Committee for Economic Development

CHAPTER 4

On June 20, 1961, The San Francisco Examiner published a United Press International news story with a June 19, Washington, D. C. date line, under the headline „J.F.K. Backs Tax Cut Plan.“ Here are portions of the article:


„President Kennedy today urged Congress and the people to give a close study to a monetary reform proposal which would empower him to cut income taxes in recession periods. „He issued the statement after receiving a bulky report from the Commission of [sic] Money and Credit…. „The 27-member commission was set up in 1957 by the Committee for Economic Development (CED). Its three-year study was financed by $1.3 million in grants from the CED and the Ford and Merrill Foundation.


„One of the key recommendations was to give the President limited power to cut the 20 percent tax rate on the first $2000 of personal income, if needed to help the economy…. „The report also recommended extensive changes in the Federal Reserve System, set up in 1913 as the core of the Nation’s banking system….“

 

This San Francisco Examiner article is a classic example of propaganda disguised as straight news reporting. A story about the President supporting a plan for reducing taxes could not fail to command sympathetic attention. But the truth is that the tax reform proposals of the Commission on Money and Credit would give the President as much power and leeway to raise taxes as to lower them.


In its 282-page report, the Commission made 87 separate proposals. One would permit the President (on his own initiative) to reduce the basic income-tax rate (the one that applies to practically every person who has any income at all) from 20% to 15%. It would also permit the President to raise the basic rate from 20% to 25%.


The idea of giving the President such power is as alien to American political principles as communism itself is. The proposed „machinery“ for granting such Presidential power would violate every basic principle of our constitutional system. Under the Commission’s proposal, the President would announce that he was going to increase or decrease taxes. If, within sixty days, Congress did not veto the plan, it would become law, effective for six months, at which time it would have to be renewed by the same procedure. That is very similar to the Soviet way. It could not be more foreign to the American way if it had been lifted from the Soviet constitution.

 

Other proposals in the report of the Commission on Money and Credit, filed on June 18, 1961, after a three-year study:


1. The Federal Reserve Act would be amended to give the President control over the Federal Reserve System–which, as set up in 1913, is supposed to be free of any kind of political control, from the White House or elsewhere.
2. The Commission recommends elimination of the legal requirement that the Federal Reserve System maintain a gold reserve as backing for American currency. A bill was introduced in Congress (May 9, 1961, by U. S. Congressman Abraham Multer, New York Democrat) to implement this Commission recommendation. The bill would take away from American citizens twelve billion dollars in gold which supports their own currency, and enable government to pour this gold out to foreigners, as long as it lasts, leaving Americans with a worthless currency, and at the mercy of foreign governments and bankers (see the Dan Smoot Report, „Gold and Treachery,“ May 22, 1961).
3. The banking laws of individual states would be ignored or invalidated: banking laws of 33 states prohibit mutual savings banks; the Commission on Money and Credit wants a federal law to permit such banks in all states.
4. The Commission would circumvent, if not eliminate, state laws governing the insurance industry: the Commission proposes a federal law which would permit insurance companies to obtain federal charters and claim federal, rather than state, regulation.

5. The Commission would subject all private pension funds to federal supervision.
6. The Commission would abolish congressional limitations on the size of the national debt–so that the debt could go as high as the President pleased, without any interference from Congress.
7. The Commission recommends that Congress approve all federal public works projects three years in advance, so that the President could order the projects when he felt the economy needed stimulation.

 

Remembering how President Kennedy and his administrative officials and congressional leaders used political extortion and promises of bribes with public money to force the House of Representatives, in January, 1961, to pack the House Rules Committee, imagine how the President could whip Congress, and the whole nation, into line if the President had just some of the additional, unconstitutional power which the Commission on Money and Credit wants him to have.

 

The objective of the Commission on Money and Credit (to finish the conversion of America into a total socialist state, under the dictatorship of whatever „proletarian“ happens to be enthroned in the White House) can be seen, between the lines, in the Commission’s remarks about the „formidable problem“ of unemployment. The Commission wants unemployment to drop to the point where the number of jobless workers will equal the number of vacant jobs! And the clear implication is that the federal government must adopt whatever policies necessary to create this condition.


