Gorham B. Munson papers on the American Social Credit Movement and New Democracy

Social Credit has been an economic theory, a social philosophy, an ideology, and a political party in England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States since it was first advanced in 1920 by Major C. H. Douglas. He believed finance capitalism deprived individuals of sufficient purchasing power to buy otherwise available products. To overcome this Douglas proposed offering to every citizen dividend payments based on the community's real wealth. As monetary reform and as social theory Social Credit attracted intellectual support in England and the United States especially during the 1930s. Only in Canada, however, did Social Credit become an important movement with a political base and there only in the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and Quebec.

In the United Kingdom:

In The Long Week End [The Long Week End: A Social History of Great Britain, 1918-1939 (New York: Macmillan, 1941), pp. 296-297], Robert Graves and Alan Hodge pointed out that the British proletariat between the wars was attracted "by more plausible remedies than a revolution." One of the remedies to economic ills was Social Credit. Graves and Hodge continue:

Major C. H. Douglas, a retired Royal Engineer, had been propounding his theory of Social Credit in a series of books and pamphlets for over ten years. In the thirties a Social Credit party was formed; its members adopted the new political habit of wearing coloured shirts as uniforms, and chose green. The Daily Mail honoured the party with a mention in its Year Book for 1935. Serious economists criticized it in the serious weeklies, and T. S. Eliot, who had banking and commercial experience as well as literary eminence, welcomed it as a promising solution of the world's troubles. By 1935 the movement had spread to the Dominions. In Alberta, Canada, a Social Credit party was elected to the provincial legislature, pledged to distribute dollar bills periodically to the electorate. But like all economic plans, however sound in general theory, it could not be applied in a single isolated context, and many banking and business interests in Alberta took flight to other provinces of the Dominion; so that the Social Credit party, which was not even unanimous on practical policy, was starved into surrender.

The Social Credit plan was to distribute national dividends to everyone through the central banks. The basis of the value of these dividends was supposed to be the capital equipment and the energy possessed by the community. The present financial system, Major Douglas held, did not reflect the real credit of the community. To prove this, he developed a theory meant to show that some of the country's income was continuously lost by the interest charges of the banking system. "Dividends for All" would remedy this by bringing a country's purchasing power up to the level of its productive power. Social Credit took for granted that modern science enabled productive power to be increased limitlessly, even to the point of luxury for all. From this followed the first step in its argument: that only a lack of purchase power prevented the masses from enjoying the natural increase.

Serious people were glad to find a theory which seemed to provide a non-political solution for the world's troubles, the more so because the banks seemed the obvious scapegoats for the Depression. Not many people knew what was the function of banks, and the rest could easily be induced to look on them as concerns that exploited the public for the benefit of their directors. Major Douglas himself, however, pointed out that he regarded bankers not as dishonestly anti-social, but as victims of their own system. He wrote in 1934 of "the necessity for exalting the individual over the group. I mean by that the exact opposite of what is commonly called Socialism. The direct road to the emancipation of the individual from the domination of the group is, in my opinion, the substitution, to an increasing extent, of the dividend in place of the wage and salary." Such words were more than welcome to people who feared that their lives would be exactly regulated by Socialist or Totalitarian economics; but neither the orthodox nor the Socialist economists had any difficulty in pointing out the flaws in his argument. The Social Credit theory was never adopted by any influential political group in Great Britain. It merely provided another controversial topic.

Although Social Credit attracted only a small following in Britain, its roots must be remembered to have been English. For this reason, brief sketches of the key men are included in these outlines, which will set the stage for a better understanding of the migration of Social Credit to Canada and to the United States.

