The Daily Alaska empire. [volume] (Juneau, Alaska) 1926-1964, 1936-07-17
THE SOUND MONEY" PLANK"

The interpretive coumnsts of the Republican
party attempted to interpret Governor Landon's in
depreciation of the money plank in the Cleveland
platform gracious gesture toward the average
man. William Allen White attempted eucidation;
nor was any necessary; he merely made in his daily
column what amounted to a public apology. Then
the New York journal of Commerce with some
terse comment 1t said
"A sound currency means a gold standard cur
rency to ALT M. Landon and he said
terms. This electrifying move on the part OF the
Kansas governor turned weasel-worded statement
of monetary policy into a fortnight declaration
This means, win or lose, the Landon campaign
will be conducted on the basis of money plank no
longer open to doubt The Landon declaration about
money, coupled with the party's pledge to balance
the budget without new taxes and by a drastic and
immediate reduction in expenditure slants the
G. o. P. platform in a conservative direction"
Neither the credo the candidate charged
that the present currency is unsound And their
urgent call for International Sterilization of cur
rencies utterly ignored the evidence which that
currencies can only be stabilized in a world IN which
trade moves freely That attitude coupled with their
inSStence upon still higher tariff and also the COL
lection of foreign debts, without permitting imports
with which to pay Them constitutes Enthusiastically
the most rigorous policy of economic isolation on
record: Not the most harrassed small country
IN Europe has ever produced its equal
What hope does this posture of the Grand Old
Party convey to American industriaist within or
without the so-called Liberty League? Our foreign
trade sumped from $9.5OOOOOOOO in 1929 to $780,
100000 in 1892 following the immediate reprisals of
all governments against higher tariff rates adopt
ed in 1890 These gentlemen know that the develop
ment OF foreign trade depends entirely upon re-
moVa OF trade BARRIERS which the Roosevelt recpro-
cal trade agreements are fast accomplishing Although
ironically enough the Cleveland platform denounced
reciprocity in both its farm and tariff planks The
trainers and the candidate disregarded the fact that
such agreements were made with 10 foreign govern
ments under Republican administrations without
having been submitted the Senate for ratification
Mr. Hoovers Secretary of Commerce Mr. Lamont
recorded that the reduction of than two-thrds
of foreign trade in than three years had in
creased factory unemployment more than 5000 0OO
And yet in almost overlooked telegram which Mr..
Hoover sent to Cleveland, made public five hours
before the receipt of Governor Landons message the
former president said THE people cannot be re-
turned to work and the farmers given full market
until confidence is restored. That only be fully
restored by currency convertible in gold"
So Mr.. Hoover, then in New York, and Governor
Landon in Topeka thinking along exactly the
same lines And the governor TO have been
easily sold gold" despite the fact that the United
were losing the six and half billions of foreign
trade and the 100000 losing their jobs as
direct consequence And too the prices of all COM
modites of the farmers, for whom Mr.. Hoover de-
manded-and GOETHE gold standard declaration
dropped to the lowest levels the entire history OF
the country.
Then Governor Landon stands for currency
measured in gold regardless of whether such cur
rency is stable or not. On the other hand President
and
continuance of a permanently sound currency
whose purchasing power and debt paying power i.
the same.
Behind the old gold standard screen private in
terests managed the monetary system of the nation
Under the existing system, which Mr. Hoover SHOULD
have proclaimed when Great Britain went off the
gold standard in the fall of 1884, the people through
the government do the managing And as Senator
Borah accurately predicted at Cleveland the Ole
Guard of the G. o P. insists upon going back re.
gardless."