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226 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
Jefferson had touched upon the idea of non-interest-bearing
national debt in circulation as currency. Lincoln had done it, issuing
greenbacks, not bottomed on debt, in order to finance the Civil
War, and had gotten himself assassinated for it. Congressman
Thaddeus Coleman Pound had dwelt upon it, but I do not believe
the idea was quite as obscure in the nineteenth century as it is
today. Perhaps we have now so accepted the idea that all currency
is bottomed on national debt that we cannot understand any other
sort of issue.
Pound also broached another of his basic ideas in this broadcast
of March 26, the idea that paper money shows a higher state
of civilization than metal. I would not have said, "The use of
metal for this purpose is barter," but now that Pound has said it,
the idea is worth considering. Can a modern society be built upon
a concept of monetary issue which goes back to walled cities in the
desert, the idea that all money, paper or no, must be based upon a
quantity of metal buried somewhere, which can be, but seldom is,
brought out and shown to the sceptical, like a Byzantine icon?
Where is the madness or treason in this case?
March 28, 1943:
"An Italian Admiral said to me, 'Oh, he's one of those Hitler
jugend, he doesn't smoke or drink.' He took a glass of Vermouth
as a concession so as not to be stiff to foreigners. I can see the
shudders of horror in Mayfair. What is the world coming to? What
place has this new world for Churchill? And we do not believe the
Atlantic Charter.
"Disorder in the American and British is as we see it reflected
in crime waves in the need of more belief. Look at the police
blotters on the two sides of the battle line. I'll repeat. Crime here
has pretty well died out, a few 'crimes passionelles,' an age-old
custom, but very few. There are a few cases of violations of food
regulations but what does that mean? It does not mean the breakdown
of the old but the imperfect establishment of a whole new
frontier. A new sense of civic order, of cooperation. Considering
that a whole new concept of a good citizen has been set up, still
there is surprisingly little said against it. Now compare that with