Herbert Hoover and Adolf Hitler

 

Herbert Hoover tosses Moratorium Bait to Europeans

The Great War of 1914-1918 resulted in the Versailles surrender treaty and several Armistice agreements, all of them bristling with references to chemical drugs and narcotics nobody ever mentions. The Versailles treaty also demanded that Germany pay for damage done by WW1. The US refused to charge Germany reparations but did expect repayment of loans taken by many European nations during that war. Those worthies in turn demanded the German reparations out of which they imagined they'd pay those loans outstanding. Thirteen years later Germans and everyone else were trying everything to get out of those payments. Herbert Hoover "seen his chance" to fasten on another narcotics convention building onto seldom-mentioned  narcotics limitation plans advanced in 1929 and 1930 within the League of Nations.  

On 22APR1931 the Hoover Administration roped Germany into an Extradition Treaty not very different from one entered into earlier with Canada, to allow the US to demand the surrender of alleged "narcotics" law violators. Extradition treaties with Finland and Rumania made no mention of drugs. But treaties made with France, Lithuania, Cuba and Germany while rum, wine and watery beer were treated like narcotics in America did indeed contain drug clauses, viz: Treaty of Extradition. "Crimes or offenses against the laws for the suppression of the traffic in narcotics."

America still held German plants and factories administered by the Alien Property Custodian since the war, and Merck operated a drug plant in the anti-prohibitionist State of New Jersey. The extradition  treaty meant the United States could drag millionaires on the boards of Merck, Farben and other giant conglomerates in handcuffs to the USA to face drug charges. Big Pharma was chafing under reparations. German assets were being held under the "Trading with the Enemy Act" and income tax dangers of the sort jailing Al Capone also loomed. German tycoons viewed with alarm the admittance of representatives from countries that did NOT manufacture drugs to League of Nations bureaucracies urging the passage of drug laws. Banks were collapsing, creditors closing in. Resourceful industrialists looked about them for a champion--any belligerent, xenophobic, populist preacher able to sway the opinions of millions of voters would do. 

Adolf Hitler now obtruded very prominently upon their notice. Headlines had blared for weeks: FORTY THOUSAND GERMAN REPUBLICANS DEMONSTRATE IN BERLIN, GERMANY CRUSHED BY WORLD WAR DEBTS, RIOTS AGAINST EMERGENCY TAXES SPREAD IN GERMANY, REICHSBANK RAISES DISCOUNT RATE TO CURB EXCHANGE DRAIN, NEW MOVEMENT FOR DEBT CANCELLATION, REDUCTION IN REPARATIONS SOUGHT BY GERMANY... Hitler's name appeared in American newspapers after Nazi party vote totals in Oldenberg increased by a factor of five. 

GERMAN DECLARES HOOVER POPULAR IN HIS COUNTRY, Dr Wilhelm Hubben:... communists have been waiting for trouble between fascists and government... Says Hitler Losing--"I am convinced that Hitler, the so-called leader of the Fascists or National Socialists, is losing ground... a man with the ideals of Mussolini and the mustachios of a Charlie Chaplin." "We have no less than fourteen political parties, seven or eight of which are in the lead." See original: (link)

We will searchingly examine how Chinese boycotts enlisted American support for international suppression of plant leaves, extracts and chemical drugs, and ask whether this combination of interests may have unintentionally precipitated global warfare in 1914, then again in 1939. 
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Good Reading: Our Man in Tokyo by Steve Kemper. Hoover's ambassador to Japan is kept on the job by FDR. Ambassador Grew struggled through a series of crises oddly synchronized with U.S. and League of Nations tightening of restrictions on all manner of drugs. (link) 

Find out the juicy details behind the mother of all economic collapses. Prohibition and The Crash–Cause and Effect in 1929 is available in two languages on Amazon Kindle, as cheap as a pint of craft beer.

Brazilian Sci-fi from 1926 featuring the Hollywood-style beautiful daughter of a scientist touting prohibition and racial collectivism in America’s Black President 2228 by Monteiro Lobato, translated by J Henry Phillips (link)

Brazilian blog… Expatriotas

American blog… Libertariantranslator, with contact form

Tagged: prohibition, confiscation, asset forfeiture, initiation of force, blackouts, energy crisis, liquidation, liquidity, bankruptcy, Crash, Depression, communism, inviting attack, treason, economic collapse,

Tags: asset forfeiture, bankruptcy, blackouts, communism, confiscation, Crash, Depression, economic collapse, energy crisis, initiation of force, inviting attack, liquidation, liquidity, prohibition, panics, fractional reserve banking,

Volstead Act Collapse III, 15-21

 

Every bank in the USA was shut BEFORE March 1933

thanks to Bert Hoover opening corporate tax returns to scrutiny by State officials 

Sec. 16. Any tax payable upon alcohol under existing law may be collected either by assessment or by stamp as regulations shall provide; and if by stamp, regulations shall issue prescribing the kind of stamp to be used and the manner of affixing and canceling the same.

