Benjamin Strong Jude Wanniski May, 2, 2005

From: Jude Wanniski  <jwanniski@polyconomics.com        
To:      Ben.S.Bernanke@ * * * * *.GOV                                               
Subject: Benjamin Strong
8:50 Pm, 5/2/2005

Please ask your secretary to find out if the Fed library has a 1930 book, "Interpretations of Federal Reserve Policy," by Strong, Harper & Row. It isn't a book so much as a collection of speeches and testimonies before the Congress, covering a dozen years. The most important for your purpose is No. XIX, which is his testimony before House Banking in 1928 on legislation that had been kicking around since 1926. My guess is that it came from the farmers who were unhappy that they could not pay their debts and wanted an inflation to save them. In a sense, it is the same as asking the government to manage the dollar in order to manage the economy. Strong is emphatic in his opposition, as you will see.  If it isn't available in the Fed library, you should be able to track it down in the Library of Congress. It is way out of print, as far as I can tell.

Jude