From the Book LINCOLN MONEY MARTYRED

Coroborative Evidence By Gerald G McGeer  The following article and editorial taken from the Vancouver Daily Province of May 2, 1934, gives further light on the subject treated in this book.

OTTAWA, May 2, 1934 (CP)-Abraham Lincoln, the martyred emancipator of the slaves, was assassinated through the machinations of a group representative of the international bankers, who feared the United States President's national credit ambitions-and the plot was hatched in Toronto and Montreal. This was the information imparted to the House of Commons committee on banking and commerce Tuesday by Gerald G. McGeer, K. C., Vancouver lawyer and advocate of social credit, during a five-hour attack upon the present financial system.

"The evidence discloses that instead of being a patriot, John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln in a Washington theatre, was a mercenary," Mr. McGeer declared. Basing his beliefs upon an exhaustive study of unexpurgated copies of the evidence given by secret service agents at Booth's trial, he declared the only group that could benefit by Lincoln's death and who had the money to carrv out such a plan, was the international bankers.

"The South worshipped Lincoln and looked upon him as the only one who would secure them justice in defeat. If they wished to kill him they had splendid opportunities and could have secured a thousand who would do the job," McGeer said.

Hatched in Canada

"According to the evidence given at the trial, the plot to assassinate Lincoln was first disclosed in Montreal and Toronto," Mr. McGeer said. "A group of men representin- the Confederacy were operating in Canada with headquarters in those cities. During the winter of 1864 and 1865 they were approached by an unknown group with the proposition to assassinate Lincoln.

"They were not from the South nor connected with the Southern government, because representatives of the South in Canada hesitated to consider the proposal until it had been submitted to the South for approval.

"Booth was engaged to organize the assassination. It was proposed to the Southern government as a plot to kidnap Lincoln and hold him as a hostage for the purpose of bargaining for terms of settlement.

Cost No Factor

"In accordance with this plan a request was made to confer commissions in the Southern army upon those who were to engage in the actual kidnapping or assassination of Lincoln.

"The men responsible for instigating the crime were unknown, but in evidence given at the trial they were described as a group which could undertake anything without regard to cost. "Booth was never a Southern patriot in the real sense. He was never in the Southern army, and one of his associates was a deserter from that army., "Shortly before Lincoln was assassinated one of the men engaged by Booth declared that he was going away on a visit and that he would return with plenty of gold.

"Lincoln was wont to describe the men opposing his greenback currency policy as 'the secret foes of the nation.' The battle between Lincoln and the sound money men of the day was well known. In 1864 he was elected on a platform that contained a plank declaring for national currency. "Lincoln was the most powerful reformer of his day. Had he lived he would have established a national currency system in the United States. " There was only one group in the world at that time who could finance anything they cared to attempt without regard to cost, and who had any reason to desire the death of Lincoln.

"They were the men opposed to his national currency programme and who had fought him throughout the whole Civil War on his policy of green-back currency.

"They were the men interested in the establishment of the gold standard system and the right of the bankers to manage the currency and credit of every nation in the world.

"With Lincoln out of the way they were able to proceed with that plan and did proceed with it in the United States. Within eight years after Lincoln's assassination silver was demonetized and the gold standard money system set up in the United States. "

Corroborative Evidence

From the Daily Province-Wednesday, May 2, 1934 McGeer at Ottawa

All the despatches from Ottawa suggest that Mr. McGeer has achieved a real personal triumph with his speech before the Commons committee on banking and currency. By virtue of that single speech he appears to have become a national figure, as Bryan became a national figure in the United States through a single speech on a similar topic nearly forty years ago.

The people who haunt the halls and committee rooms on Parliament Hill and the lounges and corridors of the Chateau Laurier are practised tasters of speeches. They live in an atmosphere of public speaking. They are accustomed to listen to the best Canada can produce and they not infrequently hear the best from other lands. It is no mean compliment, then, when the men sit for six hours listening to the criticisms and theories and plans of the crusader from the West.

Mr. McGeer has gone far in the past two or three years, and all through the marvelous energy, vitality and industry and the native ability stored up in himself. He was easily the central figure in the session of the Legislature at Victoria. He turned the Public Accounts Committee from its usual practice of tracking down petty partisan expenditures to a study of public finance. He forced his plan through the committee and the committee report through the Legislature. He was a whole opposition in himself. For days on end he stole the show from the Premier and the government. Now, in his single day on Parliament Hill, he has stolen the show again.

Whatever the answer, the fact remains that Gerry McGeer has done more, probably, than any other man to make the monetary question a national issue in Canada. It is hardly likely he has reformed the ideas of the hard-boiled committee on currency and banking. He probably never expected he would. But as the prophet of a New Deal in Canada, he has got his plan before the country. He has made criticism which can not be ignored or treated with contempt. Whether they are right or wrong in their criticisms, Gerry McGeer, Major Douglas and the other honest critics of the existing monetary system have now gained enough currency for their criticisms and theories to demand a better answer than has yet been given by the upholders of things as they are."