Roosevelt Remedies

Carrying his presidential drive outside his own State for the first time since the Chicago Convention, Governor Roosevelt last week journeyed to Columbus, Ohio, addressed 30,000 jubilant Democrats in the Municipal Stadium. His was a dashing, slashing speech, full of sting for the G. O. P. "The major issue in this campaign is the economic situation." he began and thereupon proceeded to flay President Hoover for his public behavior during the Depression. The Republican Party was blamed for "encouraging a vast speculative boom." Its 1928 promises of prosperity were skillfully bracketed with the actualities. Empty White House prophecies on recovery were cited. The G. O. P. assertion that the business collapse was world-wide was derided. Summing up, Nominee Roosevelt declared the Hoover Administration "encouraged speculation and overproduction . . . attempted to minimize the crash . . . forgot reform." Picking phrases out of the Hoover acceptance speech, Governor Roosevelt continued: "Now I believe in the intrepid soul of the American people; but I believe also in its horse-sense. ... I, too, believe in individualism . . . but I don't believe that in the names of that sacred word a few powerful interests should be permitted to make industrial cannon-fodder of the lives of half the population of the United States. I believe in the sacredness of private property, which means that I do not believe it should be subjected to the ruthless manipulation of professional gamblers in the stock-markets. . . . "I propose an orderly, explicit and practical group of fundamental remedies. These will protect not the few but the great mass of average American men and women who, I am not ashamed to repeat, have been forgotten by those in power." The Roosevelt remedies: 1) "Every effort to prevent the issue of manufactured and unnecessary securities brought out merely to enrich those who handle their sale. . . . Definite and accurate statements in respect to bonuses and commissions, investment of principal, true earnings, true liabilities, true assets." 2) "Federal power applied to the regulation of holding companies that sell securities in interstate commerce." 3) "Federal authority in the regulation of exchanges in the business of buying and selling securities and commodities." 4) "Vastly more rigid supervision of national banks." 5) Prevention of "the unrestrained use of bank deposits in speculation to the detriment of local credit." 6) "Separation of investment banking and commercial banking." 7) "Restriction of the Federal Reserve banks [from] many speculative enterprises." 8) "No longer possible for international bankers or others to sell to the investing public of America-foreign securities on the implied understanding that these securities have been passed on or approved by the State Department."-- 9) "High public officials in the next administration will neither by word nor deed seek to influence the prices of stocks or bonds." While Republicans cried "Demagog!" and "childish" after the Columbus speech, many a Democrat, encouraged by the nominee's flash and fire, began to feel that here was, after all, another Roosevelt for national leader.

*The State Department promptly denied that it ever approved "a single foreign loan." This denial was a weasel. As financial censor, the State Department informed sponsors of foreign securities that it found "no objection'' to the sale of their wares.

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