

                               FUNNY MONEY    


               I was  rummaging through an antique chest in our attic.
          I found an old dollar bill  which said  "Silver Certificate"
          redeemable at any bank for one silver dollar.
               I looked  at a dollar bill which I had in my pocket but
          it only said Federal Reserve Note.  Not a word  that I could
          redeem in  silver dollars.   I thought a note was a debt.  I
          figured, Hell, I'll take it to  my bank  the next  time I go
          and get  a silver  dollar for  it.  Would be nice to have an
          old silver dollar for a change.
               The next time I was at the bank, I gave  the teller the
          old  silver  certificate.    I  asked for a silver dollar to
          replace it.
               Her mouth dropped open.  She  said, "I'm  sorry, sir, I
          have  no  authority  to  give  you  a silver dollar for this
          bill."
               "What do you mean?  It says right  on the  bill that it
          can be redeemed at any bank for a silver dollar!"
               "Yes  sir,  it  does.    Just  a minute while I ask the
          Vice-President to look at it and to give you his decision."
               The Vice-President came to  the window  with the dollar
          in his  hand.   He said  he was  sorry but the redemption of
          these old bills stopped in 1964.
               "How did that happen?" I asked.
               "Congress passed a law taking us  off the  silver stan-
          dard.   They set  a date  to allow for the exchange of these
          old bills for silver.  That  ended  in  1964.    I  can only
          suggest if  you want  a silver  coin, you'll have to go to a
          coin shop."
               I stopped at a coin shop on the way home.  I found that
          I  would  have  to  pay  7  Federal  Reserve Note dollars to
          purchase a one dollar silver coin.
               "What a lot of nonsense." I said, "Just  what in blazes
          is going on with our money?"
               GOLD--MONEY--SILVER--DOLLARS!    What  did our Founding
          Fathers have in mind concerning money  when they  set up our
          Constitution?
               Was it  to be  a piece  of paper with different numbers
          printed on it?  No.  Do you  think they  had experience with
          paper money?  You bet they did.
               In our  Constitution, (Art  I, Sec 8), we gave Congress
          authority "to coin money".   Further,  they are  to regulate
          the value  of our  money.  Nowhere in our agreement for this
          business of government was the power given to "print money."
               The  money  experience  of  the  colonists   under  the
          Articles  of  Confederation  was  disastrous!    Each of the
          original colonies had gone  through periods  of coined money
          and paper money.  They had over 100 years of experience with
          money which varied from day to day and from state  to state.
          Paper money was no stranger to the men who went to Philadel-
          phia in 1787. 
               Roger Sherman was one  of the  delegates from Connecti-
          cut.   He was largely responsible for the restriction in our
          Constitution that money had to be coins and  not a  piece of
          paper.   Roger Sherman had the distinction of being the only
          man to sign three  major documents  in the  early history of
          our country.
               His signature appears on the Articles of Confederation,
          Declaration of Independence and of course, our Constitution.
               In 1752,  he wrote  a blistering  article against paper
          money titled  A CAVEAT AGAINST INJUSTICE.  He had spent many
          years trying to run businesses  in  the  private  sector and
          experienced the  evils of  paper money first hand.  The book
          has  been  reprinted  by  Publisher  Spencer  Judd.    It is
          available  from  the  publisher  at  Post  Office  Box  143,
          Sewanee, TN 37375.
               Major William Pierce, a  delegate  from  Georgia, wrote
          sketches  of  all  the  men  who attended the Constitutional
          Convention.  This is his description of Roger Sherman:
               "Mr. Sherman exhibits  the  oddest  shaped  character I
          ever remember  to have met with.  He is awkward, un-meaning,
          and  unaccountably strange in his manner.  But in  his train
          of thinking there is something regular, deep, and comprehen-
          sive; yet the oddity of  his  address,  the  vulgarisms that
          accompany his  public speaking, and that strange new England
          cant which runs through his public and private speaking make
          everything that  is connected  with him grotesque and laugh-
          able; -and yet he  deserves infinite  praise; -no  Man has a
          better Heart  or a  clearer Head.  If he cannot embellish he
          can furnish thoughts that  are wise  and useful.   He  is an
          able politician,  and extremely  artful in accomplishing any
          particular object;  -it is  remarked that  he seldom fails."
          (Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the
          American States, House Document No. 398,  69th Congress, 1st
          Session) (1965).      
               There was  a lot  of debate during the convention about
          permission to issue "bills of credit"  or paper  money.  The
          other  delegate  from  Connecticut was Mr. Oliver Ellsworth.
          During debates on money he declared this was a good  time to
          shut the  door against  the future  use of  paper money.  He
          further stated, "The mischiefs  of  the  various experiments
          which had  been made,  were now fresh in the public mind and
          had excited the disgust of all the respectable part of Amer-
          ica."   On the  motion to deny permission for the government
          allowing the issuance of  paper money,  only New  Jersey and
          Maryland voted no.   
               Roger Sherman was on the committee which considered the
          prohibitions against state governments.    Mr.  Sherman felt
          this was  just the right situation for crushing paper money.
          One proposition was to allow the issuance of  paper money by
          the states  with the  consent of  the legislature.  He said,
          "If the consent of the Legislature could authorize emissions
          of it, the friends of paper money, would make every exertion
          to get into the Legislature in order to license it."
               He and Mr. Wilson of  Pennsylvania  moved  to  add some
          