Such a condition can exist only in a slave system–like the socialist system of communist China where, for example, all „farmers“ (men, women, and children) enjoy full employment; under the whips of overseers, on the collective farms of communism. The Commission on Money and Credit was created on November 21, 1957, by the Committee for Economic Development (CED). In the 1957 Annual Report of the CED, Mr. Donald K. David, CED Chairman, gave the history of the Commission on Money and Credit. Mr. David said:
„CED began nine years ago [1948] to call attention to the need for a comprehensive reassessment of our entire system of money and credit. „When the last such survey of the economic scene was made by the Aldrich Commission in 1911, we had no central banking system, no guaranteed deposits or guaranteed mortgages. There were no personal or corporate income taxes; no group insurance plans, pension funds, or Social Security system…. „Although CED had envisaged a commission created by government, the inability of government to obtain the consensus required for launching the study became as apparent as the need for avoiding further delay. So, after receiving encouragement from other research institutions, leaders in Congress, the Administration, and from various leaders in private life, CED’s Trustees decided to sponsor the effort, assisted by a grant from The Ford Foundation….“

 

Here is the membership of the CED’s Commission on Money and Credit:
Frazar B. Wilde, Chairman (President of Connecticut General Life Insurance Company) Hans Christian Sonne, Vice-Chairman (New York; official in numerous foundations and related organizations, such as Twentieth Century Fund; American-Scandanavian Foundation; National Planning Association; and so on) Adolf A. Berle, Jr. (New York; Berle has been in and out of important posts in government for many years; he is an anti-communist socialist; he resigned from the Commission on Money and Credit to accept his present job handling Latin American affairs in the State Department) James B. Black (Chairman of the Board of Pacific Gas and Electric Company) Marriner S. Eccles (Chairman of the Board of the First Security Corporation; formerly Assistant to the
Secretary of the Treasury under Roosevelt; Governor of Federal Reserve Board; and official in numerous international banking organizations, such as the Export-Import Bank) Lamar Fleming, Jr. (Chairman of the Board of Anderson, Clayton & Co., Houston, Texas) Henry H. Fowler (Washington, D.C.; resigned from the Commission on February 3 to accept appointment from Kennedy as Under Secretary of the Treasury) Gaylord A. Freeman, Jr. (President of the First National Bank, Chicago) Philip M. Klutznick (Park Forest, Ill., resigned from the Commission on February 8, to accept appointment from President Kennedy as United States Representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council) Fred Lazarus, Jr. (Chairman of the Board of Federated Department Stores, Inc.) Isador Lubin (Professor of Public Affairs at Rutgers University) J. Irwin Miller (Chairman of the Board of Cummins Engine Company) Robert R. Nathan (Washington, D.C.; has been in and out of many important government jobs since the first Roosevelt Administration) Emil Rieve (President emeritus of the Textile Workers Union–AFL-CIO) David Rockefeller (President of Chase Manhattan Bank) Stanley H. Ruttenberg (Research Director for AFL-CIO) Charles Sawyer (Cincinnati lawyer, prominent in Democratic Party politics in Ohio) Earl B. Schwulst (President of the Bowery Savings Bank in New York) Charles B. Shuman (President of the American Farm Bureau Federation) Jesse W. Tapp (Chairman of the Board, Bank of America) John Cameron Thomson (former Chairman of the Board of Northwest Bancorporation, Minneapolis) Willard L. Thorp (Director of the Merrill Center for Economics at Amherst College) Theodore O. Yntema (Vice President in Charge of Finance, Ford Motor Company) William F. Schnitzler (Secretary-Treasurer of AFL-CIO; resigned from the Commission in 1960) Joseph M., Dodge (Chairman of the Board of Detroit Bank and Trust Co.; resigned from the Commission in 1960) Beardsley Ruml (well-known and influential new deal economist who held numerous posts with foundations and related organizations; is sometimes called the father of the federal withholding tax law, enacted during World War II; Dr. Ruml died before the Commission on Money and Credit completed its report)
Fred T. Greene (President of the Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis; died before the Commission completed its report) The director of research for the Commission Was Dr. Bertrand Fox, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. His assistant was Dr. Eli Shapiro, Professor of Finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


Of the 27 persons who served as members of the Commission on Money and Credit, 13 (Wilde, Sonne, Berle, Fleming, Fowler, Lubin, Nathan, Rockefeller, Tapp, Thorp, Yntema, Dodge, Ruml) were members of the Council on Foreign Relations.


In other words, the Commission on Money and Credit was just another tax-exempt propaganda agency of America’s invisible government, the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

The above discussion of the Commission on Money and Credit, together with the roster of membership, was first published in The Dan Smoot Report dated July 3, 1961. On September 22, 1961, Mr. Charles B. Shuman, President of the American Farm Bureau Federation, wrote me a letter, saying:
„I was a member of the Commission on Money and Credit but you will notice that I filed very strong objections to several of the recommendations which you brought to the attention of your readers. I do not agree with the Commission recommendations to authorize the President of the United States to vary the rate of income tax. Neither do I agree that the gold reserve requirement should be abandoned. I agree with several of your criticisms of the Report but I cannot agree that ‚the objective of the Commission on Money and Credit (to finish the conversion of America into a total socialist state, under the dictatorship of whatever proletarian happens to be enthroned in the White House) can be seen, between the lines, in the Commission’s remarks about the formidable problem of unemployment.‘


„At its worst, it was a compromise of the divergent viewpoint of the conservative and liberal members of the Commission.“

 

I will not argue with Mr. Shuman, an honest and honorable man, about the objective of the Commission; but I will reassert the obvious: recommendations of the Commission on Money and Credit, if fully implemented, would finish the conversion of America into a total socialist state.

