Article Text
business properties in sugar, lumber, construction, wheat and cattle. Mr. Eccles is somewhat better qualified to judge our national financial policies than most, if not all, American bankers. The seven years of his banking experience were the toughest years for our moneychangers. Nearly fourteen thousand financial institutions failed and the failures were most frequent in the rural regions of the South and West where the squeeze of deflation came hardest. The Bank of the United States in New York failed; the Chase National Bank, the National City Bank, and the Harriman National Bank were accused of unsound practices, and two of the leaders of metropolitan bankingAlbert H. Wiggin and Charles Mitchell-had to be ousted from the driver's seat. The Dawes Bank was a Chicago sore spot and the Detroit banks set off the explosion which almost wrecked the Nation. Yet in all those bitter years, Mr. Eccles ran his Western banks without a dollar's loss. In 1932, he disavowed the platforms of both political parties because they spoke of "balancing the budget" and "restoring confidence," and he realized that our economic problem was not as simple as all that. A few years back, Stuart Chase, the liberal economist, was due to lecture in Salt Lake City, but was delayed by a snowstorm. While waiting for the snowbound speaker to arrive, the audience asked Mr. Eccles to talk. Mr. Chase slipped in while Mr. Eccles was still holding forth and he listened in fascination to the first banker to see the New Deal light. Mr. Chase told Rex Tugweil about Eccles and Mr. Tugwell told the Treasury and the Treasury called on Mr. Eccles to serve his country in the crisis. Mr. Eccles has been running Federal Reserve Board policy ever since. On the face of the record, Mr. Eccles' views on Government spending would seem to be worth more attention than those of a successful Virginia apple grower and politician or those of the New York bankers who plunged the country into the last financial crisis. As chairman of the Board of Governors of the Reserve System, Mr. Eccles knows the problems of Government finance and national banking policy. As a successful private banker and businessman, he knows the practical side of finance, not from the air-conditioned offices of downtown Manhatout