Strange Death of Franklin Roosevelt - Emanuel Josephson




Franklin Delano Roosevelt
High Financier

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as poor relation of some of the wealthiest clans in the world, could have become identified through them with some of the leading enterprises in the country. But the mental aberration and lack of judgement, that made it impossible for him to attain a passing grade in his law studies and to graduate, was aggravated by the after-effects of the attack of encephalomyelitis that intensified his high suggestibility. This led to his being used in a number of off-color stock jobbing deals that rooked the investing public. It is questionable whether any one man was more consistently identified during the prosperous 1920's with enterprises that trimmed the investors than "high financier" Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His record was consistently putrid.

It is more or less consistent with his admiration of things German, with which he was imbued in his childhood, that three of the four stock flotations with which he was identified related to Germany. The fourth related to the elimination of labor from merchandizing. As in the case of Cousin Ulysses S. Grant the glamour of the family name was peddled to none too scrupulous manipulators to assist them in unloading questionable stocks on the sucker public.

[Josephson Letter] from The Strange Death of FDR by Emanuel Josephson

The first of these dubious ventures, launched in 1922, was the United European Investors Ltd., that was incorporated under the charter of the Dominion of Canada. Its president was listed as Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt, then vice president of the Fidelity & Deposit Company of Maryland. His associates in the enterprise included August Scherer, William Schall, Senator John von Berenberg Gossler, partner of the Hamburg banking firm of the same name and Alfred Arnthal of Hamburg. Its stock was payable in German marks and was sold to the public in denominations of 10,000 marks a share, with a total capitalization of 600,000,000 marks. Its purpose as stated in its advertisements was "to take advantage of the present money stringency in Germany". The advertisements represented that "sound and attractive investments can be secured for marks at prices which should ensure profitable returns coupled with safety of principal. At a time when many colossal fortunes were piled up in Germany by shrewd, able manipulators such as Stinnes, Thyssen, Cagliostro and others by taking advantage of the manipulation of currency, FDR's enterprise came to an ignominious end.

In 1927 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was identified with another stock jobbing scheme for the benefit of Germany that cost the American investment public heavily—the International Germanic Trust Company. Its purpose was to further trade with Germany and to deal in German acceptances. The enterprise showed losses from the very start. The stock which was sold to the American public for $170 a share was eventually liquidated for $19 a share.

The following year found Franklin Delano Roosevelt used as "sucker bait" on the board of directors of the Consolidated Automatic Merchandising Company abbreviated to "Camco." The purpose of the enterprise was to eliminate labor from the sale of an ever increasing array of merchandise and to sell by means of automatic vending machines. Eleven million dollars were extracted from the public puree for stock in units of one common and one preferred share at $55 a unit, in July 1928. At about this time Roosevelt secured the gubernatorial nomination.

[Josephson Letter] from The Strange Death of FDR by Emanuel Josephson

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. Vice President. Fidelity and Deposit Co. of Maryland, was window trimming for 'CAMCO' that rooked investors to the tune of $11,000,000. It lost money from the eery start and failed in one of the periods of highest prosperity in the nation's history. But the American investor has been swindled just as ruthlessly by all of the New Deal measures supposedly designed for their protection.


It is a curious fact that in this instance, as in others that involve Roosevelt and the Dynasty, the radicals and so-called "liberals" made no outcry of "Wall Street candidate" against Roosevelt. In publications that attacked the wealthy, no mention was ever made of the Roosevelt-Delano clan except in the most favorable light. Thus left-winger Ferdinand Lundberg in his "America's 60 Families" advertised as a "sensational expose" of "malefactors of great wealth", makes no mention of the Roosevelt family or of the Delanos except to mention Fred Delano's position with the Federal Reserve Bank. This appears to make it clear who inspired these attacks.

The advertising and literature which was used in the sale of "Camco" stock was so laden with deception and misrepresentation as to be notorious even in those days. The advertising dilated in glowing terms on the prospects of the industry, quoting numerous authorities, including Babson, on automatic sales machines, in a manner as to lead the prospective buyers to believe that they commended Camco.

But they mentioned nothing about the assets. To cover up the question of assets, the publicity matter expounded on "good-will industries" in which it classed Camco with the William Wrigley Jr. Company and the Coca Cola Company. It stated that the Company had a five year plan, of the type that is so familiar in the world of crackpots; and it represented that by the third year the dividends would be 18%.

Despite the prosperity which prevailed in the nation at the time it was started. "Cameo" lost money from the beginning. A little more than a year after the stock was unloaded on the public, it was selling for fewer pennies than it had had originally sold for dollars. Virtually the entire sum was a dead loss to the American public. It is difficult to understand why those involved were not prosecuted for using the mails. Their political influence was probably what accounted for their immunity.

By 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ex-Wall Street buccaneer, had "got religion" and assumed the appearance of virtue. Pontifically he pronounced in one of his fireside broadcasts, in December of that year,

"One of the greatest curses of American life has been speculation".

At the very time he was making this broadcast, he was engaged in making life easier, and making plucking the public safer, for the nation's grand-scale swindlers by advocacy, support and administration of his Agricultural Allotment Plan, his SEC, the I.C.C. which he had packed in favor of Dynastic plunderers of the railroads, and his utility death sentence.

The American investor has been swindled out of more money under the New Deal in a decade, by measures that it pretended were designed to protect the public, than it had been by all the prior frauds in a century of Wall Street's history. The New Deal made swindling ultra-safe, ultra-legal and enormously profitable for the Dynasty and its allies, by arranging to have the frauds perpetrated for them by government agencies, with the full sanction of the law; and has given them a virtual monopoly of all important industries.

From the viewpoint of the Dynasty, the business and stock market policies of their agent, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were a "New Deal" indeed. From the viewpoint of the public, they were the same, swindling "Old Deal" intensified to the nth degree, with all possibilities of legal redress against the swindlers wiped out, and their swindling legalized and perpetrated for them through government agencies which they control.