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1120 sats \ 1 reply \ @supertestnet 30 Sep 2023 \ on: The U.S. government Gold seizures of 1933 and how they came to pass bitcoin

Some of Roosevelt's campaign speeches indicate to me that he was quite open about fighting "speculators" and effectively taking their profits away.

Here is a selection from one of his campaign addresses, the Commonwealth Club Address in 1932:

Every man has a right to his own property; which means a right to be assured, to the fullest extent attainable, in the safety of his savings…[so that he may] carry the burdens of those parts of life which…afford no chance of labor: childhood, sickness, old age. In all thought of property, this right is paramount; all other property rights must yield to it. If, in accord with this principle, we must restrict the operations of the speculator, the manipulator, even the financier, I believe we must accept the restriction as needful… [Industrialists] have undertaken to be, not business men, but princes of property. … [Therefore] they must fearlessly and competently assume the responsibility which goes with the power. … [I]nstead of acting each for himself, [they] must work together to achieve [a] common end. They must, where necessary, sacrifice this or that private advantage… It is here that formal Government…comes in. Whenever [the industrialist] declines to join in achieving an end recognized as being for the public welfare…the Government may properly be asked to apply restraint. Likewise, should the group ever use its collective power contrary to the public welfare, the Government must be swift to enter and protect the public interest.

It starts out great: everyone has a right to their own property. But then Roosevelt announces that your property rights "must yield to" the limitation that savings exist for the sake of "carry[ing] the burdens of...sickness...[and] old age," and that for people to actually carry those burdens during the Depression, the government must "restrict the operations of the speculator" and ensure that the "princes of property" make a "sacrifice [of] this or that private advantage." He does not say "they must sacrifice their gold." Only that they must sacrifice an unnamed "private advantage."

Here is a selection from another of his campaign addresses, his Presidential Nomination Address in 1932:

Enormous corporate surpluses [are] piled up -- the most stupendous in history. … [Let us] do something toward the reduction of the surpluses of staple commodities that hang on the market. … Final voluntary reduction of surplus is a part of our objective, but the long continuance and the present burden of existing surpluses make it necessary to repair great damage of the present by immediate emergency measures. … Let us be frank in acknowledgement of the truth that many amongst us have made obeisance to Mammon, that the profits of speculation, the easy road without toil, have lure[d] us from the old barricades. To return to higher standards we must abandon the false prophets and seek new leaders of our own choosing.

This one seems a bit more explicit at first: the wealthy are hoarding their wealth and he campaigns for emergency powers to effect "the reduction of [those] surpluses" -- and though he says he'd like for this reduction to be "voluntary," it is "necessary" (according to him) to act immediately, as in an emergency, without waiting for people to voluntarily hand over their wealth.

However, in order to make that paragraph sound a bit more explicit, I've done some careful chopping. The surpluses he explicitly promises to reduce “by immediate emergency measures” were actually “staple commodities” – namely, farm products, food, “agriculture.” (He uses that specific word in one of my dot-dot-dots.) The “enormous corporate surpluses” – he claims – were already drained: “Where, under the spell of delirious speculation, did those surpluses go? …into new and unnecessary plants which now stand stark and idle…[and] into the call-money market of Wall Street... Those are the facts. Why blink at them?”

Consequently, neither in this speech nor in the previous one that I quoted does Roosevelt explicitly call for emergency measures to confiscate speculative profits or gold. But perhaps he suggests it by calling attention, via proximity, to “enormous…surpluses” produced by speculation and the “reduction” of surpluses “by immediate emergency measures” – even though he technically aimed the latter at a claimed surplus of agriculture rather than at a claimed surplus of gold (which he never explicitly mentions in either speech). His remarks about "abandon"ing the "false prophets" of "Mammon" and "the profits of speculation" are also telling.

I don't know that gold-holders were surprised when Roosevelt tried to confiscate nearly all their gold. It seems to me that, because of his campaign speeches, most people not only knew or had an intuition of what was coming, they voted for it. Remember, most people in the Depression did not have gold that could be confiscated. The wealthy had gold, and the other voters seemed -- based on these speeches and others -- to be angry with them or maybe jealous of them. In Roosevelt's many other campaign speeches he frequently decries "speculation" and "hoarding," and in the two I quoted he even seems to say that the government must do something about it. He seems somewhat vague or indirect about exactly what, but it certainly involves rich people sacrificing something and someone's surpluses being involuntarily reduced. So perhaps the blame for the gold confiscation needs to be placed not just on the president, but on all those who voted for him in unjust anger or jealousy at the bogeymen of "speculators" and "hoarders."

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bitman OP 30 Sep 2023

Thanks for the quotes, interesting stuff.

The Emergency Banking Act if 1933 was actually written up by the previous (Hoover) administration.

Roosevelt had only been president for four days when it was passed.

I'm not sure how easy the 'transfer of power' would have been. He would have had a few months since the election to get up to speed though.