Crozier (1911) Versus Propaganopoly
The Great American Propaganda Quiz Results-Part Two
In the last post, The Great American Propaganda Quiz Results-Part One, I tried to drill down and to separate the many things that people conceive as propaganda and to define the greatest threat; what I call the beast of Quadrant Four or propaganopoly; multiple entitites working together with concealed motives, loads of money to define the narrative and steer public opinion in a way that grants them greater control of resources, more concentrated power and piles of profits for them and their friends.
To explain, this phenomenon better, I want to tell you a story about Albert Crozier, a hero from the turn of the century, who sought to preserve the life and integrity of government money by fighting the growing aggression of Wall Street and the big banks with little more than determination, his own finances and a pen. Crozier, a Wilmington Delaware lawyer, courageously foretold of the impending financial disaster for America should the bill be enacted.
While many people know the story of the clandestine meeting, of politicians and bankers at Jekyll Island, which gave rise to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913; few know the full story of how Quadrant Four techniques (propaganopoly) were used to ensure the victory.
The meeting was instrumental in the creation of the Aldrich plan, a forerunner of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Senator Nelson Aldrich, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, tasked with finalizing a report for the National Monetary Commission, sought to hide contributions made from central bankers like Frank Vanderlip, president of National City Bank and Paul Warburg, a German financier who was a partner at Kuhn, Loeb, and Co.
According to Frank A. Vanderlip, the assemblage had to maintain secrecy because “if it were to be exposed publicly that our particular group had gotten together and written a banking bill, that bill would have no chance whatever of passage by congress."[1]
Far from the press and prying eyes of interested parties, their intrigue was kept it secret until the 1930's. The subterfuge did not end there but included a name change; the Aldrich Plan to the Federal Reserve Act giving the impression that a Federal agency was being created rather than a corporation and a misdirection by the bankers to publically condemn the bill under legislative consideration so that people would incorrectly conclude the bill was unsatisfactory to their interests, when in fact, it was everything they wanted… and more.
The panic of 1907, an event most financial experts link to backroom manipulations by the bankers themselves was used to vividly impress upon the citizenry just how painful it is to have a "faulty" banking system. Nothing drives home the demand for change like a recent painful experience of hardship and financial ruin. The bankers were not leaving anything to chance this time. They had six years to create and foster a climate of change with a solid propaganda plan.
Just one month after the onset of the panic, Warburg published “Plan for a Modified Central Bank,” in the New York Times Annual Financial Review, in which he argued that nothing short of a modern central bank would effect a solution to the turbulent currency issues. In 1910, He followed with the publication, A United Reserve Bank of the United States, which included a more detailed analysis of the peculiarities of the American situation and a structure for meeting those needs.
A more insidious and intractable problem for the bankers, than simply promoting their solution, was overcoming a well deserved toxic reputation in America. They could beat their chests as "experts" all they liked and bloviate about needed change but they lacked a very valuable commodity--trust. Paul Warburg admitted in a letter to James B Forgan Feb 18, 1908, "that the general attitude of the country towards New York and Wall Street was such that any measure proposed from here (NYC) would be doomed from the start. For this reason it looks to me as if the situation would have to come from the West." [2]
And to the west they went, Chicago to be exact. Nothing spells t-r-u-s-t quite like homespun mid-western values. The by-laws for the newly formed National Citizen's League for the Promotion of Sound Banking (The League) stipulated that eighteen members of the Executive Committee must be residents of or do business in Cook, County, Illinois, ensuring a distinct break between its leadership and the corruption and taint associated with all things Wall Street. The break of course was a contrived illusion; as Warburg noted, “Among the most liberal contributors [to the League] were the banks.”[3]
The group, organized in 1911 a two full years before legislators would make their decisions that fateful night of December 23rd, 1913, was not only funded but guided and directed by the unseen hand of the bankers. Warburg’s personal correspondences indicate that he, in particular, was heavily involved in shaping the general trajectory of the League as well as the selection of its visible leadership well beyond its initial organization. In a letter dated June 15, 1911, Warburg wrote to Senator Aldrich that despite his difficulties in trying to find the time to organize local committees of the League in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, he “hope[d] to make some headway anyhow.” 3
On April 19, 1911, Warburg received a personal letter from A. Piatt Andrew, a member of the Jekyll Island party and then-Assistant Secretary to the Treasury, who suggested that Warburg hire a man by the name of Thornton Cooke as the League’s secretary. In addition to being a Harvard graduate trained in the methods of theoretical banking, Cooke was seen as a worthy candidate for the position because of his Kansas roots. Andrew wrote, “[Cooke] is thoroughly qualified I should say to fill the place, and being a native of the Middle West would be a particularly appropriate person...He could doubtless help in organizing the League, and in propagating an interest in his region.” [4]
On October 30th, 1911, a long winded New York Times headline proclaimed the mission, "To Teach Nation Banking Principles, Citizen's League Extending Its Organization to All States, Not for A Central Bank, Plan Aims at Cooperation of All Banks by Evolution Out of Clearing House Experience." A more accurate headline would have been, "Bankers Aim to Lie Through Their Teeth Via a Front Group Made to Look Like "Good Guys" from the Midwest;" such is the power of front groups.
