WEBVTT NOTE Utopian in Power: Henry Wallace, New Deal, and the Sacred Union of the East 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 The story I'm going to bring to your attention today is a bizarre story. 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:09.000 On the surface, it has nothing to do with American economic history, 3 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:13.000 but at the same time, this bizarre story will give us insights 4 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:17.000 in the mind of the people who were doing the New Deal, 5 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:23.000 which laid the foundations of the modern American welfare state. 6 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:35.600 In the late summer of 1934, a strange party was traveling through Manchuria and Mongolia. 7 00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:38.960 You can see the map here. 8 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:43.200 At that time, Manchuria and Mongolia were occupied by Japan. 9 00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:52.200 The party was headed by a man who spoke with a heavy Slavic accent like myself. 10 00:00:52.200 --> 00:00:57.880 And the party represented itself as an expedition, a botanical expedition, working on behalf 11 00:00:57.880 --> 00:01:00.760 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 12 00:01:00.760 --> 00:01:08.240 Their official mission was to collect drought resistant plants to fight the soil erosion 13 00:01:08.240 --> 00:01:10.880 back in the United States. 14 00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:20.160 Yet the party was more interested in monitoring local political situation, collecting local 15 00:01:20.160 --> 00:01:33.160 and Military Intelligence and the head of the party very much wanted to plug himself into local indigenous prophecies, especially he was interested in one 16 00:01:33.160 --> 00:01:40.660 Professor, Buddhist Professor called Shambhala, which mentioned the end of the world and the 17 00:01:40.660 --> 00:01:48.320 coming of a glorious redeemer who would save the people of inner Asia from the people of 18 00:01:48.320 --> 00:01:50.060 the alien faith. 19 00:01:50.060 --> 00:01:54.480 Of course, it raised the eyebrows of the Japanese intelligence service. 20 00:01:54.480 --> 00:02:01.620 It also raised a lot of questions on the part of Britain and other nations. 21 00:02:01.620 --> 00:02:08.200 It was a very sensitive, the area was a hot spot because after Japan occupied northeastern 22 00:02:08.200 --> 00:02:14.900 China, Manchuria and a part of Chinese Mongolia, so United States denounced it, broke relations 23 00:02:14.900 --> 00:02:22.100 with Japan and here we have an expedition working on behalf of the U.S. Department of 24 00:02:22.100 --> 00:02:24.380 Agriculture. 25 00:02:24.380 --> 00:02:33.260 This strange enterprise was, the man who was in charge of this party was Nicholas Roerich. 26 00:02:33.260 --> 00:02:43.340 So here you see the people in the military uniform and Roerich, this man with this charismatic 27 00:02:43.340 --> 00:02:51.900 appearance who built himself as a local messiah, so he wanted to plug himself in local indigenous 28 00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:59.140 Prophecies, which arouse suspicions of Japanese intelligence. 29 00:02:59.140 --> 00:03:08.660 This strange expedition, botanical expedition, quote unquote, was backed up by Henry Wallace, 30 00:03:08.660 --> 00:03:12.980 Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. 31 00:03:12.980 --> 00:03:17.020 That's where my story begins. 32 00:03:17.020 --> 00:03:22.800 Wallace's name is usually associated with this, no less bizarre, but at least they made 33 00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:30.720 sense to him, measures attempted by Agricultural Adjustment Administration, infamous slaughtering 34 00:03:30.720 --> 00:03:38.800 of six million pigs, then plowing the farmer's crops in hope to keep the prices up. 35 00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:46.940 Wallace's name is also mentioned in connection with the 1948 blunder when he was running 36 00:03:46.940 --> 00:03:53.660 He tried to run for US President on the Progressive Party ticket. 37 00:03:53.660 --> 00:03:56.300 I'm going to argue in my brief talk 38 00:03:56.300 --> 00:04:01.300 that this bizarre expedition, botanical expedition, which 39 00:04:01.300 --> 00:04:05.060 is normally treated as some kind of an aberration 40 00:04:05.060 --> 00:04:11.940 in the biography of otherwise progressive politician. 41 00:04:11.940 --> 00:04:15.100 I'm all going to argue that this bizarre episode was, 42 00:04:15.100 --> 00:04:21.580 and in fact a manifestation of this crackpot philosophy and the mindset of the people who 43 00:04:21.580 --> 00:04:29.140 were swarming to Washington in 1933 to try the magical curative devices to provide quick 44 00:04:29.140 --> 00:04:33.860 fixes for social and political problems. 