UNBELIEVABLY - TRUE

  

If you folded this piece of paper in half, it would now be twice as thick as it was before:

                                                 One page is about 0.01 cm high

                                                              Exponential Power   

  Mean distance from the Earth is about 384,000 km, or about 3.84 x 1012 pages away. I start with an unfolded page (zero foldings), it's one page thick. When I fold a page once, it will be 2 pages thick. But -- and this is key -- when I fold it twice on itself, it's not three, but 4 pages thick. 

  I start with an unfolded page (zero foldings), it's one page thick. When I fold a page once, it will be 2 pages thick. But -- and this is key -- when I fold it twice on itself, it's not three, but 4 pages thick.

  

 If I fold it a third time, I'll see that it's 8 pages thick.

Can you see a pattern here? Paper folding is exponential, so that if I fold it a fourth time, it'll be 16 pages thick (so that option is clearly wrong), a fifth time will give me 32 pages thick, and so on. By time I get to 9 folding's, my folded paper is bigger than my original ream of 500 sheets. By time I get to 20 folding's, my folded paper is more than 10 kilometers high, which surpasses Mt. Everest.

41 folding's will get me slightly more than halfway to the Moon, so that means that 42 foldings is all it takes! (Of course, good luck folding a real piece of paper more than 7 or 8 times...) Pretty incredible, isn't it? But that's the power of an exponential, that it lets you turn small things into huge things by simply compounding what you have over and over again. And incredibly, it only takes 42 foldings of a paper to get from the Earth to the Moon, and only about 94 folding's of a paper to make something the size of the entire visible Universe!

 

Ancient Performing Arts

  

Artifacts from 30,000 years ago indicate that Ice Age people may have been performing religious rituals, and it is likely that the performing arts of music, theater, and dance formed the crucial elements of that ritual. Some 10,000 years later, drawings in caves in France, Spain, and Africa show performers in costumes representing various animals. Some of these performers are also carrying musical percussion and string instruments.

The earliest historical records of performing arts come from Egyptian pyramids circa 2,800 to 2400 b.c.e. These so-called pyramid texts consist of hieroglyphics and scenes depicting trials through which a spirit must pass before being admitted into a happier place. Some scholars believe that these texts were actually dramas, danced and enacted with accompanying music by performer-priests to ensure the well-being of the dead pharaoh and to demonstrate the continuity of life. Other scholars cite the Ikhernofret stone (c. 1868 b.c.e.), which contains the primary evidence about the Abydos passion play, said to be the first recorded text of a performance presented in ancient Egypt. The annual play, which concerns the life, death, and rebirth of the god Osiris, probably contained elements of all the performing arts. In addition to such passion plays, the Egyptian pharaoh was expected to demonstrate publicly his mastery of several sports, including archery, throwing, and chariot racing. It is from these Egyptian spectator events that most scholars date the beginnings of the performing arts in ancient civilizations.

The most fundamental of the performing arts is dance, for in its most simple manifestations, dance requires only the human body in motion. The basic dance is that of wild and vigorous jumping and leaping in rhythm, the so-called ecstatic dance. Used in religious ceremonies from sub-Saharan Africa to ancient Israel to Classical Greece and Rome, the ecstatic dance usually begins with restraint but becomes so wild that the dancers often fall unconscious from exertion. It was believed that during such a dance the god being worshiped actually took possession of the performer’s body. The Greeks called this phenomenon enthousiasmos (literally “possessed by the god”), from which is derived the English word “enthusiasm.” Such a dance was practiced by the Hebrew prophets when attempting to get in touch with the word of God. A similar dance seems to have been performed by the ancient inhabitants of Crete where priestesses danced in worship of the great mother goddess. Young Cretan men performed a kind of bull dancing, a very dangerous art form akin to modern Hispanic bullfighting, in which young male dancers executed such maneuvers as somersaulting between the horns of the raging animal. Those that failed to execute these moves were often gored to their death, in effect being sacrificed to the divinity.

Throughout the ancient world, dance was associated with the most basic of human needs and activities. Members of the Tarahumara tribe in Mesoamerica use the same word for dance and work. Fertility of the soil, animals, and people was invoked and celebrated in ancient dance. A painting by English painter John White in 1585 records a Virginia Indian ritual of ancient origin in which seminude young men are seen dancing in a circle around the three most beautiful virgins of the tribe. A similar painting by American artist George Catlin (1832) depicts a Mandan Indian traditional buffalo dance in which the people wearing animal heads dance to ensure abundance of the valuable bison. Other animal dances are practiced by primitive peoples who mask themselves as an animal, such as a lion, in order to acquire the desired characteristics of that animal. An interesting cave painting from North Africa depicts dancers costumed as the praying mantis insect.

The Talmud of the ancient Hebrews describes dances of Hebrew maidens that seem related to fertility dances of primitive peoples. Perhaps the most famous of the Jewish women’s dances are those mentioned in the Christian Bible when Salome, daughter of Herodias, “danced before him and his guests and pleased Herod.” Also famous is King David’s dance before the Ark of Covenant. Muslim dances of Turkey and the Mideast are famous for the ecstatic, spinning movements of the holy men known as whirling dervishes, a dance that is now outlawed. A more playful form of Hindu-Arabic dance is the famous singki of the Muslim princesses. The dance tests the performer’s grace and skill as she dances between two pair of bamboo poles clapped together in syncopated and ever-accelerating rhythm.

Ancient Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa are alike in that their dances often involved death and journeys into the world of the spirit. The Yoruba people of southern Africa have elaborate dances associated with ritual journeys of the spirit, as well as elaborate dance-dramas devoted to the mother goddess. These latter dances have been well documented in film. The most significant spirit dance of all comes from the Hindus of India. According to Hindu theology, the god Śiva actually danced the world into existence. To this day, young women, following a tradition of many hundreds of years, start training at the age of five or six in the intricate steps and gestures that make up Indian temple dance. These dancers are in some way “married” to the deity in whose temples they are found. Known as kathakali, the dance-dramas of northern India have survived to the present. Also surviving from a tradition more than a thousand years old are the dances of India’s neighbors: Ceylon, Cambodia, Bali, and Siam. Each of these dance forms is unique to its region but all are based on the radical flexing of hands, wrists, ankles, and feet, as opposed to the more fluid use of these body parts by Western cultures.

Island peoples from around the globe have distinct dances. In New Guinea, the Dani, whose customs and living conditions are still Stone Age, have various ritual dances, including a ritual dance-battle between warring villages in which actual violence and death may take place. Filipino dance draws its background from the various invaders of the islands, including Hindu, Muslim, and Chinese, the latter of whom are most famous for the dance-drama known as Beijing opera.

The Chinese, as well as the Koreans, contributed to the famous Japanese classical music gagaku and its accompanying dance-drama known as bugaku. The performers of bugaku were known as dancers of the right, who performed dances drawn from Korea, and dancers of the left, who performed dances that originated in China or South Asia. Right dancers are dressed predominantly in green and dance to music produced on percussion instruments. Left dancers are dressed mostly in red and perform to woodwinds. Bugaku is still danced today and is clearly the basis for the classic Japanese theatrical forms of Noh and Kabuki, which date from the eleventh century c.e.

Just as the Japanese borrowed dance forms from China and Korea, the ancient Greeks borrowed dance from Crete. Therefore, as in Crete, the ecstatic dance in archaic Greece (before 600 b.c.e.) was done by women, the maenads, in honor of Dionysus, the god of fertility. Many visual depictions of the maenads exist. They carry a sacred staff, the thyrsus. Their heads are thrown back, and their clothes twist wildly about them. The name maenad is the source of the English word “maniac,” and indeed the women became so wild and maddened in their dancing that they are said to have had seizures. The chorus of dancing maenads were later replaced by men who performed a more sedate, controlled, military dance in honor of the god Dionysus, known as the dithyramb. Groups of young men were organized into dithyrambic choruses, and in the name of Dionysus, they competed against one another at spring fertility festivals.

Other dances were also practiced by the ancient Greeks, including the geranos, or snake dance, and various other animal dances depicting lions, bears, foxes, and even birds. Numerous vase paintings and other visuals show dancers wearing animal masks and headdresses, as well as full animal costumes. The great comic playwright Aristophanes wrote an entire play, Ornithes (414 b.c.e.; The Birds, 1824), which featured a dancing chorus of avian creatures. Of course, the satyrs, or male goat-dancers, were a standard feature of dramatic choruses. Satyr dancers, wearing horns, hooflike foot gear, and short furry pants, are depicted in many vase paintings. Because the satyr dancers are sacred to Dionysus, god of wine, vegetation, and fertility, they often wear vine leaves in their hair and display large, false genitals.

All young male citizens in Classical Greece were trained in dance because, like modern-day military marching, it was considered good preparation for group discipline in battle. Like modern marching bands, Greek dance groups were trained to form shapes or schemata that had particular meaning for the spectators. Dance also taught communication skills as each dancer learned the effective and graceful use of meaningful gesture known as cheironomia. Moreover, dance was considered the most sacred of arts, having been associated with the saving of the life of the great god Zeus. According to legend, the Titan Rhea had taught the art of dance to the Curetes, sons of earth who dwelled in Crete. When Rhea gave birth to Zeus, she fled to Crete to avoid Cronus, the father Titan who devoured all of his children immediately after they were born. She gave the baby to the Curetes. When Cronus came looking for the infant, the Curetes performed the dance taught them by Rhea, filled with wild, leaping, noisy, and ecstatic choreography. The vigorous visual and vocal activity diverted the attention of Cronus so that he did not see the baby nor hear it crying. Zeus survived to overthrow Cronus and become king of all the gods. Because of its sacred nature, dance was assigned a special muse, Terpsichore, one of the nine great muses of ancient culture. In the fifth century b.c.e., the greatest honor that could come to a young Greek man was to be selected a member of one of the dancing choruses that performed in the sacred dramas given at the major theatrical festival, the city Dionysia.

Dancers not only appeared in festivals and theatrical performances but also were considered an important part of private entertainments in both Greece and Rome. Although neither culture encouraged couples dancing as a social activity, dancers did appear at lavish all-male Greek dinners known as symposia and at Roman banquets of various types. Dancers at these events were often accompanied by related kinetic artists such as acrobats and contortionists. In Classical Greece, most dancers were amateurs, but later professional actors and dancers banded together into a quasi-religious group known as the Artists of Dionysus.

In Rome, most entertainers were professionals or even slaves. Performers from the Roman animal shows or circuses were part-time dancers and part-time contortionists and acrobats. An unusual and significant Roman dance form was the pantomime, a dance-theater presenting narratives entirely without words. Invented in 22 b.c.e., the pantomime became the most popular of Roman entertainments, aside from such violent forms as the gladiatorial games, staged animal hunts, staged naval battles, and chariot races. In later Roman times, professional dancers from Africa and other exotic areas of the empire and various curiosities such as dwarf dancers were introduced. Christians were especially offended by a Roman dance of increasing popularity known as the kordax, a dance originating in theatrical comedies that featured rolling and swaying of the hips and other movements that the early church fathers considered sinful and lewd. The Christian ban on the kordax led to a general ban by the Church on all forms of dance in the ancient world.

Dance was an intricate part of theater in the ancient world, and the cultures of India, China, Japan, Greece, and Rome drew little distinction between the actor and the dancer. The plays of the Greek theater, known as dramenon, or happenings, featured dancing choruses as a major element of all productions. The word “theater” is drawn from the Greek theatron, or seeing place. The relation between theater and dance is nowhere better illustrated than in the fact that the large performing circle found in most Greek theaters is called the orchestra, or dancing circle. Although theatrical presentations are as old as humankind, modern Western theater seems to be a product of ancient Greece. Its origins were in the funeral rituals of Egypt, the sacred dance-drama of India, and the fertility rituals of Crete.

