The Birch Log



Release date: 11/13/95



Questions About New Currency



by John F. McManus



   On September 27th, the Treasury Department announced the first 

change in U.S. currency since 1929. A remarkably different $100 bill 

- with a larger off-center portrait of Benjamin Franklin, green ink 

that changes to black under some conditions, and interwoven threads 

that glow red under ultraviolet light - will appear early in 1996. The 

new bill will also feature some "microprinted" fine lines that 

become blurred when photocopied and a watermark visible only at an 

angle before a light.



   Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin said the changes would offer 

significantly new hurdles to counterfeiters and to thieves who try 

to duplicate existing bills with sophisticated copying machines. 

Seeking to calm the apprehensions of Americans resistant to change, 

Rubin stated:



    The new bills will retain the American feel and look. The size 

    is the same. The monuments are the same. It still says, "In God 

    We Trust." And the color is still the same. The greenback still 

    will be green.



   Treasury officials took the occasion of their September 27th press 

conference to announce that all denominations of U.S. currency would 

be similarly redesigned, all the way down to the $2 bill. Whether 

there will continue to be a $1 bill is up in the air because Congress

is considering legislation that would replace it with a coin.



   Why the Change?



   Is this move by the Treasury Department really being taken to foil 

counterfeiting? Counterfeiting may indeed be a problem that the new 

style of currency can minimize. If the new currency is designed only 

to counter bogus money creation, the American people are no worse 

off than before. But monetary manipulators within our nation have 

been promoting the idea of a one-world currency for decades. And 

they know they can't saddle the nation with it except in stages.



   Richard N. Cooper, like Robert Rubin a member of the 

worldgovernment-advocating Council on Foreign Relations, called for 

"a single [worldwide] authority issuing currency and directing 

monetary policy" as far back as 1984.



   Almost simultaneously with the Rubin announcement came the 

publication of plans by the European Union (EU) to have a single 

currency for all of Western Europe. While denigrating "the 

nationstate of the past," Germany's Hans-Dietrich Gentsher, one of 

the EU's most intense champions, stated in 1991 that the union of 

European nations "is a matter of constructing a world order of peace 

in which the United Nations must at last play the central role 

assigned in its Charter."



   As more and more financial transactions are accomplished via 

checks, computer transfers, and credit cards, and as Americans are 

being weaned from cash, monetary realists have become increasingly 

concerned about the possibility of the elimination of currency 

entirely. They know that anonymity in the use of money is a major 

ingredient of freedom. In other words, they don't want financial 

transactions to be watched by a central authority as can now be done 

by monitoring checks and credit card use.



   We are not suggesting that checkwriting and credit card use should 

be abandoned. Both certainly make economic activity less 

complicated. As long as cash is still an alternative, there is 

nothing to fear from widespread use of these conveniences. But our 

own government has already placed increasing requirements amounting 

to practical restrictions on the use of large amounts of cash. 

Indeed, anyone who wants to purchase something with substantial 

amounts of cash is already looked upon suspiciously. Those who want 

to rule through a world government must control economic activity. 

Believers in freedom should guard against the introduction of a 

cashless society.



   Fed Power



   During the 20th century, Americans have seen their once-revered 

currency - the finest fiduciary currency the world has ever known - 

completely done away with. In its place, fiat money has been issued, 

not by the U.S. Treasury, but by the privately run Federal Reserve, 

now led by CFR member Alan Greenspan. Incredibly, the Fed now has 

power to decide the value and amount of the currency as well as the 

nation's interest rates. It has the power to create a boom or a bust 

at will.



   Over recent decades, the continually shrinking dollar has been 

devalued by 90 percent through the arbitrary introduction of huge 

amounts of currencyÑ the real definition of inflation. Changing the 

look of the currency isn't what America needs. There is, instead, an 

urgent need for our nation to return to precious metal money, to 

abolish the Federal Reserve, and to purge the government of those 

who contribute to weakening America economically on the way toward 

world government.



Copyright 1995 The John Birch Society



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