The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-02-19
The Worlds Greatest Spender

or 100000 persons-one-fourth OF
Americas population--could live one
year on Mr. Stettinius' expense &C.
count for the last thirty months.
The washington monument is 55o
feet high. If $500, 100000 were coined
into pennies they would, stacked to-
gether, form column 30 feet square
and 7S4 feet high. or 229 feet taller
than the monument.
If the So 100000, 900 were coined into
SIS gold pieces. and if these IS gold
pieces were to be laid face to face, as
the pennies that you get in packages
at the bank, they would form golden
rod over 900 miles in length.
If the same sum was then converted
into pennies they would form mighty
telegraph main to connect us with the
moon twice.
If you collected debt Of $4,000, 000,-
600 and it was paid to you in 81 bills
YOU could construct path Of them five
inches wide that would girdle the GLOBE
more than fifteen times. If used for
wallpaper they would cover or paper
about thirty-three square miles OF
walls and ceilings.
Now recon $4,000 900 900 into silver
dollars and put them on the ground.
II a man came along and offered 10
pick them up-thinking he had hit up
On a silver mine-how long do you
think it would take him to move the
pile?
Here's the answer. If he could, pick
up the dollars at the rate of 100 min
ute and could maintain that pace 1or
ten hours each day, it would take sew
en- more men after him, each WORKING
for thirty-one years, to complete the
job.
! How many Panama canals could De
built with this sum? The canal cost,
according to the best figures available,
$3.50 600, 900 and was considered about
| the most costly undertaking Uncle
Sam has yet tried. Mr.. Stettinius
spent in thirty months enough to build
ten canals just like it.
I America is now building mos
quito fleet" to chase submarines. Al
lowing $4,000 for the construction OF
each subchaser. we could build fleet
of 10000 of them from $4,000 100000.
such a fleet would man lane stretch
ing all the way across the Atlantic
| thirty-three miles wide. in which there
would be ship for every three square
miles.
1t would require to man this 1leel
i 200, 900 men, who would require pay
roll of $50, 100000 a month.
| Considerable has been said of build
ing gigantic airplane fleet to 'strafe"
the Germans This big sum would pay
for the construction of about 10000
planes of the very best makes Did
we prefer, we might, with the same
amount of money, build nearly mil
Lion British tanks.
/ While discussing possibilities in the
expenditure of such vast sum, 1t may
be noted that some of these weapons
are Just what Mr.. Stettinius has been
buying with that sum. 1t gives lair
Idea of the magnitude of the war, for
Tin addition to what the allied govern
ments have spent in America a far
greater sum has been expended among
their own Industrial plants.
Mr.. Stettinius celebrated his fifty
second birthday Thursday, February
Is. He was born in st. Louis, the SOB
of steamboat operator.
After graduation in the st. Louis
university he went to Chicago and op
Grated in the wheat pit. He shortly
turned to the manufacture of boilers
and was later called to the presidency
of the Diamond Match company.