Show Communists Await depression in US reds see nation nations economy gravitating toward disaster by BAUKHAGE news analyst and commentator washington there are a good many ways to judge the moods of official washington sometimes you can assay them the moment you read the latest sta statement of the bureau of labor statistics sometimes you can interpret them in terms of the number of press and radio conferences that are NOT cancelled or the number of presidential or cabinet fish ing trips that are scheduled sometimes you can read the story in the congressional record or the gallup poll but in recent times one of the best barometers of washington emo eions some of my deep dashers tell me is the facial andor oral espres of the professional communists who inhabit the carefree district of columbia to help you understand the above somewhat un understandable state ment let me re fresh your mem ory concerning the kremlins m most 0 s t cherished desire that dearest wish as you know is a great big all out replica of the de of 1929 for the united states let s step tor for a moment into the sanctum sancto rum of the so baukhage viet s no I 1 boy josef ich alias marshal stalin the following Is an excerpt from the official transcript of a conver bation between harold stassen of minnesota and josef stalin of geor gia USSR U S S R not georgia USA U S A stassen our problem now Is to see to it that we do not have a depression an economic crisis stalin do you expect a cri sisa sis stassen I 1 do not with wise policies we can avoid a crisis stalin do american indus tries have a lot of or ders Is that and that american factories can t keep pace with them and that all factories are running per cent Is that stassen yes substantially but they are largely domestic orders stalin but that is the most important maga zine analysts analysis and the american press carry open reports to the ef feet that an economic 0 crisis will break out stassen the problem is one of stabilizing with out having an economic crisis i stalin but what about bus bust ness men will the they y be prepared to be regulated a and n d r e strained stassen no some will have objections stalin yes they do that Is a verbatim record with omissions which do not affect the context they reveal stalin s keen interest in our domestic economy and any prospective depression in that economy the conversation took place in the kremlin on april 9 of this year A friend of mine a financial ex pert met a communist acquaint ance who was bubbling over with joy oy the reason for his gaiety the fact that he foresaw a real depres sion for the united states later the financial man again met the corn com eunist informed him he was sorry to hurt his feelings but that there was going to be only a mild reces areces sion which would serve to check the boom no bust would follow that was the opinion of most of the experts government industry and labor at that time the whole country despite the tact fact that busi busl ness was booming seemed to be aware of the dangers of inflation furthermore people were in the mood to check extravagances tor for example the newburyport and other price cutting experiments it appeared there would be a slight recession that it would relieve the labor tension and encourage more efficiency on the part of work ers and management also it would adjust inventories bring down real estate prices so that people could buy homes reduce the cost of liv ing and in general take the wind out of the sails of a boom that might be followed by a bust that was in april well along about the middle ot of july the communist ran into the financial expert aga n again the common st was smil ng well he leered happily where s your mild recession that was going to take the wind out of the sails of boom and busta he ile sniffed the breeze blowing off the potomac a couple of times and added as if he had caught the scent of attar of roses smells a lot like 1929 to me the communist went on bously enjoying himself john lewis got the biggest wage settle ment in his h story didn dian t you say wage increases were inflationary what are the other labor leaders gong go ng to do doa didn dian t I 1 hear some thing about an increase in the price of steel as well as coald and what about the other side more loose change in people s pockets 7 con gress talked about letting the boys have cash for their terminal leave bonds that wouldn t do much to pull down prices and releasing credit controls on installment buy ing and the railroads saying they cant can t pay their coal bills without a freight rate increase congress tried twice to cut taxes too right where it would do high prices the most good where he asked again where s this recession and all the serious thought about check ing a boom with that the communist walked off chuckling in his beard my fl lancial expert admitted he couldn coulden t answer him its it s this way he said to me afterward people feel about iffla tion the way they felt about sin everybody is against it but they want to get theirs |