“The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American’s freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the citizen of this plight.”

A list of biographies outlining political courage just couldn’t exist without mentioning the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Throughout his career in the House, Senate, and Presidency, many aspects of his actions can be analyzed as courageous, but a policy that he adamantly pursued is often overlooked.

President John F. Kennedy

On June 4, 1963, President Kennedy enacted Executive Order 11110. This returned the power of coining money to the government and allowed the Treasury Department to “issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury.” This meant that for every ounce of silver that the Treasury had stored, the government could produce new money into circulation debt-free and interest-free.

Now, the question that may come to mind is “doesn’t the Federal Reserve System (Fed) already make money?” The answer is yes, but it’s not that simple. The Fed, a private monopoly of American currency, unconstitutionally coins the money, then loans it to the United States government with interest as established in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 that was pushed through Congress by Senator Nelson Aldrich, the Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, with the help of representatives from European central banks. The government then increases income taxes on citizens to pay the debt caused by the interest.

President Kennedy’s executive order would have effectively kept the national debt from climbing. Instead, the “United States Notes” he created were immediately withdrawn after his Assassination later that year. Some conspiracists argue that the Fed were involved in his murder because of his efforts in ending the Vietnam War by 1965 and eliminating “Federal Reserve Notes,” which would have destroyed the profits of the Fed. So, not only figuratively could this measure have contributed to his political death, it contributed to his physical death.

“United States Note”

Throughout history, the United States has cracked down on national banks, but the Federal Reserve System continually alludes their grasps. The Fed controls the rate of inflation, the value of the dollar, and overall distribution of currency, something that is explicitly said in the Constitution to be made by Congress, not a private company. The Fed is also the only for-profit organization in the United States that doesn’t pay any tax on its income, so the income tax revenue collected from citizens used to pay the national debt to the Fed doesn’t get returned to the government, but instead to the banks. This is just the tip of the iceberg when critiquing the corruption of the Fed, but President Kennedy saw this during his time in the White House.

He knew the use of Executive Order 11110 was going to create adversaries within the American public and among other politicians that were being lobbied by members associated with the Fed. The corruption of the Fed continues today through inflation, and to deal with inflation they withhold debt, credit, and money, which will cause an economic collapse. Foreign and domestic policy drowns out the Kennedy Administration, but this executive order is by far the most influential and courageous act that President Kennedy imposed on society.