National Affairs: Neylam Plan

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"Instead of promising Europe more guns with which to commit suicide, instead of making promises to join in the destruction of civilization, it would be far more intelligent for us to bring to them the means of salvation in the form of an absolute gift. . . ." Planner Neylan pictured the world shock which such a gesture would deliver, how all hands would drop their guns to scramble for the money.

"The gift should be administered by a commission which would command the respect not only of our own people but of all people." Mr. Neylan named Cordell Hull, Henry Morgenthau, Charles Evans Hughes, Herbert Hoover, James H. Perkins (National City Bank).

"An obvious step will be the affording to each nation of a sufficient gold base through a central agency for the establishment of a sound national currency. . . . Obviously, also, a large portion of the fund would be used for compensation in relation to the transfer to the 'have-not' nations, large and small, of the necessary sources of raw material. . . . The disbursement of the fund would be linked to progressive demobilization and demilitarization. . . ."

Concluded Planner Neylan: "Any suggestion which does not fit in with the conventional jargon of diplomats and the sabre-rattling of those who will not be in the front line trenches will be considered bizarre and Utopian. . . .

"While I prize the spiritual values involved in the suggestion, I have been conscious that in a practical and cynical world, an activity which is reflected in a surplus on the balance sheet commands more present respect than those for which credit is to be given in the hereafter. . . .

"There will never again be so fruitful an opportunity to put our gold hoard to work in the interest of humanity in general and ourselves in particular."

When Jack Neylan gets an idea, into it he sinks his teeth. This week he was trying out the Neylan Plan on the hardest-boiled top men of the U. S., politicians mostly excluded. His first finding was obvious: pigs is pigs. Giving away five billions sounds like lunacy.