Bank Failures, Bankers Manifesto, Digging Up the Conspiracy, Getting to the Bottom.

Is the Banker’s Manifesto Behind all the Bank Failures? What is the Banker’s Manifesto? Is it real? Is it evidence of a grand conspiracy? Or is it just controlled opposition?

Podcast reading of this article:
Listen to “Verifying the Banker’s Manifesto of 1892; A Study of a Conspiracy” on Spreaker.
What is the Banker’s Manifesto?  Is it real? Is it evidence of a grand conspiracy?

The question of tariff reform must be urged through the organization known as the Democratic Party, and the question of protection with the reciprocity must be forced to view through the Republican Party.

By thus dividing voters, we can get them to expand their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us, except as teachers to the common herd.

Thus, by discrete action, we can secure all that has been so generously planned and successfully accomplished.

– Source: The Bankers Manifesto, 1892?

Introduction

The so called “Banker’s Manifesto of 1892” is an alleged claim that bankers in America got together, and admitted to conspiring against the people of America, and wrote it down in plain language so that all the bankers could be on the same page.  The thought here is that if they admitted to it, then it should be all the evidence needed to prove a grand conspiracy against our country by a small group of people.

If this quote is real, then the implications are far reaching.  It means that the public in general, has been completely duped into fighting against themselves, year after year, for over a century, for the benefit of an elite few and their private agenda. The left/right battle would be to keep us in their game.

Generally, when people post about this, those who already believe in such a grand conspiracy share it willingly, hoping to “wake up” other people and prove there’s a conspiracy we need to be aware of.

When those who believe in such a conspiracy try to teach others who don’t believe, the most common reaction is that the potential student is simply not interested.  Sometimes people lose friends over trying too hard.  In the cases where the potential student is curious enough to look at the evidence, even for a moment, the most important thing for the teacher is to have shared something credible, that is verifiable and true.

Even if something is true, if the source itself falls short of a high standard of evidence, the opportunity to have helped someone “wake up” is gone, and the stereo type of the crazy conspiracy-theorist will have been reinforced.

With all that said, I decided to investigate the Banker’s Manifesto.  I will walk you through where this comes from, a variety of sources online, how some of them are dead ends that will not convince a non-believer, and I will find out if there is any truth to this document or not.

The goal here is to show an example of the type of research truth-seekers should engage in, before spreading information online about really important things. Our standard of evidence should be very high, if we want to break through the media’s stereo type of conspiracy-theorist to the average sleeping person.

This article will first show you the claims, and then we’ll investigate those claims.

Examples of online sources

It’s important to be aware of what we share publicly. How easily can your article be debunked? What does that do to the overall credibility of anyone who argues for the same position?

Images similar to this one have been circulated on social media for many years, taking different forms.  Such an image implies something very official, with signatures and all.  But it is very clear that this is a modern re-creation and not a real document for multiple reasons.

2010: Social Media

2014: Social Media

2017:

Podcasts such as this one, reference the document and how it was allegedly recorded in the US congressional record.

Certain unverifiable sources

Really big claims should always be accompanied with sources that can be verified. Let’s walk through various sources that are not verifiable.  This helps us identify things to look for, when deciding what types of sources to share to prove something is true.

Source: Freedom School

This source is a random web page of the site “Freedom School”: https://freedom-school.com/money/bankers-manifesto-of-1892.html

This is the least reliable type of source.  It is just a page someone typed out, that not only misses any kind of images of original sources or links to where you can find a source, but it does not even attempt to explain where it came from.  No thinking person should take this page to mean anything more than the imaginations of the writer.  Again, that doesn’t mean it’s not ‘real’, per se, but certainly this page lends no credibility to the manifesto. In fact, a trick that is sometimes used to debunk something that is true is to create an unreliable looking page, like this, so that people no longer take it seriously.

Source: Anti Corruption Society

Another website, the Anti Corruption Society blog, provides this document as their source: https://anticorruptionsociety.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/bankers-manifesto-1892.pdf

Here, at least a PDF download feels like you’re downloading a document of some kind.

But still, you’ll find that this is something any bored conspiracy-theorist or fake-news-maker could create in their spare time very quickly.  The document does mention a US congressman, and some vague leads, but I have seen a lot of fake news over the years claiming congress did things that they didn’t really do.  My favorite fake story was when “congress passed a bill to purchase 30,000 guillotines to cut off our heads“, as if ISIS had infiltrated congress. Read through the first paragraph on that USA Today article, and see how easy it is to use these fake news stories to make conspiracy-theorists sound ridiculous.