          special  words.    "Nor  emit  bills of credit, nor make any
          thing but gold & silver coin  a  tender  in  the  payment of
          debts."
               The  entire   convention  agreed  to  this  clause  and
          included it in our Constitution in Article I, Section 10. 
               Let's examine that command.  No State shall  emit bills
          of  credit  nor  make  any  Thing but gold and silver coin a
          tender in the payment of debts!
               I point out a small yet important item in that restric-
          tion.  Any Thing is two separate words and the word thing is
          capitalized.  Our Founding Fathers were determined that only
          gold and silver coin could be legal tender.  By capitalizing
          thing, they were certain  no one  could raise  a question in
          that aspect.
               If you  have a  debt with  the state in which you live,
          they  cannot  make  any  thing  a  tender.    This  includes
          repayment of  debt in  other than gold and silver coin.  You
          can volunteer, of course, to pay  the debt  in anything your
          state  will  accept.    Be  it money orders, checks, federal
          reserve notes, wampum, bingo chips or beads.
               But we know there is no gold or silver coin in circula-
          tion.   For any  state to  force you to pay in any Thing but
          gold or silver is a violation of your rights.  It is  also a
          violation of a specific state duty under Art. I, Section 10.
               The Constitution  is the supreme law of the land and is
          binding on all states.  The  supremacy clause  makes it very
          clear.
               On  March  3,  1884,  the  United  States Supreme Court
          changed all that.  In a  case called  Juilliard vs Greenman,
          they  said  the  restriction  against  the issuance of paper
          money was against the states.  It did not apply  against the
          federal government.   The so-called interpreters of law have
          again taken it on themselves to  change our  Constitution in
          violation of our amendment process.
               A  book  written  in  1886  by a historian named George
          Bancroft called "A PLEA FOR THE CONSTITUTION" clearly points
          out  the  illegality  and  fallacy  of  the  decision by the
          Supreme Court.  I recommend it highly and it is  also avail-
          able in  reprint from  Publisher Spencer Judd, whose address
          appears above.
               Another authorization  we  did  not  allow  is  for the
          legislative  body  to  delegate  any  of their duties to any
          other body, under  ANY  circumstances.    However,  in 1913,
          Congress gave permission to a private corporation called the
          Federal Reserve System to control our  money.   More on this
          in a later chapter.  
               Looking  back  to  Section  8  of  Article  I,  we find
          Congress is to "fix the Standard  of Weights  and Measures."
          For the sake of our illustration, and to show how idiotic it
          was to  hand over  the control  of our  money, let's pretend
          Congress  also  gave  that  required  duty  of  weights to a
          private company.  This  outfit  (whoever  it  might  be) has
          decided an  ounce is  now a  pound and a liquid ounce is now
          and forever a gallon.
               They are controlling only  weights and  measures .  . .
          not the value of an article.  Now a gallon of gasoline costs
          you $32.00 instead of one dollar.  The  cost of  a rib steak
          is now about $64.00 a pound.  Can you imagine how the people
          would explode if this had happened?    Only because Congress
          reneged on  its duties  to fix  the standard  of weights and
          measures.   
               We know they didn't give this duty to a private outfit.
          They DID give the mandated duty to regulate the value of our
          money to a private company.   Now who  is breaking  the law?
          The same  thing happens to the value of our dollar as in the
          above illustration of variations  in  weights  and measures.
          The effect  is not  as dramatic  because they complete money
          manipulation slowly  and  it  is  carried  on  behind closed
          doors.   People are  mostly ignorant  on money  issues.  The
          bureaucracy and the Fed prefer it that way. 
               We often hear the  phrase "ignorance  of the  law is no
          excuse."   What do you suppose their excuse is for violating
          our basic law?  Ignorance on our part of this dereliction of
          congressional duty is also no excuse.
               Alexander  Hamilton  in  The  Federalist Papers, No. 42
          equates the value of coins with weights and  measures.  "The
          regulation of  weights and  measures is transferred from the
          Articles of Confederation, and is founded on like considera-
          tions with the preceding power of regulating coin."
               All the  gobbledegook in  Washington DC will not change
          the  fact  our  elected  people  in  Congress  did  and  are
          violating their  oaths.   They are breaking the law.  And we
          are the victims!
               James Madison, in paper No. 44, speaks of  the restric-
          tions  against  the  states  (Art  I, Sec 10) by saying "The
          extension of the prohibition  to bills  of credit  must give
          pleasure  to  every  citizen  in  proportion  to his love of
          justice and his knowledge  of  the  true  springs  of public
          prosperity.   The loss which America has sustained since the
          peace, from the pestilent  effects  of  paper  money  on the
          necessary confidence  between man  and man, on the necessary
          confidence in  the  public  councils,  on  the  industry and
          morals  of  the  people,  and on the character of republican
          government, constitutes an enormous debt against  the States
          chargeable with  this unadvised  measure - . . it may now be
          observed that the same reasons which  show the  necessity of
          denying  to  the  States  the power of regulating coin prove
          with equal force that  they ought  not to  be at  liberty to
          substitute a paper medium in place of coin." 
               Yet  the  states  cry  they  have  to  use whatever the
          federal government issues for  money.    From  what  we have
          looked at  so far,  we all  know this  is pure horse manure.
          The relationship of the states to the national government is
          turned  upside  down.    The  states  were  jealous of their
          sovereignty and that was apparent throughout the convention.
          This  was  to  be  a  union  of  states, not an all powerful
          federal government which could do no wrong.
               We've let it get away from us.   What consideration can
          
