Show ago 0 ram H HH ech national topics interpreted by william bruckart washington congress did a lot of wrestling in ID its closing hours with new legislation de signed to encourage new debt more homes by individuals a Is and in connection with this debate there developed what I 1 believe to be one of the outstanding questions of 0 the times the housing bill as it was called would make borrowing easier for those who want to own their own homes in other words it Is a program that will put more people into debt if they take advantage of the hills bills provisions and that Is the question after the conditions that have obtained through the last tour four years Is it or Is it not sound economy to encourage individuals to contract new debts debate on the housing bill therefore centered attention on one phase of the whole new deal program that has bag caused concern in the back of many heads up to this time however apparently few of the legislators had paused to think of the trend of the course upon which the administration had embarked I 1 noted in the committee hearings in the house bouse that a number of the representatives exhibited a fear of too much new debt such stolid men as luce of massachusetts busby of mississippi sis sippi and hollister ot of ohio and some gome who are inclined to the inflationary side like goldsborough of maryland questioned whether the proposal was sound mr luce tor for example called attention to the old time theory about debts and the horror in ID which debt used to be held mr luce ot of course reflected the wholesome new england feeling find and the attitude ot of new englanders on savings mr busby a southern democrat however made observations that were of much the same tenor to theta them he added that a recent visit to his home bailiwick had indicated to him the need ot of watching the governments step in enciu encouraging raging debt ile he suggested fu further r that where the government had extended help in the south things continued to hum until that aid was ellmina eliminated mina ted thereafter there was another tailspin insofar as recovery was concern concerned d whatever ones conclusion about going into debt may be the tact fact is un changed that the federal government has put out approximately in the last year in various types of 0 loans the individuals or the c corporations to which that money was loaned are in debt to uncle sam therefore in a corresponding amount president roosevelt Koo sevelt and his associates and advisers defend their course with the argument that by making the loans they have enabled all of those folks to weather the storm ile he argues that the economic casualty list would have been much higher had the loans not been made lie ile holds that those who borrowed from the federal government vere ere actually unable to get money elsewhere and that the government was merely looking after its own folks to those who criticize the use usa of taxpayers money in this manner mr roosevelt Koo sevelt has said repeatedly that these loans will be repaid and that the government p eminent will suffer stiffer no loss in the end but after all there are the debts debts on top ot of debts they must either be repaid or re debts on pud ted if they are top of debts paid the borrowers must pay them out 0 of future earnings that condition according to the latest line of argument that developed under the housing bill debate means the borrowers can create little or no reserve for the future it Is being said that the recovery program and the new deal generally contemplates planning for the future in such a manner as to ward off a recurrence of the calamity of depression but I 1 have asked in a good many places what if the theories of economic planning fall to work at all or work only in part the answers I 1 obtained depended somewhat on the slant of the person questioned it if they are following the professors blindly they said to me that the plans could not fall because they were sound by every theory under which they are drawn if the person to whom the inquiry was directed examined the problem on a practical basis and studied it with the background of history in mind I 1 be liebb without exception the answer was well it will be just too bad my own feeling coincides with tile the latter view if the new deal program for economic planning for adjusting production to consumption tor for controlling crop planting and distribution and the other items that enter iota into the plan fail to operate according to the theories upon which they are based there can be no doubt of the result it will be just too bad there will be millions of persons more debt ridden than now and there will be no way out the government will be holding the bag on this question of debt there Is that t troublesome rouble some international phase the united states loaned something like eleven billion dollars to foreign governments to aid in prosecution of the world war against germany for a long time after the money modey w was as loaned the united states pot got nothing noth ing at all in the meanwhile there was a terrific bombardment of propaganda from the borrowing nations and from some of the misguided folks in our own country calling for absolute cancellation cel lation but cancellation could not win it was impossible so there followed a lot of negotiations in which commissions from foreign governments govern menta came here and conferred at length with our debt funding commission settlements were eventually worked out the debts were funded that Is the debtor nations were given a long time in which to pay they were given enormous concessions by our debt commission in order to get some agreement for repayment of the v various rious loans I 1 know whereof I 1 speak regarding those concessions because it happens that I 1 am the only newspaper correspondent to in washington who reported everyone of the debt conferences and I 1 say unequivocally that those funding settlements represented on the average a reduction of more than one third in the total amount which the debtors contracted originally to pay 0 0 now again we are in the midst of 0 new efforts to get something done in the way of repay dodges ments the foreign nations actions are not dot go eo Rep repayment aymen t ing to pay it if it can be avoided they put up the very natural argument that obtains with everyone who Is in debt and who lias been hit on the chin by depression conditions they cannot raise the money so they say bay to avoid defaults some of the foreign nations made what they called token payments a year ago at this time some of them have offered token payments again cut but token payments amount to about the same thing as when your friend eats the apple and hands you the core it was a nice apple to begin with and the funding settlements were nice settlements tle ments when they were signed frankly I 1 suspect that the united states is never dever going to get more than about 10 per cent of the total now due there will be plenty of arguments propositions and counter propositions ions negotiations and hauling and filling and after awhile some of the foreign governments will have succeeded in creating enough public sentiment among their home people to cause a national action of the same character as that taken by france a year ago the condition as regards the foreign debts owing the united states I 1 am afraid will be paralleled right here at home by individual and corporation and bank debts owing the federal government ern ment many borrowers will run into hard luck as they always have done and they will appeal to the politicians to save them when those debts become a political issue it will be an issue too strong for politicians to withstand they will arise on the floors of congress and weep about the plight of those poor people the special senate committee Is getting under way with its inquiry into the various indus may stir tries that ture materials for fl up a stink war and it appears now that it Is headed into an investigation that will disclose plenty of things that will cause a stink to arise when the investigators have laid their flu findings dings before the committee headed by senator eye bye of north dakota I 1 spent a couple of hours the other day with one of the wheel horses commanding the investigating force and it was certainly his opinion that there are things awaiting revelation that will surprise the populace lie he Is confident as he said that the country will sit up and take notice of what the committee is preparing to bring to light the evening I 1 was in the chief investigators vesti gators office eight men were receding their credentials and money with which to start out on the trail they were headed for what amounts to a raid on the files and bools books of some factory which the investigators believed had been engaged in the manufacture of war materials and which they thought also had been engaged in propagating information that would cause a couple of foreign nations to look with upon each other suspicion between two nations Is obviously a prelude to more serious differences feren ces and eventually war la Is the result the committee has started out to expose such conditions if they exist and tile the investigators are convi convinced ed that things of that sort are being practiced by some of the makers of munitions nit ions I 1 have no way of knowing where the investigators are going in their continuing effort but from all indica tons they have orders to dig deep deen into tiles flies and records to see what they can find they will come back to washington eventually with great bales of letters etters and records that they think shed light on the he suspected activities and of course when the committee begins taking testimony those things will be brought out there la Is just no way out of it a good gooc many c corporations orp orations whether they have engaged in war provoking activities or not are going to be smeared 0 by wester 2 union |