In 1936, Father Charles E. Coughlin, a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Detroit, U.S.A., and founder of “The National Union for Social Justice”, wrote a book entitled “Money! Questions and Answers”. One can read in the foreword: “Because money is the most vital and fundamental problem to be solved before social justice can be reestablished, this is the first of a series of books which will deal with the entire program of social justice.”

As William Jennings Bryan put it (see Chapter 49), as long as the Federal Government does not take back its power to issue the money for our nation, there is no other reform that can be accomplished. In other words, if one does not want to correct the financial system, one goes round in circles; one wastes his time, no matter what organization one belongs to. This is why the “Michael” Journal lays so much stress upon that issue, which is of the utmost importance: every Canadian citizen must absolutely understand the urgency for the Federal Government to take back its power to issue, create the money for our nation, instead of borrowing it at interest from private banks, which brings about unrepayable debts. In the following excerpts from his book, Father Coughlin speaks about the U.S.A., but his arguments apply just as well to Canada or any other country.

by Father Charles E. Coughlin

While the National Union for Social Justice appreciates the splendid efforts which noble statesmen have made in the past to restore to Congress the power to coin money and regulate its value, there is also the realization that these efforts have been in vain because an uninformed and misinformed people have labored under the delusion that switching party politics instead of changing the money policies was the key to contentment and prosperity...

The Constitution and money

How is personal, physical life sustained under diversified activities?

By the exchanging of goods and services.

How is this exchange of goods and services accomplished?

Through the medium of money, which was originated by social necessity to make possible exchanges of varieties of articles and articles of unequal value.

Is the substance of which money is made important?

No. It is the legal status given it by government stamp that makes it acceptable by all as money, whether it be made of metal, or of paper.

Who should create money?

The Government, representing all of the people.

In our country (the U.S.A.), what governing body should represent all of the people?

The Congress of the United States.

Does the Constitution of the United States provide that Congress should originate our money?

Yes. It is very specific and well defined: “Congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin”. Article 1, Section 8, Part 5.

Under existing laws, does our National Government originate our money?

No, only to a very limited extent.

Who does originate (create) our money?

Private corporations, commonly called banks, now originate practically all of our money.

Why have private individuals usurped and exercised the sovereign power of issuing our money?

Because when that power is held and exercised by private individuals, they can and do control the entire economic, social and governmental system and derive enormous, illicit, profits therefrom.

Under our present private money-creating system, what do the bankers get for nothing?

They get interest on the money they create and lend, and title to people's properties by confiscation of properties pledged, if the loans are not repaid at a specific time.

Can Congress delegate a power, reserved to it by the Constitution as a public function, to be operated for private profit without specifications?

No, not without violating the Constitution of the United States.

Has Congress delegated for private profit and without specification the power to originate our money?

Yes, by the National Bank Act of 1863, and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, as well as intermediary and subsequent enactments.

Why does this violation continue?

Because every time a Franklin, a Jefferson, a Jackson, or a Lincoln, or any other honest public servant attempted to arouse the people to the fraud from which they suffer, the private money creators — international bankers — arose in their might and used their controlled press, their bootlick politicians, their office boy bankers, their docile clergymen, and their power over the prosperity of America, to smash the drive for economic freedom. Thus far, they have succeeded.

How can Congress regain its privilege of issuing our money?

There is no need to regain what it has not the right to surrender. It still has that right, and can, and should immediately resume the exercise of this most important constitutional command.

Are the Federal Reserve Banks really Federal?

They are not. The Federal Reserve Banks are private stock corporations owned entirely by other private corporations known as member banks. They are no more Federal than the Federal Bakery or Federal Laundry.

What is a Federal Reserve Bank?

It is a Central Bank, the bankers' bank.

Usury

If banks, then, are debt shops where money is manufactured for the purpose of creating debts, is money issued primarily for usurious purposes?

Yes. Money comes into existence from the banks only as “interest-bearing-loans” which interest must be paid by every person who uses money.

What is usury?

Usury is a breach against the commandment “Thou shalt not steal”, and is related to three specific immoral actions listed under the following: (a) Charging an unreasonable and abnormal rate of interest. (b) Charging interest on any recognized non-productive or destructive loan. (c) Charging interest on a loan of fictitious money which the lender created, thereby demanding from the borrower an unjust return, in the latter case, the lender reaps where he did not sow.

Is usury opposed to morality?

Yes, and it is also opposed to Christian teaching.

Effects of a dishonest money system

What will happen if the present money system is continued and if the present policies endure?

1. Private individuals will coin money for their own personal gain.

2 Corporations organized for production, such as automobiles, steel and textiles, will be under the domination of the private money creators.

3. The government itself will be dominated by the money plutocrats.

4. The press, dependent upon advertising received from banker-dominated corporations and commercial houses, will continue to deceive the people.

5. The educational system will continue to ostracize the truths of economics from our schools.

6. The citizens, weighed down by the unbearable costs of war and depression, will be inclined to blame a democratic form of government and unwittingly relinquish the liberties already won for the bare necessities of life, which the plutocrats will allow them only at the sacrifice of liberty. Dictatorship will necessarily ensue.

Advantages of an honest money system

What will happen after an honest money system is established? An honest money system will help us:

1. To restore sovereignty over money to its rightful possessors, namely, the People, through Congress.

2. To rid Congress of servile politicians.

3. To eliminate from domination over the government the manipulators of money who oftentimes were the cause of war.

4. To insure lasting peace among nations whose governments will be able to legislate laws independent of the international money changers.

5. To make possible the real freedom of the press and the teaching of the truth in all schools, freed once and for all from the domination of money creators.

6. To permit Christian virtue to be practised when want is destroyed in the midst of plenty.

Father Coughlin concludes his book with the following words:

Without economic freedom, both physical and political liberty are meaningless. Their existence depends almost totally upon financial freedom. It is essential that we Americans recapture our sovereign right of coining and regulating our money and of foreign coin. It is essential that we cease paying tribute to the Federal Reserve Banks who create our money out of nothing and lend it into use with an invisible tax appended to it. It is either your money or your life.

You must act like apostles who have learned the truth. You must spread the gospel of financial freedom even at the cost of life itself... Form your battalions, independent of the leadership of the press, the politician and the poltroon! Cast aside your lethargy!

In the name of Christianity, I implore you to participate in duplicating the miracle of the Master Who fed the hungry multitudes. This can be accomplished by insisting, by demanding the institution of an honest money system... The money changers must be driven from the temple of America. If we of this generation, numbed with the opiate of indifference and cowered by the appeals to selfishness, fail to dislodge the radical rule of the money changers, may we go to our graves unwept, unhonored and unsung!