45 00:04:33.860 --> 00:04:40.980 I'm arguing that this quote unquote botanical expedition should be included in the list 46 00:04:40.980 --> 00:04:48.940 of, again, no less bizarre experiments conducted, especially in the early New Deal, like Arthur 47 00:04:48.940 --> 00:04:56.980 Dale in Virginia, an attempt to build the New American Man Collective community, or NRA 48 00:04:56.980 --> 00:05:01.660 measures, or for that mad Indian New Deal. 49 00:05:01.660 --> 00:05:07.980 You may have heard about John Collier, U.S. Commissioner for Indian Affairs, FDR's Commissioner 50 00:05:07.980 --> 00:05:13.500 for Indian Affairs, who wanted to build so-called Red Atlantis, which might be an interesting 51 00:05:13.500 --> 00:05:18.420 topic to research for somebody. 52 00:05:18.420 --> 00:05:29.740 Recent scholarship eradicated this sacred war that New Deal had in the minds of public 53 00:05:29.740 --> 00:05:38.460 and libertarian scholarship did a lot in this direction including Tom Woods and Robert Higgs 54 00:05:38.460 --> 00:05:46.940 and in fact I wanted to mention that Robert Higgs in one of his recent books against Leviathan 55 00:05:46.940 --> 00:05:55.620 he writes that those people who, so called brain trust of FDR, those people who came 56 00:05:55.620 --> 00:05:58.060 came to Washington in 1933. 57 00:05:58.060 --> 00:06:00.460 In fact, a lot of them were infested 58 00:06:00.460 --> 00:06:02.340 with this crackpot philosophy, 59 00:06:02.340 --> 00:06:04.580 which was responsible for many blunders 60 00:06:04.580 --> 00:06:07.120 in the first years of the New Deal. 61 00:06:08.740 --> 00:06:11.940 Wallace, Henry Wallace, was one of those brainy guys. 62 00:06:11.940 --> 00:06:16.220 Robert Higgs called them brainy guys in his lectures. 63 00:06:16.220 --> 00:06:19.620 My story, essentially, about how these brainy guys, 64 00:06:19.620 --> 00:06:24.180 how this brainy guy, whom FDR, for some reason, 65 00:06:24.180 --> 00:06:28.700 called Old Common Sense, that's how he liked to call him, 66 00:06:28.700 --> 00:06:33.220 how he sent this expedition which almost ended 67 00:06:33.220 --> 00:06:35.940 in diplomatic embarrassment for US government 68 00:06:35.940 --> 00:06:40.940 and cost not so much but at least it was a waste, $79,000. 69 00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:49.700 Documentary records reveal recently opened archives 70 00:06:49.700 --> 00:06:58.700 In Rutgers, there were papers recently discovered, one of Aurorich's associates revealed that 71 00:06:58.700 --> 00:07:05.260 Henry Wallace, who was admitted in the Aurorich circle under the esoteric name Galahad, after 72 00:07:05.260 --> 00:07:11.380 the famous Seeker of the Holy Grail, knew about the painters, Aurorich was a painter 73 00:07:11.380 --> 00:07:19.180 about Aurorich's geopolitical project and backed it up and later did everything to eliminate 74 00:07:19.180 --> 00:07:25.980 and his correspondence or manuscripts which he had that could compromise him. 75 00:07:25.980 --> 00:07:27.520 Why did he support it? 76 00:07:27.520 --> 00:07:35.340 So first of all, why did he support this reckless experiment which later he tried to hide? 77 00:07:35.340 --> 00:07:42.400 First and foremost is that for him, if you read Wallace's books and memoirs, the essence 78 00:07:42.400 --> 00:07:47.300 of the modern and progressive for Wallace revolved around the planned society based 79 00:07:47.300 --> 00:07:54.500 and Collectivism, society that should be navigated by the enlightened masters and he viewed himself 80 00:07:54.500 --> 00:07:56.420 as one of the enlightened masters. 81 00:07:56.420 --> 00:08:01.580 Of course you know Wallace was anti-capitalist, of course you know if you read about New Deal 82 00:08:01.580 --> 00:08:07.380 that Wallace had a sympathy for socialism, but it's not the whole story. 83 00:08:07.380 --> 00:08:15.020 Unlike he shared, in this case he shared the same ideas of FDR's circle, or at least ideas 84 00:08:15.020 --> 00:08:19.220 of Many People Who Belong to the Brain Trust. 85 00:08:19.220 --> 00:08:28.900 What set him aside is that the new order that he contemplated for the United States should 86 00:08:28.900 --> 00:08:34.360 be linked to a new spiritual revolution, to a new spiritual revolution, which means establishment 87 00:08:34.360 --> 00:08:36.300 of the new universalist religion. 88 00:08:36.300 --> 00:08:42.740 So that's how he plugged himself into this geopolitical experiment of Nicholas Rohr. 89 00:08:42.740 --> 00:08:51.740 Okay, here is a few things that give us the better picture of Henry Wallace, agriculturalist, frustration about mainstream Christianity. 90 00:08:51.740 --> 00:09:01.740 That's what brought him to spiritualism, universal religion, and eventually encouraged him to support Nicolas Roerich. 91 00:09:01.740 --> 00:09:07.740 So he believed in cooperatives. He came to the conclusion that light comes from the East. 92 00:09:07.740 --> 00:09:14.260 He talked a lot about environment, talked about the new order. 