CLIFFORD HUGH DOUGLAS, 1879-1952. An engineer with experience in India, Douglas attained the rank of major in the Royal Aircraft Establishment during World War I, retiring in 1918. His ideas on Social Credit were first advanced in articles in The English Review and The New Age. His earliest books were Economic Democracy in 1920 and Social Credit in 1924. Little is known either of his personal life or his professional career. Having had no training in economics, Douglas looked upon Social Credit as a total solution to the world's problems and, consequently, rejected such rival approaches as Guild Socialism, Fabianism, Socialism, or Bolshevism. He may be said to have opposed capitalism on economic grounds and Socialism on political grounds. Social Credit as an idea never escaped its founder's fear of political leadership which he coupled with a messianic approach and inept propaganda. Thus Douglas agreed to advise the Social Credit government in Alberta in 1935, but disagreements led quickly to his resignation. He corresponded with Munson and other Social Credit advocates in the United States and, in 1934, visited New York and Washington. That his style was enigmatic is shown by his belief in individual freedom while insisting, whenever invited to be active in an organization to promote Social Credit, on total power for himself. Thus in 1933, when asked to join the National Credit Association, Douglas demanded "absolute authority, a Douglas veto over any proposed members of the conference, and a preliminary agenda committee appointed by Douglas personally." [John L. Finlay, The English Origins of Social Credit (Montreal and London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1972), p. 133.] This flaw coupled with his anti-Semitism reduced his influence after 1935.

Major Douglas viewed payments made by a productive organization as falling into two groups. He labeled payments made to individuals Group A, those to other organizations Group B. This was explained, as can be seen below, but the A Plus B Theorem became a kind of shorthand for adherents of Social Credit, for Douglas advanced it as an indication and test of Social Credit genuineness. This is his explanation:

Group A--All payments made to individuals (wages, salaries and dividends). Group B--All payments made to other organizations (raw materials, bank charges, and other external costs). Now the rate of flow of purchasing power to individuals is represented by A, but since all payments go into prices the rate of flow of prices cannot be less than A + B. The product of any factory may be considered as something which the public ought to be able to buy, although in many cases it is an intermediate product of no use to individuals, but only to a subsequent manufacture; but since A will not purchase A + B, a proportion of the product at least equivalent to B must be distributed by some form of purchasing power which is not comprised in the descriptions grouped under A. It will be necessary at a a later stage to show that this additional purchasing power is provided by loan credits (bank overdrafts) or export credit. [Clifford Hugh Douglas, Credit-Power and Democracy (London: Cecil Palmer, 1920), p. 22; rev. ed. (London: Stanley Nott, 1934), pp. 19-20.]

ALFRED RICHARD ORAGE, 1873-1934. As editor of the influential New Age from 1907-1922, Orage gave the ideas of Social Credit their first continuous exposition. Orage opened its pages to Major Douglas beginning in 1918. He was important in both England and the United States as a spokesman and interpreter of Social Credit thereafter. After 1922, Orage was drawn to Georgi Gurdjieff's psychological method for the harmonious development of man. In 1932 he founded the New English Weekly, as a Social Credit organ. [See Herbert B. Grimsditch, A. R. Orage, Dictionary of National Biography, 1931-1940, Oxford University Press, 1949, p. 659. For excerpts from Orage's writings, see Wallace Martin, ed., Orage as Critic (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974.)]

H. E. B. LUDHAM. A Coventry printer prominent in a rightwing split in the Social Credit movement that began at the Swanwick conference in 1925. This group, which also included Frederick Soddy, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, and Arthur Kitson, called itself the Economic Freedom League. Ludham edited the League's journal, the Age of Plenty. Favoring centralization and political action, Ludham stood for election in the 1938 Coventry municipal election and lost. In the late 1920s and in the 1930s, Ludham became associated with John Strachey and Sir Oswald Mosley of the British Union of Fascists. (See Finlay, English Origins, pp. 126-29, 206, 211.)

JOHN HARGRAVE, 1894-1982. A man of great personal force, unorthodox in the fullest sense, greatly interested in monetary reform, Hargrave did not come to an awareness of Social Credit until 1927. Earlier he was interested in scouting and led such off-beat organizations as the White Fox, Wa-Whaw-Goosh and the Kibbo Kift. Courted by social crediters running the New Age as well as by the rival Economic Freedom League in its columns in the Age of Plenty, Hargrave tended toward the former but favored mass action through a Third Line between Fascism and Communism. He quickly became the most prominent social credit man in England, apart from Douglas, leading a movement with a succession of different titles: the Economic Party, 1929-1930; the Crusader Legion in Coventry, 1930-1933; an inner elite known as the Iron Guard and then as the Green Shirts; the Green Shirt Movement for Social Credit, 1933-1935; and finally, the Social Credit Party of Great Britain. Traditionally antiparliamentary, the Social Credit Party ran a candidate for the House of Commons in South Leeds but gained only 11 per cent of the vote. Hargrave feuded with Douglas, and the Green Shirts, in uniform, broke up a Social Credit reception for one of Douglas's Hargrave had become an hysterical mystic, and the militant Green Shirts was largely ended by the Public Order Act outlawing the use of uniforms for political purposes. For some years, Hargrave edited This Week's Message from Hargrave. He rejected both Fascism and Communism and believed that only a monarch could stand up to the conspiracy of the money trust and, on this ground, took the side of Edward VIII in the abdication crisis of 1937. (See Finlay, English Origins, chapter 7.)

