It Came From Jekyll Island

17June2010
“It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” - Henry Ford

There is a sad truth to Fords words, both in that the mass of people don't understand monetary policy, and that if they did the horror of what they'd learned would spur them to violence. One can understand why government officials wouldn't want it taught in schools; for it is in the best interest of government, if not the people, that such knowledge never become common.

“Picture a party of the nation’s greatest bankers stealing out of New York on a private railroad car under cover of darkness, stealthily riding hundreds of miles South, embarking on a mysterious launch, sneaking onto an island deserted by all but a few servants, living there a full week under such rigid secrecy that the names of not one of them was once mentioned, lest the servants learn the identity and disclose to the world this strangest, most secret expedition in the history of American finance.”

That description of the events of the night of November 22nd, 1910 was written by a young financial journalist, B.C. Forbes, who later founded Forbes magazine. These men represented fully one quarter of the world’s wealth at the time, and traveled under assumed names to protect their identities. They boarded a train in Hoboken, New Jersey, in complete secrecy. They were bound for the mysterious Jekyll Island Club; an exclusive resort for millionaires off the coast of Georgia.

In attendance were Senator Nelson Aldrich (chair of the senate finance committee), A.P. Andrews (Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Treasury), Paul Warburg (representing Kuhn, Loeb & Co.), Frank A. Venderlip (president of the National City Bank of New York), Henry P Davidson (senior partner of J. P. Morgan Company), Charles D. Norton (president of the First National Bank of New York), and Benjamin Strong (representing J. P. Morgan).

What went on for the next week was a series of meetings between agents of government, and the worlds most powerful banks, that would lead to creation of a Federal Reserve and institution of the Income Tax in 1913; putting control of our entire economy into the hands of a few elites.