The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-05-10
| Cover the World
by WILLIAM PHILIP sINfMS

VXTASHINGTON, May 10 Printing press
/ w money to pay government bills left per-
/ haps more ruin and hunger in its wake in the
European nations which tried it. than did the
World War.
In Germany. in 1928 saw workers removing
furniture from their homes piece by piece. to
raise the price Of enough food to stave of SLOW
starvation.
saw markets empty and near-empty be-
( cause farmers at last refused TO exchange their
produce for paper money which sometimes lost
half its value before thev could get back home.
The price Of a bottle If milk rise as high as
400 900 10000 marks-a hundred billion dollars
at par but at that time only about 10 cents.
But as wages had not reached that high level.
the average workers children generally had to
go withous-eyen when milk could be found
for sale.
Wages rose rapidly But not nearly so rapidly
as the prices which workers had to pay for the
things they had to have.
In Berlin I saw a shabbily dressed woman
with pale pnched face enter bank. She
carried two baskets. At a tellers window, next
to the one where I was standing, she exchanged
the two baskets full Of milion-mark notes for
a single greasy dollar bill.
"Why?" 1 inquired
ITS like this" an acquaintance explained.
To-day ten billion marks will Guy an American
dollar. Next week that same dollar will probably
be worth a hundred billion marks. Food, of
course. will be in proportion. That poor woman
you just saw was exchanging her husbands
wages for something stable so that next week
or next month she will still have at least that
between her and hunger"
4 T Dusseldorf, I stepped off a train from
~ Paris I offered a red cap a hundred bill
lion marks to carry my suitcase to taxi. He
Indignantly refused-and small wonder A little
figuring revealed that 1 had offered him two
and half cents
A rattle-trap taxi carried me few blocks
TO my hotel. The driver charged me a trillion
marks At Is cents, real money, the ride was
bargain. I gave bum several billion marks
for opening the taxi door, and he did not even
thank me.
My dinner including half-bottle of Rhine
wine and tip, cost me four and half trillion
marks-at par S1,100 0000000O0 Chen about
S11O) But my waiter, to whom I gave the $780,
900 900 000-mark gratuty (once $1,000 900 000),
not only never batted an eye but even showed
signs of dispeasure
The hotel charged me 10000 100000 marks
for sheet of poor writing paper and an envel-
ope. Having left my notebook behind, 1 used
several hundred million-mark certificates =
which, for economy, printed on one side
only-in lieu of a scratch pad.
An acquaintance told me he had to pawn
N some silver spoons for railway ticket from
Munich to Berlin. 1 heard it said that marks
deprecated so rapidly that tickets for long rail-
way Journeys had to be bought a section at
time, and on the Gay on which that particular
section was TO be used.
German initiation did not just hapI n, all Of
sudden. 1t began during the World Var and
the process went on for years-until the fall of
1923. At first the movement went along almost
imperceptibly. Then, with accelerated speed 1t
swept on like a typhoon until the country and
most of its people were PROSTATE in its wake.
Instead of boosting taxes to carry on the war,
Germany printed a comparatively small amount
of fiat money, such as the Patman bonus meas
ure calls for. To meet postwar expenses, the
printing presses were given another whirl. In
May 1921, a dollar still worth only 60 marks.
BY 1923, however, some 30 paper factories, 1873
printing Offices and 1888 printing machines we're
going day and night to supply the demand.
Finally when it became absolutely worthless
and most everybody was ruined Germany
scrapped the whole business and started all over
again with different kind of money.