The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1880-11-25
American Wealth.

American Wealth.
1t is a stock remark that Americ ans
love the dollar. The saying, like most
stock sa, ings, misses the point; the
real point is. not that Americans love
money more than other people. but
that they love comparatively few things
besides money. We have fewer OBJ
jects of serious pursuit than other West
ern nations have; we do not, as a peo-
pie, pursue the fine arts, or literature,
or scholarship, or society, with the zeal
or the fruitIulness that we find in Eu-
ropean communities, and so we are re-
garded as being somewhat deficient in
our duties as a civilized nation. We
love those things less than the Old
World communities love them. We do
not love money more than they-proba-
bly,, indeed, not so much as they. 1t is
the exclusiveness, not the zeal, of our
pursuit of money that is the thing to be
regretted. Some day, perhaps, we
shall try and do better than this; mean
while, most of US pursue the dollar,
without thinking of stopping much for
rest until we take rest where no work
is. No community thinks so little about
rest from work as ours.
We seek money, and we find it; yet
do we love it either well or intelligently
enough to use it fruitfully, to keep It
safely, or to bequeath it wisely? First.
let us glance at the wealth we possess
as a nation. Let us see what place a
century of money-making has given US.
We call ourselves a rich people, how
rich a people are weP A very little
comparison of figures will show. And
first, where do we stand as to the total
valuation of the national wealth?
We stand near the head of the list
third on the list of all the Western ma
tons. The United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland heads the list with
capital valuation of S44, 400, 900, 600; then
come France with $50, 700. 900, 900, the
United States with 1872, 900, 900, 900, Ger
many with $23, 200, 900, 600, Russia with
$1,000, 900, 900 and the Low Countries
with 81, 150, 900, 000o capital collective
ly. These are the valuations made by
those counties of their entire resources.
What is the average annual income per
inhabitant in various countries? We
come to the front in this comparison.
The average annual income in the
United Kingdom is S165; in the United
States, Sl65 also; in the Low Countries,
$3.50; in France, 1925; in the British
Colonies, $50; in Germany and also in
Scandinavia, $50. In this reckoning
Russia, with her ninety millions of peo-
pie, is out of sight as yet; she will not
be very long.
Once more: taking the question from
another point of view, let US ask, what
is our annual accumulation of wealth,
as compared with the annual accumu-
lation of other nations? And here we
step far in advance of any community
which gives us full estimates; it should
be borne in mind, however, that the
rate of interest for agricultural capital,
with us, is double the average rate for
Europe.
The annual accumulation of wealth,
then, in Germany, is 200,000,000 of
dollars; it is 325, 900, 600 in the United
Kingdom, 975,00O,0OO in France;
in the United States it is 825,00Q,-
600! Our increase of national
wealth since 1850, says good English
authority, would be enough to purchase
"the whole German Empire, with its
farms, cities, banks, shipping, manufac-
lures, etc. The annual accumulation
has been 825, 100000 of dollars, and
therefore each decade adds more to the
wealth of the United States than the
capital value of Italy or Spain. Every
day that the sun rises upon the Ameri-
can people it sees an addition of g, 300,-
600 to the wealth of the republic"
These are figures to make a poor
man expect wealth; but let us hasten to
say that they do not prove us any hap
pier, or wiser, or more estimable in the
sight of the world, than many another
poorer nation is. What these figures
do prove is a different thing: they prove
the bounty of nature towards an ener
getic race; they do not prove what we
sometimes take for granted on the
strength of them, that our nation is
great or admirable in the greatest and
most admirable things. No: we have
been busted with necessary things; in
great and admirable things our record !
is still, for the most part, to be made
Z. ~ Codn, an Harper'S Magazine.