Excerpted History of the Three Ruling Houses by Murray Rothbard
Image: The representatives of three ruling dynastic ethnic groups: Charles III represents the WASPs and the City of London; David Rockefeller represents the Rockefellers and the Wall Street; Jacob Rothschild represents the Jews and the power of Israel.
Introduction
Murray N. Rothbard’s theory and history of the modern ruling elite are dispersed across numerous books and articles. The primary work is Wall Street, Banks and American Foreign Policy, though most of the theory and history were presented in scattered articles. Fortunately, many have been posthumously compiled into the over 500-page The History of Money and Banking in the United States. This excerpted summary draws primarily from these two works.
As a work in progress, this summary welcomes additional excerpts from Rothbard’s oeuvre, with planned timelines and diagrams on the ruling elite. The great value of Rothbard’s history lies in its comprehensive overview and identification of key figures, though it may confuse laypersons due to the litany of names and non-chronological presentation. Here, the broader perspective is elucidated through chronologically organized snippets, tracing the modern ruling elite’s development for the last 150 years concentrating on the three leading dynastic groups or “houses” of the ruling elite:
1. WASP elite
British royal dynasty and the British aristocracy
Boston Brahmins in America, i.e. the American WASP “aristocracy”
Rhodes circle/Milner’s kindergartner/Round Table that started in South Africa and cooperated with the royals in defending the British Empire/Commonwealth and the special prerogatives of its true capital, the City of London
Morgan banking dynasty in America supported by the Bank of England in the City of London
2. Jewish elite
Rothschild dynasty and its American fronts such as Belmont bank and Kuhn, Loeb banking house that later joined forces with the Schiff and Warburg dynasties
Other Jewish dynasties and banking houses such as Lehman, Seligman and Goldman-Sachs dynasties
The Jewish elite is mostly allied with the WASPs through their ancient alliance in the City of London but occasionally allies with the Rockefellers depending on the issue at hand
Jewish elite is the most and least cohesive group. It is most cohesive when there is so called anti-Semitic threat like the Tsar or Putin but least cohesive when it is merely a matter of money
The Jewish elite has their own country, Israel. However, Jews often fight among themselves and therefore there is a near civil war between the rightist Likudniks supported by Orthodox Jews and the leftist Jewish parties supported by the Rothschilds
There is no clear leader among the Jewish elite since the various Jewish dynasties are so independent and often engage in infighting. However, Jacob Rothschild and his son Nathan Rothschild seem to have had the most power because of their close cooperation with David Rockefeller
3. Rockefeller dynasty
oil dynasty with unclear heritage that made dynastic alliance with the Stillman (banking) and Aldrich (politics) families
secondary alliance was made with the Harrimans (Democratic Party) and Bushes (Republican Party)
was willing to make alliances with other outsider groups such as the Italian, Irish, Latino, Mormon and even Black groups to counter the power of the WASP and Jewish dynasties
under the leadership of David Rockefeller there was an attempt to create peace among the three ruling dynasties through intermarriage and banking mergers. Much of the Morgan empire and the WASP American aristocracy seem to have been integrated with the Rockefellers. Symbolizing this was the merger of JPMorgan and ChaseManhattan in the year 2000
After the recent death of David Rockefeller and his close friend Jacob Rothschild it is now unclear what is the current situation inside the ruling elite though it seems the Ukraine and Iran Wars have split the ruling elite again
Here are some of the relevant excerpts from Rothbard that reveal how the ruling elite has been dominated by three dynastic groups. The most relevant parts are in bold:
House of Morgan
After 1873, Drexel, Morgan and its dominant figure, J. P. Morgan, became by far the leading investment firm in the U.S. If Cooke had been a “Republican” bank, Morgan, while prudently well connected in both parties, was chiefly influential among the Democrats.82 The entire Peabody family of Boston Brahmins had long been personally and financially closely associated with the Morgans. A member of the Peabody clan had even served as best man at J.P. Morgan’s wedding in 1865.
George Peabody had long ago established an international banking firm of which J.P. Morgan’s father, Junius, had been one of the senior partners.83 [When] Junius was junior partner the London firm of George Peabody and Company was saved from bankruptcy in the Panic of 1857 by an emergency credit from the Bank of England. The elder Morgan took over the firm upon Peabody's retirement, and its name was changed to J. S. Morgan and Company.84
The House of Morgan had always enjoyed strong connections with England. The original Morgan banker, J. Pierpont Morgan’s father Junius, had been a banker in England; and the Morgan’s London branch, Morgan, Grenfell and Company, was headed by the powerful Edward C. “Teddy” Grenfell (later Lord St. Just). Grenfell’s father and grandfather had both been directors of the Bank of England as well as members of Parliament, and Grenfell himself had become a director of the Bank of England in 1904.
