The Cordova daily times., 1921-08-12
MOST SERIOUS
 SITUATION IS
 FACED BY !. 5.

l Unlteu states IS m the peculiar posi- tion today of accommodating more gold than 1t needs, of possessing half of the worlds available gold. while fac ing the ncontrovertible fact that it cannot live and prosper alone.
 Ordinarily the man whose pockets are filled with gold Is supposed to be independent of the rest of the world. Uncle Sam. with his pockets Judging with gold, finds himself far from being independent economically and financially, of the rest of the world.
 It is this strange situation that is giving the American government. from the president and the secretary of the treasury to the Republican leaders of congress, such knotty problems to solve as the stabilization Of commerce and the readjustment of the tariff, taxation end the for eign debt
 The United States is receiving gold in such large quantities as to threaten it with a gold imitation. if was pointed out by D. R. Crissinger, the comptroller of the currency, while there is not a satisfactory con- pensating movement of our products to the countries which are sending us the gold.
 And yet 1t is as necessary for us to sell as for others to buy, as neces- sary for us to join in extending credits to those who would buy as for them to secure credits.
 Members of the senate finance committee realize, as do Secretary of the Treasury Mellon and Comp. troller Crissinger, to what extent the prosperity and the rehabilita. tion of the American people must de- pend upon the restoration of the world as a whole.
 Frozen credits" and adverse for eign exchange rates are also i'm portant factors of the situation bound up with the administrators efforts toward refunding some part of the 1 principal and interest of the l,OOO.- | 100000 due us from our foreign debt ors.
 There is not that freedom of con- mercial interchange which in normal ig leveler," Comptroller Crissinger said. The situation demands attention lest the gold standard be gravely i'm paired. After the Civil war our own currency was impaired by reason of paper imitation. Other countries had drawn from us much of our gold and had thereby been able to establish the metal basis of their own curren- cies more firmly, while our own had lost that foundation.
 Tt was obviously sound policy for us, then, to deflate, to lift our own to the level of other curreucies. We did resume specie payments; we did it so soon after the Civil war, and despite the existence of so great debt, that 1t constituted a striking demonstration of our economic ca pacity.
 But the situation is now reversed We are not only the great creditor nation, but we have put the reverse on the Crime of -73' by making our selves well-nigh the monopolists of the worlds available gold. 1 The question is. what can we do about it? This brings us back to considerations of money, of for eign exchange. of international trade relations. We need to increase our exports, but in our new quality as a great creditor nation we find 1t more difficult than ever to export more than we import The difficulty is in- creased by the fact that our money is the best inthe world. the most ex- pensive. On a gold basis five Ital- ian lira would buy dollars worth of goods from Us. But the Italian lira is so Appreciated tkat it takes more than twenty now to buy dol. lar.
 | Ut will be well for us to consider what our position in international trade would be, If because of our aloofness from other nations they should unite without us and give special inducement and incentive to