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224 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
excuse his ignorance on the grounds that there are no sources of
enlightenment at his disposal."
In connection with the foregoing statement on credit, Ezra
once said to me, "Credit is the future of money." He also defined
it as "future-money." In an extensive study of economics, I never
found credit defined so well or so succinctly.
In making these broadcasts over Radio Rome after the United
States and Italy were at war, Pound, I believe, knew that he
was laying himself open, technically at least, to a charge of
treason, or of giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of
war. From my knowledge of him over a period of years, and
after a study of these broadcasts, I have come to the conclusion
that he deliberately invited this charge, in the expectation that
he would eventually be tried and that he would then have an
opportunity to discuss openly his economic ideas. It may seem
incredible to anyone living in the twentieth century that a character
sufficiently quixotic to lay his head on the block in order to get
his ideas discussed could still exist, but I do not think anyone
who knows Pound will quarrel with this conclusion.
March 26, 1943. Money:
". . . I took a banker's opinion about money the other day,
he replied, 'Money is the statement of a government's debt to the
bearer, meaning it's how much the government owes to the bearer.'
"I should have preferred him to say the state or the community
owes to the bearer. I'm perfectly aware that I might as well be
writing Greek or talking Chinese with a foreign accent, so far as
making the statement clear as far as the hearer or reader is concerned.
And the public can most certainly not be blamed for this.
You can read a hundred books, by no means despicable books, on
economics, without finding any hint that such an idea about money
is possible.
"The only statement in even an approximately similar form
that I can recall at this moment was made by a Congressman back
in 1878 [T. C. Pound]. He said that an amendment offered by
him to a bill about silver coinage had been an attempt to keep