The Greek city-states had developed public religious festivals around two important seasons: spring and fall. The spring festival was devoted to Dionysus and was called the Dionysia, at which a number of rituals and dramas were performed. The Dorian Greeks claimed to have invented drama, but it was the Athenians who brought it to its classic form. In 534 b.c.e., Pisistratus, the ruler of Athens, made the Dionysia a legal state function. Thereafter, all male citizens of Athens were required to attend the plays each year. Thespis, the famous leader of a dithyrambic chorus, was named the first archon (producer) of Athens’s city Dionysia. Thespis is credited with formalizing dialogue in theater in that he would call out to his dancing chorus and they would answer him in a call-response pattern. Such performers were called answerers, or hypokritoi, which became the Greek word for actor and the English word “hypocrite.” At first only two types of dramenon were performed at the Dionysia, tragedies, or plays about the death of a hero and his replacement by another hero, and satyr plays, or comedies about the sexual escapades of the gods. It was the satyr plays that featured a chorus of singing and dancing goat-men or satyrs. Tragedies also featured a singing-dancing chorus, thought to be as large as fifty persons. All performers in Greek theater were men, although they frequently played women’s roles. The plays themselves were composed of two types of narrative elements: choral odes and the scenes between characters, known as the episodes. Choral performers were amateurs, young men chosen for their dancing ability. The actors were professional priest-performers. Costuming was very elaborate, and actors and chorus wore masks that completely covered the head.

The playwrights were known as poets (or makers) of dramenon. Three playmakers were selected each year, and each was responsible for one day of plays, which consisted of three tragedies and a satyr play. At the end of three days, a jury of twelve tribal leaders voted on the winner of the Dionysia, and that poet received a large sum of money. The vote was supposed to be directed by the hand of the god. Each day of plays was paid for by one of the three wealthiest men of Athens of that particular year, and one of those men, known as the choregus, or choral leader, was given the honor of being named the winner of the agon, or dramatic contest. Usually, the winner would put up a monument commemorating his victory and listing the names of the playwright and the hypokritoi, so that considerable information survives about the Dionysia. The most famous playwrights of fifth century Athens were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Their most famous plays are Agamemnōn (458 b.c.e.; Agamemnon, 1777), Oidipous Tyrannos (c. 429 b.c.e.; Oedipus Tyrannus, 1715), and Mīdeia (431 b.c.e.; Medea, 1781), respectively.

Never as highly respected as tragedies or even satyr plays, comedies were not admitted into the Dionysia until 587 b.c.e. Only the comedies of Aristophanes survive in written form, of which the most famous is Lysistratī (411 b.c.e.; Lysistratī, 1837). No satyr plays survive.

After Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 b.c.e.), the performing arts declined in Athens and throughout Greece. A special form known as New Comedy, or comedy of manners or character type, developed, of which Menander was considered the master. The Romans took up new comedy and produced two playwrights of comic genius, Plautus and Terence. Roman theater can be said to have begun officially in 240 b.c.e., when the Iudi Romani (Roman games) were established. However, Romans preferred the pantomime to spoken drama, and spectacles such as the circus, gladiatorial and wild animal fights, or even Christians being devoured by lions. These spectacles were presented in circular arenas such as the famed colosseum. Chariot races were held at the Circus Maximus, and sea battles were presented in special water theaters known as numachia. When Rome converted to Christianity, most of these shows were banned. Although some theater continued in the Byzantine Empire, and an actress, Theodora, even became the wife of an emperor, it may be said that with her conversion to Christianity in 527 c.e., the ancient Western performing arts, at least symbolically, drew to an end.

In the East, the sacred dance dramas of India continue to this day, as do the Noh and Kabuki theaters of Japan (descendants of the bugaku dancers) and the shadow puppet theater of Malaysia. In China and Korea, ancient theater forms, which included dance and acrobatic skills, are recalled by the present popularity of the modern Bejing opera. Indian drama began as dance narratives performed in temples. It was codified in a book compiled in the second century c.e. This work contained sections on theater architecture, dramatic technique, musical accompaniment, speech, choreography, and characterization. Specific gestures of the hand, head, eyes, cheek, neck, eyes, and even six gestures for the nose were listed. The temple performances of India, at first supported mainly by the aristocracy, gradually moved into popular culture where they embraced the other aspect of Indian theatrical performance, the storytellers and clowns of village theater, as well as the more ancient form of puppet theater known as the shadow puppet theater in which intricate two-dimensional forms are used to create shadow images on a white screen. The temple dance gave Indian theater its serious drama; the clowns and storytellers contributed comedy and farce. The strict division of dramatic forms that was typical of Greece and Rome was combined into a single narrative in Indian theater. The oldest surviving Indian play scripts are known as Sanskrit dramas, the most famous of which is Sudraka’s Mrcchakatikā (c. 300-c. 600 c.e.; Mrchhakatika, 1898).

As in India, Chinese theater was a product of the temples, where eighth century b.c.e. records show that performers were part of holy worship, and even as early as 1500 b.c.e., there is evidence that members of the ruling class maintained theatrical entertainers. By 210 b.c.e., China came under the control of the Han Dynasty. The Han emperors maintained so large a group of entertainers—from tight-rope walkers to actors, mimes, dancers, and musicians—that the nights were known as “the hundred plays.” The actual performance space of ancient Chinese theater very much resembles an English Elizabethan playhouse. A large structure housing the backstage area had a raised stage before it. As in Elizabethan England, the stage was open on three sides so that the audience stood on the ground around the stage. A balcony with seating for more important personages was also provided. Theater became so popular with the Chinese rulers that in 714 c.e., an imperial acting school known as the Pear Garden was established. Chinese actors are still known as “students of the Pear Garden.” What now remains of the early Chinese theater is a contemporary form known as Beijing opera, whose highly acrobatic and richly costumed actors, performing in a stylized tradition, are reminiscent of the glories of “the hundred plays.” The Chinese also borrowed from India the shadow puppet theater, which became widely popular by 260 b.c.e.

Indeed, throughout Southeast Asia, the theater of the shadow puppet is perhaps the dominant form of indigenous entertainment. Although the shadow puppet play is known to have started in India, the details of its origins are lost in antiquity. The Malaysian puppet, like most others, is an intricately carved leather figure between 6 inches (15 centimeters) and 3 feet (nearly 1 meter) in length. Performances are at night so that a light can be placed behind the figure whose shadow is then projected on a white silken screen. A single manipulator performs the whole show, which can last throughout the night. Most narratives are adventures of heroes fighting giants or dragons.

Music

Last Updated on May 6, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 1452

Of all the performing arts, music in the ancient world is the least known because little evidence remains. The first musical instruments would most likely have been the human voice and body, with the voice providing melodic statement and the body creating basic percussion in the form of clapping and stamping. One only has to think of modern tap dancing to realize that to have a body and to be human means that music is immediately possible. However, undoubtedly, musical instruments were present from early times, and considerable visual evidence of instruments exists in Egypt and other parts of Africa, India and China, the Near East, and all about the Mediterranean Sea. Flutes, lyres, drums, and stringed instruments akin to the guitar, such as the Indian sitar, are abundantly pictured in archaeological remains.

In southern France, in the cave of Trois Fères in Ariège, there is a crude painting of a dancing man dressed in a bison skin. In his mouth, he holds a musical bow. With his left hand, he supports the instrument, which he twangs with his right hand. This painting is at least seventeen thousand years old. Yet this same instrument, a one-string “guitar” using the mouth and skull as a sounding board and called the okongo, can still be heard in areas of sub-Saharan Africa. A version was also used by Native American peoples. It is clearly the ancestor of all stringed instruments, and its acoustical principles are virtually identical with other chordophone instruments that can still be heard around the world in the form of gourds strung with gut strings, turtle shells strung with fiber chords, or silken strings mounted on wooden bowls. A more sophisticated version, in which the sounding box is a large, hollow ball, is still used by the Baule tribesmen of Africa’s Ivory Coast. The rhythms created with this instrument and with the drums of these and other African tribes go back millennia but are still heard today in modern jazz, spirituals, and other forms of contemporary music.

The simple drums and resonating chambers of Neolithic times were replaced in the ancient world by stringed instruments of various types. The original single-string instrument evolved into the Abyssinian lyre, the Arabian rebab, the Indian sarangi carved from a single piece of wood, and finally the Indian sitar, an instrument so ancient that its name predates any known visual representation of the musical object.

The sitar has a documented history of some four thousand years. It developed from an earlier stringed instrument, the veena, sacred to Sarawarthi, the Hindu goddess of art and learning. The sitar is a very elaborate instrument with six or seven main playing strings and a dozen or so sympathetic strings that echo the main musical mode. It is an extremely demanding instrument to play, and yet it has become the queen instrument of Indian music to the present day. Only about 10 percent of the music practiced on the sitar is written down. The vital 90 percent consists of improvisation within a strict range of ragas, or melodic patterns. In this sense, the music of the Indian tradition is not unlike modern American jazz. The rhythm and melodic patterns of Indian music are passed from master to student, from generation to generation in a pattern of listening and playing known as guruparampara. This tradition of master-to-pupil learning is not uncommon in musical practice throughout the ancient world. From Japanese koto players to Nigerian drummers, music has traditionally been learned by hearing someone play it.

Another widely used musical instrument of ancient times was the harp, which was a dominant instrument of the ancient Egyptians. In the eastern Mediterranean, art depicts people playing guitars and recorders. In Greece, the double flute was also very popular.

However, no written musical literature is available until Classical Greece, and then only a few fragments of compositions survive. Many musicologists believe that Greek music was oriental in sound, but more is known about the names of musical types than about the quality. Plato in his Nomoi (360-347 b.c.e.;Laws, 1804) reports that there are various classes and types of Greek music, including hymns, dirges, paeans (songs of joy and praise), and dithyrambs (songs and dances to the god Dionysus used in public festivals and theatrical performances). Pictorial evidence reveals that the dithyrambs and choral odes of tragedy and probably even the solo speeches were accompanied by two basic musical instruments: the lyre and the aulos, or double-pipe flute. The lyre is a stringed instrument used for the less raucous and vigorous chorus speeches, hence the English term “lyrical.” It was the instrument sacred to the Greek god Apollo, the divinity of light, healing, and music, who is usually depicted carrying the lyre. The aulos, however, seems to have produced a sound that was a cross between an oboe and a bagpipe and was used with the more tumultuous odes and episodes in the theater. Percussion instruments, the most fundamental of all musical devices, were used throughout Greek performances. Tambourines were special favorites of Roman musicians, as were flutes and wind instruments made of brass or, following a more ancient Hebrew tradition, of animal horns.

Greek music is known to have used various modes or scales. The music was written down in two systems, one for vocal music and one for instrumental, both of which were unlike modern Western systems for transcribing music. Both consisted of indicating notes by using letters of the alphabet above the song word, but neither is clear in application, and only a few fragments survive. Also surviving is a treatise, De musica (proably third century c.e.; Aristides Quintilianus: On Music, 1983) by Aristides Quintilianus, dealing with musical harmony and rhythm; the moral, educational, and therapeutic values of music; and music’s scientific and mathematical aspects. Part of the education of every Greek youth was training in music, as much for its mathematical as for its aesthetic value.

The ancient Romans generally seemed to have valued music less than classical Greeks; however, it was used extensively in ceremonies and in theatrical performances. Apparently up to two-thirds of the lines in Plautus’s plays were accompanied by music. Roman pantomimes required a sizable orchestra of flutes, pipes, cymbals, and other percussion instruments. Although almost nothing is known of Roman musical modes, something of their quality can be surmised from the plain song used by early Christian churches and taken directly from Roman ceremonial chants, as well as from Hebrew religious chants.

