BECKONING FRONTIERS

A record which is ""part personal history, part national history"",- ""part narrative and part analytical"" of the basic economic ideas ""that threaded through public policy"" from 1933 to 1945, largely under the impetus of Eccles, Governor of the Federal Reserve Board during most of this period. With only briefly a background to his life and ideas and his early experiences as a banker, this is primarily an account of the formulation of his economic philosophy and his later legislation to put it into practice. The depression, and the panic which followed gave rise to his belief that, economic laws are not ""God--given"" and that there must be human interference to prevent depression disasters. First as a member of the Treasury Staff, later as Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, this follows the political legislation which introduced the FHA, Federal Reserve program, bank unification, deficit financing, the economics of war and trying to maintain a balance through war bonds, taxation, controls, to the present and his removal by Truman (due to banking interest pressures). He closes with a warning that only through higher taxation and enforced controls can the present inflationary spiral be checked.... A good deal of political background, public addresses, statements, hearings, etc. weights down this story of a career- in the public interest- restricts its interest to economists.