Strange Death of Franklin Roosevelt - Emanuel Josephson




Hearst, Dupont and Rockefeller Elect F.D.R.

It is questionable whether in all history a nation has been more completely flim-flammed than in the matter of the supporters and objectives of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. By the crudest type of deception, that depends for its effectiveness solely upon the uncritical gullibility, the defective memory and pathetic dullness of the average citizen, the public have been led to believe that Roosevelt was an enemy of the very people whose creature he was, who financed his campaigns and controlled him in office. Some of the ablest perverters of public opinion, otherwise known as publicity men, headed by Louis Howe and Charles Michelson engineered this deception.

The public have been led to believe that William Randolph Hearst, the Du Ponts and the Rockefellers were F.D.R.'s worst enemies. But it was they who aided the Dynasty and made him President to serve their purposes and do their bidding. Some of the facts can be gained from an examination of campaign contributions. Contributions to clean up the debt of the Democratic National Committee including $345,250 owed to John Raskob, a Du Pont associate were: $39,500 by Pierre S. Du Pont in 1931 and 1932; $125,000 by Raskob in 1932.

To F.D.R.'s 1932 election campaign there was contributed by: William Randolph Hearst, $30,000; Edward S. Darkness, of Standard Oil Company, $12,000; John J. Raskob. $23,000; Bernard M. Baruch, of the Ryan-Rockefeller-Morgan group, $45,000; Francis P. Garvan, representing the Brady interests, $15,000; and indirectly the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment supported Roosevelt with sums up to $100,000 contributed by Lammot Du Pont; Pierre S. Du Pont, Vincent Astor and William H. Woodin, $35,000 each; Cyrus and Harold F. McCormick contributed $5,000 and Eleanor Patterson, $2,000.

William Randolph Hearst's motive in supporting Roosevelt was a matter of urgent personal necessity. Hearst had repeatedly earned the enmity of Rockefeller. In the late 1920's Hearst and Brisbane had expanded their real estate holdings tremendously, financing them through S. W. Straus and Company which they are reputed to have controlled. When the American Bond and Mortgage Company, a competing real estate mortgage house affiliated with the Rockefeller interests, collapsed directly after the 1929 panic, Hearst and Brisbane saw an opportunity to boost S. W. Straus and Company and their bonds. They ran a running campaign which on one day demanded criminal prosecution of the crude frauds perpetrated by the American Bond and Mortgage Company, and on the following day called on the public to buy, as the safest type of investment, S. W. Straus and Company bonds. "Never A Loss In Fifty Years" was the slogan of the Straus Company that they hammered away in their columns.

Intensive publicity of the type that Hearst and Brisbane hurled against the American Bond and Mortgage crowd easily might have led to criminal prosecution. To avert that eventuality, the interests involved had to do something to smash Hearst and Brisbane. The readiest way to accomplish the destruction, in view of their extended and highly mortgaged realty holdings, was to smash the real estate market throughout the country. And the quickest way was to force foreclosure of the highest quality real estate, business properly in New York City. That was an important function of the Rockefeller Center.

Rockefeller's Radio City differs in its legal status from any real estate in the country. By Bill No. 296, the 72nd Congress, rushed through in the last hour of the session by Rockefeller's principal agent in Congress, Senator Robert F. Wagner, Rockefeller Center was made a freeport, the only free-port in the United States. This means that merchants on the west side of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, in Rockefeller Center, could import merchandise from abroad and display it for sale without paying duty.

This law implies discrimination against every other port in the country, which is prohibited by the Constitution. It also implies discrimination against all other property holders. For it enabled Rockefeller Center to lure tenants from other buildings with the inducement that it would require less capital to engage in the import business because the property was a freeport. To make matters worse, the ground on which the Center is built is tax-exempt because it belongs to Columbia University, and its rentals can be correspondingly lower.

The vacancies resulting from the wholesale exodus of tenants into Radio City from other properties in New York City was equivalent in its effect to "short selling" real estate, and it sharply depressed the property values in New York City. Interested parties were able to grab up property thus depreciated at bankrupt prices. The tactics employed in this process were the basis of at least one lawsuit against the Rockefeller interests that has come to public attention, brought by August Heckscher. Its disposition has been kept secret. This sharp and highly lucrative business deal has been represented to the public as a philanthropic enterprise to combat depression by the Rockefeller publicity men.

