Ezra Pound Knocks Economics And American History Staffs

Ezra Pound, poet and economical, although not (he is anxious to establish) an orthodox member of the latter profession, thinks that students here are being cheated of their $400 tuition fee.

He thinks so because they are not getting "the straight" tip on Economics and American History," as he put it in an interview yesterday before he left Cambridge after a brief visit during which he read some cantos in a Morris Gray lecture.

The distinguished writer has been living abroad for thirty years and in diffident about; criticizing his native land after so brief a re-acquaintance. But he has just come from a two weeks stay in Washington where he gave serious attention to the workings of the government, and he found most of America's his could be blamed on Money.

Pound expressed his ideas in Professor Theodore Spencer's house, with whom he stayed while in Cambridge. He is a tall, stocky man with nervous mannerisms and a beard which time has changed from red to an indefinite color. He were a blue sult, a wide-collared shirt with a loosely knotted tie and punctuated his remarks by throwing him self forward in his chair when he wanted to make a point. Once he Jumped onto the arm of his chair to illustrate that America was on the economic precipice and the ways in which a fall could be avoided.

Fascism No Danger

"The danger in America is not Fascism," he said, referring to an article which he had written in Washington for "The Capitol Daily" on "Gold, War, and National Money."

"It is as idiotic to be anti-Fascist in America as it would be to start a movement to prevent Javanese temple dancing in Massachusetts. Javanese temple dancing is an elaborate and organized process of movement. The corporate state is an elaborate and un-American organization."

He continued his predictions with a prophecy on the war danger: "If European war can be staved off until after the next American Presidential election I think it can be staved off altogether, for all of our time."

Pound is extremely concerned over the current confusion in terms which, he says, afflicts economics especially. He would have eight or ten terms exactly defined and understood by people, such words as Money, Credit, Property, Capital, Usury.

Economist and Poet

He considers himself a professional economist as well as a poet, and testimony to his rank in the former are three articles of his which have been printed in the "Rassegna Monetaria", the Italian economic journal. His explanation of his personal mixture of poet and economist is that "an opic is a poem con- taining history, and if a man thinks he can understand history without economics he is a bloody idiot."

His ideas on money are summed up in a statement of Schacht, former German economic minister, that "Money that is not issued against needed goods is mere printed paper," and the remark that "gold and silver are not needed goods."

The "stamp scrip" of the economist Gesell is the money plan which Pound advocates. This would mean a monthly stamp of 1 per cent on the value of the scrip issued by the government, and would do away with taxes and replace them with "taxed money, based on national production," he said.

This scheme is in the tradition of the great statesmen of America's history, he says. "I foresee a day when some Congressmen, not a wildcat but a man grounded in American history, faithful to the memory of John Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren and Lincoln, a man grounded in monetary horse sense and practical national finance will propose stamp scrip as payment for all new government expenditures, and for the payment of such part of their employees' salaries as they normally spend on their current expenses."

Pound is a little discouraged about the chances of spreading his ideas in this country for he thinks the press contains "a deluge of lies." He concluded that "its mendacity is not as efficient here as it is in England, but the confusion is worse.