Regional President Speech

.,__,_ .s..r~- • 1 a~~ N.-_. ;((!,,~ 1 p.m: (E.D • .S.T.), Friday; May 24, 1946. REMARKS OF ALLAN .SPR0UL, PRESIDENT, FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NE;T,r.r YORK, AT THE 1946 CONVENTION CALIFORNIA BAHKERS ASSOSIATION MAY 24, 1946 HOTEL DEL CORONAI.O, SAN IJIECO, CAI,IFOHNIA. LIBRARY JUN 1 0 194ff I appreciate this opportunity to speak at your first postwar convention. It brings me almost full circle to the place vvhere I had my initial contact with ba_nking from the inside - and I wasn' t very far inside, That was back in 1920 when I was empl oyed as a bank agriculturist the First National Banks of El Monte })y and Puente. I didn It last very long there; the citrus and walnut growers, and the dairymen of that rich section knew more about their business than I did, even though the idea was and still i s a good one. The banks lasted a little longer, but eventually became branches of the Bank of 1'mer5_ca, a. not unusual thing. I am sorry the Bank of America is not here today, inasmuch a.s that would seem to make me a former employee, once or twice removed. r I went on to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Brancisco in time to see something of the financial aftermath of World War I , when our new and relatively untried central banking system grappled with the destructive forces of a postwar inflation and deflation. The medicine fina1ly used was bitter and the results drastic. But the patient survi. ved and grew robust . There is doubt , however, whether our economy would again submit t o such treatment, even if it were deemed desirable and even /if there. were the confidence in monetary measures which then existed. Severe deflation in the United ·states, with all that it might mean in t erms of declining. . prices, curtailed production and widespread unemployment is not a part of the arsenal of democracy at this particular moment in world af.fairs. And yet, with all of the experience we have gained in the past twenty-five years, vre 8ire not absolutely sure how much we can sugar- coat the pill, This is the problem which I wish mainJ.y to discuss. It was sa.id in jest, but not without meaning at the beginning of World War II that, _in vrar, the role of fimmce is to get out of the way of production. Certainly, after fighting men r!ith fighting hearts, production was the key to victory in the war which~ended last year. No country permitted its finances to interfere with its war effort . If the mistakenly labeled sinews of war could not J be raised by taxes, they could be borrowed from the public, and if they coul~ not be borrowe~ from the public, they could be borrowed from the banks. And if they could not be borrowed from the banks, they ccm1d be borrowed from the central bank, or the printing presses could be started. V!fe did all of these things except the last and worst, and there are somE; who claim we did a little of that. It does make a great deal of difference, however, how you do it, both during the war and with respect to the kind of monetary headache you will have when the war is over . The primary recourse should be t o incre'ased taxation, and this should only be lim:L ted by i;,he :i:.-equireme;1ts of keeping the economy going full blast on the production front. The next line of defense, or attack, is borrowing from others than banks so as t o avoic an undue expansion of credit, and so as to channel increased incom8s into Government service rather than leaving them free to undermine the dikes of price control and wage control , and rationing. On the'whole / I Digitized for FRASER https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis .,,.. ... 2 I think we did a good job; far from perfect but based on past performance better than we might have expected. Beginning with January 1941, shortly after the start of the defense program, the Federal Government spent $378 billion. Of this amount $150 billion, or 40 per cent, was raised through taxes, most of which carried no future call on the Government for reimbursement. Another $134 billion, or 35 per cent, was raised by borrowing from others than banks. Of the remainder, $72 billion, or 19 per cent, came from the commercial banks and $22 billion, or 6 per cent, from the Federal Reserve Banks, the latter purchases being necessary to enable the com mercial banks to play the role they did without heavy borrowing from the Reserve Banks. It was this latter borrowing by the Treasury from the banks, plus the loans made by banks to purchase or carry Government securities, which resulted in or was a reflection of the great increase in hank d.eposi ts and currency held by the public during the war. Here is a figure between $75 and i~lOO billion of readily available purchasing power. Arid behind that is an approximately equal increase in the amount of Government' securities-held by individuals and businesses, which may readily be converted into money. This is a financial legacy of the war, in addition to the greatly increased public debt. It has been the financial legacy of war in every country. It shows itself as an enormous increase in the money supply in relation to the goods and services available for consu.