The League was to establish branches in 42 states and then undertake a broad and comprehensive campaign of information about banking and currency reform, which the Times writer dryly noted, the public has in the past tended to ignore. Interpretation is needed for the average man to understand "banker speak" and "legalese." And so... who better to trust for the interpretation than the Bankers' very own front group?
Battle Plan for the Populace
Below is a summary of the broad array of tactics used by the League to spread the message. The subject headings are mine but most of the text is taken directly from the Times article.
Wide Dissemination of Simplified Information
"Considering this uphill task the banking primers will take up the subject of banking and currency in simple language and in great detail, the primers, when completed, will be sent out broadcast to the American Public free of charge. Banking dictionaries, containing simple and concise definitions of every banking and currency term, also will be issued and freely circulated"
[Dumb it down to sell it] [Mass circulation of message]
Use of Experts in Messaging
"The trade conditions of each section of the entire country are being analyzed by experts in the employ of the league. Articles are being prepared for publication showing how credit transactions are the underlying factors everywhere, and how the material prosperity of every locality depends on its possession of an adequate banking system."
[Location messaging] [Expert analysis]
Targeted Pitches
In a move that presaged 21st century sophisticated segmenting of social media messages, pitches were modified to appeal to the recipient being targeted. John.V. Farwell, the League president, went out of his way to connect with audiences who disliked the banking establishment by spending an inordinate amount of time during his speeches blaming the bankers for the panic of 1907 and calling the established system "the sword of Damocles" hanging over the nation, but to other audiences his tone was much different.
[Ideological messaging] [Connect with your audience]
Organized speakers
"Lecturers of the league also will present the subject of banking and banking reform through various lyceum lecture bureaus, and prominent business men and leaders will present and discuss the subject at dinners and meetings of Chambers of Commerce, Boards of Trade, and commercial clubs, and at all larger commercial banking and agricultural conventions. The causes of panics and their prevention and cure will be made clear." In other words, the complexity of the problem and its historical challenges will be completely ignored in favor of a simplistic infantile representation of the problem and obvious solution.
[Capture local authority] [Radically simplify the issue]
Public appeals
"Public appeals, asking that the problem be kept out of politics, have already been issued. In this way the league hopes to bring the currency reform question home to every one --to small business men as well as to the large, and to farmers, professional men and wage earners, and in a way that will enlist their active support."
[Grab and hold the moral high ground]
Neutrality Proclaimed
"League officials pledged not to back any plan nor present its own plan to congress. They underscored the following as closely held principles...
Co-operation not dominant centralization, of all banks by an evolution our of our clearing house experience.
Protection of the credit system of the country from the domination of any group of financial or political interests.
Independence of the individual banks, National or State, and uniform treatment in discounts and rates to all, large or small.
Provision of making liquid the sound commercial paper of all the banks, either in the form of credits or bank notes redeemable in gold or lawful money
Elasticity of currency and credit in times of seasonal demands and stringencies, with full protection against over-expansion
Legalization of acceptances of time bills of exchange in order tot create discount market at home and aboard.
The organization of better banking facilities with other countries, to aid in the extension of our foreign trade "
[Outright Lying as to what the bill entails] [Failure to disclose many negative details] [Foreign languages like "banker speak" and "legalese" conveniently require interpretation]
Missionary Work
"The league hoped that in due time they would establish a large enough population to champion their views. General Secretary A. D. Welton wrote to new members that they should "prove" their interest in sound banking by "doing active missionary work, writing Representatives and Senators and urging others to do so as well spreading the gospel of a sound, panic-proof banking system."
[Encourage personal activism] [Once simplified the gospel message can be shared by all] [5]
Battle Plan for the Intelligentsia
In addition to the fine work of the League, a more sophisticated campaign of speeches and written material was mobilized for the intellectual segments of society.
Laughlin, a professor of Political Economy in the University of Chicago, and as luck would have it, Chairman of the the League had his say in Banking Reform, published in 1912. Nelson Aldrich, Secretary of the treasury and fellow conspirator had his book, Banking Reform in The United States, conveniently published just months before the vote on Oct, 15th 1913.
An editor note at the beginning of Essays on Banking Reform in the United States published in 1914 after the passage of the bill brilliantly lays out the steady stream of propaganda disguised as unbiased information made available across a spectrum of audiences comprised of the learned class from early 1907 up until the passage of the bill. [See note 6 for the particulars]
This massive multi-year, coordinated attack on public perception for control of the public purse, was costly; 1/2 million spent on behalf of the League alone. Against this behemoth, Albert Crozier attempted to stand in the gap.
