Evening star., 1933-01-16
IMITATION MOVE
DECLARED DOOMED
Writer Sees Only One Debt
Relief Measure as Hav-
ing Chance.
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

The measures in Congress to relieve
mortgaged farm and other debtors take
two directions. One is to raise prices
of crops and goods by currency in
f1ation or otherwise In order to make
payment of debts possible. None Of
these-certainly none of the so-called
radical" ones-has any chance of en-
actment in this session.
The other group Of measures aims to
relieve farm and other debtors by cut
ting down the amount Of the debt or
the rate of interest. This cannot be
done directly because of the constitu
tional prohibition, in part expressed, in
part implicit, against legislation chang
ing the terms Of contracts. To achieve
the purpose, yet remain within the
Constitution, large variety of meas
ures are pending.
Chances of Enactment.
Among these Is one which goes q
great distance, which is supported by
both conservative and progressive
thought. which was indorsed by Presi-
dent Hoover in special and urgent
message last week, and which has real
probability of enactment In this ses-
sion. 1t originated in the House with
Representative McKeown of Oklahoma,
who has the point of view of mortgaged
farm owners, and Representative La
Guardia of New York with the view
point of distressed city owners of mort
gagged homes. In the Senate the chief
proponent is conservative Senator
Daniel C. Hastings of Delaware, one Of
those extremely valuable, hard-working,
straight-thinking Senators whose ines
timable service to the country takes
the form of laborious detail work in
committee rooms rather than oratory on
the floor
The bill is called, loosely and very
mistakenly, an emergency bankruptcy
bill. Emergency it is, but bank
ruptcy" is precisely what it is not. 1t
might more correctly be called bill
to prevent bankruptcies. An accurate
title might be IAN act to facilitate and
legalize compromises between debtor
and creditor" Less accurate, yet justi-
fed by the spirit Of the measure, would
be such a title as IAN act giving to all
Federal judges the opportunity and duty
to put pressure on creditors to make
compromise settlements with embar-
rassed debtors" A perfectly accurate
description would be to say the bill
gives to every Federal judge the right
and duty of declaring, as to any one
creditor, a moratorium of indefinite
length.
Differing Provisions.
The bill necessarily has differing pro-
visions for an individual as debtor and
q corpoEation as debtor. A farmer or
other individual to come within the
act and get its benefits, needs only to
be, in the language of the bill, ''un-
able to meet his debts as they mature"
Such q debtor can go to a Federal
Judge and state his circumstances. The
Judge thereupon is directed by the bill
to take steps which, without attempt
ing to recite the legal intricacies here,
amounts to declaring an immediate
moratorium, indefinite in length, during
which no one creditor, nor all of them,
can take action against the sheltered
debtor.
The coart, however, does much more
than declare a moratorium. The bill
prescribes q process through which,
under the supervision of the court, the
debtor mstzes compromise with his