~ption. That might become the meat on which lnflation would feed. We must see that this does not happen here. Our situation is not desperate, as it is in some of the countries of eastern Europe and in Asia, nor is it so difficult as in the former occupied coun tries of western Europe and in the countries of some of our allies. All of these, as well as the neutral countries, experienced a.tremendous irtcrease in the public debt of the national government and in the amount of currency in circulation and the amount of bank deposits. War, as it is now fought, spares neither belligerent nor neutral economies. Some of them, such as France, Belgium, and the Netherlands in thew.est, and most of eastern European countries where currency chaos was greatest, have had t o take drastic steps to reduce the money supply in an attempt t o head off inflation. In general, these measures have provided for the with drawal of practically all outstanding currency, the limited issue of new currency, and the freezing of a large part of the bank deposits existing immediately prior to the promulgation of the currency decrees. In most cases these monetary reform laws have contributed t o economic and .financial reconstruction in that they have sterilized a large part of the huge liquid funds accumulated during the war period. Inflationary price movements, to the extent that they were being fed by the spend ing of those funds, were held in check and black markets curtailed. Nevertheless, the ineffectiveness of such decrees in two countries - Hungary and Greece - and the reappearance recently of currency disturbances in some of the other countries, serves to remind us of the fact that complete monetary rehabi:)J.tation cannot be attained without the improvement of basic supply-demand conditions, and the adop tion of fiscal and economic (as well as monetary) policies which strengthen public confidence in a nation's credit and its currency. Fortunately we are not faced with the need of such drastic measures as have been taken in some other countries, nor can we admit that the solution is so simple as some of these measures might imply, necessary as they may have been in the circumstances in which they were taken. The existence of a large supply of money in relation t o the supply of goods and services is not, of itself, inflation even though it may give you the feeling of wandering through a powder magazine, striking matches to light the way. As stated again in the annual report of the Digitized for FRASER https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 3 Federal Reserve Bank of New York? just recently published, historically, drastic inflation has usually been associated ~vi th budgetary deficits and with deficits !Ln a country' s international balance, leading to currency depreciation. Ii th these, and l argel y as a consequence of them, has gone a distrust of the currency resulting in capital flight and a panicky desire to run away from money into commodities, ]'.'eal estate,. and equity secur:i.ties. These conditions are not present in this country. The Federal deficit is rapidly dim:i.nishing and there is a highly favorable prospect of our having receipts in excess of expenili tures in the fiscal year begin ning July 1 next. Internationally, there is no pressure on our balance of payments and no anxiety about the external stability of the dollar - quite the reverse. There is, therefore, no fundamental distrust of our currency such as characterized the great inflations after the last war, and the inflations which have followed in the wake of the recent war . Nevertheless, this does not mean that we can afford to i gnore the monetary aspects of our problem, as it seemed we might be doing until recently. Official and some unofficial repo·rts on reconversion have emphasized the need of increased production, and the maintenance of price controls until such increased production is achieved, almost to the exclusion of other factors in the fight against infla tion, includinr; a proper ordering of our monetary affairs, Fundamentally, of course, in a situation J.i.ke the present, the antidote t o inflation is a large and balanced output with rising productivity per worker. To this objective Governmental and business and labor policies must be mainly directed, and upon our success in ,achieving it will l argely depend whether we shall lay the foundations in 1946 for a period of orderly prosperity or have an i nflationary outburst terminating in depression. A second fundamehtal is the avoidance of a wage-pri ce spiral such as we had after the l ast war . This time, the dropping of wage controls after V-J Day, and the early sanction given to wage increases which would not require price in creases developed quickly into a pretty general demand for higher wage rates. This soon forced recognition that there would have to be some accompanying rise of prices. The problem i s how to stabilize this relation, because it must be stabi lized if we are to avoid a fitful period. of illusory prosperity followed by col lapse. The modified wage policy announced by the President last February recognized the need for re-imposition of some wage-rate control and established a procedure for wage-price adjustments which may achieve a more stp.ble relation, though the major and disastrous strikes 1Nhich have since been in progress have clouded the prospect of success of the new· policy. Similarly with price controls. Drawing again on the recent annual report of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, exten sion of the Price C:ontrol Act seems an indispensabl e condition of a successful anti-inflationary policy, but the control must be flexible and should be based on recognition of the fact that price changes in a period when we are trying to work back to free markets, have an indi spensa1,le role to play in bringing out a balanced output and directing and controlling demand. At the risk of introducing occupational bias, I must now emphasize that a third fundamental in the present fight against inflation is the existence of a redundant money supply. Increased. produ ,tion will take care of the side of the equation represented by goods and services, but there is also a demand side repre sented by purchasing power in the hands of the publtc and the demonstrated public desire for goods and services. It must not be forg0tten that increased product.ion will generate increased incomes, which will currently provide the means of pur chasing the things produced. If this newly created income has to compete with an already large supply of liquid funds, such as we have built up duri ne- -t:J,9 w::,~, we \ Digitized for FRASER https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis '. 