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"Astonishing & Alarming." And if Senator Glass does not consent to enter the Roosevelt Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, he will remain the ranking Democrat in Congress on money matters for the next four years. At the last Democratic convention he personally and proudly wrote the platform plank tying his party up tightly to a "sound currency to be preserved at all hazards." In or out of the Treasury during the next four years he is determined to see that the Roosevelt Administration keeps that primary pledge. His determination on the red-hot issue of Hard Money v. Soft was made vividly clear last week when wild waves of currency inflation beat in upon the Senate from the open spaces of Montana, Idaho, Texas and Oklahoma, when the silvery ghost of William Jennings Bryan stalked the Chamber and "16-to-1" once more became a rebel warwhoop. From the thick of what became a real oldtime money fight, the name of Carter Glass was carried to the country in headlines as the little knight who had, for a time at least, slain the radical dragon of currency inflation. As the smoke of debate finally lifted, "Pluck" Glass exclaimed: "This has been to me a most astonishing and alarming discussion."
"Bimetallism or Paper!" The money fight began when Senator Burton Kendall Wheeler of silver-producing Montana offered an amendment to the Glass bill for the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16-to-1 to gold. As in all inflationary schemes the amendment's purpose was to cheapen the value of the dollar in relation to gold in the hope of starting an upward surge of commodity prices which in turn would free the debtor from bondage and, theoretically, start the country back to better times. Shouted Senator Wheeler: "A small revolution prevails in the Midwest and is spreading. Yet you sit here afraid! Afraid! AFRAID! . . . I've no pride of authorship. Bryan was not the originator of free silver. I'm not asking you to adopt the money of Bryan. I'm asking you to adopt the money of Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison—the money of our forefathers. . . . We'll take bimetallism or we'll come to paper currency in the coming sessions of Congress. I don't want to see the country accept fiat money that would wipe out the creditor classes. I want to establish a new primary money basis and stop the exploitation of the debtor class by the creditor class. What we need to do is to raise the purchasing power of other nations as well as our own."
"Honest Dollar." Without a specific plan of inflation, silver-producing Idaho's Senator Borah delivered himself as follows : "Insurance companies loaned farmers up to 1929 some $12,000,000,000. Measured by the wealth of the country the farmers are now indebted to the insurance companies for about $30,000,000,000. . . . A dollar which takes three times as much wheat to buy, four times as much cotton, three times as many hogs in 1933 as it did in 1929 is not an honest dollar. It is a dishonest dollar. . . .
"I'm not seeking to cheapen the American dollar. I'm not seeking inflation uncontrolled. I have no desire to destroy the gold standard. But I do believe it is within the power of the great minds of this country to devise a monetary system which will deal equitably and fairly between the debtor and creditor. . . .