Quotations from:

Antony C. Sutton’s “Wall Street and FDR" (1976)

eBook

by Rolf Kenneth Aristos

FDR was a Wall Streeter par excellence from 1921 - 1928.
 

Summing-up:

“In brief, we have shown that Roosevelt was a Wall Streeter, descended from prominent Wall Street families and backed financially by Wall Street. The policies implemented by the Roosevelt régime were precisely those required by the world of international finance. It should not be news to us that international bankers influence policy. What appears to have been neglected in the history of the Roosevelt era is that, not only did FDR reflect their objectives, but was more inclined to do so than the so-called reactionary Herbert Hoover. In fact, Hoover lost in 1932 because, in his own words, he was unwilling to accept the Swope Plan, alias NRA, which he termed, not incorrectly, “a fascist measure”.”

Who was Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)? [Wiki article]

“This book portrays Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a Wall Street financier who, during his first term as President of the United States, reflected the objectives of financial elements concentrated in the New York business establishment. Given the long historical asso­ciation – since the late 18th century – of the Roosevelt and Delano families with New York finance and FDR's own career from 1921 to 1928 as banker and speculator at 120 Broadway and 55 Liberty Street, such a theme should not come as a surprise to the reader. On the other hand, FDR biographers Schlesinger, Davis, Freidel, and otherwise accurate Roosevelt commen­tators appear to avoid penetrating very far into the recorded and documented links between New York bankers and FDR. We intend to present the facts of the relationship, as recorded in FDR's letter files. These are new facts only in the sense that they have not previously been published; they are readily available in the archives for research, and consideration of this information suggests a reassessment of FDR's role in the history of the 20th century…”

“It surely earns FDR the title of Wall Streeter par excellence. Most who work on "the Street" never achieve, and probably never even dream about achieving, a record of 11 corporate directorships, two law partnerships, and the presidency of a major trade association.”

FDR as president

Bernard Baruch (1870-1965) [Wiki article] and the War Industries Board:

“By March 1918 President Wilson acting without Congressional authority, had endowed Baruch with more power than any other individual had been granted in the history of the United States. The War Industries Board, with Baruch as its chairman, became responsible for building all factories and for the supply of all raw material, all products, and all transportation, and all its final decisions rested with chairman Bernard Baruch. In brief, Baruch became economic dictator of the United States, or "Marshal of Manufacturers" in Clinton Roosevelt's scheme. Yet, as Margaret Coit points out, "... the creation of this office was never specifically authorized by an Act of Congress".”

“Who would gain from Baruch's proposal? The consumer? Not at all, because consumer interests are always protected by free competition in the market place, where goods and services are produced at the least cost, in the most efficient manner, and the consumer is given maximum choice among competing producers. The gainers from Baruch's proposals would be the few who control major industrial sectors – particularly iron and steel, raw materials, electrical goods, that is, those industries already well established and fearful of competition from more enterprising newcomers. In other words, the gainers from his proposal would be Bernard Baruch and the Wall Street coterie that effectively controls big business through its interlocking directorships. The gut issue then is: who benefits from these proposals for trade associations and government coordination of industry? The principal, indeed the only major benefactors – apart from the swarms of academic advisers, bureaucrats, and planners – would be the financial elite in Wall Street.”

Bernard Baruch (1870-1965)

The American Construction Council:

“The American Construction Council (A.C.C.), formed in May 1922, was the first of numerous trade associations created in the 1920s, devices used to raise prices and reduce output. The original proposal and the drive for the council came from Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, and the council operated under the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt, then just beginning his Wall Street career following his service as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The stated public objectives of the A.C.C. were a "code of ethics" (a euphemism for restraint of trade), efficiency, and standardization of production. Most importantly, but less publicized, the A.C.C. was to provide the industry with an opportunity to fix its own price and production levels without fear of antitrust prose­cutions by the government.”

“These industry giants were controlled by the Morgan interests on Wall Street who were, as we shall see, also at the root of the A.C.C. proposal. In brief, the alleged antisocial conditions to be solved by a trade association could have been halted much more simply and effectively by a memorandum from J.P. Morgan and his associates; there was no necessity to promote a trade association to halt such abuses. So we must look elsewhere for the reason for trade associations. The real reason, of course, is to protect industry from unwelcome competition and to establish monopoly conditions for those already in the business. As Howe told us, a legal monopoly is the sure road to profit. It was formation of this legal monopoly that induced Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover to join hands against the public interest.”

