The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1918-10-19
Not All Our Liberty Loans Are
Shot Away.
MOSTLY STABLE INVESTMENT
Records Show That Our Government
is Putting Greater Part of Loans
Into Ships, Loans to Allies, Build
inqs, Railways and Other Lasting
Things.
BY THEODORE n. PRICE,
in The Outlook.

As we are entering upon the cam
paign for the sale of the Fourth Lib
erty Loan, it is altogether appropri-
ate that we should take account of
what two years of wal will have cost
us and determine, if we can. in how
far and how speedily our expenditures
car be recovered under peace condi-
tons when they shali have been estab-
lished.
American pride in the widely adver-
tised wealth of the country has not
only led us to be lavish in spending,
but it has induced more or less exag-
geration in the current estimates of
the wars cost. Popular feeling is
expressed by the remark, Hang the
expense let us lick the Huns" and
many people, having come to believe
that victory was largely a matter of
money, have felt a certain satisfaction
In reading of the unnumbered billions
that are being disbursed.
To a certain extent the growth of
this feeling has been encouraged by
the newspapers, until the editors as
well as the public have become care
Tess of the facts. Thus in the New
York Times" Of July %, under the
headline American War Bill Now
Fifty Billion" there was published a
Washington despatch dated July %,
from which the following Is a quota
ton:
I'm the first year the expenditure
amounted to $751; III, O12, while
Congress has authorized for the sec
ond year ending June 80, 1919, appro-
priations amounting to approximately
$50, ,0O0, O00."
This statement and others like 1t
have been widely printed, and the re-
action of the public mind seems to
Indicate that most people are rather
well pleased with the wealth and mu-
nificence that are implied.
1t woTld nevertheless be a very
serious matter if we were dissipating
our National wealth 1t the rate NAM
ed. The fact is we are not spending
any such sum for war, and much of
what we are spending is being invest
ed in the interest-bearing obligations
of u allies, which are presumably
good. and in ships, shipyards, termin-
ais, warehouses, railways. and other
things that will be valuable and pro-
ductiye long after peace is declared.
The amounts that are being spent
~constructively or invested in the in
t~erest-bearing debt of other nations
cannot be accurately ascertained at
present, but the total is large and
may be Appropriated. We know, for
Instance, that Congress has authorized
the Secretary of the Treasury to loan
$10,000,000.0 900 to our Allies. and that
the credits already placed at their
disposal aggregate about $1,000 ,OOO,-
600.
These loans all bear interest at q
rate one-half per cen in excess of
h Il Government is paying.
A statement obtained from the Ship
ping Board indicates that the Govern
ment will own the following property
as of August 1. 1919:
Steel ships delivered,
h,3S8,635 tons ....... 1.O77. 1910
Wood and copcrete ships
delivered, f.627, 800 tons 3O9,412,5 500
Ships on ways and fitting
out af1oat:
Steel, 100000 tons. 4OO,OOO,ooO
Wood 1,300,000 1T, 900
Concrete, 100000 56.25O.OOO
S%hipyards and plants.-. 2OO,OOO,OOO
Houses .............. 100, 10000