Assisting Grenfell as leading partner at Morgan, Grenfell was Teddy’s cousin, Vivian Hugh Smith, later Lord Bicester, a personal friend of J.P. Morgan, Jr.’s. Not only was Smith’s father a governor of the Bank of England, but he came from the socalled “City Smiths,” the most prolific banking family in English history, originating in seventeenth-century banking. Due to the good offices of Grenfell and Smith, J.P. Morgan and Company, before the war, had been named a fiscal agent of the English Treasury and of the Bank of England. In addition, the House of Morgan had long been closely associated with British and French wars, its London branch having helped England finance the Boer, and its French bank the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871.85
Cecil Rhodes organizes the Anglo-American Establishment
In England, Cecil Rhodes had launched a secret society in 1891 with the aim of maintaining and expanding the British Empire to re-incorporate the United States. After the turn of the twentieth century, the direction, organization, and expansion of the society fell to Rhodes’s friend and executor, Alfred Lord Milner. 87
House of Rothschild
The other great financial interest powerful in the Democratic Party was the mighty European investment banking house of the Rothschilds, whose agent, August Belmont, was treasurer of the national Democratic party for many years.86
And since the Morgans and Rothschilds were longtime allies… 117
Rockefellers demand entry into the Anglo-American Establishment
By the turn of the century the political economy of the United States was dominated by two generally clashing financial aggregations: the previously dominant Morgan group, which had begun in investment banking and expanded into commercial banking, railroads, and mergers of manufacturing firms; and the Rockefeller forces, which began in oil refining and then moved into commercial banking, finally forming an alliance with the Kuhn, Loeb Company in investment banking and the Harriman interests in railroads. 88
Battle between Morgans and Rockefellers
After the turn of the century, a savage economic and political war developed between the Morgan interests on the one hand, and the allied Harriman-Kuhn, Loeb-Rockefeller interests on the other. Harriman and Kuhn, Loeb grabbed control of the Union Pacific Railroad and the two titanic forces baffled to a draw for control of the Northern Pacific. 116
Battle between Rothschilds and Rockefellers
Also, at about the same time, a long-lasting and worldwide financial and political “oil war” broke out between Standard Oil, previously a monopolist in both the crude and export markets outside of the U.S., and the burgeoning British Royal Dutch Shell–Rothschild combine. 116 And since the Morgans and Rothschilds were longtime allies, it is certainly sensible to conclude—though there are no hard facts to prove it—that Teddy Roosevelt launched his savage anti-trust assault to break Standard Oil as a Morgan contribution to the worldwide struggle. Furthermore, Mellon-owned Gulf Oil was allied to the Shell combine, and this might well explain the fact that former Morgan-and-Mellon lawyer Philander Knox, TR’s Attorney General, was happy to file the suit against Standard Oil.117
President William Taft a Rockefeller man
Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, being an Ohio Republican, was allied to the Rockefeller camp, and so he proceeded to take vengeance on the Morgans by filing antitrust suits to break up the two leading Morgan trusts, International Harvester and United States Steel.118 It was now all-out war, and so the Morgans in 1912 deliberately created a new party, the Progressive Party, headed by former Morgan partner, George W. Perkins. The successful aim of the Progressive Party was to bring Theodore Roosevelt out of retirement to run for President, in order to break Taft, and to elect, for the first time in a generation, a Democratic President. The new party was liquidated soon after.119
President Woodrow Wilson a Morgan man
The Morgan-Progressive Party ploy deliberately ensured the election of Woodrow Wilson as a Democratic President. Wilson himself, until almost the time of running for President, was for several years on the board of the Morgan-controlled Mutual Life Insurance Company. He was also surrounded by Morgan men.120
The FED
By the turn of the century the political economy of the United States was dominated by two generally clashing financial aggregations: the previously dominant Morgan group, which had begun in investment banking and expanded into commercial banking, railroads, and mergers of manufacturing firms; and the Rockefeller forces, which began in oil refining and then moved into commercial banking, finally forming an alliance with the Kuhn, Loeb Company in investment banking and the Harriman interests in railroads.
