Seventeen minutes flat was the time it took Germany's famed "Iron Man," Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley* Schacht, to read entirely through before he would sign, last week, the Charter and Statutes of Europe's new Bank for International Settlements (TIME, Sept. 23 et seq.). The official text, adopted after a six-week negotiation by world potent bankers at Baden-Baden, is in English. Delegates from the U. S., Britain, France, Italy and Japan signed without conning over a document with which all, including Dr. Schacht, were excessively familiar. That made six signatures. The seventh—Belgium's—was not affixed last week. The Belgian delegates huffed and withdrew (TIME, Nov. 18) when Basle, Switzerland, was selected instead of Brussels as the bank site.
Last week's pen-squiggling was provisional. Potent though they are, the bankers must submit their handiwork to statesmen of the Great Powers and small Belgium at a Second Hague Conference, expected to convene within six weeks. Last week, however, the Baden-Baden bankers did what they could to make their signatures imposing. They had no Great Seal. They could not use the seals of their own banks, sacred to commerce. But the smart Chicagoan secretary of the conference, Dr. Lichtenstein, had a watchcharm seal: "W. L." Pressing this upon a hot red splotch of wax, Mr. Lichtenstein* sealed with humorous pomposity a business paper more vital than many a treaty. In effect it is the blueprint design for a giant cash register through which Germany will pay some nine billion-dollars in Reparations over 58 years.
Thirteen Padlocks. On every drawer of the new Cash Register are U. S. padlocks. Thirteen of the 60 articles in the Statute were drawn wholly or in part to protect the U. S. Federal Reserve, which, under Article Twenty, has power to veto any dollar transactions contemplated in any country by the Bank. Getting this clause adopted was the major triumph at Baden-Baden of the two U. S. representatives, short, stocky Jackson Eli Reynolds and lanky, drawling Melvin Alva ("Mel") Traylor, presidents of the First National Banks of New York and Chicago, respectively.
Some of the U. S. safeguards are one-way padlocks. Thus, the U. S. will not be officially a party to the founding of the Bank, but may at any future time receive all the rights of a Founder Power by assuming responsibilities which the Hoover Administration declines to undertake. Most of the rights in question are secured to the U. S. anyway by the "Veto Clause" (Article Twenty).