Music was very important in the religious services of the Hebrew peoples. Every synagogue had its song leader, or cantor, who led the worshipers in “lifting a joyful noise unto the Lord” and in making “song in the house of the Lord with cymbals, psalteries, and harps.” The First Corinthians mentions a total of 225 skilled musicians in the service of Solomon’s temple. Portions of the Jewish sacred service—especially the “Hallelujah” and the “Holy, Holy, Holy”—were taken directly into the Christian liturgy. Many other traditional synagogue chants were altered to suit Latin texts. The antiphonal singing of certain Jewish sects—in which a chorus of men and a chorus of women both sing in unison and also sing in call-and-response patterns—became the basis for most of the great body of so-called plain-song music of the early Christian church.

There was apparently little difference between early Church music and the music of everyday life, for Saint John Chrysostom of Constantinople (400 c.e.) comments on the similarities of church psalms to the lullabies sung by mothers to put their children to sleep. Indeed this similarity between sacred music and that of the people would follow the Hebrew tradition, for Saint John Chrysostom observed that God aided people in understanding the scriptures by giving them the music of the Psalms and the words of King David, “For nothing so uplifts the mind, giving it wings and freeing it from the earth . . . as the modulated melody and the divine chant.” In the sixth century c.e., Pope Gregory the Great collected almost four thousand plain-song compositions, which would henceforth be known as the Gregorian chants, still in use in Christian liturgy. Most of the instruments used in church services as well as in everyday European life were, like the Hebrew chants, imported from the Near East. When the Arabs invaded southern Spain, they brought with them the musical achievements of the ancient civilization of Persia. The Spanish took up the Arabian music and its varied instruments and spread their use into all of Europe. However, it would take more than four centuries for the Spanish to invent the five-line stave that would become the basis for modern musical notation and literature.

Affidavit Neutrality

 

AFFIDAVIT AND ASSERTION OF FOREIGN NEUTRAL THE DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY ARISING OUT OF HJR-192 and the RESULTING NATIONAL (Military) EMERGENCY AND INTO THE INDEFINTE FUTURE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DECLARED TO BE THE “PRESUMPTIVE” ENEMY OF THE CORPORATE STATE OF THE FORUM UNDER THE TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT AS AMENDED IN 1935 AND SUBJECT TO ALL PROVISIONS EMBRACED WITHIN TITLE 50 USCA MEMORANDUM AND HISTORY IN SUPPORT 

We are going to begin with a series of documents which are representative of the 

documents contained in this Report. We will be quoting from, in many cases, 

Senate and Congressional reports, hearings before National Emergency 

Committees, Presidential Papers, Statutes at Large, and the United States Code. 

The first exhibit is taken from a book written by Carl Brent Swisher — American 

Constitutional Development, A complete constitutional history, from the British 

colonies to the Truman era. Let’s read the first paragraph. It says, 

“We may well wonder in view of the precedents now established,” said Charles E. 

Hughes, (Supreme Court Justice) in 1920, “whether constitutional government as 

heretofore maintained in this Republic could survive another great war even 

victoriously waged.” 

How could that happen? Surely, if we go out and fight a war and win it, we’d have 

to end up stronger than the day we started, wouldn’t we? Justice Hughes goes on 

to say, 

“The conflict known as the World War had ended as far as military hostilities were 

concerned, but was not yet officially terminated. Most of the war statutes were 

still in effect, many of the emergency organizations were still in operation.” 

What is this man talking about when he speaks of “war statutes in effect and 

emergency organizations still in operation”? 

In 1933, Congressman Beck, speaking from the Congressional Record, states, 

“I think of all the damnable heresies that have ever been suggested in connection 

with the Constitution, the doctrine of emergency is the worst. It means that when 

Congress declares an emergency, there is no Constitution. This means its death. It 

is the very doctrine that the German chancellor is invoking today in the dying 

hours of the parliamentary body of the German republic, namely, that because of 

an emergency, it should grant to the German chancellor absolute power to pass 

any law, even though the law contradicts the Constitution of the German republic. 

Chancellor Hitler is at least frank about it. We pay the Constitution lip-service, but 

the result is the same.” 

Congressman Beck is saying that, of all the damnable heresies that ever existed, 

this doctrine of emergency has got to be the worst, because once Congress 

declares an emergency, there is no Constitution. He goes on to say, 

“But the Constitution of the [u]nited States, as a restraining influence in keeping 

the federal government within the carefully prescribed channels of power, is 

moribund, if not dead. We are witnessing its death-agonies, for when this bill 

becomes a law, if unhappily it becomes a law, there is no longer any workable 

Constitution to keep the Congress within the limits of its Constitutional powers.” 

What bill is Congressman Beck talking about? In 1933, “the House passed the 

Farm Bill by a vote of more than three to one.” Again, we see the doctrine of 

emergency. Once an emergency is declared, there is no Constitution. The CAUSE and EFFECT of the doctrine of emergency is the subject of this Report. In 1973, in Senate Report 93-549 (93rd Congress, 1st Session, 1973), the first sentence reads, “Since March the 9th, 1933, the united States has been in a state of declared national emergency.” 

Let’s go back to Exhibit 1 just before this. What did that say? It says that if a 

national emergency is declared, there is no Constitution. Now, let us return to 

Exhibit 2. Since March the 9th of 1933, the United States has been, in fact, in a 

state of declared national emergency. 

Referring to the middle of this exhibit: 

“This vast range of powers, taken together, confer enough authority to rule the 

country without reference to normal constitutional processes. Under the powers 

delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property; organize and 

control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; 

institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; 

regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of 

particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens” 

This situation has continued uninterrupted since the Emergency Banking Act, 

March 9, 1933, 48 Stat. 1, Public Law 89-719 

In the introduction to Senate Report 93-549: 

“A majority of the people of the united States have lived all their lives under 

emergency rule.” 

Remember, this report was produced in 1973. The introduction goes on to say: 

“For 40 years, freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the 

Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws brought into force by 

states of national emergency.” 

The introduction continues: 

“And, in the united States, actions taken by the government in times of great crisis 

have — from, at least, the Civil War — in important ways shaped the present 

phenomenon of a permanent state of national emergency.” 

How many people were taught that in school? How could it possibly be that 

something which could suspend our Constitution would not be taught in school? 

Amazing, isn’t it? 

Where does this come from? Is it possible that, in our Constitution, there could be 

some section which could contemplate what these previous documents are 

referring to? In Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution of the united States of 

America, we find the following words: 

“The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when 

in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” 

Habeas Corpus – the Great Writ of Liberty (Latin: ...”you have the body.”). This is 

the writ which guarantees that the government cannot charge us and hold us with 

any crime, unless they follow the procedure of due process of law. This writ also 

says, in effect, that the privilege of due process of law cannot be suspended, and 

that the government cannot not operate its arbitrary prerogative power against 

We the People. But we see that the great Writ of Liberty can, in fact, under the 

Constitution, be suspended when an invasion or a rebellion necessitates it. 

In the 5th Amendment to the Constitution it says: 

“No Person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise Infamous Crime, 

unless on a Presentment or Indictment of a Grand Jury, except in Cases arising in 

the Land or Naval forces or in the Militia, when in actual Service in Time of War or 

public Danger;...”. 

We reserved the charging power for ourselves, didn’t we? We didn’t give that 

power to the government. And we also said that the government would be 

powerless to charge one of the citizens or one of the peoples of the united States 

with a crime unless We, the People, through our grand jury, orders it to do so 

through an indictment or a presentment. And if We, the People, don’t order it, the 

government cannot do it. If it tried to do it, we would simply follow the Writ of 

Habeas Corpus, and they would have to release us, wouldn’t they? They could not 

hold us. 

But let us recall that it says: 

“except in Cases arising in the Land or Naval forces or in the Militia, when in actual 

Service in Time of War or public Danger;...” 

We can see here that the framers of the Constitution were already contemplating 

times when there would be conditions under which it might be necessary to 

suspend the guarantees of the Constitution. 

Also from Senate Report 93-549 and remember that our congressmen wrote these 

reports and these documents and they’re talking about these emergency powers 

and they say: 

“They are quite careful and restrictive on the power, but the power to suspend is 

specifically contemplated by the Constitution in the Writ of Habeas Corpus.” 

Now, this is well known. This is not a concept that was not known to rulers for 

many, many years. The concepts of constitutional dictatorship went clear back to 

the Roman Republic. And there, it was determined that, in times of dire 

emergencies, yes, the constitution and the rights of the people could be 

suspended, temporarily, until the crisis, whatever its nature, could be resolved. 

But once it was done, the Constitution, was to be returned to its peacetime 

position of authority. In France, the situation under which the constitution could 

be suspended is called the State of Siege. In Great Britain, it’s called the Defense 

of the Realm Acts. In Germany, in which Hitler became a dictator, it was simply 

called Article 48. In the United States, it is called the War Powers. 

If that was, in fact, the case, and we are under a war emergency in this country, 

then there should be evidence of that war emergency in the current law that exists 

today. That means we should be able to go to the federal code known as the USC 

or “United States Code”, and find that statute, that law, in existence. If we went to 

the library today and picked up a copy of 12 USC Section 95b we will find a law 

which states: 

“The actions, regulations, rules, licenses, orders and proclamations heretofore or 

hereafter taken, promulgated, made, or issued by the President of the United 

States or the Secretary of the Treasury since March the 4th, 1933, pursuant to the 

authority conferred by Subsection (b) of Section 5 of the Act of October 6th, 1917, 

as amended [12 USCS Sec. 95a], are hereby approved and confirmed. (Mar. 9, 

1933, c. 1, Title 1, Sec. 1, 48 Stat. 1.)”. 

Now, what does this mean? It means that everything the President or the 

Secretary of the Treasury has done since the Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 

1933, (48 Stat. 1, Public Law 89-719), or anything that the President or the 

Secretary of the Treasury is hereafter going to do, is automatically approved and 

confirmed. Referring back to Exhibit 2, let us remember that, according to the 

Congressional Record of 1973, the United States has been in a state of national 

emergency since 1933. Then we realize that 12 USC, Section 95b is current law. 

This is the law that exists over these united States right this moment. 

If that be the case, let us see if we can understand what is being said here. As 

every action, rule or law put into effect by the President or the Secretary of the 

Treasury since March the 4th of 1933 has or will be confirmed and approved, let us 

determine the significance of that date in history. What happened on March the 

4th of 1933? 

On March the 4th of 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as 

President of the United States. Referring to his inaugural address which was given 

at a time when the country was in the throes of the Great Depression, we read: 

“I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a 

stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or 

such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, 

I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption. 

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and 

in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear 

course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one 

remaining instrument to meet the crisis — broad Executive power to wage a war 

against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we 

were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.” 

On March the 4th, 1933, at his inaugural, President Roosevelt was saying that he 

was going to ask Congress for the extraordinary authority available to him under 

the War Powers Act. Let’s see if he got it. 

On March the 5th, President Roosevelt asked for a special and extraordinary 

session of Congress in Proclamation 2038. He called for the special session of 

Congress to meet on March the 9th at noon. And at that Congress, he presented a 

bill, an Act, to provide for relief in the existing national emergency in banking and 

for other purposes. 

In the enabling portion of that Act it states: 

“Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the united States 

of America in Congress assembled, That the Congress hereby declares that a 

serious emergency exists and that it is imperatively necessary speedily to put into 

effect remedies of uniform national application.” 

What is the concept of the rule of necessity, referred to in the enabling portion of 

the Act as “imperatively necessary speedily”? The rule of necessity is a rule of law 

which states that necessity knows no law. A good example of the rule of necessity 

would be the concept of self-defense. The law says, “Thou shalt not kill”. But also 

know that, if you are in dire danger, in danger of losing your life, then you have 

the absolute right of self-defense. You have the right to kill to protect your own 

life. That is the ultimate rule of necessity. 

Thus we see that the rule of necessity overrides all other law, and, in fact, allows 

one to do that which would normally be against the law. So it is reasonable to 

assume that the wording of the enabling portion of the Act of March 9, 1933, is an 

indication that what follows is something which will probably be against the law. 

It will probably be against the Constitution of the United States, or it would not 

require that the rule of necessity be invoked to enact it. 

