The full text on this page is automatically extracted from the file linked above and may contain errors and inconsistencies.
1716 Ellwood St. Muske&on, Mich. Jan. 22, 1939 Mr. Marriner S. Eccles Chairman Federal Reserve Boaia Washingtonf D. C. Bear Mr. Eccles: You are entirely right in your controversy with Mr. Byrd. Your position is even stronger than you have stated it. Ihen you lumped puolic and private deota together you very definitely gave the Byrd school a new thought. He evidently has started to check up statistically, however, and seems to think that he is still right* Byrd »yt> in his reply to you, "As you know, our national income is only 6u oillion dollars whereas for 1929 it was 80 billion dollars. The income out of which these debts must be paid has shrunken 20 billion dollars*—. Our burden is the same. 0ur strength is much less." The discrepancy pointed out by Mr. Byra is due to the fact that our prosperity of 1929 was partly due to money that was loaned neither to the national government nor to private citizens but to foreign countries. Those countries bought our goods and stimulated our national income but the debt was theirs. We had the income without the debt. And as you know hundreds of millions of dollars injected into the wording class increases our national income by billions. The rest of Mr. Byrdfs arguments are due to his lack of understanding of the nature of the capitalist system. In the Library of Congress you can get a book entitled Cankered Gold11 that is right in line with your thoughts and from which you can possibly get some new ones. n If you find these su&^e&tions of any value please let me hear from you* Sincerely, February 7, 1939 Mr. Eugene L. Howard 1716 Ellwood Street Muskegon, Michigan My dear Mr. Howard: Chairman Eccles has asked me to acknowledge and thank, you for your letter of January 22 which he has read with interest. It is noted that you ar$ in agreement with Mr. Eccles1 ideas respect-r ing-th« -sizeoX_aur jacLtiQnal-..in.c.Qroe -and_the. relation.... of the total debt of the country, public and private, to that income* Yours very truly, Lawrence Clayton assistant to the Chairman fgr
@FedFRASER