Millions of people throughout the country lost their properties, their homes, their farms and their businesses as a consequence of this characteristic Rockefeller "philanthrophy". Like all of the Rockefeller fake "philanthropies", this one also bore the feature of virtually tax-exempting the Rockefellers; and shifted the burden of their taxes on to the shoulders of the rest of the nation, on us whom the power-drunk conspirators delight in calling "peasants".

The terrific smash in real estate values thus stimulated, drove S. W. Straus and Company into bankruptcy and spread ruin among its mortgage bondholders including numerous widows and orphans. But Hearst and Brisbane were wiped out at the same time. The Hearst publications and the Hearst properties were taken over by the Rockefellers through their Chase National Bank.

In the meantime Rockefeller's money had put Dewey in the District Attorney's office in New York. Dewey was put to work on an investigation of the white slave and numbers rackets, which were backed by identical financial interests, in order to fill the headlines of the newspapers and divert public attention from the quiet dismissal of the American Bond and Mortgage fraud cases in Brooklyn. The service thus rendered marked this scion of the Dynasty for advancement to the top.

The only possibility open to Hearst of rescuing his cherished estates, San Simeon and Wynkoop, lay in a revaluation of gold. Hearst, through his ownership of a controlling block of stock in Homestake Mining Company as well as investments in other gold mining property, is one of the largest, or perhaps the largest, individual gold producer in the world. If he could increase the earnings of these companies, Hearst would be able to salvage his estates. That required a revaluation, a rise in the Treasury price, of gold.

For the purpose of obtaining a revaluation of gold, Hearst made a deal with Ex-Senator William Gibbs McAdoo, Wilson's son-in-law, who had control of the California delegates to the 1932 Chicago Democratic Convention, with John Nance Garner of the Texas delegation, and with Mayor Anton Cermak of the Illinois delegation, thus insuring control of the Convention. McAdoo or Garner, who agreed to a revaluation of gold, were to be the candidates. But neither of them could get enough votes to capture the presidential nomination.

Hearst would not release the delegation except to a candidate who would agree to revalue gold. Roosevelt agreed to do so as the first act of his Administration as well as to take Garner as a running mate.

Hearst made Roosevelt President by releasing the three delegations to him, even though he did not particularly trust him. Had Roosevelt been assassinated at Miami, Hearst's original choice of President would have prevailed.

However systematically F.D.R. violated his promise to the nation's voters, he rarely was permitted by the Dynasty to fail to live up to the letter of his pledges to his financial backers and bosses. He revalued gold as the first act of his Administration, after closing the banks.

Aside from Hearst and his financial predicament, the revaluation of gold was entirely uncalled for. Under the circumstances of the depression and the New Deal controlled economy, it did not serve to bring about inflation and a rise in wages and prices, though that was the principal excuse offered for the act. In recent years, when there has been good reason to fight price rises, it has served as a tremendous stimulus to inflation.

The revaluation of gold meant eventually that persons or groups permitted to retain ownership of gold, and producers of new gold, received an increased price of $15.00, or 75%, per ounce. But the rank and file of the citizenry, every man, woman and child who owned gold which was surrendered, bonds, savings, insurance or liquid cash, were robbed to the same extent. It meant that the purchasing power of the American dollar in foreign markets was reduced by the same amount, and that each American living at home or travelling abroad was robbed by his government of that amount. Revaluation of gold was not merely uncalled for. It was downright dishonest as well as injurious to the country and served the nation no good purpose.

For the banking groups, who retained gold or who exported it to foreign countries in advance of the gold order, the revaluation meant huge profits. Such banks as Rockefeller's Chase National Bank exported billions of dollars worth of gold bullion successively to France and England, beginning in October 1929. They profited when they increased the price of gold in France, when they manipulated the rise in the pound sterling in England from $3.05 to $4.86; and when they returned the gold to the United States they gave themselves $15.00 an ounce more for their gold, as a reward for helping to bring on the 1929 crash and the depression by exporting the gold.