In the Act of March 9, 1933 it further states in Title 1, Section 1: 

“The actions, regulations, rules, licenses, orders and proclamations heretofore or 

hereafter taken, promulgated, made, or issued by the President of the United 

States or the Secretary of the Treasury since March the 4th, 1933, pursuant to the 

authority conferred by subdivision (b) of Section 5 of the Act of October 6, 1917, 

as amended, are hereby approved and confirmed.” 

Where have we read those words before? 

This is the exact same wording as is found (Exhibit 5) today in Title 12, USC 95b. 

The language in Title 12, USC 95b is exactly the same as that found in the Act of 

March 9, 1933, Chapter 1, Title 1, Section 48, Statute 1. The Act of March 9, 1933, 

is still in full force and effect today. We are still under the Rule of Necessity. We 

are still in a declared state of national emergency, a state of emergency that has 

existed, uninterrupted, since 1933, or for over sixty years. 

As you may remember, the authority to do this is conferred by Subsection (b) of 

Section 5 of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended. What was the authority 

which was used to declare and enact the emergency in this Act? If we look at the 

Act of October 6, 1917 we see that at the top right-hand part of the page, it states 

that this was: 

“An Act To define, regulate, and punish trading with the enemy, and for other 

purposes. 

By the year 1917, the United States was involved in World War I; at that point, it 

was recognized that there were probably enemies of the United States, or allies of 

enemies of the United States, living within the continental borders of our nation in 

a time of war. 

Therefore, Congress passed this Act which identified who could be declared 

enemies of the United States, and, in this Act, we gave the government total 

authority over those enemies to do with as it saw fit. We also see, however, in 

Section 2, Subdivision (c) in the middle, and again at the bottom of the page: 

“other than citizens of the united States.” 

The Act specifically excluded citizens of the united States, because we realized in 

1917 that the citizens of the united States were not enemies. Thus, we were 

excluded from the war powers over enemies in this Act. 

Section 5b of the same Act states: 

“That the President may investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and 

regulations as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any 

transactions in foreign exchange, export or earmarkings of gold or silver coin or 

bullion or currency, transfers of credit in any form (other than credits relating 

solely to transactions to be executed wholly within the United States)”. 

Again, we see here that citizens, and the transactions of citizens made wholly 

within the United States, were specifically excluded from the war powers of this 

Act. We, the People, were not enemies of our country; therefore, the government 

did not have total authority over us as they were given over our enemies. 

It is important to draw attention again to the fact that citizens of the United States 

in October, 1917, were not called enemies. Consequently the government, under 

the war powers of this Act, did not have authority over us; we were still protected 

by the Constitution. Granted, over enemies of this nation, the government was 

empowered to do anything it deemed necessary, but not over us. The distinction 

made between enemies of the United States and citizens of the united States will become crucial later on Please note the distinction between “United States, and that of “united States”... 

In Section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933 “Subdivision (b) of Section 5 of the Act of 

October 6, 1917 (40 Stat. L. 411), as amended, is hereby amended to read as 

follows; 

So we see that they are now going to amend Section 5 (b). Now let’s see how it 

reads after it’s amended. The amended version of Section 5 (b) reads (emphasis is 

ours): 

“During time of war or during any other period of national emergency declared by 

the President, the President may, through any agency that he may designate, or 

otherwise, investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and regulations as 

he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any transactions in foreign 

exchange, transfers of credit between or payments by banking institutions as 

defined by the President and export, hoarding, melting, or ear markings of gold or 

silver coin or bullion or currency, by any person within the (united States) or 

anyplace subject to the jurisdiction thereof..” (NOTE: later we will discuss that 

jurisdiction ... for now please take note of this important point.). 

What just happened? At as far as commercial, monetary or business transactions 

were concerned, the people of the united States were no longer differentiated 

from any other enemy of the United States. We had lost that crucial distinction. 

We can see that the phrase which excluded transactions executed wholly within 

the united States has been removed from the amended version of Section 5 (b) of 

the Act of March 9, 1933, Section 2, and replaced with “by any person within the 

united States or anyplace subject to the jurisdiction thereof’. All monetary 

transactions, whether domestic or international in scope, were now placed at the 

whim of the (President of the United States) through the authority given to him by 

the Trading with the enemy Act. (NOTE: change of title now! Exactly whom does 

the President represent in this situation now??) 

To summarize this critical point: On October the 6th of 1917, at the beginning of 

America’s involvement in World War 1, Congress passed a Trading with the enemy 

Act empowering the government to take control over any and all commercial, 

monetary or business transactions conducted by enemies or allies of enemies 

within our continental borders. That Act also defined the term “enemy” and 

excluded from that definition citizens of the united States. 

In Section 5 (b) of this Act, we see that the President was given unlimited 

authority to control the commercial transactions of defined enemies, but we see 

that credits relating solely to transactions executed wholly within the united 

States were excluded from that controlling authority. As transactions wholly 

domestic in nature were excluded from authority,the government had no 

extraordinary control over the daily business conducted by the citizens of the 

united States, because we were certainly not enemies. 

Citizens of the united States were not enemies of their country in 1917, and the 

transactions conducted by citizens within this country were not considered to be 

enemy transactions.But in looking again at Section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933, 

we can see that the phrase excluding wholly domestic transactions has been 

removed from the amended version and replaced with “by any person within the 

united States or anyplace subject to the jurisdiction thereof’. 

The people of the united States were now subject to the power of the Trading with 

the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as amended. For the purposes of all 

commercial, monetary and, in effect, all business transactions, We, the People 

became the same as the enemy, and were treated no differently. There was no 

longer any distinction. 

It is important here to note that, in the Acts of October 6, 1917 and March 9, 1933, 

it states: “during times of war or during any other national emergency declared by 

the President..”. 

So we now see that the war powers not only included a period of war, but also a 

period of “national emergency” as defined by the President of the United States. 

When either of these two situations occur, the President may, “through any 

agency that he may designate, or otherwise, investigate, regulate or prohibit 

under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe by means of licenses or 

otherwise, any transactions in foreign exchange, transfers of credit between or 

payments by banking institutions as defined by the President and export, 

hoarding, melting or earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency by any 

person within the united States or anyplace subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” What can the President do now to the We, the People, under this Section? He can do anything he wants to do. It’s purely at his discretion, and he can use any agency or any license that he desires to control it. This is called a constitutional dictatorship. 

In Senate Document 93-549, Congress declared that a serious emergency exists, 

at: “48 Stat. 1. The exclusion of domestic transactions, formerly found in the Act, 

was deleted from Sect. 5 (b) at this time.” 

Our Congress wrote that in the year 1973. 

Now let’s find out about the Trading with the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917. 

Quoting from a Supreme Court decision (Exhibit 9), Stoehr v. Wallace, 1921: 

“The Trading With the Enemy Act, originally and as amended, is strictly a war measure, and finds its sanction in the provision empowering Congress “to 

declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules 

concerning captures on land and water”Const. Art. 1, Sect. 8, cl. 11. P. 241′′. 

Remember your Constitution? “Congress shall have the power to declare war, 

grant letters of marque and reprisal and make all rules concerning the captures on 

the land and the water of the enemies.” ALL RULES. 

PRIZE COURTS AND THE LAW OF PRIZE 

If that be the case, let us look at the memorandum of law that now covers trading 

with the enemy, the “Memorandum of American Cases and Recent English Cases 

on The Law of Trading With the Enemy”, remembering that we are now the same 

as the enemy. In this memorandum, we read: 

“Every species of intercourse with the enemy is illegal. This prohibition is not 

limited to mere commercial intercourse.” (Which means commercial intercourse 

amongst the American people in any form, to include procreation, is illegal and 

thereby, can only take place, when a “License” is issued , authorizing Americans to 

interact and do business with other Americans while at all times being held to be 

(presumptive) enemies of the state.) This is the case of The Rapid (1814). 

Additionally, 

“No contract is considered as valid between enemies, at least so far as to give 

them a remedy in the courts of either government, and they have, in the language 

of the civil law, no ability to sustain a persona standi in judicio.” (Hence all statute 

or merchant law is copyright and foreign to be employed and used by the enemy 

In other words, they have no personal rights at law in these “Prize” courts. This is 

the case of The Julia (1813). 

In the next case, the case of The Sally (1814), we read the words: 

“By the general law of prize, property engaged in an illegal intercourse with the 

enemy is deemed enemy property. It is of no consequence whether it belong to an 

ally or to a citizen; the illegal traffic stamps it with the hostile character, and 

attaches to it all the penal consequences of enemy ownership.” (Try operating 

your car on the public highways and by ways without licensing that car and 

yourself . . . they will seize that car and impound it to be sold at public auction., 

and you will go to jail as a “Felon.”) 

Reading further in the memorandum, again from the case of The Rapid: 

“The law of prize is part of the law of nations. In it, a hostile character is attached 

to trade, independently of the character of the trader who pursues or directs it. 

Condemnation to the use of the captor is equally the fate of the property of the 

belligerent and of the property found engaged in anti-neutral trade. But a citizen 

or an ally may be engaged in a hostile trade, and thereby involve his property in 

the fate of those in whose cause he embarks.” 

Again from the memorandum: 

“The produce of the soil of the hostile territory, as well as other property engaged 

in the commerce of the hostile power, as the source of its wealth and strength, are 

always regarded as legitimate prize, without regard to the domicile of the 

owner”.(Does summary seizure of property by the IRS come to mind? And this is 

why it became necessary for the American people to be declared the “enemy” of 

the state under the mere presumption of the “Trading With the Enemy Act” as 

amended in 1935, thereby, making all interests in the property of the American 

people a legitimate prize of a foreign corporation pretending to operate under the 

original constitution of the United States of America.) 

From the case of The William Bagaley (1866): 

“In general, during war, contracts with, or powers of attorney or agency from, the 

enemy executed after outbreak of war are illegal and void; contracts entered into 

with the enemy prior to the war are either suspended or are absolutely 

terminated; partnerships with an enemy are dissolved; powers of attorney from 

the enemy, with certain exceptions, lapse; payments to the enemy (except to 

agents in the united States appointed prior to the war and confirmed since the 

war) are illegal and void; all rights of an enemy to sue in the courts are 

suspended.” 

From Senate Report No. 113, in which we find An Act to Define, Regulate, and 

Punish Trading with the Enemy, and For Other Purposes, we read: 

“The trade or commerce regulated or prohibited is defined in Subsections (a), (b), 

(c), (d) and (e), page 4. This trade covers almost every imaginable transaction, 

and is forbidden and made unlawful except when allowed under the form of 

licenses issued by the Secretary of Commerce (p. 4, sec. 3, line 18). This 

authorization of trading under licenses constitutes the principal modification of 

the rule of international law forbidding trade between the citizens of belligerents, 

for the power to grant such licenses, and therefore exemption from the operation 

of law, is given by the bill.” 

It says no trade can be conducted or no intercourse can be conducted without a 

license, because, by mere definition of the enemy, and under the prize law, all 

intercourse is illegal. 

That was the first case we looked at, wasn’t it? So once we were declared 

enemies, all intercourse, commercial or otherwise became illegal for us. The only 

way we could now do business or any type of legal intercourse was to obtain 

permission from our government by means of a license. (License of Cosmetology 

for example, or be charged and declared an “enemy” felon without a license to 

perform our chosen or God given craft.) We are certainly required to have a Social 

Security Card, which is a license to work, and a Driver’s License, which gives the 

government the ability to restrict travel; all business in which we engage 

ourselves requires us to have a license, does it not? 

Returning once again to the Memorandum of Law: (Exhibit 13) 

“But it is necessary always to bear in mind that a war cannot be carried on without 

hurting somebody, even, at times, our own citizens. The public good, however, 

must prevail over private gain. As we said in Bishop v. Jones (28 Texas, 294), 

there cannot be “a war for arms and a peace for commerce.” One of the most 

important features of the bill is that which provides for the temporary taking over 

of the enemy property,”. 

