Senators & Silver

Small but potent is the silver bloc of the Senate. Last week President Roosevelt had its most rampant members to the White House in an effort to persuade them to lay aside a piece of legislation which has become the heart and soul of a new crusade by Congressional inflationists.

As passed by the House the Dies bill authorized the Government to accept silver from foreign nations above the world market price in payment for U. S. agricultural surpluses. When the Senate Agriculture Committee got through with the bill, surpluses became a secondary consideration. As amended, the bill directed the Government to buy all the silver in the U. S. and 50,000,000 oz. every month until the 1926 general price level was reached. Such a measure would wreck the President's monetary plans. Furthermore it would bring about a first-rate quarrel between him and his outgoing Congress. Both things he wanted to avoid.

He sat down one noon with Senators King of Utah, Borah of Idaho, Pittman and McCarran of Nevada, Adams of Colorado, Shipstead of Minnesota, Thomas of Oklahoma. Absent was Silverite Wheeler of Montana who did not believe there was any use in more talk. The President was buttressed by non-silver advisers: Governor Black of the Federal Reserve, Secretary Morgenthau and Counselor Oliphant of the Treasury, Senator Harrison, Senate Finance Chairman.

For an hour and twenty minutes the President talked. ("We discussed silver," said Senator Harrison, "from the time of the finding of the first nugget.") He tried to induce them to modify their proposal, told them that he could not accept it as it stood.

His effort was not wholly successful. Senator McCarran remarked afterwards: "We got very little consolation out of the meeting." The silverites went off to put their heads together, to decide whether they should try to buck the White House or bow to its will. Two days later 15 members of the silver bloc met again. Of the nine who remained at the end of a two-hour conference, seven were reported to have plumped for passage of the Dies bill with no modification.

P:All but as important as the President's silver conference was his meeting with newspaper editors in Washington for their annual convention. Always astute in his press relations, the President saw some 50 leading editors whose attitude toward the Administration will make.a big difference in public opinion during the next year. He talked to them for nearly two hours, speaking of the New Deal in candid terms, admitting failures he could never make public. In confidence his guests heard such significant things as that which he also intimated to newshawks last week: that he is not eager for new monetary experiments since dollar devaluation measures did not raise prices as much as their sponsors had promised.

P:Into the White House trooped 319 members of the Harvard Class of '04 with their families, shook hands and exchanged anecdotes with their old classmate Frank Roosevelt. Afterwards they adjourned to the south lawn of the White House for punch and cake with Mrs. Roosevelt.

P:Amid pomp and circumstance. President Stenio Vincent of Haiti was greeted by President Roosevelt on the White House portico. There followed a formal luncheon attended by the Cabinet. Afterwards the two Presidents talked most of the afternoon. President Vincent bustled back to Manhattan with most of the things he wanted (see p. 18).

P:The President got into his car with Mrs. Roosevelt, drove around to the Corcoran Art Gallery, spent an hour inspecting at a private advance showing an exhibit of paintings made by unemployed artists on the CWA payroll (see p. 53).

P:President Roosevelt signed the Bankhead bill which imposes heavy taxes on cotton which a farmer sells in excess of his quota allotted by the AAA. In a statement, issued at the same time, the President made it plain that he did not sponsor the bill, had merely approved it: "I am advised that the overwhelming majority of the South's cotton producers desire the enactment of [this] legislation."

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