BANKING: They Still Want Gold

In a speech to his people last December, Adolf Hitler turned to catch phrase on the Nazis' claim that gold will have no value in their world of the future. Said he: "The traffic signals are now placed as follows: gold versus labor." But last week a Manhattan lawsuit made it clear that Adolf Hitler was going through his own red lights; for men who thought gold worthless, the Nazis were going to unusual pains to lay their hands on it.

In the New York Supreme Court, Belgium's Government-in-exile obtained a writ attaching U.S. funds of the Bank of France. Explaining what the writ was about, Ambassador Extraordinary Georges Theunis had a strange story to tell:

When the Nazis moved into the Lowlands last May, the Bank of Belgium hastily turned over its remaining $260,000,000 in gold to hte Bank of France for safekeeping. Object, as understood by France as well as Belgium: to keep the gold out of Nazi hands. The Bank of France shipped the gold to Bordeaux. There, when France had fallen and Nazi-French armistice was being negotiated, the Belgians tried to reclaim it. But the Bank of France refused to give up the gold, instead shipped it to Dakar. Ambassador Theunis' theory: the Nazis already had informed the French that they would have to give the gold to Berlin.

Last week's legal action followed reports that the gold, by German demand on Vichy, was being shipped by airplane from Dakar to Marseille for delivery to the Nazis. Aim of the suit (which had the tacit support of Washington): to establish that if the Belgian gold goes to Germany, France will have to make gold from its own gold (estimated at $500,000,000) "frozen" in the U.S. by Washington decree.

Last week a Birmingham (Ala.) newspaper advertisement read: "Daily baths help you guard against any cold catching. ... At least once a day take a refreshing bath." The advertiser: Birmingham Water Works Co., privately owned.