Although these two financial blocs usually clashed with each other, they were as one on the need for a central bank. Even though the eventual major role in forming and dominating the Federal Reserve System was taken by the Morgans, the Rockefeller and Kuhn, Loeb forces were equally enthusiastic in pushing, and collaborating on, what they all considered to be an essential monetary reform. (Murray Rothbard. A History of Money and Banking in the United States. Mises Institute, 2005, pp. 185–88.)
The Federal Reserve was the outgrowth of … years of planning, amending, and compromising among various politicians and concerned financial groups, led by the major financial interests, including the Morgans, the Rockefellers, and the Kuhn, Loebs, along with their assorted economists and technicians.122
The conferees worked for a solid week at the plush Jekyll Island retreat, and hammered out the draft of the bill for the Federal Reserve System. Only six people attended this supersecret week-long meeting, and these six neatly reflected the power structure within the bankers' alliance of the central banking movement. The conferees were, in addition to Aldrich (Rockefeller kinsman); Henry P. Davison, Morgan partner; Paul Warburg, Kuhn Loeb partner; Frank A. Vanderlip, vice-president of Rockefeller's National City Bank of New York; Charles D. Norton, president of Morgan's First National Bank of New York; and Professor A. Piatt Andrew, head of the NMC research staff, who had recently been made an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Taft, and who was a technician with a foot in both the Rockefeller and Morgan camps.124
While the establishment of the Federal Reserve System in late 1913 was the result of a coalition of Morgan, Rockefeller, and Kuhn, Loeb interests … 128
Indeed, much of the political history of the United States from the late nineteenth century until World War II may be interpreted by the closeness of each administration to one of these sometimes cooperating, more often conflicting, financial groupings: Cleveland (Morgan), McKinley (Rockefeller), Theodore Roosevelt (Morgan), Taft (Rockefeller), Wilson (Morgan), Harding (Rockefeller), Coolidge (Morgan), Hoover (Morgan), and Franklin Roosevelt (Harriman–Kuhn, Loeb–Rockefeller).88
During the 1930s, the Rockefellers pushed hard for war against Japan, which they saw as competing with them vigorously for oil and rubber resources in Southeast Asia and as endangering the Rockefellers’ cherished dreams of a mass “China market” for petroleum products. On the other hand, the Rockefellers took a noninterventionist position in Europe, where they had close financial ties with German firms such as I.G. Farben and Co., and very few close relations with Britain and France. The Morgans, in contrast, as usual deeply committed to their financial ties with Britain and France, once again plumped early for war with Germany, while their interest in the Far East had become minimal. Indeed, US Ambassador to Japan, Joseph C. Grew, former Morgan partner, was one of the few officials in the Roosevelt administration genuinely interested in peace with Japan.
World War II might therefore be considered, from one point of view, as a coalition war: the Morgans got their war in Europe, the Rockefellers theirs in Asia. (Murray Rothbard. Wall Street Banks and American Foreign Policy)
After World War II, the united Rockefeller-Morgan-Kuhn-Loeb Eastern Establishment was not allowed to enjoy its financial and political supremacy unchallenged for long. “Cowboy” Sun Belt firms, maverick oil men and construction men from Texas, Florida, and southern California, began to challenge the Eastern Establishment “Yankees” for political power. (Murray Rothbard. Wall Street Banks and American Foreign Policy)
Rockefellers become senior partners of the ruling elite
After World War II, the .. new prominence of oil made the Rockefellers the dominant force in the political and financial Eastern Establishment.230 Since World War II, indeed, the various financial interests have entered into a permanent realignment: the Morgans and the other financial groups have taken their place as compliant junior partners in a powerful "Eastern Establishment," led unchallenged by the Rockefellers. 231
Johnson cabinet seats divided between the Three Houses
Cyrus Vance continued as Johnson’s Secretary of the Army; when he rose to Deputy Secretary of Defense, he was replaced by Vance’s old friend and roommate at Yale, Stanley R. Resor. ... After Vance retired as Deputy Secretary of Defense to return to law practice, he was replaced by Johnson’s hard-line Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze, former partner of Dillon, Read, whose wife was a member of the Rockefeller connected Pratt family.257 A fascinating aspect of the Johnson administration was the heavy influence of men connected with the powerful Democratic investment banking house of Lehman Brothers.258
Neocons triumphant in 1994 congressional elections
On November 8, the American people carried through a mighty and glorious revolution against Big Government and its embodiment in King William (Jefferson Blyth IV "Clinton"). But what we got for our pains is Big Government headed by yet another King William (Kristol [Jew]). A left-liberal (Socialist) in the guise of a New Democrat (Social Democrat) was replaced by a neoconservative (Social Democrat) in the guise of a conservative. Officially, of course, our new Maximum Leader is Newt Gingrich, whose seat on the throne was hardly warm before he had maneuvered to grab more House power than any Speaker since the notorious Joe Cannon. Newt is a neoconservative (Social Democrat, wacko techno-futurist division), in the guise of a fiery revolutionary quasi-libertarian.
