In a world dependent on international trade and commerce, and staggering under a heavy load of international debt, no policy is more destructive than protectionism. It cuts off markets, eliminates trade, causes unemployment in the export industries all over the world, depresses the prices of export commodities, especially farm products of the United States. It is the crowning folly of government intervention.

Unfortunately, it is not in the power of government to make everyone more prosperous. Government can only raise the income of one person by taking from another.

Sound money and free banking are not impossible; they are merely illegal.

In a world dependent on international trade and commerce, and staggering under a heavy load of international debt, no policy is more destructive than protectionism. It cuts off markets, eliminates trade, causes unemployment in the export industries all over the world, depresses the prices of export commodities, especially farm products of the United States. It is the crowning folly of government intervention.

There is no escape from the vast imbalances in international trade and finance. They will be corrected, sooner or later, by the inexorable principles that govern human action.

A government debt is a government claim against personal income and private property - an unpaid tax bill.

Since there is no orderly way to liquidate the federal debt, we must brace for a payment crisis.