Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-10-14
The III Advised Tactics of the
Federal Reserve Board:

-HE ill-advised attitude lately assumed
by President Harding, of the Federal
Reserve Board, and Secretary Hous-
ton, of the Treasury Department can be
deprecated by no one more deeply than by
thoughtful friends of the Federal Reserve
system itself. Those who best know the
odds of prejudice and selfish interest which
The projectors of that noble System had to
combat and who are best informed concern
ing the good which it could do at this crti-
cal juncture, must be most painfully sur
prised at the tone Of the statements recently
gwen out by these two high officials. Mr..
Harding might better have kept as silent
as the Sphinx of Gizeh and Secretary Hous-
ton as taciturn as clam than to have
spoken so misunderstandngly of the grave
problems of this. hour and so at variance
with the spirit and purpose of what our
Democratic Text Book deservedly, calls "the
Worlds Best Banking System"
Nobody was astonished at Republican op-
position and Wall Street antagonism when
the Federal Reserve bill fought it's way to
enactment seven years ago. Being avoW-
eddy intended to supplant the tyranny and
the privilege which the old inefficient sys-
tenn has fostered. this measure quite natu-
rally had it's bitter foes Moreover, notW1th-
standing it's vast service in the stormy years
: that ensued--its rising as a tower of strength
\through the shocks of world war, its ward
ing off of panics otherwise inevitable It's
aid to agriculture, to industry and to bust
ness, big and little-notwthstandin all
these evidences of it's worth the system
still has the hostility of Republican politi-
clans and their ogling patron saints. 1t is
commonly suspected, indeed, that Repub-
lican victory in November would be followed
by persistent efforts to impair the Reserve
system, and particularly to deprive the South
of her original advantages therein.
How peculiarly regrettable, therefore, that
the head of the Reserve Board and the head
of the Treasury Department, under Demo-
cratic administration, should have struck
notes which tend only to bring the sys-
tenn iRto disfavor, at the very time, when it's
services are most needed and when the vlr-
tues which its friends claim for it could be
made most fruitfully manifest! That these
officials have spoken in haste and in man
ner which their own better Judgment will
come to deplore, we do not for moment
doubt. We readily grant, indeed, that their
policy of deflation in so far it strikes at
the grip of the profiteer and calls halt
upon sheer speculation is we'll and season.
ably conceived. But nothing could be more
inopportune, nothing more unjust, nothing
more dangerous than to brandish such a
policy as club of intimidation, without re-
gard to the needs of legitimate business and
the rights of honest producers calling for
help.
Mr. Harding, along with all who. may
share his unfortunate attitude, should pause
and reflect that he is not an avenging sam
son in Philistine temple, but servant OF
the American people, Surely there is bet
ter way to punish profiteers and specula-
tors than to shake the vital pillars of pros
perity and risk wrecking the good along
with the bad. Surely the producers OF
basic commodity like cotton should not be
denied such accommodation as the Federal
Reserve system was designed to afford them,
simply because there adventures who
seek credit for unnecessary and unworthy
ends. In his recent interview the chief OF
the Reserve Board seemed to assume that
the cotton growers, together with their mer-
camille and banking friends, were conspir-
ing to hoard the crop for monstrous profits
''Many people," he declared by way Of an
swer to appeals for aid in the South's pres
ent emergency, seem to think that all they
have to do is to call Oh the Federal Reserve
bank for aid and the crop of their particu-
lar section can be boosted up for a high
price, or lowered, as they might desire"
How. in the name of reason and common
sense did Mr.. Harding get the notion that
q request for rightful assistance to tide
Southern agriculture and Southern business
over a stringent and perlous time mere
II a babyish cry for price boosting?
The Journal finds no pleasure in criticism
of the Reserve Boards president and the
Secretary of the Treasury" We admire much
that they have done; we are heartily aware
of their integrity and, for certain spheres of
undertaking, their high ability, But who
that rightly reads the signs of this day and
rightly appreciates the South's critical need
.nn fail to deplore the undiscerning, not to
say unsympathetic position which those Off
Gals have lately taken? The main pity of it
is that they are doing the Federal Reserve
system itself an egregious injustice; are
clogging it's veins and arteries at the very
time they should pulse most freely; are sup
plying it's foes with fertile pretexts and
keen weapons wherewith to assail it.
Had Wall Street, in the old days. spoken
as overbearingly as Reserve Board and
Treasury officials have spoken in recent
weeks, the whole country would have flush
ed with resentment. Such tactics will not
do. They run counter to the entire purpose
and spirit of the Reserve Act, which was
framed to abolish autocracy, not to inspire
it, and to have at its head, not churlish die
tators, but men imbued with the ideal of
service. The banks of the country deserve
better than this, and assuredly business and
industry and agriculture deserve better. We
need, and need sorely, return to some