The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-05-23
Washington Bureau The Age. HeraId
 50n navlasan p..tIdfn 1

ouU Davidson Building
 Washington, May 22.-(Special. )-The ad- ministration and Congress may have thelr own opinion, but the public is more A less distressed because of it's doubt af to whether w. P. G. Harding gov- <for of the federal reserve board or hooert l.. Owen of Oklahoma, seantor of the united States and a presidential can oldate with the support of w. J. Bryan, IS the better banker.
 Governor Harding is criticized by the senator because the federal reserve board has seen fit to call halt in the ap- parently reckless, certainly prodigal, cir culatlon of currency. In calling the halt, the board made it more difficult for any other than fully accredited individuals and corporations to secure money on any condition, and required those with un- limited credit to pay higher rate of in- terest.
 The increase in interest rates has given Senator Owen an opportunity to make a dozen or more speeches on the floor of the Senate, and to write many hundreds Of telegrams, and half as many letters He says truthfully that the banks, under the former rate of interest made much money. He insists that they restore the former interest rate. But the board is obdurate.
 To this correspondent Governor Hard ing said today: Irrespective of the atti- tude or any individual member of the Senate or the House, the board will carry out its present programme. If any in- dividual desires change in our mode of procedure, fe must secure an executive ofder. or the passage of legislation con- tfNning his demands and requirements Then Governor Harding declared that the new policy of the board had not been adopted to the end that banks might reap greater profit. It was gathered from what he said that in the estimation of conservative bankers the present is not good time in which recklessly to make loans; that the time had come when the banks should do only nominal business and take a reckoning of their own and the countrys condition; and that the withdrawal of ready, abundant and cheap money from the merchants of the country would force them to reduce their prices in order to negotiate business. In con- rection with the latter thought, Governor Harding pointed to the fact that sev- eral Washington merchants had just or dered a g per cent reduction in clothing. He attributed such reduction in part to the policy of the federal reserve board.
 We have got to get off this financial drunk" said Governor Harding with em- phasis. "We must take stock, as it were, see where we are and whither we are drifting. We cannot intelligently pursue the course we pursued during the war and after, and blndly leave it to some beneficent destiny to take care of us in the future.
 When I was a banker" continued Governor Harding. T applied the same rules to that business as we are now ap- plying to the federal reserve system. When we reach the crest, and know not what might happen tomorrow. it is best to step short, take stock and devise a conservative programme for the morrow" |" kAt the same time, Senator Owen says his the duty of the board to advance cheap money as long as the board is cer- t/n that it will regain it's loan. The ap- /S.ication of material. business principles is held by him obnoxious. He advocates a policy of helping every individual