have letters like yours...REAL history. I am blessed to have copies of some of my ancestors letters from the Civil War.
Thank you, that is very kind of you. I will pick up my own copy, as I like to keep important books.
I was hoping for something written in the 1930s, but this book probably will point me to some of that source material.
Your instant response is a reflection not only of your generosity personally, but also illustrates how Free Republic is such a wonderful place and why I have come to get nearly all of my news strained through the active and thoughtful minds of its members.
This is just like early in FDR. People need to shake baby boomers and seniors - if we do not get control of the senate and house 2010 then it is over for them.
They have $12 trillion in retirement money that will be next for social justice (aka reparations). The rest of their lives will be s**t if the GOP does not gut this thing.
I am reading the 3 volume set entitled The Age of Roosevelt written by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Dr. Schlesinger is a liberal in every sense of the word, so you have to take some of the pontificating in the direction of FDR with a grain of salt. With that having been said, He is a very good historian. This book has opened my eyes to many things that happened then and are happening now. For instance, the allusion to the killing of millions of pigs and the destruction of crops was a real effort by FDR’s AG department to increase food and crop prices. You can see as you read this book all the cockamamie ideas that were spawned in the New Deal era.
The other thing I have realized is that the Obama era cannot be likened to the New Deal era. It is most likely similar to the Hoover era. Why you ask? Because Hoover ignored the high jobless rate and the low productivity of the depression and its effect on the people. In essence He ignored what the people of this country were concerned about, just as Obama is doing now.
Thank you. That is very interesting. I have that set; I read it in college in 1977. I will take another look at it.
I’m going through boxes and boxes of letters, some going back to the Civil War. WWI, WWII, etc. I’m not inclined to throw any of them away. But I was stunned at how “on point” this one was, given what we are facing now. It was at once reassuring and unsettling. We MUST take this country back!
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