The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-19
PROSPERITY OF
 GREAT NORTHWEST
By HOLLAND

New York, October 1S.-( (Special)-At
 the beginning of the third week of the
 campaign throughout the United States for the marketing of six billions of Lib-
 erty Bonds, q report was received in
 New York that Minneapolis and St. Louis
 headed the list, each of these districts
 having met and more than met their al-
 lotments. So far as St. Louis is com cerned, this achievement is spoken of
 here as 8 splendid refutation of the
 statement some time ago made that St.
 Louis is strongly pro-German city. There are several reasons why the Ninth federal reserve district of which Minneapolis is the center should have
 been able in record time to meet in full it's allotment of the Liberty Loan bonds.
 Probably nowhere in the United States, except Cincinnati and St. Louis, has there been perfected a finer organization for the sale of Liberty Bonds than in this great agricultural region of the northwest. The campaigners there learned q great deal from the.r experience when trying to market the first Liberty Loan. This district is a farming community. l The farmers as . class knew nothing year and a half ago about investments in bonds or securities. Many of the campaigners at the time of the first Lib- erty Loan discovered that the farmers thought that if they subscribed for bond the payment of the money was q gift to the government. exactly as a sub scription to the Red Cross fund would have been an outright gift. Necessarily
 much patience and perseverance were necessary on the part of the campaign CTS. This involved the giving of detailed information to the farmers whereby they were able to perceive that if they bought
 a bond it was as good as cash, or better than deposit in any bank, and that It would return to them interest upon cer-
 tain dates with the certainty that. the principal would be paid when due, be- cause the United States~itself was the
 debtor and it was inconceivable that the United States would default upon an obs ligation of this l1ind
 The first campaign in the northwest
 was a desperate struggle to gain a vic tory but the victory was at last won The experience which campaigners met with as well as the experience which was the happy lot of the farmers wha bought bonds in the first campaign served very we'll when the second offer ing and the third offering were made There was, however, one serious opsta' cle which the statesmen were compeleA 10 lace, ana lHat WSS tie lOlls eiSte'AiSSst 1 far away from the Ta;,road lines over 1 rough roads, many times no roads at all, ] which had to be covered if every farm CT in the district was to be met In l the New York district no obstacles or
 this kind stood in the way of camp2ign- 1 ing.
 Now the farmers of the northwest are 1 as eager as are the citizens of the St. 1 Louis district or as we here of the l t-t,. .i,t pfx l cinnati is the center, to make invest ] ment of some portion of their savings or | income in Liberty Bonds. They have l been able to do this because they nave | cultivated their soil this year so that ! the results have been magnificent. All 1 of 1the crop reports from the Ninth dls- l rrict which were received up to the flrst 1 of October were very gratifying. Thess reports indicated that the aggregate yield of all fine and coarse grains has ! run way beyond expectation, ana fuf- I thermore, the crop production of the dis. l trict was at one time underestimat-a
 WHAT THE BANKERS SAY l The bankers of the Ninth district and | especially the federal reserve bank, have had visible evidence of the. enor- nous money value of this year'y crop because the federal bank issued more
 than twice the currency required in I order to move the last years crop. The farmers are now receiving unexampled money returns for their crops The estimate is that they will receive as much money for their crops this year as represents one-siXth or perhaps more of the aggregate amount of the fourth
 Liberty Loan This is all new wealth irepresenting lebor, investment of cap ital and the princely yield of the soil.
 Therefore, it~is no wonder that it was possible to report at the beginning of
 the third week of tue Liberty Loan
 lcampaign that the northwest. which a igeneration ago was almost undeveloped. has been able within two weeks to meet e to the full the allotment of the Liberty iLoan
 That St Louis should have also COW
 cred so great an achievement as is re-