Evening star., 1937-11-14

The glories OF ancient Rome.
Upper: The dQueduct at Tar
ragona, Spain. LoUer. The
baths of CaracdHa, In Rome,
Which accommodated $4,000
persons.
that eliminated in the great depres-
sion. In the United States the con-
sd1tions were aggravated by vast and
uncontrolled expansion of bank cred
its-the modern equivalent of money
that produced the boom Of the 20s.
The war that was the real starting
point of Rome's troubles was the sec
ond struggle with Carthage in the
third century before Christ. Part of
the farm land of Italy was devastated
by the invading army of Hannibal.
The farmer-soldiers were away from
home on long campaigns that ended
in Hannibal's defeat. They had to
neglect their farms and their creditors
foreclosed the mortgages.
Money Adds to Confusion.
1t was here that the recent intro
duction OF coined money added to the
confusion and distress. In the pre-
money days of barter, the farmer had
to live on his farm to exchange his
products for goods he desired to buy.
But before the fall of Carthage the
Romans had set UP a mint in the tenn
pie of Juno Moneta (from which the
word money" is derived. Then it
became possible for large land owner
to operate his farm with slave labor
and receive the revenue in money in
Rome.
So, because of this new money -econ-
omy, Roman spectators we're able to
buy UP distressed farms that came on
the market as the result of the war
with Carthage. The unemployed and
dispossessed farmers flocked to Rome
and eventually had to be put on re-
lief.
Moreover. in certain districts the
farmers had sided with Hannibal.
Their lands were confiscated. made
part Of the public domain, and leased
by the government. These lands, too.
were rapidly absorbed by the rich
spectators.
There were other evils. As money
was so new. and as men did not un-
derstand how to bring it under con-
troll. it huctuated violently. Shrewd
men would corner the supply, then
release it and send prices sky-rocket-
ing. The SPECTATORS grew rich and
the middle class was Impoverished.
First New Dealer.
In the depression and misery of the
latter part of the second century. BIC.
came the first of the new dealers. the
brothers Gracchi. The first resettle-
ment administration (R. A. was set I'D
by the elder brother, Tiberius. He
started proceedings to oust squatters
from the public domain and to set
tie it with the unemployed from Rome.
After his murder, engineered by
outraged vested interests, his brother
Gaius continued the new deal. But
his R. A. encountered the same diff
Guilty that met the Roosevelt New
Deal. City dwellers failed as farmers.
So he sought to relieve unemployment
by sending settlers to outlying COM
mercial centers where they could find
the sort of work to which they had
been accustomed. Meanwhile. he
undertook extensive work relief under
the P. w. A. on roads and ware
houses and provided a form of direct
relief in wheat sold by the Govern
ment at half the market price.
As part of this plan he started an
ever-normal granary. He proposed
that the government buy and store
wheat in years of abundance to be
sold in lean years, with the familiar
purpose of "stabilizing prices" Ac-
cording to the biblical account, Jo-
seph had tried something of the sort
in Egypt. But Gaius Gracious
seems to have been the direct fore
ruAner OF Secretary Wallace in the
scheme to hold surpluses off the
market to be sold in years of scarcity.
The ever-normal granary had only a
(see RoME's NEW DEAL Pg. CO