ty 
id 
ne 
le! 
in 
as 
is. 
er 
1n 
n. 
ys 
117 
m 
5- 
y 
0 
Ky 
[- 
at 
ce 
1 
1e 
h 
or 
le 
y 
I< 
XN. 
is 
14 
N 
MN 
IY 
and the United States is growing and contrary to popular opinion 
already exceeds the volume recorded in years when the czars ruled 
at St. Petersburg. The annual commerce between Russia and the 
United States now totals more than $100,000,000. 
“The $5,000,000 received in New York from the Seviet 
State Bank of Moscow is the first Russian gold to enter the United 
States since 1917. The shipment demonstrates the intent of the 
soviet government to establish credits here on a sound basis and to 
increase its volume of trade with the United States. Soviet radical- 
ism is gradually giving way before the necessary adjustments of a 
vast empire which cannot take its proper place in the world without 
commercial contact with other commercial countries.” 
Indianapolis, Ind., Times, March 12, 1928 
THE STRANGE CASE OF RED GOLD 
“When is $5,201,000 in gold neither gold nor money, but merely 
‘material’ which costs $700 a day to keep? 
“The answer is: When the gold belongs to Soviet Russia and 
is locked up in a couple of New York banks from which certain 
quixotic technicalities prevent it from getting into circulation. 
“About a month ago Russia sent twenty crimson casks of gold 
bars to the United States to be used as a basis of credit for pur- 
chases in this country. After placing them in the vaults of the 
Equitable Trust and the Chase National Bank of New York, the 
Russians felt, no doubt, that they might proceed with their shopping. 
“But they had reckoned without their host, that host, in this 
instance, being the red tape entanglements which hair-splitting offi- 
cials can throw in the way. 
“Before business could proceed, it was deemed necessary to 
deposit the gold with the Federal Reserve Bank. But an embargo, 
dating back to 1920, stands against Russian gold in this country, 
so, after two weeks’ delay—and a loss in interest of about $10,000, 
or more than $700 a day—the Treasury Department ruled against 
accepting the casks. Russia’s title, it seems, is not quite clear and the 
millions might be tainted. 
“Of course, after Germany, we may get more Russian trade 
than from any other nation in the world. And in one way or 
another—in bills of exchange, for instance, bought with Russian 
gold in London, or Paris, or Berlin—we are accepting Russian 
money every day of the year. But these casks of actual ingots, 
well, they seem to be different. 
Ly