Driving Out the Money Changers

Charles E. Coughlin

GOLD — PRIVATE OR PUBLIC !

This afternoon, my friends, I propose to speak upon a subject that is related to money ;  subject, perhaps, that is very important for us to understand if we hope to succeed in deposing this monstrosity, the god of gold.

Come with me then, while first we turn over page by page the story of Jewish history.

Originally, as you know, this great people were a pastoral, an agricultural nation.  Abraham’s flocks extended over the acres of Asia.  Fields were tilled, farmers were happy and the wealth of their country and of their tribes was dependent upon the fecundity of their sheep and the fertility of their ground.

Eventually, these wonderful Jewish people became captives.  The Babylonians had come into their midst, burned their homes, destroyed their barns, laid waste their fields and carried them off into bondage !

But as oftentimes happened, God, Who had been so good to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, had not forsaken His people.  He had given them a faith in the world beyond.  He had gifted them with an intelligence superior to that of their captors.  Thus, the Jews became, in one sense, the rulers of the Babylonians.

Of course you recognize that Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, was a Jew by birth.  In His veins there flowed not only the royal blood of King David which he suckled at His mother’s virgin breast, but in His heart and human soul the traditions and culture of the Jews flourished and matured.

The apostles whom He chose to carry His doctrines throughout the ancient world were likewise Jews.

If Greek or Roman, Spaniard or Portuguese or German, Frenchman or Englishman, Russian or Pole or Hollander, if any of them heard the echoes of the Sermon on the Mount they likewise heard the story of Jesus Christ and His love and His charity without which no one can claim title to the name of Christian.

They all remembered “if any man saith he love his God and hateth his neighbor, he is a liar and the truth is not in him.”  Alas !  Many of them forgot to practice this implied precept of charity.

It is a peculiar thing that with the rise of the Christian we behold the ownfall of the Jew.  The walls of his Jerusalem were destroyed.  His nation was scattered over the face of the earth.  Citizenship was denied him.  Ignominy was heaped upon him.  He became the outcast, the hated among the sons of men who had pledged themselves to the doctrine of love and who had proclaimed that they had remembered that “if any man saith that he love his God and hateth his neighbor, he is a liar and the truth is not in him.”

Have you forgotten, my friends, the story of Spain which forbade the Jew from holding property ?  Have you forgotten how the Jew was driven from pillar to post in Holland and in Germany, in England and in France, in the Republics of Florence and of Venice ?

Oh, if the Jew would live, he needs must not live off the fat of the land.  He dare not own a home.  He dare not till the soil.  He dare not enter into the natural business of farming because tearfully he remembered how his lands had been stolen by kingly decree—stolen and confiscated !  Thus, the law of self-preservation forced him to live off his fellowman’s purse.

May I recall for you how the Jews had at one time been taken captive by the Egyptians ?  Watch them as they mold bricks, as they sweat in the hot sun and were denied an education.  Slaves they were !

Did the thought ever strike you that when they found freedom under the leadership of Moses they had enough gold in their possession with which to build a golden calf ?  Did the thought ever occur to you :  Where did they get that gold ?

Slaves were not paid in gold.  They had taken it by right of compensation for the work which they had done.

And thus the Jew learned from the Phoenicians, learned from the Egyptians and learned by bitter, cruel experience from every so-called Christian nation in Europe that had made of him a scape-goat.  They learned that gold was the only wealth which they felt was secure in their possession.

Be it said of the Papal States, there was one oasis in European territory where the wandering Jew found sanctuary.

Oh, no wonder Shakespeare put into the mouth of his Shylock :

“ Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances :
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug ;
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help :
Go to, then ;  you come to me, and you say
‘ Shylock, we would have moneys’:  You say so ;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard,
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold :  moneys is your suit.
What should I say to you ?  Should I not say
‘ Hath a dog money ?  is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats ? ’ or
Shall I bend low and in a bondsman’s key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness,
Say this,—
‘Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last ;
You spurn’d me such a day ;  another time
You called me dog ;  and for these courtesies
I’ll lend you thus much moneys’ ? ”

My friends, that characterization by Shakespeare is the concrete expression of one of the most damnable pages in all Christian history.