In Canada

The best concise summary of the kindling of Social Credit in Canada is to be found in The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature, by Norah Story (Toronto, London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1967, p. 772), quoted here in full:

Social Credit Party. A popular movement, led by William Aberhart, that won the Alberta provincial election in 1935, it was disciplined into a political party that has remained in power in Alberta, has invaded the federal field, and has spread to other provinces. It came into power in British Columbia in 1952.

The intricate monetary scheme and social philosophy known as social credit was enunciated in England by Maj. Clifford Douglas. At the instigation of William Irvine, Douglas was brought to Canada in 1923 where he was invited to explain his views to the House of Commons' Select Committee on Banking and Commerce. He made a poor impression on all but the UFA (United Farmers of Alberta) members, who distributed social credit in their province. The theory of social credit was brought to the attention of William Aberhart, a high-school principal in Calgary whose Sunday radio broadcasts as head of the fundamentalist Prophetic Bible Institute had a large and enthusiastic following. In 1932 Aberhart began to introduce his own vague theories of social credit into these broadcasts, recommending a redistribution of purchasing power and later, as head of the Social Credit Party, promising a social dividend of $25 a month to every citizen. Followers of Douglas attacked his interpretation, and the resulting public debate and paper warfare stimulated public interest. In 1934 Douglas was brought to Alberta as 'reconstruction adviser' to the UFA government. This move created an outpouring of sentiment on behalf of Aberhart. Social Credit candidates were selected in the constituencies, but Aberhart personally chose which of these should stand. They swept the province in the election of 1935 and Aberhart became the premier.

Acts passed in Alberta in 1937 to implement social credit monetary theories were disallowed by the federal government or declared unconstitutional. The Social Credit Bill of Rights, passed under Aberhart's successor, E. C. Manning, was appealed to the privy council where it too was declared unconstitutional. These decisions have given impetus to campaigning for seats in parliament in the hope that, with a majority, the constitution could be amended. The party gained 17 federal seats in 1935. Thereafter membership fluctuated until 1958 when no member was elected, but 30 seats were won in 1962 and 24 in 1963 when the representation was weakened by the members from Quebec who organized as a separate group.

ABERHART SOCIAL CREDIT DOCTRINE. The conditions of life in Alberta during the Great Depression made social credit attractive: they also modified the ideas of Douglas. The class makeup of Alberta and the debtor position there had produced a tradition of looking for monetary cures to economic troubles. Additionally there was a strong predilection for prophetic religion so that a leader of Aberhart's charismatic traits easily gained a large following. "These three circumstances made Alberta, as a community, far more receptive than was England to a monetary reform doctrine with spiritual overtones. They made it possible for social credit to become a mass movement, and in so doing ensured the vulgarization of the social and economic doctrine of Major Douglas." [C. B. Macpherson, Democracy in Alberta: The Theory and Practice of a Quasi-Party System. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1953), p. 148.] Aberhart reduced the Douglas doctrine to the simple points of "A plus B," the unearned increment, the basic dividend, and the just price.

ALBERTA SOCIAL CREDIT PROGRAM, 1935-1943. As premier of the first social credit government in the world for eight years, William Aberhart's program has been characterized as politically radical but economically conservative. He and his constituents wished to divorce themselves from the central government in Ottawa without making profound changes in Alberta. Three key measures were enacted in 1937: (1) the Credit of Alberta Regulation Act, (2) the Bank Employees Civil Rights Act, and (3) the Judicature Act Amendment Act. A stunning thing then happened. Under its federal system, the central government in Ottawa "disallowed" these provincial statutes and this was upheld in rulings of the Canadian Supreme Court and the British Privy Council. There is much more to the story, but in 1938 the essence of the Social Credit program was dead. It meant that Aberhart's program of social credit eventually failed even in name. [J. R. Mallory, Social Credit and the Federal Power in Canada. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1954), pp. 57-90.]