 

As pointed out before, the various agencies which interlock with the Council on Foreign Relations do not have formal affiliation with the Council, or generally, with each other; but their effective togetherness is revealed by their unanimity of purpose: They are all working toward the ultimate objective of creating a one-world socialist system and making America a part of it.


This ambitious scheme was first conceived and put into operation, during the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, by Colonel Edward M. House, and by the powerful international bankers whom House influenced. House founded the Council on Foreign Relations for the purpose of creating (and conditioning the American people to accept) what House called a „positive“ foreign policy for America–a policy which would entwine the affairs of America with those of other nations until this nation would be sucked into a world-government arrangement.

 

Colonel House knew, however, that America could not become a province in a one-world socialist system unless America’s economy was first socialized. Consequently, House laid the groundwork for „positive“ domestic policies of government too–policies which could gradually place government in control of the nation’s economy until, before the public realized what was happening, we would already have a socialist dictatorship.


The following passages are from pages 152-157 of The Intimate Papers of Colonel House:
„The extent of Colonel House’s influence upon the legislative plans of the Administration [Wilson’s] may be gathered from a remarkable document…. In the autumn of 1912, immediately after the presidential election [when Wilson was elected for his first term] there was published a novel, or political romance, entitled Philip Dru: Administrator. „

 

It was the story of a young West Point graduate … who was caught by the spirit of revolt against the tyranny of privileged interests. A stupid and reactionary government at Washington provokes armed rebellion, in which Dru joins whole-heartedly and which he ultimately leads to complete success. He himself becomes a dictator and proceeds by ordinance to remake the mechanism of government, to reform the basic laws that determine the relation of the classes, to remodel the defensive forces of the republic, and to bring about an international grouping or league of powers….


„Five years after its publication, an enterprising bookseller, noting the growing influence of House in the Wilson Administration, wrote with regard to the book: ‚As time goes on the interest in it becomes more intense, due to the fact that so many of the ideas expressed by Philip Dru: Administrator, have become laws of this Republic, and so many of his ideas have been discussed as becoming laws…. Is Colonel E. M. House of Texas the author?‘ … „Colonel House was, in truth, the author…. „‚Philip Dru‘ … gives us an insight into the main political and social principles that actuated House in his companionship with President Wilson.

 

Through it runs the note of social democracy reminiscent of Louis Blanc and the revolutionaries of 1848…. „Through the book also runs the idea that in the United States, government is unresponsive to popular desires–a ’negative‘ government, House calls it…. „The specific measures enacted by Philip Dru as Administrator of the nation, indicated the reforms desired by House.


„The Administrator appointed a ‚board composed of economists … who … were instructed to work out a tariff law which would contemplate the abolition of the theory of protection as a governmental policy.‘ „‚The Administrator further directed the tax board to work out a graduated income tax…. „Philip Dru also provided for the ‚formulation of a new banking law, affording a flexible currency bottomed largely upon commercial assets…. He also proposed making corporations share with the government and states a certain part of their earnings…. „‚Labor is no longer to be classed as an inert commodity to be bought and sold by the law of supply and demand.‘


„Dru ‚prepared an old age pension law and also a laborer’s insurance law….‘ „‚He had incorporated in the Franchise Law the right of Labor to have one representative upon the boards of corporations and to share a certain percentage of the earnings above the wages, after a reasonable percent upon the capital had been earned. In turn, it was to be obligatory upon them (the laborers) not to strike, but to submit all grievances to arbitration.'“
Need it be pointed out that „Louis Blanc and the revolutionaries of 1848,“ on whom Colonel House patterned his plan for remaking America, had a scheme for the world virtually identical with that of Karl Marx and Frederick Engles–those socialist revolutionaries who wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848?

 

In 1918, Franklin K. Lane, Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of the Interior, in a private letter, wrote, concerning the influence of ‚Philip Dru‘ on President Wilson: „All that book has said should be, comes about…. The President comes to Philip Dru, in the end.“ The end is a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat, identical with that which now exists in the Soviet Union. We have already „come to“ a major portion of Colonel House’s program for us.

 

The unrealized portions of the program are now promises in the platforms of both our major political parties, they are in the legislative proposals of the Administration in power and of its leaders in Congress; they are the objectives of the Council on Foreign Relations, whose members occupy key posts in Government, from the Presidency downward, and who dominate a vast network of influential, tax-exempt „educational“ agencies, whose role is to „educate“ the Congress and the people to accept the total socialist program for America.


