Overflight, 140
“Who watchtes the watchman?”
old saying
“… the people have not taken a sufficient part in the government, even though the government is entirely their business and they are to blame for the frauds perpetrated upon them. …
The survival of party government, instead of the administration of the government by the people for themselves, is due to the people's neglect of their own best interests. … The great special interests have encouraged, both by direct and indirect means, the division of legislative bodies up into factions each of which supports some certain political party. They have furnished aid to the leading politicians in every possible manner. … There is no sure rule by which to know who is or is not friendly to the people's government. It requires eternal vigilance, and even that sometimes does not make timely discoveries. …
The remedy for our social evils does not consist so much in changing the system of government as it does in increasing the general intelligence of the people so that they may learn how to govern.”
Charles August Lindbergh, Sr., Congressman and Member of the House Banking and Currency Committee, Banking and Currency and The Money Trust
“We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessities and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, … our people … must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty−four, give our earnings of fifteen of these to the government, … have no time to think, no means of calling our mis−managers to account; but be glad to obtain sustenance by hiring ourselves out to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow−sufferers… And this is the tendency of all human governments … till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery… And the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”
Thomas Jefferson, in a 1816 letter to Sam Kercheval, as quoted in G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jeckyll Island, A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
