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Show TIKELY the most important ac--tion taken in this session of the study being made of the financial 65th Congress is the complete condition of the United States by the Senate Finance Committee under un-der the leadership of Senator Harry Har-ry T. Byrd, of Virginia. It is the first such Investigation made in almost a half century and probably prob-ably will take all summer. Although the Virginia Senator and others on the Committee have already tangled with their first witness, Treasury Secretary George F. Humphrey, both sides agree that the pressure of inflation is the most impelling problem before be-fore the American people today. Senator Byrd, going bohlnd the scenes of a prosperous and rosy facade put forth by the administration, adminis-tration, bluntly told his witness that the facts belled his eulogistic defense of the Administration. For he said, despite the prosperous overlay, in four years all debt in the country has increased $200 billion bil-lion to a total of $793 billion dollars, or about 33 in four short years. Senstor Byrd fixed the debts of the country as follows: fol-lows: Corporate, $253 billion; private, $213 billion; Federal, $277 billions and state and local at $90 billions. Added to this debt Increase is the steadily downward spiral of , the purchasing power of the dollar, now worth about 49.8c, a drop of nearly 2 cents since 1956. If the value of the dollar continues at this rate of fall it would be worth only 29 cents in 12 years. Senator Byrd points out that world confidence confi-dence in the American dollar is the principal deterrent to Russian aggression. With inflation a prime subject in Washington, a refreshing breeze blew into Washington in the form of a small group of people peo-ple forming the National Citizens Committee to curb inflation . . . held a two-day conference at the Mayflower hotel, with top government, govern-ment, economic, business and farm leaders ar principal speakers speak-ers ... It was non-partisan, non-political non-political in nature and had as its objective, education of the people themselves on the dangers of inflation, in-flation, and put forth the thesis that only the American people by their restraint in their demands upon Congress, by their own determination de-termination to lower costs or force lower cocts, have the decisive and last word as to whether there will be a run-a-way inflation. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. Dr. E. G. Nourse, nationally known economist and former chairman of the President's Council Coun-cil of Economic Advisors, one of the Conference speakers put it this way: "The calling of this conference lis clear evidence that the American Ameri-can public is waking up to some basic economic realities and beginning be-ginning to question whether the phenominal prosperity of the last decade is fundamentally sound and capable of being continued on present lines . . . We should stop passing the buck to the President, Presi-dent, the Secretary of the Treasury, Treas-ury, the Congress and the Federal Reserve system . . It is much nearer the truth to say that the real source of inflation in postwar post-war United States has lain In the market place In the institutions and practices of labor union bargaining and corporation price administration. |