(Melchizedek Communique, MC110909) If it weren't for Martin van Buren (image shown), eighth U.S. President, we might never have heard the Monty Python "Lumberjack" song. ("He's a lumberjack and he's OK. He sleeps all night and he works all day.") For it is to van Buren that we owe the term "O.K."

In 1838, then-Congressman Millard Fillmore wrote a letter to his son, describing Martin van Buren: "He is a little small man, with a broad head, quite bald and gray with sandy whiskers and blue eyes." [1]

Because van Buren had been born in Kinderhook, New York, the campaign references in 1836 hailed him as "Old Kinderhook," or "O.K." for short. This is the origin for the term "O.K.", without which there might not have been the Monty Python "Lumberjack" song.

But van Buren, as it turns out, himself may not have been "O.K." On September 25, 1837, during the financial Panic of 1837, Congressman Fillmore addressed the House of Representatives. Fillmore charged that the government was conducting the "derangement of our currency" by overissue of bank paper. (This would be akin to today's M3 measure, recently classified "top secret" by the so-called "Federal" Reserve, which shows the overall amount of bank paper in circulation.) [2]

"O.K." van Buren, dangling puppet of the previous Andrew Jackson administration, had been making war upon the Bank of the United States (B.U.S.) for political effect, charged Fillmore. Jackson and van Buren of the "anti-bank" party had replaced favor for B.U.S. with favor for "pet banks." In 1830, there had been 320 banks in the U.S. Only seven years later, there were 677 banks. Add to that 146 bank branches and the total rises to 823 banks. So why is it, wondered Fillmore, that "this no-bank [Democrat] party, that has for seven years cried out against the bank monster, until the people trembled for their liberties, [has], within the same time, created nearly three times as much bank capital as all that existed in the United States before." [2]

The Jackson/van Buren supposed war against "the bank monster" in fact led to over-banking, over-trading, and ruinous and gambling speculation. "It was really," continued Fillmore, "a war of the state banks against the United States Bank, got up by artful politicians to elevate Mr. van Buren to the presidency." State banks ("pet banks") "have been granted [authorized], and the stocks distributed, to party favorites, as a reward for party services." [1]

The enormous increase of banks in the 1830s, ironically consequent to Andrew Jackson's war on the Bank of the United States (B.U.S.), facilitated wild financial speculation followed by the inevitable crash. Over 600 banks failed in 1837. In the context of there being a total of 823 banks (and branches) at the time, this translates to approximately 73 percent of banks having failed in one year, 1837. [2]

Said Fillmore: "I have never been a particular friend of the United States Bank. I regard it as I do all other banks as a necessary evil. I have never been its advocate, and am not now. It has gone down to 'the tomb of the Capulets'; let it rest in peace." [1]

"Let us not destroy, put purify this odious system," concluded Millard Fillmore. For now, such banks were necessary. But one day, Fillmore hoped, "the moral pestilence of political banks and banking shall be unknown." [1]

------- Notes -------
[1] qtd. in Scarry, Robert J. Millard Fillmore. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2001
[2] Scarry, op. cit.