The Committee for Economic Development (which created the Commission on Money and Credit) is the major propaganda arm of the Council on Foreign Relations, in the important work of socializing the American economy. Paul G. Hoffman is the father of CED. Hoffman, an influential member of the CFR, was formerly President of
Studebaker Corp.; former President of Ford Foundation; Honorary Chairman of the Fund for the Republic; has held many powerful jobs in government since the days of Roosevelt; and is now Director of the Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development–SUNFED–the UN agency which is giving American tax money as economic aid to communist Castro in Cuba.

 

Hoffman, in 1939, conceived the idea of setting up a tax-exempt „economic committee“ which would prepare new economic policies for the nation and then prepare the public and Congress to accept them.


Hoffman founded the Committee for Economic Development in 1942. The organization was incorporated in September of that year, with Paul G. Hoffman as Chairman. Major offices in the Committee for Economic Development have always been occupied by members of the Council on Foreign Relations–persons who generally have important positions in many other interlocking organizations, in the foundations, in the big corporations which finance the great interlock, and/or in government.


Here are the Council on Foreign Relations members who joined Paul Hoffman in setting up the CED in 1942:
William Benton (former U.S. Senator, now Chairman of the Board of Encyclopaedia Britannica; former Assistant Secretary of State; Trustee and former Vice President, University of Chicago) Will L. Clayton (founder of Anderson, Clayton & Co., Houston; former Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Under Secretary of State under Roosevelt and Truman; Eisenhower’s National Security Training Commissioner) Ralph E. Flanders (former United States Senator) Marion B. Folsom (Eisenhower’s Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; many other positions in the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations; Board of Overseers, Harvard) Eric A. Johnston (former Director, Economic Stabilization Agency; many other positions in the Roosevelt-Truman-Eisenhower Administrations; former Director and President of U.S. Chamber of Commerce; now President of the Motion Picture Association of America) Thomas B. McCabe (former Lend-Lease Administrator; former Chairman of the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System; President of Scott Paper Company since 1927) Harry Scherman (founder and Chairman of the Board, Book of the Month Club, Inc.)


Here are Council on Foreign Relations members who were Chairmen of the Committee for Economic Development from 1942 through 1959:

  • Paul G. Hoffman, 1942-48
  • Marion B. Folsom, 1950-53
  • Meyer Kestnbaum, 1953-55 (President, Hart Schaffner & Marx; Director, Fund for the Republic; Director, Chicago and Northwestern Railroad)
  • J. D. Zellerbach, 1955-57 (Eisenhower’s Ambassador to Italy; President and Director of Crown-Zellerbach Corp.; Chairman of the Board and Director, Fibreboard Products, Inc.; Director, Wells Fargo Bank & Union Trust Co.)
  • Donald K. David, 1957-59 (Dean, Harvard University; Trustee of the Ford Foundation, Carnegie Institute, Merrill Foundation; Board of Directors, R. H. Macy & Co., General Electric Corp., First National City Bank of New York, Aluminum, Ltd., Ford Motor Co.)

Of the CED Board of Trustees listed in the CED’s 1957 Annual Report, 47 were members of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

The Research and Policy Committee of the Committee for Economic Development is the select inner-group which actually runs the CED. In 1957, the following members of the Research and Policy Committee were also members of the Council on Foreign Relations:

  • Frazar B. Wilde, Chairman
  • Frank Altschul (Chairman of the Board, General American Investors Corp.; Vice Chairman, National Planning Association; Vice President, Woodrow Wilson Foundation)
  • Elliott V. Bell (former economic adviser to Thomas E. Dewey; former research consultant to Wendell Willkie; now Chairman of the Executive Committee, McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Inc.; Publisher and Editor of Business Week; Director of Bank of Manhattan Co., New York Life Insurance Co., Carrier Corp., Trustee of the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation)
  • William Benton
  • Thomas D. Cabot (former Director of Office of International Security Affairs, State Department; now President of Godfrey L. Cabot, Inc.; Director of John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., American Mutual Liability Insurance Co.; Trustee, Hampton Institute, Radcliff College; member of the Corporation of Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
  • Walker L. Cisler (former member of the Atomic Energy Commission, Economic Cooperation Administration, Military Government of Germany; now President of Detroit-Edison Co., Trustee, Cornell University)
  • Emilio G. Collado (former State Department career official; now Treasurer, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey)
  • Gardner Cowles (former Domestic Director, Office of War Information; now President, Des Moines Register & Tribune, Cowles Magazines, Inc.–Look, etc.–)
  • Donald K. David
  • William C. Foster (former Under Secretary of Commerce, Deputy Secretary of Defense; now Executive Vice President, Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp.)
  • Philip L. Graham (former law secretary to Supreme Court Justices Stanley Reed and Felix Frankfurter; now President and Publisher of The Washington Post and Times Herald)
  • Meyer Kestnbaum
  • Thomas B. McCabe
  • Don G. Mitchell (Chairman of the Board, Sylvania Electric Products, Inc.)
  • Alfred C. Neal (former official, Office of Price Administration; now member of the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; President of CED)
  • Howard C. Petersen (former council to Committee to Draft Selective Service Regulations; Assistant Secretary of War; now President, Philadelphia Trust Company; Trustee, Temple University)
  • Philip D. Reed (many positions in the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations; member, U. S. Delegation to UN Conference at San Francisco, 1945; now Chairman, Finance Committee, General Electric Co.; Director of Canadian General Electric Co., Bankers Trust Co., Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.)
  • Beardsley Ruml
  • Harry Scherman
  • Wayne Chatfield Taylor (many government positions including Assistant Secretary of Treasury, Under Secretary of Commerce; presently an economic adviser)
  • Theodore O. Yntema