This point of law is important to keep in mind, for it authorizes the temporary 

take-over of enemy property. The question is: Once the war terminates, the 

property must be returned — mustn’t it? 

The property that is confiscated, and the belligerent right of the government 

during the period of war, must be returned when the war terminates. Let us take 

the case of a ship in harbor; war breaks out, and the Admiral says, “I’m seizing 

your ship.” Can you stop him? No. But when the war is over, the Admiral must 

return your ship to you. This point is important to bear in mind, for we will return 

to, and expand upon, it later in the report. 

Reading from Senate Document No. 43, “Contracts Payable in Gold” written in 

1933: 

“The ultimate ownership of all property is in the State; individual so-called, 

“ownership” is only by virtue of government, i. e., law, amounting to mere user; 

and use must be in accordance with law and subordinate to the necessities of the 

State.” 

Who owns all the property? Who owns the property you call “yours”? Who has the 

authority to mortgage property? Let us continue with a Supreme Court decision, 

United States v. Russell: 

“Private property, the Constitution provides, shall not be taken for public use 

without just compensation....” 

That is the peacetime clause, isn’t it? Further (emphasis added), 

“Extraordinary and unforeseen occasions arise, however, beyond all doubt, in 

cases of extreme necessity in time of war or of immediate and impending public 

danger, in which private property may be impressed into the public service, or 

may be seized or appropriated to public use, or may even be destroyed without the 

consent of the owner....” 

This quote, and indeed this case, provides a vivid illustration of the potential 

power that government can and will wield once no longer bound by constitutional 

restrictions. 

Now, let us return to the period of time after March 4, 1933, and take a close look 

at what really occurred. On March 4, 1933, in his inaugural address, President 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked for the authority of the war powers, and called a 

special session of Congress for the purpose of having those powers conferred to 

him. 

On March the 2nd, 1933, however, we find that Herbert Hoover had written a 

letter to the Federal Reserve Board of New York, asking them for 

recommendations for action based on the over-all situation at the time. The 

Federal Reserve Board responded with a resolution which they had adopted, an 

excerpt from which follows: 

“Resolution Adopted By The Federal Reserve Board Of New York. Whereas, in the 

opinion of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the 

continued and increasing withdrawal of currency and gold from the banks of the 

country has now created a national emergency....” 

In order to fully appreciate the significance of this last quote, we must recall that, 

in 1913, The Federal Reserve Act was passed, authorizing the creation of a central 

bank, the thought of which had already been noted in the Constitution. The basic 

idea of the central bank was, among other things, for it to act as a secure 

repository for the gold of the people. We, the People, would bring our gold to the 

huge, strong vaults of the Federal Reserve, and we would be issued a note which 

said, in effect, that, at any time we desired, we could bring that note back to the 

bank and be given back our gold which we had deposited. 

Until 1933, that agreement, that contract between the Federal Reserve and its 

depositors, was honored. Federal Reserve notes, prior to 1933, were indeed 

redeemable in gold. After 1933, the situation changed drastically. In 1933, during 

the depths of the Depression, at the time when We, the People, were struggling to 

stay alive and keep our families fed, the bankers began to say, “People are coming 

in now, wanting their gold, wanting us to honor this contract we have made with 

them to give them their gold on demand, and this contractual obligation is 

creating a national emergency.” 

How could that happen? Reading from the Public Papers of Herbert Hoover: 

“Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved, that, in this emergency, the Federal Reserve 

Board is hereby requested to urge the President of the United States to declare a 

bank holiday, Saturday, March 4, and Monday, March 6...” 

In other words, President Roosevelt was urged to close down the banking system 

and make it unavailable for a short period of time. What was to happen during that 

period of time? 

Reading again from the Federal Reserve Board resolution, we find a proposal for 

an executive order, to be worded as follows: 

Whereas, it is provided in Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended, 

that “the President may investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and 

regulations as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any 

transactions in foreign exchange and the export, hoarding, melting, or 

earmarkings of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency***“. 

Now, in any nominal usage of the American language, the standard accepted 

meaning of a series of three asterisks after a quotation means that what follows 

also must be quoted exactly, doesn’t it? If it’s not, that’s a fraudulent use of the 

American language. At that point marked by the red asterisk (*) above, ” began, 

what did the original Act of October 6,1917 say? 

Referring back to the remainder of Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 1917 

says: 

“(other than credits relating solely to transactions to be executed wholly within 

the [u]nited States).” 

This portion of Section 5 (b) specifically prohibited the government from taking 

control of We, the People’s money and transactions, didn’t it? 

However, let us now read the remainder of Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 

1917, as amended on March 9,1933 (Exhibit 17): 

“by any person within the united States or any place subject to the jurisdiction 

thereof.” 

Comparing the original with the amended version of Section 5 (b), we can see the 

full significance of the amended version, wherein the exclusion of domestic 

transactions from the powers of the Act was deleted, and “any person” became 

subject to the extraordinary powers conferred by the Act. Further, we can now see 

that the usage of the original text where the red asterisk is (above), it was, in all 

likelihood, meant to be deliberately misleading, if not fraudulent in nature. 

Further, in the next section of the Federal Reserve Board’s proposal, we find that 

anyone violating any provision of this Act will be fined not more than $10,000.00, 

or imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both. A severe enough penalty at 

any time, but one made all the more harsh by the economic conditions in which 

most Americans found themselves at the time. And where were these alterations 

and amendments to be found? Not from the government itself, initially; no, they 

are first to be found in a proposal from the Federal Reserve Board of New York, a 

banking institution. 

Let us recall the chronology of events: Herbert Hoover, in his last days as 

President of the united States, asked for a recommendation from the Federal 

Reserve Board of New York, and they responded with their proposals. We see that 

President Hoover did not act on the recommendation, and believed the actions 

were “neither justified nor necessary” (Appendix, Public Papers of Herbert 

Hoover, p. 1088). Let us see what happened; remember on March 4, 1933, 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as President of the united States. On 

March 5, 1933, President Roosevelt called for an extraordinary session of Congress 

to be held on March 9, 1933, as can be seen in Exhibit: 

“Whereas, public interests require that the Congress of the united States should 

be convened in extra session at twelve o’clock, noon, on the Ninth day of March, 

1933, to receive such communication as may be made by the Executive.” 

On the next day, March 6 ,1933, President Roosevelt issued Proclamation 2039, 

which has been included in this report, we find the following: 

“Whereas there have been heavy and unwarranted withdrawals of gold and 

currency from our banking institutions for the purpose of hoarding . . .” 

Right at the beginning, we have a problem. And the problem rests in the question 

of who should be the judge of whether or not my gold, on deposit at the Federal 

Reserve, with which I have a contract which says, in effect, that I may withdraw 

my gold at my discretion, is being withdrawn by me in an “unwarranted” manner. 

Remember, the people of the united States were in dire economic straits at this 

point. If I had gold at the Federal Reserve, I would consider withdrawing as much 

of my gold as I needed for my family and myself a “warranted” action. But the 

decision was not left up to We, the People. 

It is also important to note that it is stated that the gold is being withdrawn for 

the “purpose of hoarding”. The significance of this phrase becomes clearer when 

we reach Proclamation 2039, wherein the term “hoarding” is inserted into the 

amended version of Section 5 (b). The term, “hoarding”, was not to be found in 

the original version of Section 5(b) of the Act of October 6, 1917. It was a term 

which was used by President Roosevelt to help support his contention that the 

United States was in the middle of a national emergency, and his assertion that 

the extraordinary powers conferred to him by the War Powers Act were needed to 

deal with that emergency. 

Let us now go on to the middle of Proclamation 2039, at the top of the next page, 

we find the following: 

“Whereas, it is provided in Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, (40 Stat. L. 

411) as amended, ” that the President may investigate, regulate, or prohibit, 

under such rules and regulations as be may prescribed, by means of licenses or 

otherwise, any transaction in foreign exchange and the export, hoarding, melting, 

or ear markings of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency . . .” 

exactly as was first proposed by the Federal Reserve Board of New York (Exhibit 

31). 

If we return to 48 Statute 1 (Exhibit 17), Title 1, Section 1, we find that the 

amended Section 5 (b) with its added phrase: 

“by any person within the united States or any place subject to the jurisdiction 

thereof.” 

Is this becoming clearer as to exactly what happened? On March 5, 1933, 

President Roosevelt called for an extra session of Congress, and on March 6, 1933, 

issued Proclamation 2039 . On March 9th, Roosevelt issued Proclamation 2040. We 

looked at Proclamation 2039(a), let’s see what Roosevelt is talking about in 

Proclamation 2040: 

“Whereas, on March 6, 1933, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United 

States of America, by Proclamation declared the existence of a national emergency 

and proclaimed a bank holiday...” 

We see that Roosevelt declared a national emergency and a bank holiday. Let’s 

read on: 

“Whereas, under the Act of March 9, 1933, all Proclamations heretofore or 

hereafter issued by the President pursuant to the authority conferred by section 5 

(b) of the Act of October 6, 1 91 7, as amended, are approved and confirmed;” 

This section of the Proclamation clearly states that all proclamations heretofore or 

hereafter issued by the President are approved and confirmed, citing the authority 

of section 5 (b). The key words here being “all” and “approved”. Further: 

“Whereas, said national emergency still continues, and it is necessary to take 

further measures extending beyond March 9, 1933, in order to accomplish such 

purposes” 

We again clearly see that there is more to come, evidenced by the phrase, “further 

measures extending beyond March 9, 1933 ... ” Could this be the beginning of a 

new deal? Possibly a one-sided deal. How long can this type of action continue? 

Let’s find out. 

“Now, therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of 

America, in view of such continuing national emergency and by virtue of the 

authority vested in me by Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 1917 (40 Stat. L. 

411) as amended by the Act of March 9, 1933, do hereby proclaim, order, direct 

and declare that all the terms and provisions of said Proclamation of March 

6,1933, and the regulations and orders issued there under are hereby continued in 

full force and effect until further proclamation by the President.” 

We now understand that the Proclamation 2039, of March 6, 1933 and 

Proclamation 2040 of March 9, 1933, will continue until such time as another 

proclamation is made by “the President”. Note that the term “the President” is not 

specific to President Roosevelt; it is a generic term which can equally apply to any 

President from Roosevelt to the present, and beyond. 

So here we have President Roosevelt declaring a national emergency (we are now 

beginning to realize the full significance of those words) and closing the national 

banks for two days, by Executive Order. Further, he states that the Proclamations 

bringing about these actions will to continue “in full force and effect” until such 

time as the President, and only the President, changes the situation. 

It is important to note the fact that these Proclamations were made on March 6, 

1933, three days before Congress was due to convene its extra session. Yet 

references are made to such things as the amended Section 5 (b), which had not 

yet even been confirmed by Congress. President Roosevelt must have been 

supremely confident of Congress giving confirmation of his actions. And indeed, 

we find that confidence was justified. *** For on March 9, 1933, without individual 

Congressmen even having the opportunity to read for themselves the bill they 

were to confirm, Congress did indeed approve the amendment of Section 5 (b) of 

the Act of October 6, 1917. *** 

Referring to the Public Papers of Herbert Hoover: 

“That those speculators and insiders were right was plain enough later on. This 

first contract of the ‘moneychangers with the New Deal netted those who removed 

their money from the country a profit of up to 60 percent when the dollar was 

debased.” 

Where had our gold gone? Our gold had already been moved offshore! The gold 

was not in the banks, and when We, the People lined up at the door attempting to 

have our contracts honored, the deception was exposed. What happened then? 

The laws were changed to prevent us from asking again, and the military was 

brought in to protect the Federal Reserve. We, the People, were declared to be the 

same as a public enemy in fact, and placed under military authority. 

