6139008-History-of-Money

When times are hard, as they are at present, and the coal business, which never doeswell, is doing particularly badly, the operators cut their rates and make up the differenceto themselves an their stockholders by getting more work for less pay out of the miners.They put in mechanical cutters and loaders, and lay off as many men as they can.According to their practice, the first to go are the men over forty-five and the men whohave been crippled in the mines (at Andrew Mellon's mine, they never keep a man whohas been injured). Ad a medical examination weeds out the other classes of workmen. If itis found, for example, that you are unable to read the bottom line of type on an oculist'schart — as comparatively few people can — you are likely to be eliminated. And the resultis that the children at Ward sometimes go without food for days and that they have solittle to wear that they are sometimes more or less naked and cannot even be sent to theunion for clothes. Even at the time when their fathers were working, they had no shoes togo to school, had hardly ever eaten fresh meat or vegetables and had never known milksince they were weaned form their mothers. Their dish consists of sow belly, potatoes andpinto beans. If they had been living in certain of the other camps, they would probablyalready have died from drinking water polluted by the outhouse and so escaped the pains of starvation. 5Thirteen-year-old, Depression share-cropper.MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO MEET DEBT OBLIGATIONSActually, for the American farmer the disaster of the 1930s was but a new depression piled on top of an old one. It hadstarted back in 1920, after World War I. American farmers faced strong competition from the reconstructed nations ofEurope. They also faced the problem caused by their own efficiency: because they could produce more than they couldsell, prices dropped. It was a buyer's market, and farmers could do little to change the picture. The farmer staggeredunder debts he had piled up to buy land and tools needed to meet the wartime production demands. Now he could notcut production because he hoped to earn the cash to meet the interest and the principal on his mortgage. Farm prices inthe 1930s fell lower and lower, but the taxes on his land and the prices he paid for his necessities did not drop. Thefarmer was caught in a vise between fixed costs and falling prices. Hoover's Federal Farm Board urged farmers to plantless so as to up their prices, but there was no incentive for doing so. [And of course, with financiers controllingaltogether the market, the available circulation, and mortgages incurred under different, original circumstances, it wasimpossible for the farmers to afford to reduce production: Hoover's theoretical remedy was entirely a facade.] From 1920to 1932 farm production did drop 6 percent, but prices fell ten times as much — by 63 percent. Farmers could only watchin despair as corn hit 15 cents, cotton and wool 5 cents, hogs and sugar 3 cents, and beef 2.5 cents.With farm prices so low, most farmers, living under the shadow of mortgages, knew that sooner or later they would gounder. Many owners of small farms were driven into tenancy. Foreclosures and bankruptcy sales were already frequent.What was being done? nothing that amounted to much, said Will Rogers: I thought we was going to have some FarmRelief to report to you by this Sabbath day. But the commissions are just gathering data. They won't take the farmer'sword for it that he is poor. They hire men to find out how poor he is. If they took all the money they spend on finding outhow he is, and give it to the farmer he wouldn't need any more relief. But soon as winter comes he will be O.K., soon assnow flies he can kill rabbits, that will be the biggest relief he has had so far.HUMAN ALLIANCES FORMED AT THE BRINK OF DISPOSSESSIONAmerican Bankers Association as printed in the Congressional Record of April 29, 1913 for 1891: "On Sept1st, 1894, we will not renew our loans under any consideration. On Sept 1st we will demand our money. We willforeclose and become mortgagees in possession. We can take two-thirds of the farms west of the Mississippi andthousands of them east of the Mississippi as well, at our own price... Then the farmers will become tenants as inEngland..."As farms and personal assets are confiscated by the thousands, unity draws the line how far the dispossessors can go.Without a solution the line is only drawn so far back as what we understand and knowhow to rectify. If, at the time, all the people had understood the system itself to havebeen at fault, and exactly how to rectify that, perhaps no dispossession whatsoeverwould have been successfully imposed. There was the story of the Widow Van Bohnwhose husband was killed in a cyclone. Word went around her county that she was tobe dispossessed. The farmers got together and went, several hundred strong, to thebankers. They assembled in great numbers the day of the sale. Thousands came frommany different towns. It took three hours to clear the roads after the would-be sale.They all came to see that Widow Van Bohn kept her farm. She kept it. There werestories of chattel-mortgage sales where all the goods were bought in for a few dollars, aquit claim was signed and a collection taken up to pay for the sale."In our part of the country, in Minnesota," a farmer said, "when a sale comes on, we warn people that anyone buying aplace won't find life worth living there. Won't no one buy from him, sell to him — there won't nobody speak to him." InThe Hidden History Of Money & New World Order Usury Secrets Revealed at last! Page 304