Sec. 17. When any property is seized for violation of this title it may be released to the claimant or to any intervening party, in the discretion of the commissioner, on a bond given and approved.

Sec. 18. All administrative provisions of internal-revenue law, including those relating to assessment, collection, abatement, and refund of taxes and penalties, and the seizure and forfeiture of property, are made applicable to this title in so far as they are not inconsistent with the provisions thereof.

Sec. 19. All prior statutes relating to alcohol as defined in this title are hereby repealed in so far as they are inconsistent with the provisions of this title.

Sec. 20. That it shall be unlawful to import or introduce into the Canal Zone or have in one’s possession or under one’s control within the Canal Zone, any alcoholic, fermented, brewed, distilled, vinous, malt, or spirituous liquors, except for sacramental, scientific, pharmaceutical, industrial, or medicinal purposes, under regulations to be made by the President, and any such liquors within the Canal Zone in violation hereof shall be forfeited to the United States and seized: Provided, That this section shall not apply to liquor in transit through the Panama Canal or on the Panama Railroad.

That each and every violation of any of the provisions of this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than $1,000 or imprisonment not exceeding six months for a first offense, and by a fine not less than $200 nor more than $2,000 and imprisonment not less than one month nor more than five years for a second or subsequent offense.

That all offenses heretofore committed within the Canal Zone may be prosecuted and all penalties therefor enforced in the same manner and to the same extent as if this Act had not been passed.

Sec. 21. Titles I and III and sections 1, 27, 37, and 38 of title II of this Act shall take effect and be in force from and after the passage and approval of the Act. The other sections of title II shall take effect and be in force from and after the date when the eighteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States goes into effect.

F H Gillett

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Thos. R. Marshall

Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate.

 

In the House of Representatives of the United States.

October 27, 1919.

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These wartime then peacetime seizure and forfeiture clauses eroded the U.S. economy over the course of fourteen years. The Bill of Rights melted before them as the Reconstruction Amendments  did when Klan terrorism in the Southern States and Northern reaction against Republican Comstockism combined to unseat Republican control of government. This damage was accelerated by misdefining and prohibiting non-addictive stimulants and lumping them in with habit-forming narcotics. Exporting coercive meddling in trade and production the world over through Versailles Treaty imposition of the Hague Convention followed by planet-wide exportation of prohibitionist coercion until WW2 resulted is up next. The overlap of Volsteadism with the violence of international law will focus on  news, laws, economic and financial crashes and their explanations--especially the way this applied fanaticism brought war with Germany and Japan. 

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Good Reading: The Night of January Sixteenth, by Ayn Rand. (link)
That was the date the Wartime Prohibition law became national prohibition of trade, transportation and production, with Federal economic planning adopted at every level to prop it up as it eroded the entire economy and banking system. This novel springs from the legal conundrums created when prohibition eplaced free trade and production.

Good References: The Shaffer Library of Drug Policy. (link) The library covers everything EXCEPT the causal relationship between the violence of prohibitionist law and economic contraction, banking panics, liquidity crises, recessions, depressions and wars. For an introduction to that see Prohibition and The Crash. 

Find out the juicy details behind the mother of all economic collapses. Prohibition and The Crash–Cause and Effect in 1929 is available in two languages on Amazon Kindle, each at the cost of a pint of craft beer.

Brazilian Sci-fi from 1926 featuring the usual beautiful daughter of a scientist touting prohibition and racial collectivism in America’s Black President 2228 by Monteiro Lobato, translated by J Henry Phillips (link)

Brazilian blog…

American blog…

Tagged: prohibition, confiscation, asset forfeiture, initiation of force, blackouts, energy crisis, liquidation, liquidity, bankruptcy, Crash, Depression, communism, inviting attack, treason, economic collapse,

Tags: asset forfeiture, bankruptcy, blackouts, communism, confiscation, Crash, Depression, economic collapse, energy crisis, initiation of force, inviting attack, liquidation, liquidity, prohibition, panics, fractional reserve banking,

Volstead Act Collapse III, 12-14, General Provisions

 

Panic cartoon during 1905 China boycott of U.S. goods

The U.S. responded with the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 which required morphine labeling and caused The Panic, then the Hague Opium Convention of 1909, which caused WW1. Surely you recall these from history class, no?