The document attempts to give a source as “New American, 1934”.  But this is not a proper source.  Searching the internet for such a vague source will not be straight forward.  Someone making a big claim should have an exact page number, issue number, etc.,  with a hard scan of the original source where the bankers published these words.  And if possible, even a link where the reader can get a hard copy of the original source themselves; that would add credibility.

Source: Alleged Congressional Record

This source I found from a post as “proof” of congressional record: https://archive.org/details/BankersManifesto1892/mode/2up

Initially, it looks hopeful that it might be a good source being on a site like archive.org, but the document itself says the author is “unknown” and the content of document is again nothing but one unknown person’s ramblings with no verification as to the actual claim of the congressional record.

Older Book Source: Imperialism in America, Its Rise and Progress

This digital book can be found on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=LR3iAAAAMAAJ&rdid=book-LR3iAAAAMAAJ&rdot=1

This source has more credibility that might start convincing a few people of the possibility to its truth.  But still, it ultimately falls short of the standard of original sources.

Pages 71 and 72 of the book explains that the newspaper, the Chicago Daily Press, published something they said came from “Wall Street”, and then quote the full text of the alleged manifesto.

At least with this book, someone determined to find the original source has a strong lead.  We must find original archives of the Chicago Daily Press from March 21st, 1892, and verify if they did publish such language from “Wall Street”.

In Search of the Congressional Record

First of all, a document being in the congressional record does not guarantee it’s authenticity. You can theoretically enter a “fake” document into the congressional record. However, that would certainly be a political (or legal?) risk for the person entering it on the record, so it may be okay to cautiously assume credibility here.

Anyone can search the public US congressional record at www.congress.gov.  When I searched for the text “question of tariff reform”, four results came up.

I checked each result individually, and none of them matched the alleged bankers manifesto.  It does not seem to be true that this is in the congressional record, unless it was not entered with this exact text.  Feel free to contact me if you know different and I’ll update this article.

In Search of Real Sources

1920: “The Bankers Magazine” published the text, but for the purpose to claim it was a fraud.  Their official statement was “Such a statement as is quoted never appeared in the (bankers) magazine”.  However, this may be misleading.  As we’ve already seen, the original claim is that a newspaper in Chicago published it based on what it nicknamed a “wall street letter”. So it is more of a miscellaneous pamphlet that was privately circulated to certain individuals, not an article in the bankers magazine. The bankers magazine seems to be using a straw-man to debunk the letter.

In my own research on this subject, I found a reddit thread that originally posted the relevant 1892 issue of Bankers Magazine (but the link is broken now), which confirmed that they did not publish the original text of the manifesto. But again, that’s not the claim for what the original source is.

1895: Oklahoma Newspaper, “The Cleveland Voice”, June 8th, 1895, posted a copy of the text stating it came from the Chicago Daily Press (News).

Bankers Manifesto

“This letter was published in the Chicago Daily Press and created quite a furor among the bankers and they at once took steps to destroy that issue of the paper and suppress the further publicity of the letter. Here is the circular. Read it! Think over it!”

1896: Appeal to Reason was a Kansas newspaper, published the text on Saturday, February 8, 1896, which an original scan of the news paper (but still not the letter itself) can be found at newspapers.com:

1894: The Southern Mercury newspaper of Dallas,TX published a report on Nov 15th, 1894 that gives a more clear claim as to exactly how this letter came about, and where the “original-original” source should be.

The circular [the wall street letter] was dropped by a prominent broker on the stock exchange in Chicago, and was picked up by Mr. T. W. Gilruth, then a reporter on the Chicago Daily press, and first published in that paper. The bankers at once took steps to destroy the paper. Mr. Gilruth now resides in Kansas City, Mo.

A few days since the Ohio Populists addressed a letter to Mr. Gilruth requesting a copy of the original and its history. We append his reply,

Kansas City, Mo.,
Oct. 20, 1894

To The Ohio Populist.

Gentlemen — Your letter dated October 17 arrived this morning, and I hasten to answer it in view of the importance of the request you make, and inclose you a copy of the document known as the “Wall Street Letter.” It is a genuine emanation from the people who are engaged in an attempt to destroy “A government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” and establish in lieu thereof a government of plutocracy, long-winded titles, oppression and slavery for the masses.

I had the Wall street letter published in the Chicago Daily Press, which resulted in the bankers taking such steps as destroyed the paper. The Press is no longer published.

I was born at Worthington, Franklin county, O., April 6, 1843. My father, Rev. James Gilruth, was well know all over the state years ago.

He has an abolitionist concerning chattel slavery. I am an abolitionist concerning wage slavery.

