V.gabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

The other night President Roosevelt went on the air to utter his tensely-expected dictum on inflation-or what have you. No printing of greenbacks for general distribution was announced. Rather a reduction of the gold content of the dollar was offered as an immediate program, with a "controlled" gold market.

*:F*

A well known authority has truly said that money is a difficult thing to understand. I know it is for me. Perhaps that's because I've never possessed enough of it to conduct extensive experirnents. I'll admit this money thing gets me almost as dizzy as reading the average NRA code and trying to figure how in ,Hades it can possibly work.

*'F'*

So we will have no "fiat" money for the present; which makes me miss a guess, once more. I believed-and still do-that there never was a chance for NRA without some such huge relaxation of credit such as some generous type of infation alone could bring. I can't believe that the efforts at credit relaxation and increased purchasing power now being undertaken-or proposed-will furnish the customers for our goods of every sort from farm to factory products, who are now so conspicuously absent.

*:B:F

I don't pose as an inflationist. I don't even pretend that f understand infation (which puts me in exactly the same class with most everyone else, including the wisehimers who say they DO). tsut I DO say that we have started something in this country that we have all been trying to help put over, that never had a chance from the beginning without some equally drastic infation of buying power. The increased buying power that comes from the number of people who have found jobs under the NRA, is not a drop in the bucket to what we MUST have, and have soon, to put over this national effort.

***

I thought we would have to take down our money motto, "In God we trust," for a while, and substitute, "I hope that my Redeemer liveth."

***

But Mr. Roosevelt says no. It has been most apparent from the beginning, I believe, that the President dreads genuine inflation, unless it be a very last resort. The man on the street believes that if things do not irnprove tremendously between now and January, Congress will take the bull by the horns and begin printing and distributing greenbacks in carload lots. That looks like a safe prophecy right now. Everyone talks inflation. And Congress is going to respond to the popular clamor. *+*

As I say, everyone tries to figure out what infation means, and just how it would work to print a few billion dollars worth of money without any gold behind it. On every corner you hear the question asked: "What is the difference between a Government bond, and a Government greenback? Both have the guarantee of the United States Government, and that's all." Which, of course, isn't true. The Government sells those bonds, the money goes on the cash books, and is reflected as a cash off-set for the bonded indebtedness. We can't sell greenbacks for par. In order to get them in circulation they must be distributed much less conservatively than Government bonds. We would probably take these greenbacks and offer them at par in exchange for mortgages, bonds, and other frozen assets, that might, or might NOT, ever be paid. To do any good they would have to be forded into circulation in some much less formal rnanner than we distribute newly printed gold notes. ***

The past two weeks have been significant ones in the life of NRA. From discordant mutterings of weeks past, criticism of NRA has blossomed into big type broadcastings. Washington specialists who sell alleged inside facts to business men throughout the nation dropped all camouflage of late and bluntly declared NRA to be fast failing. Editorially various powerful financial journals pointed in the same direction. Great newspapers began declaring on front pages that NRA was doing more harm than good. And from the farm came a growing tide of complaint that sent our courageous President to the radio with another human, convincing, appealing, man-to-man talk that' won the continued confidence of millions. But what that talk did was convince us that our leadership is in good hands; NOT that the present plan is proving a huge success. ***

On Monday, October 23, President Roosevelt' made the rnomentous ahnouncement that exempted from the retailers' code of the NRA all communities of less than 2,500 people. When you stop to think that about 45 per cent of the population of this country live in comrnunities of less than that number, the irn- portance of the exemption is understood. This exemption, apparently, does not apply to representatives of industries operating under a Presidential industrial code. But how easily the exemption might be used as a lever to disrupt the operations of even such business as that, is quite evident. That the employers of a lumber concern, or an oil company, operating under a national industrial code, must follow the code as to hours, wages, etc., while the other local merchants do NOT, is something to think about. As a lever of disruption, it appears ideal.

***

But the exemption of almost half of our population from the provisions of the NRA furnish materials for almost limitless conjecture. General Johnson says it was done because the small town was so difficult to administer under the NRA. The roar of the farmer undoubtedly was the basic thing. They claimed everything THEy bought in their local towns had gone UP, but that what they had to sell had lost in exchange value.

Then came another important modification; one that shows the President has some advisers who tell him what the public really thinks and says. He wrote a letter to General Johnson on October 23, calling attention to the fact that the far-famed and fought Section 7 of the NRA does NOT "interfere with the bona fide exercise of the right of an employer to select, retain, or advance employees on the basis of individual merit." General Johnson allowed the automobile people to so declare in their code, but later stated that he did so in an unguarded moment, and would not do it again. The President now sets the matter straight. And in so doing he silenced the grumbles of a great strata of our population.

It seems strange, indeed, to see industry engaged to the eyebrows all over the country trying to get their codes built, signed, and in effect, and at the same time witness the President and General Johnson both taking public cognizance of widespread criticism and dissatisfaction. One cornmentator speaks of the surprise the authorities at Washington felt at discovering that NRA is ,.unpopular,'. Wm. Green, head of the American Federation of Labor, points to the fact that between three and four million workers have had their buying power increased in the past sixty or ninety days. But there are forty million other workers in the country whose expenses have steadily advanced in that time, with no corresponding increase of income; and from this great body of people comes the vocal question mark. +*t<

A strange world, isn't it? fn Los Angeles, where HALF A MILLION PEOPLE ARE BEING FED AND CLOTHED BY CHARITY, nearly one hundred thousand people paid high prices for seats the other day to see a football game. That is true all over the country. These funny wrestling matches pack in their roaring crowds. So do the prize fights. Movie theaters are packed. And yet in every town there is a charity tist bigger than was ever dreamed of before. Think of a town like Houston, Texas, with 60,000 people living on charity. And a canvass of

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