Going now to another section of 48 Statute 1: 

“Whenever in the judgment of the Secretary of the Treasury such action is 

necessary to protect the currency system of the (U)nited States, the Secretary of 

the Treasury, in his discretion, may require any or all individuals, partnerships, 

associations and corporations to pay and deliver to the Treasurer of the United 

States any or all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by such 

individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations.” Notice now to whom we 

refer as “owning” the money! 

By this Statute, everyone was required to turn in their gold. Failure to do so would 

constitute a violation of this provision, such violation to be punishable by a fine of 

not more than $10,000.00 and imprisonment for not more than ten years. It was a 

seizure. Whose property may be seized without due process of law under the 

Trading With the Enemy Act? The enemy’s. Whose gold was seized? Ours — the 

gold of the people of the united States. Are you seeing the fraud here now? 

From the Roosevelt Papers: 

“During this banking holiday it was at first believed that some form of scrip or 

emergency currency would be necessary for the conduct of ordinary business. We 

knew that it would be essential when the banks reopened to have an adequate 

supply of currency to meet all possible demands of depositors. Consideration was 

given by government officials and various local agencies to the advisability of 

issuing clearing house certificates or some similar form of local emergency 

currency. On March 7, 1933, the Secretary of the Treasury issued a regulation 

authorizing clearing houses to issue demand certificates against sound assets of 

the banking institutions, but this authority was not to become effective until March 

10th. In many cities, the printing of these certificates was actually begun, but 

after the passage of the Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933 (48 Stat. 1), it 

became evident that they would not be needed, because the Act made possible the 

issue of the necessary amount of emergency currency in the form of Federal 

Reserve banknotes which could be based on any sound assets owned by banks.” 

Roosevelt could now issue emergency currency under the Act of March 9, 1933 

and this currency was to be called Federal Reserve bank notes. From Title 4 of the 

Act of March 9, 1933: 

“Upon the deposit with the Treasurer of the United States, (a) of any direct 

obligations of the united States or (b) of any notes, drafts, bills of exchange, or 

bankers’ acceptances acquired under the provisions of this Act, any Federal 

reserve bank making such deposit in the manner prescribed by the Secretary of 

the Treasury shall be entitled to receive from the Comptroller of the currency 

circulating notes in blank, duly registered and countersigned.” 

What is this saying? It says (emphasis is ours): “Upon the deposit with the 

Treasurer of the United States, (a) of any direct obligation of the united States ...” 

That is a direct obligation of the united States? It’s a treasury note, which is an 

obligation upon whom? Upon We, the People, to perform. It’s a taxpayer 

obligation, isn’t it? 

Title 4 goes on: “or (b) of any notes, drafts, bills of exchange or bankers’ 

acceptances . . 

What’s a note? If you go to the bank and sign a note on your home, that’s a note, 

isn’t it? A note is a private obligation upon We, the People. And if the Federal 

Reserve Bank deposits either (a) public and/or (b) private obligation of We, the 

People, with the Treasury, the Comptroller of the currency will issue this 

circulating note endorsed in blank, duly registered and countersigned, an 

emergency currency based on the (a) public and/or (b) private obligations of the 

people of the united States. 

In the Congressional Record of March 9, 1933, we find evidence that our 

congressmen didn’t even have individual copies of the bill to read, on which they 

were about to vote. A copy of the bill was passed around for approximately 40 

minutes. Congressman McFadden made the comment: 

“Mr. Speaker, I regret that the membership of the House has had no opportunity 

to consider or even read this bill. The first opportunity I had to know what this 

legislation is, was when it was read from the clerk’s desk. It is an important 

banking bill. It is a dictatorship over finance in the united States. It is complete 

control over the banking system in the united States ... It is difficult under the 

circumstances to discuss this bill. The first section of the bill, as I grasped it, is 

practically the war powers that were given back in 1917.” 

Congressman McFadden later goes on to say: 

“I would like to ask the chairman of the committee if this is a plan to change the 

holding of the security back of the Federal Reserve notes to the Treasury of the 

united States rather than the Federal Reserve agent.” 

Keep in mind, here, that, prior to 1933, the Federal Reserve bank held our gold as 

security, in return for Federal Reserve gold notes which we could redeem at any 

time we wanted. Now, however, Congressman McFadden is asking if this proposed 

bill is a plan to change who’s going to hold the security, from the Federal Reserve 

to the Treasury. 

Chairman Steagall’s response to Congressman McFadden’s question, again from 

the Congressional Record: 

“This provision is for the issuance of Federal Reserve bank notes; and not for 

Federal Reserve notes; and the security back of it is the obligations, notes, drafts, 

bills of exchange, bank acceptances, outlined in the section to which the 

gentleman has referred.” 

We were backed by gold, and our gold was seized, wasn’t it? We were penniless, 

and now our money would be secured, not by gold, but by notes and obligations 

on which We, the People, were the collateral security. 

Congressman McFadden then questioned, 

“Then the new circulation is to be Federal Reserve bank notes and not Federal 

Reserve notes. Is that true? 

Mr. Steagall replied, 

“Insofar as the provisions of this section are concerned, yes.” 

Does that sound familiar? 

Next we hear from Congressman Britten, as noted in the Congressional Record: 

“From my observations of the bill as it was read to the House, it would appear that 

the amount of bank notes that might be issued by the Federal Reserve System is 

not limited. That will depend entirely upon the amount of collateral that is 

presented from time to time for exchange for bank notes. Is that not correct?” 

What is the collateral that underwrites the debt? 

(Our negotiable signature or voluntary acceptance of debt instruments which 

represents our ability to produce goods and services into the indefinite 

future.) We have no rights nor privileges in Admiralty, we as a “natural / 

biological party” can’t even be acknowledged in admiralty proceedings, the court 

can’t ever acknowledge our presence. (Our assigned and colorable public vessel 

however does have such privileges and we MUST do commerce through this 

vessel, to do business in general.) Our rights remain in a separate and limited 

jurisdiction foreign to admiralty, which is also termed to be “Civil” in nature. Our 

ability to produce goods and services underwrites and monetizes all offers of 

unsecured debt made to us by the insolvent United States Inc. So called “credit 

money” once issued to a federal reserve bank as unsecured debt and in the form 

of federal reserve notes, become monitized the moment these as yet un-circulated 

notes pass from the fed bank, into our hands and we voluntarily accept them as 

“legal tender.” 

Congressman Patman, speaking from the Congressional Record (Exhibit 40): 

“The money will be worth 100 cents on the dollar because it is backed by the 

credit of the Nation. It will represent a mortgage on all the homes and other 

property of all the people in the Nation.” 

It now is no wonder that credit became so available after the Depression. It was 

needed to back our monetary system. Our debts, our obligations, our homes, our 

jobs – To those who don’t understand the debtor scheme, we appear to be 

economic slaves for the system and held to a condition of involuntary bankruptcy 

and thereby, peonage. 

From Statutes at Large, in the Congressional Record: 

“When required to do so by the Secretary of the Treasury, each Federal Reserve 

agent shall act as agent of the Treasurer of the United States or of the Comptroller 

of the currency, or both, for the performance of any functions which the Treasurer 

or the Comptroller may be called upon to perform in carrying out the provisions of 

this paragraph.” 

The Treasury was taken over by the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve Holding 

companies, the Depository Trust Co. and the CEDE Co., hold the assets. 

To summarize briefly: On March 9,1933 the American people in all their domestic, 

daily, and commercial transactions became the same as the enemy if they were 

not joined in a limited public private joint venture with the United States Inc, the 

insolvent party in this joint venture. 

And we know that current law, to this day, says that all proclamations issued 

heretofore or hereafter by the President or the Secretary of the Treasury are 

approved and confirmed by Congress. 

On March 11, 1933, President Roosevelt, in his first radio “Fireside Chat” (Exhibit 

42), makes the following statement: 

“The Secretary of the Treasury will issue licenses to banks which are members of 

the Federal Reserve system, whether national bank or state, located in each of the 

12 Federal Reserve bank cities, to open Monday morning.” 

It was by this action that the Federal Reserve took over the Treasury and the 

banking system. 

Black’s Law Dictionary defines the Bank Holiday of 1933 (Exhibit 42a) in the 

following words: 

“Presidential Proclamations No. 2039, issued March 6, 1933, and No. 2040, issued 

March 9, 1933, temporarily suspended banking transactions by member banks of 

the Federal Reserve System. Normal banking functions were resumed on March 

13, subject to certain restrictions. The first proclamation, it was held, had no 

authority in law until the passage on March 9, 1933, of a ratifying act (12 U. S. C. 

A. Sect. 95b). Anthony v. Bank of Wiggins, 183 Miss. 883, 184 So. 626. 

The present law forbids member banks of the Federal Reserve System to transact 

banking business, except under regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury, 

during an emergency proclaimed by the President. 12 U.S.C.A. Sect. 95′′ 

Take special note of the last sentence of this definition, especially the phrase, 

“present law”. The fact that banks are under regulation of the Treasury today, is 

evidence that the state of emergency still exists, by virtue of the definition. Not 

that, at this point, we need any more evidence to prove we are still in a declared 

state of national emergency. 

From the Agricultural Adjustment Act of May 12,1933 (Exhibit 43): 

“To issue licenses permitting processors, associations of producers and others to 

engage in the handling, in the current of interstate or foreign commerce, of any 

agricultural commodity or product thereof . . .” 

This is the seizure of the agricultural industry by means of licensing authority. 

In the first hundred days of the reign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, similar 

seizures by licensing authority were successfully completed by the government 

over a plethora of other industries, among them transportation, communications, 

public utilities, securities, oil, labor, and all natural resources. The first hundred 

days of FDR saw the nationalization of the united States, its people and its assets. 

What has Bill Clinton talked about during his campaign and early presidency? His 

first hundred days. 

Now, we know that they took over all contracts, for we have already read in 

Exhibit 22: 

“No contract is considered as valid as between enemies, at least so far as to give 

them a remedy in the courts of law of either government, and they have, 

in the language of civil law, no ability to sustain a persona standi in judicio.” 

The enemy has no personal rights at law or statute. Therefore, we should expect 

that we would see in the statutes a time when the contract between the Federal 

Reserve and We, the People, in which the Federal Reserve had to give us our gold 

on demand, was made null and void. 

Referring to House Joint Resolution 192 (June 5, 1933) : 

“That (a) every provision contained in or made with respect to any obligation 

which purports to give the obligee a right to require payment in gold or a 

particular kind of coin or currency, or in an amount of money of the united States 

measured thereby is declared to be against public policy; and no such policy shall 

be contained in or made with respect to any obligation hereafter incurred.“ 

Indeed, our contract with the Federal Reserve was invalidated at the end of 

Roosevelt’s hundred days. We lost our right to require our gold back from the bank 

in which we had deposited it. 

Returning once again to the Roosevelt Papers: 

“This conference of fifty farm leaders met on March 10, 1933. They agreed on 

recommendations for a bill, which were presented to me at the White House on 

March 11th by a committee of the conference, who requested me to call upon the 

Congress for the same broad powers to meet the emergency in agriculture as I 

had requested for solving the bank crisis.” 

What was the “broad powers”? That was the War Powers, wasn’t it? And now we 

see the farm leaders asking President Roosevelt to use the same War Powers to 

take control of the agricultural industry. Well, needless to say, he did. We should 

wonder about all that took place at this conference, for it to result in the eventual 

acquiescence of farm leadership to the governmental take-over of their 

livelihoods. 

Reading from the Agricultural Adjustment Act, May the 12th, Declaration of 

Emergency: 

“That the present acute economic emergency being in part the consequence of a 

severe and increasing disparity between the prices of agriculture and other 

commodities, which disparity has largely destroyed the purchasing power of 

farmers for industrial products, has broken down the orderly exchange of 

commodities, and has seriously impaired the agricultural assets supporting the 

national credit structure, it is hereby declared that these conditions in the basic 

industry of agriculture have affected transactions in agricultural commodities with 

a national public interest, have burdened and obstructed the normal currents of 

commerce in such commodities and rendered imperative the immediate enactment 

of Title 1 of this Act.” 