Yours fraternally, T.W. Gilruth.

This is as close as we get to an original source, as these are the very words of the person who “found” the “wall street letter” and gave it to the Chicago Daily Press to have it published.

As already referenced, this reddit threat did a similar deep dive.  I commend this guy for his commitment to truth-seeking. By the end of this article you’ll see that I have a similar, but significantly different conclusion than him.

Verify details surrounding the original story

Thanks to our friend in the reddit thread, he identified that the person mentioned in the letter, has a real birth record, as is therefore not a fictitious person.

An Ancestry.com record lists a Thomas Westlake Gilruth matching the birth particulars given in The Mercury. This is our man:

Born in Worthington, Ohio, USA on 6 Apr 1843 to James Gilruth and Mary Westlake. Thomas Westlake married Althea Stimson and had 2 children. Thomas Westlake married L Alice Dewitt. He passed away on 3 Jan 1921 in Kansas, Missouri, USA.

Making Honest Conclusions

We’ve been able to verify that a copy of the letter itself was definitely published in many contemporary newspapers of the era.  The only thing ultimately missing is an image of the original wall street letter itself.  This might be because it was not originally intended to be published, no photograph was taken of it, but newspapers re-typed the content.

Unless we find the original wall street letter itself, we are left with these three possible conclusions, one of which must be true.  And even if we find the letter, we’re still probably left with similar options.

1. The original wall street letter never existed, therefore we know that there was a conspiracy to convince people that the letter existed with coordinated newspapers across the country. Even in this case, somebody wrote the content of the letter before it could be spread around.

2. The letter existed, and all the newspapers reported accurately.

3. A mixture of options 1 and 2. Maybe the letter was actually dropped by accident, but then the bankers took advantage of it as a political tool in their favor.

Personally, I lean heavily towards option #1, based on over a decade of thoughtful experience studying, and actually opposing, real conspiracies in politics. It was created and purposefully leaked, and then the coordinated conspiracy to tell people about it was a strategy of controlled opposition.  This is where the bankers would have willingly outed themselves, because they know people suspected what they were doing anyway. By outing yourself, you get to pick the people who are going to try and oppose you, and thereby control the end result.  Our reddit friend documented very well how this Mr. Gilruth was part of a political movement (populist) whose goals in the end would have actually benefited the world banking establishment.  Things like demanding a public central bank and nationalizing transportation, are very much Marxist goals. The existence of the letter was used for many years to push the populist agenda.

Watch Defending Utah’s presentation on controlled opposition for a full explanation of how that works.

Supporting My Conclusion

This idea that the bankers would fight themselves, is discussed in G. Edward Griffin’s masterpiece, The Creature from Jekyll Island.  In order to help get the original Federal Reserve Act passed, the bankers pretended to be against it publicly.

There are other quotes throughout time that are widely accepted and verifiable, which add additional support to the idea that the two party political system was designed to waste our time.  Additional sources like this add powerful strength to the idea of what the Banker’s manifesto is saying, and shows that this idea has not died over time.  It is a timeless strategy.

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies... is a foolish idea. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.

So even if this whole thing were a pseudo-hoax of one kind, it was definitely a conspiracy of a different kind.  In all cases, someone representing the bankers made the letter, whether to communicate among the bankers or to fool the people– it doesn’t make any difference.

Conclusion

Status: Questionable intentions, verified conspiracy to create the letter

The question of tariff reform must be urged through the organization known as the Democratic Party, and the question of protection with the reciprocity must be forced to view through the Republican Party.

By thus dividing voters, we can get them to expand their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us, except as teachers to the common herd.

Thus, by discrete action, we can secure all that has been so generously planned and successfully accomplished.

– Source: The Bankers Manifesto, 1892

It’s safe to discuss the Bankers Manifesto as part of showing how the grand conspiracy against our freedoms works, but now you have a good set of the facts and context with some rational analysis. This will help you have the most intelligent conversation possible about what it is, and what it means.

 

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2 Responses

  1. Great article!
    Whether the Banker manifesto existed or not, the secret dealings of legislators and bankers is well documented. The series of events before and after the 63rd Congress tell of the legislative events transpiring before the passage of the corrupt Federal Reserve Act. Combine this with what G Edward Griffin exposed that occurred on Jekyll island, and you have one of the greatest secret combinations ever perpetrated upon the American people.
    After signing the FRA into law, President Wilson is known to have had regrets in doing so. His signature will hang around his neck for eternity. He and the others involved have caused so much mischief in this nation for the sake of greed, power and outright reduction of the agency of the God’s children.

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