Midas commentary for June 24, 2000

10:20p EDT Thursday, June 22, 2000

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

With GATA Chairman Bill Murphy and Reg Howe
of www.GoldenSextant.com on their way to the
Financial Times gold conference in Paris,
I've been assigned to stay behind to answer
the mail, take out the trash, and keep the
computer servers running here in East Bumpkin.

So in the absence of my betters I'll take the
liberty of testing the computers by sending
along a little exchange of correspondence I
had this week with a GATA member who wanted
to know whether and when we are going to win.
I had fun telling her I wasn't sure but was
going to keep at this anyway.

Let's hope for good news from Paris -- or at
least a raunchy post card!

Please post this as seems useful.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

--------------------------------------------

Dear Chris:

I can't help wondering whether we aren't on
quot;the wrong side of history,quot; as the Hannibals
maintain. I hope not, but what do you think?

Elizabeth B.

* * *

Dear Elizabeth:

You ask: Are we on the wrong side of history?

Some confirmed reactionaries are happy to settle for
that, figuring that what's right can never prevail. I
think that's nonsense. If right didn't eventually
prevail in most human affairs, at least in the
broadest sense and in the long run, the world would
be quite different. For starters, lifespans would be
diminishing, not growing, and we'd be living in a
totalitarian world, not one increasingly democratic.

Some of us think that this is as close as we'll get
to God. The grace of God is often rough, and it isn't
free, but it may be better than none at all.

As for those of us who still see some virtue in gold,
we're certainly on the wrong side of POWER at the
moment. But if we are right -- and I think we ARE
right in the most important respects, which do not
involve the return of the gold standard but simply
greater honesty and democracy in the world economy
-- we just may prevail.

Your question reminds me of one of my favorite
quotations -- a quotation of a quotation, really,
from the introductory chapter of one of my favorite
books, a book about my dear little state,
Connecticut, written by Odell Shepard, a college
English professor who became our lieutenant governor
60 years ago and whom I was lucky enough to meet not
long before he died:

... The spirit, for some good reason, is more
active in little things than in great. The
bee has more than behemoth, David had more
than Goliath, and there was far more in tiny
Attica than in all the Roman Empire.

quot;The bigger the unit you deal with,quot; said
William James in one of his letters, quot;the
hollower, the more brutal, the more
mendacious is the life displayed.quot; He set
himself quot;against bigness and greatness in all
their forms, and in favor of the invisible
molecular moral forces that work from
individual to individual, stealing in through
the crannies of the world like so many soft
rootlets or like the capillary oozing of
water, and rending the hardest monuments of
man's pride.quot;

He was quot;against all big organizations as such
-- national ones first and foremost; against
all big successes and big results, and in
favor of the eternal forces of truth that
always work in the individual and unsuccessful
way, underdogs always, till history comes and
puts them on top.quot;

Do I labor this point too much? I do not think
so, considering the ignorant superstition in
favor of size that prevails in our time and
country....

I think gold again will be recognized as the measure of
currencies. I think the manipulation of gold by
governments and their accessories in the big financial
houses will come to an end amid corruption, even if the
end involves another disgraceful government bailout of
the crooks.

Will it happen in our lifetime? I can only hope so,
first for justice's sake, and second for my own, since
it would tend to enrich me, or at least to recover my
losses of the last few years. But I would not have
enlisted on this side if I had thought that getting
rich quick was the only purpose in life. (Not that
it's a bad purpose, or that I'd object to it!)

We all have to decide for ourselves how much of our
time, work, and financial futures we want to invest in
this cause. We may NOT live to see the day; indeed, it
may NEVER come. But I have read enough history to know
that it often turns on seemingly small things, decisive
acts of courage or determination by individuals -- just
as I know that doing nothing makes nothing happen. And
I know that GATA has made great progress in a year and
a half and has every prospect of making more, thanks in
large part to the people who have come forward out of
nowhere to help -- some of them extraordinarily expert,
talented, and informed, like Frank Veneroso and Reg
Howe.

People I've never met or talked to from all around the
world send me money for this organization. Usually it's
not a lot of money, of course, but often it is a lot for
them. A few times it HAS been a lot of money. This is
touching, moving, humbling, and astounding; it creates
an obligation and a bond and gives me hope -- sometimes
even confidence. Because of this GATA has been able to
send delegations to New York, Washington, and now Paris.
We are talking to some very important people and we are
being heard. If our enemies are not yet recoiling before
us, they have betrayed their anger with us.

The more I learn, the more I'm convinced we're right
and that we just MIGHT live to see the day. GATA
Chairman Bill Murphy, who is fearless, never, ever
tires despite the worst adversity, and always manages
to find another avenue of attack when one is blunted,
thinks we're getting very close indeed.

Of course we all have plenty to do, and there are so
many worthy causes. But stick around. This one could
be even more fun than it has been already.

Glad you asked?

With good wishes.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.