SOCIAL CREDIT IN CANADA, 1943-1976. With a hold on Alberta established, Social Credit developed branches in other provinces, first in Saskatchewan and then in British Columbia where it came to power in 1952. [See Martin Robin, "The Social Basis of Party Politics in British Columbia," in H. G. Thorburn, ed., Party Politics in Canada, 2nd ed. (Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall of Canada, Ltd., 1967), pp. 201-211.] At the provincial level in recent years, the Social Credit Party has shown significant strength in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec. In federal elections its chief strength has been in Quebec where 20 per cent of the total vote has been won, while elsewhere Social Credit has fallen to less than 5 per cent. [For a close examination of the appeal and success of Social Credit in the 1962 elections in Quebec Province, see Maurice Pinard, The Rise of a Third Party: A Study in Crisis Politics (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971). For a sociological and political study, see Michael Stein, The Dynamics of Right-Wing Protest: A Political Analysis of Social Credit in Quebec (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973).]

In the United States

The Social Credit ideas of Major C. H. Douglas were adopted in the United States by a small group of intellectuals who advanced this monetary reform from 1932 to 1945 through a succession of small organizations and publications. Electoral support was never sought as in Canada. The early influences were from Ezra Pound, the self-exiled poet and A. R. Orage, the English editor who lived in the United States in the twenties. Pound first wrote about the wisdom of Major Douglas in The Little Review in April 1920. He became a zealous advocate of Social Credit and influenced such figures as William Carlos Williams and, later, James Laughlin IV. Orage's influence is difficult to calculate, but his impact on artists and writers in New York was profound, as they have attested. He cultivated an American readership for his Social Credit journal, The New English Weekly, founded in 1932. More than any other single element, this publication marked the beginning of the organized study of Social Credit in the United States.

Gorham Munson was the most eloquent and durable Social Credit leader in the United States. In 1932, he became American correspondent for The New English Weekly, defended Social Credit in The Nation and helped form a key Social Credit organization, the New Economics Group of New York. In 1933 he initiated a vital Social Credit journal of the arts and public affairs, New Democracy, and was its chief editor during its three-year life. Beginning in 1935, Munson was an active lobbyist working with such congressmen as T. Alan Goldsborough and Jerry F. Voorhis in seeking national Social Credit legislation. During the middle thirties there were short lived or temporary organizations, national in scope, that espoused Social Credit, among them the National Social Credit Association, the League for National Dividends and the Committee in Support of H. R. 7188. In 1938 Munson led convinced Social Crediters in the formation of a more permanent organization, the American Social Credit Movement (ASCM), for which he served as General Secretary throughout its existence from 1938 to 1945.

ASCM encountered several difficulties in spreading Social Credit in the United States. Its membership was limited to persons subscribing to the Douglas Theorem and three specific national legislative goals, which meant that some independent Social Crediters and hosts of plain money reformers were excluded. Social Credit bills in Congress were diluted and became progressively less satisfactory to the ASCM. New Deal reforms and the coming of World War II lessened interest in basic economic change. Some money reformers, including Ezra Pound and Major Douglas, became loudly anti-Semitic. This Munson dealt with squarely and courageously but, even so, the Social Credit movement in the United States ended, chiefly due to the War.

In 1945 Munson published a book entitled Aladdin's Lamp: The Wealth of the American People summing up his critique of the private monopoly of banks which held down the credit power of the American people.

THE ROLE OF A. R. ORAGE, 1931-1934. The importance of A. R. Orage in the Social Credit movement in England has been remarked upon above. This exceptional man also played an important role in the formation of the movement among American intellectuals as a sponsor of the ideas of the Gurdjieff system. This occurred during the late 1920s when he travelled between New York and Fontainebleau. In New York he organized groups for instruction in the "Gurdjieff system" and there met Gorham Munson, Elizabeth Delza, Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, Van Wyck Brooks, Lawrence S. Morris and others. At the depth of the Great Depression Orage again drew upon his knowledge of Social Credit to win American intellectuals to this view, as Munson has recalled: "Shortly before the end of his American stay, Orage took the initiative and rented a room at the New York School of the Theatre to give a series of four lectures on Social Credit in the early part of 1931." About fifty enrolled to hear his plea that Financial Credit reflect Real Credit. He also struck a note for increasing the distribution of leisure, defined as "the economic condition of voluntary activity." Orage left the United States soon afterwards to return to England where he established the New English Weekly. In New York "a study group under the leadership of Schuyler Jackson began meeting at Muriel Draper's home, and from this group of enthusiasts came the founders of the New Economics Group of New York in the fall of 1932." [Gorham Munson, The Awakening Twenties, Brom Weber, editor, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, forthcoming 1977.]

