The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-23

The Fourth Liberty Loan Will fur nish funds with which the government will meet the expenses which are now being incurred and are to be incurred for some weeks. Secretary McAdoo said that already the. treasury department has been in sense discouhting the re- ceipt of $6,000, ,000, 900, because it has rowings on short time treasury certifi eates The total amount of these bor rowing is S4,50000000 In other words the Secretary admitted that only a bil- lion and half of the six billions which the American people were to take in the Fourth Liberty Loan will be available for meeting immediate expenses.
 The magnitude of these figures al- most staggers the imagination even of bankers who have been accustomed to handle very large financial proposi- tions They have, handled this propo- sition, unheard of in world financing as it is, not exactly easily but with an efficiency which four years ago would not have been deemed possible.
 Many of the bankers, not only of New York, but of other parts of the country have turned the management 1 of their banks over to their subordi- hates and have been occupied exclusive l ly not only with perfecting prepara- | tions for the bonds selling campaign, but also with actual work of selling
 the bonds.
 | They have accepted without com plaint very large expenses. They have 1 been acting without commissions, or
 any kind of bonus. When it is remem-
 bered that in the civil war days the | obligations of the government were | floated in such manner as to involve the payment of commissions then the
 free will offering of time, service and ] facilities of the American bankers while i these Liberty Loans were being mar
 keted constitutes not the least inter- eSting or important feature of this stu
 pendous financing.
 All of the money received from these loans goes immediately back to the
 people and even the loans which are
 made to our allies represent payments
 In large measure made to the Ameri-
 can people and American industries for
 supplies and ammunition in the war.
 How large these payments are is dem
 onstrated by the fact that it requires about $1 000,000,000 to meet the ex-
 penses of the government that are in-
 cured within two weeks time.
 1 The government is paying an enor- nous sum represented by monthly pay
 rolls to the industrial workers, and to the shipbuilders. In one district alone these payrolls call for al 1t $60 900 900
 a month, all of this money represent
 ing purchases by the government. In | normal times the monthly payrolls
 woud be, it is presumed, not one-tenth | of the sum-
 l As this money goes back to the peo- l pie so they will be in a position when
 the Fifth Liberty Loan is offered to re-
 invest a considerable part of their earn | ings and savings in this loan
 l The efficiency and speed with which
 these stupendous loans have been fi-
 nanced into the hands of American peo- pie are spoken of as comparing favora oly with the efficiency and speed with (which an army of 2000,00 men were re- lcruited, equipped and sent to France
 within year and a half, the United States having been, before we entered the war, upon an absolutely peace foot ling with little army and few muni- tionS.