NO ONE WOULD be so absurd as to propose that you might restore a nation’s prosperity by changing its weights and measures. Suppose the Government should say, on behalf of the wheat farmer, to increase his income, “Hereafter the half bushel shall be the legal full bushel”; and on behalf of the cotton grower who sells his product by the pound, “Hereafter eight ounces shall be the legal pound”; and on behalf of industry, “Hereafter eighteen inches shall be the legal yard and every other weight and measure is halved”; and on behalf of labor to increase wages, “Hereafter thirty minutes shall constitute the hour.” What would happen? Prices per bushel, per pound, per yard, wages per hour, and so on, would immediately fall until relations were again as they were before, nobody by that result could be made either rich or poor, and the economic state of the nation would be the same as it was….

Except, first, that all who were so lucky as to have made contracts beforehand to deliver wheat at a certain price per bushel, or cotton at a certain price per pound, or cloth at a certain price per yard, by being able to tender half a bushel for a full bushel, half a pound for a full pound, or half a yard for a full yard, would profit at the expense of those who were obliged by the decree to receive everything in half measure for full price, and thus wealth would be transferred in an arbitrary political manner from buyer to seller; but this could happen only once.

Come now to the universal measure, the one wherein the dissimilarities of all physical weights and measures – bushels, yards, pounds, gallons and feet – are reduced to a single expression for purposes of exchange – come, that is, to money – and somewhat less than half our total common sense is at any moment ready to depart from us, and it happens that once in a generation that even more of it is dangerously is dangerously on the verge.

If a senator should propose a law to increase everybody’s income and so restore prosperity by halving all weights and measures, it would be understood that he was not serious. But they may hold themselves out to be champions of the oppressed, fighting for a new deliverance, who propose to change the money measure by decree, saying, “Hereafter fifty cents shall be equal to one hundred, half a dollar shall be a legal dollar,’ in order that everybody may have twice as many dollars and so be able to buy, consume and enjoy twice as much.

Wherein there is any difference between halving every physical kind of weight and measure and halving the value of money measure it is only that the delusion comes upside down. In the first case, which we know to be preposterous, prices fall until all relations are again as they were. In the second case, the money measure being halved, prices rise. Every seller receives more money and, correspondingly, every buyer pays more money, until presently all relations are restored and by this magic the economic state of a nation is not changed at all, except again…..

First, that all who are so lucky as to owe money are immediately benefitted at the expense of those to whom money is due, the creditor being obliged by law to receive as payment in full the exact number of dollars that he loaned, notwithstanding the fact that the value of the dollar has been halved by decree. Thus there is an arbitrary transfer of wealth from creditor to debtor by political fiat, which can happen once, and…..

Second, that with the value of money, the money standard itself, subject to change by political decree, there is chaos in the world of credit and capital, no obligation or contract has a definite meaning, all borrowing and lending must be loaded with a charge for hazard, and this charge may be ruinous to civilized business.

With that strange kind of panic running in Germany and merchants barring their doors against people clamoring to exchange marks for goods of any kind on any terms, a professor became suddenly aware of what the uproar was about, rushed hatless to his bank and drew out his whole fortune. He then stood in the street with a quarter of a million paper marks in his hand, trying to think what he should do with them. He must spend them, and quickly. He understood that. Minute by minute their value was less. But what should he buy? His bewildered glance fell on a saddler’s window. The sight of a saddle hanging there started in his mind the reminiscence of a boyhood wish, which had been to ride; and with that he ran to the saddler’s shop. Then again, as if it were a dream, he stood in the street with a saddle in his arms, and that incongruous object represented his own and his wife’s inheritance and all their years of thrift and self-denial together for the security of a high-born academic family.

Do you remember the gold certificate? That was the yellow-paper money in multiples of the ten-dollar denomination that used to turn up among the green bills in your pocketbook. It was a very special kind of paper money, redeemable by the United States Treasury in gold. On the face of it, you read: “This certifies that there have been deposited in the Treasury of the Treasury of the United States of America ten dollars in gold coin payable to the bearer on demand.” It might be for twenty, one hundred, one thousand. This, you see, was simply a receipt for actual gold dollars, like a receipt for so many bushels of wheat; and as the law stipulated that a gold dollar should be of a certain weight and fineness, the holder of one of these certificates was the actual owner of a specific amount of gold. The certificate was his absolute title to it.

