The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-03-20
THE PRESIDENT AND THE BANKS.

The cOuntryS reaction to President ttooSeVelCS , drastic movement to deal with the banking situation taken before he had been in office 48 hours, has been splendid Everywhere the general public real ized that his action was designed to protect the depositors primarily rather than the banks them selves When he assumed the mantle worn by Herbert Hoover for four years not single State in the Union but what had restricted banking operations and in several banking had been com pletely suspended for periods oi varying lengths. Within week after he had shut doTn all banks, most of them in position to resume normal business and had done And the problems of nearly all of those still doing restricted business are in the process of solution.
 Commenting on the Presidents policy in this instance the Wall Street Journal, of the fore most financial publications in the country, had the following to say:
 President Roosevelt after ample consul
 tation with his Cabinet advisers has acted
 quickly and skillfully to bring about early
 resumption of their normal functions by
 the banks He sees clearly the necessity
 to get the country off the leash" basis it
 has temporarily adopted and to restore at
 the earliest possible moment the circulation
 of bank deposit money
 His extension of the bank holiday until
 the close of business Thursday gives the
 banks all the time they should require to e put their machinery of Clearing House
 settlements and scrip payments to depositors
 in actual operation, while his call to Con-
 gross 10 meet in extra session at noon
 Thursday will expedite the routine of
 House and Senate organization and speed
 any required action facilitating the resump-
 don of inter-cty bank settlements.
 President Roosevelts promut embargo
 gold exports is sound precautionary meas
 By combining with it a prohibition
 upon domestic payments in gold by bank
 he pi gold
 the incidental quality of powerful moral
 condemnation of our own hoarders of gold
 and Federal Reserve notes That, too will
 help to restore bank deposit money, the
 great vehicle of nne-tenths of the country's
 business activity, to it's rightful and neces-
 sary use
 The Wall Street Journal insists that all that is needed is to look at the facts and apply the logic that the facts contain.
 The first fact is that this country has already far more cash" currency than it needs. The need is to make check currency" again current"
 The second fact is that notwithstanding the existence of weakness amounting to partial in- solvency on the part of some banks, there is an ample supply of check currency" in existence in the shape of deposits in perfectly solvent banks which constitute the larger majority of our inst- tutions-to do all the country's business if it be mobilzed for the purpose
 The third fact is that even in the case of partially insolvent banks there remains consid- erable portion of potential check currency" which can be made to function
 The fourth fact is that there is simple method for mobizing all the check currency" available and it is the method which The Wall Street Journal has from the beginning of this crisis urged upon the bankers of the country. It is the method to which the facts themselves point with simple and incontroyertible logic.