4 might have inflation no matter what our production records mc1y be. What we must do in the existing circumstances is (l) pte;ent a further increase in the money supply, and reduce it as opportunity offers; (2) keep oresent pubUc holdings of liquid re sources, in so far as possible, in their least volatile form - Government securi ties; and (3) facilitate a transfer of some Government securities from the banks to nonbank invest ors, which will mean transforming bank deposits into holdings of Government securities. This sounds simple and logical, hut it is not so easy as it sounds, and demanding courage of those who serve you in seeking a solution is less helpful than constructive suggestions as to just what should be done, and when, and how. The first and most imDortant step, in the present circumstances, i s already being taken - that is, putting our national budget in order . According t o the revised budget estimates released by President Truman in April, the Treasury deficit for the fiscal year 1945-46 will be $21. 7 billion, irhich i s -~,6.9 billion l ower than the January budget estimate. And since the A.ctual deficit t o the end of March was ~17.3 billion, the anticipated deficiency for the last three months of the fiscal year was only ~4.4 billion. _ It may, in fact, be even less. The smaller estimated deficit reflects a substantial increase in estimated receipts and a decline in estimated expenditures, some of v\hich, however, have only been delayed, not eliminated. It seems reasonable to hope and expect that this reduction in the fiscal year' s deficit, plus the excess of receipts over expenditures, which we actually experienced in the first quarter of 1946, are portents cf thin,s to come - that our Federal budget may be in cash balance this calendar year and in full financial balance during the com i ng fiscal year. 'rhat will mean, of course, keeping up taxes, in the aggregate, and will depend upon the maintenance of a high level of income. The first we can well stand, if the alternative is feeding the fires of inflation; and the second we can most c~rtainly achieve if labor troubles do not rob us .of the fruits of our ability t o manage and use our resources. With the disappearance of Federal deficits the principal cause of increases in the money supply during recent years will have been removed. With a reappearance of Federal surpluses some reduction in the money supply will take place, if bank-hel1 debt is repaid. Assuredl y we are entering a phase in which budget surpluses are economically desirable and socially defensibl e. In a situation in which our resources of men and materials can be used to the utmost in meeting domestic and foreign demands for our goods and services, and in the face of a redundant money supply, some restraint on purchasing power is necessary· if the warttme savings of the public are not to be wholly frittered a my in rising prices. . v,re can provide a measure of restr:;i_int through budget surpluses. And we can have budget surpluses if work stoppages do not dry up the sources of our national in come, if taxes are kept relatively high, and if non-essential and less essential Government expenditures are reduced or postponed. Debt management policy can also be helpful and is presently being help ful. As you know, the Treasury is usihg some of the funds which it obtained in the Victory Loan Drive last December, and which increased its balances far in excess of current needs, to reduce the amount of the outstanding debt. This is realJ.y a con version operation in which the horse co:nes after the cart . 'For various reasons there was a very large sale of long-term restricted bonds in the Victory Loan, and it is the proceeds of these sales which are now, in effect, being used t o pay off short-term securities held largely by the banks, ihcluding the Federal Reserve Banks. The result is that sone war loan deposits, which would have become private deposits if spent, and thus increased the money supply in the hands of the public, are being eliminated. Digitized for FRASER https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 5 Another constructive aspect of debt management policy is the continued sale of savings bonds to the public, bearing rates which exceed those available in the market. So long as incomes remaj_n high and goods continue in short supply, there is every reason for dampening consumer demand by encouragj.ng substantial savings out of current income and the retention of previously accumulated savings. Not only is the continued cooperation of employers and of the banks desirable in promoting this program; a stepped-up campaign on the part of the Treasury, which I understand will soon be launched, is a