It was the finest, safest, most beautiful paper money in the world. Wherever you went in the whole world, it was accepted as actual gold, and was much preferred over the actual gold because it was so much easier to carry. Here the faith was, first, that the gold itself was in the United States Treasury, dollar for dollar, according to the receipt; second, that the American gold dollar would never in any way be debased; and, third, that the United States Treasury always and without question honor the receipt. No one could imaging a time when the United States Treasury would refuse to honor its own receipt for actual gold intrusted to its keeping.

Well, but since March 6, 1933, it has been unlawful for an American citizen these certificates in his possession. By decree of the President, it is unlawful. And now, if you should go to the United States Treasury, saying, “Here is your receipt for gold; it is mine and I want it,” you would not get the gold that belongs to you by right of title; more than that, if your certificate should amount to more than one hundred dollars you would be subject to prosecution, fine and imprisonment merely for having that gold title in your hand.

The United States Treasury does not refuse to honor its receipt for gold because the gold is not there. The gold is there in the vault, just as the certificate says it is. It refuses to give you the gold because a law has been passed saying the President by decree may reduce the gold content of the dollar one-half. That is, by decree he may say, “Hereafter fifty cents shall be a dollar.” That is the devaluation we are talking about. The gold content of the dollar is reduced one-half, by law or by decree, then, perhaps, you may take your gold certificate to the Treasury and demand the gold dollars without fear of arrest or imprisonment, but if you get your dollars, to the exact number specified on the certificate, you will get only half as much gold. Your Government will keep the other half.

All the same, this was an unimaginable thing to happen, and it is a terrific blow to everybody’s faith in the integrity of money.

To move the inflation law authorizing the President to print three billions of fiat paper money and to halve the gold content of the dollar, several ideas were acting together. Almost the only idea was the one of necessity. There was no necessity for this country either to abandon the gold standard or to debase the currency. It is perhaps the only instance in modern times of a country doing it deliberately. England was obliged to do it. Here there was plenty of gold.

When the dollar had greatly fallen, one of the unexpected problems that awkwardly appeared was what to do with the new gold produced in this country. The America gold-mining industry is very important. Since it was illegal to possess gold, illegal to buy or sell it at a statutory price of $20.67 an ounce. But if he did this he lost money because he received $20.67 in paper dollars worth one-third less than gold. If he could sell his gold in Canada for Canadian dollars, or in London for pounds sterling, or in Paris for francs, then, by converting Canadian dollars, British pounds, or French francs back into American dollars on the international money market, he could realize at least ten dollars more per ounce than the United States mint would give him for it. But to export gold was forbidden. Therefore, it had to be smuggled out; there began to be sold in this country a bootleg market for gold.

Nevertheless, the problem somehow had to be solved; and it was solved in the most absurd way. The President, by decree, authorized the United States Treasury to receive the total output of American gold on commission, sell it on the open gold markets of other countries, and give the American gold miner the proceeds….. And thus it was that the United States Treasury, in the capacity of an agent, began to receive the total output of the American gold-mining industry and to sell it away in foreign countries for the account of the American citizens who had produced it, but who were not permitted to keep it or sell it at home….

Aside from any ethical considerations, the procedure, on its merits, was mad. But so are all procedures of inflation. If you ask why the Government itself does not buy the gold at its true value, paying the premium in paper dollars, the answer is that if it did, the illusion of rising values would be damaged in exactly the same way as by an open gold market.

People could no so easily continue to deceive themselves about what was happening. That values had been rising was an appearance only, produced by the fact that the value of paper money had been falling. But the Government thought it was more important to protect this appearance than to keep in this country the gold we mine out of our own ground.

The intermediate way is to speculate. A shrewd, imaginative minority will buy imperishable commodities, such as cotton, copper, tin and rubber, because these will rise in price as the value of money falls; others will buy unlimited dividend-paying shares, and some will go heavily into debt to buy equities of any kind, even real estate, with the idea that when money is very much cheaper they will pay off the debt and have the equities clear. It was in that way that a few men made prodigious fortunes in the German inflation. One who had been able, at the beginning of it, to borrow marks enough to buy the whole of Berlin might then, at the end of it, for as little as one thousand dollars in gold, have bought the same number of marks to pay off what he had borrowed and so have owned Berlin clear at a net cost of one thousand dollars.

