BERNARD BARUCH-WALL STREET'S GIFT TO GOVERNMENT

BARUCH-SPECULATOR AND STATESMAN

■ Bernard M. Baruch is one of those prominent national figures to whose major activities not even the precise Who's Who biography gives a clue. The reason is ready: Mr. Baruch is not a seeker after titles or positions. He prefers that his influence he behind the scenes, private in nature, and frequently obscure in origin. His first decades were spent on the Stock Exchange; a brilliant analyst and forecaster of markets, a self-avowed "speculator", he amassed and has kept a fortune. He was past forty-five when he made his entry into the work of government: in 1916 President Wilson appointed him to the Committee on National Defense. Later he was appointed Chairman of the now historic War Industries Board, and thus became practically the right bower of the Administration. The coming of the peace did not retire him from leadership: he was one of the leading economic advisors for the Versailles Treaty. Always a potent force in finance, a famous campaign contributor, he became a prime mover—though an unofficial one—in Democratic party councils. But lie had to wait, through long years, for the 1932 landslide. When General Johnson and George Peek, who had worked with Baruch during and since the war. were selected to lead Recovery Administration, the country realized that not only was the old War Industries Board, hut. perhaps, the old Baruch power being revived. This time Baruch accepted no position. A favorite and recurrent debate among the political cognoscenti always concerns itself with the future importance of "B. M." in the nation's economic and financial councils. And in an Administration half committed to inflationary and socialistic theory, the economic orthodoxy of Baruch may or may not have a place. Carter Glass, defending this orthodoxy, at the same time defined Baruch's persistent power. He said "Yes. Bernie is as dogmatic as h——1 about two and two making four"