The Frontier D. H. Cronin, Editor and Proprietor Entered at the Postoffice at O’Neill, Nebraska as Second Class Matter. ADVERTISING RATES: Display advertisments on Pages 4, 5 and 8 are charged for on a basis of 25 cents an inch (one column wide) per week; on Page 1 the charge is 40 cents an inch per week. Local advertisements, 10 cents per line first insertion, sub sequent insertions 5 cents per line. SUBSCRIPTION RATES One Year, in Nebraska-~$2.00 One Year, outside Nebraska-$2.50 Every subscription is regarded as an oDtn account. The names of sub Beribers will be instantly removed from our mailing list at expiration ol time paid for, if publisher shall be notified; otherwise the subscription remains in force at the designated subscription price. Every subscriber must understand that these conditions are made a part of the contract be tween publisher and subscriber. NATIONAL AFFAIRS By Frank P. Litschert We have heard a great deal of late about the failure of the nation’s banks to lend money to private firms for the expansion of business and have been told that this is one of the things which is retarding our economic recov ery. There has even been strpng in timation from Washinton that unless the banks “loosen up" so to speak, the government itself will take the credit situation in hand. There are, of course, two sides to the question. On the one had the banks are being urged to ex tend credit in every direction, while on the other they are compelled to comply with the new banking laws which pro vide for a more stringent examination and much harsher penalties for bank ers who lend their customers’ money in poor speculative enterprises. In thinking about this situation it must be remembered that banks can not make money for their stockholders unless they put to work the money which is left with them on deposit. It is hardly likely therefore that the bankers of the country are in some deep conspiracy to restrict credit, since they can only show an operating profit by extending credit. During the past few years it has been necessary for the banks to remain as liquid as possible. Granting, for the sake of argument, that this period is now com ing to a close, it must be admitted that the bankers must be more careful than ever in extending credit because of the provisions of the new banking law. They are compelled to go slow ly also in that the future monetary policy of the country is now decidedly “up in the air” and nobody knows just what sort of inflation or currency or credit expansion we are to have, if any. But there is another phase of the general situation which must not be lost sight of. It is easy to overestim ate the importance and extent of the tightness of credit. The average sound and conservative business firm is able to get what credit it requires. It is not credit that it needs, but customers. The Alexander Hamilton Institute recently well summed up the credit situation in one of its bulletins when it said: “The credit situation is giving ser ious concern to the administration. Al though the banks have loanable funds in most instances, except those banks that are still closed by the govern ment, these funds are not moving out to finance business activities. Bankers have been charged with holding back on the granting of credit because of the supposed heavy risks. For this attitude the bankers could hardly be blamed, because of their recent har rowing experiences at the hands of the government and the public, and the watch that is being kept on banking operations. The Reconstruction r in- j ance Corporation has offered aid thru preferred stock in banks or by loaning banks money at 3 per cent that they i can reloan at 5 per cent as a maximum, to trade and industrial organizations. If such offers are not accepted by the banks, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation has threatened to set up so-called mortgage companies in var ious centers to loan directly to busi ness without the medium of bankers. Studies of the situation, however, show that merchants and manufacturers alike, both small and large have no im mediate need for the wide extension of credit. What they do need is sales, and sales are not sufficiently brisk to warrant increasing production and building up wholesale and retail stocks on borrowed money. There are many loan applications from individuals and organizations whose credit qualifica tions are so meagre that they would not pass even in times of prosperity, Sound organizations are not on the market extensively for the borrowing of funds." This undoubtedly states the situa tion as it is today. One of the sound est and most conservative business men in the Middle West recently said to me, in discussing the bank credit situation: “It Is not bank credit which my firm needs, but orders for good*. W e can get all the credit we need for our Wultfe** operations. What we want now is customers. Given customers, we can get the credit we require to expand.” The same is doubtless true of thous ands of business institutions in the United States. What good will it do to borrow money of the banks to produce or purchase more goods if the public ! demand is not forthcoming ? SOUND CURRENCY FIRST Syracus Post-Standard: The ad ministration is facing the task of put ting capital and credit to work. And they don’t really go to work until the currency is stabilized. There are many good reasons for such a stand. The insurance company protecting the investments of thous ands of families will not put its funds into enterprises it is not sure of; it must have assurance. The same is true of the savings banks. They will not put money into mortgages unless there is a demand for housing and values are established on a sound foundation. The individual will not invest in an enterprise that has no sure basis upon which it can exist. That is why the growing tendency towards price fixing will not help. Nobody believes that price fixing will work. It is based on false premises. It is one reason why the NRA alone will not solve the problems in volved. No one is sure that the new level of prices and purchasing power secured through its operation can be maintained. Many believe it can’t. A satisfactory level of prices must be decided upon and the currency of the nation stabilized upon that level, preferably with gold backing. It is not a coincidence that all economists generally agree upon the virtues of returning to the gold standard. A level must be found at which goods can be exchanged freely and it must be maintained by the gold stand ard. The nation and the world are ac customed to this arrangement and cap ital and credit will not work satis factorily until it is followed. If the administration wants capital and credit to start things moving, it will have to establish a definite and a sound monetary policy. AMERICA WAS CAUGHT ONCE Detroit Free Press: Wickham Steed, h correspondent who knows his Europe inside and out and upside down, re cently addressed the London conting ent of the American Chamber of Com merce and told his listeners that con certed action by the United States, Great Britain and France against Hit lerism is highly necessary because the Nazi regime is threatening "Western civilization with the greatest crisis since the French revolution” unless there is a “vindication of the principles of liberty by these three nations as a lead to the world." It would be a piece of temerity to dispute Mr. Steed's diagnosis of the tendencies and perhaps conscious aims of the Nazi movement, and there is no room for disagreement with his asser tion that “we are confronted with the growth of systems which have nothing in common with ours, based upon un controlled violence and the overriding of individual rights by the supposedly superior rights of a state controlled by an armed minority.” Nor will there be any indication to dispute his dec laration that we “cannot have the Declaration of Independence and the Magna Charta swept away by the ] doctrine of violence.” But somehow the speaker’s state ment that he would “welcome a con I certed declaration by the governments j of Ameria, France and England which j stand for liberty, that those who ] trample liberty underfoot cannot ex ! pect our good-will” leaves us quite | cold. It is not the habit of this republic to try to tell the people of other countries what form of government they should have, as f ueer At Columbt ’ntv« ty, New York, where l not yet sold in campus re ud i Ca tenas, Dean H *ae» ■ • Pres. Ernest M. Hopkins Dartmouth College pointed out, however, that beer is easily ac cessible to all students who care to drink it He said its availability would lessen certain problems inasmuch as it is not "a bait to drunkenness" but a "promoter of geniality and gemutliehkeit ” Temperance as ex pressed through the dis Dean George A. Works University of Chicago ^ favorable signs among students that reveal they are entirely in sympathy with the new order. He stated there was an appar ent decrease in the consump tion of hard 1 i q uor. Presi dent Albert Britt, of Knox College, Gales burg, 111., said he expects the new order to effect a reduc tio n in the d r i n k 1 n g of hard liquor. lummauun luwaru niiiu man beverage* a* against distilled l'quor. received approbation from Prof Walter B Pitkin, of Co lumbia University, well known author and commentator on cur rent topics "Beer is a great in strument for simple relaxation, for enormous masses of peopto, particularly when taken with food," he declared. "People are in a much better position and cunditiun to act sensibly when relaxed than when tense.” For this reason, he said, beer is par ticularly valuable to American society Dean George A. Works. o( the University of Chlcsfo. reports 1 Dr. Henry Pratt Fairchild, prominent sociologist of New York University, declared that the availability of light malt bev erages together with the healthy development of today's students will do much toward furthering the highest interest of American civilization. All of the educators consulted stressed the fact that college students of this generation have sen opportunity to point the way to true temperance and that the arrival of 3.2 beer at a crucial point in American his tory has already effected im portant and beneficial changes in student morals.