In its annual report for 1957, the Committee for Economic Development boasted of some of its past  ccomplishments and its future plans. Mr. Howard C. Petersen, Chairman of the CED’s Subcommittee on Economic Development Assistance (and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations) said that his committee originated the idea of creating the Development Loan Fund, which was authorized by Congress in Section 6 of the Foreign Aid Bill of 1957, which Eisenhower established by Executive Order on December 13, 1957, and which may be the most sinister step ever taken by the internationalist foreign-aid lobby.


In 1956, when President Eisenhower requested an appropriation of $4,860,000,000 for foreign aid, he asked Congress to authorize foreign aid commitments for the next ten years. Congress refused the ten-year plan. In 1957, the internationalists‘ ideal of a permanent authorization for foreign aid was wrapped up in the Development Loan Fund scheme.


Only a few Congressmen raised any question about it. Below are passages taken from the Congressional Record of July 15, 1957, the day the Development Loan Fund was discussed in the House.


Congressman A. S. J. Carnahan (Democrat, Missouri) floor manager for the Foreign Aid Bill, rose to explain Section 6, which established the Development Loan Fund, saying:
„The United States, in order to provide effective assistance [to all underdeveloped countries of the world] … must have available a substantial fund upon which it can draw. The fund must be large enough so that all of the underdeveloped nations of the free world will feel that they will have an opportunity to participate in it.

 

„We cannot wisely say that we should make a small amount available the first year and see how things work out. If we are able to offer assistance only to the select few, we will inevitably antagonize many other countries whose future friendship and cooperation will be important to us … in addition to an initial authorization of an appropriation of $500 million, the bill includes authorization for borrowing from the Treasury $500 million beginning in fiscal 1959, and an additional $500 million beginning in fiscal 1960.“


Thus, Congressman Carnahan, arguing for foreign aid, outlined some of the absurd fallacies of foreign aid: namely, if we give foreign aid at all, we must provide enough so that every foreign government in the world will always be able to get all it wants. We can exercise no choice in whom we give or lend our money to. If we give only „to the select few“ we offend all others.


Congressman H. R. Gross (Republican, Iowa) asked a question:
„What interest rate will be charged upon the loans that are to be made?“ Congressman Carnahan: „The legislation does not designate the interest rate.“
Mr. Gross: „What will be the length of the loan to be made?“
Mr. Carnahan:“The legislation does not designate the length of the loans. The rules for the loans, which will determine the interest rates, the length of time the loans will run, the size of the installment repayments, and other
administrative details, will be taken care of by the Executive Department.“

Congressman John L. Pilcher (Democrat, Georgia) made the point that the manager of the Development Loan Fund, appointed by the President, could lend money to: „any foreign government or foreign government agency, to any corporation, any individual or any group of persons.“

Congressman Carnahan: „That is correct.“
Congressman Pilcher: „In other words, it would be possible for an individual to borrow $1 million or $5 million to set up some business in some foreign country, if the manager so agreed; is that correct?“
Congressman Carnahan: „If they met the criteria set up for loans.“
Congressman Pilcher: „The manager … has the authority to collect or compromise any obligation in this fund. In other words, he can make a loan this month and if he so desires he can turn around and compromise it or cancel it next month which is a straight out grant in the disguise of a soft-loan program.“
Congressman Porter Hardy, Jr. (Democrat, Virginia) said: „The manager of the Fund has almost unlimited authority to do anything he pleases.“
Congressman Barratt O’Hara (Democrat, Illinois), trying to quiet fears that this bill was granting unlimited, uncontrollable power to some appointed manager, said that the blank-check grant of authority was not really being made to the fund manager at all. The power was being given to the President of the United States, and the manager would merely „perform such functions with respect to this title as the President may direct.“
Congressman Gross said: „That is more power than any President should ask for or want the responsibility for.“

Congressman Leon H. Gavin (Republican, Pennsylvania) pointed out that we already have 5 or 6 lending agencies in this field: The International Co-operation Administration; the Export-Import Bank; the International Bank; the International Monetary Fund; the International Development Corporation; and the World Bank. Why, then, do we need this new one, the Development Loan Fund?
Congressman Walter H. Judd (Republican, Minnesota) had already answered that question, explaining that Development Loan Fund money would go to foreigners who could not qualify for loans from other agencies.
Congressman Gross said that all foreign nations which will borrow from this Fund could get all the American private capital they need if they had political systems which made lending to them sensible or feasible.

