| Show SEEN and HEARD around tho C i Natio national nad cap capital aa CARTER fielda sa i washington president preside nt roo went the limit in framing the budget message to congress the one that startled the country with its ita revelation of a seven billion dollar deficit for this year and an incie increase ase of the national debato more than ilian t thirty hirty one billions to make tile the present situation look na as bd badas dils possible lie wants wante the contrast to be all tile the more striking when things improve in filet fact the same message pointed to a deficit for the year beginning july 1 of five fire billion dollars less than the deficit this year to getting back on an even keel in the fiscal year following and to paying pacing oft off some of the debt beginning the year after that in computing the figures the president examined every estimate for expenditure 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 he examined the various estimates for rev denue he took the low one every time this Is not just supposition nor la Is it the word of some off official lelal who gathered the impression that the president did that lie ile himself told a group of sixty newspaper reporters about it but he said it tit at a time when the reporters would be up to their ears trying to pet get the details of the budget itse itself if sarr straight tight so there was little or no reference in the newspapers to this important bit of window dressing down in his heart the president does i not really expect the picture to be ba anything like so black as he painted it to congress ile he jocularly referred to the fact that he did not want to he be accused of doing what the treasury had done in a previous administration lie he alluded of course to the la last at 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 far in the red follows mellon policy TI the e truth was that first mellon and th then en lills mills and hoover most of all constantly expected business to pick up they thoughts thought as hoover said that prosperity was just around the corner 11 if business had picked up as they expected then taxes would have hounded bounded up also not only income taxes but corporation and other taxes even postal revenues would have contributed tri trl buted a little and their estimates would not have been so tar far out of gear actually the president has emulated the policy pursued by andrew vv ion during the fat years the coolidge ye years ars in those years mellon consistently fooled congress about what the revenues were nere going to be in this way he held down appropriations do de berred tax cuts and managed to get about ten billion dolla dollars rs of the nation at al debt paid oft off for tills this he was bitterly attacked in congress and warmly praised by business busine ss it was then he was hailed by the taxpayers tax papers as the greatest secretary of the treasury since alexan der hamilton the simple truth was 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 1 in n under underestimating estl mating tax returns incidentally n be was in some mighty highly regarded at the time company when he did not believe that the depression would keep on getting worse but president roosevelt ts Is not being fooled at all ail ile he Is doing what lie he Is doing deliberately he believes things are going to get better but lie he submits to congress the lowest estimates on revenues lie he does docs not want congress to go haywire on appropriations also he wants to matte make it possible to say two years or three years hence that things are much better than the government itself expected back in january 1934 R radicals disconcerted sorn some e of the radical fringe who have been becoming more and more enthuse 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 ills his promise to curtail first public works then federally aided works and encourage the return to private initiative of most of the bustness business of the country meanwhile the conservatives are alarmed at the steadfastness with which the president persists in his plan to control all industry to prevent useless duplication of plant accumulations of stagnant capital and eliminate cutthroat cut throat competition the fact seems to be that the pres prea ident Is neither a rugged individualist nor a communist and so both sides are inclined to shoot as soon as they dare the immediate complaint of the rai rad teals lies in the budget figures for next nest year together with 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 the big cf cities fles one of the extreme forward lookers asked the president the day he outlined his bis budget message to the press the president indicated that there was no p provision ro viston for housing in the future ala then discuss discussed ed the physical in thi the way at some length the situation is that no one has baa suggested an intelligent program or one which appeals to mr air Roosevel ts ideas as to how the thing could be done without considerable hardship for example it if people are living in the slums of new york chicago or boston in rooms the average coltof cost of which Is 5 and they are not able to pay more what Is the use of construct ing buildings which will cost them an average of 10 to 12 a room or it if buildings satisfactory in other ways can be constructed in the suburbs of 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 the president cited the fact that such a wholesale migration might necessitate a new subway would end big fortunes Fortune 3 the truth Is that the president la Is rather fed up with many of the social betterment schemes that have been suggested lie ile Is still pretty radical from the conservative standpoint lie ile still stands firmly for making permanent the conditions for the protection of labor and the control of business ile he still plans taxation which on top of control of profits and business practices wages and hours would make tile the piling up of new fortunes much rarer than in the past kut but he does not see eye to eye with the rad radicals leals who would use the social betterment idea as a vehicle for rushing the country to complete government ownership the radle radical at answer to the presidents view about people in the slums not 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 pos elble for them to hire hotter better living quarters they can see no answer to it it and the fact Is that the presidents attitude about this Is the first indication he has shown since inauguration ration day that he did not go all the way down that particular street for obviously if the principles are considered that it la Is necessary for every worker to have more money to spend so that their spending may aid in bringing prosperity it Is possible to make a fair argument on tho the radical side for eliminating the slums slum buy silver bullion another move tor for silver will be b made in the next few days in addition to buying newly mined silver at a price amounting to ga cents to tho the seller amounting to 2 cents an ounce the government JA 13 about to buy sliver silver bullion in the open market the object Is twofold one Is political li it Is another move to have the ten silver producing states with their twenty senators in high good humor with the administration the other fits in with the roosevelt currency pr 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 hard money coverage for paper from 40 to 25 per cent the present gold holdings of the government and reserve banks are about four billions four billions incidentally ci in pre roosevelt value E ight billions it if you count dollars as aa of half their former gold content which means that it would be on the no 50 cent dollar basis sufficient on which to build a twenty billion dollar paper pyramid at the new idea of 25 per cent coverage instead of 40 the paper dollar pyramid could be thirty two billions this opens the way for some iome four hundred millions of silver purchases under the pittman 5 per cent agreement always bearing in mind that the government will retain as bullion halt the newly mined silver it buys under un der the plan already announced expect rise in in price there Is so much silver to in the world that even the most optimistic silver men are not sure what the net result resul t will be on tho the price but it la Is pointed point ed out that many other countries agreed d at london to do the same thing and hence there Is a possibility that the price may be advanced materially one of the things the treasury may do with all tills this silver it will buy some twelve million ounces under the plan already announced every year and a great deal more under the plan not alt announced la Is to trade the silver to the federal reserve banks for their gold for there Is not the slightest doubt in president Roosevel ts mind as to what lie he will do about those gold holdings when the time tor for devaluation ol of the dollar arrives he believes the government ern ment and not the federal reserve reserva banks should have every cent of the profit although senator glass and some other authorities hold bold that the profit on the gold now held by the reserve banks should accrue to the hanks banks the president Is set otherwise the administration holds that in calling in the gold from individual holders the reserve banks were merely tho the agents of the government gove ram nt As to the gold hold held by the reserve blinks banks prior 0 o the gold embargo the administration holds that the government Is entitled to the profit on that also since the value Is created not by any act of the banks but by government action va serpico X i |
