| Show ad ministration administration going at rel ef backwards mr U S 0 cherry of sioux falls south dakota father ol of mrs G R mckay of this city Is a candidate for or th the democratic nomination for united states state senator from his home state recently mr air cherry when asked his views regarding pre present sent distressing conditions in this his t country gave the following statement to the press which mates interesting te Le reading the we washington s hington administration Is going ng at the problem ot of relief backwards said t the he distinguished gentleman III prosperity will not return until the materials value val a ot or farm products and other raw materials has been raised to equality with other products Is the contention fi 0 the democratic aspirant to the senate it to me entirely clear said mr cherry that the belated and somewhat frantic efforts of the administration at washington to restore business prosperity to the nation are being applied almost entirely at the wrong end of the problem the washington folks seem to be dealing with the problem entirely from the top downward so to speak rather rathe than from the bottom upward they seem either cither to ignore or to fall fail to realize that the r real e at dt difficulty ft is not at the top but Is fundamental and basic and must be dealt with at its root loot fight cent dollar As I 1 view the matter it should be ent liely clear to every one that there can call be no real return ot of permanent prosperity unless or until the market prices of tile products of the soil of the mines and of the sea fire are somehow raised to a muc much higher ig er lever than the present ruinous rates in the cases of millions of our people who owe billions of dollars of debt contracted during the period of vastly higher commodity price levels these debts cannot possibly be paid at present ruinously low commodity price levels the farmer the mine operator except of course the gold mine and in his instance for a very special and favored teason reason the merchant the doctor the lawyer and the small business man of any line ine cannot pay off his debt with fifty eight cent dollars that being officially found and reported to be at present the value of the farmers dollar the burden on the average has bee been to about doubled and in some instances In it has even been quadrupled neither the producers out of the soil out of vie fie mines or from the seas nor those who produce through taets labor in factory or elsewhere and these all combined are the real consumers are arc possessed of purchasing power this manifestly Is because ot of low commodity prices and the greatly reduced and scant employment of those who labor with their hands it seems to me perfectly clear that the first step toward recovery Is to restore at least in some substantial degree the purchasing power of the millions of would be consumers more credit not remedy so tar far as I 1 can see the only remedy proposed by the leadership at washington Is the creation of mole moie and greater credit facilities such as the five hundred million national credit corporations the two billion reconstruction finance corporation po ration enlargement of the loaning power of 0 the federal land banks by a hundred million loosening up of federal reserve rediscount privileges and the like in short it all amounts to a mild placers of inflation it contemplates ither either continuing the present stupendous cus burden of indebtedness private and public estimated at tour four hundred billions on the backs of the millions of people or increasing that debt or both in other words the theory seems to be to work from the top downward not from the bottom where the real t trouble rouble Is located upward the thought seems to be more about the welfare and prosperity of the already powerful comparatively few at the top not the hard pressed producer at the bottom one of three aliree things to occur in short as I 1 view it ono one of three things ca early clearly must occur either debts must be scaled down or millions of cf debtors be financially wiped out or commodity TOO city prices that Is to say purchasing f power or debt paying power pomer must somehow I 1 be raised to higher levels I 1 it there Is any other alternative than one of these three I 1 do not know of it 1 l it was ass rather amazing the other day to rend read secretary mellons pitiful plea pea to the president and to the congress for the scaling down by us of foreign governmental ern mental debts owing to us and to note that his big argument tor for this course was geoul ded upon the tact fact as he stated that the promises of these nations to pay made at a time when the prices of commodities wele at tice their present level leve 1 from this lie he reasoned that these debtor nations if f required to pay according to the bond would pay two dollars now for one dollar when the debt was cincu incurred trod it seems never to occur to the great majority of f pow powerful e erful folks in his group that precisely the same thing applies to the mortgage on the farm on the dwelling in the town or on oil the debts ot of private individuals partnership small corporations and the like in whatever form the millions of folks owing them are dealing it never seems to occur to the great secre mind or his bis associates that what Is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce tor for the gander 0 P BL other examples of this present day working from above instead of from below 10 w 1 are at hand but can now only be merely mentioned one of them Is the lawley hawley smoot vastly too high tariff schedules set up by us against other nations and the consequent retaliatory schedules s set et up by these nations against la 18 as reprisals pris a is it la Is just an another 0 ther case of applying r P in another form the rule rut e 0 of creati creating g great prosperity at the top in the hope h 0 pe that some ot of it will seep down through and be absorbed at the bottom this idea of working down from the top takes form in the effort to ignore circumvent or set aside the great primary e action system which has bag grown up in the states and the nation in recent years the primary system as I 1 see it was enacted tor for the very purpose of 0 pie venting those in authority at the top at least tor for the time being from thwarting and defeating what they fear ear might be the fiction action ot of the great rank and file at the bottom it is just another application of the false idea that the safest and from soundest government must come from the top and work down through to 0 the bottom that it Is dangerous to permit erelt the government to work through front rora the bottom up to the top and there Is still another application in this very day it has to do with a procedure that hat has been followed and Is being tol foi owed at washington regarding international debts both inter government and private rl vate A group at the top seek beek to have inter anter government debts either scaled down or cancelled thereby placing the burden ultimately of the vast structure of croter governmental debts upon the shoulders of the taxpayers tax payers of this nation at the bottom it Is another application of the idea recently it has been discussed under the title of 0 P M other peoples money it Is a very interesting subject |