 

In short, the Development Loan Fund (which the Committee for Economic Development boasts paternity of) is a scheme for giving American tax money to foreigners who have proven themselves such poor credit risks that they cannot obtain loans even from other governmental and UN agencies–and who will use the money to line their own
pockets and to build socialistic enterprises which will eliminate possibilities of freedom in their own land, and will compete in world markets with American enterprise.

 

In its 1957 annual report, the CED also boasted about the work of its Area Development Committee. At that time, the two leading members of this particular committee of the CED (who were also members of the Council on Foreign Relations) were Mr. Stanley Marcus, President of Neiman-Marcus Co., in Dallas; and the late Dr. Beardsley Ruml, widely known New Deal socialist „economist.“

 

Mr. Jervis J. Babb, Chairman of the CED’s Area Development Committee (President of Lever Brothers Company) said:
„The new area development program, approved by the Trustees [of CED] at their May [1957] meeting in Chicago is underway…. Already, close relationships have been established with organizations, both public and private, that are conducting research and administering programs relating to area development…. „Five of CED’s College-Community Research Centers … have been selected as a starting point of CED’s area development pilot projects. The five centers are: Boston, Utica, Alabama, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.“


The CED’s Area Development work has brought CED personnel into close cooperation with the collection of tax-exempt „municipal planning“ organizations housed in a Rockefeller-financed center at 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, which has become national headquarters for the production and placement of experts–who fabricate
„progressive“ legislation for government at all levels; who rewrite our „archaic“ state constitutions; and who take over as city managers, or county managers, or metropolitan managers, or regional managers whenever people in any locality have progressed to the point of accepting government by imported experts as a substitute for government by elected local citizens.

 

In other words, through the Area Development activities of the Committee for Economic Development, the invisible government of America–the Council on Foreign Relations–has a hand in the powerful drive for Metropolitan Government. Metropolitan Government, as conceived by socialist planners, would destroy the whole fabric of government and social organization in the United States. Metropolitan Government would eliminate the individual states as meaningful political entities, would divide the nation into metropolitan regions sprawling across state lines, and would place the management of these regional
governments in the hands of appointed experts answerable not to local citizens but to the supreme political power in Washington. (For detailed discussion, see The Dan Smoot Report, April 13 and 20, 1959, „Metropolitan Government–Part One,“ and „Metropolitan Government–Part Two.“)


Through the Area Development activities of the Committee for Economic Development, the Council on Foreign Relations has supported the Urban Renewal program. Urban Renewal with federal tax money was authorized in the National Housing Act of 1949, and enlarged in scope by amendments to the Housing Acts of 1954, 1956, and 1957; but it did not become a vigorously promoted nationwide program until late 1957, after the Council on Foreign Relations (through the CED) started pushing it. Urban Renewal is a federally financed program of city planning which requires city governments to seize homes and other private property from some citizens and re-sell them, at below cost, to real estate promoters and other private citizens for developments that the city planners consider desirable.


Under the ancient, but awesome, right of eminent domain, city governments do not have the power to take private real estate from one citizen for the profit of another citizen. But in November, 1954, the Supreme Court in an urban renewal case, said that Congress and state legislature can do anything they like to the private property of private citizens as long as they claim they are doing it for public good. Federal urban renewal has opened rich veins of public money for graft, corruption, and political vote buying; and it is destroying private property rights under the pretext that clearing slums will eliminate the causes of crime. Moreover, urban renewal authorizes the seizure not just of slum property, but of all private property in a whole section of a city, for resale to private interests which promise to build something that governmental planners will like. Federal urban renewal–since the Council on Foreign Relation’s CED started supporting it–has become a national movement with frightful implications and dangers. (For detailed discussion of urban renewal, see The Dan Smoot Report, September 29, 1958, and October 6, 1958.)

 

In its 1957 Annual Report, the Committee for Economic Development gave details on its educational work in public schools and colleges. This work was, at that time, carried on primarily by the CED’s Business-Education Committee, and by two subsidiary operations which that Committee created: the College-Community Research Centers and the Joint Council on Economic Education.