I have touched upon these perilous points for a purpose.  I have touched upon them simply for the reason to bring to your attention and to recall to my own the fact that our Christian ancestors forced the Jew to hoarding gold, the only element of wealth that hatred permitted to him.

Denied nationality, denied citizenship, scorned and spat upon and kicked from country to country, what stable possession had he except his coins of gold ?

No wonder then that there grew up that spirit of gold trading in the heart of the international Jew, as some have called him ignominiously.

If I cared to recount the story of the modern Jew, I could tell you the story of the Rothschilds at Frankfort.  I could tell you the story of the Napoleonic Wars.  It is all related in one sense to our present misery.

The Rothschild House had been established not only in Germany.  Its offices had been extended to Paris and to London.  The Gentiles who had scorned the Jew, the Christians who had belittled him, went to the Rothschilds for gold to carry on their wars.

When this emergency arose, Christian nations learned that the commercial gold of the world had found itself controlled by private individuals.

By private possession, my friends, I am trying to distinguish for you the national possession of gold against the privately controlled possession of gold.

III

Today, when men are starving, when farms are being confiscated, when factories are idle, and when the world is bent low, strapped to the pillar of hate and lashed with the scourge of greed, we can read the story that this is due not because men have refused to work, not because farms in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas have lost their fertility, not because our manufacturers in the cities have decided that they will close their industries and throw upon the street 12-million men, not because the American people have become surfeited with all they desire.

This suffering which I have denounced dozens of times has been a manmade suffering because we permitted private individuals to hoard the gold, the basic money of the nation, upon which the system of capitalism is constructed and upon which American prosperity depends.

My friends, I say these things not with acrimony.  I am simply outlining for you a fact of history.  I have courage to do it today because I know that this thing to which I am referring is not going to last much longer.  Not that I intimate that force shall ever be used.  God forbid !  But I do intimate that the intelligence, that the wrath of a world-wide people and that the directorship of our God-given President-elect shall lead us out of this desert ;  this godless desert where we have been worshipping the golden calf ;  this damnable desert where we have been lost.  He will lead us to the promised land !

IV

I am only building up to the climax of these Rothschilds whom I have mentioned.

This family more than any other devised the plan of constituting gold as wealth, and land and produce, men and labor as its servants.  They were forced into this position by the hatred of Christians.  It was this family who formulated the theory of modern wealth, the theory that I have read to you time and again.  From their London office originated the idea not of gold as a medium of trade but of gold held in private possession independent of the nation ;  of gold as a medium of control.

Oh, God forgive us and our ancestors for the breach of charity which we have perpetrated down the ages !  God forbid that clever men shall ever again come into the world to beat down with the whip of reprisal those who have used the thongs of hate.  Today we are paying the price for centuries of hatred !

After Rothschild came Gentiles, Christians, who endeavored to emulate him.  They, too adopted this same theory.

Need I mention them in lower Manhattan by name ?  Need I call your attention to the fact that the gold which tills the soil, the gold that holds the roof over our heads, the gold that is the very life blood of commerce, of industry, of prosperity, has been held captive in the bank of greed, similar to the money which today is held captive in the banks of Michigan ?

V

I am speaking of this thing to bring to your minds one of the most important moral questions of this age.

Radical, some will call it.  Others will fling the cheap word of Socialism at it.  And others will say, “it can’t be done.”  But call it radical, besmirch it with the cheap term of Socialism if you will.  Nevertheless, I am prophesying not because I am looking into the future but rather because I am peering into the past that what I am about to say shall come to pass most certainly.

What is it ?

Well, bear with me a moment.  What has all this to do with the question of depression, the question of gold and hoarding and starvation ?  Does it intimate that we Christians must continue upon the vicious policy of hatred that formerly was extended to those who bear the same nationality as Christ Jesus ?  God forbid !

