| Show 1 ng I 1 to 1 W es 4 lon aj topics interpreted III I 1 T WIL LIAM BRUCKART I 1 A T I 1 ta L pre S I 1 WON D C washington throughout history unsound economic policies have had a way of demon experience their un as a teacher soundness by the results that even dually become understandable to the rank and file of the people like wise throughout history the rank and file of the people have learned their lesson each time and have avoided burning their fingers a sec ond time that is fingers were not burned a second cond time until a new generation came along and refused to examine and take into account the lessons of experience lately we have seen another such demonstration we have seen both the results and the refusal of current leaders to profit by exper lences of the past I 1 refer particularly to conditions involving united states bonds those who have followed market quotations must recognize that unit ed states bonds and other securities issued by the treasury have suffered from fluctuations in prices that por tend if indeed they do not prove that federal financial policies of the last tour four years were unsound there was propaganda from official during one of the periods of sagging prices that the condition resulted from market manipulations and the activities of I 1 tipsters stories to this effect came directly out of the treasury although they did not carry the identity of the official who made the statements the whole cincu circumstance ni stance must be considered together however if one is to arrive at any sort of a con elusion conc concerning ening the true state of aff affairs airs one must think of the total amount of government cecur aties outstanding something like thirty four billions and one must recognize as well what is going on in commerce and industry in addi tion to thee factors attention must be given to conditions of the last several years when the roosevelt administration was eng engaged acred and still is engaged in the great est orgy of spending that our na tion ever has known when you add up these various factors you get an answer which seems to me to be irrefutable in the first place no nation nor any of its individuals can go on indefinitely ep pending money when it does not have that money that is it cannot spend more than its in come over any extended period without suffering bad results our nation did that it made up the difference between its income and its spending by borrowing it gave government bonds to those from whom it borrowed evidence of its debt the immediate result of th s condition was that there are mil lions 1 ons upon millions of government bonds held by bank bankc corporations and individuals these bonds bear an exceedingly low rate of interest it is only natural that anyone with money to lend will look for the highest interest rate they can get if they happen to hold government bonds those bonds will be damned in favor of securities paying higher returns that has happened to some extent already it is to be remembered as well that these bonds were is issued aed in the curren currency cv of t the h e supply and devalued dollar demand the fifty nine cent dollar as meas ared by the value of gold now the law of supply and de mand that has always operated and which always will operate places a basic value upon commodities upon the services of labor it is op crating again and has brought about a greater demand for commodities the things we need to eat or to wear and the countless items of modern day living the price of these measured in present currency are higher because it takes almost two of the present day dollars to buy the same quantity as formerly could be purchased with the dollar that tha t was good for one hundred cents in gold the answer to this is that most of us can not help regarding gol gold d as a commodity having a stable value so we see a result to in this direction labor too is demanding demand mg more 0 of f the fifty nine cent dollars for its share of production it has a right to do so if you measure wages as you measure commodity values and it seems to me there can be on ly one yardstick then labor is justi fied fled in asking for higher pay again a result of tinkering with the currency becomes evident be cause labor I 1 is forced to pay more for what it buys as a result of the reduction in the dollar s gold value then finally I 1 am quite con vinced that in addition to the fac tors I 1 have discussed as having weight in causing fluctuation of gov eminent bond prices no one can deny the influence that is being ex arted by the radical labor element throughout the strikes that have been promoted these strikes have d done one more than just violate law by unjustified and unwarranted seizure of the prop erty of other persons they have developed among the strikers them selves a resentment against everyone who owns a farm or a home or 01 a business the tragedy of this condition to U leave the subject of currency toi for a moment is that the strikes show how little respect for law and order exists among a segment of our population it is not only a tragedy it is a dangerous sign and unless e ss somewhere in our nation govern ment assert its authority and pro sects rights we may possibly be faced with a circumstance in which our nation will be held together again only by use of army guns a to get back then to the bond market it seems to me there is a closely knit skein unsound of conditions that ground prove where our government has gone into unsound ground it can be pointed out how the tinkering with the currency has carried through to the ultimate consumer and the wage worker it can be shown how the national government has disregarded the rights of part of the population and favored another part of the population and in doing so has created a class hatred which is liable to cause trouble in the nation for the next fifty years notwithstanding the lessons to be learned from these experiences we observe how the same mistake is being made in another way I 1 refer now to the attitude of t on leaders who are supporting president roosevelt s program to to add six justices of his own choosing to the supreme court of the united states throughout the argument t that has come from proponents of the president presidents s packing plan there runs a constant and recurring appeal that if we can only have six new justices in the supreme court we can do all of the things that are feces necessary ary to bring about labor peace and complete business recovery disregarding the merit or demerit of this argument it seems to me one cannot help looking somewhat into the future and determining on the basis of experience of the past what may happen if the supreme court is emasculated as the dent proposes I 1 said earlier in this article that there has grown up a tremendous disrespect for law the continued prattle about the necessity for new blood I 1 in the supreme court is sim ply and frankly another step in the direction of a government by men and not a government by law it is to be recalled that mr roosevelt was given by his rubber stamp ron caress aress more power than any president of the tin ted e rr pr has exercised before I 1 do not make the charge that the difficulties that I 1 have attempted to analyze above resulted directly from according the chief executive so much power but history surely teaches the lesson that where one man has so much power available he always makes more mistakes than where that power is exercised by the properly appointed or elected representatives of the masses of the peonie I 1 recall a homely saying often heard in my youth that two heads are better than one even though one may be a cabbage head I 1 am quite convinced that the members of the house of representatives and the 96 members of the senate have more wisdom collectively than one man adverting again to the questions of currency and prices we have only to look across the atlantic ocean and see what happened in italy in russia and in germany where one man attempted to estabi I 1 sh his own ideas on the currency from what I 1 have heard from official sources it must be true that in thoe three countries I 1 mentioned there are billions of pieces of paper money that are worth altogether little more than the cash value of the paper on your walls it always has worked out that way some of the business interests of the country apparently are taking time by the fore take time jock lock and adjusting by forelock themselves to conditions where where the the government is by men and not by law A few days ago the distilled spirits institute announced that it had elected W forbes morgan as its president mr morgan an uncle by marriage of mrs franklin D roosevelt re sigred as tre treasurer asimer of the democratic national committee to enter the employment of the liquor interests while there was no official announcement concerning mr morgan s salary the gossip persists that he is to be paid something like five hundred thousand dollars for five years work in his new job his election raises two questions what mat can mr morgan do for the liquor industry that is worth so much money and secondly whether the selection of mr morgan does not show how stupid business in crests can be 0 c western newspaper union I 1 |
