Glass's Stand

Washington gossips last week had Secretary of the Treasury Woodin out of the Cabinet. He had, they whispered, broken with President Roosevelt over the latter's currency inflation program pending in Congress. Was he not a "hard money'' man from New York? Had he not been absent from his office for days? How could he do less than resign?

When these stories reached Secretary Woodin as he lay ill with quinsy in his Carlton Hotel apartment, he summoned newshawks to his bedside. They found him propped up on pillows with a bathrobe across his shoulders. In a cracked but insistent voice he declared:

"Reports that I am about to resign have been industriously promoted during my illness. I wish you would deny them as emphatically as you can. ... I feel that my work in the Treasury is just beginning. I am supremely happy. ... It seems to me most unsportsmanlike that any one should take advantage of my illness to circulate such falsehoods. . . . All of these rumors, including the comment that my seat in the Treasury would be 'so hot that I would need a pair of asbestos pants' can be relegated to the realm of dreams. I am with the Chief until the end and he is going to lead us out of this situation."

But though his Secretary of the Treasury stuck by him on the inflation issue, President Roosevelt last week did lose the support of his Party's elder statesman on government finance and his first choice for Secretary of the Treasury. Virginia's Senator Carter Glass. He it was who wrote the 1932 platform plank pledging the Democracy to a "sound currency at all hazards." During the campaign he arose from a sick-bed to deliver a deadly attack upon Herbert Hoover's fiscal program which won him 5,000 messages of congratulation. He turned down the Treasury portfolio because he thought he could be of more service to the new President in the Senate. If he had accepted that post March 4, he would certainly have resigned it last week, so far apart had he and the President been wedged by the money issue.

A serious hush fell over a full Senate chamber as Senator Glass rose to his feet and, against doctor's orders, delivered the only notable speech of the inflation debate. His physical strength was at low ebb. Tears stood in his soft brown eyes. But his words, bitten off out of the corner of his mouth, were edged with their old-time vehemence. . . . After 20 minutes he slumped back into his chair, weak and exhausted. About him crowded inflationists and anti-inflationists, to wring his small hand, praise his courage.

As legislative sire of the Federal Reserve System Senator Glass objected first to what he called having that independent credit establishment "degraded into a servile agency of the Treasury Department and used as a doormat." The least objectionable feature of the bill, he found, was the authority for the President to issue $3,000,000,000 in unsecured currency. But it was the proposal to permit the President to devalue the gold dollar that aroused Senator Glass to an eloquent pitch: "With 40% of the entire gold supply of the world, why are we going off the gold standard? Foreign governments could withdraw less than $700,000,000 of our gold, which would leave us an ample fund. . . . The suggestion that we may devalue the gold dollar 50% means national repudiation. It means dishonor! It is im- moral! . . . There never was a necessity for a gold embargo, for making statutory criminals of citizens who may please to take their property in gold out of banks. . . . "If there were need to go off the gold standard, very well, I would say let us go off. But there has been no need. If there were need for currency expansion, I would say let us expand. . . . My colleagues talk about serving the public. What public? The men who work for a wage, the clerks, the stenographers, the professional men will be the people to suffer under this unbridled expansion. That is what it is because the rein is so loose that the steed will never stop until he goes over the precipice, killing his rider. "I find I must desist. It is painful to disagree with the occupant of the White House whom I love and respect. But I am one Democrat who is going to vote against this inflation amendment. I may have regret but shall never make apologies for acting upon my own convictions and conscience." But no speech by Senator Glass or anyone else could stop the onward sweep of the President's inflation measure through the Senate. When Senator Arthur Robinson, Indiana Republican, tried to tag on a provision for paying off the Bonus with "greenback" currency, Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson, Arkansas Democrat, thundered. "I am authorized to say for the President that he is unqualifiedly against this amendment. . . . The currency inflation provisions of this bill are intended for the express purpose of enabling the Treasury to make provision for maturing Federal obligations." The Roosevelt steamroller flattened the Bonus.* As an amendment to the farm relief bill, Inflation was adopted by the thwacking vote 64-to-21. Only two other Democrats -- North Carolina's Bailey and Ohio's Bulkley--joined Senator Glass in opposition. Almost forgotten in the excitement over Inflation was the farm bill which after three weeks' debate the Senate also passed 64-to-20. The House had already approved separately a farm price bill and a farm mortgage bill which were lumped together in the Senate measure. It still had to act on the currency amendment. Such action was expected promptly and without change as a result of a conference between the two houses. The sheer physical bulk of the farm bill with amendments was more than matched by the dictatorial powers it gave the President over Agriculture and Finance. He could fix and collect a processing tax on wheat, cotton, corn, hogs, dairy products, tobacco, rice, sugar beets and cane with which to pay producers of these commodities to reduce their output. He could rent an unlimited amount of farm land to take it out of production. He could let cotton growers speculate on a rising market by giving them free options on government cotton in return for reduced acreage. He could issue $2,000,000,000 worth of Federal Land Bank bonds to refinance farm mortgages at 4 1/2%. He could compel the Federal Reserve to absorb $3,000,000,000 worth of U. S. securities. He could issue $3,000,000,000 worth of paper money, backed only by the good name of the U. S. He could cut the gold content of the dollar to 50-c-. He could order the free coinage of an unlimited amount of silver at a gold ratio of 16-to-1 or any other ratio he chose. He could cut War Debts about 30% this year by accepting payments up to $200,000,000 in silver worth 50-c- an ounce. He could do all these things but his spokesmen assured the country that he would not do them unless absolute emergency required it.

* Last week another bonus march on Washington was threatened for mid-May. One Harold Foulkrod, agent for the "Bonus Expeditionary Force Rank & File," issued a call for 50,000 veterans. Foulkrod was repudiated by the leaders of last year's B. E. F. Last week he was ejected from the Senate gallery for applauding Indiana's Robinson.

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