NEW ENGLISH WEEKLY, 1932-1947. Begun in London on April 21, 1932, the New English Weekly under A. R. Orage sought a wide audience for its Social Credit message. Major Douglas, Ezra Pound and Orage--whom T. S. Eliot called "a tireless and wholly disinterested evangelist of monetary reform"--were frequently featured. NEW was a clearinghouse for the movement through its "Credit Forum" carrying organizational news from all countries. Gorham Munson was on the masthead from the very first issue as American Representative. Through its circulation here Munson helped crystallize activity for Social Credit in the United States. [See Gorham Munson, "American Intelligentsia, Advance,"New English Weekly, Vol. 2, Dec. 29, 1932.]

NEW ECONOMICS GROUP OF NEW YORK, 1932-1938. A number of valuable functions were performed by the New Economics Group of New York following its formation in December, 1932. Its study meetings broadened knowledge of Social Credit. It sponsored and provided editorial and business offices for New Democracy. Its technical committee drafted the National Credit Issue Bill, a model for bills introduced for legislative consideration in Washington, London, and Ottawa. It conducted major public lectures on the subject of Social Credit: Archibald MacLeish in 1933, Major C. H. Douglas in 1934, and the Very Reverent Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury in 1935. Board members included Allan R. Brown, Blanche Brownell Grant, Paul Hampden, Elizabeth Sage Holter, Lawrence Morris, Gorham Munson, and W. A. Nyland. After 1935 the New Economics Group of New York experienced a decline caused in part by personal disagreements and factionalism.

NEW DEMOCRACY, 1933-1936. A fortnightly and later monthly review of economics and the arts, New Democracy was published in New York for three years beginning August 15, 1933. Its announced policy was "Social Credit in the United States at the earliest possible date." To achieve this, New Democracy's columns were packed full with Social Credit -- news notes, articles, poems, letters, book reviews and organizational items. This review also published major documents of the movement in the United States: the text of speeches by Major douglas and the Dean of Canterbury, the Goldsborough Social Credit Bill and significant commentary. Gorham Munson was the editor throughout the three years, joined by Herbert Bruce Brougham in 1933-1934, by Lawrence Morris in 1934-1935, and by Paul Hampden and Elliott Taylor in 1935-1936. W. A. Nyland of the New Economics Group of New York was the publisher.

"NEW DIRECTIONS," 1935-1936. Under Munson, New Democracy in its final year of publication included a distinguished literary page with the title "New Directions," edited by James Laughlin IV. Scion of the Pittsburgh steel family, in 1935 a student at Harvard, Laughlin had been introduced to Munson by Ezra Pound. He opened the page with this declaration: "New Directions. The great new direction is, of course, Social Credit, with its changed conception of the means, and the ends of life." Not all contributions dealt with economics or Social Credit, however, as Laughlin published T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Henry Miller, e. e. cummings and Kay Boyle. Pound's great Bank of England CANTO, XLVI, which Laughlin called "definitely the epic of Social Credit," was published in the March, 1936 issue of New Democracy. The literary page ended, but its name was adopted by Laughlin for his avant-garde New Directions publishing house.

NATIONAL SOCIAL CREDIT ASSOCIATION, 1934-1935. In 1934 W. A. Nyland of the New Economics Group of New York tried to federate local organizations across the United States into the National Social Credit Association. His capacity for leadership was insufficient, and established local independence prevailed. Philadelphia's Retail Discount Organization, formed in 1931 and led by Edward F. Harvey, was the oldest Social Credit local in the country. Others were New Economics Groups led by Social Credit pioneers: Herbert Bruce Brougham in Washington, Mrs. E. Sohier Welch in Boston, Luther Whiteman in San Francisco, J. Crate Larkin in Buffalo, and A. M. Edwards in Detroit. There were smaller groups in Carmel, Los Gatos, and Pasadena, California; West Palm Beach, Florida; Peekskill, New York; and Colorado Springs, Colorado. These organizations continued even after the National Social Credit Association failed in 1935.

