FISCAL: Monetary Study by C.E.D.

FISCAL Monetary Study by C.E.D. Despite the fabulously complex growth of the U.S. economy, no major study of the country's monetary system has been undertaken for nearly 50 years. Early this year Congress turned down President Eisenhower's appeal for such a study, and almost every previous Congressional investigation has turned into a partisan political probe. Last week the Committee for Economic Development announced receipt of a $500,000 grant from the Ford Foundation for the first full-scale inquiry into U.S. monetary policies since the Aldrich Commission of 1908, which laid the foundation of the Federal Reserve System.

To make completely sure of the study's nonpartisan character, the C.E.D. and the Ford Foundation announced elaborate measures. A special committee of ten chief executives of educational, research and philanthropic organizations will be formed first to select the nine to 18 representatives of business, labor, agriculture and education who will carry out the study. The study will take a full three years, and it will not be completed until January 1960 —after the next presidential election.