Corporate socialism:

“The difference between a corporate state monopoly and a socialist state monopoly is essentially only the identity of the group controlling the power structure. The essence of socialism is monopoly control by the state using hired planners and academic sponges. On the other hand, Rockefeller, Morgan, and their corporate friends aimed to acquire and control their monopoly and to maximize its profits through influence in the state political apparatus; this, while it still needs hired planners and academic sponges, is a discreet and far more subtle process than outright state ownership under socialism. Success for the Rockefeller gambit has depended particularly upon focusing public attention upon largely irrelevant and superficial historical creations, such as the myth of a struggle between capitalists and communists, and careful cultivation of political forces by big business. We call this phenomenon of corporate legal monopoly – market control acquired by using political influence – by the name of corporate socialism.”

“The most lucid and frank description of corporate socialism, and its mores and objectives, is to be found in a 1906 booklet by Frederic Clemson Howe, Confessions of a Monopolist… This is the significant theme in Howe's book, expressed time and time again, with detailed examples of the "let others work for you" system at work. How did Mr. Rockefeller and his fellow monopolists get the globe to work for them? It went like this, according to Howe:

“This is the story of something for nothing – of making the other fellow pay. This making the other fellow pay, of getting something for nothing, explains the lust for franchises, mining rights, tariff privileges, railway control, tax evasions. All these things mean monopoly, and all monopoly is bottomed on legislation.”

“In brief, the principles of corporate socialism are but a thin veneer for the acquisition of wealth by a few at the expense of the many.”

“What was the philosophy of the financiers so far described? Certainly anything but laissez-faire competition, which was the last system they envisaged. Socialism, commu­nism, fascism or their variants were acceptable. The ideal for these financiers was "cooperation," forced if necessary. Individualism was out, and competition was immoral. On the other hand, cooperation was consistently advocated as moral and worthy, and nowhere is compulsion rejected as immoral. Why? Because, when the verbiage is stripped away from the high-sounding phrases, compulsory cooperation was their golden road to a legal monopoly. Under the guise of public service, social objectives, and assorted do-goodism it is fundamentally "Let society go to work for Wall Street".”

“In brief, construction of FDR's National Recovery Administration was but one facet of a wider historical process – construction of economic systems where the few could profit at the expense of the many, the citizen-taxpayer-in-the-street – and all of course promoted under the guise of the public good, whether it was Stalin's Russia, Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, or Roosevelt's New Deal.”

Monopoly:

“And monopoly laws are born in corruption. The commercialism of the press, or education, even of sweet charity, is part of the price we pay for the special privileges created by law. The desire of something for nothing, of making the other fellow pay, of monopoly in some form or other, is the cause of corruption. Monopoly and corruption are cause and effect. Together, they work in Congress, in our Commonwealths, in our municipalities. It is always so. It always has been so. Privilege gives birth to corruption, just as the poisonous sewer breeds disease. Equal chance, a fair field and no favors, the "square deal" are never corrupt. They do not appear in legislative halls nor in Council Chambers. For these things mean labor for labor, value for value, something for something. This is why the little businessman, the retail and wholesale dealer, the jobber, and the manufacturer are not the businessmen whose business corrupts politics.”

The New Deal [Wiki article] and National Recovery Administration [Wiki article]:

“At the first meeting of the Cabinet after the President took office in 1933, the financier and adviser to Roosevelt, Bernard Baruch, and Baruch's friend General Hugh Johnson, who was to become the head of the National Recovery Administration, came in with a copy of a book by Gentile, the Italian Fascist theoretician, for each member of the Cabinet, and we all read it with great care.”

Mrs. Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor under FDR.

”I think this is as revolutionary as anything that happened in this country in 1776, or in France in 1789, or in Italy under Mussolini or in Russia under Stalin.”

Senator Thomas P. Gore in the National Recovery Administration Hearings, U.S. Senate Finance Committee, May 22, 1933.

“Although the New Deal and its most significant component, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), are generally presented as the progeny of FDR's brain trust, as we have seen the essential principles had been worked out in detail long before FDR and his associates came to power. The FDR group did little more than put the stamp of academic approval to an already prepared plan.”

“The roots of the Roosevelt NRA are of peculiar importance. As we have seen in Chapter 6, allowing for vast changes in the industrial structure, NRA approximated a schema worked out in 1841 by FDR's ancestor, Assemblyman Clinton Roosevelt of New York. Then we noted that wartime dictator Bernard Baruch was preparing an NRA-like program in the 1920s and that he and his assistant Hugh Johnson were very much an integral part of the preliminary planning. Further, the Roosevelt NRA was in its details a plan presented by Gerard Swope (1872-1957), long-time president of General Electric Company. This Swope Plan was in turn comparable to a German plan worked out in World War I by his opposite number Walter Rathenau, head of German General Electric (Allgemeine Elektizitäts Gesellschaft) in Germany, where it was known as the Rathenau Plan.”

