Who were some champions of gold in throughout U.S. history? Check out this short video for some of these good guys of gold.
Heroes of Gold
First, we have Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Coinage Act that became part of the U.S. Constitution in 1792. Jefferson defined gold and silver as the only money for the United States., Next is Andrew Jackson, who famously killed the Second U.S. Bank. L. Frank Baum was an author and political satirist who wrote The Wizard of Oz about the gold and silver standard.
I also include Ludwig von Mises, who was one of the founders of the Austrian School of Economics. The Austrian economists believe in gold and silver as hard money, honest money, real money, constitutional money. They had several terms for gold and silver. And then Ayn Rand, who wrote Atlas Shrugged. There’s a lengthy speech in Atlas Shrugged on gold as money. Ayn Rand was a follower of von Mises and the Austrian school of economics.
Also on the list of heroes is John Kennedy, who was a believer in gold and silver. Prior to his death, he issued an executive order to back paper currency by silver and keep silver in our coinage. Two years after his assassination, silver was taken out of our coinage.
Alan Greenspan is a questionable hero. When he was a young economist fresh out of his doctorate Columbia University, he wrote a paper on the gold standard in 1966. You could find it on the internet if you look for it. It was all about keeping us on the gold standard and it was called “Gold and Economic Freedom”. But then when he became head of the Fed, Greenspan dramatically inflated the money supply/money printing, which led to massive price inflation and the Nasdaq and housing bubbles. So, is Greenspan a hero or a villain? Time will tell.
Ron Paul, who is a famous libertarian and follower of the Austrian School, is a hero of gold and silver. He went to Congress in the seventies, soon after Nixon took us off the gold standard in 1971. He spent 40 years trying to audit the Fed to expose the corruption and get the U.S. back to a gold standard. And finally, we have Donald Trump. When Trump came into office, he hung up Andrew Jackson’s portrait in the Oval Office as a symbolic gesture towards killing the Third Bank of the U.S./the Federal Reserve. So, love him or hate him, Trump is a big fan of getting us back to gold.