The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1934-06-14

that the economic casualty list woul5
have been much higher had the loans
not been made. He holds that those
who borrowed from the federal gov
eminent were actually unable to get
money elsewhere and that the govern
ment was merely looking after its
own folks. To those who criticize the
use of taxpayers money in this man.
ner, Mr.. Roosevelt has said repeated
ly that these loans will be repaid and
that the government will suffer no
loss in the end.
Debts on Top of Debts
But, after all, there are the debts,
debts on top of debts. They must
either be repaid or repudiated.. If they
are paid, the borrowers must pay them
out future earnings. That condition,
according to the latest line of argu-
ment that developed under the hous-
ing bill debate, means the borrowers
can create little or no reserve for the
future.
1t is being said that the recovery
program and the New Deal generally
contemplates planning for the future
in such manner as to ward off re-
occurrence of the calamity of depres-
sion. But have asked in good many
places; what if the theories of eco
nomic planning fail to work at all, or
work only in part? The answers / OBJ
tanned depended somewhat on the
slant of the person questioned. IF
they are following the professors
blindly, they said to me that the plans
could not fail because they were sound
by every theory under which they are
drawn. If the person to whom the in.
quiry was directed examined the prob
lem on a practical basis and studied
it with the background of history in
mind, I believe without exception the
answer was: "Well, it will be just too
bad"
MY own feeling comedies with the
latter view. IF the New Deal program
for economic planning for adjusting
production to consumption, for con-
trolling crop planting and distribu-
ton, and the other items that enter
into the plan fail to operate according
to the theories upon which they are
based, there can be no doubt of the
result. It will be just too bad. There
will be millions of persons more debt
ridden than now, and there will be no
way out. The government will be
holding the bag.
On this question of debt, there is
that troublesome international phase.
The United States loaned something
like eleven billion dollars to foreign
governments to aid in prosecution of
the World War against Germany. For
long time after the money was loan
ed, the United States got nothing at
all. In the meanwhile, there was a
terrific bombardment Of propaganda
from the borrowing nations and from
some of the misguided folks in our
own country calling for absolute can
collation.. But cancellation could not
win. 1t was impossible. So there fol-
lowed lot of negotiations in which
commissions from foreign govern
ments came here and conferred at
length with our debt funding COM
mission.
Settlements were eventually work
ed out. The debts were funded. That
is, the debtor nations were given q
long time in which to pay. They were
given enormous concessions by our
debt commission in order to get some
agreement for repayment of the var
ious loans. / konw whereof / speak,
regarding those concessions because it
happened that l am the only newspa-
per correspondent in Washington who
reported every one of the debt con-
ferences and I say unequivocally that
those funding settlements represent
ed on the average reduction of more
than one-third in the total amount
which the debtors contracted original
ly to pay.
Dodge Repayment
Now, again we are in the midst of
new efforts to get something done in
the way of repayments. The foreign
nations are not going to pay if it can
be avoided. They put up the very ma