Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1943-03-18

out the aid of Observation-Disclosures,
such as Joe leads. Most stop" peo-
pie, meaning respectable" people,
prefer top-totalitarianism to the bot
tom kind. This is especially true of
all powerful groups which have spe-
cial interests Economic, social, ma
terial or spiritually, in the present
pretty badly 'knocked-down set-up.
But in our flights to the right and
our scurrying to the left we have
overlooked possible safe and bet
ter course. refer to the full free
dom of private enterprise. After all
private enterprise is. pretty good
formula. I think it is better than
any kind of totalitarianism. But our
present private-enterprise" is
free only in name. Every little bust
nessman knows that or can find it
out if he will take time off from
figuring up his losses to look at the
facts. Private monopoly has all but
destroyed free private enterprise.
The key to this dark mystery
is not in the righteousness of mon
opoly, nor the blind pig-headedness
of consumers (whos buy from chains
rather than independently, but in
the. matter of finances. This pig
Medicines is the result of a hog
headed blindness in the manner of
financing. l mean in the manner of
creating finance.
Under our "free. enterprise sys-
tenn financing is almost wholly pri-
vate. Not merely the loaning of ex-
listing money but in the creation and
destruction of money by loans and
collections. Loans create money;
collections destroy; it. That's pri-
vate money control. We used to
think that prosperity depended on
having lot of yellow metal. Well,
we've got about all there is-and
don't use it. You can't have all the
money and all the goods and do any
business. The man who wants goods
must have some money.
The countries which have put up
the hardest and best fighting are
those which have little or no gold.
Countries are wary of borrowing our
money to buy our goods. Note some
of our neighbors to the south, Ger
many, Japan, Italy and Russia lex
cept for international purchases)
have side-tracked gold. Yet they
produce war materials.
But here's something else they
did. They took charge of their
money. No private banking system
controls or regulates the money of
any totalitarian state. The states
issue the money as needed, and has a
way of side-tracking the surplus not
needed. But they do keep enough
in circulation to insure full employ
ment and maximum production.
Now such monetary control works
just as well for a top-totalitarian
state as bottom totalitarian state
just as well for Germany as for Rus
STA. So after all it is not the form
of state, but the freedom of money
that determines the powers of the
state.
And here is an interesting thing.
Ours is state which gives to its
Congress the exclusive power to coin
(and the courts have held that "coin"
means to print or engrave), and reg
ulate the value of money. Yet Con-
gress does not do that. It has abdi-
Gated such power to private banks.
But what has this to do with totali-
tarianism and free enterprise? Just
this: You can have a free enterprise
system or a totalftarianism under a
free money state. BY free money
is meant money free from private
control, free from private manipu-
lations, contractions and expansions.
It means the absence of freedom for