Charles Moyer admirably defended his views on the Federal Reserve.  I am not
going to step into that fray, except to say that I have serious doubts about
whether Hamiliton's picture should be taken off of our currency.

Charles wrote,

>    But what is democratic about the Federal Reserve? It follows in the
>tradition of Hamilton who thought the bank should be controlled by private
>individuals and that public control would "corrode the vitals" (Hamilton)
>of
>the bank's credit. Nobody is voting to take him off the 10 $ bill for
>saying
>this.

I suggest that a committee of Pound scholars be set up to put forward a
petition pressing Congress to take Hamilton off that bill.  I offer as
evidence the following bit of historical evidence taken from "American
Aurora," and contemporary documents of the day:

<<With a bit of help from Thomas Jefferson, Aurora writer Jimmy Callender
published his History of the United States for 1796,  . . . which completely
shattered the image of Wahington's most important cabinet member, Secretary
of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.

In his book, Jimmy Callender revealed that, while Secretary of the Treasury,
Hamilton transferred sizable sums to a convicted securities swindler, James
Reynolds, suggesting that Hamilton used Reynolds to speculate in the very
treasury certificates that Hamilton was supposed to be regulating.  The
public outcry demanded an answer, so Hamilton gave two, the first in July
through . . . Gazzette of the United States, and through his own pamphlet
admitting that he paid money to James Reynolds, but claiming the was not to
speculate in treasury certificates, but rather to pay James Reynolds'
blackmail demands for adultery Hamilton had committed with James Reynold's
wife.

To the Federalists' dismay, Hamilton's confession of marital infidelity
precluded their party leader from ever seeking high elective office, but
what was even more distressing, the confession did not vindicate the former
secretary.  The wife in question, Maria Reynolds, insisted her honor was
quite intact, and that Hamilton's confession merely reflected an ongoing
conspiracy between Hamilton and her husband James (whom she divorced).  As
Thomas Jefferson observed of Hamilton "HIS WILLINGNESS TO PLEAD GUILTY TO
ADULTERY SEEMS RATHER TO HAVE STRENGTHENED THAN WEAKENED THE SUSPICIONS THAT
HE WAS IN TRUTH GUILTY OF THE SPECULATIONS."

As Jimmy Callender argued, "So much correspondence could not refer
exlusively to wenching . . . No man of common sense will believe that it
did.  Hence it must have impoicated some connection stille more
dishonorable, in Mr. Hamiltons eyes,than that of incontinency . . .  It
reflected certificate speculations."  Callender's History concludes with an
analysiis of Hamiltion's pamphlet and the infallibe conclutsion:

"The whole proof in this pamphlet rests upon an illusion.  'I am a rake, and
for that reason I cannot be a swindler [. . .].'   This is an edifying and
convenient system of logic . . . .>>



Looks to me that Hamilton got his "vitals" corroded a bit here.    Did Pound
know anything about this?  He was not very fond of Hamilton, was he?

This is nothing compared to recent financial shenanigans in the Treasury
Department.  Many of you may know that the last Treasury secretary, under
the current government, worked tirelessly to pass the "Financial
Modernization Act."  This was a bill designed to break down barriers between
banks, insurance companies, and securities trading firms, to make mergers
easier than they have been since before the depression.  After the bill was
passed through Congress, the treasury secretary resigned and took a post at
CitiCorp (fomerly Citibank), which had just completed a megamerger, becoming
the largest combined bank, insurance, and securities firm in the US.
Pound would have found this quite interesting.


Regards,

Wei


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