Evening star., 1938-05-02
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM WIFE,

Back to Bryan" seems to be the New
Deals latest slogan President Roose-
velt's message to Congress calling for
curbs on monopolies is almost q literal
throwback to the trust-busting mania
Of Nebraska's peerless son throughout
his successive tries for the White House
The 1896 Democratic national platform
on which Bryan made his first stand
featured silver but the planks denounc-
ing trusts and monopolieS were both
written by him and were advocated
during the ensuing campaign with as
much vehemence as his 16-to-l fantasy.
F. D. RS thrust at concentration of
private power without equal in history
and the power of a few to manage the
economic life of the Nation" might have
been lifted almost verbatim from Bryan's
1896, 1900 and 1908 fulminationS on the
vices Of capitalism So politically, it
would seem, there's nothing new under
|. the sun after all.
Two Of the New Deals most ardent
devotees-Marriner 8. Eccles, chairman
of the Board of Governors Of the Federal
Reserve System, and A. P. Giannini, San
Francisco banker, must have WINGED a
bit when they heard of the Presidents
recommendation in the antitrust mes
sage that the current session of Congress
enact legislation which will effectively
control the operation of bank holding
companies and that 'the possibilities
OF great harm are inherent in the
welding Of economic power by such ag-
gregations of money. Mr.. Eccles and
Mr.. Giannini are probably the country's
o rdinn f~ of tI,o h., L.
ing company idea. When he came to
Washington Mr.. Eccles was president of
the First Security Corp. which owns and
Wyoming. In addition he had organized
the Eccles Investment Co., holding
company for interests in a family estate,
and was president of it. Mr.. Giannini,
like Mr.. Eccles, one of the few economic
royalists among Roosevelt supporters,
founded the Bank of America National
Trust & Savings Association, which took
over the vast Bank of Italy at San Fran
cisco and its numerous branches through
out the Pacific Coast He is chairman
Of the board of that far-flung octopus,
as we'll as of the Transamerica Corp,
a somewhat similar combination. Ten
years ago Mr.. Giannini, who is the
richest American of Italian extraction
and a California native son, gave
$1,5O0OO0 to the University of California.
y X X
M. Otto Wadsted, Danish Minister to
the United States, will be in New York
tomorrow to attend the 89th anniversary
OF the birth of the late Jacob A. Riis.
the famous Dane who was a CO.
worker Of Theodore Roosevelt in the
colonels reform days, especially during
his Manhattan police commissionership.
The celebration will be held at Riis
House. the social settlement in Henry
street maintained as a memorial to the
celebrated author of "How the Other
Half Lives" Riis began life in New
York as police reporter on Charles A.
Dana's Sun and later became active in
the movement for small parks and play
grounds, slum clearance and school
reform.
X
Not since Mabel Walker Willebrandt
scintillated in the Federal legal heavens
has Portia come into her own at WASH
ington SO impressively as last week.
About the time United States Attorney
Pine was naming another woman lawyer,