GENERAL PROVISIONS.

SEC. 12. The penalties provided in this title shall be in addition to any penalties provided in title 2 of this Act, unless expressly otherwise therein provided.

SEC. 13. The commissioner shall from time to time issue regulations respecting the establishment, bonding, and operation of industrial alcohol plants, denaturing plants, and bonded warehouses authorized herein, and the distribution, sale, export, and use of alcohol which may be necessary, advisable, or proper, to secure the revenue, to prevent diversion of the alcohol to illegal uses, and to place the nonbeverage alcohol industry and other industries using such alcohol as a chemical raw material or for other lawful purpose upon the highest possible plane of scientific and commercial efficiency consistent with the interests of the Government, and which shall insure an ample supply of such alcohol and promote its use in scientific research and the development of fuels, dyes, and other lawful products.

SEC. 14. Whenever any alcohol is lost by evaporation or other shrinkage, leakage, casualty, or unavoidable cause during distillation, redistillation, denaturation, withdrawal, piping, shipment, warehousing, storage, packing, transfer, or recovery, or any such alcohol the commissioner may remit or refund any tax incurred under existing law upon such alcohol, provided he is satisfied that the alcohol has not been diverted to any illegal use: Provided, also, That such allowance shall not be granted if the person claiming same is indemnified against such loss by a valid claim of insurance.

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The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment organized to oppose the 18th amendment because it damaged the economy. The mention of revenue in Section 13 above was a sop to all who fretted for good reason. The alcohol tax had brought in about 30 to 40% of all federal tax revenue prior to the amendment's enactment, and personal income tax rates were raised to compensate for the lost revenue. Yet none of the pro or con activists reckoned on the collapse of credit from padlockings, confiscations, asset forfeiture, tax-evasion fines and prison sentences plus the increased income tax would do to the fractional reserve banking system once accountholders withdrew their deposits. Some withdrew to avoid confiscation, others to escape the bank collapse when bootleggers suddenly withdrew their deposits in the same bank. 

Good Reading: The Scramble fo China by Robert Bickers. (link) Foreign Devils, our ancestors, began hauling Indian opium to China in 1808, when the drug was a chi-chi luxury. Like othr luxuries then and now, overreaction, envy, superstition and cussedness fanned it into a crisis all out of proportion. The Engish is impeccable, the writing subtle, economical and powerful. Yet the author skips what to Americans is a key sequence of events leading to the Species circular, the Central Bank struggle and the Panic of 1837. The Foreign Devils knew in March they were unwelcome and sure enough were asked to leave in December. Nor is there anywhere in the literature an accounting of how the Emperor's displeasure affected American opium traders, and through them worsened the effect of the British withdrawal of capital to arm for the Opium Wars. But the book is nevertheless a worthwhile read and includes a charming history of early Singapore.

Our Man In Tokyo is another good book I'm still reading. Already it is clear the author ignores events in Geneva which led to the 1929 Crash, Hoover's appointment of Harry Anslinger and the dumping of narcotics in These States to raise reparations money, pay war debts, rearm Germany and strengthen Japan's huge income from export of stimulants the U.S. sought to prohibit all over the world. This is a deeply ingrained pattern. On the one hand the USA commandeers other governments into armed prohibition of drugs unimportant before they were banned by the Quing. Yet with all the money and coercion invested, major events take place in an eerie media silence. Even the dates of League of Nations Opium Advisory Committee sessions are difficult to ascertain without contacting Geneva and signing a nondisclosure form. 

Find out the juicy details behind the mother of all economic collapses. Prohibition and The Crash–Cause and Effect in 1929 is available in two languages on Amazon Kindle, each at the cost of a pint of craft beer.

Brazilian Sci-fi from 1926 featuring the usual beautiful daughter of a scientist touting prohibition and racial collectivism in America’s Black President 2228 by Monteiro Lobato, translated by J Henry Phillips (link)

Brazilian blog…

American blog…

Tagged: prohibition, confiscation, asset forfeiture, initiation of force, blackouts, energy crisis, liquidation, liquidity, bankruptcy, Crash, Depression, communism, inviting attack, treason, economic collapse,

Tags: asset forfeiture, bankruptcy, blackouts, communism, confiscation, Crash, Depression, economic collapse, energy crisis, initiation of force, inviting attack, liquidation, liquidity, prohibition, panics, fractional reserve banking