necessity. There will also arise, even tually, the question of the kind of securities to be issued in refunding maturing obligations in order to absorb the supolies of investable funds accumulating (and not needed elsewhere) in the hands of insurance companies, savings banks, and other institutional and individual investors. When the present program of repaying debt out of accumulated balances is completed, this problem will have to be met. And now I have driven myself into a corner where I must say something about restraint on further credit expansion which is the area in which I have some direct responsibility and, therefore, the area. where it is most difficult t o make public pronouncements. During the war the credit policy of the Federal Reserve System had twc main objectives: (1) provtding banks with sufficient reserves to enable them t o act as residual buyers of C'10Yermnent securities; and (2) maintaining stability or a "pattern of rates11 in the Government security market. The fact that this two- sided policy largely or wholly deprived the Federal Reserve System of the initiative wi~h respect t o the supply of credit was acceptable as a corol lary of war financing needs. It is not acceptable under peacetime conditions, particularly when inflationary pressures are as strong as they are t oday. Our problem is to deci de what is the place of quantitative credit control in the fight against inflation and how it is to be reasserted to the extent that it has a role to play. (I am purposely ex.eluding from the discussion qualitative or selective credit controls such as control of margin requirements for purchasing and carrying listed securities, and control of consumer c:r:edit.) As matters now stand, control is largely in the market and particularly in the hands o.f the commercial banks. Even though we v1.rish to prevent a further i ncrease in the money supply, or even to bring about some contraction, you need only offer Government securities for sale to obtain more Federal Reserve credit. That has become an undesirable or, I might say, an intolerable situation. I do not think we can expect or permit some fourteen thousand individual commercial banks to establish national credit policy for us in this critical reconversion period. We already have a redundant money supply, and a tendency toward declining interest rates which such a supply engenders. Maintenance of a 11patt-ern of rates", because it dj_minishes the risks and i ncreases the profits which come with holding long-term securities, accentuates this t endency, This combination, plus a favorable business outlook, has often in the pq.st been a highly inflationary force, pushing up prices in all markets for both securities and commodities. I should like to think that voluntary action by the banks would meet the situation, but I am afraid that is a reed we cannot lean upon t oo heavily. The forces of competition, and in some cases of· greed, and the difficu..l ty of separating productj_ ve transactions from speculative excesses will be too 1ikely to bring additional credit into use if it is readily available. In these circumstances it seems to me clear, if we are to discharge our responsibiJ.ity .for promoting economic 9tability, and for supporting the measures taken by other agencies to curh inflationary tendencies, w.e must com bat a further decline in interest rates and must curb further credit expansion. Digitized for FRASER https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 6 We have taken some steps in that direction. A return flow of currency , and an, increase in our gold stock, amounting to nearly ~l billion in the first four months of the year, which might otherw:l. se have further eased the credit situation, was offset by a reduction in the Go~ernment security holdings of the Federal Reserve Banks. We have taken i n the welcome mat, in the form of a preferential discount rate on advances collateraled by Government securities matudng within one year, which encouraged you to use Federal Reserve credit during the war financing period. But the door is still open, We ha.ve yet to determine if and how ·we can close it without bringing undue pressure on the Government security market. I do not think any of you would advocate a really t ough monet ary policy - that is, resort t o a drastic i ncrease in money rates and a drastic decrease in the money supply, as an anti-inflation weapon. 'fhe consequences would be more severe than we ~hould want or intend. I think many of you would agree that a generally higher level of interest rates on United Sta.tes securities, than is now being paid_ by the Government, would not be desirable, having :i.n mind the size of the public , debt and the annual cost of its service, although you would undoubtedly add that if the cho:i. ce is between some increase in the cost of servicing the debt and the infinitely greater costs of inflation, you would choose the former. It is within this area that we must devise a policy, using our present powers t o free ourselves from the strait jacket of the 11pattern of rates11, and the loss of credit control which it involves, or else we might have t o seek nevi and, perhaps, novel powers to attain the same objective. With 1Nisc1.om and restraint on the part of commercial bankers, we ,may be able to preserve the present general level-of interest rates, without endangering the whole anti-inflation program by an uncontrolled expansion of credi t. If that is t oo much to ask or expect, however, those whose duty it is to administer credit policy