| Show 0 national topics interpreted by william bruckart national press building washington D C washington it begins to appear that the roosevelt administration has returned from its ex ho home in e affairs affair carslon into foreign to the fore ports and la is now ready to engage in rehabilitation of domestic affairs to the exclusion of international problems except the matter of reciprocal treaties it Is true that secretary bull of the department of state secretary roper ot the department of Coin commerce merce and senator borah la in the senate have talked about foreign affairs in one way or another but none of them occa cloned any observation or suggestions from the white house by their assertions among the occurrences in the recent period that tend to show how the administration again Is putting home affairs to the forefront are the new banking bill the plans for recovery revival under the five billion dollar public works bill and the determination of house and senate lately under a white house spur to clip the wings of if not wholly eradicate the so called holding companies attention might be called also to the uprising in the department part ment of agriculture where secretary wallace and agricultural adjustment administrator chester davis combined a few days ago to eliminate left v ieng ing members of their respective stairs staffs they did it summarily but the end Is not cot yet either as respects plans of Bless rs wallace and davis or the yelps that may be expected from the radicals who were ousted the general information Is that in shelving foreign matters sir mr roosevelt has determined to lay aside the st lawrence waterway controversy until pressing domestic matters are disposed of almost in the same breath lt it can be said that new activity hns has been disclosed on the part of the new dealers to spread their doctrine into the states and establish if possible uniform laws everyn everywhere here concerning privately owned utilities such as electricity and gas while no one will say so BO it Is the understand understanding lag that considerable pressure Is being placed behind the effort to get state legislatures to pass uniform public utilities bills measures which have been drafted in the public works administration here probably as important as any legislation that has gone to congress in re cent mo months amis Is the new banking new banking bill it bill was transmitted to congress in a most unspectacular manner there was no out and out endorsement by the white house nor was the sponsoring of the draft made clear the legislation was dropped into the house hopper the day after representative chairman of the house committee on banking and currency had given out his own summarization chairman fletcher of the senate committee on banking and currency received the bill the same day as sir air and immediately went into a huddle with himself behind closed doors to study the draft later he be announced with apparent pleasure that it was a great piece of legislation now that the bill has been printed and Is available for public inspection a perfect furore has been aroused the conservative critics began to squawk immediately that the measure proposes to destroy the federal reserve system and concentrate on power of credit and currency expansion or contraction in the hands of a small group in the treasury they contend that this amounts to establishment of a central bank and that under our political system a central bank would mean an un s table currency what more could there be then they ask to destroy confidence in the currency which we use new dealers in defense of this new banking legislation have been given to making wise cracks about the old dealers who they assert desire to see conditions of ef 1928 and 1929 1029 repeated they cite with some justification it seems to me that central banks exist in most of the major countr countries Jes of the world and that their service has not been a bad thing at all further the new dealers argue that the political ca capital pital of the united states Is in was washington hington and the financial capital has been in new york why they ask should there be such a division in between these two schools of thought are sound money advocates and courageous conservatives who take the position that the bill has many good qualities and that it likewise has many provisions definitely to be avoid ed you have heard very little expression of opinion from this type because it is apparent they are giving the measure close study they will be beard from later when the legislation Is taken up by the respective committees of the house bouse and senate and it Is made to appear that some changes surely will result 0 0 0 to summarize the banking legislation and I 1 think it Is of paramount interest to every one centralized because it touches the control currency and credit so directly the real end likely to result from the legislation Is a centralized control to in washington of the very nerve center of business money the bill proposes to establish what Is called an open market committee in washington and to include as members of this committee three members or of the federal reserve board the two remaining members would come from federal reserve Ile serve banks from this it Is seen that the reserve board becomes the dominant body it takes no stretch of the imagination to recognize the possibilities Al members embers of the reserve board while they are appointed for a term of ten years sometimes resign or dle die off it immediately becomes possible therefore to make the federal reserve board a purely political body dominated by the president of the united states the function of the open market committee as proposed in the bill Is 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 it if the banks sell bonds which they have in their portfolios the currency paid tor for those bonds obviously Is taken out of circulation and that action results in a contraction or reduction of the amount of credit available if for example the occupant of the white at any time happens to be an out and out it Is easy to see how government bonde bonda can be absorbed by the reserve bank and new currency put in circulation in whatever volume the administration policies require another phase of the bill would allow national banks and state banks that are members of the federal reserve system to make loans on rei estate for a twenty year term fill years Is the present limitation ono one has only to go back for an examination of causes of hundreds of bank failures in recent years to discover that the five year limitation probably increased the mortality among otherwise sound banks to a greater extent than any other factor in other words to grant a bank the privilege of making a loan for twenty years means that such a bank ties up an equal amount of depositors money in a place from which it cannot be suddenly recalled if the depositors po take a sudden notion to with draw substantial sums from that bank there Is another section of the measure which I 1 think Is worthy of close federal reserva Re worthy of examination it poses to combine the jobs of governor and agent and that the bank policies should be executed by the governor who Is selected by the bank board of directors 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 strict y government representative that course naturally Is in line with the roosevelt program of extending and expanding federal authority the president has constantly increased the scope of power and influence exercised from washington the current offering la Is accepted everywhere as bringing under federal domination completely the banking system of this nation 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 1 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 finance corporation the home owners loan corporation and other leading agencies the federal reserve system was set up according to the debate on the mea measure sue in congress at that time to decentralize credit control and break the grip which new york exercised over the volume of credit now apparently it Is all coming back to washington probably to be exercised by politicians Iti itic ians clans instead of men with banking tra training lulng in connection with the administrations attention to domestic affairs and the consequent legislative changes attention might well be centered on the meaning of some of the moves one washington observer wrote in his newspaper the other day that the administration was renewing its notes at the bank what he referred to was the extension of life of the reconstruction finance corporation and the pumping of more blood into the veins of the houie home owners loan corporation something similar has occurred with respect to the reconstruction finance which has been alven iven new life and about in new money by an act of congress congre sR then president roosevelt has haa asked for renewal of the life of the national recovery Ile covery administration and for reen re en of the national industrial recovery act both of which expire next june juat le 10 0 As a result of these maneuvers mauc uvera it a good many observers are of the opinion that the recovery efforts have not been us as successful as their optimistic sponsors had bad predicted a year ago renewal lle newal of these stopgap stop atop gap agencies extension of power here and there and the initiation of new experiments are given as reasons for the belief that uncertainty exists and satisfactory progress toward recovery Is still more apparent thai real 6 0 newspaper New piper unan |
