The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-03-14
By WILLIS THORNTON NEA Service Writer

| NEA Service writer
 Washington-Onlyo one thing has been uniformly true of the recov- | cry from past depressions in the United States. That is the fact of
 recovery itself, and the fact that it was always under way before il | was generally realized.
 In detail, the manner of recov- | cry has varied. In several cases
 there seems no doubt that the na- | tural optimism and pep. of young people with a continent in which
 to expand, automatically pulled us
 out without our doing anything
 very definite about 1t. But there
 are also cases where conscious ef-
 fort, both legislative and private,
 turned the tide.
 In fact the very first depression
 the country had. one which started
 in 1919 and continued through
 1920, was largely relieved by an
 act of congress for the relief of
 public land debtors, who had been
 squeezed by a decline in land prices after having bought land from the government.
 Treasury Established Congress was again largely in-
 strumental in pulling the country out of the panic of '37. For it was
 at this time that it established the
 independent treasury as we know if to-day. Previously federal funds
 had been deposited in private
 banks, especially the federally-
 chartered Bank of the United
 States. The great expansion to the west
 in 1879 was of course the main thing that ended the terrible de- pression that began in '73. As settlers opened more land they needed more railroads, blows, all kinds of manufactured prod- ucts. The manufacturing centers
 provided them and the depression vanished. But even here it should be noted that real recovery did not set in until '79, when specie pay ment had been resumed, and money stabilized on a firm basis.
 New Gold Helped
 The next major depression, which opened in '93. again reached it's turn in '96 before anyone re- alized what was happening. Dis covery of gold in South Africa and in Cripple Creek, Col, and the cy-
 anide extraction process gave gold production a big boost just wher more gold was badly needed as q money base Victory for Mckin ley's "sound money" program in | '96 thus became possible, and u wheat crop failure in India helped force wheat up from B cents al | Chicago in August to 96 cents be- | time, too, that the industrial south | began to emerge from the dofman'
 post-Civil war stage.
 Thus the cycle. Nobody knows
 enough about it yet to reduce it to
 q formula. But certain genera
 lines begin to appear which give
 genuine hope of emergence from | the present impasse, and of at least | some control over the future cycle
 Wars Bring Dcpressions
 | First, we know that every de-
 pression is preceded by a period of frenzied finance, minimizing op-
 timsm, loose banking, unJustlhed | credit extension and usually o1 | low public morals. We know Una, | while there have been Impressions l apparently not connected Wltf
 wars, none the less every war has i been followed by a depression, and | the bigger the war the bigger the depression. We can trace another | tendency: the influence of for eign conditions, both in starting | the depression and in ending 1t has increased in strength as we have come down to the present. NC | major depression has ever been ended and recovery made until money, currency, and credit were stabilized on some basis which all America accepted and supported One further element seems certain: escape from depression through sheer exuberant expansion to the
 west or to any other physical place, is over. We are like a body of troops who have, in a series of de- | termined assaults, taken their ob- jectives. Now it remains to consol- idate those objectives. dig in, and improve the position. There is plenty of scope there for the en- ergies and talents of even a viz orous people.
 The most hopeful sign for the immediate future is this: at last we arc all in the same boat. The bank mortorium put us there. The de- pression has at least hit everybody alike. Further there is standard
 being raised, and when 120,000, 900 people rally behind standard. things happen.
 A Common Problem
 No other depression has had
 such thorough study, such public
 discussion. Formerly during "hard
 times" fatalstic attitude pre-
 vailed. But now certain funda-
 mentals have thoroughly sold" to everyone, that there Is no prosper
 ity without purchasing power in
 wages and commodity prices: and
 that a depression is common
 problem to be met resolutely by common effort.
 The banking system will get thorough overhauling. It is almost certain that the anarchistic bank ing and credit imitation of 1928-29 will never again be permitted.
 Measures to divorce savings from investment banking, perhaps even to guarantee savings, are almost sure to pass.
 State guarantee of bank deposits