Show SEEN HEARD around tho N national capital by CARTER CARTE R FIELD fielda 3 1 washington president roosevelt went ment the limit in framing the budget message to congress the one that startled tho the country with its revelation of a seven billon dollar deficit for this year and an increase of the national debt to mores more than thIr thirty tyone one billions to make the present situation look as aa bad as possible ile iio wants the contrast to be all the more striking klug when things improve in fact the same message pointed to a deficit for the year beginning july I 1 of five billion dollars less than the deficit this year to getting back on an even keel in the fiscal year following and to paying oft off ame some of the debt beginning the year after that thal in computing the figures the president examined every estimate for e expenditure c pend iture and there was a lot of range between the high and the low estimates then he put in the high ones every time similarly when be examined the various estimates for revenue ho he took the low one every time this Is not just supposition nor Is it the word of some off official lelal who gathered the impression that the president did that ile he himself told a group or of sixty newspaper reporters about it but he said it at a time when the reporters would be up to their ears trying to get the details of the budget itself straight so there was little or no reference in the newspapers to this important bit of w window dressing down in his heart the president does docs riot not really expert expect the picture to be anything like so black as he painted it to congress ile he jocularly referred to the fact that lie he did not want to be accused of doing what the treasury had done in a previous administration ile he alluded of course to the last three years preceding his inauguration in those three years the treasury woefully overestimated expected revenues that was one of the reasons the federal balance sheet was so tar far tn in the red follows mellon policy the truth was that first mellon hellon and then mills and hoover most of all constantly expected business to pick up they thought as hoover said that prosperity was just around the corner if business had picked up as they expected then taxes would have bounded up also not only income taxes but corporation and other taxes even 11 ven postal revenues would have contributed tri buted a little and their estimates would not have been so far out of goar gear actually the president has hag emulated the policy pursued by andrew W mellon iel lon during the fat years the coolidge years in those years mellon consistently fooled con congress ress about what the revenues were going to be in this way he held down appropriations deferred tax cuts find and managed to get about ten billion dollars of the national debt paid off for this he was bitterly attacked in congress and warmly praised by business it was then he was hailed by the taxpayers tax papers as the greatest secretary of the treasury since alexander hamilton the simple truth was that mellon like many other great figures of finance in this country simply could not believe during the boom that the boom would continue so long and go so far he made a natural mistake in underestimating tax returns incidentally he was in some mighty highly regarded at the time company when he did not belleve believe that the depression would keep on getting worse but president roosevelt Is not being fooled at nil all ile he Is doing what he be Is doing deliberately ile he believes things are going to get better but he submits to congress the lowest estimates on revenues ile he does not want congress to go haywire on appropriations also he wants to make it possible to say two years or three years her hence ice that things are much better than the government itself expected brek back in january 1034 radicals disconcerted some of the radical fringe who have been becoming more and more enthusiastic about president roosevelt and his policies are a little disconcerted over his plan for really balancing the budget by year after next also by his promise to curtail first public works then federally aided works and encourage the return to private initiative e of most of the bu business sl of the country meanwhile the conservatives are alarmed at the steadfastness with which the president persists in his plan to control all industry Indu scry to prevent useless duplication of plant accumulations of stagnant capital and eliminate cutthroat cut throat competition the fact seems to ro be that the president Is neither a rugged individualist nor a communist and so no both sides aldei are inclined to shoot as soon as they dare the immediate complaint of the radicals lies 1163 in the budget figures for next year together with wath the promise that there will be no extraordinary budget for the year beginning july 1 1035 how about housing getting rid of the slums in tha big cities one of the extreme forward lookers asked the president the day lie he outlined his budget message to the press T the e president indicated that there was waa no provision for housing in the future and AM then discussed tile the physical acal in ID tin the way at some length Iiii efly the situation la Is that no one has suggested an intelligent program or one which appeals to mr Roosevel ts ideas as to how the thing could be dono done without considerable hardship for example it if people are living tu in the slums of new york chicago or of boston in rooms the average cost of which Is 5 and they are not able to pay more what Is the use of constructing buildings which will cost them an average of 10 to 12 a room or it buildings satisfactory in other wa ways ys can be constructed in the suburbs of now new york say at the extreme end of queens county at a cost permitting 5 a room rent how are the people who are moved there from the slums to be transported back and forth from work in the case of the queens illustration tile the president cited the fact that such a wholesale migration might necessitate a new subway would end big fortunes the truth Is that the president Is rather fed up with many of the social betterment schemes that have been suggested lie ile la Is still pretty radical from the conservative standpoint iia he still stands firmly for malting making permanent the condit conditions lohs for far the protection of libor labor and the control of business lie still plans taxation which on top of control of profits and business practices wages and hours would make the piling up of new fortunes much rarer than to in the past but lie he does not seo see eye to eyo eye with the radicals who would uso use the social betterment idea as a vehicle for rushing the country to complete government ownership the radical answer to the presidents dent s view about people in the slums not being able to pay more than 5 a month for their rooms Is that their employers should be forced to pay them wages which would make it possible for them to hire better living quarters they can see no answer to it it and the fact Is that the presidents attitude about this ta Is the first indication he has shown since inauguration day that he be did not go rill all the tha way down that particular street for obviously if the principles are considered that it Is necessary tor for every worker to have more money to spend so that their spending may aid in bringing pru prosperity it la Is possible to make a fair argument on tho radical side for eliminating the slums buy silver bullion another move for silver will be made in the next few days ra in addition to buying newly mined silver at a price amounting to 62 cents to the seller amounting to 2 cents an ounce the government la IA about to buy silver bullion in the opeti open market the object Is twofold one la Is political li il it Is another move to have the ten silver producing states with their twenty senators in high good humor with the administration th tha other fits in with the roosevelt cul currency program the fact that the pittman agreement in london approved the idea of having silver constitute 5 per cent of the hard money behind paper currency fits into both objectives incidentally while it has nothing to do with silver another part of the currency program Is to reduce the bard money coverage for paper from 40 to 25 per cent the present gold holdings of the tha government and reserve banks are about four billions four billions incidentally ci in pre roosevelt value eight billions if you count dollars as aa of half their former gold content which means that it would be on n the 50 cent dollar basis sufficient on which to build a twenty bellion dollar baber pyramid at the new idea of 25 per cent coverage instead of 40 the paper dollar pyramid could bo be thirty two billions this opens the way for some four hundred millions of silver purchases under the 5 per cent agreement always hearing bearing in mind that the government will retain as bullion half the newly mined silver it buys under the plan already announced expect rise in price there Is so much silver in the world that even the most optimistic silver men are not sure what the tha net result will be on the price but itla itis pointed out that many other countries agreed at london to do the same thing and hence there As Is a possibility that the price may be advanced materially one of the thin things s the treasury way may do 10 with all this silver it will buy some twelve million ounces under the plan already announced every year and ji a great deal more under the plan not yet announced Is to trade 66 silver to the federal reserve banks for their gold for there Is not the slightest doubt in president Roosevel ts mind as aa to I 1 what lie he will do about those thos egold gold holdings when the time for devaluation of the dollar arrives he believes the government ern ment and not the federal reserve banks should have every cent of the profit although senator glass glasa and some other authorities hold that the profit on the gold now held by the tha reserve banks should accrue ta to the banks the president Is set otherwise the administration holds that in calling in the gold from individual holders the reserve banks were merely the agents of the government As to the tha gold held by the reserve banks prior to the gold embargo the administration holds that the government Is entitled to the profit on that chat also since the value Is created not by any net act of the te banks but by government action IT 4 T |