Roosevelt Week

"I seek an end to the threatened loss of homes and productive capacity now faced by hundreds of thousands of American farm families," President Roosevelt told Congress last week when he sent to the Capitol for speedy enactment his bill for refinancing agricultural mortgages. His land-leasing -domestic - allotment-cotton pool measure now in the Senate's hands is designed to raise commodity prices and thus put cash into the farm industry from the bottom by direct subsidies (see p. 18). His mortgage bill is meant to ease the debt load pressing down on the farm from the top. The two pieces of legislation complemented each other in purpose, would probably be fused into one by Congress.

President Roosevelt was aiming at "a more equitable adjustment of the principal of the [farm] debt and a reduction of interest rates which in many instances are so unconscionably high as to be contrary to a sound public policy . . . to restore to [farmers] the hope of ultimate free ownership of their own land."* To accomplish this the Federal Land Banks, under Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s Farm Credit Administration, were to issue $2,000,000,000 worth of 4% bonds, the Government guaranteeing the interest. The Land Banks were to swap these bonds for mortgages--a transaction involving little or no cash exchange. In the swapping, the principal of frozen mortgages was to be scaled down. This the mortgage holders--banks, insurance companies--would not mind in view of their improved security. Farmers would pay the Land Banks 4 1/2% on their new mortgages and be free from foreclosure for at least two years. P: By another of his quick, bold pen-squiggles, President Roosevelt last week created a brand-new military pension system for the U. S. and saved the Treasury more than $400,000,000. By authority of the Economy Act, he issued a set of twelve long regulations, prepared by Budget Director Douglas over the loud objections of the veterans' lobby and affecting some 1,400,000 pensioners after July 1. To be weeded out of the pension garden are about 406,000 veterans drawing pay for disabilities in no way connected with the War. Only those permanently and totally disabled in civil life stay on the rolls, and they get $20 per month instead of $40. Veterans with service-connected disabilities take a 20% cut. The blind soldier with a leg blown off in action now drawing $275 per month must get along on $250.

Pensions of widows of veterans who died in service remain the same. Spanish War veterans go on the same pay basis as World War veterans, except that those over 62 get $6 per month regardless of their physical condition. Pensioners get docked 50% for living outside the U. S. or its possessions.

Explained President Roosevelt of this long step towards balancing the Budget: "I do not want any veteran to feel that he and his comrades are being singled out to make sacrifices. . . . The regulations issued are but an integral part of our economy program. . . . I ask [veterans] to appreciate that not only does their welfare but also the welfare of every American citizen depend upon the maintenance of the credit of their Government and that every citizen in every walk of life is being called upon to share in this." P: Three days prior President Roosevelt issued orders clipping 15% from the pay of every Federal employe, civil and military. Excuse: Living costs have dropped 21.7% since 1928. Estimated savings: $125,000,000.

P: By Presidential appointment Harry Hines Woodring, onetime Governor of Kansas, became Assistant Secretary of War. President Roosevelt also picked Sumner Wells of Maryland to be an Assistant Secretary of State, Daniel William MacCormack, Scotch-born New York banker, to be Commissioner General of Immigration, Alfred Vernon Dalrymple, California lawyer, to be Director of Prohibition in the Department of Justice and Claude G. Bowers of New York to be Ambassador to Spain. He considered making Ruth Bryan Owen, daughter of William Jennings Bryan, the first woman to represent the U. S. in an important diplomatic office, as Minister to Denmark.

*Farm mortgage interest averages from 8% up.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.