LEAGUE FOR NATIONAL DIVIDENDS, 1935-1936. Formed in San Francisco in June 1935, by Elliott Taylor, editor of the magazine Controversy, the League for National Dividends aimed "to build up a mass-demand for the issuance to al of national dividends." Following the Social Credit sweep in Alberta Province on August 22, 1935, and the introduction of the Goldsborough Bill in Congress, the headquarters of the League for National Dividends was moved to the offices of New Democracy in New York. Soon Gorham Munson was Acting Secretary, council members included Howard Buck, Walter Hampden and William Carlos Williams, and the League spoke militantly: "WANTED: SOCIAL CREDIT SHOCK TROOPS." Low productivity was attributed to the lack of consumer purchasing power. The League argued that "new money must be issued by the Government as potential production warrants it." There is no evidence of a rise of interest in Social Credit on account of the League. There were only brief hearings on the Goldsborough Bill and 1935, and by August 1936, the League for National Dividends had dissolved.

GOLDSBOROUGH SOCIAL CREDIT BILL, H.R. 9216, 74th CONGRESS, 1935-1936. Congressman T. Alan Goldsborough (D., Md.) in August 1935, sponsored the first bill embodying Social Credit principles to be introduced in any legislative body in the United States. This was largely in the form drafted by a committee of the New Economics Group of New York consisting of Allan R. Brown, Edward F. Harvey, W. A. Nyland, Carle C. Conway, Jr., and H. B. Brougham. Its short title was the "National Income and Credit Issue Bill" introduced on August 22 and, as Brougham wrote in New Democracy, embodying "the tenets of Douglas without any frills. The bill presents straight out Social Credit measures." It would establish the National Credit Account, defined in Title I as "the money valuation of the annual unused capacity of the industries and people of the United States to produce wanted goods and services." The Treasury would produce non-interest bearing credit certificates, not to exceed the National Credit Account, "to circulate as money throughout the banking system only." These certificates would finance a discount on prices to consumers at retail. They would also provide a national per capita consumers dividend of $5.00 a month. This consumers' dividend and other features of the bill would be administered by an independent regulatory agency called the Federal Credit Commission. Should the Commission records show an unduly expanded monetary condition then a Credit Retirement Fund would set aside a portion of national revenues to retire Treasury credit certificates. The bill was discussed and analyzed at length in New Democracy, advocated by the League for National Dividends and, with Goldsborough as the ranking member of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, there were brief hearings on H.R. 9216 in the 74th Congress. On this occasion, Paul Hampden testified for the Social Credit bill at the invitation of Goldsborough. The bill lapsed at the end of the 1936 session.

COMMITTEE IN SUPPORT OF H.R. 7188, 1937-1938. Twenty Social Crediters formed the ad hoc Committee in Support of H.R. 7188, to lobby for Goldsborough's revised bill in the 76th Congress, 1937-1938. The final report of the Committee's Secretary, Gorham Munson, describes the frustrations experienced in seeking Social Credit legislation. The bill, H.R. 7188, had several basic weaknesses: it neglected the crucial fact of an inherent shortage of money in consumers' hands and it presented the retail price discount as merely an emergency device for economic slumps to be snapped off on recovery. Although Munson twice testified, the hearings were not satisfactory from his viewpoint. Leading Social Credit figures who were members of the Committee in Support of H.R. 7188--Wallace Clark, Raymond Haight, J. Crate Larkin, C. E. Luntz, Allan T. Gwathmey and Elliott Taylor--did not appear. Yet, three whom Munson regarded as eclectic Social Crediters--Allan R. Brown, Herbert Bruce Brougham and Edward F. Harvey--participated in the hearings. Munson interviewed several congressmen in Washington. Paul Hampden acted as technical adviser to the Committee. Mrs. E. Sohier Welch served as Treasurer. Despite disappointment, Munson praised the efforts of Congressman Goldsborough and concluded that future legislative efforts should not allow compromise with Social Credit Principles.