 

From the 1957 Annual Report of the Committee for Economic Development: „CED’s efforts to promote and improve economic education in the schools are of special appeal to those who are concerned … both with education and the progress of the free enterprise system. The Business-Education program and the numerous College-
Community Research Centers it has sponsored, together with the use of CED publications as teaching materials, represent an important contribution to economic education on the college level.


„In the primary and secondary schools, the introduction of economics into teaching programs is moving forward steadily, thanks largely to the Joint Council on Economic Education which CED helped to establish and continues to support…. „The Business-Education Committee continued in 1957 its work with the College-Community Research Centers and with the Joint Council on Economic Education.


„The Joint Council’s program to improve the teaching of economics in the public schools is now operating in 39 states, and the 25 college-community research centers active last year brought to more than 3000 the number of business and academic men who have worked together on economic research projects of local and regional importance…. „

 

In its work, the committee [Business-Education Committee] is finding especially valuable the experience gained through the operation of the College-Community Research Centers. These centers are financed partly by CED, partly by the Fund for Adult Education [a Ford Foundation operation] and partly by locally-raised funds….

 

„The Joint Council [on Economic Education] is making excellent progress in training teachers and incorporating economics education in all grade levels of public school systems. In addition to its national service programs, the Council has developed strong local or state councils which not only help guide its work but last year raised more than $500,000 to finance local projects.


„CED helped to establish and works closely with this independent organization [Joint Council on Economic Education] which is now conducting four major types of activities.
„1. Summer Workshops for Teachers. These working sessions, sponsored by colleges and universities, provide three weeks training in economics and develop ways to incorporate economics into the school curriculum. Over 19,000 persons have participated since the program began.
„2. Cooperating School Program. Twenty school systems are working with the Joint Council [on Economic Education] to demonstrate how economics can be incorporated into the present curriculum….
„3. College Program. Few students majoring in education now take economics courses; therefore, 20 leading institutions are working with the Joint Council [on Economic Education] to develop better training in economics for prospective teachers….
„4. High School-Community Projects. The Joint Council [on Economic Education] is helping to conduct demonstration programs which show how students can use community resources to improve their economics education.

 

For example, the Whittier, California school system conducted a six-week program to help high school seniors understand the kind of economy in which they would live and work. They joined in research studies on regional economic problems being carried onby the Southern California College-Community research center….“ The Committee for Economic Development claims that its educational work in economics is dedicated to progress of free enterprise; and many of its programs in schools and colleges are educational; but its subtle and relentless emphasis is on the governmental interventionism that is the essence of New-Dealism, Fair-Dealism, Modern-Republicanism, and New-Frontierism–the governmental interventionism prescribed long ago as the way to socialize the economy of America in preparation for integrating this nation into a worldwide socialist system.

 

Paul Hoffman’s CED has come a long way since 1942. In 1957, the CED’s College-Community Research Centers had „Projects in Progress“ in 33 institutions of higher learning:
Bates College, Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin College, Brown University, Colby College, Dartmouth College, Emory University, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, Iowa State College, Lewis & Clark College, McGill University, Northeastern University, Northwestern University, Occidental College, Pomona College, Reed College, Rutgers University, Southern Methodist University, Tulane University, University of Alabama, University of Arkansas, University of Iowa, University of Maine, University ofMichigan, University of Minnesota, University of North Carolina, University of Oklahoma, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Utica College of Syracuse University, and Washington University.

 

In 1957, the following institutions of higher learning were participating in the CED’s Joint Council on Economic Education „College Program“ to develop training in economics for prospective teachers:
Brigham Young University, George Peabody College for Teachers, Indiana University, Montclair State Teachers College, New York University, Ohio State University, Oklahoma A & M College, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Syracuse University, Teachers College of Columbia University, University of Colorado, University of Connecticut, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, University
of Southern California, University of Tennessee,University of Texas, University of Washington.

 

In 1957, the following 20 school systems were working in the CED’s Joint Council on Economic Education „Cooperating School Program,“ to demonstrate how economics can be incorporated in the school curriculum, beginning in the first grade:
Akron, Ohio; Albion, Illinois; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Colton, California; Dayton, Ohio; Fort Dodge, Iowa; Hartford, Connecticut; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Lexington, Alabama; Minneapolis, Minnesota; New York City, New York; Portland, Oregon; Providence, Rhode Island; Ridgewood, New Jersey; Seattle, Washington; Syracuse, New York; University City, Missouri; Webster Groves, Missouri; West Hartford, Connecticut; Whittier, California.