Have we not come to learn that the Jew has at last a home ;  has at last a nationality ?  He is just as much an American as anyone of us ;  just as much a child of God as the best of you are.  This is a democratic country where Jew and Gentile are equal ;  a country that can never last except it adopts the policy of Christian charity.

Thus, my friends, the day has come in the cycle of progress when the theory of the European Jew that gold is sacred, gold is wealth, gold is more precious than men and the homes in which they live, that day has come in the course of the development of democracy when gold no longer is wealth and must never again be recognized as a medium of control.

It was hate that gave birth to the idea that gold is wealth.  Hate must give way to charity.

It was persecution that drove the Jew into the hoarding of gold.  Persecution must surrender to democratic forebearance and citizenship.

I can understand how in the dawnlight of Spanish and Portuguese and English history—I can understand how through the black forests of Germany and through the fields of France, the poor Jew, his home burned down, his crops destroyed and his only possession, the little bag of gold, was forced to become a wanderer.  I can see that.  But thanks be to God I can see in America where wealth is not identified with gold any more and where the Jew at last rejoices in our common flag, our common nationality.

The thought, then, that I have in mind is this :  It means that henceforth the great private banks of America, including the Federal Reserve must relinquish every gold coin which they possess into the hands of the United States Treasury.  Every individual must relinquish his commercial gold into the hands of our Government.

I am advocating the national confiscation of all gold.

I am advocating that currency money be given to those dollar for dollar from whom we confiscate the gold.

I am advocating that the weapon of control and the weapon of depression be taken out of the hands of those who manipulate it and control it.  Let individuals be satisfied with currency money.  Basic money upon which the structure of our commercial prosperity is built must belong to our nation as a whole.

I am advocating that gold hereafter, every coin of it, every ounce of it, every grain of it, shall belong to the Government and to the Government alone.

VI

I know that some of you are going to say that I borrowed that from some Socialist.  But what does the head of the Catholic Church say on this point :

“ It is rightly contended that certain forms of property must be reserved to the State, since they carry with them an opportunity of domination too great to be left to private individuals without injury to the community at large.”

That, my friends, is the statement of Pope Piux XI.  It is not Socialism.  It is merely Christianity.  Things that are necessary for the development of a country, and for the maintenance of a country, those things must belong to the nation alone and must not be permitted to rest in the hands of the Morgans and Kuhn-Loebs and central banks and Rothschilds who have grown fat by the billions at the expense of the millions of oppressed people.

So almost on the eve of the birthday of the Father of our Country who was so opposed to granting the right to national banks to coin their own money ;  on the eve of his birthday, to whom we look back with reverence, I would like to take you on the wings of fancy to Fraunce’s Tavern in New York.  It is the year 1783.  The occasion is Washington taking farewell of those soldiers who fought with him ;  those officers who suffered and bled with him.  There is Washington at the board.  Solemnly he arises to bid farewell to his brothers in arms :

“ With a heart full of love and gratitude I must now take my leave of you.  I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable. . . . I shall be obliged to you if each will come and take me by the hand.”

That is what Washington said.  It is a voice from out the past !

My friends, you have heard the echo of his words.  Because you are an American child of his there is extended to you at this moment alongside your receiving set the holy hand of one who lived for God and country.  His hand clasps your hand.  It is ours to rise from gloomy thoughts and darkened nights of suffering to the glorious sunrise of peace, prosperity and restored blessedness.  Those things for which Washington fought are still ours.  We have not lost them.  Perhaps, we have bled for a while but there stands one who fought for liberty, who fought for the common people and who fought against oppression.

So, my friends, just as out of a sealed tomb rose the glorious Christ, out of our present suffering shall rise a more glorious nation.  Hold ye fast to the traditions of the past.  Let it not be written that we have let perish the pact between the living and the dead.  Let it not be said that we practiced hatred instead of charity, or that we shall continue letting those who hold gold also hold the lash of oppression.