Evening star., 1933-02-01
WITNESSES DEFEND
SILVER CURRENCY
Cheaper Money and Better
Times Predicted if Initiation
Is Approved.
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
Currency infiationists. supporting a
plan they say would bring cheaper
money and better times through re-
monetization Of silver, argued today
before the House Coinage Committee
that the new money would be sound.
Earlier Representative Bankhead,
Democrat. of Alabama, had predicted
the next Congress would approve some
sort OF currency imitation.
Representative Cross, Democrat, Of
Texas, explaining his bill to let the
Treasury purchase silver and pay for
it with silver certificates, told the COM
mittee:
This is sounder dollar than the
present gold certificate dollar because
back of the gold dollar you have but a
little gold. In back of this. you have
full dollars worth Of silver"
Would Not Limit Amount.
Cross said the bill would not limit
the amount of silver the Treasury could
purchase, because there was in the
world only about Sill 600, ,000. 900 of sill
yer that could be coined or used for
money.
United States, he testified, other nations
would want to keep the silver they now
have.
This" he continued would give us
a chance to get the trade of the Far
East, China and South America. Ger
tainly, we can't look to Europe for trade
now, so why not get a monetary base
on which we can deal with possible
markets"
Mr. Roosevelt has said nothing about
his attitude toward imitation, other
than to support the Democratic plat
form pledge for sound monsy.
Explain Legislation.
The two Alabama Bankheads in Con-
gress-Senator and Representative-told
the committee their advocacy of the
silver bill they drew jointly was based
on the belief that there is not enough
legalized money In the world for busi-
ness to function satisfactorily"
Representative Bankhead said he
thought the reconciliation of silver
would prove beneficial so far as Ameri-
can trade relations with China are
concerned, because under the present
exchange ratio Chinas purchases cost
her -four and half times our purchase
price"
Lie QucotlOu pIOUdDly COulu D6 DtI-
ter handled if we could reach a concert
with other nations" he continued, and
that is long and tedious process if it
Is ever done.
But 1 am so concerned about the
necessity of increasing the volume of
money in the United States that I am
willing to 60 ahead and experiment
along these lines by ourselves
Prevents Price Fixing.
Senator Bankhead told how their bill
would let the Treasury buy all silver
presented, with three exceptions-that
which had been used in coinage Of
other nations, that from countries which
do not by law recognize silver as a
substantive part of their monetary sys-
TENS and when 1t appeared that COM
binationS had been created to estab-
lish fictitious prices.
with those three safeguards" the
Senator testified, I'VE are amply and
fully protected against being made a
dumping ground for silver. My fear
is that We will not get enough"
He read letter from the director OF
the mint saying that at present there
Is virtually no free, non-monetary stock
Of silver In the United States that
could be presented to the Treasury If
silver were remonetized.
why should other countries want
to ship their silver here when they
would get no more than the market
price," the Senator asked. The price
here would be substantially the world
price, so there would be no profit in
sending it to the United States"