As indicated, the Business-Education Committee of the CED is the select group which supervises this vast „educational“ effort reaching into public schools, colleges, and communities throughout the nation:
James L. Allen, Senior Partner of Booz, Allen & Hamilton; Jervis J. Babb, Chairman of the Board of Lever Brothers, Company; Sarah G. Blanding, President of Vassar College; W. Harold Brenton, President of Brenton Brothers, Inc.; James F. Brownlee, former government official who is Chairman of the Board of the Minute Maid Corporation, and a director of many other large corporations, such as American Sugar Refining Co., Bank of Manhattan, Gillette Safety Razor, R. H. Macy Co., Pillsbury Mills, American Express; Everett Needham Case, President of Colgate University; James B. Conant, former President of Harvard and Ambassador to Germany; John T. Connor, President of Merck & Co.; John S. Dickey, President of Dartmouth College; John M. Fox, President of Minute Maid Corporation; Paul S. Gerot, President of Pillsbury Mills; Stanley Marcus, President of Neiman-Marcus; W. A. Patterson, President of United Air Lines; Morris B. Pendleton, President of Pendleton Tool Industries; Walter Rothschild, Chairman of the Board of Abraham & Straus; Thomas J. Watson, Jr., President of International Business Machines Corporation; J. Cameron Thomson, Chairman of the Board of Northwest Bancorporation.


Note that three of these CED Business-Education Committee members–Conant, Dickey, and Marcus–are influential members of the Council on Foreign Relations and have many connections with the big foundations financing the great CFR interlock.

 

In addition to the educational work which it discusses in its 1957 Annual Report, the Committee for Economic Development utilizes many other means to inject its (and the CFR’s) economic philosophies into community thought-streams throughout the nation.
Here, for example, are passages from a news story in The Dallas Morning News, June 30, 1953:

 

„Dallas businessmen and Southern Methodist University officials Monday [June 29] launched a $25,000 business research project financed through agencies of the Ford Foundation.

 

„Stanley Marcus of Dallas, a national trustee of Ford Foundation’s Committee for Economic Development, said the project would go on two or three years under foundation funds. After that … the City might foot the bill….“

 

The SMU project–along with several others like it throughout the nation–is designed to foster study in regional and local business problems, Marcus commented.


„Here’s how the Dallas project will work:

„A business executive committee, composed of some of Dallas‘ top businessmen, will be selected. These men then will select a group of younger executives for a business executive research committee. This will be the working group, Marcus explained…. „

 

At SMU, several of the schools‘ chief officials will act as a senior faculty committee…. Acting as co-ordinator for the project will be Warren A. Law … who soon will get his doctorate in economics from Harvard University.“ The „experimental“ stage of this Business Executives Research Committee lasted five years in Dallas.

 

During that time, the researchers filed two major reports: an innocuous one in 1955 concerning traffic and transit problems in Dallas; and a most significant one in 1956, strongly urging metropolitan government for Dallas County, patterned after the metro system in Toronto, Canada. In October, 1958, Dr. Donald K. David, then Chairman of the Committee for Economic Development and Vice Chairman of the Ford Foundation (and also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations) went to Dallas to speak to the Citizens Council, an organization composed of leading Dallas business executives, whose president that year was Stanley Marcus. Dr. David told the business men that they should give greater support and leadership to the government’s foreign aid program; and, of course, he urged vast expansion of foreign aid, particularly to „underdeveloped nations.“


That was the signal and the build-up. The next month–November, 1958–the experimental Business Executives Research Committee, which the CED had formed in 1953 and which had already completed its mission with its report and recommendation on metropolitan government for Dallas, was converted into „The Dallas CED Associates.“

 

Here is a news story about that event, taken from the November 11, 1958, Dallas Morning News:
„A Dallas Committee for Economic Development–the first of its kind in the nation–has been founded at Southern Methodist University. It will give voice to Southwestern opinions–and knowledge–on economic, matters or international importance. Keystone will be an economic research center to be established soon at SMU.
„A steering group composed of Dallas and Southwestern business, industrial and educational leaders laid the groundwork for both committee and center in a weekend meeting at SMU.“

 

The „steering group“ included George McGhee and Neil Mallon. Mr. McGhee (presently Assistant Secretary of State for Policy Planning) is, and has been for many years, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Neil Mallon, then Chairman of the Board of Dresser Industries and a former official of the Foreign Policy Association, founded the Dallas Council on World Affairs in 1951. Dresser Industries is one of the big corporations which contribute money to the Council on Foreign Relations.


In the group with Mr. McGhee and Mr. Mallon were five SMU officials, a Dallas banker, a real estate man, and Stanley Marcus, the head man in the „steering group“ which set up the Dallas Associates of the Committee for Economic Development.


The first literary product of the Dallas Associates of the CED–at least, the first to come to my attention–is a most expensive-looking 14-page printed booklet entitled „The Role of Private Enterprise in the Economic Development of Underdeveloped Nations.“ The title page reveals that this pamphlet is a policy statement of The Dallas Associates of CED. It is little more than a rewrite of the speech which Dr. Donald K. David had made to the Dallas Citizens Council in November, 1958, urging business to give support and leadership to the government’s foreign aid programs.

 

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