Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-24
LIQUID MORTGAGE
MONEY ADVOCATED
Concentration of Funds in
Banks Held Drawback to
Business Recovery.
BY JOHN F. SINCLAIR.


Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, February 24.-The
February issue of Building Investment
contains an article entitled Liquid
Depression" in which the writer at
tempts to show that the weakness of
business today is not due to the lack
of money in the banks, for there is
plenty of money there-hundreds OF
millions of idle dollars-but available
only for short term loans.
Commercial (Short term) credits are,
in themselves, without sufnc1ent momen-
tIlm to turn over the business machine,
the writer says. THE money doesn't
stav in circulation long enough and the
long term loans-the mortgages-for
two or more years are frowned upon as
representing frozen funds"
Here we have a paradox. Funds in
vested in mortgages increase the
amount of money in circulation, Tor
over so per cent of the building dollar
(and therefore nearly all of the mort
gage money! goes direct to the
mechanic and is re-circulated in ex-
change for goods. But still mortgage
money is hard to get.
Building Investment answers its
own query by saying that what
needed at the present time is some
plan to make mortgage money much
more plentiful and cheap.
Engineers Study Noises.
Acoustic engineers of the Western
Electric Co. are studying the noises in
the New York City subways to de-
termine what can be done about them.
A noise abatement commission studied
the subject some time ago, and said
that the loudest noise in the subway
is heard outside the cars and is made
by a subway express passing local
subway station. The Western Electric
engineers are not so sure OF that.
Here's the way the engineers reached
their opinion: They set up instruments
in an old subway car, and made the
tour of one of the lines hitched onto
regular train. They took along with
them a noise meter, a sound filter and
two microphones for recording pur-
poses The microphone on the inside OF
the car recorded more noise than the
one outside.
Visitors from outside New York City,
entering the subway for the first time,
are appalled, by the noises and the con-
fusion everywhere. But old residents OF
the city are unconscious Of all this, and
calmly read their newspapers, books and
magazines.
The remarkable thing about it all is
the adjustability of the human mind to
meet most any condition in life.
Motion Picture Census.
There are 82,259 motion picture the
aters in the world. That's the estimate
of G. ]. North of the United States De-
partment of Commerce.
More than one-third of the total, or
1921, are registered in the United
states. These, in turn, are divided into
22,73l silent-film and IL, 500 sound
picture theaters-nearly twice as many
silent-picture theaters in the country
as sound-picture theaters.
Germany. England, France, Spain,
italy and Russia, in the order named,
have the greatest number of stlent-hlm
theaters; although sound is being in
stalled almost as rapidly in these ma
tons as they have in the United states.
At the present time sound theaters
are distributed throughout the world as
follows: United States, 12,500; Europe.
5.40I; Far East, COS; Latin America,
SGT: Canada, $50; Africa. ITO, and Near
East, /.
And yet it was only three years ago
that the sound film began its meteoric
p rise.
Bonus Payment.
A Middle Western banker has written
to tell me why big business is so strongly
opposed to cashing bonus certificates
istically. favorS an endless succession
of unmitigated imitation followed by
unmitigated defiation. A bonus would
spoil the freeze-out of debtors now in
progress and the desired further bar
gain grabbing by holders Of liquid funds.
Hence the opposition by some bankers,
in contrast to the secret favor OF many
industrialists. In the background is, Of
course, the opposition to assessing upon
Federal taxpayers the social cost OF
the chronological unemployment created
by the 'labor-saving' exploits OF the in
dustrialists in the unremitting pursuit
Of profit"
Here is a concentrated piece Of loose
dynamite in a few lines
Movie Development.
Terry Ramsaye, editor of the Motion
Picture Herald, says that there's only
one fixed stable certainty about the
industry-and that is that 1t will be
different.
''The peep-show became, through the
projecting machine, the vaudeville act.
The vaudeville act became the news
reel. The news-reel became the drama.
The drama became the feature. The
feature became the super-feature, or. as
they call it. the epic, and the epic
became a pain in the neck"
With regard to sound he says that
although 1t has been a growing factor
for several years the industry is prob
ably not concretely aware of what has
happened.
1T was at least four years-perhaps
longer-after Adolph Zukor promoted
Sarah Bernhardt in Queen Elizabeth
that the industry, as whole, was aware
that the era of the feature picture had
really arriyed-and that was only ID
years ago.
Now in the of1ng, and temporarily
on the ice perhaps. are color, the wide
screen and teleyision."
Chaotic China.
China continues in a chaotic state.
Her representatives throughout the
world are attempting TO work out
plan for silver sterilization, but nothing
definite has been arranged so far.
In the meantime the Mexican dollar
continues to drop in price in China. 1t
reached a new low in Shanghai Of 1879
cents gold yesterday.
China is hopeful that the American
Senate will take the lead and bring out
an international effort to stabilize the
price of silver.
Copyright, 1881 by North American News
paper AlIance.l
Railroad Stocks.
Ayuxu UnDX Taahr,,ary "a (Eracian