Michigan

". . . The thoughts of you, dear Michigan, Will fill our eyes with tears."--Ann Arbor college song.

Like a frightened recruit after his first day under fire, many a cashless U. S. citizen wondered last week about the grizzled veteran, Michigan, fighting along in its fourth week of banking moratoria. How was Michigan taking it?

P: With no scrip available to stimulate trade, department store business was estimated at 60% to 70% below normal. For the first week personal checks were accepted, subject to collection. Later, credit was extended to known customers.

P: In Holland & Zeeland, Mich., centres of the baby chick industry, tons of eggs were gestating in incubators, customers were canceling orders by the thousands, and the ground was yellow with peeping, scratching fledglings.

P: In Detroit the Colonial Department Store advised that it would exchange clothing for farm produce: a dress, bag, hat, shoes, for 3 bbl. of salted Saginaw Bay herring; three boys' suits, three pr. shoes, one dress for a 500 Ib. sow; assorted merchandise for 50 crates of eggs or 180 Ib. of honey.

P: Detroit cinemansions with normal audiences of 1,000 reported 50 or 60 customers like plums in the broad acres of vacant plush.

P: Restaurants filled their cash registers with bales of signed lunch checks. Food dealers, both wholesale and retail, were generous to the end in extending credit. A threat to Detroit's milk supply existed in the inability of farmers to collect enough cash to buy feed for their cattle.

P: Michigan and the world believed fortnight ago that Henry Ford, veteran foe of bankers, was about to become the State's greatest banker by taking over the strapped Guardian National and First National of Detroit and running them under his own novel ideas ("The first duty of a bank is to be a safe repository for money"). Last week they learned that both banks had refused the Ford offer, changed their minds, were about to reorganize and carry on under new Federal and State emergency legislation. Delay in adopting the latter was partly traceable to antagonism between Detroit and out-state bankers, who were not consulted when the moratorium was proclaimed and whose reserves are tied up in Detroit banks. Dark rumors also circulated of a struggle for power between Ford, General Motors, Chrysler. Meanwhile General Motors, flinging defiance in the face of moratoria. announced a new Chevrolet "standard" six slightly smaller than the present six. to sell, they promised, at a lower price than any other standard-model six. Minus fancy gadgets, the car will be on display the end of this week.

P: Senator Couzens who had been staying in Washington talking into the ear of R. F. C. hurried home, lunched with Henry and Edsel Ford, sat on a platform with Henry Ford and watched 200 children of Dearborn dance and chirp to the tune of "RockaBye Baby." Their faces did not move at the lines:

". . . When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,

Down will come baby. . . ."

P: Of Detroit's 1,400 city laborers, 1,000 were unable to raise any money on their pay checks. Several fainted at work from hunger before food cards were issued.

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