Crozier, on December 17, 1907, smelling a rat and sensing that the fix was in following the panic of 1907, headed up to New York city to speak at a meeting of the National Civic Federation on currency reform where he was sure to encounter many of the big wigs of finance.
Here are several quotes from his speech as portrayed in the New York Times...
Mr Crozier made his attack.'This scheme for the establishment of an elastic currency is a plausible delusion,' he said, 'It is a scheme to take the money-making power out of the hands of the Government and put it into the hands of the associated bankers of this city--to farm it out to a private syndicate so that they may use it for the purpose of manipulating the price of securities up and down like a pump handle for their own benefit. It is nothing more nor less than a scheme of the bankers to keep up the rate of interest against the producers of this country.
They would double the rate of interest and cut the price of labor. This panic was not a dispensation of Providence, as Mr. Carnegie would have us believe, but was prearranged to a certain extent. Give me the management of this so-called big central bank and I will own the whole United States in fee simple [houses and land] in ten years. There is not a plan that I have heard emanate from a banking source that has not a selfish motive."
On the lower end of Manhattan Island there is a panic-manufacturing machine that in fifteen minutes can create a panic that will start all the 1,500 banks in the country to hoarding their money. I would fix the gambling interest so that they could not create these panics. I would stop margin and loan gambling. Let them remember that there is something else in this country beside the lower end of this island. They have cornered the railroads and the banks, but they cannot corner the currency because the people will not let them do it. [7]
In 1912, Crozier released, US Money vs. Corporate Currency: "Aldrich Plan," a book he hoped would be widely read and that would expose the bankers' real plans and motivations.
Crozier wrote, "The pending Aldrich measure by far is the most daring and dangerous scheme ever introduced into Congress. Any unprejudiced person will so conclude from the plain evidence the writer has accumulated by years of effort and thousands of dollars of expense, and now gives to the public in this volume." [8]
Crozier, using his background as a lawyer, painstakingly interpreted each section of the Aldrich plan in clear and simple language detailing the overwhelming financial power being turned over to a private corporation outside the purview of congress, the rightful overseer.
In another savvy move, Crozier spent hours writing letters to many of the politicians and leaders in finance with clever questions about the real implications of the bill that put them on record as to their honesty or lack thereof. Many refused to answer, knowing that to respond was to admit guilt either by answering falsely or by acknowledging the staggering giveaways the bill provided to the banking cabal. The authenticity of the letters were certified via a sworn and sealed affidavit which he printed at the front of the book, putting their duplicity on trial for everyone to see. Public officials sworn to protect the people's interest were clearly uninformed or worse compromised by powers invisible to the public at large.
Was there any outrage by the media? Any investigative reporting following up on Crozier's explosive revelations? Silence. The fix was in.
We all know the end to this story. The coordinated campaign orchestrated by hirelings of the banking establishment inaugurated by a shared traumatic experience (The Panic of 1907) setting up the problem which now required a solution. Enter stage left the phony front group of purchased "trust" tasked with a broad educational campaign to the general population. Audiences received a scientific, targeted message designed to allay fears, simplify the solution and win adherents ready to spread the gospel of sound banking and to petition Representatives for their legislative support.
A series of sophisticated writings drip fed to various periodicals and associations was mapped out and executed for the intellectuals. An alliance of dirty politicians overseen by embedded establishment money-men like Aldrich and Piatt made sure that the votes required would be delivered at crunch time. And don't forget the media necessary to provide "cover" and control the narrative for the whole thing to stick together.
This is propaganoploy, quadrant four, at its finest.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Which brings us to the final quiz question to be covered in this section. Who is the biggest spreader of propaganda in America?
Our respondents answered this way.
Who is the biggest spreader of propaganda in America? (46% American Government, 44% News Media, 6% Corporations, 5% Social Media)
Political parties on both the Right and the Left use propaganda to influence citizens (99% Agree)
I've spent a large amount of time and ink to show that neither individuals nor single entities are the main threat but rather the assorted parties behind Quadrant Four. I've also provided a detailed example from the early 1900's of these entities in action. When the accessories to the crime are whittled away, politicians, the right /left illusion, the media, and social media, the real culprit emerges.... those who are now called the global elite, those with the money to define the narrative and benefit from it.
Politicians are not spending money to manipulate public opinion- they are taking money to assist in the effort- That eliminates the American government as spreader number one. The political parties, both Right and Left are financed by whom? The moneyed interests who have been funding both sides of the aisle for decades. This does not mean that American tax dollars are not going to fund proapaganda-they are. It’s just that the prime movers are behind the scenes.
The meaning of these two statements taken together is that America has essentially become a shell organization or front group for a cabal of moneyed interests. The news media were and still are owned by a small number of elites who work behind the scenes to establish the narratives. They are hirelings like most of the current politicians. Social media is part and parcel of the control grid operated by the CIA. They obey orders of the entities behind them.
The "what" and "who" of American propaganda is not a pretty sight but come to terms with it, we must. The place to start is an accurate understanding of what we are up against and who we are fighting.