THE PRESIDENCY: The Dollar's Week

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These things seriously worried Messrs. Woodin, Black and Harrison who were concerned about the Government's credit, who knew that if the Government could no longer sell bonds there was no way of financing its new expenditures except direct inflation. No small decision did the President have to make, for his advisers were drawn in different directions.* He well knew that Harvard Professor O. M. W. Sprague, onetime adviser to the Bank of England who had come over last spring to act as his adviser, was considering resigning as a protest against the policies afoot, that financiers in London were accusing him of "playing a gigantic poker game" with the dollar; that in Paris famed Economist Frederic Jenny was prophesying, "Not far distant is the fatal moment when Mr. Roosevelt will be faced with the dilemma of chaotic inflation or a return to dollar stability."

Not dispirited were Professor Warren and the cheap dollar advocates. Some of them even suggested that big Manhattan banks might be dumping U. S. bonds to scare the Administration away from its gold-buying policy. Some of them were willing to let the price of Government bonds sink for a time. One fact everyone at the conference had to face: that last week confidence in the dollar had been badly shaken, the public if not scared had at least shivered. Result: a reaction toward "hard money."

In Chicago 26 business bigwigs including such men as Sewell Avery, John V. Farwell, Albert D. Lasker, Alexander Legge, Col. A. A. Sprague, E. L. Ryerson Jr., Thomas E. Donnelley, were issuing a manifesto against Inflation. The Crusaders, who have found their Holy Grail. Repeal, announced a new crusade: against Inflation. Even inflationists began to trim their sails when they saw the Government's credit threatened. Senator Elmer Thomas was declaring: "There need be no fear of printing press inflation. . . . With gold adequately repriced the problem of future stabilization is simplified. . . . Our currency system must support business on a scale that will insure profits."

All these influences were represented at Mr. Roosevelt's conference. Even if he felt more inclined than before to caution, the President did not decide to abandon Professor Warren's ideas—not at least till they had had some further trial. Monday morning the R. F. C.'s gold price again was given another boost, was set at $33.45 (equivalent to a 61.79 cent dollar) and the dollar once more started down in foreign exchange.

¶ Last week Kentucky became the sixth State whose unemployment relief had to be taken over entirely by the Federal Government.* Simultaneously, President Roosevelt announced the creation of a Civil Works Administration under the supervision of Relief Administrator Harry L. Hopkins. CWA will take $400,000,000 from the Public Works fund, $150,000.000 from the Relief Administration, release 2,000,000 men from local and State relief rolls at once, put 2,000,000 other unemployed to work by Dec. 15. CWA workers will be employed on small local projects (playgrounds, sanitation, pest control, repairs), will work a 3O-hr. week, will receive until Feb. 1 approximately $50 a month.