Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
The program you are to discuss constitutes, of course, only one phase of the arrangements which must be made between nations to ensure an orderly, harmonious world. But it is a vital phase, affecting ordinary men and women everywhere. For it concerns the basis upon which they will be able to exchange with one another the natural riches of the earth and the products of their own industry and ingenuity. Commerce is the life- blood of a free society. We must see to it that the arteries which carry that blood stream are not clogged again, as they have been in the past, by artificial barriers created through senseless economic rivalries.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1882-1945, 32nd President of the United States (Democrat, NY), Message sent to the the “Bretton Woods Conference” delegates, United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, Bretton Woods, NH, July 1944
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“Laid up” means “saved”. “Commutable”means fungible—gold and silver can buy anything else.
North was none-the-less in favor of allowing interest rates be much higher, but was stating the best argument, believed at the time by most English experts, and many American economists today.
He had introduced a bill to provision a military garrison at the mouth of the Columbia River on the West Coast and protect and develop trade with China and India. President Monroe was for it and he persuaded the House to vote for it, but the bill to encourage foreign free trade with the Orient died in the Senate. Floyd was another American ahead of his time. . Floyd was very modern in his economic views, so much so that he, even as a Southern politician, opposed slavery on the grounds that it was economically inefficient and the South would never develop industrially if it had no incentive, as existed in the North and England, to reduce the amount of labor required for economic opportunity. He was right on that point as well.
What is fascinating about this quotation is that although the head of a religion, Smith was not advocating the kinds of personal lifestyle issues of his church the way modern religious leaders do, but was concerned with the much larger issues of national banking, expansionism, corruption of the courts and judiciary, and land distribution. He was a classic reform candidate in that sense. Smith had written to most of the then likely Presidential candidates of both major parties asking for their position on the Mormons who were facing persecution wherever they went. None of the politicians would make any satisfactory commitments. Smith took Direct Action and became the only major religious official to have run for the Presidency of the United States until Pat Robertson tried and failed in 2000. Smith’s assassination shortly thereafter cut his run for the Presidency short before it made much headway and politically he had no chance to affect the race.
Harvey was one of those who argued that silver and not gold should be the basis of American money. The country was growing and the amount of gold was relatively fixed; therefore money was scarce and many believed the English and American financiers were hording gold deliberately. The final solution was not a gold standard or a silver standard but what we have today—a currency backed only by the full faith and credit of the U. S.
This is the first major history of banks written in the United States.
This is the first major history of banks written in the United States.
“Pegged” exchange rates are a country’s money where the Government sets the value of the money in terms of some other currency—usually American dollars. The advantage of a pegged currency is that it is stable and does not fluctuate day to day. The disadvantage is that people realize that the value is artificial and other countries will not accept the pegged currency. Worse natives try and get as many dollars as they can because the fear that the Government will devalue and change the rate of exchange of the pegged currency.
Shaw carefully reported on the customs, laws, and traditions of foreign trade with China. He counted 43 European ships that landed in Canton in 1887 full of goods to trade and left full as well.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A member of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which defined modern liberalism in the United States throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended shortly after he died in office.
