The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-12-04

| s1NSSAto " tOS-%AS CAA SSAAHN-o o. Al a crisis it is best to be cool, and they last the longest who become very calm, very quiet, and very steady when conditions are crit ical. As for the alarmist, the despairing, the melodramatic or the suicidal mood, that should be reserved for those affairs which do not involve the security of great bodies of men. And, there fore, it does not seem to me that a riproaring fight about currency will help us.
 So having pointed out yester- day what I believe to be the greatest defect in the execution of the gold policy-that it has been launched without adequate recog- hilton of the skeptics and critics T should like to point out a few things, which is seems to me, the opposition is inclined to over l look. si
 The opposition is leading the country to believe that changing the price of gold or changing the gold content of the dollar, that is to say, depreciating the currency in terms of gold, is fantastical- ly nevel experience.
 It really is not. There are just two countries in the whole world which have not raised the price of gold since the war. Those coun- tries are Switzerland and the Netherlands. The latest figures which I happen to have are for November 6. On that day the price of gold in the United States had risen 56 per cent. In Canada it had risen 57 per cent; in Eng land 55 per cent; in South Africa 54 per cent; in the Argentine 67 per cent; in Sweden 66 per cent; in Norway 70 per cent; in Austra- lia 94 per cent; in New Zealand 90 per cent; in Denmark 91 per cent; in Japan 165 per cent. In France, Belgium, Italy, the coun- tries of the socalled gold bloc, the price of gold is, of course, sev- eral hundred per cent above pre- war I am, therefore, unable to be- | lieve that raising the price of l gold in America to a price not unlike that which prevails in most other countries is inherently dam nable and absurd It may be that there is no advantage in raising the price of gold, in lowering the gold content of the currency but all other nations, except two very small ones, have done it. I am not aware of any agitation in any Of these countries to reduce the price of gold and return to the pre-war gold value of the currency.
 The opposition is calling upon the President not to inflate the currency and to return to the gold 1 standard. Now, I do not pretend to have a thorough understanding of the Warren theory, but l under stand it enough to know that it is in no sense of the term the ory of paper or fiat or greenback l imitation, and also that it is based wholly on a determination to re- turn to a dollar convertible into l gold. Every calculation in the | Warren doctrine assumes gold currency; in fact, Professor War ren can more justly be charged | with minimizing the effect of de- posit currency than with failure to regulate the importance of gold. | Indeed, believe it to be accu- rate to say that the only point ! on which Professor Warren dif- fers from those who wish to stab | ilize immediately on gold is this: those who want immediate stabil- ization do not seem to care wheth- CT the price of gold is 25 an ounce or $33; they want stabilization at any price. Professor Warren, in the other hand, believes that the price is very important and, presumably, that the right price lies somewhere between S36 and $40 His calculations seem to have persuaded him that in relation to our debts, wages, and other fixed charges. we need a currency ra- ther nearer the present value of the Australian, Danish and New Zealand currencies than the pres ent value of the English pound. He may be wrong. But in seek ing a level appropriate to Amer ican conditions he is doing ex- actly what practically every one \ else has done who has managed a currency anywhere in the world. I So it would seem that the in- telligent thing to do is to examine his data and find out whether his judgment as to how the dollar should be valued is or is not req sonable. It may be that Professor
 Warren overestimates his ability to calculate exactly the value of the dollar. It has been my i'm
 pression that he does. But the road to stabilization can only be taken by coming to a conclusion
 as to what is the right American
 ,,,.;oa ot uhich t0 stahi1ize