In 1926-27-28, people had plenty of money, more than they ever had before; and they were prosperous, but not for that reason. They were not prosperous because they had plenty of money; they had plenty of money because they were prosperous. Proof is that at the very lowest of the depression there was actually more money of all kinds – more gold, silver and paper money – than in those years of high prosperity.

Every owner of a corporation bond is a creditor. Every owner of a government bond, a city or county bond, is a creditor. Every owner of shares in a building-and-loan association is a creditor. Every owner of a bank deposit is a creditor. Every owner of a life-insurance policy is a creditor. These will all be victims of inflation, and they are millions.

– November 4, 1933

IN THE IMMORAL monarchies of the continent of Europe, now happily abolished by God’s will, there was, in the old days of sin, an intelligent and effective way of dealing with delinquent officials. Not only were they subject, when taken in downright corruption, to the ordinary processes of the criminal laws; in addition they were liable to prosecution in special courts for such offenses as were peculiar to their offices. In this business the abominable Prussian state, though founded by Satan, took the lead. It maintained a tribunal in Berlin that devoted itself wholly to the trial of officials accused of malfeasance, corruption, tyranny and incompetence, and any citizen was free to lodge a complaint with the learned judges. The trial was public and in accord with rules fixed by law. An official found guilty could be punished summarily and in a dozen different ways. He could be reprimanded, reduced in rank, suspended from office for a definite period, transferred to a less desirable job, removed from the rolls altogether, fined, or sent to jail. If he was removed from office he could be deprived of his right to a pension in addition, or fined or jailed in addition. He could be made to pay damages to any citizen he had injured, or to apologize publicly.

All this, remember, was in addition to his liability under the ordinary law, and the statutes specifically provided that he could be punished twice for the same offence, once in the ordinary courts and once in the administrative court. Thus, a Prussian official who assaulted a citizen, invaded his house without a warrant, or seized his property without process of law, could be deprived of his office and fined heavily by the administrative court, sent to jail by an ordinary court, and forced to pay damages to his victim by either or both. Had a Prussian judge in those far-off days of despotism, overcome by a brain-storm of kaiserliche passion, done any of the high-handed and irrational things that our own judges, Federal and State, do almost every day, an aggrieved citizen might have haled him before the administrative court and recovered heavy damages from him, besides enjoying the felicity of seeing him transferred to some distant swap in East Prussia, to listen all day to the unintelligible perjury of anthropoid Poles. The law specifically provided that responsible officials should be punished, not more leniently than subordinate or ordinary offenders, but more severely. If a corrupt policeman got six months a corrupt chief of police got two years. More, these statutes were enforced with Prussian barbarity, and the jails were constantly full of errant officials.

I do not propose, of course, that such medieval laws be set up in the United States. We have, indeed, gone far enough in imitating the Prussians already; if we go much further the moral and enlightened nations of the world will have to unite in a crusade to put us down. As a matter of fact, the Prussian scheme would probably prove ineffective in the Republic, if only because it involved setting up one gang of jobholders to judge and punish another gang. It worked well in Prussia before the country was civilized by force of arms because, as everyone knows, a Prussian official was trained in ferocity from infancy, and regarded every man arraigned before him, whether a fellow official or not, guilty ipso facto; in fact, any thought of a prisoners’ possible innocence was abhorrent to him as a reflection upon the Polizei, and by inference, upon the Throne, the whole monarchical idea, and God. But in America, even if they had no other sentiment in common, which would be rarely, judge and prisoner would often be fellow Democrats or fellow Republicans, and hence jointly interested in protecting their party against scandal and its members against the loss of their jobs. Moreover, the Prussian system had another plain defect: the punishments it provided were, in the main, platitudinous and banal. They lacked dramatic quality, and they lacked ingenuity and appropriateness. To punish a judge taken in judicial crim. con. by fining him or sending him to jail is a bit too facile and obvious. What is needed is a system (a) that does not depend for its execution upon the good-will of fellow jobholders, and (b) that provides swift, certain and unpedantic punishments, each fitted neatly to its crime.