NRA’s Blue Eagle logo

“Hugh Johnson, long-time associate of Bernard Baruch, was indeed appointed head of NRA. Further, Johnson's principal assistants in NRA were three corporate heads: Walter C. Teagle, president of Standard Oil of New Jersey; Gerard Swope, president of General Electric and author of the Swope Plan; and Louis Kirstein, vice president of William Filene's Sons of Boston… The peak of the Roosevelt National Recovery Administration consisted of the president of the largest electrical corporation, the chairman of the largest oil company, and the representative of the most prominent financial speculator in the United States… In brief, the administration of NRA was a reflection of the New York financial establishment and its pecuniary interests. Further, as we have seen, since the plan itself originated in Wall Street, the presence of businessmen in the administration of NRA cannot be explained on the basis of their experience and administrative ability. NRA was a creature of Wall Street implemented by Wall Streeters.”

Hugh Samuel Johnson (1882-1942)

“NRA was essentially fascist in that industry, not central state planners, had the authority to plan, and these industrial planners came from the New York financial establishment. Bernard Baruch's office was at 120 Broadway; the offices of Franklin D. Roosevelt (the New York offices of Fidelity & Deposit and the law offices of Roosevelt & O'Connor) were also at 120 Broadway. Gerard Swope's office and the executive offices of General Electric Company were at the same address. We can therefore say in a limited sense that the Roosevelt NRA was born at 120 Broadway, New York City.”

The plot of a Coup d’État with General Butler in a key role [Wiki article on Butler]

“On November 21, 1934 The New York Times printed the first portion of the Butler story as told to the House Un-American Activities Committee, giving it front-page treatment and an intriguing lead paragraph:

“A plot of Wall Street interests to overthrow President Roosevelt and establish a fascist dictatorship, backed by a private army of 500,000 ex-soldiers and others, was charged by Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired Marine Corps officer. . .”

“Testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee on the attempt to convert the Roosevelt administration into a dictatorship with Major General Butler in a key role as Secretary of General Affairs had several links to 120 Broadway. There were at least half a dozen persons whom the committee should have subpoenaed to investigate the statements made under oath by General Butler, Captain Glazier, and Paul French; of these, four were located in, or had a significant connection with 120 Broadway.”

“The central figure in the plot was Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, a colorful, popular, widely known Marine Corps officer, twice decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honor and a veteran of 33 years of military service. General Butler testified in 1934 to the McCormack-Dickstein Committee investigating Nazi and Communist activi­ties in the United States that a plan for a White House dictatorship was outlined to him by two members of the American Legion: Gerald C. MacGuire, who worked for Grayson M-P. Murphy & Co., 52 Broadway, New York City, and Bill Doyle, whom Butler identified as an officer of the American Legion. General Butler testified that these men wanted to "unseat the Royal Family in control of the American Legion at the Convention to be held in Chicago, and [were] very anxious to have me take part in it." A scheme was outlined to General Butler: he was to come before the convention as a legion delegate from Honolulu; there would be two or three hundred American Legion members in the audience; and "these planted fellows were to begin to cheer and start a stampede and yell for a speech, then I was to go to the platform and make a speech."

Smedley D. Butler (1881-1940)

“In other words, the Wall Street plot was not to dispose of President Roosevelt at all, but to kick him upstairs and install an Assistant President with absolute powers. Just why it was necessary to go to the trouble of installing an Assistant President is unclear because the Vice President was in office. In any event, it was planned to run the United States with a Secretary of General Affairs, and the gullible American public would accept this under the guise of necessary protection from a communist take-over.”

“The story of an attempted takeover of executive power in the United States was suppressed, not only by parties directly interested, but also by several institutions usually regarded as protectors of constitutional liberty and freedom of inquiry. Among the groups suppressing information were: (1) the Congress of the United States, (2) the press, notably Time and The New York Times, and (3) the White House itself. It is also notable that no academic inquiry has been conducted into what is surely one of the more ominous events in recent American history. Suppression is even more regrettable in the light of the current trend toward collectivism in the United States and the likelihood of another attempt at a dictatorial takeover using supposed threats from either the left or the right as a pretext.”

Nothing is proven by a common geographical location. While 120 Broadway was a massive building, it was by no means the largest in New York City. But how does one explain the concentration of so many links to so many important historical events at one address? One could argue that birds of a feather flock together. On the other hand, it is more than plausible that these Wall Streeters were following the maxim laid down by Frederic Howe and found it more convenient, or perhaps more efficient for their purposes, to be at a single address.”

Equitable Trust Building. 120 Broadway, New York City.
One of the world's centers for totalitarian plots.

“Fortunately, NRA failed. Big business attempted to oppress the little man. The codes were riddled with abuses and inconsistencies. It was put out of its misery by the Supreme Court in the Schechter Poultry decision of 1935, although its failure was evident long before the Supreme Court decision.”