THE CONGRESS: THE CONGRESS Bank Bill

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"The step we take leads upward toward the light. . . . The people have summoned a leader whose face is lifted toward the skies. We shall follow that leadership until we again stand in the glorious sunlight of prosperity and happiness.''

Precisely 38 minutes after it had taken up H. R. 1491 the House passed it with a unanimous roar. Trusting their new President to do right, members voted it blind, without a single word's change. Under the Roosevelt spell the House's deliberative session became a ratification meeting.

When half an hour later H. R. 1491 came up in the Senate, Representatives crowded into the chamber to try to learn the details of what they had just done. Florida's Fletcher, benign rosy-cheeked chairman of the Senate's Banking & Currency Committee, nominal sponsor for the measure, conveyed little information. Senator Fletcher nipped his hands up & down helplessly, spoke of the necessity for prompt action and left it to Virginia's Glass, No. 2 man on the committee, to do the explaining.

"I haven't slept an hour since night before last," Senator Glass declared out of the corner of his mouth. But fatigue did not diminish the little Virginian's ardor of exposition. He admitted that there were sections of the bill that "shocked" him. Pointing to its anti-hoarding provision as "arbitrary," he said: "I don't know who there is with wit or wisdom enough to define hoarding."

Criticism of H. R. 1491 was leveled at the fact that its principal benefits were limited to Federal Reserve member banks, thus excluding state banks which never joined the system. Chief critic was Louisiana's loud Long who offered an amendment whereby the President could sweep every bank in the land under the shelter of the Federal Reserve. Senator Glass whose antipathy toward Senator Long is so great that two days later he angrily tried to punch his nose, bitterly flayed the Long proposal. Ensuing wrangle:

Glass— Any layman knows the amendment is utterly invalid.

Lon—The Senator has misstated the facts. He wants to get his record straight.

Glass—My record's quite straight and I do not relish having the Senator say I misrepresented anything. The Senator had better be more civil. . . .

Long—The Senator is honestly in error. . . .

Glass—The Senator has such ignorance of the whole problem, such a lack of appreciation, that he wants the President to cover 14,000 state banks into the Federal Reserve without knowing a thing in the world about them. . . .

Long—What will the little banks do in the little county seats?

Glass—"Little banks!" Little corner grocerymen who get together $10,000 or $15,000 and then invite the deposits of their community and then at the very first gust of disaster topple over and ruin their depositors! What we need in this country are real banks and real bankers.

The Senate finally passed H. R. 1491 by a vote of 73-10-7, with no amendments. In seven hours and 51 minutes after it opened its special session Congress had sent President Roosevelt the first thing he had asked for—the largest grant of power over the U. S. pocketbook ever given in peacetime.