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Show e National Topics Interpreted 1. . le, by William Bruckart Mp ideational Premi Building Washington, D. C. iMWL in , Washington. It begins to appear ' hat the Roosevelt administration 13 has returned from jl'ome Affairs its excursion Into m to the Fore forei-'n Piirt9 a,1(1 Is now ready to ngajre In rehabilitation of domes-Ic domes-Ic affairs to the exclusion of international inter-national problems, except the matter : 'f reciprocal treaties. It is true that "lecretary Hull of the Department " f State, Secretary Roper of the department of Commerce, and Sena- Dr Borah, In the senate, have "''liked about foreign affairs in one :d 'ay or another, but none of them ccasloned any observation or sug-t sug-t estlons from the White House by jielr assertions. d Among the occurrences In the re-najnt re-najnt period that tend to show how fo:ie administration again Is putting vcome affairs to the forefront are ) cie new banking bill, the plans for ff scovery revival under the five bll-eton bll-eton dollar public works bill, and le determination of house and sen-it sen-it ;e lately, under a White House ( fnir, to clip the wings of, if not pi holly eradicate, the so-called hold- ofg companies. Attention might be tirdled also to the uprising In the i. apartment of Agriculture where ra icretary Wallace, and Agricultural tU IJustment Administrator Chester A,,ivis combined a few days ago to la minate left-wing members of their j jpective staffs. They did It sum-eririly, sum-eririly, but the end Is not yet, either n() respects plans of Messrs. Wallace ut fl Davis, or the yelps that may be pected from the radicals who re ousted. 0 hie general Information Is that, anM shelving foreign matters, Mr. "()0sevelt has determined to lay ' . de the St. Lawrence waterway )S1 Woversy until "pressing domestic v' '.tters" are disposed of. Almost In as same breath It can be said that v activity has been disclosed on y' s part of the New Dealers to a ead their doctrine Into the states i establish, if possible, uniform 7S everywhere concerning prlvate-'s prlvate-'s ''owned utilities such as electricity sP'i gas. While no one will say so, lt s the understanding that consld-rt- ble pressure is being placed be-fro,rd be-fro,rd the effort to get state leglsla-mRnes leglsla-mRnes to pass uniform public utlli-l(J. utlli-l(J. "i bills, measures which have been habifted In the Public Works admln-'d admln-'d litlon here. ?lent robably as Important as any leg- j tlon that has gone to congress g j in recent months w Banking ls the new bank. jg v Bill lng bill. It was el tli'-' transmitted to con- . p,ss In a most unspectacular man-;iy man-;iy j'. Tliere was no out-and-out en-semnnt en-semnnt by the White nouse, nor s the sponsoring of the draft vde clear. The legislation was pped Into the house hopper the ' j after Representative Steagall, pi Ii man of the house committee on leaking and currency, had given j his own summarization. Chair-y, Chair-y, i Fletcher of the senate commit-' commit-' on banking and currency re-,'ed re-,'ed the bill the same day as Mr. igall and Immediately went Into A iildle with himself behind closed Prs to study the draft Later he ounccd with apparent pleasure f i It was a great piece of leg- . w that the bill has been prlnt- and Is available for public In- tlon, a perfect furore tins been ised. The conservative critics be-to be-to squawk Immediately that the sure proposes to destroy the rral Reserve system and concen-w concen-w -,e on power of credit and cur-v cur-v expansion or contraction. In hands of a small group in the 1 isury they contend that this unls to establishment of a cen-' cen-' ' hank and that, under our pollt-' pollt-' system, a central bank would n an unstable currency. What e could there be then, they ask, X lostroy confidence In the cur-y cur-y which we use? ;w Healers, In defense of this banking legislation, have been i to making wise cracks about Old Dealers, who, they assert, M4affae to see conditions of 192S and DX r0,(,1,0(1- Tllov c,te. wrn smR (leal Ion, it seems to me, that t0 (Vral banks exist In most of the order ,r 0(,"nlrles of the wor'd and aiupoi' "u'ir sprvIce has not boon a the ftMn" nt nU. Further, the New whonors ,,r' 'e that the political cap-Tllfrf cap-Tllfrf the United States Is In Wash-are Wash-are 1"'"' tlm ,ina"rl;il capital has to si ln N,nv York- w',v. they ask, nityf 'll "lore le s,u''1 a division? rely f ,ohV(,tn tUe two schools of like nre s,,""il money advocates ,,,.,,-sl cn"';1"0(,,ls conservatives who o hav t,,e Position that the bill has for m1'' s,"", nnalltles and that It chare''10 ,,ns man.v provisions dcO- don't ' t0 1)e av,1,(1(1il. r one ' Istorv. s,"nuirl7.e the hanking legls-s legls-s wet1"-""1' 1 think It is of para-' para-' tvo i. , niount Interest to vho ftral,zed every one because ;ens n-"'roZ It touches the cur-,n cur-,n m- rency and credit xectly the real end likely to aaoer (:Jrra the "?K'sI"n Is a eon-Paer eon-Paer -cd control In Washington of 'ery Wrve center of business, money. The bill proposes to establish estab-lish what Is called an open market committee in Washington and to Include In-clude as members of this committee commit-tee three members of the Federal Reserve board. The two remaining members would come from Federal Reserve banks. From this It Is seen that the Reserve board becomes be-comes the dominant body. It takes no stretch of the imagination to recognize the possibilities. Members Mem-bers of the Reserve board, while they are appointed for a term of ten years, sometimes resign or die off. It immediately becomes possible, therefore, to make the Federal Reserve Re-serve board a purely political body dominated by the President of the i United States. The function of the open market committee, as proposed in the bill, ls to order the purchase or sale of government securities In the open market. If these securities are bought, the Reserve banks Issue currency for them and they Increase the amount of money In circulation, thereby easing credit. If the banks sell bonds which they have In their portfolios, the currency paid for those bonds obviously Is taken out of circulation and that action results re-sults In a contraction or reduction of the amount of credit available. If, for example, the occupant of the White House at any time happens hap-pens to be an out-and-out inflationist, inflation-ist, It Is easy to see how government govern-ment bonds can be absorbed by the Reserve banks and new currency put in circulation In whatever volume vol-ume the administration policies require. re-quire. Another phase of the bill would allow national banks and state banks that are members of the Federal Fed-eral Reserve system to make loans on real estate for a twenty-year terra. Five years Is the present limitation. One has only to go back for an examination of causes of hundreds of bank failures in recent re-cent years to discover that the five-year five-year limitation probably increased the mortality among otherwise sound banks to a greater extent than any other factor. There Is another section of the measure which I think Is worthy of close Federal Re-Worthy Re-Worthy of serve examlna- Examination t'n. It proposes to combine the jobs of governor and agent, and that the bank policies should be executed by the governor who Is selected se-lected by the bank board of directors. direc-tors. This provided something of a dual control, a check and balance on the exercise of power. Now, however, the effort Is to be made to combine the Jobs and make the head of the bank a strictly government govern-ment representative. That course naturally Is In line with the Roosevelt program of extending ex-tending and expanding federal authority. au-thority. The President has constantly con-stantly Increased the scope of power pow-er and Influence exercised from Washington. The current offering Is accepted everywhere as bringing under federal domination completely complete-ly the bnnklng system of this nation. na-tion. It does so because none can deny that the Federal Reserve banks hold a club over the heads of private bankers wherever they may be. So I believe It Is a fair statement to say that Mr. Roosevelt, or those who are responsible to him, Is reaching out to amplify the control of credit from .Washington which was Initiated through the Reconstruction Reconstruc-tion Finance corporation, the nome Owners' Loan corporation, and other oth-er leading agencies. The Federal Reserve system was set up, according accord-ing to the debate on the measure ln congress at that time, to decentralize decentral-ize credit control and break the grip which New York exercised over the volume of credit. Now, apparently, appar-ently, It Is all coming back to Washington, In connection with the administration's adminis-tration's attention to domestic affairs af-fairs and the consequent legislative legisla-tive changes, attention might well be centered on the meaning of some of the moves. One Washington observer ob-server wrote In his newspaper the other day that the administration was renewing Its notes at the bank. What lie referred to was the extension exten-sion of life of the Reconstruction Finance corporation and the pumping pump-ing of more blood Into the veins of the Home Owners' Loan corporation. corpora-tion. Something similar has occurred with respect to the Reconstruction Finance corporation which has been given new life and about $"o0.(XXV 000 In new money by an act of congress. con-gress. Then, President Roosevelt has asked for renewal of the life of the National Recovery administration and for re-enictment of the National Nation-al Industrial Recovery act, both of which expire next June 16. As a result of these maneuvers a good many observers are of the opinion that the recovery efforts have not been as successful as their optimistic sponsors had predicted a year ago. ( , Western Newspaper Unioa. |