I announce without further ado that such a system, after due prayer, I have devised. It is simple, it is unhackneyed, and I believe that it would work. It is divided into two halves. The first half takes the detection and punishment of the crimes of jobholders away from courts of impeachment, congressional smelling committees, and all the other existing agencies–i.e., away from other jobholders–and vests it in the whole body of free citizens, male and female. The second half provides that any member of that body, having looked into the acts of a jobholder and found him delinquent, may punish him instantly and on the spot, and in any manner that seems appropriate and convenient–and that, in case this punishment involves physical damage to the jobholder, the ensuing inquiry by a grand jury or coroner shall confine itself strictly to the question of whether the jobholder deserved what he got. In other words, I propose that it shall be no longer malum in se for a citizen to pummel, cowhide, kick, gouge, cut, wound, bruise, maim, burn, club, bastinado, flay, or even lynch a jobholder, and that it shall be malum prohibitum only to the extent that the punishment exceeds the jobholder’s deserts. The amount of this excess, if any, may be determined very conveniently by a petit jury, as other questions of guilt are now determined. The flogged judge, or Congressman, or other jobholder, on being discharged from hospital–or his chief heir, in case he has perished–goes before a grand jury and makes a complaint, and, if a true bill is found, a petit jury is empaneled and all the evidence is put before it. If it decides that the jobholder deserves the punishment inflicted upon him, the citizen who inflicted it is acquitted with honor. If, on the contrary, it decides that this punishment was excessive, then the citizen is adjudged guilty of assault, mayhem, murder, or whatever it is, in a degree apportioned to the difference between what the jobholder deserved and what he got, and punishment for that excess follows in the usual course.

The advantages of this plan, I believe, are too patent to need argument. At one stroke it removes all the legal impediments which now make the punishment of a recreant jobholder so hopeless a process, and enormously widens the range of possible penalties. They are now stiff and, in large measure, illogical; under the system I propose they could be made to fit the crime precisely. Say a citizen today becomes convinced that a certain judge is a jackass–that his legal learning is defective, his sense of justice atrophied, and his conduct of cases before him tyrannical and against decency. As things stand, it is impossible to do anything about it. A judge cannot be impeached on the mere ground that he is a jackass; the process is far too costly and cumbersome, and there are too many judges liable to the charge. Nor is anything to be gained from denouncing him publicly and urging all good citizens to vote against him when he comes up for re-election, for his term may run for ten or fifteen years, and even if it expires tomorrow and he is defeated the chances are good that his successor will be quite as bad, and maybe even worse. Moreover, if he is a Federal judge he never comes up for re-election at all, for once he has been appointed by the President of the United States, on the advice of his more influential clients and with the consent of their agents in the Senate, he is safe until he is so far gone in senility that he has to be propped up on the bench with pillows.

But now imagine any citizen free to approach him in open court and pull his nose. Or even, in aggravated cases, to cut off his ears, throw him out of the window, or knock him in the head with an axe. How vastly more attentive he would be to his duties! How diligently he would apply himself to the study of the law! How careful he would be about the rights of litigants before him! How polite and suave he would become! For judges, like all the rest of us, are vain fellows: they do not enjoy having their noses pulled. The ignominy resident in the operation would not be abated by the subsequent trial of the puller, even if he should be convicted and jailed. The fact would still be brilliantly remembered that at least one citizen had deemed the judge sufficiently a malefactor to punish him publicly, and to risk going to jail for it. A dozen such episodes, and the career of any judge would be ruined and his heart broken, even though the jails bulged with his critics. He could not maintain his air of aloof dignity on the bench; even his catchpolls would snicker at him behind their hands, especially if he showed a cauliflower ear, a black eye or a scar over his bald head. Moreover, soon or late some citizen who had at him would be acquitted by a petit jury, and then, obviously, he would have to retire. It might be provided by law, indeed, that he should be compelled to retire in that case–that an acquittal would automatically vacate the office of the offending jobholder.

by H.L. Mencken

The American Mercury, June 1937

THE PRINCIPLE cause of the uproar in Washington is a conflict between the swift-moving idealism of the New Deal and the unyielding hunkerousness of the Constitution of 1788. What is needed, obviously, is a wholly new Constitution, drawn up with enough boldness and imagination to cover the whole program of the More Abundant Life, now and hereafter.

