Milford chronicle., 1933-12-15
Economic HighIightS
Happenings That Affect The Dinner
Pals, Dividend Checks And Tax
Bills OF Every NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
nj And International Problems
InseDarable From Local Welfare.


al And international Problems
InseDarable From Local Welfare
Not since the days when Bryan ana
Mckinley fought it out along the
line of I6-to-l has the money ques-
ton so swept the country. And lts
a good deal more important now thah
it was then-Bryan, who wanted TO
try a new monetary experiment was
only a candidate. Franklin Roose-
welt is a President, with unprece-
dented powers.
Recently, imitation ana defiation,
gold buying, dollar depreciation, ana
all the other phases of the problem
have dwarfed everything else. They
have almost taken the NRA out ot
the headlines. They have submerged
the farm problems and the foreign
problems. Defnits battle lines nave
| formed. Each side is plentifully
supplied with experts. Each side
has its corps of big business men
and little business men. Ana the
public, which reads the dispatches,
is in a state of bewilderment.
The way the wind blows was hrst
shown with the resignation OF I'm
dersecretary of the Treasury Acne
son, a conservative and an unrelent-
ing hard-mOney man. He was I'M
mediately followed into retirement
by DR.. Oliver Sprague, once imam
cial advisor to the Bank of England,
to whom soft" money is even more
distasteful. Secretary Woodin, who
has been torn of late between his
great devotion to his chief, and his
instructive belief in conservative IL
nancial policies, went away on an
indefinite leave of absence. Into his
place stepped Henry Morgenthau, |
,Jr., scion of a famous financial fam !
ily, who sees eye to eye with the
President on practically everything |
Behind all this is a quiet, scholar
ly figure, and name which rarely
comes before the public. 1t is that
of George Frederick Warren, an
agricultural economist of Cornell
Last year he wrote a book, called
Prices, which became the bible OF
the Committee of the Nation, an or
ganizatiop of business men seeking
a way to recovery. 1t is Mr.. War
ren's thesis, as Time puts it, that
supply and demand are not twins,
but quadruplets. He holds that the
price of a commodity is determined
not only by supply and demand for
it., but that the supply and demand
for gold is of equal Importance in
the cOmmOdity's cost.
To raise prices means to lower the
value of the dollar, and long ago DR..
Warren scOffed at the idea of trying
to reduce the dollars value and still
its gold content unimpaired. |
He prophesied many years more of
unless the geld standard
was thrown overheard, the dollar re-
valued. It's no secret that Mr.. ROose-
velt has been disappointed by the
slowness with which lis legislative
acts have stimulated business i'm {
and he ieant ready ear
10 DR.. Warren and to Professor Rog-
ers of Yale, whose i1aas are sim
liar. A little later, commodity prices ;
began to sag, precisely as DR.. War [
rem said they would. Upshot was the ;
order that sent the 5
United States into the world market I
Tor gold, lowered dollar value in s
'Oreign exchange, and began the long {
process of Tevaluing it. |
Then the criticism began gather {
ng. The Chamber of Commerce of I
he State of New York passed a resO- [
uti0n calling for sound money. It
vas at once rebuked by an economist
or the Committee of the Nation, who I
defended the President, saying the 4
Chamber "is not even representative
If the commercial point of view of
he city of New York" Then, Alfred 4
:. Smith took crack at what he
ermed the "balOney" dollar. in 4
New Outlook editorial, and intimated
hat the country needs another Gle
'ela-d. To the Presidents defense
'ame Republican Borah. as brilliant
md erratic a Senator as the country
,ver saw, who said that the question X