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Show PROFITEERS USE LOW 'fl DOLLAR AS EXCUSE I 10 ROB! S4YS OWEN I BY ROBERT L. OWEN, U. S. Senator from Oklahoma, Author of the Federal Reserve Banking Act; President of the National Popular Government League. It has been widely claimed that the high coot of living la duo to currency inflation. This is erroneous. It Is credit expansion, ex-pansion, not currency inflation, that has diminished the purchasing power of tho dollar. It is truo that the curenc; 01 tho I United States was expanded by eleven hundred million dollars, or $10 per capita, of gold received from Eurojn In exchange for our excess commodities commodi-ties exported during the war, but one-half one-half of that has already gone back. Outside of the actual currency held by tho federal reserve banks, the total outstanding currency amounts to S 19.-11 19.-11 per capita. The federal ivsero notes cannot be seriously Inflated, do-ennae do-ennae they arc redeemed in gold every day, and every time a fodoril reserve not passes out of lis own district it Is subject to immediate redemption This would retire all these notes were it not for the fact that they are emitted from day to day as commercial necessities demand. So that what nas happened is not tho expansion or currency cur-rency under the federal reserve act, but tho expansion of credi's by the I Issuanco of twonty-slx billion dollars of Liberty Bonds under the emoigency ; of the war. j Credit expansion J3 common to tho whoh world, howover, and the world I3 now adjusting Itself to it. It is of course a well-known fact that tho easier currency is to ubtair the less is its purchasing powor. Anc" the persons who arc affected mosi seriously thereby arc thoso receiving H fixed salaries or living on fixod in- But the diminished purchasing po IH wer of the dollar, which is to bu wX- pectcd. l4 times llko those, should irVJ bo furtYftir diminished by profiteering?'1 and by monopolies that are using this reason as a screen behind which to hide themselves. If it be true that the dollar has dl-minlshed dl-minlshed in purchasing power by -"Mi Wh or 50 per cent (no man roally knows ,-. Tflpf exactly what it is) the profiteer :mil jr "-A.j tho monopolist aro all the less cntlclud to add to the burdons of the people by making it 1-10 per cent. - - ' Ag. , I It is bad enougli that the dollar " should diminish In purchasing powr: I at all on account of tho war, but tho HCU people of this nation ought not to stand Hi for the wholesale profiteering now going on and which is subset i .'ally BBj unrobuked. Vice President Marshall showed tue an excellent suit of clothes which -ivi ' j.wns wearing, the cloth for which, n ie. , j In the State of Indiana, cost him , jH A very excellent tailor In the city of ll I Washington was willing to make htm iH ja like suit of the same material t jv This is the sort of profiteering that . ' - is going on overywhoro and In every- The question is, how long, Oh Lord, how long? - |