Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Come now, you gentlemen...
"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time,and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the bread-stuffs of the country.
When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank.
You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!
Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin!
You are a den of vipers and thieves.
I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.”
Andrew Jackson
the seventh President of the United States, addressing a delegate of bankers in 1832