National Affairs: First Rally

Flushed with the importance of the occasion, Oklahoma’s Elmer Thomas, arch-inflationist of Congress, uprose in the Senate last week to open debate on the White House currency bill. He was a proud and happy man. President Roosevelt was behind him. His measure, offered as an amendment to the farm relief bill, was sure to win. With his goal in sight, Senator Thomas cleared his throat and orated:

“Save only the World War, there has been no such momentous thing before the world in 6,000 years. This amendment may transfer from one class to another almost $200,000,000,000. It will be transferred from those who have bank deposits and those who hold bonds. They did not earn that $200,000,000,000 and it must be transferred back to the debtor class.”

But Senator Thomas was not to get his inflation bill through without any opposition at all. Few days before, Ogden Livingston Mills had sped back to Washington from California and the company of the man who had made him Secretary of the Treasury. At his command the Republican Old Guard in Congress closed their ragged ranks and prepared to give battle for the first time since March 4.

Mr. Mills had written the gold standard plank in the last Republican platform and now he was determined to see that the remnants of his party stood firmly on it. Into conference he went with Representatives Snell of New York and Luce of Massachusetts, Senators Reed of Pennsylvania and Walcott of Connecticut. Here & now, he told them, they must stand and fight for the traditional “hard money” principles of the Republican party. When they issued a manifesto, Mr. Mills declared he approved “every word of it.” Excerpts:

“Inflation once started feeds upon itself and soon gets completely out of control. . . . This bill may well constitute the first step on the road to ruin. … It is unthinkable that there should be vested in any individual the arbitrary power to alter at will the value of money. . . . Prices may rise, but they will rise as a result of fear not of confidence, and no permanent prosperity can be erected on any such base.”

As the Senate’s No. 1 anti-inflationist, Senator Reed retorted hotly to the Thomas argument:

“President Roosevelt’s program reminds me of nothing so much as a child playing with dynamite. He is trying to make prices go up. He may succeed. The trouble is that in doing so he may destroy the country and himself as well. . . . How would the farmer benefit if wheat sold for $10 per bu. if the $10 wouldn’t buy a pair of overalls or a gallon of gasoline?”

When Senator Reed began to talk about the results of Germany’s inflation, Michigan’s Senator Vandenberg dramatically presented him with a 100,000,000,000-mark note which he explained was now worth 2½¢. To shame gold-greedy Republicans, Louisiana’s Long dipped into Roman history and plucked out as a horrible example Triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus (115—53 B. C.). According to Senator Long, opulent Crassus, after bleeding the citizenry of Rome of all its gold, was put to death by having the molten metal poured down his throat.*

Democrats in the House tried to twit Republican Leader Snell about bank failures under Secretary Mills. That sturdy G. O. Partisan retorted: “Perhaps under the Republican Administration some banks were closed but we were never successful in closing all of them at the same time.”

The attempted remobilization of the Old Guard was formalized by the announcement of an organization to be known as “Republican Federal Associates,” to be directed by officers whose loyalty to the Hoover Administration was “outspoken.” Leaders: Mr. Mills and former Postmaster General Brown.

* An error spotted by the New York Times. Crassus was killed in battle in Mesopotamia. His head was chopped from his body and delivered to King Orodes of Parthia who had molten gold poured down his dead throat.