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Show Management of Dollar Likely to be Major Issue in Presidential Election Campaign has never been higher. At the other end of the spectrum, the Chicago Tribune is running run-ning a series of articles in its editorial columns entitled, "How Sound is Your Dollar?". It Is doing so because, "Clearly "Clear-ly we are facing a money crisis." And, "Because this problem vitally concerns the welfare of all the people, the editor had decided to devote the entire space normally reserved re-served for editorials ... to a special report on the money crisis." The series starts off with Lenin's quotation that, "The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency." It then goes on to review the history of deficits def-icits that have run up a federal fed-eral debt of nearly $400 billion. There appears to be little question but that the "dollar trouble" is the main reason for the adamant stand for a reduction in public spending by such Congressmen as Wil-i Wil-i bur D. Mills who believes that I federal expenditures must be ' brought under control. Then there are those who believe As election year 19G8 approaches, ap-proaches, everyone is speculating speculat-ing over the issues that will likely decide the fate of cand- idates for the highest office in ' the land - the Presidency. High on the list of issues are ol course Viet Nam, racial tension ten-sion and the high and rising prices the housewife pays for ! her groceries - in other words inflation. These are all issues of popular discussion. But as the next year rolls around, there may be other issues that equal or supersede these - an example is the dollar. As John K. Jessup puts it, ". . . .the dollar Is in trouble . The management of the dollar is likely to be a major issue in the '68 presidential election. elec-tion. It could sway more votes than Viet Nam or the race problem at home." Essentially, the problem with the dollar is that its value val-ue has become an uncertain quantity in the minds of many people. Moreover, the uncertainty uncer-tainty is compounded by the fact that there are nearly as many expert views on the proper pro-per solution to the dollar trou-ble trou-ble as there are experts. On the one hand, there are those who take the extreme position that chronic deficits over a span of more than a generation genera-tion have drawn us into a fatal inflationary spiral and "national bankruptcy" is just around the corner. Even many of the most pessimistic hesitate hesi-tate to define what national bankruptcy means. On the other hand, there are those who can marshal an anrmy of facts and figures to show that the United States is stronger than ever before in history - financially, economically econom-ically and militaryly . even though they concede that such things as the continuing deficits defi-cits in our international balance bal-ance of payments are troublesome. trouble-some. j No less an authority than Treasury Secretary Henry H. Fowler has stated unequivocally unequivo-cally that confidence in the dollar among the world's bankers and finance ministers th dollar trouble can be f cured by severing its last ten-, uous relationship to gold. Among the latter are the mon-. etary theorists, economists and academicians who look on gold as having outlived its usefulness in modern society. John Maynard Keynes once described the mining of gold in Africa and the removal of it to underground vaults such as Fort Knox as a "disutility of labor." Followers of the Keynes school believe gold is strictly for the superstitious. But there are good reasons why the peoples of the world In the last analysis look to gold as the ultimate medium writes. "Beacuse gold is accept-writs, accept-writs, "Because gold is accepted accept-ed everywhere and at any time, it has always been the private citizen's most dependable depend-able defense against inflation and other disasters." In short, gold cannot be tampered with. It is " the only currency without a political smell." It has endured through the centuries. cen-turies. For these reasons, it is highly likely that monetary systems will continue to be linked to gold in some manner. man-ner. As yet, the millennium has not been reached where a medium of exchange can be made to work for long unless it Is voluntarily accepted by the people. As next years' e-lections e-lections approach, circumstances circum-stances mav bring the discussion dis-cussion of his fundamental lsue down from the rarefied RtmosDhere of h!f?h finance trr the level of main street and the voters. |