THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

complementary currency systems as 'typical', while in reality it was
an exception.
However, notwithstanding such mishaps, the majority of the
applications in the US were correctly designed and successful. There
even exists a remarkable catalogue which illustrates several thousand
examples of local scrip from every state in the Union.
This sets the scene for some key conversations between Professor
Irving Fisher and Dean Acheson, then Under-secretary of the
Treasury. Fisher was convinced that stamp scrip was the way out of
the Depression, and brought his considerable knowledge to bear to
prove this. He went on record with the statement that 'The correct
application of stamp scrip would solve the Depression crisis m the
US in three weeks!’ Dean Acheson, a prudent man, decided to refer
the whole concept to one of his own economics professors at
Harvard, the well-respected Professor Russell Sprague. The answer
came back that in his opinion this approach would indeed succeed in
bringing America back to work out of the Depression. But it also had
some political implications about decentralisation that he might want
to check with the President...
We know what President Roosevelt's final reaction was from a
speech he made a few weeks later. This is probably his most famous
address, the one including the phrase 'The only thing we need to fear
is fear itself. In it, he announced a series of impressive centralised
new initiatives to counter the crisis: the expansion of the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and a series of large-scale
Federal government-managed work-creation projects - basically,
what became known as the New Deal, completed in 1934 by the first
US Export-Import Bank. He also announced that by executive decree
he would henceforth prohibit 'emergency currencies'. This was the
code name for all the complementary currencies already in existence,
and all those in preparation around the country.