AMERICAN SOCIAL CREDIT MOVEMENT, 1938-1945. The culminating voluntary association promoting Social Credit in the United States was the American Social Credit Movement, founded on October 5, 1938. Gorham Munson was General Secretary. Paul Hampden served as Acting Secretary while Munson was on leave in Washington, 1939-1940. ASCM sought public support but limited its membership strictly "to those who after sufficient acquaintance with the ideas of Social Credit are prepared to subscribe to the Theorem and the Three Demands." As a result of experience with the second Goldsborough Bill, the three demands were to establish the Federal Credit Commission, the Compensated Price and the National Dividend. Eclectic money reformers were thus excluded and membership in ASCM never reached one hundred. The American Social Credit Movement maintained a book service, sponsored lectures and study meetings, issued weekly bulletins and worked for legislation. Munson cooperated with Representative Jerry F. Voorhis (D., Cal.) in framing Social Credit bills in 1939-1940, 1941-1942 and 1943-1944. He also prepared a special series of bulletins on Social Credit called Men First. Activities diminished after 1942 and ceased altogether in 1945.

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AND SOCIAL CREDIT, 1933-1941. The Rutherford, New Jersey, physician and poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was a member of most of the Social Credit organizations led by Gorham Munson. Williams was persuaded to his Social Credit beliefs by Ezra Pound. He wrote for New Democracy, heard Major Douglas speak in New York in 1934, and was a member of the League for National Dividends and the American Social Credit Movement. Wile Williams had a continuing interest in Social Credit, he was not a very active participant in the organizations he joined. Williams joined Munson, Laughlin, Walter, Paul Hampden, and others in 1936 and the University of Virginia where he attacked bankers and declared that money reform would bestow cultural benefits. Pound's addiction to Fascism and Douglas's to anti-Semitism made Williams flee the Social Credit movement. [A good study is Reed Whittemore, William Carlos Williams: Poet from Jersey (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975), pp. 259-264.]

EZRA POUND AND SOCIAL CREDIT, 1920-1945. American poet Ezra Pound (1885-1971) in the 1920s and 1930s argued insistently in prose and verse that usura, or credit capitalism, was the root of all evil in the world and Douglas Social Credit reforms was the best cure. This view permeated most of his writings especially the middle Cantos, of which CANTO XLV on usury, and CANTO XLVI on the Bank of England published in New Democracy are noteworthy. In 1920, he reviewed Douglas's Economic Democracy for an American audience in The Little Review. He wrote regularly for New Democracy, and numerous letters harangued Munson about Mussolini, Roosevelt, the New Deal, bankers, Jews and Social Credit. Pound left the United States in 1908, lived in England until 1920, in Paris until 1928, and Rapallo, Italy until 1945. After 1937, Munson did not think Pound to be a real Social Crediter. Pound attached himself to Social Credit while dabbling in other theories of money reforms. Because of his fascination with the Corporate State, and his ultimate lapse into anti-Semitism, he gave Social Credit a black eye. On account of paid broadcasts to American troops and related overt acts in wartime "with the intent to adhere to and give aid and comfort to the Kingdom of Italy, and its military allies," Pound was indicted by the United States for felonious, traitorous and treasonable actions. Removed to Washington, Pound was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and so was confined to St. Elizabeth's Hospital from 1945 to 1958 when he was allowed to return to his home in Rapallo. [For some works explaining the context of Pound's economic thought, see Earle Davis, Vision Fugitive: Ezra Pound and Economics (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1968); Hugh Kenner, The Pound Era (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971); C. David Heymann, Ezra Pound: The Last Rower (New York: Viking Press, 1976).]

ANTI-SEMITISM IN SOCIAL CREDIT, 1938-1941. Gorham Munson led the American Social Credit Movement in repudiating those money reformers guilty of anti-Semitism by linking usury, banking and Jews together. ASCM took this official position:

American Social Credit stands for the liberty and equality of opportunity of the individual irrespective of race, creed or color. We abominate anti-Semitism. The Money Question and the so-called Jewish Question have NOTHING to do with each other and we will let no one confuse this fact.

Munson was obliged to apply this principle to Major C. H. Douglas, the originator of Social Credit, in 1938 and he did so with dispatch, disowning Douglas for anti-Semitism while staying pledged to Douglas economics. Munson also shed all responsibility for Ezra Pound well before the United States entered World War II. Munson was an outspoken critic of anti-Semitism in private correspondence and in public statements. [See Gorham Munson, "A New Attack on Anti-Semitism,"Opinion: A Journal of Jewish Life and Letters, September 1939.]

