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Show 37 EQUALS 21 lumbers Determined FD LI Gold Pegging NEW YORK, Dec. 31 W Highlights High-lights of the first two years of the new desl, disclosed with the release re-lease of parta of the voluminous diary of Henry Morgenthau Jr., secretary of the tressury, revealed that at one time President Roosevelt Roose-velt approved a 21c rise in the price of gold because it waa "a lucky number." The disclosure of the contents of the diary was made in a paper by Jonathan Grossman of City college, col-lege, one of the historians preparing prepar-ing the .diary for publication, at a meeting of the American Historical His-torical Assn. The diary, comprising 900 volumes vol-umes each 300 to 400 pages long, describes In detail programs, disputes dis-putes and policies In the early days of the new deal. Grossman's psper dealt with President Roosevelt's grsin and gold buying program In 1933-34. Grossman quoted parts of the diary to describe the president's efforts to raise pricea of farm commodities soon after his Inauguration Inau-guration which ahowed: Oct 16, 1933. the president called Morgenthau, then governor of the farm credit administration, and aaid: f'We have got to do something about the price of wheat Can't you buy 25,000,000 bushela fori Harry Hopklna (then federal relief administrator) and see if you can't put the price up?" Morgenthau bought 1.000.000 bushels at I between 72c and 74c and bid for another million at 74 Me but the market dropped to 68c. Morgenthau then placed a standing order for all wheat offered of-fered and the price rose to 74 c. The diary aaid that when the president pres-ident heard about It he was elsted. "Squeeze the life out of the shorts and put the price up just ai far as you can." he said. "I started in and evidently the crowd In the wheat pit was laying I for me because I msde little headway," head-way," the diary continued. - "At about six minutes before closing I gave them the gun and bought everything the - bears offered in order to reach our objective 190c). When the amoke cleared away we ' had bought 4.400,000 bushels. I felt literally dizzy while the thing waa going on. I went home and went to bed for two hours after lunch." To make the wheat price Increase In-crease stick the president believed he would have to raise the price of gold and began to experiment with gold manipulation. The price was Increased gradually from $20.67 to $29 an ounce. Beginning Oct 25, 1933. each morning the president conferred with Morgan-thsu Morgan-thsu and Jesse Jones to set the price of god for the dsy. On one dsy the conference decided oa a rise of 21c. "It's a lucky number." the president presi-dent wss quoted as saying, "because "be-cause It's three times seven.1' w |
