Evening star., 1932-02-07
A Billion and a Quarter Hoarded.

Forty national organizations, with a
total membership of several million
people, have been marshaled by Presi-
dent Hoover in a campaign against the
boarding of money. Yesterday at the
White House at conference between
the President and the heads of these
groups the preliminaries of the under
taking to get out of their hiding places
approximately billion and a quarter
dollars were effected and pledges were
given by the representatives of the or
ganization that they will endeavor to
persuade their associates to recognize
the urgent need of bringing this vast
sum back into use in trade and invest
ment
This is not merely spending cam
paign" 1t is not an effort to bring
about the stimulation of business sim
ply through the buying of goods. 1t is
designed to overcome the panic fear CT
millions of people that has caused them
! to withdraw their dollars from currency
and to put them in vaults and safes
and other hiding places.
Every boarded dollar is dollar lost
for the period of it's secretion. 1t is
| lost to the owner, and lost to the world
| of business. The withdrawal OF it from
| currency weakens the financial founda-
tions of the country.
Never before in the history Of the
United States has there been such
mastering of the forces of financial and
industrial recovery from depression.
Never before have such forces been
available. Today through legislation
and through organization of the citi-
zenry of the country agencies are at
work for the revival of trade, for the
reduction Of unemployment, for the
restoration of confidence.
The man who today despairs of the
| recovery of the economic health Of the
United States is deaf to reassurances
based upon the widest and wisest
knowledge of the history Of organized
humanity. He Is blind to the Visible
signs of reviving vitality in the economic
organization of America.
Millions of people are today idle be-
cause trade is dull, because business is
slack, because industry is below par.
All this is the result of panic fear,
which in the beginning arose from the
def1ation of highly overvalued securi-
ties. Like the traditional line of bricks,
one fall caused another. A cumulative
effect followed in the successive cur
tailments Of expenditures by individuals,
the gradual shortening of sales, the re-
duction of working forces, the suspen-
sion of undertakings.
False optimism, induced by hope
rather than judgment, caused occa-
sional repetitions of disappointment.
The bottom had not been reached.
Has it been reached now? Not if the
people of America continue to ignore
the fundamental laws which command
the maintenance of the established and
ever-rising standards of living. But
that they will so ignore those laws is
not now to be believed, in the light of
these successive steps toward reorganiza-
ton and rehabilitation and the restora-
ton Of confidence.
So the slogan sounds: Bring out the
boarded dollars and put them to work.
They have caused a credit def1ation of
ten billions. Their temperance will
restore that credit, will revive indus
try, will provide employment for mil
lions of workers, will swell the volume
of money spent for goods and will put
the Nation on its feet economically
more speedily than can be effected
through any other agency.