I have confidence in G. Edward Griffin as a careful historian.
Don Stacey
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The JFK Myth
This is in reply to an e-mail Mr. Griffin received that pointed out differences between his views and those of the Christian Common-Law Institute regarding an alleged conflict between JFK and the Federal Reserve.
On their website, dated August 9, 2000, the CCLI stated:
"On June 4, 1963, a virtually unknown Presidential decree, Executive Order 11110, was signed with the authority to basically strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the United States Federal Government at interest. With the stroke of a pen, President Kennedy declared that the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank would soon be out of business. President Kennedy's Executive Order 11110 gave the Treasury Department the explicit authority:"to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the treasury."... Perhaps the assassination of JFK was a warning to all future presidents not to interfere with the private Federal Reserve's control over the creation of money."
This is what I refer to on page 569 of my book as "The JFK Rumor." I cannot accept this interpretation of history because of the following facts:
The executive orders
If you look at a copy of EO 11110 you will find that it does not order the issuance of Silver Certificates. It orders an amendment to EO 10289. If you then look up EO 10289, you will find that it says: "The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby designated and empowered to perform the following-described functions of the President without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President."
Those functions did not include the power to issue Silver Certificates. The purpose of EO 11110 was to add that power to the list. The exact wording of the Order was: "Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended (a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j): (1) 'The authority to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury.'"
Therefore, my statement in The Creature from Jekyll Island is correct. EO 11110 did not order the printing of Silver Certificates. It ordered the amendment of a previous executive order so that the United States Code would authorize or "empower" the Secretary of the Treasury to issue Silver Certificates if the occasion should arise. The occasion never arose. According to the Comprehensive Catalog of U.S. Paper Money by Gene Hessler, and also the Blackbook Price Guide to United States Paper Money, 33rd edition, the last issuance of Silver Certificates was in 1957. That was five years prior to Kennedy's EO 11110."
The following additional explanation was contained in a 1996
report from
the
Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress:
"What E.O. 11110 did was to modify previous Executive Order
10289, delegating
to the Secretary of the Treasury various powers of the
President. To
these
delegated powers, E.O. 11110 added the power to alter the
supply of Silver
Certificates in circulation. Executive Order 11110, therefore,
did not
create any
new authority for the Treasury to issue notes; it only
affected who could
give
the order, the Secretary or the President.
"The reason for the move was that the President had just
signed legislation
repealing the Silver Purchase Act. With this repeal, the
Treasury Secretary
could no longer control the issue of Silver Certificates on
his own authority.
However, the issuance of certificates could be controlled
under the President's
authority. Hence, for administrative convenience, President
Kennedy issued
Executive Order 11110.
"Ironically, the purpose of the order and the legislation was
to decrease
the
circulation of Silver Certificates, with Federal Reserve Notes
taking
their
place. As economic activity grew and prices rose in the 1950s
and early
1960s,
the need for small-denomination currency grew at the same time
that the
price
of silver increased. The Treasury required silver for the
increasing
number of
Silver Certificates and coins needed for transactions. But the
price
of
silver was rapidly approaching the point that the silver in
the coins
and in
reserve for the certificates was worth more than the face
value of the
money.
"To conserve on the silver needs of the Treasury, President
Kennedy requested
legislation needed to bring the issuance of Silver
Certificates to an
end and
to authorize the Fed to issue small denomination notes (which
it could
not at
that time). The Fed began issuing small denomination notes
almost immediately
after the legislation was passed. And in October 1964, the
Treasury ceased
issuing Silver Certificates altogether. If anything, E.O.
11110 enhanced
Federal
Reserve power and did not in any way reduce it." (See "Money
and the
Federal
Reserve System: Myth and Reality," by G. Thomas Woodward,
Specialist
in
Macroeconomics, Economics Division, Congressional Research
Services,
Library of
Congress, CRS Report for Congress, No. 96-672 E, July 31,
1996.)
The CCLI makes the following claim in its report:
"The Christian Common Law Institute has exhaustively
researched this
matter
through the Federal Register and Library of Congress. We can
now safely
conclude that this Executive Order has never been repealed,
amended,
or superseded by
any subsequent Executive Order. In simple terms, it is still
valid."
