BANKS: Hold The Line

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In 1919 silver sold at $1.15 per oz. Today it is 27¾ per oz. To up its value is the aim of a noisy segment of political Washington, representing States with silver mines or interested in Chinese trade. Such upping would be effected by tying silver to gold (the old 16-to-1 Bryanism which few seriously espouse), or by international agreement to buy silver for coinage and not to sell it below a fixed price.

Washington's Senator Jones early this month approached President Hoover on a world conference to fix the monetary value of silver. The President was interested. But the State Department was understood to have sounded out France and Britain, found them both unresponsive.

Blame & Congress. Widespread was the financial opinion last week that the bad state of U. S. Business was in no small part due to Congress and its vagaries on the Budget & Taxation. Washington tipster services hinted darkly of a "dictatorship." Bankers and industrialists complained bitterly of "uncertainties" at the Capitol. They were quite positive that if Congress passed an equitable tax law, approximately balanced the Budget and adjourned by June 10, their immediate troubles would be over.

Other observers, however, were skeptical of Business' blind habit of blaming Congress for all the ills of the land. If & when Congress gets out of the way, the Lausanne Conference on Reparations in June will probably be pointed out as the next stumbling block to U. S. recovery. After that the November election will begin to loom as a "menace" on the financial sky.

Hold & Turn. Last month Governor Meyer declared: "The first thing to do is to arrest adverse tendencies in business. If you can hold the line, you can turn it eventually. I'm hopeful we're now at a point where we can hold the line."