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my dad never told me that, and I was going on his ersonal experience. he was alive during the depression as he was born in 1920. he would have better knowledge of it than I would.
thanks for putting down the knowledge and memories of my father and for calling him a liar.
Executive order: By virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 5(B) of The Act of Oct. 6, 1917, as amended by section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933, in which Congress declared that a serious emergency exists, I as President, do declare that the national emergency still exists; That the continued private hoarding of gold and silver by subjects of the United States poses a grave threat to the peace, equal justice, and well-being of the United States; and that appropriate measures must be taken immediately to protect the interests of our people.
"Therefore, pursuant to the above authority, I herby proclaim that such gold and silver holdings are prohibited, and that all such coin, bullion or other possessions of gold and silver be tendered within fourteen days to agents of the Government of the United States for compensation at the official price, in the legal tender of the Government. All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed, pending action in the due course of the law. All sales or purchases or movements of such gold and silver within the borders of the United States and its territories, and all foreign exchange transactions or movements of such metals across the border are herby prohibited.
"Your possession of these proscribed metals and/or your maintenance of a safe-deposit box to store them is known to the Government from bank and insurance records. Therefore, be advised that your vault box must remain sealed, and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of The Internal Revenue Service.
"By lawful Order given this day, the President of the United States."
The last part of this confirms your father was right. I know my grandfather was working as an assayer at a gold mine as a very young man when this order came through.
He had a quart jar in the office where the samples once tested were put. You couldn't tell it was gold, looked like just old pieces of metal that had been overheated. The tests were done on very small samples, so these little pieces of "slag", while gold, instead of being dumped into the truckload of ore, were collected in that jar.
He trusted the government a lot more than I did, but he still had 4 of those jars the supervising assayer gave him when Roosevelt started confiscating the gold, and my grandfather kept them all his life, "just in case".
He just kept them in plain sight in his workshop. Unless you knew what they were, they were perfectly safe because after all, who wants to steal a jar of "slag"??
I can't help but wonder how many people would recognize a gold or silver coin if they saw one. We are so accustomed to the government-printed money. I wonder if we would go back to the old practice of drilling a hole in the coin to make sure it's real and not just gold or silver clad.
I have read stories of the practice of clipping. The edges of a coin were shaved so that it wouldn't show. I was told that was the reason coins had the rough edge instead of smooth. Some coins were so bad that people weighed money instead of just accepting it!
I can't help but wonder how many people would recognize a gold or silver coin if they saw one. We are so accustomed to the government-printed money. I wonder if we would go back to the old practice of drilling a hole in the coin to make sure it's real and not just gold or silver clad.
I have read stories of the practice of clipping. The edges of a coin were shaved so that it wouldn't show. I was told that was the reason coins had the rough edge instead of smooth. Some coins were so bad that people weighed money instead of just accepting it!
Real gold is quite easy to identify - besides the obvious shiny appearance it is pliable and easy to bend.
I think that probably where the habit came of biting the coin to see if you can make a mark.
"Your possession of these proscribed metals and/or your maintenance of a safe-deposit box to store them is known to the Government from bank and insurance records. Therefore, be advised that your vault box must remain sealed, and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of The Internal Revenue Service."
The above is the popular hoax document. It is not the real and accurate text of the executive order
You will not find the sentences above printed in any book published prior to 1996 (the year Mr. Michael Haga perpetuated the hoax) nor any reference to "safe deposit boxes being sealed in 1933" in any government record.
Here is the actual text of the real executive order 6102, notice that the wording is different, and the phrase "safe-deposit box" does not appear:
So no, nobody witnessed widespread searches of safe-deposit boxes under EO6102, because it never happened.
The individual who authored this has a lot of journalistic credentials, and notes in this story that his grandparents couldn't access their safety deposit box until it had been "rifled through" by government agents.
This second article also makes some very salient points.
