Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1917-05-10
Uncle Sans
$7,OOO,OOO,OOO
Bills Could Not Be Counted in 700
Years-WOuId Circle Earth 81
Times.

The interest on the United States
$1,000, 100000 war budget at 1-2I
per cent amounts to almost $500 per
minute, according to c. P. d. Hamil-
ton, vice-president of the Information
al Shoe Company, who has figured out
number of comparisons to show
just what $7,OOO,OOO,OO means. His
figures follow:
There are almost exactly as many
dollars in $1,000, 100000 as there
are seconds in 222 years. Since the
declaration of independence. July 4,
1776, to date, there are less than
$500, 100000 seconds.
"Seven billions of gold coin is
13,44O tons and would load nearly
1900 cars, each with $4,000 pounds,
and make solid train 13 miles long.
(Almost the distance from Mexico TO
Centralia)
"Seven billions of silver dollars
stacked in a pile would go toward
the stars to a distance of 1876 miles.
And it would take the United States
mint, working day and night, 224
years to coin the dollars.
Would Buy L. s.
"At SIS an acre, this vast sum
would pay for every acre of land in
the continental United States.
"Seven billion dollars in dollar
"greenbacks," end to end, will go
around the earth at the Equator
nearly thirty-four times. And it
would take an express train running
forty miles an hour, day and night,
continuously, for two and one-half
years, to cover the distance.
Let us look at it in time, or dis
tance.
"Seven billion minutes are 1878
years, 8 hours and so minutes.
Imagine seven billion of miles! A
rife bullet has speed of about half
mile a second, yet at this great We
locity it would require almost 444
| ) W SONCl lhC ulOldllNOs
Had an express train started at
the dawn of the Christian era, going
at the rate of mile minute, it would
today, nineteen centuries after
Christ was born, figuratively speak
ing, hardly have gotten out of the
train sheds, for it would have gone
only one-severth of the distance.
And would now, 1917, have IL 400
years to run to complete the journey
of 1000, 100000 miles!
Count it-ridiculous! Imagine an
expert counter of money, counting
this in 81 bills and expert enough to
count one a second. Then suppose he
belonged to the union" and worked
eight hours a day, Sunday and holi-
days excluded. Then imagine him
working on the job for fifty years
dying of old age-the work taken up
by another. The first man would
have been dead 700 years when the
fifteenth man quit the task-each of
the fifteen having worked for fifty
years, and there would still be un-
counted enough to give to each man,
woman and child in st. Louis $500
and leave $12O, 100000 untouched!
Let us look at $7,OOO,OOO,O in
this way: Suppose man had this
sum in bank-not interest bearing
and every week day of the year he
drew his check for $1,0O0,000, he
would, after % years, have $36,OOO,-
900 in the bank!
Suppose again that it was in
vested, paying per cent interest, and
the mans expenses were $1,000,0OO
a day. He would after 70 years
spending a million day-fnd that
he had fourteen billion left, twice as
much as at the beginning, and might
want to kick himself for
down to a beggarly million a day!
This loan bears interest of 1-2
per cent and the interest is $245, 900,
0C0 year, nearly $500 a minute
just the INTEREST,""