Now here we see that he is saying that the agricultural assets support the national 

credit structure. Did he take the titles of all the land? Remember Contracts 

Payable in Gold? President Roosevelt needed the support, and agriculture was 

critical, because of all the millions of acres of farmland at that time, and the value 

of that farmland. The mortgage on that farmland was what supported the 

emergency credit. So President Roosevelt had to do something to stabilize the 

price of land and Federal Reserve Bank notes to create money, didn’t he? So he 

impressed agriculture into the public interest. 

The farming industry was nationalized. 

Continuing with the Agricultural Adjustment Act, Declaration of Emergency 

“It is hereby declared to be the public policy of Congress...” 

Referring now back to Prize Cases (1862) (2 Black, 674) (Exhibit 24): 

“But in defining the meaning of the term ‘enemies’ property,’ we will be led into 

error if we refer to Fleta or Lord Coke for their definition of the word, ‘enemy’. It is 

a technical phrase peculiar to prize courts, and depends upon principles of public 

policy as distinguished from the common law.” 

Once the emergency is declared, the common law is abolished, the Constitution is 

abolished and we fall under the absolute will of Government “public policy”. 

All the government needs to continue is to have public opinion on their side. If 

public opinion can be kept, in sufficient degree, on the side of the government, 

statutes, laws and regulations can continue to be passed. The Constitution has no 

meaning. The Constitution is suspended. It has been for over 60 years. We’re not 

under law. Law has been abolished. 

We’re under a system of public policy, (War Powers). 

So when you go into that courtroom with your Constitution and the common law in 

your hand, what does that judge tell you? He tells you that you have no persona 

standi in judicio. You have no personal standing at law. He tells you not to bother 

bringing the Constitution into his court, because it is not a Constitutional court, 

but an executive tribunal operating under a totally different jurisdiction. 

Statutory/admiralty courts have no jurisdiction over you personally unless you 

volunteer by “traverse” and grant personum jurisdiction out of ignorance. Judge 

Bork once made the comment in a public appearance that over 90% of the people 

in prison today, volunteered to be there. The named or charged party is never you. 

The named party is however, the colorable/fictional public vessel assigned to you 

bearing a bastardized version of your given name in styled in ALL UPPER CASE 

LETTERS. 

This slight of administrative hand is the subtle process employed by the courts to 

cause you to traverse by answering “as” the vessel, rather than “for” the vessel as 

the vessels authorized representative. When in an admiralty proceeding and the 

vessel name is called and you erroneously answer in such manner that you believe 

you are the one being addressed, you have given yourself over to the court. 

A quick suggestion in how to respond to a court proceeding in which your public 

vessel is of course the named party: 

When the bastardized version of your name is called, you say nothing, but simply 

stand up and remain silent until spoke to. The judge will ask the obvious question: 

“Are you JOHN Q DOE”” You say: “No, I’m not, I am however the authorized 

representative for the named party and public vessel JOHN Q DOE.” 

The judge will probably ask if you’re JOHN Q DOE’S attorney. You would say: “No 

I’m not, I am however, the Master of this named and colorable Public Vessel JOHN 

Q DOE and am here to settle and honorably close this particular account. What is 

owed and who am I to make the check out to?” 

According to the judge, the above will of course vary to some degree and you’ll 

have to be prepared to deal with those variations. Understanding the debtor 

scheme is how you are going to be prepared to deal with a judge that will try to 

lead you into a jurisdictional traverse. 

From Section 93-549: 

“Under this procedure we retain Government by operation of law – special, 

temporary law, perhaps, but law nonetheless. The public may know the extent and 

the limitations of the powers that can be asserted, and the “persons” affected may 

be informed by the statute of their rights and their duties.” 

Again from 93-549, from the words of Mr. Katzenbach: 

“My recollection is that almost every executive order ever issued straddles on 

several grounds, but it almost always includes the Trading With the Enemy Act 

because the language of that act is so broad, it would justify almost anything.” 

Speaking on the subject of a challenge to the Act by the people, Justice Clark then 

says, 

“Most difficult from a standpoint of standing to sue. The Court, you might say, has 

enlarged the standing rule in favor of the litigant. But I don’t think it has reached 

the point, presently, that would permit many such cases to be litigated to the 

merits.” 

Senator Church then made the comment: 

“What you’re saying, then, is that if Congress doesn’t act to standardize, restrict, 

or eliminate the emergency powers, that no one else is very likely to get a 

standing in court to contest.” 

No persona standi in judicio – no personal standing in the courts to challenge the 

Trading With the Enemy Act. 

(Thereby, out of necessity and due to the above referenced denial of standing to 

sue, cause is given for relief, to rebut any and all presumption that this presenter 

is, or acts as an enemy of the foreign forum, the United States, an insolvent body 

corporate.) 

Continuing with Senate Report 93-549: 

“The interesting aspect of the legislation lies in the fact that it created a 

permanent agency designed to eradicate an emergency condition in the sphere of 

agriculture.” 

These agencies, of which there are now thousands, and which now control every 

aspect of our lives, were ostensibly created as temporary agencies meant to last 

only as long as the national emergency. They have become, in fact, permanent 

agencies, as has the state of national emergency itself. As Franklin Delano 

Roosevelt said: “We will never go back to the old order.” That quote takes on a 

different meaning in light of what we have seen so far. 

In Senate Report 93-549, we find a quote from Senator Church: 

“If the President can create crimes by fiat and without congressional approval, our 

system is not much different from that of the Communists, which allegedly 

threatens our existence.” 

We see on this same document, at the bottom right-hand side of the page, as a 

Title, the words, 

“Enormous Scope of Powers...A “Time Bomb”. 

Remember, this is Congress’ own document, from the year 1973. 

Most people might not look to agriculture to provide them with this type of 

information. But let us look at Title III of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which is 

also called the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act of 1933: 

“Title III — Financing – And Exercising Power Conferred by Section 8 of Article I of 

the Constitution: To Coin Money And To Regulate the Value Thereof.” 

From Section 43 of Exhibit 52: 

“Whenever the President finds upon investigation that the foreign commerce of 

the united States is adversely affected ... and an expansion of credit is necessary 

to secure by international agreement a stabilization at proper levels of the 

currencies of various governments, the President is authorized, in his discretion... 

To direct the Secretary of the Treasury to enter into agreements with the several 

Federal Reserve banks...” 

Remember that in the Constitution it states that Congress has the authority to coin 

all money and regulate the value thereof. How can it be then that the Executive 

branch is issuing an emergency currency, and quoting the Constitution as its 

authority to do so? 

Under Section 1 of the same Act we find the following: 

“To direct the Secretary of the Treasury to cause to be issued in such amount or 

amounts as he may from time to time order, United States notes, as provided in 

the Act entitled “An Act to authorize the issue of United States notes and for the 

redemption of funding thereof and for funding the floating debt of the united 

States, approved February 25, 1862, and Acts supplementary thereto and 

amendatory thereof” 

What is the Act of February 25, 1862? It is the Greenback Act of President 

Abraham Lincoln. Let us remember that, when Abraham Lincoln was elected and 

inaugurated, he didn’t even have a Congress for the first six weeks. He did not, 

however, call an extra session of Congress. He issued money, he declared war, he 

suspended habeas corpus, it was an absolute Constitutional dictatorship. There 

was not even a Congress in session for six weeks. 

When Lincoln’s Congress came into session six weeks later, they entered the 

following statement into the Congressional record: “The actions, rules, 

regulations, licenses, heretofore or hereafter taken, are hereby approved and 

confirmed...” This is the exact language of March 9,1933 and Title 12, USC, Section 

95 (b), today. 

We now come to the question of how to terminate these extraordinary powers 

granted under a declaration of national emergency. We have learned that, in order 

for the extraordinary powers to be terminated, the national emergency itself must 

be cancelled. Reading from the Agricultural Act, Section 13: 

“This title shall cease to be in effect whenever the President finds and proclaims 

that the national economic emergency in relation to agriculture has been ended.” 

Whenever the President finds by proclamation that the proclamation issued on 

March 6, 1933 has terminated, it has to terminate through presidential 

proclamation just as it came into effect. Congress had already delegated all of that 

authority, and therefore is in no position to take it back. 

In Senate Report 93-549, we find the following statement from Congress: 

“Furthermore, it would be largely futile task unless we have the President’s active 

collaboration. Having delegated this authority to the President — in ways that 

permit him to determine how long it shall continue, simply through the device of 

keeping emergency declarations alive — we now find ourselves in a position where 

we cannot reclaim the power without the President’s acquiescence. We are unable 

to terminate these declarations without the President’s signature, so we need a 

large measure of Presidential cooperation”. 

It appears that no President has been willing to give up this extraordinary power, 

and, if they will not sign the termination proclamation, the access to and usage of, 

extraordinary powers does not terminate. At least, it has not terminated for over 

65 years. 

Now, that’s no definite indication that a President from Bill Clinton on might not 

eventually sign the termination proclamation, but 65 years of experience would 

lead one to doubt that day will ever come by itself. But the question now to ask is 

this: How many times have We, the People, asked the President to terminate his 

access to extraordinary powers, or the situation on which it is based, the declared 

national emergency? Who has ever demanded that this be done? How many of us 

even knew that it had been done? And, without the knowledge contained in this 

report, how long do you think the blindness of the American public to this 

situation would have continued, and with it, the abolishment of the Constitution? 

But we’re not quite as in the dark as we were, are we? 

In Senate Report 93-549, we find the following statement from Senator Church: 

“These powers, if exercised, would confer upon the President total authority to do 

anything he pleased.” 

Elsewhere in Senate Report 93-549, Senator Church makes the remarkable 

statement: 

“Like a loaded gun laying around the house, the plethora of delegated authority 

and institutions to meet almost every kind of conceivable crisis stand ready for 

use for purposes other than their original intention ... Machiavelli, in his 

“Discourses of Livy,” acknowledged that great power may have to be given to the 

Executive if the State is to survive, but warned of great dangers in doing so. He 

cautioned: Nor is it sufficient if this power be conferred upon good men; for men 

are frail, and easily corrupted, and then in a short time, he that is absolute may 

easily corrupt the people.” 

Now, a quote from an exclusive reply written May 21, 1973, by the Attorney 

General of the United States regarding studies undertaken by the Justice 

Department on the question of the termination of the standing national 

emergency: 

“As a consequence, a “national emergency” is now a practical necessity in order to 

carry out what has the regular and normal method of governmental actions. What 

were intended by Congress as delegations of power to be used only in the most 

extreme situations, and for the most limited durations, have become everyday 

powers, and a state of “emergency” has become a permanent condition.” From United States v. Butler (Supreme Court, 1936): 

“A tax, in the general understanding and in the strict Constitutional sense, is an 

exaction for the support of government; the term does not connote the 

expropriation of money from one group to be expended for another, as a 

necessary means in a plan of regulation, such as the plan for regulating 

agricultural production set up in the Agricultural Adjustment Act.” 

What is being said here is that a tax can all be an exaction for the support of 

government, not for an expropriation from one group for the use of another. That 

would be socialism, wouldn’t it? 

Quoting further from United States v. Butler: 

“The regulation of farmer’s activities under the statute, though in form subject to 

his own will, is in fact coercion through economic pressure; his right of choice is 

illusory. 

Even if a farmer’s consent were purely voluntary, the Act would stand no better. 

At best it is a scheme for purchasing with federal funds submission to federal 

regulation of a subject reserved to the states.” 

Speaking of contracts, those contracts are coercion contracts. They are adhesion 

contracts made by a superior over an inferior. They are under the belligerent 

capacity of government over enemies crafted by artifice. They are not valid 

contracts. 

Again from United States v. Butler: 

“If the novel view of the General Welfare Clause now advanced in support of the 

tax were accepted, this clause would not only enable Congress to supplant the 

states in the regulation of agriculture and all other industries as well, but would 

furnish the means whereby all of the other provisions of the Constitution, 

sedulously framed to define and limit the powers of the United States and 

preserve the powers of the states, could be broken down, the independence of the 

individual states obliterated, and The Federal United States converted into a 

central government exercising uncontrolled police power throughout the union 

superseding all local control over local concerns.” 

