The Cordova daily times., 1921-01-15
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WhGt the McFddden
 BiU Does Not Do
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 It is amazing that opponents of, measures proposed for congressional enactment do not always take the time to read them, or, reading them, fail utterly to comprehend their meaning. It is particularly amazing that the Wall Street Journal, devoted exclusively to financial matters should exhibit such lack of understanding of the provisions of the McFadden bill. Any one familiar with the Nc. Fadden bill who reads the article en- titled "A Bad Subsidy" printed re- gently in the Review and Outlook" column of the Wall Street Journal, will know at once that the writer either had not read the McFadden bill or that if he did read it he failed to understand it.
 The Wall Street Journal condemns the McFadden bill on the three-fold count of being a measure for price fixing, creating a subsidy and inter- fering with the law of supply and de. mand. It opposes all governmental price fixing, but overlooks the cir constance that gold is already price-fiXed commodity, and will un- doubtedly and must inevitably remain a price-fiXed commodity so long as it remains the basis of money The government has fixed it's price at $20.67 an ounce, destroying the opera tion of the law of supply and demand. Purchasers of gold never pay less. be- cause this is the lowest price for which it is obtainable, and never pay more so long as they are able to se- cure an abundant supply for this price by patronizing the government
 The Wall Street Journal stoutly maintains it's opposition to price fix ing, and in the same article contends not only for a continuation of price on gold, but for the maintenance of a fixed price which is below the cost of production and which manifestly must annul the law of supply and de- mand.
 As for the charge that the Mo Fadden bill subsidies the producer of gold, the facts are exactly the re- verse. The gold consumer is now subsidized Instead of providing subsidy for the producer, the McFad- den bill merely lessens the subsidy which the consumer now enjoys.
 But the full effect of the Journal writer's failure to read, or to under stand the McFadden bill is seen best in the closing paragraph of his article which is as follows:
 Tt is needless to say that the users of gold in the arts would manufac- ture anything but the American pro- duct. If the tax were put upon all gold, irrespective of origin, this would be direct endowment of South Afri- can gold mines out of the American taxpayers pocket, with nothing to show for it. A correspondinfi import tax on gold would be rank insanity"
 The McFadden bill does not levy a tax on American gold. It does not levy tax on foreign gold. It does levy tax on gold which is used for manufacturing purposes, the tax be- ing collectible from the consumer at the time he purchases the manufac- tured article. It makes no difference whence the gold comes which is sold to the manufacturer. Whether it be from the destruction of coin or from foreign gold producer or elsewhere, the industrial consumer will pay the excise of fifty cents per pennyweight only at the time the manufactured article is sold. There would, there fore, be no premium market in which the producers of foreign gold could participate or in which the hoarders of gold could speculate. A free gold market would still be maintained, for the reason that the excise tax would be collected only upon the finished product when sold and not upon the bullion when sold to the manufac- Congress Journal.