That is what I presume to offer here. The Constitution that follows is not my invention, and in more than one detail I have unhappy doubts of its wisdom. But I believe that it sets forth with reasonable accuracy the plan of government that the More Abundant Life wizards have sought to substitute for the plan of the Fathers. They have themselves argued at one time or another, by word or deed, for everything contained herein:

PREAMBLE

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish social justice, draw the fangs of privilege, effect the redistribution of property, remove the burden of liberty from ourselves and our posterity, and insure the continuance of the New Deal, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

ARTICLE I

The Executive

All governmental power of whatever sort shall be vested in a President of the United States. He shall hold office during a series of terms of four years each, and shall take the following oath: “I do solemnly swear that I will (in so far as I deem it feasible and convenient) faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will (to the best of my recollection and in the light of experiment and second thought) carry out the pledges made by me during my campaign for election (or such of them as I may select).”

The President shall be commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, and of the militia, Boy Scouts, C.I.O., People’s Front, and other armed forces of the nation.

The President shall have the power: To lay and collect taxes, and to expend the income of the United States in such manner as he may deem to be to their or his advantage;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States, and to provide for its repayment on such terms as he may fix;

To regulate all commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and within them; to license all persons engaged or proposing to engage in business; to regulate their affairs; to limit their profits by proclamation from time to time; and to fix wages, prices and hours of work;

To coin money, regulate the content and value thereof, and of foreign coin, and to amend or repudiate any contract requiring the payment by the United States, or by any private person, of coin of a given weight or fineness;

To repeal or amend, in his discretion, any so-called natural law, including Gresham’s Law, the law of diminishing returns, and the law of gravitation.

The President shall be assisted by a Cabinet of eight or more persons, whose duties shall be to make speeches whenever so instructed and to expend the public funds in such manner as to guarantee the President’s continuance in office.

The President may establish such executive agencies as he deems necessary, and clothe them with such powers as he sees fit. No person shall be a member to any such bureau who has had any practical experience of the matters he is appointed to deal with.

One of the members of the Cabinet shall be an Attorney General. It shall be his duty to provide legal opinions certifying to the constitutionality of all measures undertaken by the President, and to gather evidence of the senility of judges.

ARTICLE II

The Legislature

The legislature of the United States shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Every bill shall be prepared under the direction of the President, and transmitted to the two Houses at his order by their presiding officers. No member shall propose any amendment to a bill without permission in writing from the President or one of his authorized agents. In case any member shall doubt the wisdom of a bill he may apply to the President for light upon it, and thereafter he shall be counted as voting aye. In all cases a majority of members shall be counted as voting aye.

Both Houses may appoint special committees to investigate the business practices, political views, and private lives of any persons known to be inimical to the President; and such committees shall publish at public cost any evidence discovered that appears to be damaging to the persons investigated.

Members of both Houses shall be agents of the President in the distribution of public offices, federal appropriations, and other gratuities in their several states, and shall be rewarded in ratio to their fidelity to his ideals and commands.

ARTICLE III

The Judiciary

The judges of the Supreme Court and of all inferior courts shall be appointed by the President, and shall hold their offices until he determines by proclamation that they have become senile. The number of judges appointed to the Supreme Court shall be prescribed by the President, and may be changed at his discretion. All decisions of the Supreme Court shall be unanimous.

The jurisdiction and powers of all courts shall he determined by the President. No act that he has approved shall be declared unconstitutional by any court.

ARTICLE IV

Bill of Rights

There shall be complete freedom of speech and of the press — subject to such regulations as the President or his agents may from time to time promulgate.

The freedom of communication by radio shall not be abridged; but the President and such persons as he may designate shall have the first call on the time of all stations.

In disputes between capital and labor, all the arbitrators shall be representatives of labor.

Every person whose annual income falls below a minimum to be fixed by the President shall receive from the public funds an amount sufficient to bring it up to that minimum.

No labor union shall be incorporated and no officer or member thereof shall be accountable for loss of life or damage to person or property during a strike.

All powers not delegated herein to the President are reserved to him, to be used at his discretion.

