Evening star., 1933-01-08
MANY NYNFLATIONARY PLANS
In CONGRESS ANALYZED
Review of Proposed Legislation Shows
Wide Variety of Views as to
Merits of Schemes.
BY ARTHUR CRAWFORD.

AI41dtlOlA ID Al6uAAAAe
increasingly in congressional
discussions as Senators and
~ Representatives grope for an
answer to depression problems.
To some, particularly to farm groups,
currency initiation appears an alluring
panacea for economic ills underlying
the low-price evil
To others, including officials Of the
outgoing Hoover administration and
many financial experts, it appears as
a menace which might lead the Nation
into complete financial disaster.
The farmers arc concerned because
prices of their products have declined
SO per cent since 1880, while articles
they buy have gone down less than Is
per cent and their mortgage obligations
are still at high level. They think
currency initiation might lift prices and
enable them to pay their debts.
The opposing groups have in mind
the possible effect upon the Govern
ment's credit, a disorganiZation of the
currency system. a. breakdown OF the
gold standard and a further shock to
public confidence.
Checked by Administration.
The issue has been smoldering for
months. 1t has been held in check in
the present Congress by the opposition
of the administration. 1t was kept
somewhat submerged during the presi
dental campaign by the non -committal
attitude of the Democratic candidate.
But some of President-elect Franklin D.
Roosevelt's active supporters, as well as
a few who are influential in Repub-
1ican councils, believe that currency in
flation is the light needed to lead the
Nation out of the present darkness.
If Mr.. Roosevelt and his Secretary Of
the Treasury take strong stand against
currency imitation the agitation may die
in the new Congress. The success Of
the effort to lift the farmers prices
through the domestic allotment plan
now being worked out with Mr. Roose-
velt's approval, will have a bearing on
the situation. If the new administra-
tion fails to oppose all currency inf1a-
tion proposals and other farm relief
plans fail, it will be difficult for the op-
position in Congress to continue to hold
them hack.
Farmers Support Change.
The formidable proportions of the
movement may be realized from the
fact that all three of the leading farm
organizations, in their recent annual
conventions, advocated currency infia-
ton. The American Farm Bureau Fed
Grafton proposed revaluation of the gold
dollar, with view to restoring its pur-
chasing power in terms of commodities
to the average Of 1921 929. The National
Grange demanded that Congress "as-
surne its constitutional duties to regu-
late the value of money and initiate cur
Tency, which will raise commodity val
ues to the point where they were in
1926, in order that all debts, both pri-
Fate and public, may be justly liqui-
dated The National Farmers Union,
which is the most responsive to senti-
ment in Western States, where a pros
porous silver mining industry is synony
NOUS with good times, declared for the
Bryan free coinage Of silver at fixed
ratio of Is to /.
Within the past two weeks two DEM
ocratic Senators, Burton K Wheeler of
Montana and Carl Hayden of Arizona
have urged currency imitation in
speeches over Nationwide radio net
works. They are both interested in sill
Yer, although offering different meth
DDS. A former Democratic United States
Senator, Robert L. owen of Oklahoma,
who, as chairman of the Senate Bank
ing and Currency Committee in the
Wilson administration, was one of the
authors of the Federal Reserve act, has
been an active propagandist for various
tcurrency expansion measures before
Congress for the past year.
Z Hoover Pictured PeriIs.
President Hoover, during the cam
paign, pictured currency imitation as a
peril which might lead to abandonment
of the gold standard and consequent
depreciation of all paper money. Sec
retary of the Treasury Ogden L. Mills
and Gov. Eugene Meyer of the Fed
eral Reserve Board have opposed all
currency imitation schemes taking the
position that there has been no short
age of currency, that the methods pro-
posed are unsound and that an increase
in the price level can be brought about
only by other means.
President-elect Roosevelt succeeded.
in his campaign speeches, in holding
aloof between advocates and opponents
OF currency imitation. He stood on the
Democratic platform declaration for "a
sound currency to be preserved at all
hazards" but shed no light on his per-
Bonal view as to whether the different
proposals are in accord with sound
money principles. Nor did he take
stand on the basic dispute over the
adequacy of the existing currency sup
ply.
Economists are not in complete agree
ment on the subject. Twenty econo-
mists who signed an open letter to
Fresident-elect Roosevelt during the
past week, including such outstanding
authorities as Prof E. w. Kemmerer of
Princeton, Prof. E. NJ Patterson of the
University of Pennsylvania and B. M
Anderson, jr., of the Chase National
Bank, asserted the gold standard of
present weight and fineness should be
unflinchingly maintained and that agi-
tation for currency experiments would
impair confidence and retard recovery.
Other Economists Differ.
other economists, including Prof
Irving Fisher of Yale and Prof. G. F
Warren of Cornell, have sponsored the
gold dollar revaluation proposal, as well
as the Goldsborough price Stabilizatior
bill of the farm groups, although op-
posing the issuance of currency to pay
the soldiers bonus, as proposed in the
Patman bill.
To some Of the proponents of an in
crease in currency the term imitation IS
obnoxious. The word implies extension
of currency or prices beyond natural
and proper limits. They prefer to talk
OF currency expansion or relation, 9
WORD coined during the present depreS-
sion to denote a checking of the course
Of def1ation and return to normalcy.
1t is somewhat startling to discover
that upward of so bills embodying vari-
Gus currency expansion proposals have
been introduced in the Senate anc
House during the present Congress
Many of them are in the Banking anc
Currency Committees of the two Houses
Others are in the Senate Finance Com
nlittee and the House Ways and Mean,
Committee. One currency imitation bill
was approved by the Senate Committee
or Agriculture. Still others, chiefly
those relating to silver. are before ths
House Committee on Coinage, Weights
and Measures.
The bills may be grouped into sever
general classes, as follows:
/, Fiat Money.-The Patman hill fo,