THE PROGRESSIVE ERA IN AMERICA

By Dr. Lawrence Wilson

All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.

A profound change took place in America during the first few decades of the twentieth century. One can summarize these changes as:

1. A tremendous growth in the size and power of government.

2. Growth of bureaucracy, something America had little of before this time.

3. Establishment of cartels that control industries, replacing the free enterprise economic system.

4. Massive government debt.

The overall effect of these changes was to alter America from a land of freedom, free enterprise capitalism, individual rights, and strong property rights to a more socialistic and communistic nation.

FIVE MAJOR CHANGES IN AMERICA

Five important changes that took place in America during the opening decades of the twentieth century are:

The graduated income tax. The graduated income tax is a plank of the communist party, and not a policy of a freedom-oriented nation. It requires a massive government bureaucracy to collect, process, and police the people. Also, people must tell the government about every one of their important financial transactions, eliminating most financial privacy.

Previously, graduated income taxes were illegal in America. The only legal taxes were so-called direct taxes on individuals and on goods, such as import and export taxes.

The 16^th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed illegally in 1913. The Amendment was never properly ratified, so it should not be allowed, but few people know this.

The Federal Reserve System. In 1913, the Federal Reserve Act established a central bank for America. It is privately owned and privately controlled for the benefit of the bankers, and not for the people of the United States. In other words, it gave control of the money and banking system of America to a cartel – a small group of men.

Previous to this time, America had a system of free banking. There were many privately owned banks. The nation grew at an amazing pace because capital or money was readily available, and the system worked very well.

Sixteen years after passage of the Federal Reserve Act, America experienced her worst financial collapse ever. It is still called the great depression. The promoters of the central bank had promised that the Federal Reserve System would eliminate what are called “panics” or fluctuations in the economy.

The Food And Drug Administration. This was established in 1906 (originally called the Bureau of Chemistry) during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt. Its purpose was supposedly to protect Americans from adulterated food and bad drugs.

Previous to this time, consumer protection had been carried out by private consumer and rating organizations, somewhat like Consumer’s Union of today. The American Medical Association rated drugs and only gave the good ones their “seal of approval”.

Within six years of its founding, food and drug special interests infiltrated and corrupted the Food And Drug Administration. The founder and first administrator of the FDA quit in disgust, and wrote an excellent book about the horror that had taken place.

The book is entitled The Crime Against The Food Law by Harvey Wiley, MD. It is an eye-opening book because very little has changed in the last 100 years at the Food and Drug Administration. It is still just as corrupt, or more so.

The Flexner Report And The Birth of the Allopathic Medical Cartel. In 1910, the American Medical Association, with support from the Carnegie Foundation For Medical Research, issued the Flexner Report. It claimed that most medical education in America was sub-standard. However, its author was not even a doctor.

It strongly suggested that all medical schools in America needed to be shut down, except those that taught the newer “drug medicine” method. This report was circulated to all state legislatures, and an effort was begun to drive all medical schools out of business that were teaching any method besides drug medicine. Such schools included those that taught chiropractic, naturopathy, nature cure, homeopathy, and others.

With a lot of money behind the effort, within about ten years most states had passed medical licensing laws that forbade graduates of the non-allopathic or non-drug medical schools from practicing medicine in America. Soon these schools went out of business because no one would attend, knowing they could not obtain a medical license upon graduation.

The Flexner report also suggested closing all schools that educated “undesirables”, which meant black people and women. This was also accomplished by the licensing laws.

Previously, America had a free market medical care system. There were no licensing laws. Anyone could go to school and establish a healing practice. Those that were most successful prospered.

Health care was widely available to all Americans because there were plenty of practitioners. Medicine was not a highly-paid profession, in part because there was plenty of competition. This bothered the AMA doctors very much.

Most importantly, the health of Americans was better than that of the people of any other developed nation in the world. America, although a nation of immigrants, had the best health in the world. After the closing of the non-drug medical schools, the health of the American people began to decline until today America’s health is among the worst in the world. A fairly recent book that touches on this bit of history is Patient Power by John Goodman and Gerald Musgrave, Cato Institute, 1992.

The Social Security system. In 1934, Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security system of retirement. It is blatantly unconstitutional, but that did not matter.

The system forces most workers to pay money to the government during their working career, and then they hopefully receive money back during their retirement. However, there is no guarantee of repayment.

Forced government-sponsored retirement programs are another plank of the communist party. They have no place in a free society. Previously, people took care of their own retirement. Families helped their retired parents, and many people joined a community association that helped care for the elderly and those in retirement. They system worked well and was financially sound, unlike Social Security.

Social Security takes a lot of money out of the hands of individuals, and gives it to the government “for safekeeping”. The idea was that individuals are not smart enough to save or invest for their own retirement.

However, the truth is that the US federal government has illegally spent the money on other things. (The money was in a fund called the Social Security Trust Fund). As a result, today there is no reserve left to pay future benefits, and the entire system will collapse in about 30 years unless it is drastically revamped and cut back. The amount of the debt or “unfunded mandate” of Social Security is in the billions of dollars, or greater!

In other words, a corrupt government spent the people’s money without their permission, so none is left to pay future benefits. This is common in many nations that have similar programs. Also, for political reasons, the program has not been adjusted as the life span has increased, and this is also contributing to its problems. Everything seems fine, but it is not fine. The welfare programs, of which this is one, are crushing the United States and other nations with debt.

OTHER IMPORTANT CHANGES

The National Parks land grab.

Changing the election of Senators.

Confiscation of the people’s gold.

The anti-trust laws.

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