Roosevelt Week

The President said nothing publicly but what he had on his mind was no secret: money. It was known that he had on his desk an opinion from Attorney General Cummings on the Treasury's right to take over the Federal Reserve System's gold holdings. It was known that Mr. Cum mings, Secretary Morgenthau (with his outgoing adviser, Earle Bailie), Governor Eugene Black of the Federal Reserve, Rene Leon, big silver propagandist, all had been in session at the White House. At his regular meeting with correspondents the President dropped two hints of his intentions: 1) that he was sure of his legal right to capture the Federal Reserve's gold, 2) that rumors of his intending to establish a new Government-controlled central bank were a bad guess. Then he smiled cryptically. The country was still left guessing. In the Senate, Inflation's Thomas called a meeting of his friends and supporters--Father Coughlin, Robert Harriss (cotton broker), George LeBlanc (ex-banker). James H. Rand Jr. (Committee for the Nation)--to ballyhoo their demands. In the House, Representative Andrew Somers announced that the Coinage, Weights & Measures Committee would hear the opinions of all the most vociferous money theorists--hard, soft, and elastic--Dr. O. M. W. Sprague, Frank Vanderlip. Father Coughlin, Professor Irving Fisher, Banker James P. Warburg, etc. etc. Before their voices could distract the country, the President acted. He sum moned all the members of the Senate and House Banking and Currency Committees ta a White House monetary soiree. He told them exactly what steps he wished to take next and why. The following noon he sent a message to Congress making the outline of his plans clear to every John Citizen in the U. S. (see p. 12). P:The President's two other messages of the week to Congress asked: 1) authorization of $2,000,000,000 worth of Farm Credit Administration bonds, principal as well as interest Government-guaranteed, for FCA to exchange for farm mortgages; 2) ratification of the St. Lawrence Treaty with Canada (see p. 15). P:First measure to reach the President's desk from this session of Congress was the liquor tax bill. He signed it with a nourish, was gratified when the Treasury reported that the increased rates had netted the Government $645,000 the first day. P:From the bale he keeps for just such purposes, the President sent two handkerchiefs, embroidered HAPPY DAYS, to Franklin Delano Gallello and Roosevelt Gallello, New Rochelle, N. Y. twins born on election night 1932.

P:Harry Bartow Hawes of Missouri, who has busied himself as a game reservation lobbyist since he left the Senate, told a

Boston audience that once President Roosevelt was knocked down by a falling goose he had shot. P:A Roosevelt idea-of-the-week (appro priated from the I. C. C. annual report): railroads and public utilities should make greater efforts to pay off their bonded in debtedness instead of refunding old debts (bonds) with new. In future, railroads and utilities should raise capital by selling stock, not bonds, and hence be less embarrassed by huge interest charges in bad Limes. All this was taken to mean that the President might favor higher rates--at least for the railroads which may soon be called upon to increase wrages. P:Emma Goldman, good anarchist, has always been against all governments. Henry Ford, good capitalist, has always disapproved of meddlesome governments. Last week U. S. newspaper readers rubbed their eyes to read that on a single day Emma Goldman came out for President Roosevelt and Henry Ford came out for the NRA. Jailed during the war for urging young men not to enlist, once sworn at as a "damn bitch of an anarchist.''* Emma Goldman was deported to Russia during Attorney General Mitchell Palmer's anti-Red drive of 1919. She spent years wandering across Europe. Few months ago, faded and old (64) but still defiant, she went to Toronto on a British passport, applied for permission to re-enter the U. S. for 90 days. She wanted to visit friends in Rochester where 45 years ago she was a seamstress in a clothing factory. While the State Department was considering her case, she said last week: "It is not in the brain work of capitalists to make much improvement for the masses, but the United States has done a great many things to surprise the world. . . . Frank- lin Roosevelt is the first President to recognize that the masses have a right on the table of life, and he's only just begun." Few hours later the State Department authorized its Toronto Consul General to visa her passport into the U. S.

*As she proudly relates in her book Living My Life (TIME, Nov. 9, 1931).

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