Mexico weekly ledger., 1917-06-14
SEVEN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS

travelling salesman for the Roberts
Johnson Rand Shoe Co., is distributing
a most interesting circular by c. d.
Hamilton, vice-P President of the In
ternational Shoe Company, of st.
Louis, regarding just what seven bill
lions of dollars means. The circular
is as follows:
Congress has passed - without a
dissenting vot a bill authorizing
the expenditure Of Seven Billions Of
Dollars!
Think Of this, and most Of 1t to be
spent in the next few months, and ev-
cry dollar at home 49, not a dollar.
most likely, will leave our country.
It is the purpose to loan about half
Of this money to our Allies -- extend
to them this amount Of credit to buy
our merchandise Of various sorts, and
the other half to be spent at home by
our own government also in the
in the consumption Of similar com
modities.
$1,000, OOO, 200. 90. Behold that
string Of ciphers. There are so many
eleven Of them 49, hal they mean
but little unless reduced to more ia
miliar objects. 1t may be of interest
it can do ZONE of US any harm - to
look into and try to comprehend what
SEVEN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
really mean.
Twenty times the cost Of the Pana-
ma Canal! Three hundred and fifty
times the cost of the biggest battle
ship afloat! Eight times the assess
ed valuation of the City of St. Louis.
There are more dollars in Seven Bill
lions than there are seconds in 300
years! Since the signing of the De-
~claration of Independence, July 4th,
l776, to date, there are only Az Bill
lion Seconds.
Seven Billions in gold coin is 49,
44O tons and would load down nearly
1900 cars, each with $4,000 pounds,
and make a solid train thirteen miles
long.
Let US look at it in time, or in dis
lance.
Seven Billion minutes is 1913
years, 0 hours and So minutes.
Imagine Seven Billions Of miles!
A rifle bullet has a speed Of about
hal a mile a second, yet at this great
velocity it would require almost 444
YEARS to Y the distance.
Seven Billions Of silver dollars
stacked in a pile would 20 up toward
the stars to a distance of i,736 miles!
And 1t would take the United States
mint working day and night. 224
years to coin the dollars.
At five dollars an acre this vast sum
would pay for every acre Of land in
the Continental United statesl
Imagine, il you can, Seven Billions
oil dollars in dollar "green backs" end
to end they would go around the
earth at the equator nearly "a TINES
and 1t would take an express train.
running forty miles an hour, day
and night, continuously, for TWO
AND ONE HALF YEARS, to
the distance.
Seven Billions:of dollars will buv .
pairs of good shoes for every man.
woman and child on earth TODAY
christian and pagan.
Had an express train started at tbc
GAVIN Of the Christian era, going at
tne rate of a mile a minute, il would
today nineteen centuries after Christ
was born, figuratively speaking. hard
" nave gotten out of the train sheds.
Tor 1t would have gone only one-sev-
en'n Oh the distance. And would
SOW 1917, have yet over eleven
thousand four hundred years to COM
piete the journey of Seven Billion
miles.
u it-ridiculous! Imagine an
expert counter Of money counting
seven Billions Of Dollars in dollar
O'IlS' and expert enough to count one
a second - belonging to the "union."
working eight hours a day, SUNDAYS
una holidays excluded, and then inn.
aSine him working at the job for fif.
y years. then turning the work over
W another - the first man who tack.
,eu the job would have been DEAD
W. YEARS when the fifteenth man
quitting the job - each of the fifteen
WORKING fifty years would still
leave enough of bills uneounted 70
"' each man, woman and child in
inc great City of st. Louis $500 90
" piece and still leave one hundred