The Border Vidette

ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS
July 3, 1933
The Congress will go down in history as an extraordinary body. Its total appropriations were exceeded only by the World War congress.
Almost without a dissenting voice, it gave up to the President powers and prerogatives it has prized since revolutionary days. It was the most docile, the most obedient, and the least imaginative Congress since the war. A list of its major bills, passed mainly at the request of the President follows:
1. A bill enabling the President to inflate currency by forcing the Federal Reserve to buy Government securities, to issue new currency up to $3,000,000,000, to lessen gold content of the dollar to 50 per cent, to accept up to $200,000,000 in silver, instead of gold, in war debt payments.
2. A bill giving the President, through a coordinator, wide powers in reorganizing and revising the railroads of the country.
3. A bill authorizing vast Federal developments in the Tennessee Valley.
4. A bill creating a Civilian Conservation Corps to employ 250,000, otherwise unemployed young men in the national forests at $30 per day.
5. A bill authorizing the President to regulate transactions in credit, currency and other coinage; to place an embargo, in whole or in part, on gold; to forbid the hoarding of gold by an individual in excess of $100, and to restrict the activities of the Federal Reserve System.
6. A bill authorizing beer, in spite of the Eighteenth Amendment, through revision of the Volstead Act.
7. A bill initiating a $3,300,000,000 public works program in the interest of employment, to be controlled by the President through a director of public works.
8. A bill to reduce agricultural acreage in production, with compensation to farmers for all land withdrawn from use.
9. A bill giving the President unprecedented control over industry, with powers to eliminate competition, fix minimum wages and maximum hours of work, regulate production, etc.
There were other bills, of course, but these are outstanding. Most far reaching of all is the last--it has not yet swung into action and it is not widely understood. Operations of the bill, in relation to particular industries, will be as follows: A trade group will draw up a plan designed to settle wage, price and production problems.
It will apply to the administrator of the bill for authorization to put its agreement into effect.
The administrator will then find out if the plan meets with the favor of most units within the industry. Representatives of labor, and a group of consumers, will be consulted. When all has been settled, the agreement will go to the President. If he finds it equitable, he will authorize it. If not, it will have to be withdrawn. When industries are unable to agree among themselves, the President will be able to force a pact on them, by the power of a licensing system.