Aside from its basic dishonesty, the gold order originally issued by Roosevelt was unconstitutional as I pointed out in letters published in the New York Times and other publications at the time. For the order called for surrender of the gold to the Federal Reserve Bank, a private, quasi-public stock company. Though the Constitution permits of confiscation for eminent domain, it bars confiscation for private interest.

F.D.R. called upon Congress to pass a bill in the following year compelling surrender of gold to the Treasury, supposedly to correct the illegality of his first gold order. But this law was treated with their customary contempt by F.D.R. and his New Dealers. After two years of investigation, I forced an admission from Secretary Morganthau that $10,000 gold notes were being issued by the Treasury Department solely to member banks of the Federal Reserve System for the gold that had been surrendered. In other words, the gold hoard that is being protected by the United States Army at Fort Knox belongs to the member bankers of the Federal Reserve Bank and not to the United States Treasury. This is a violation of both law and Constitution.

Revaluation of gold saved Hearst a part of his fortune. Profits of Homestake Mining Company and other gold mines rose enormously. The price of gold stocks rose accordingly, and Homestake Mining Company stock rose from $50 to over $500 within a short period after the gold order.

Republicans and honest Democrats alike condemned the gold order and fought it, in one case to the Supreme Court where it was speciously upheld. They threatened to reverse the order when it would be in their power to do so.

Hearst was in abject terror over the threats to reverse gold revaluation. He had to get the higher price for gold over a long period of time to retrieve part of his fortune. It was imperative for him that Roosevelt should be repeatedly reelected. But he knew that his continuous championship of Roosevelt would drive his numerous enemies into the opposition.

The task of making Hearst a real asset to Roosevelt's re-election campaigns instead of a potential liability and of perverting public opinion, was placed before a group of outstanding publicity men. They advised that Nazism and Fascism was becoming extremely unpopular in the United States and F.D.R. was following public opinion in opposing them. They suggested that William Randolph Hearst and his publications launch a sham fight on Roosevelt, and at the same time pretend to support Nazism and Fascism, thus throwing the Anti-Nazis and Anti-Fascists into the Roosevelt camp.

The plan was a bitter pill for Hearst to swallow. He hated both Nazis and Fascists, if for no other reason—because they interfered with his news services. Nevertheless Hearst accepted the plan. With great ostentation and publicity he announced a visit to both Hitler and Mussolini, the outcome of which was the appearance in Hearst's publications, under control of the Rockefeller interests, of articles by Goebbels, Goering, Gayda and others. As the perverters of public opinion expected, the gullible public raged at Hearst and flocked to the standards of Roosevelt, blind to the fact that he was giving them another of the same brand of dictatorship.

The antagonism between Hearst and Roosevelt was utterly sham and an absurd hoax, as can be discerned from the things that Hearst was doing simultaneously for the Roosevelt family. Immediately after the inauguration, and after a threat made by F.D.R. to prosecute airmail overcharges, or "frauds", Elliott Roosevelt at the age of 21 and with no experience in aviation was given, with suspicious eagerness, the job of manager of the Gilpin Airlines with a total retainer of $15,000 a year. The airmail "frauds" were never prosecuted.

The pattern of this situation, which became familiar and oft-repeated in the Roosevelt family during F.D.R.'s administration, bore so many of the earmarks of a "payoff" that it started tongues wagging.

The financial interests behind the Administration were frankly as worried about it as they were about the BeVier toilet kit scandal that involved New Dealer Harry L. Hopkins. In the midst of this concern, Hearst stepped into the breach and offered Elliott, whose major experience with aircraft was to watch them fly, the job of aviation editor of his newspapers at a higher straight salary than he received from Gilpin Airlines.

Thereafter Hearst provided munificently for the son of his "enemy", Elliott Roosevelt. Elliott's talents were turned to radio, working for Southwest Broadcasting Company which later turned over four of its stations to the open ownership of Hearst. His position was vice-president. Elliot Roosevelt handled for Hearst the radio presidential election campaign against his father in 1936. It hardly can be conceived that Elliott Roosevelt would have done anything really intended to harm his father. The trail of Hearst's benefactions anent Elliott goes further.