This is not supported by the facts. The power granted to the
Secretary
of
Treasury to issue Silver Certificates was rescinded on
September 9, 1987,
by
Executive Order 12608, signed by President Reagan. The
official purpose
of the
Order was stated as "Elimination of unnecessary Executive
orders and
technical
amendments to others." It did not affect EO 11110 directly but
did affect
the
parent EO 10289 - along with 62 other executive orders. That
is how paragraph
(j) was amended to remove the power in question. This Order
can be found
in its
entirety in the Federal Register 52 FR 34617.
"The picture is blurred by the fact that the Treasury did
issue United
States
Notes in the same year as EO 11110 (1963) but, as discussed
further along,
U.S. Notes are not the same as Silver Certificates.
Furthermore, their
issuance
had nothing to do with EO 11110. It was mandated by an 1868
act of Congress
which required the Secretary of the Treasury to maintain the
amount of
U.S.
Notes outstanding at a fixed level. This did not originate
with JFK and,
in fact,
he probably had no deep understanding of it. It was a routine
matter
initiated
by the Treasury merely to replace worn and damaged specimens
of older
Notes
in order to comply with the 1868 law. Apparently some of these
new Notes
did
get into circulation but were quickly snapped up by private
collectors.
They
never became a significant part of the money supply and, in
fact, were
not
intended to. (For a more complete analysis, see my book, The
Creature
from Jekyll
Island, pp. 569, 570.)
Silver Certificates vs U.S. Notes
These facts alone should be enough to settle the matter, but
there is
yet one
more point of confusion to be cleared up, and that involves
the difference
between Silver Certificates and United States Notes. In
monetary terms,
a Note
means a promissory note. A Note is any financial instrument
which states
in
clear and unambiguous terms who is to pay what to whom on what
date.
All four
elements must be included. [See Ewart, James E., Money
(Seattle, Principa
Publishing, 1998), pp. 27-29.] Therefore, any paper currency
which displays
a
statement such as "The United States Treasury will pay to the
bearer
on demand twenty
dollars in silver coin" is a Note. A Silver Certificate is
just one form
of a
Note. Other forms existed in the past and included Bank Notes,
United
States
Notes, Gold Certificates, and even Federal-Reserve Notes in
those by-
gone days
when they were backed by gold.
Earlier issues of U.S. Notes displayed printed statements to
the effect
that
(1) the bearer could redeem them (2) at the Treasury (3) on
demand (4)
either
for dollars or a specified weight of gold or silver. During
those years,
a
dollar was defined by law as 371.25 grains of pure silver,
which was
the amount
contained in a One-Dollar silver coin. The law also provided
that the
metal
could be in the form of coins, dust, nuggets, plate, or
bullion. Therefore,
whether the phrase printed on the currency promised dollars,
silver,
or gold, it
ultimately meant precious metal in one form or another -
usually coin.
Since
there was nothing ambiguous about that, those U.S. Notes were
true Notes
in the
legal sense because they contained all four elements of a
promissory
note.
This tradition began to change in the late 1960s and, since
about 1971,
U.S.
Notes have become very ambiguous, indeed, about what can be
redeemed
for them.
The former clearly written contracts have now been replaced by
random,
unconnected phrases such as The United States of America;
Twenty Dollars:
This note
is legal tender for all debts, public and private. These words
look official
and impressive but, in terms of a contract to redeem the
currency for
something
of intrinsic value, they have no meaning at all.
Silver Certificates once were a promise to deliver silver.
U.S. Notes
now are
a promise to deliver taxes and inflation. Even in 1963 when EO
11110
was
issued, there were important legal and technical differences
in the regulations
that governed the issuance of Silver Certificates and U.S.
Notes. These
words
were not used interchangeably. Regulations pertaining to the
issuance
of Silver
Certificates could not be applied to the issuance of U.S.
Notes, and
vice
versa. When EO 11110 authorized the issuance of Silver
Certificates,
it said
nothing about U.S. Notes. The subsequent issuance of U.S.
Notes, therefore,
had
nothing to do with EO 11110. And that is the point of this
analysis.
Without that
understanding, one cannot grasp the significance of the JFK
executive
orders.
I do not claim to have the final answers on these issues, but
this is
where
our research has led so far. I am open to additional
information or
interpretation. I would especially welcome a response from the
Christian
Common Law
Institute.
Sincerely,
G. Edward Griffin