Evening star., 1932-11-02
BIames Republican Regime.

have rocked the foundation of our bank
ing system"
BIames Republican Regime.
Glass denied statements by President
Hoover that economic troubles here re-
suited from European disturbances. He
said on the contrary that the lmproFl-
dence, If not the direct profilgacy. OF
incompetent Republican administrations
at Washington is measurably, II not
predominantly. responsible for the de-
plorable situation in which we nnd
ourselves today"
The Virginian. a former Secretary OF
the Treasury. said Mr.. Hoover was
claiming credit for measures that could
have been enacted only with Demo-
cratic cooperation and that Gov. Roose-
welt lis amply prepared for the tre-
mendous task of reconstruction"
Mills, in his reply, asserted that Pres
ident Hoover's actions had been CON
structive, coherent and well directed to
cushion the effects of the devastating
deflatien we have suffered"
The Secretary said Glass had dis
paraged the efforts OF the President to
maintain the wage scale and ignored
the fact that for the first time in the
history of depressions wages were not
reduced until after the cost OF living
had come down and after dividends had
been passed"
Attacks Charge of Glass.
Quoting Senator Glass as attributing
the great depression entirely to spec
ulation in stocks and the sale of foreign
securities in this country, Mills said:
"1f any one cares to ignore the World
War, the distinctions and dislocations
that it caused and all the social, politi-
cal and economic developments which
followed, and is satisfied with the
thought that the calamity that has en-
gulfed the entire world since 1929 is due
solely to speculation in securities in the
United States, that man would be deaf
to any argument that could advance -
Glass, at the outset of his speech, re-
ferred to the infationary proposals
which he attributed to the President
and said that if they had been enacted
they would mot only have tempted for
eign raids on our gold reserves, but
would have melted a dangerous domestic
demand for redemption"
Had these proposals been adopted" "
he said. they would have made mil
lions of dollars of foreign securities
with which this country was deluged
by administration connivance a basis
for tremendous credit expansion"
Charges "Amazing Dishonesty"
Referring to Mr.. Hoover'S statement
that the United States was within two
weeks of being driven off the gold
standard last Winter, he said that if
this was true administration leaders
were guilty of amazing dishonesty" in
failing 80 to advise the banks and
~, y
from January l to June 80, he said,
the Treasury, with the Presidents ap-
proval, sold $3,709. .213,45O of Treasury
notes and certificates Of Indebtedness
redeemable in gold.
The Virginian prefaced his address
with statement that it was "repug-
nant' to him to deny the assertions
Of the President and his cabinet Of
ficers, but, he added:
TO speak with suitable restraint,
may say that neither Hans Christian
Andersen nor Karl Grimm, in appeal
ing to the fancies Of children, ever
overtaxed his Imagination as President
Hoover repeatedly has done in his en-
deavor to regain the lost favor OF the
American people. Contrasted with his
speech of acceptance and his addresses
at Des Moines, Cleveland and else
where, Aesop's Fables deserve to rank
as an accurate history of things that
actually occurred"
Hits State Department.
The Senator. reviewing events leading
up to the business slump, said an era OF
cheap money was started during the
Harding administration, and expensive
governmental activities expanded. With
out precedent or authority, he said, the
State Department took upon itself to
pass upon loans to foreign nations and
later made childish" differentiation
between the terms approved" and ''un-
objected"
Great banking institutions, he con-
tinued, by high pressure" methods and
with calesmen mot too scrupulous to
CURED by the State Department were
enabled to sell these high-interest-
bearing, but now worthless. foreign Sc
curities in competition with our own
State and municipal, industrial and COM
mercial securities" He continued:
''Undeniably, they filled the port
folios of interior banks, sometimes by
coercion, with this immobile junk, so
that when the crash came these banks
were in state of paralysis, utterly un-
able to respond to the legitimate re-
quirementS of their respective COM
munities. There resulted an era of
bank failures unprecedented since the
foundation Of the republic, unap-
preached by financial collapse in any
other nation on the globe
THE State Department at Washing
ton may deny its culpability until it's
the record explicitly condemns them.
Senate Rejected Explanation.
'The official explanation given to
the Senate Of the United States was SO
manifestly puerile and untrue that,
by unanimous vote, regardless of party
division. that body rejected 1t and
warned the State Department to desist
from this dangerous and ruinous usur-
patton of authority Secretary Slim
son treated the unanimously expressed
sense of the United States Senate with
a contempt that entitled him to i'm
peachment. He persisted in his denial
that the State Department was doing
the very things which the record shows
1t was doing
Going on to banking practices, Glass
said it was asserted on reliable au-
thor1ty that 'our reserve banks Endorsed
millions Of dollars of acceptances for
3oiCAsH DdlihS, NIllCll Ie lti lieu d
thing unprecedented"
The facilities of the Federal Reserve
Banks we're ''misused' in defiance of the
text and spirit of the law, he said,
through huge loans to banks which we're
reloaned Ito brokers for stock gambling
purposes"
Tariff Called Insanity"
"The Smoot- Hawley- Grundy tariff
act constitutes moral insensibility as
well as economic insanity" he said.
ut will take its place in history as a
legislative and administrative enormity.
purchased from the Government at
Washington by the contributors to Mr.
Hoover's campaign fund. Equally with
the frightful financial debacle, this
measure is responsible for unemploy-
ment. Along with that intolerable
legislative activity, known as the Farm
Board act, these measures have reduced
the American farmer to the point of