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McLeod Bill (as amended) would order RFC to pay off in cash all deposits in closed banks up to $2,500 and to lend depositors up to 85% on any remaining unpaid balances. Jesse Jones, speaking to the House Banking & Currency Committee against the bill, said it would involve the Government in huge losses—up to $2,500,000,000 if balances in all closed banks were paid in full, a large portion of that amount under the $2,500 limitation. How the sum would be obtained the bill did not specify (probably by borrowing) but the fact that it would result in a big distribution of cash in nearly all parts of the U. S. influenced Congressmen to support it. Again a petition to discharge the bill from committee was started in the House. When only nine of the necessary 145 signatures were lacking, House leaders got together, did a parliamentary trick. They reported the bill favorably from the Banking & Currency Committee. On the crowded calendar of the House the bill was not likely to get consideration before adjournment unless the Rules Committee gave it a favored status. To force the Rules Committee to do so would require another petition and under the rules the bill could not be brought up until the second Monday in May (May 14, too close to expected adjournment for any likelihood of passage). Undeterred, the advocates of the bill, led by Michigan's McLeod who called the ruse "one of the rawest things I've ever heard of," completed their petition, hoped to force its consideration in spite of the trick played on them. They even circulated for signature a manifesto announcing that they would not allow Congress to adjourn until the bill had been voted on. The Hearst Press has steadily ballyhooed the bill. Many Congressmen look upon it lovingly, sure that it would please their constituents. Therefore Speaker Rainey and Majority Leader Byrns viewed it with much alarm, believing that, given an opportunity, the House would certainly pass it, possibly repass it over a veto. Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau in a lengthy criticism declared that the bill's costs ''out-weigh any benefits that the legislation could achieve."
Dies Bill, as passed by the House (TIME, March 26) would give the Administration power to accept silver at 25% above market value in payment from foreign nations for exports of U. S. farm surpluses. Last week the Senate Committee on Agriculture added two amendments that changed the measure's whole nature: 1) To order the Treasury to take over all silver in the U. S. and pay for it in silver certificates at "not less than the highest world price for spot fine silver on the day preceding . . . the proclamation of the nationalization of silver." 2) To order the Treasury beginning in January 1935 to buy 50,000,000 ounces of silver each month—all silver purchase to stop when the general price level of 1926 had been restored, or when silver reached $1.29 per oz. (present market price 46¢).