Please, read the above paragraph again. The understanding of its meaning is vital. 

The United States Supreme Court ruled the New Deal, the nationalization, 

unconstitutional in the Agricultural Adjustment Act and they turned it down flat. 

The Supreme Court declared it to be unconstitutional. They said, in effect, “You’re 

turning the federal government into an uncontrolled police state, exercising 

uncontrolled police power.” 

What did Roosevelt do next? He stacked the Supreme Court, didn’t he? And in 

1937, United States v. Butler was overturned. Roosevelt knew exactly what he 

was doing. 

From the 65th Congress, 1st Session Doc. 87, under the section entitled 

Constitutional Sources of Laws of War, Page 7, Clause II, we find the following: 

“The existence of war and the restoration of peace are to be determined by the 

political department of the government, and such determination is binding and 

conclusive upon the courts, and deprives the courts of the power of hearing proof 

and determining as a question of fact either that war exists or has ceased to 

exist.” 

The courts will tell you that is a political question, for they (the courts) do not 

have jurisdiction over the common law. (And the common law is the law of men, 

not fictions.) 

The courts were deprived of the Constitution. They were deprived of the common 

law. The courts of today, are now courts of prize over the enemies, and we the 

American people have no persona standi in judicio. We have no personal standing 

under the statute law. Also from the 65th Congress, under the section entitled 

Constitutional Sources of Laws of War, we find: 

“When the sovereign authority shall choose to bring it into operation, the judicial 

department must give effect to its will. But until that will shall be expressed, no 

power of condemnation can exist in the court.” 

So . . . . WE THE PEOPLE are, and remain the SOVEREIGN power under the 

Constitution for the united States.” 

From Senate Report 93-549: 

“Just how effective a limitation on crisis action this makes of the court is hard to 

say. In light of the recent war, the court today would seem to be a fairly harmless 

observer of the emergency activities of the President and Congress. It is highly 

unlikely that the separation of powers and the 10th Article of Amendment will be 

called upon again to hamstring the efforts of the government to deal resolutely 

with a serious national emergency.” 

So much for our Constitutional system of checks and balances. And from that same 

Senate Report, in the section entitled, “Emergency Administration”, a 

continuation: 

“Organizationally, in dealing with the depression, it was Roosevelt’s general policy 

to assign new, emergency functions to newly created agencies, rather than to 

already existing departments.” 

Thus, thousands of “temporary” emergency agencies are now sitting out there 

with emergency functions to rule us with extreme prejudice in all cases 

whatsoever and whenever they so summarily chose. 

Finally, let us look briefly at the courts, specifically with regard to the question of 

“booty”. The following definition of the term, “prize” is to be found in Bouvier’s 

Law Dictionary: 

“Goods taken on land from a public enemy are called booty; and the distinction 

between a prize and booty consists in this, that the former is taken at sea and the 

latter on land.” 

This significance of the distinction between these two terms is critical, a fact 

which will become quite clear shortly. 

Let us now remember that “Congress shall have the power to make rules on all 

captures on the land and the water.” To reiterate, captures on the land are booty, 

and captures on the water are prize. 

Now, the Constitution says that Congress shall have the power to provide and 

maintain a navy, even during peacetime. It also says that Congress shall have the 

power to raise and support an army, but no appropriations of money for that 

purpose shall be for greater than two years. Here we can see that an army is not a 

permanent standing body, because, in times of peace, armies were held by the 

sovereign states as militia. So the United States had a navy during peacetime, but 

no standing army; we had instead the individual state militias, both organized and 

unorganized. 

Consequently, the federal government had a standing prize court, due to the fact 

that it had a standing navy, whether in times of peace or war 

But in times of peace, there could be no federal police power over the continental 

united States, because there was to be no army, and NO jurisdiction over 

Sovereign American citizens! 

From the report “The Law of Civil Government in Territory Subject to Military 

Occupation by Military Forces of the United States”, published by order of the 

Secretary of War in 1902, under the heading entitled “The Confiscation of Private 

Property of Enemies in War”, comes the following quote: 

“4. Should the President desire to utilize the services of the Federal courts of the 

*united States* in promoting this purpose or military undertaking, since these 

courts derive their jurisdiction from Congress and do not constitute a part of the 

military establishment, they must secure from Congress the necessary action to 

confer such jurisdiction upon said courts.” 

This means that, if the government is going to confiscate property within 

the continental united States on the land (booty), it must obtain the statutory 

authority of the Congress. 

In this same section, we find the following words: 

“5. The laws and usages of war make a distinction between enemies’ property 

captured on the sea and property captured on land. The jurisdiction of the courts 

of the united States over property captured at sea is held not to attach to property 

captured on land in the absence of Congressional action.” 

There is no standing prize court over the land. Once war is declared, Congress 

must give jurisdiction to particular courts over captures on the land by positive 

Congressional action. To continue: 

“The right of confiscation is a sovereign right. In times of peace, the exercise of 

this right is limited and controlled by the domestic Constitution and institutions of 

the government. 

In times of war, when the right is exercised against enemies’ property as a war 

measure, such right becomes a belligerent right, and as such is not subject to the 

restrictions imposed by domestic institutions, but is regulated and controlled by 

the laws and usages of war. This “belligerent” approach is consistent with the 

summary actions of the IRS when seizing property interest throughout the country 

and bypassing administrative and procedural mandates. 

So we see that our government can operate in two capacities: (a) in its sovereign 

peacetime capacity, with the limitations placed upon it by the Constitution and 

restrictions placed upon it by We, the People, or (b) in a wartime capacity, where 

it may operate in its belligerent capacity governed not by the Constitution, but 

only by the laws of war. 

In Section 17 of the Act of October 6, 1917, the Trading With the Enemy Act: 

“That the district courts of the United States are hereby given jurisdiction to make 

and enter all such rules as to notice and otherwise; and all such orders and 

decrees; and to issue such process as may be necessary and proper in the 

premises to enforce the provisions of this Act.” 

Here we have Congress conferring upon the district courts of the United States the 

booty jurisdiction, the jurisdiction over enemy property within the continental 

united States. And at the time of the original, un-amended, Trading with the 

Enemy Act, we were indeed at war, a World war, and so booty jurisdiction over 

enemies’ property in the courts was appropriate. At that time, remember, we were 

not yet declared the enemy. We were excluded from the provisions of the original 

Act. 

In 1934 Congress passed an Act merging equity and law abolishing common law. 

This Act, known as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures Act, was not to come into 

effect until 6 months after the letter of transmittal from the Supreme Court to 

Congress. The Supreme Court refused transmittal and the transmittal did not occur 

until Franklin D. Roosevelt stacked the Supreme Court in 1938. 

But on March the 9th of 1933, the American people were declared to be the public 

enemy under the amended version of the Trading With the Enemy Act. 

What jurisdiction were We, the People, then placed under? We were now the 

booty jurisdiction given to the district courts by Congress. (Being in commercial 

dishonor activates this booty jurisdiction.) It would no longer be necessary , or of 

any value at all, to bring the Constitution for the United States with us upon 

entering a booty courtroom, for that court was no longer a court of common law or 

Article III Court, but a tribunal under wartime booty jurisdiction. Take a look at 

the American flag in most American courtrooms. The gold fringe around our flag 

designates the Admiralty or wartime jurisdiction. 

Executive Order No. 11677 issued by President Richard M. Nixon August 1, 1972 

states: 

“Continuing the Regulation of Exports; By virtue of the authority vested in the 

President by the Constitution and statutes of the United States, including Section 5 

(b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended (12 U.S.C. 95a), and in view of the 

continued existence of the national emergencies...” 

Later, in the same Executive Order, we find the following: under the authority 

vested in me as President of the United States by Section 5 (b) of the Act of 

October 6, 1917, as amended (12 U. S. C. 95a) 

Section 5 (b) certainly seems to be an oft-cited support for Presidential authority, 

doesn’t it? Surely the reason for this can be found by referring back to the words 

of Mr. Katzenbach in Senate Report 93-549: 

“My recollection is that almost every executive order ever issued straddles on 

several grounds, but it almost always includes the Trading With the Enemy 

Act because the language of that act is so broad, it would justify almost anything.” 

The question here, and it should be a question of grave concern to every Sovereign 

American, is what type of acts can “almost anything” cover? What has been, and is 

being, done, by our government under the cloak of authority conferred by Section 

5 (b)? By now, I think we are beginning to know. 

Has the termination of the national emergency ever been considered? In Public 

Law 94412, September 14, 1976, we find that Congress had finally finished their 

exhaustive study on the national emergencies, and the words of their findings 

were that they would terminate the existing national emergencies. We should be 

able to heave a sigh of relief at this decision, for with the termination of the 

national emergencies will come the corresponding termination of extraordinary 

Presidential power, won’t it? 

But yet we have learned two difficult lessons: that we are still in the national 

emergency, and that power, once grasped, is difficult to let go. And so now it 

should come as no surprise when we read, in the last section of the Act, Section 

502, the following words: 

“(a): The provisions of this Act shall not apply to the following provisions of law, 

the powers and authorities conferred thereby and actions taken there under (1) 

Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended (1 2 U. S. C. 95a; 50 U. S. 

C. App. 5b)” 

The bleak reality is, the situation has not changed at all. 

The alarming situation in which We, the People, find ourselves today causes us to 

think back to a time over two hundred years ago in our nation’s history when our 

forefathers were also laboring under the burden of governmental usurpation of 

individual rights. Their response, written in 1774, two years before the signing of 

the Declaration of Independence, to the attempts of Great Britain to retain 

extraordinary powers it had held during a time of war became known as the ” 

Declaration Of Colonial Rights: Resolutions Of The First Continental Congress, 

October 14, 1774′′. And in that document, we find these words: 

“Whereas, since the close of the last war, the British Parliament, claiming a power 

of right to bind the people of America, by statute, in all cases whatsoever, hath in 

some acts expressly imposed taxes on them. and in others, under various 

pretenses, but in fact for the purpose of raising a revenue, hath imposed rates and 

duties payable in these colonies established a board of commissioners, with 

unconstitutional powers, and extended the jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty, 

not only for collecting the said duties, but for the trial of causes merely arising 

within the body of a county.” 

We can see now that we have come full circle to the situation which existed in 

1774, but with one crucial difference. In 1774, Americans were protesting against 

a colonial power which sought to bind and control its colony by wartime powers in 

a time of peace. In 1994, it is our own government (as it was theirs) which has 

sought, successfully to date, to bind its own people by the same subtle, insidious 

method. 

Article 3, Section 3, of our Constitution states: 

“Treason against the united States, shall consist only in levying War against them, 

or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No Person shall be 

convicted of treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt 

Act, or on Confession in open Court.” 

Is the Act of March 9, 1933, treason? That would be for the common law courts to 

decide. At this point in our nation’s history, the point is moot, for common law, 

and indeed the Constitution itself, do not operate or exist at present. Whether 

governmental acts of theft of the nation’s money, the citizens’ property, and 

American liberty as an ideal and a reality which have occurred since 1933 is 

treason against the people of the united States, as the term is defined by the 

Constitution of the united States cannot even be determined or argued in the legal 

sense until the Constitution itself is re-established. 

For My part, however, I firmly believe that, “by their fruits ye shall know them”, 

and on that superior authority I offer this Affidavit and Memorandum for cause 

and in support of relief and thereby, remedy both out of necessity and operation of 

law, declaring my foreign neutral status and thereby, persona standi in judicio and 

within my own court at all times ! The presumption of “Enemy of the State” as 

implemented under the “Trading with the Enemy Act” stands rebutted with 

prejudice and for cause. Droit, droit BY: Thomas-William: Healan Jr.