          our elected officials give to their oath?  Perhaps it's just
          a ritual now, only so many  words which  have to  be recited
          each time we return them to the funny farm in Washington.
               If  they  were  honorable  men,  the  oath would be all
          important and binding on them.   Then we  would not  have to
          worry if our Constitution were being obeyed.
               Okay, now what do we have to do?  Throw them all out of
          office whenever they come up  for  election.    We certainly
          don't need  Republicans, Democrats, liberals, right wingers,
          conservatives or left wingers.  There is no requirement that
          a  member  of  Congress  be  a lawyer either!  We need those
          bakers, butchers and computer  operators.    We  need honest
          Americans  as  our  representatives  who  will  restore  our
          Republic to the greatness our Founding Fathers intended.  
               Get on the phone and  call  the  local  offices  of all
          Senators and Congressmen.  Ask where they found authority to
          delegate their duties to a private company like  the Federal
          Reserve or to any other body for that matter.  Write letters
          to their Washington offices and ask the same questions.  
               Write your  Governors  and  ask  if  the  United States
          Constitution is still binding on the state.  Ask specifical-
          ly about the restriction in  Art  I,  section  10!   Letters
          every couple  of weeks  would not  be too  often to let them
          know you know what  is  going  on.    You  want  it changed.
          Certainly it  wouldn't be too much to require them to obey a
          document they swore to uphold.
               Reports are that some of the State Supreme  Courts have
          decided  that  the  restriction  does  not  apply  to  their
          particular states.  By what right?  Did  you agree  to allow
          the  judiciary  of  your  state  to decide that the oaths to
          support the Constitution is no longer binding on them?  They
          need to be denied their offices also.  
               We now  have lawyers  running and manipulate our lives.
          Let's make it stop.  These sort of decisions only  show that
          lawyers are  taking care  of their own in the mutual admira-
          tion society called government.
               If government thinks  we  would  agree  to  paper money
          instead of  gold and  silver, submit a proposed amendment to
          our Constitution.  Let's find out if we  will allow  for the
          change.    The  amendment  process  is spelled out in Art V.
          Make them use it and stop these violations of our basic law.
               They really have a good deal.  They  can issue  a piece
          of paper with the number one on it followed by as many zeros
          as they feel necessary.  Then it can be called  money.  They
          also are aware that gold and silver cannot be counterfeited!
          They prefer the paper method.
               AFTER ALL . . . IT'S YOUR MONEY!   But  then, they will
          probably ask . . . just who are you?  Simply remind them.
              

                       REGISTRATION IS ONLY $19.95

                    PLEASE READ 'SALES PITCH' CHAPTER
