National Affairs: Amendment by Rage

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Exciter. On the floor of the House came the greatest Moratorium excitement. Chief exciter was a thickset, sturdy, 55-year-old Republican Congressman from Canton, Pa. by the name of Louis T. McFadden. He started life as a red-headed office boy in Canton's First National Bank, worked himself up to its presidency. He was elected to Congress 17 years ago, served for ten years as chairman of the House Banking & Currency Committee. After him is named the McFadden Branch Banking Act (1927). As an oil stock promoter, he got into unsavory trouble in New York when an investor sued him for fraud. Shrewdly familiar with banking technique, Congressman McFadden bitterly hates & fears international bankers. He has inveighed against the Young Plan, against the Bank for International Settlements, against the Federal Reserve's participation in European finance. His howls and yelps have been generally ignored by responsible men about Washington who set him down as a sincere but misguided fanatic on international finance.

'Infamous." Last week Congressman McFadden arose before the House and delivered an hour-long speech against President Hoover and the Moratorium. His thesis was that international bankers for Germany had conspired with the White House to effect debt postponement and ultimately cancellation of Reparations. Excerpts:

"The President, without any legal authority, virtually brought about a loss to this country of $245,000,000 in one year and paved the way for much greater losses. . . . He proposed we should take money away from the men, women and children of this country and give it to Germany. This was an infamous proposal! "He was afraid to do this thing alone at the bidding of the German international bankers, so he asks the leaders of Congress by telegraph and telephone to consent to his proposed illegal action in advance. . . . Mr. Hoover is not running a coal mine here. He is not a dictator. . . . I don't vote on matters concerning the welfare of the United States in a telephone booth. . . .

"After completing his underhanded arrangements which savored more of the ways of an oriental potentate drunk with power than of a U. S. President, Mr. Hoover with a dramatic flourish made his proposal, linking it as usual with a lot of false and insincere humanitarianism. . .

"Behind the Hoover announcement were many months of furtive preparation. The German budget had to be doctored and left unbalanced. Germany, like a sponge, had to be saturated with American money. Mr. Hoover himself had to be elected President. . . . The Hoover proposal originated in the offices of the German international bankers in New York, not in the mind of President Hoover. . . .

"While our men were walking the streets in a vain search for employment, the President secretly approached Germany and asked if he could do anything toward getting her Reparations obligations lightened. He thought he had his secret so closely guarded that the people of the U. S. would never be able to find out his part in the plot concocted against them. . . . He proposed to sell us out to Germany! . . . It would be interesting to find out if Herbert Hoover was acting as the legal agent of Germany or as President of the United States. We cannot have an agent of Germany acting as President."