6 
WAR BORROWING 
level, and the efforts of the Treasury in harmony 
with the Federal Reserve Board have been expended 
in guiding and shaping this influence. 
The use of short-term negotiable obligations is 
no new device in the financial experience of the 
United States. Temporary loans evidenced by 
certificates of indebtedness have served from time 
to time throughout our national history to tide over 
budget deficits or to anticipate future revenues. 
Morris, Gallatin, Chase and the nearer figures of 
our own decades are associated with their emission. 
Recourse has been had to such measures in the 
monetary disorder of peace times as in the financial 
stress of war. Sometimes intended only for bank 
absorption, sometimes planned for general invest 
ment, the issues have differed widely in the tech 
nique of amount, denomination, maturity, interest 
yield, convertibility and redemption as well as in 
the more important elements of circulation and 
privilege. 
The extraordinary use of certificates of indebted 
ness in our present war financing may not be safely 
projected against this background of past experi 
ence. The financial requirements we face and the 
dislocations to which our markets are exposed pre 
sent a group of conditions so unparalleled in degree 
as to be virtually new in kind. Moreover, the 
service which the certificate is now designed to 
render is very different from its older function. 
Instead of a temporary expedient to put the Treas 
ury in funds for an interim period until established 
revenues from funded loans or extraordinary taxes 
become available or until the credit market recovers