The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1917-04-26
A BLIND OBsTRUCTIONIsT

Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo
is strangely inconsistent in his views
as to the market value Of United
States government bonds. In 1871,
former Senator Jonathan Bourne Jr.
proposed a plan for state and ma
tional cooperation in extensive con-
struction of permanent highways,
which plan provided for the sale of a
billion dollars of 8 per cent bonds,
Mr.. McAdoo advised the p~ostofice
committee of the Senate that in his
opinion ct is extremely doubtful it
the government could sell 100000.
900 of 3 per cent bonds in install
ments, as proposed, at par and ac-
crued interest" He also expressed
the opinion thaat the rate of interest
would approach, If not exceed, 4 per
cent. That was at a time when all
the world was at peace. The money,
if the bonds were sold, would be spent
for a purpose that would do more
than any other one thing to add to
the wealth of the nation and to the
comfort and convenience of it's people.
But in 1917, after the United States
had become involved in the greatest
war in history, and when all other
nations were borrowing every dollar
they could get. McAdoo gave it as his
opinion that the United States can sell
$4,000, coo, 900 worth of bonds at 3ia
per cent. Of this five billions, three
billions are to be loaned to the allies.
The Bourne road plan proposed that
the billion dollars be loaned to the
states on the security of their state
bonds. McAdoo thought that kind of
security not good enough to make the
bonds salable at 3 per cent. But he
thinks three billions, to be loaned on
such security as the allies are pre-
pared to give, would be salable at an
increased interest rate of only one
half of / per cen
According to McAdoo, the American
people would not buy $1,000, 000, 900
worth of 3 per cent bonds to build
roads, but will buy $5,000,0 00, 900 of
3H per cent bonds to provide men
and supplies to be destroyed in var
The fact of the matter is that the
people will buy the 3H per cent war
bonds now, and they would have
jumped at the chance to buy the 3 per
cent road bonds in 1914. But, appa-
rently unwilling to lay aside his in
tense partisanship long enough TO
give unprejudiced consideration to a
measure proposed by a Republican,
McAdoo fought the road bonds.
Another fact of the matter is that
if the government had spent a billion
dollars ON hard-surfaced roads in 1914
it would be in a vastly stronger posi-
ton today from either an Industrial
or a military standpoint. Today we
are dependent almost entirely upon
the railroads for transportation of
troops. If railroad bridges be blown
W We are almost helpless. But if we
had an extensive system of hard-sur-
faced roads We would have ample
means for immediate and continuous
mobilization of both the industrial and
the military resources of the United
States.
If McAdoo had not been a blind OBJ
structionist in 1914, auto trucks might
have lone much to relieve transpor-
tation congestion in 1867. Farm
ers would have had better roads to
market, food supplies would have
been more readily available, and the
country would be in a stronger posi-
ton in military preparedness. And,
perhaps, the country would have more
confidence in the financial judgment
of the man who happens to be at the
head of the Treasury Department.
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