Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1924-08-09
Chairman Oddie of Senate Spe-
cial Committee, Says Metal
Miners Needs Assistance
BY HARRY B. HUNT
NEA Service Writer

WASHINGTON, August D.
Prospects for prospectors are bad'
says Senator Tasker l.. Uudie, chair
man of the Senate's special COM
mittee investigating the gold ana
silver industry.
In fact, according to oddie, dig
ging gold and silver has becore
even less Profitable than digging
parsnips and potatoes.
If the farmers who have
thought they've had hard times
for the past few years had beer
delving deep for their living in
stead of mercy scratching the face
of nature, he opines, they'd have
mad something really to kick about.
And just as the farmers have
been demanding relief by legisla-
ton to stimulate the expectation of
American foodstuffs. Oddie wants,
the government to lend hand to
save the gold and silver magnates
from bankruptcy.
Casting about for some new
world market for silver, Oddie has
picked China as the one best bet.
If China can be persuaded tc
amend her complicated and
heterogeneous currency system, "
which now seriously limits the
market possibilities of silver" a
silver lining to the present clouds
will be provided.
Timely assistance by the Polish
government, which recently pur-
chased six million ounces of silver
to be made into small change for
the Poles, has been a help.
But no such relief has come to
the gold and silver produce as
has come to the farmer, in the
bounding prices of corn and hogs,
wheat and cotton. Instead, the
price of silver hangs close around
the record low mark of 42.3 cents
per ounce, reached last summer.
And as for gold:
Relatively many more mines pro-
ducing gold have been.forced to shut
down, due to adverse economic con-
ditions," Oddie declares.
Oddie's sympathies naturally 60
to the boys who try to get their
gold and silver direct from the veins
OF Mother Earth. For that's where
he got his.
Although he was born in Brook.
Ign, N. Y, the west lured him in
MS early teens. He spent three
years, from 16 to 10, as a cowboy.
lie returned to New York and
tried his hand at real estate and
banking, meanwhile studying Law
at night. But soon after he sot
MS law degree from New York
University the call of the west gst
MN again and he deserted the En-.
pre- State and the guIches OF
Gotham for good.
y
He lit in Nevada in Febrra,,v
1873 As there wasn't any inn.
mediate demand for his Ieoo1 60,
wees, ne mixed bit in mining and
prospecting.
In 1899 his big luck came II
was one Of the discoveries of tbe
great gold and silver camn ~
Ionopah. He was manager Of tbl
Ionopah properties for the first fiv(
years. 0 4"S' llHC
Goldfield, perhaps Nevada's mos
famous camp, came into being
largely as result of the TonopaF
discovery, and there followed a re-.
Vlval in mining activity in Nevada
that carried the state to its great.
est peak of prosperity.
Naturally, Oddie never has lost
his interest in gold and silver 70.
tween times of mining and prospect
ing, he took up agriculture, live.
stock and politics. After SERVING
as district attorney and state sen.
ator, he was governor from 1911
70 1918, and in 1920 was elected tc
the United States Senate.
His inquiry into the gold and
silver situation, with a view to slim.