In actuality, however, we are now being ruled by a duumvirate, by two kings, a two-headed monster: King Newt and King Kristol. Newt is the nominal chief, the outside front man who deals with the media and the public; William is the shadowy inside man, the "theoretician" who sets the public policy agenda and cracks the whip over the "intellectuals," policy wonks, and strategists of the Republican Party. There are advantages and disadvantages to each role, and who plays what is a function of many factors, including personal temperament. Gingrich, as the politician who gets elected, clearly loves the open exercise of power. Kristol, as the "intellectual" in this division of labor, is better suited for the inside handing down of the policy line to pundits, think-tankers, and the battery of neocon syndicated columnists. One advantage to the intellectual slot is that the front man-politician gets the glory but also takes all the heat. Gingrich has already been subject to a lot of media "scrutiny" (the current euphemism for hostile profiles and articles) mainly by hard leftists outside the "mainstream" left center-right center neocon-social democrat spectrum. But Bill Kristol has gotten no scrutiny whatsoever, and to my knowledge has never been subjected to this process. King William has become a king beyond criticism for one reason: because the general public has no idea of Kristol's enormous new power in tandem with Gingrich.283
Neocons dominate the Republican party
The composition of the Republican Eastern Establishment, however, has changed over the decades. From World War II until the 1970s, they consisted of the Rockefeller World Empire; since the late 1970s, however, the RWE has been joined by the neocon-Wall Street forces. In fact, the neocons have successfully achieved primacy over their Rockefeller allies in dominating the Republican party. (Murray N. Rothbard. 1996! Rothbard-Rockwell Report, February 1995.)
How about the Rockefellers? Unlike the old days, there are no Rockefeller stooges in this [1996 Republican presidential primary] race; the unlamented George Bush was one, and his fate demonstrates where the straight Rockefeller types are today: nowhere. The only possible such nominee is the once famed James R. Baker, Bush‘s former heir apparent. Once the prince of the liberal media, Baker’s total floperoo as alleged savior of the Bush campaign has knocked him totally out of the box. Actually, before that debacle, Baker, as Secretary of State, was stabbed in the back by fellow Cabinet member Jack Kemp and the neocons for what they deemed insufficient devotion to the State of Israel, which was the major reason-and not his tax increase-for the neocon knifing of Bush in 1992 and their overt as well as covert support for Bill Clinton. (Murray N. Rothbard. 1996! Rothbard-Rockwell Report, February 1995.)
Unfortunately Rothbard died in 1995 so could not continue his criticism of the increasing power of the Jewish elite.
Footnotes:
85 Murray N. Rothbard. A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II. Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2005. P. 369-370.
86 Murray N. Rothbard. Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy. Burlingame, Calif: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1995. P. 2.
87 Ibid. P. 29.
88 Murray N. Rothbard. A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II.
116 Murray N. Rothbard. Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy. Burlingame, Calif: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1995. p. 14.
117 Ibid. 14.
118 Ibid. 14.
119 Ibid. 14-15.
120 Ibid. 17. [Rothbard gives a list of Morgan men.]
122 Murray N. Rothbard. Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy. Burlingame, Calif: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1995. P. 25.
124 Ibid. p. 16.
128 Ibid. p. 27.
230 Murray N. Rothbard. A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II. Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2005. P. 346-347.
231 CAF p. 133.
258 Murray N. Rothbard. Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy. Burlingame, Calif: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1995. P. 52. [Rothbard gives a list of the names and connections. Thus the Johnson administration seems to have been dominated by Rockefellers but the Morgans and the Jewish Lehmans and their allies Goldman Sachs also had a strong representation.]
283 Llewellyn H., Rockwell, Jr., ed., The Irrepressible Rothbard (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2000). P. 341