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White House Statement About the Conference on the Hoarding of Currency.

February 06, 1932

THE PRESIDENT, General [Charles G.] Dawes, and Under Secretary [Ogden L.] Mills reviewed the situation. The meeting was directed to a general discussion of the means and measures of organization to meet the problem of hoarding. It was agreed that hoarding had accumulated to the extent of $1,250 million or $1,500 million; that its results were to immobilize a large portion of the national gold supply and cause drastic deflation and credit contraction, and seriously to restrict business expansion and maintenance of employment and seriously to affect commodity prices.

It was pointed out by many of the leaders of the national associations that a dollar hoarded not only ceases to perform its function as currency but destroys $5 to $10 potential credit. A dollar in the hands of a hoarder is just a dollar, but a hoarded dollar in the hands of a bank or wisely invested will furnish the basis for $10 of credit. As some of the representatives expressed it, that currency is a high-powered dollar. Hoarded currency means that high-powered dollars are idle and that in turn means idle business, idle men, and depreciated prices.

It was agreed that a large portion of the hoarding was due to misunderstanding of the national effect of such acts, that it arose out of unnecessary fears and apprehension and that nothing could contribute more to the resumption of employment, to the stability of agricultural and offer commodity prices, than to restore this money to work. This would turn the tide of depression on the way to prosperity.

It was unanimously agreed that all the national associations represented, and others to be invited, would place the full strength and force of their memberships behind a patriotic campaign to be conducted under the leadership of Col. Frank Knox, to put these hoarded dollars to work; that the organization should be set up State by State in which work all organizations would participate with view to setting up ultimately a definite working organism in each community. The whole conference expressed its resolution that the time had now arrived for the people themselves to enter into the fight against depression and give full support to the measures taken by government so as to make them completely effective.

The conference expressed its great appreciation of the leadership taken by the Federal Government in the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and other measures, and that the time had arrived to rally the people themselves not only against hoarding but for the general expansion of employment and to turn the economic tide.

The leaders gave assurance that the whole 20 million members of the organizations represented at the meeting would take it as their special mission to organize and carry forward this campaign of appeal to reason and patriotism and to action.

Note: The statement was issued following the President's meeting with leaders of Government, business, labor, service, and professional organizations. Frank Knox was chairman of the Citizens Reconstruction Organization, the coordinating agency for the groups involved. A list of those attending the conference follows:

CHARLES G. DAWES, President of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
ROBERT P. LAMONT, Secretary of Commerce
OGDEN L. MILLS, Under Secretary of the Treasury
JULIUS KLEIN, Assistant Secretary of Commerce
EUGENE MEYER, Governor of the Federal Reserve Board
HARVEY C. COUCH, Director of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
WILSON McCARTHY, Director of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
H. PAUL BESTOR, Farm Loan Commissioner
WILLIAM GREEN, president, American Federation of Labor
WARNER S. HAYS, president, American Trade Association Executives
A. C. PEARSON, president, National Publishers' Association
DAROLD D. DE COE, commander in chief, Veterans of Foreign Wars
VINCENT WHITSITT, Association of Life Insurance Presidents
GILBERT T. HODGES, president, Advertising Federation of America
J.E. SPINGARN, president, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
D. J. WOODLOCK, National Retail Credit Association.
A. F. WHITNEY, president, Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen
GERRISH GASSAWAY, president, National Association of Commercial Organization Secretaries
WARREN C. PLATT, president, Associated Business Papers, Inc.
MRS. JOHN F. SIPPEL, president, General Federation of Women's Clubs
A. JOHNSTON, president, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
MELVIN JONES, secretary general, International Association of Lions Clubs
JAMES A. EMERY, National Association of Manufacturers
MICHAEL J. READY, assistant general secretary, Catholic Welfare Association
ALLAN M. POPE, president, Investment Bankers Association of America
HENRY H. HEIMANN, executive manager, National Association of Credit Men
REUBEN A. BOGLEY, grand master, Free and Accepted Masons, District of Columbia
HARRY J. HAAS, president, American Bankers Association
MAGNUS W. ALEXANDER, president, National Industrial Conference Board
EMILY R. KNEUBUHL, executive secretary, National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Inc.
SAMUEL MCCREA CAVERT, general secretary, Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America

RUSH L. HOLLAND, past exalted ruler of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the United States of America
GEORGE B. CUTTEN, president, National Council of the Young Men's Christian Association
FRED C. W. PARKER, secretary, Kiwanis International
EDITH SALISBURY, Washington Zonta Club, Zonta International
HAROLD S. BUTTENHEIM, National Conference on City Planning
H. C. KNIGHT, president, New England Council
LEON J. OBERMAYER, Jewish Welfare Board
JOHN POOLE, Rotary International
JAMES L. WALSH, American Engineering Company
JULIUS BARNES, chairman of the board, Chamber of Commerce of the United States
J. W. CRABTREE, secretary, National Education Association
CHESTER R. PERRY, Rotary International
L. W. WALLACE, executive secretary, American Engineering Council
MORTON BODFISH, executive manager, U.S. Building and Loan League
ARTHUR M. EAST, National Thrift Committee
JAMES NELSON MACLEAN, president, National Association of Civic Service Club Executives
WILLIAM B. BEST, president, U.S. Building and Loan League
HAROLD TSCHUDI, president, International Civitan

Herbert Hoover, White House Statement About the Conference on the Hoarding of Currency. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/207652

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