April 13, 1945

THE BALTIMORE Sun editorial on Roosevelt this morning begins: “Franklin D. Roosevelt was a great man.” There are heavy black dashes above and below it. The argument, in brief, is that all his skullduggeries and imbecilities were wiped out when “he took an inert and profoundly isolationist people and brought them to support a necessary war on a scale never before imagined.” In other words, his greatest fraud was his greatest glory, and sufficient excuse for all his other frauds. It is astonishing how far the Sun has gone in this nonsense. When the English fetched Patterson and John Owens they certainly did an all-out job. I know of no paper in the United States, not even the New York Herald Tribune, that croons for them more assiduously.

Roosevelt’s unparallelled luck held out to the end. He died an easy death, and he did so just in time to escape burying his own dead horse. This business now falls to Truman, a third-rate Middle Western politician on the order of Harding. He is fundamentally against the New Deal wizards, and he will probably make an earnest effort to turn them out of power, but I have some doubt that he will succeed. They have dug in deeply and they may be expected to fight to the bitter end, for once they are out they will be nothing and they know it. The case of La Eleanor is not without its humors. Only yesterday she was the most influential female ever recorded in American history, but tomorrow she will begin to fade, and by this time next year she may be wholly out of the picture. I wonder how many newspapers will go on printing her “My Day.” Probably not many.

It seems to me to be very likely that Roosevelt will take a high place in American popular history — maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln. It will be to the interest of all his heirs and assigns to whoop him up, and they will probably succeed in swamping his critics. If the war drags on it is possible, of course, that there may be a reaction against him, and there may be another and worse after war is over at last, but the chances, I think, run the other way. He had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes. Thus a demigod seems to be in the making, and in a little while we may see a grandiose memorial under way in Washington, comparable to those to Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. In it, I suppose, Eleanor will have a niche, but probably not a conspicuous one. The majority of Americans, I believe, distrust and dislike her, and all her glories have been only reflections from Franklin.

The Baltimore Hearst paper, the News-Post, handled the great news with typical cynicism. Hearst is one of the most violent enemies of Roosevelt, and all his papers have been reviling the New Deal, and even propagating doubts about the war. But the whole first page of the News-Post is given over this afternoon to a large portrait of Roosevelt flanked by two flags in color and headed “Nation Mourns.” The editorial page is filled with an editorial saying, among other things, “The work and name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt will live on, not only today or tomorrow, but in all the annals of recorded time.” This, as I have noted, is probably a fact, but it is certainly not a fact that tickles Hearst. He is, however, an expert in mob psychology, and does not expect much. The Sun is in a far less rational position. It certifies to Roosevelt’s greatness in all seriousness.

April 15

All the saloons and major restaurants of Baltimore were closed last night as a mark of respect to the dead Roosevelt, whose body passed through the city at midnight. It was silly, but it gave a lot of Dogberries a chance to annoy their betters, and so it was ordained. As a result, the Saturday Night Club missed its usual post-music beer-party for the first time in forty years. All during Prohibition the club found accommodations in the homes of its members, but last night no member was prepared, so the usual programme had to be abandoned. August and I came home, had a couple of high-balls, and then went to bed.

Roosevelt, if he had lived, would probably have been unbeatable, despite the inevitable reaction against the war. He was so expert a demagogue that it would have been easy for him to divert the popular discontent to some other object. He could have been beaten only by a demagogue even worse than he was himself, and his opponents showed no sign of being able to flush out such a marvel. The best they could produce was such timorous compromisers as Willkie and Dewey, who were as impotent before Roosevelt as sheep before Behemoth. When the call was for a headlong attack they backed and filled. It thus became impossible, at the close of their campaigns, to distinguish them from mild New Dealers — in other words, inferior Roosevelts. He was always a mile ahead of them, finding new victims to loot and new followers to reward, flouting common sense and boldly denying its existence, demonstrating by his anti-logic that two and two made five, promising larger and larger slices of the moon. His career will greatly engage historians, if any good ones ever appear in America, but it will be of even more interest to psychologists. He was the first American to penetrate to the real depths of vulgar stupidity. He never made the mistake of overestimating the intelligence of the American mob. He was its unparallelled professor.