Who really said it

Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws

Q: Did Mayer Amschel Rothschild say "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws"?

No. There is no Rothschild source — no letter, ledger, diary, speech, memoir or newspaper report. Mayer Amschel Rothschild died in 1812. The earliest located printing of the saying, in 1908, attaches it to no one in particular; the first version naming him appears in 1935, in Gertrude M. Coogan's Money Creators, with no citation. The dates later attached to it range from 1790 to 1863 — several of them after he was dead. This line is a staple of antisemitic conspiracy writing, and the plain factual answer is that it has no documented origin at all.

Nobody — no source of any kind exists Unknown Unattributed in print by 1908 · credited to Rothschild only from 1935

Disputed Rights unconfirmed

There is no Rothschild source — no letter, ledger, diary, speech, memoir or newspaper report. Mayer Amschel Rothschild died in 1812. The earliest located printing of the saying, in 1908, attaches it to no one in particular; the first version naming him appears in 1935, in Gertrude M. Coogan’s Money Creators, with no citation. The dates later attached to it range from 1790 to 1863 — several of them after he was dead. This line is a staple of antisemitic conspiracy writing, and the plain factual answer is that it has no documented origin at all.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws” An anonymous saying, in print unattributed by 1908 and credited to Mayer Amschel Rothschild only from 1935 — 123 years after his death. No Rothschild source exists.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Mayer Amschel Rothschild. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Mayer Amschel Rothschild — German banker, founder of the Rothschild banking family. Theme: "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Origin: Unknown — no primary document
Earliest located printing: 1908, attributed to nobody
First Rothschild credit: 1935, Coogan, Money Creators
Rothschild died: 1812 — 123 years earlier

Let us control the money of a country and we care not who makes its laws. Anonymous, 1908

The earliest located printed form, from 1908. It is credited to no individual, it is plural, and it is less quotable than the version that circulates now — all signs of a slogan that was later sharpened and given a famous name.

Grammarphobia — tracing the saying to 1908 and the credit to 1935

How we traced it

The earliest form anyone has located in print is from 1908, and it names no author — it is vaguely credited to ‘the money lenders of the Old World.’ That is the shape of a slogan, not a quotation the trail ↗.
The wording on this page, with a named author attached, first appears in 1935, in Gertrude M. Coogan’s Money Creators — a book arguing that the world is run by international financiers. Coogan gives no source and no date. Everything since traces back through her.
The tell is the dating. Repetitions since 1935 have assigned the remark to 1790, 1838, 1863 and other years, most of which fall after Rothschild’s death in 1812. A real quotation acquires one date; an invented one acquires many.
The nearest thing to an ancestor is a genuine and unrelated line from Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, writing in 1703 about ballads — let me write a nation’s songs and I care not who writes its laws. The financial version reads like that proverb with the money swapped in.
In April 2024, after the writer Dorian Lynskey spotted it in Liz Truss’s memoir Ten Years to Save the West, the publisher Biteback apologised and removed it from future editions the 2024 correction ↗.

We give no rights status because the saying has no identified author or first publication to attach one to. A single sentence of this length is in any case below the threshold of copyright protection in most jurisdictions, and the 1908 printing is long out of copyright anywhere. The 1935 book that first attached Rothschild’s name is a different matter — quote from it sparingly and with attribution. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

This one is not a close call, and it is worth being blunt about why it matters. The sentence has no source, and the name was added a century after the fact by a writer arguing that bankers secretly run the world.

Not Mayer Amschel Rothschild no source of any kind

No letter, diary, speech, ledger entry or contemporary report. He died in 1812; the first printing that names him is from 1935 and cites nothing the trail ↗.

1790, 1838, 1863 and others mutually exclusive

The commonest date given is 1838 — twenty-six years after he died. Others place it in 1863, half a century after. When a quotation collects several incompatible dates, none of them came from a document.

The son, also credited same absence of evidence

A shorter variant — give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws — is often pinned on the London son instead. That version has no source either; swapping generations does not create evidence.

Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, 1703 real, but about ballads

Fletcher genuinely wrote that whoever makes a nation’s ballads need not care who makes its laws. That is a remark about culture and popular feeling. The money version reads like a later rewrite of a proverb everybody already knew.

Antisemitic conspiracy material why the correction matters

The line is circulated as proof that a Jewish banking family secretly controls governments. In April 2024 a British publisher apologised and cut it from a former prime minister’s memoir once its origin was pointed out. Correcting the attribution is not pedantry here; the quotation is the whole of the evidence, and it does not exist the 2024 story ↗.

No Rothschild ever said this on any surviving record. The saying is unattributed in print by 1908 and acquires his name only in 1935, in a book of financial conspiracy theory, with no citation offered the trail ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It offers a single lever that explains everything. If one family controls the money, then elections, parliaments and laws are theatre — and you no longer have to understand central banking, bond markets or any of the genuinely complicated machinery that decides who gets credit and who does not.

That is also what makes the missing source consequential rather than merely untidy. The sentence is usually produced as evidence, the confession that proves the case. Take away the document and there is no confession, only a slogan that somebody attached a famous banker’s name to in 1935.

A real quotation acquires one date. This one has acquired 1790, 1838 and 1863.

What is actually documented

1703: Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun writes the genuine ballads-and-laws remark that the money version appears to be modelled on.

1812: Mayer Amschel Rothschild dies in Frankfurt, leaving substantial business papers and a detailed will. The sentence appears in none of them.

1908: the earliest located printing, in a plural form, credited to no individual.

1935: Gertrude M. Coogan’s Money Creators prints the familiar wording and attaches Rothschild’s name, without a citation.

April 2024: after the writer Dorian Lynskey identifies it in Liz Truss’s Ten Years to Save the West, the publisher apologises and removes it from future editions.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power Truth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Waxing Rothschild — the Grammarphobia Bloggrammarphobia.com

The clearest published trace: unattributed in 1908, credited to Rothschild only in Coogan’s 1935 book.

Liz Truss book includes false Rothschild quotethejc.com

The 2024 news story that put the fabrication in front of a general readership.

Publisher apologises and removes the quotethejc.com

Biteback’s apology and commitment to cut the line from future print and e-book editions.

Truss accused of using fabricated Rothschild quotejewishnews.co.uk

Corroborating coverage, including the Board of Deputies’ letter to the publisher.

Popularly credited author

Why his name got attached

Mayer Amschel Rothschild

1744–1812 · German banker, founder of the Rothschild banking family

Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812) was a coin dealer and banker in the Frankfurt Judengasse who built a family firm his five sons extended across Europe. He left a large paper trail — ledgers, business correspondence, a will — and this sentence appears nowhere in it. His name was attached in 1935, more than a century after his death, by an author writing about hidden financial control, and the line has circulated ever since as shorthand for a conspiracy theory rather than as anything he said. Treating it as a quotation gives a fabrication the dignity of a source.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Anonymous saying; earliest located printing 1908, unattributed. First credited to Mayer Amschel Rothschild in Gertrude M. Coogan, Money Creators (1935), without citation. No Rothschild source exists.

MLA (9th ed.)

“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation.” Anonymous; earliest located printing 1908. Misattributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild from 1935.

APA (7th ed.)

Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation. (1908). Anonymous [earliest located printing]. Misattributed to M. A. Rothschild from 1935.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/permit-me-to-issue-and-control-the-money-of-a-nation