ALADDIN'S LAMP, 1945. As ASCM activities lessened during World War II, Munson completed a book criticizing the banking-credit system and advocating Social Credit as a vitally needed reform. The book, entitled Aladdin's Lamp: The Wealth of the American People, won favorable reviews and many laudatory letters. Its publication in the spring of 1945 marked the end of Munson's active advocacy of Social Credit and of the American Social Credit Movement. Munson had occasion, in answering a friendly letter questioning the value of Social Credit, to sum up his feelings about the reform he had championed actively since 1932:

Social Credit is not a cure-all. Our dogmatism goes only this far: we assert that credit reform must have priority over any other reforms; we assert it is fundamental. We can then tackle with some hope of success other bad features of "capitalism." Beyond this are the psychological problems of the "good life" to which Social Credit provides no key. Even with Social Credit human nature would be plenty troublesome. But I do not think it would act, as does chronic money shortage, to whip people up to greed and war. On the contrary, it would give humane education a real chance--but only a chance. It can't accomplish what is ultimately the function of culture. [GM to H. W. Cross, August 19, 1945.]

Gorham Munson Biography

• 1896 Born May 26, Amityville, New York. Mother, Carrie (Morrow) Munson. Father, Hubert Barney Munson, Wesleyan class of 1892, and a Methodist minister.
• 1917 Graduated Wesleyan University. During his senior year, managed the Dramatic Association and was editor of the Wesleyan Literary Monthly. Sold his first article, based on his undergraduate thesis, on the Socialist conception of morality.
• 1917-1919 Taught English at the Ridgefield (Connecticut) School and at the Riverdale Country School in New York.
• 1919-1921 Lived in Greenwich Village and, with Hart Crane, Waldo Frank, and Jean Toomer, formed a literary group whose basic interests were in "a new slope of consciousness."
• 1921 Married Elizabeth Delza of New York City, a professional dancer and teacher of dance, April 2.
• 1921-1925 Traveled and studied in Europe, living in Paris for a time. In Vienna in 1922, founded the little magazine Secession in collaboration with Matthew Josephson and Kenneth Burke. The magazine was published for two years, 1922-1924. Contributors included Crane, Frank, e. e. cummings, Malcolm Cowley, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams.
• 1926-1928 Editorial work: Grant Publications, Psychology magazine, and Bookman magazine.
• 1927-1966 Began teaching courses on literary topics at The New School for Social Research in New York city in 1927. In 1931, began experimenting with a workshop course in professional writing. This popular course, among the five best-attended, was repeated twice a year for more than thirty years.
• 1928-1950 Summer Writers' Conference Movement: Taught criticism for 13 sessions as a staff member of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College. For many years, wrote the annual preview of writers' conferences for the Saturday Review of Literature. A staff member of conferences at the University of New Hampshire, University of Connecticut, University of Colorado, University of Washington, and the Southwest Writers' Conference. Director of the University of Kansas City Writers' Conference, New York City Writers' Conference at Staten Island (Wagner College) and the Fairleigh Dickinson Writers' Conference.
• 1928-1960 Book Editor: Advisor to John Farrar, Doubleday, Doran, prior to Farrar's establishment of Farrar & Rinehart. Advisory editor with Thomas Y. Crowell beginning in 1934. Managing editor, national office, WPA Writers' Program, 1939-1940, and head of Library of Congress WPA Writers' Project, 1940-1941. Associate editor, Robert M. McBride & Company, 1941. Editor, Greystone Press, 1942-1943, Prentice-Hall, 1944-1948, Hermitage House, 1951-1955, and Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1955-1960.
• 1932-1945 Social Credit: Leading advocate of monetary reform through adoption of the principles of Social Credit. Founding member of New Economics Group of New York and the National Social Credit Association. American correspondent of the New English Weekly, 1932-1941. Editor, New Democracy, 1933-1936. General Secretary, American Social Credit Movement, 1938-1945. Author, Aladdin's Lamp: The Wealth of the American People, 1945.
• 1961-1966 Assistant Professor of English, Fairleigh Dickinson.
• 1966-1967 Senior Lecturer in English, University of California at Davis.
• 1967-1968 Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies, Wesleyan University.
• 1968-1969 Distinguished Visiting Professor of English, University of Hartford.
• 1969 Died, August 15, Middletown, Connecticut.