More Wallace

Here’s another 1948 speech by Henry Wallace, focusing on postwar inflation. Again I’ve uploaded the speech itself without the intro and outro.

Causes of Inflation, 14 minute mp3.

I’ll transcribe some relevant parts for the web record. Part of the speech is details of prices and products that are no longer relevant. Our current postwar inflation is also caused by the same Men Of Monopoly through a slightly different mechanism.

I’m mostly interested in Wallace’s inside history of the postwar resurgence of Deepstate. He was FDR’s vice president from ’40 to ’44, and he knew how and why the party appointed Truman to replace him. He saw Truman being bought and owned by the Men Of Monopoly, and he tells us about it.

= = = = = START WALLACE:

Inflation, what you and I call the high cost of living, isn’t something that just happens like the weather. You can’t do anything about the weather, but you can about inflation.

[INSERTION: NOTE THAT “GLOBAL WARMING” HADN’T BEEN INVENTED YET. FDR’S HISTORIANS AND SCIENTISTS WERE HONEST ON THIS SUBJECT.]

Inflation is not accidental. It was manmade. It was made and forced on us by the Men Of Monopoly, acting through their agents the Republicans and Democrats, and there is something we can do about it. We can end it. Inflation, which is a daily horror to housewives, small businessmen and farmers, is a profitable venture for the monopolists. Indeed it is the most profitable venture in all history. The profits taken out of our wallets have given the meat trust and the steel trust more money than they ever made during the war.

Yes, the Men Of Monopoly wanted inflation. They planned for inflation and they
got it. How did this all come about?

We drove the monopolists, the moneychangers, out of the temple in 1933, and with them the whole view that government is run for the few.

In 1940, when the nation was in danger, these same men, who had always fought
FDR, began a comeback. They had the gov’t and the people over a barrel, and they refused to produce except on terms they dictated, at profits they demanded.

The present high prices began in the profits of 1940-41. Under FDR we held them in check. We imposed controls on the Men Of Monopoly, and these controls worked. We held the line on prices and profits, but the Men of Monopoly were there all the time. Waiting. Waiting.

And when FDR died, they saw their opportunity and they moved in. They moved in on Harry Truman and he welcomed them.

The representatives of the Men Of Greed were his first visitors after FDR’s death. I recall on the train, coming back from Hyde Park where the president had just been buried. Truman’s first callers were Edwin Pauley and George Allen, the errand boys of the big corporations.

A month later Herbert Hoover was called in. The Engineer of the Great Depression helped engineer the about-face in FDR’s policies. Cabinet shifts were made. The men who had stood firm for FDR’s policies were the first to go. The Harrimans, the Snyders, the Forrestals of Wall Street, took over and with them came the policies of Wall Street. With them came the policy of gov’t on behalf of the few, gov’t against the people.

The Roosevelt program of controls by the people on behalf of the people went out the window. And the Hoover Truman Dewey policy of control in the hands of monopolists for the benefit of monopolists, came in.

The Democrats and Republicans competed with each other in their zeal to serve monopolists.

Truman hastened to announce that the war was officially at an end for the corporations.

[INSERTION: This was clear in the auto and electronics industries.]

In that simple act he turned over to the corporations 2 billion dollars in tax refunds in 1945. But for you, the end of the war did not mean an end of taxes. You are still paying wartime taxes. With the enthusiastic cooperation of Hoover and Vandenberg, Truman gave corporations every break.

The Truman Hoover Dewey Men Of Greed killed OPA by easy stages. They took off the controls until there was no protection for ordinary Americans. The steel trust, the real estate lobbies, the food trust, and the milk gang, were reporting profits
higher than ever before. To us this meant we could not build a new home. We could not afford a second-hand car.

Inflation is the work of the Men Of Monopoly and their agents Truman and Dewey.
No amount of name calling by Harry Truman at this late date can change the record, that at every turn he served monopolists against the people.

= = = = = END WALLACE.