in the interest of economic stability cannot shirk th(-:1ir responsibilities. · I should now like t o make brief mention of a matter which seems to me to be o·f the first importance in our international economic rel ations, and indeed in our international politi cal relations as well. I re.fer to the Anglo-American financial and trade agreements,, which were recommended by representative:3 of our Government and the Government of the United Kingdom last December. Those agreements were promptly approved by the British P:::.rliamont, though not without some misgivings, and have been dragging their wea.ry W8.Y through, the Congress of the United States. I need not review for you, in any det ail, the terms of those agreements. They are conmton knowledge. In essence we wouJ.d grant a line of credit totaling ~~3, 7 50 million to the British, plus ~~650 million t o cover the final settlement of l end-lease and other claims arising directly out of the war, against which the British coul d draw at any time between the e.f'.fective date of the agreement and December 31, 1951. _T he combined credits of'$4.4 billion require n0 payment of principal or interest during this period.' Beginning Decemoer 31, 1951, they are t o be repaid in equa_l annual instalments over a period of fifty years, the payments t o include an i nterest charge of 2% on the outstanding principal amount in any given year. If the United Kingdom det ermines' that its present and prospective position with respect t o its interna tional bal ance of payments, and the level of its gold and foreign exchange reserves make i t necessary, ar1:d is support ed by .a certification of the International Monetary Fund a.s t o its balance of payments posi tion, the interest payment in ~ny year may be waived, These might be considered generous t erms, :Lf past sacrifices in a common cause are t o be forgotten, i f the future strength and stability of the British Cormnonwealth of Nations means nothing to us, and if this were an ordinary loan transaction. The fact i s, it seems t o 11e, that we have a vital interest in the Digitized for FRASER https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis • • .• 7 rehabilitation of the British economy which transcends the financial aspects of the trans;:i_dion, and that · there are ~ert,ain collateral provisions of the agreement vrhich make this no ordinary loan. In return for our financial -help, the United Kingdom has comrni tted itself t o a system of free exchange on current account· and has joined with us in "Proposals for Consideration by an International Conference on Trade and Employmant, 11 which point the way toward a revival of international trade on a :mul tilateral basis. ,Just 11.rhat does that mean to us? It meci,ns a reversal of the tendency which flourished in the years between the wars, particularJy during the depression years, and which J.ed country after cc,untry to adopt measures which interfered with the free flow of international trade. Exchange controls, import quotas, multiple currency rates designed to promote exports and to restri ct imports, bilateral arrangements which had as their chief purpose channeling trade between the countries party to the arrangement, and empire preferences, were among the restrictive and frequent]y discriminatory measures adopted. All tended t o limit the foreign trade of the United States, which is heavily dependent upon multi.lateral trade - that is, trade which requires many-sided transactions for its final adjustment. Much of our export trade in past years was with countries from which we did not import an equivalent amount of goods and services. Much of our import trade was with coun tries which di d not buy an equivalent amount of goods and services from us • . These restrictions on international trade were i ntensified during the war , not only by the physical diversi on of production and shipping t o war purposes, but also by the financial nece,ssities of war-distorted trade. Great Dri tain, for examnle, was forced to adopt severe restrictive measures. In order to obtain essential materials of war she had to resort to stri ct limitations on import s, stimulation of uneconomic home production, largE. scale liquidation of her foreign investments, and such devices as the 11dol1ar pooln. Under the pool arrangement, countries in the so- called sterling arec', turned into tne common pool (against payment in blocked sterling) the dollars which they received for goods and services sold t o the United States. They l eft it to Great Britain t o decide what amounts of dollars would be allotted t o them, t o pay for a minimum volume of essential imports, and what amounts Y~ere t o be used by Great Bri tai.n in defraying some of the costs of war against the common ene1:iy. To untangl e even a part of this network of restraints on the free flow of trade, it i s essential that Great Britain, one of the great trading nations of the world, be aided back t oward something l ike her free trade policicis of former years, She cannot begin t o reverse the tr,md 'without our hel p. Her war-born, debts to other countries are· vastly in excess of her immediate means of paying them. ~lany of her foreign investments', which forrierly were a source of overseas income, have been sol d. Her industries have t o be recc-nverted from their wartime uses, and her manpower redistributed in a peacet -i.me pattern of employment. Huch energy, in these immediate postwar years, will have to be devo-ted to reconstruction or - repair of war-torn areas • . In