93 00:09:14.260 --> 00:09:21.580 In this case, he reminds me of this, to some extent, one of the current type of left liberal 94 00:09:21.580 --> 00:09:29.420 politician who trashes Western civilization, who makes environmentalism into his or her 95 00:09:29.420 --> 00:09:36.440 secular religion, who dubs into Buddhism or some non-Western cultures, like El Gork would 96 00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:40.920 would be a good example of this new type of politician. 97 00:09:40.920 --> 00:09:44.280 Okay, the scheme that Nicholas Roerich tried to promote 98 00:09:44.280 --> 00:09:46.640 in the heart of Asia is so-called 99 00:09:46.640 --> 00:09:47.960 the Sacred Union of the East. 100 00:09:47.960 --> 00:09:50.880 And Wallace, as recent documentation, 101 00:09:50.880 --> 00:09:54.280 proves that he knew about it, he knew about it. 102 00:09:54.280 --> 00:09:57.840 And they exchanged letters where they called this 103 00:09:57.840 --> 00:09:59.840 geopolitical experiment as Kansas, 104 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:03.320 then the Great Plan, the most frequently used phrase, 105 00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:04.640 the new contract. 106 00:10:04.640 --> 00:10:13.080 It was contemplated this new state based on the new order and the new universalist religion 107 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:21.080 was contemplated as a theocracy which would show the humankind this new spirituality. 108 00:10:21.080 --> 00:10:26.360 And the plan of Roerich was to build this huge theocracy from Siberia to Himalayan Mountains 109 00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:34.840 from Eastern China to India, and the economic foundation of the society would be cooperatives, 110 00:10:34.840 --> 00:10:39.760 ideologies, universalist ecumenical religion. 111 00:10:39.760 --> 00:10:43.800 Roerich courted the US establishment for a long time. 112 00:10:43.800 --> 00:10:50.800 If you're familiar with US history, you know that Wallace and Roerich are also a spearheaded 113 00:10:50.800 --> 00:10:52.480 so-called Roerich Peace Pact. 114 00:10:52.480 --> 00:11:01.480 is an analogy of the red cultural cross to fly a peace flag over the cultural sites to be protected in a time of conflict. 115 00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:10.480 There is also, and it's not proven yet, that Wallace and Roerich participate in designing the U.S. dollar bill. 116 00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:20.480 This phrase, Novus Ordo Seclorum, New Secular Order, supposedly was dropped into by Roerich and Wallace in this all-seen eye. 117 00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:25.480 But again, there is no documentation for this, I'm not going to speculate. 118 00:11:25.480 --> 00:11:31.480 Alright, so this is my major argument, that Wallace Tagwell, these brainy guys, 119 00:11:31.480 --> 00:11:38.480 attempted the reckless experiments in the Sacred Union of the East, 120 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:43.480 or quote-unquote, botanical expedition, was an integral part of this. 121 00:11:43.480 --> 00:11:48.480 East Asia, as I said, was a hot spot at that time. A lot of things were going on. 122 00:11:48.480 --> 00:12:00.480 Mongolia and Manchuria were in revolt. Mongolia was revolting against Red Russia. Mongols at the same time were revolting against the Chinese, against land encroachment. 123 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:15.480 Japan established a puppet state, Mongol puppet state in Manchuria. So all these things gave hope to Rory and Wallace to establish this theocracy as a counterbalance to Japan. 124 00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:19.760 and a picture of Rory Armageddon, so it's an expected Armageddon. 125 00:12:19.760 --> 00:12:25.480 So he built himself, Rory, as the leader of this new theocracy. 126 00:12:25.480 --> 00:12:27.240 And that's a picture of himself. 127 00:12:27.240 --> 00:12:31.320 He pictures himself as the new, like a Christ-like figure. 128 00:12:31.320 --> 00:12:33.360 All right, so here's the conclusion. 129 00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:35.520 So why such reckless experiments? 130 00:12:35.520 --> 00:12:37.080 Again, it's a bizarre incident. 131 00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:40.360 It might be treated by some as an aberration. 132 00:12:40.360 --> 00:12:41.680 But here is the zeitgeist. 133 00:12:41.680 --> 00:12:43.360 I remember this German word zeitgeist, 134 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:44.240 the spirit of the time. 135 00:12:44.240 --> 00:13:14.240 I'm trying to show that if you put this bizarre incident in the context of time, so everything will be clear, so here is the spirit of the time, big is beautiful, cultural planning, so cultural planning became an article of faith, from San Francisco to the Ural Mountains and people, millions of people supported it, so it was taken for granted that social engineering planning would be the radiant future, worship of science and of course, 136 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:22.240 and the cult of the enlightened mass. It could be Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin or FDR. Thank you.