The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1922-05-24
GOLDSB0ROUGH OFFERS =
STABILIZED DOLLAR PLAN
Maryland Congressman Presents Pro-
posal For Which Its Author Claims
Elimination OF Fmctuation In
Prices And General Fixing Of
Values.

Washington, May 23.-The plan
to stabilize prices by bringing about
harmony between the volume OF
money and the volume of commodi-
ties and labor that Prof. Irving Fish
er, of Yale University. has advocated.
was offered in the House today by
Representative T. Alan Goldsborough
of Maryland, a member of the Bank
ing and Currency Committee.
Mr.. Goldsborough spoke about 45
minutes in support of his bill. Price
sterilization, he pointed out, would
prevent enormous losses and suffer
ing that now recur regularly.
Whether the measure will receive
serious consideration in this session
cannot be said, but the introduction
of a bill to effectuate the plan is be-
lieved likely to create new interest
in it among business men and the
workers.
1t already has received profound
attention from economists in all parts
of the world. Professor Fishers
standing and argument have COMPEL
ed that attention. Some of the econ
omists have objected to it. Other
of eminent position have said they
had been able to find no flaw in it.
In a word, the plan is to make the
purchasing power of the dollar bear
an approximately fixed relation to
commodities. Roughly. that means
that the dollar would buy approx
mately the same quantity of food or
clothing year in and year out. That
would be done according to Repre-
sentative Goldsborough' bill, by ad-
justing at the mint every two months
if necessary, the actual gold value OF
q dollar to the changing value of a
given quantity of basic or key
commodities The dollar would not
have q fixed value in ounces of gold,
shut changing quantity of gold value
Ito keep it even with the value OF the
given quantity OF commodities.
In the Bureau of Labor Statistics
Mr.. Goldsborough said in explaining
his bill, there is what is known as
the index number which is comput-
ed by averaging the price levels Of
various commodities. There are
nine groups: farm products; food
ETC.; clothes and clothing; fuel and
lighting; metals and metal products:
lumber and building materials;
drugs and chemicals; house furnish
ing goods and miscellaneous.
There are, | think, 243 commodi-
ties listed in the nine groups, the
wholesale price of each being kept
accurately for the purpose of as
pertaining the tendency of prices to
rise or fall A chart is kept which
by means of curved line, graphic
ally indicates the trend of prices.
AS your finger traverses this lien
from 1873 to 1896, you find prices
constantly falling; and from 1896 to
1914 prices constantly rising, with a
sharp upward trend through the
period of the war. AS l looked at
this chart the other day. memories
of the hard worked and poorly paid
farmer of my boyhood days flooded
back upon me. 1t used to seem to
me that this man who did so much
for everyone else, was able to do very
little for himself
II remember how almost impossi-
BILE it was for him to pay his loans
and mortgages | remembered how
the money-lender flourished, and l
began to see clearly that during this
period of constantly falling prices,
which means even higher money. the
man who had commodities to sell suf-
fered and the man who had money to
sell fiourished like the green bay
tree.
"As my finger travelled the curve
of high prices from 1896 1 remember
ed how the man with fixed income
began to suffer. | remembered the
complaints of the wage-earner, and
that the school teacher, the clerk, the
Office man the salaried person OF
every type began to feel the pinch,
and eventually, actually to suffer
from this condition. And l saw that
the 'wayfaring man, though he were
fool might understand the fixed
income of these people, their fixed
number of dollars becoming cheap
and the commodities they had to buy
for their support and their families
becoming correspondingly high"
Mr. Goldsborough's thought is
that adjustment between money on
the one hand and commodities and
labor on the other would prevent re.
currence of the conditions he de-
seribed 1t would not change the
value of product or of labor.
: If either were normally increas'
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