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Show Babson Calls Printing Press Money The Cause Of Inflation ROGER W. BABSON. student of finance and government activities, acti-vities, writes a weekly column for hundreds of newspapers. He tries to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. In his most recent article he charges that "Roosevelt and his brain trusters were responsible for present high prices, although intentions were probably the best. "They did this by methods," he says, "(1) by evaluating the dollars through increasing the price of gold; (2) by reducing the supply of goods through killing kill-ing little pigs, plowing up cotton and paying farmers not to work; (3) by increasing purchasing power through encouraging labor la-bor unions to raise wages; (4) by reducing unemployment through putting millions on public payrolls pay-rolls and relief; (5) by printing billions of bonds and bank notes" instead of financing the war in a business way . "Prices could now be reduced just as easily by reversing all these processes, namely :(1) by reducing the price of gold; (2) by ceasing to guarantee farm prices and letting them fall to natural levels; (3) by discouraging- labor monopolies and making labor subject to anti-trust laws; (4) by reducing public payrolls, thus forcing government employees and those on 'relief to go to work producing something useful; use-ful; and (5) by ceasing to peg the governments bond 'market and thereby reducing the money in circulation." Mr. Babson's suggestion that the price of gold be reduced to bring down prices would not be a proper step. There is too much printing press money in circulation. circu-lation. The gold coverage behind this paper should be increased from the present 25 per cent to the previous figure of 40 per cent. Such a move would prevent pre-vent over-issuance of more paper money and bring a return to normalcy. There should be an open market price for gold and this would soon establish a fair fixed price. The more printing press money in circulation, the cheaper the value of the paper bills and the higher value of gold as measured by them. |