In the 1930's, there weren't as many laws on the books about unlawful search and seizure. I see what the executive order says, but I also know Roosevelt wasn't too concerned with following the law as evidenced by his attempts to stack the Supreme Court for a blank check endorsement of his policies.
Did the Feds lock down all safety deposit boxes until an agent could look through them? I don't know, I wasn't there.
That said, there is a lot of at least circumstantial evidence as well as witness accounts to raise at minimum the suspicion that something on that order did happen, at least on some occasions.
Personally, any gold or silver I may or may not have are not documented or stored anywhere where anyone could restrict my access to it.
Personally, any gold or silver I may or may not have are not documented or stored anywhere where anyone could restrict my access to it.
Why take chances?
It depends on what you're afraid more - your government, or criminals. If it's criminals, you don't want your valuables in your house. If it's the government, you don't want your valuables in a bank.
my dad never told me that, and I was going on his ersonal experience. he was alive during the depression as he was born in 1920. he would have better knowledge of it than I would.
thanks for putting down the knowledge and memories of my father and for calling him a liar.
Your father may have told you what he THOUGHT was the truth but your reaction to the FACTS is what is sad. People (including parents) will tell you a lot of things, as an adult, you have to prove/disprove them. Attacking the source of correction of your misguided beliefs is not the answer
Journalist standards are dropping, What happened to "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."?
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTSilvertip
It seems there are some discrepancies in the way the history is portrayed. ...The individual who authored this has a lot of journalistic credentials, and notes in this story that his grandparents couldn't access their safety deposit box until it had been "rifled through" by government agents.
What usually happens is people conflate true stories of how the transfer of deposit boxes was handled in the case of bank failures, and come up with this myth of all boxes being searched for PMs.
Not saying there is no real risk in the future, but pushing Michael Haga's 1996 hoax claim that "all safe deposit boxes were sealed in 1933" does nobody any favors.
It depends on what you're afraid more - your government, or criminals. If it's criminals, you don't want your valuables in your house. If it's the government, you don't want your valuables in a bank.
And the difference is?
I live in a wilderness area, believe me, my back yard is several hundred thousand acres of mountains and timber.
Either honest criminals or government would have a tough time finding anything out there
What usually happens is people conflate true stories of how the transfer of deposit boxes was handled in the case of bank failures, and come up with this myth of all boxes being searched for PMs.
Not saying there is no real risk in the future, but pushing Michael Haga's 1996 hoax claim that "all safe deposit boxes were sealed in 1933" does nobody any favors.
As I said, I wasn't there, but I am willing to do some looking before I buy any one story. History is always written by the winners, so it can be difficult to accurately determine what happened. Lots of things from that era were not reported on, or records "lost", or never recorded in the first place.
I don't follow any specific political agenda, which means I'm free to consider all sides. I don't have to buy in to any specific party or ideologies version of what may or may not have happened.
That said, when someone says it happened to someone they know, I will take it at face value unless there is a real reason to discount it, and so far no one has offered evidence aside from the text of the order that it didn't happen. The letter of the law and the execution of the law are rarely the same thing.
This was a time when revenuers were hunting guys making whiskey too, and the Pinkerton men were union busting by shooting people, and union people were organizing by savagely beating people that opposed them.
This was not a nice time period under any circumstances.
It was a bad time when banks were failing, people losing their land and their homes, I'm not able to spend the countless hours that would be necessary to accurately write a definitive work on any specific part of those dark days.
I will say I don't just swallow what I'm told, and in quick research, there are enough instances to make me suspicious.
I don't have an ax to grind here as my family didn't have any gold aside from those jars my grandfather had as I already mentioned.
I do know I don't have any faith that the government has my best interests at heart, and as such, I don't do anything that would make it easier for them to find anything I have aside from what I have no choice about because it's reported from other sources.
I always figure what they don't know about, they don't know it exists for them to take.
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Hoax Executive Order from 20 years ago lives on
Journalist standards are dropping, What happened to "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."?
