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THE PLAZA BANK O F ST. L O U I S T W E L V E THIRTY O L I V E SAINT STREET LOUIS F. R . V O N W I N D E G G E R PRESIDENT March 7, 194-5 Dear Mr. Eccles: Thanks for sending rae your statement before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee on "A Capital Gains Tax to Curb Rising Prices of Capital Values". Once again you have scored. We shall use this statement with telling effect when we hear objections to the proposed new .tax lour argument is excellent proof of the fallacy of the statement that taxes should be levied for revenue only. If we are ever going to be able to control the violent swings of the economy, the tax structure is going to have to be used as one of the most, if not the most effective weapon for such control. "None are so blind as those who will not see." Z With renewed expression of my great re^^ctand/eFBe Hon. Marriner S. Eccles, Chairman Board of Governors Federal Reserve System Washington, D. C. March 13, 1945* Mr. F. vonMndegger, President, The Plaza bank of ¿>t. Louis, 1230 olive street, bt. Louis, Missouri• Dear Mr. vonwindegger: Thank you for your letter of March 7 &nd for the copy of the one to Secretary Morgerfth.au. Your constant support and encouragement have always been particularly gratifying to me, and 1 am especially pleased that you see the necessity for and are doing what you can to support effective measures to prevent further inflation of capital values. The olindness is conspicuously prevalent in the New York brokerage community which, as Fortune aptly pointed out in its March issue, lives on the ups and downs the bigger they are, the' more the brokers get out of it* borne of them who write t$ me are naive enough to call this free enterprise» With kindest personal regards, Sincerely yours, M. ET:b Eccles, Chairman. T H E PLAZA BANK OF ST. LOUIS F-190 ST. L O U I S , MO. February 15, 1945 Hon, Henry J. Morgenthau, Jr. Secretary of the TreasuryWashington, D. C. Dear Mr. Secretary! pngratulate you and your staff on the clear, unequivocal First, I want of the Bretton-Woods Agreement that you made last ana bold pres firing the question period« Nowhere was the usual evening, fence except in answer to the question, "Why do diplomatic at which time it was both justified and necestha bank strat**eCommittee of the American Bankers Association sary by action of tha Convention in September, 194/., to was ociatio^f, poviteNaf membership as a whole has ever s qyfestion of « » ^ r t oroppogition by the individual been bankers» ears expe^Lepee with the regrettably ovine characteristice assises to understand how such an authorisation was One naturally wonders tiwr o tha support of three banking organizations, ^h^-iba^ic the Federal Fiscal Policy Committee of th&Jwsoc nkers, and the iation for Foreign Study Committee on Post—War Probjfsm^ iheMi^rfrs A h and solidarTrade. Is this to give the putaUy an iifcs^essi^n of ity to their objections? Any one d o s e to'ttra banki knows that these three organizations are dominated, if not n, eertainly by men of an identical philosophy. To anyone actual conditions, it weakens their case and beclouds their s and good faith, It also raises the question as to the abjacting acceptance of the purposes of the fund, and if those are brought i; stion, what validity can be given to their objection to detail. Are objecting bankers and the technicians starting from the same oreaise? Is a group of men notoriously short-sighted to be permitted to overthrow this constructive agreement? Remembering the position of the American Bankers Association at the Boston Convention in 1913, when it opposed the Federal Reserve Set, and their more tragic insistence on our remaining on the gold standard after England went off in 1931, it can be suggested that their objections and selfish attitude now should not be givan too much weight. Most regrettable of all is the evidence of isolationism in the bankers1 objections. Unless we have thw vision and courage to cooperate wholeheartedly with other peoples of the world, let us take our tongues out of our cheeks and prepare now for World War III, which may be the end of civilisation. T H E PLAZA B A N K OF ST. LOUIS ST Page 2 - continued LOUIS. MO. February 15, 194.5 It ia nothing mora or lass th&fc a miracla that the experts of fortyfour countries could arrive at an agraement as adequate ee the one that nas ueen submittec to Congress for approval* Winston Chur-hill has rightly said, "The price of greatness is responsibility." Our country is at the peak of its power, which, because of the rapid development of industrial production and science, may not be true twenty-five years from now. This ia our great opportunity to lead the peoples of the world down the ^tiiBsof peace* There is a grawing conviction here in Missouri that>^f'-«jalJsjiLtimate solution to these great problems is World Fedi Last, think is a constructive suggestion? In all of our tiona and in adr Endeavors to educate the people here, rve have ition tiMfi o£\these various agreements, DumbartonOaks, , Hoty^pipings T^oct)^Chicago Aeronautic, Anglo-Anerican Oil, and component parts of a peace plan and each m is to be any hope for the success has been giv^n by the press and c sal and the necessity for its adoption, on the other international agreements tal to the success of the Dumbarton-Oajcs given to the interdependence of evening, it would be helpful in getting FRvWiDF President.
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