Hoarders Hunted

Though gold coin passed out of the lives of most U. S. citizens two months ago, it continues to engage the energetic attentions of Secretary of the Treasury Woodin and Attorney General Cummings who last week began a nation-wide hunt for hoarders.

When President Roosevelt took office, some $1,500,000,000 in gold money was in private hiding. His April 5 executive order calling for its return to the Federal Reserve by May 1 under pain of ten years imprisonment and $10,000 fine started a golden flood back to the Government which up to last week exceeded $800,000,000. But because thousands and thousands of citizens had never heard of the President's order or thought he was bluffing on his power to compel an exchange of metal for paper, $604,408,985 in gold and gold certificates remained outside the pale May 31. This last-stand hoarding constituted a challenge to the Government's power and prestige which President Roosevelt would not brook.

From Federal Reserve reports Secretary Woodin compiled a list of some 10,000 persons who were supposed to have withdrawn gold before March 4 and not returned it by May 1. On the list were 5,505 New Yorkers with gold hoardings of $29,451,581. In Chicago were 219 with

$1,540,648, in San Francisco 68 with $1,813,530, in Los Angeles 123 with $273,408, in Portland, Ore. 167 with $193,132. Secretary Woodin turned the list, by no means complete, over to Attorney General Cummings to check up. Director John Edgar Hoover of the Department of Justice's Bureau of Investigation, flashed orders to his 22 district offices to put every available one of his 350 Government agents on the job. Even the Federal sleuth who for weeks had been guarding the secret records of the Senate Banking & Currency Committee's investigation of J. P. Morgan & Co. was transferred to hoarder-hunting. Investigators marched in upon suspects, flashed their badges, read the President's proclamation aloud, ordered them to disgorge. Of the first 1,838 queried, 95 with gold hoards of $660,601 flatly refused to obey, defied the Government to prosecute. Their names were promptly delivered to the Department of Justice's criminal division. Declared "General" Cummings: "I have no patience with people who follow a course which in war time would class them as slackers. If I have to make an example of some people, I'll do it cheerfully."

For the first time last week the Treasury offered the public new Government securities, minus the traditional "payable in gold" clause. Day after President Roosevelt's signature had legally outlawed that provision in all public and private debt contracts. Secretary Woodin announced a $500,000,000 issue of 2 7/8% five-year Treasury notes, a $400,000,000 issue of 1% nine-month certificates to refinance maturing short-term obligations, pay interest on the public debt and finance the Roosevelt recovery program. In three days the combined issues were oversubscribed six times, clear indication that U. S. investors still had plenty of faith in their Government's paper dollar.

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