But Hearst did not stop with Elliott in his benefactions to the family of his "enemy", F.D.R. Anna Roosevelt Dali Boettiger, F.D.R.'s daughter, and her husband were both given highly paid jobs on the unsuccessful Hearst paper, the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Anna was made columnist with a reputed salary of $12,000 a year and her husband, publisher at a salary running into six figures. May the Lord give us more "enemies" of that calibre.

The story of the enmity that the Du Ponts displayed against Roosevelt in public is much the same type of flim-flam staged for political, vote-getting purposes. The Du Ponts heavily financed the Democratic as well as the Republican Party. They carefully avoided financing Roosevelt's campaigns openly, but indirectly contributed heavily through the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment and other channels.

Shortly after Roosevelt's nomination, the two families got together and in true monarchic fashion the Du Ponts arranged an alliance with the Royal Family by sealing the engagement of young Ethel Du Pont and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. It was a natural alliance because of the identity of interests. Both the Du Ponts and the Roosevelt-Delano Dynasty are heavily interested in munitions and armaments, in war.

It was decided, however, that it would never do to let the public know of this alliance, because its warlike character would be so obvious. Any stories that leaked out regarding the alliance and the engagement were promptly denied. It was kept a dark secret until exactly one week after F.D.R.'s second election.

The same policy was followed in making the Du Ponts an asset to Roosevelt, to help assure his reelection. As in the case of Hearst, the Du Ponts appeared to be enemies of their prospective in-law, Roosevelt. The Du Ponts were intensively publicized as war-loving, war-thriving munition kings. On the other hand fire was added to the pacifist movement that had been planted in the land by its designing enemies. The Liberty League was then set up for the ostensible purpose of attacking Roosevelt and fighting his reelection. This served to throw the entire pacifist vote into Roosevelt's camp and helped assure his reelection.

How fully deliberate was this malign purpose can he seen from the publicity about the Liberty League on which the Du Ponts spent millions of dollars. This publicity, as is instanced by the "Hate Roosevelt" dinner given in Washington, served to present the Du Ponts to the nation as a laughing stock. Ordinarily business men do not regard ridicule as good publicity and invariably discharge the publicists who make the mistake of heaping it on them. But the Du Ponts continued to pay publicist Jouett Shouse $50,000 a year and an unlimited expense account, repeatedly to hold them up to ridicule. Apparently they were willing to go far to insure Roosevelt's re-election.

And curiously enough, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was viciously vindictive and invariably sought to "purge" his enemies, did not resent the sham attacks of Hearst and the Du Ponts, in the slightest degree.

The Rockefeller-Standard Oil group carefully stayed in the background and made no open and direct contribution, other than those of Harkness, to Roosevelt's election campaign. But their hand in effecting Roosevelt's election is evinced by a number of facts. The majority of the members of the Roosevelt Cabinet were drawn from their crowd. These included: Harold Ickes, Standard Oil attorney for the Chicago area, Secretary of the Interior; Frances Perkins, Rockefeller almoner, Secretary of Labor; Henry A. Wallace, Rockefeller protege. Secretary of Agriculture; oil man, Jesse Jones; and Harry L. Hopkins, Rockefeller almoner and their key New Deal agent in controlling Roosevelt's policies. A staggering number of appointive positions in policy-making agencies of the government were drawn from their subordinates. And for the first time in history an American President dared openly appoint a Rockefeller to office—Nelson Rockefeller in the ultra-strategic post of Coordinator of Hemispheric Defense.

Under Roosevelt the United States Government became totally subservient to the Rockefeller Empire and made possible its conquest of the world. The appointment of J. P. Morgan's nephew, Joseph Grew, as Ambassador to Japan prepared the way for Pearl Harbor, the rescue of Rockefeller-Standard Oil property in China, and the complete conquest of Japan by the Rockefeller Empire. At the same time it gave them, at the expense of tens of thousands of American lives and a huge proportion of the national wealth, the control of the enormously rich Saudi Arabian and other Near East oil fields.