The Birch Log Release date: 11/13/95 Questions About New Currency by John F. McManus On September 27th, the Treasury Department announced the first change in U.S. currency since 1929. A remarkably different $100 bill - with a larger off-center portrait of Benjamin Franklin, green ink that changes to black under some conditions, and interwoven threads that glow red under ultraviolet light - will appear early in 1996. The new bill will also feature some "microprinted" fine lines that become blurred when photocopied and a watermark visible only at an angle before a light. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin said the changes would offer significantly new hurdles to counterfeiters and to thieves who try to duplicate existing bills with sophisticated copying machines. Seeking to calm the apprehensions of Americans resistant to change, Rubin stated: The new bills will retain the American feel and look. The size is the same. The monuments are the same. It still says, "In God We Trust." And the color is still the same. The greenback still will be green. Treasury officials took the occasion of their September 27th press conference to announce that all denominations of U.S. currency would be similarly redesigned, all the way down to the $2 bill. Whether there will continue to be a $1 bill is up in the air because Congress is considering legislation that would replace it with a coin. Why the Change? Is this move by the Treasury Department really being taken to foil counterfeiting? Counterfeiting may indeed be a problem that the new style of currency can minimize. If the new currency is designed only to counter bogus money creation, the American people are no worse off than before. But monetary manipulators within our nation have been promoting the idea of a one-world currency for decades. And they know they can't saddle the nation with it except in stages. Richard N. Cooper, like Robert Rubin a member of the worldgovernment-advocating Council on Foreign Relations, called for "a single [worldwide] authority issuing currency and directing monetary policy" as far back as 1984. Almost simultaneously with the Rubin announcement came the publication of plans by the European Union (EU) to have a single currency for all of Western Europe. While denigrating "the nationstate of the past," Germany's Hans-Dietrich Gentsher, one of the EU's most intense champions, stated in 1991 that the union of European nations "is a matter of constructing a world order of peace in which the United Nations must at last play the central role assigned in its Charter." As more and more financial transactions are accomplished via checks, computer transfers, and credit cards, and as Americans are being weaned from cash, monetary realists have become increasingly concerned about the possibility of the elimination of currency entirely. They know that anonymity in the use of money is a major ingredient of freedom. In other words, they don't want financial transactions to be watched by a central authority as can now be done by monitoring checks and credit card use. We are not suggesting that checkwriting and credit card use should be abandoned. Both certainly make economic activity less complicated. As long as cash is still an alternative, there is nothing to fear from widespread use of these conveniences. But our own government has already placed increasing requirements amounting to practical restrictions on the use of large amounts of cash. Indeed, anyone who wants to purchase something with substantial amounts of cash is already looked upon suspiciously. Those who want to rule through a world government must control economic activity. Believers in freedom should guard against the introduction of a cashless society. Fed Power During the 20th century, Americans have seen their once-revered currency - the finest fiduciary currency the world has ever known - completely done away with. In its place, fiat money has been issued, not by the U.S. Treasury, but by the privately run Federal Reserve, now led by CFR member Alan Greenspan. Incredibly, the Fed now has power to decide the value and amount of the currency as well as the nation's interest rates. It has the power to create a boom or a bust at will. Over recent decades, the continually shrinking dollar has been devalued by 90 percent through the arbitrary introduction of huge amounts of currencyŃ the real definition of inflation. Changing the look of the currency isn't what America needs. There is, instead, an urgent need for our nation to return to precious metal money, to abolish the Federal Reserve, and to purge the government of those who contribute to weakening America economically on the way toward world government. Copyright 1995 The John Birch Society For more information, please write: The John Birch Society / Appleton, WI 54913-8040 Send e-mail to: birch@athenet.net