those. circumstances, continuance of severe· restric tions on her foreign trade woul d be inescapable. With financial aid from us and others - Canada has already agreed t o extend a credit t o Great Britain which i s proportionat ely much larger than the Un:Lted States credit - these restrictions and restraints can,be somewhat relaxed. It is clearly in our interest, it seems t o me, that there be'the widest degree of freedom in world trade, so that mul tilateral exchanges of goods and ser vices may take place i.,vi th a minimum of restricti on and restraint, and with a minimum Digitized for FRASER https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis • 8 ' of discrimination as between nations. That is the kind of trade to which our economy is supposed to be geared, and that is the kind of trade which permits the mo st effi cient and effective use of the world s resources of men and materials. Without our I financial help in this period of transition from war to peace, Great Britain could not join us in this world enterprise, With our financial help, generously given, she will be able to do so. It will not be an easy undertaking. There are those in Great Britain, com petent to assess her position, who believe that this is an attempt to set back the clock; to restore a kind of trading world to which the British international position is no longer adapted. Certainly it vdll become less and less possibl$ if the United · States is prey to periods of severe inflation and deflation, or if we are unable to find a balanced international position. In the years between the wars we were inter mittent ·and somewhat capricious lenders abroad, and we found no good answer to our tendency to be a creditor on both current and capital account, at one and the same time. We have commonly thought in terms of fostering exports and repelling imports. To reverse that process is not simple. There are difficult adjustments to be made here as well as in Great Britain, if this proposed world of multilateral trade is to be ~ore than an economist's blueprint. To try.to attain it, however, is to make a contribution to world -peace which we cannot afford to forego. The times are too uncertain, the.portents too op pressive. World peace is the goal and the only international goal which has any relevance ·in this new ato:m:i.c age. If attainment of the g~al requires, ql'.llong other things, that a strong, economically healthy Britain press forward at our side, and I think it does, then the risks which may attach themselves to these agreements are small risks to take. But even if these broader considerations be ignored or minimized, I still fail to see how a Congress which adopted the l retton Woods plans by substantial ma jorities, could fail to approve the Anglo-.American Agreements. Without our financial aid to Britain her participation in the International Monetary Fund becomes either impossible, ·or a sham and a pretense; and without partici pation in the International Monetary Fund, she would not be eligible to participate in the World Bank. These things should have been clear when the 3retton Woods program was adopted, and they should be clearer now. It seems to me to be a sort of political anarchy in the field of international economic relations, to join in setting up international institutions ofhigh purpose and fair promise, and then to help make it impossibl e for them to work. I fee1. this the more keenly, because of another and even more ominous shadow which hangs over everything we do and everything we say in these revolutionary times. In a world which is groping toward some means of international control of atomic energy, time is short. Fumbling delay and diplomatic maneuver are as obsolete as man himself is said to be. Yet the international scene is becoming painfully reminiscent of the spectacle which followed the last war, pitiful as that performance now appears. It is as if old actors were spouting old lines on a stage which is about to be blown i~to eternity. That might be all right if your taste runs' to the gruesome, but unfortunately we, the audience, will also be blown to bits in the process. The complacent may comfort themselves by reflecting that man has survived the invention of a whole series of death-dealing weapons. But the atomic bomb is no blunderbuss replacing the bow and arrow - it is a revolutionary development. Unless we prevent wars there will be no ultimate protection against its destructive use. And unless we, and other countries, revolutionize our dealing vd th j_nternational affairs, we are not going to prevent wars. It would be a tragedy - indeed, the final tragedy - if the hope and promise which )-ies in the constructive exploitation of atomic energy were l ost in senseless battle. In the words of Emerson, the~e are times when the energies of all rnen are 11 sear-ched by fear and by hope." It will be a ·5ood time to have lived if our hopes confound our fears. Digitized for FRASER https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Allan Sproul (1946, May 23). Regional President Speech. Speeches, Federal Reserve. https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/regional_speeche_19460524_allan_sproul

@misc{wtfs_regional_speeche_19460524_allan_sproul,
  author = {Allan Sproul},
  title = {Regional President Speech},
  year = {1946},
  month = {May},
  howpublished = {Speeches, Federal Reserve},
  url = {https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/regional_speeche_19460524_allan_sproul},
  note = {Retrieved via When the Fed Speaks corpus}
}