Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-04-15
DOES VICTORY SEEM COSTLY?
ASK IN ENGLAND OR IN FRANCE!
The New Loan Is a Benefit to America,
Whose Allies Must Continue to Pay
With Hard Sacrifice

high-high enough to make the invest
| ment attractive to banks and the far
sighted men who like such interest re-
turns. But it is not the intention of the
government to borrow chiefly from
spectators and institutions. The essen
tial responsibilities Of the hour should be
shared by all the people. The strange
| thing is that we should have to be urged
to participate in them.
A little imagination on the part of the
! public, better knowledge of the bur
| denS we have been spared by the victory
| for which the new government bonds are
named and the soldiers whose needs must
now be met through general co-opera-
ton with the government should be
| potent enough to float the new loan over
night
The war debts that remain to the other
nations are stupendous. They weigh
| heavily upon every man and woman in
the old world.
Every child born in France during the
next fifty years will be mortgaged to the
extent of about $1,000 in the general ac-
counting
In Great Britain the burden upon the
| people is almost as great as in France.
| Almost every income in the empire is
taxed, surtaXed and taxed again. There
are rich men in England who pay four
| tifths of their incomes to the govern
| ment AS war taxes and there is no relief
| for them in sight.
Here we are merely asked to invest
| our money with a right to reclaim it in
| three years after drawing annual interest
| almost as high as interest Usually is
| upon funds lent under a safe mortgage
There has been a suppostion that the
| new bonds would move rather slowly"
1t will prove unfounded unless the good
common sense of the American people
has deserted them. There are innumer-
able people in this country who were
taught the virtue of thrift in earlier war
loan campaigns. They are now in pos
session Of big or little Stakes" which
represent money that, but for war bonds
and the war-bond habit, would have van
| ished as irretrievably as the SHOWS and
the roses of other years. 1t is not too
much to suppose that they will find the
means to buy Victory Bonds.
If there is any hesitancy, if there is
any reason why the new bonds should
move slowly, it is because bonds of the
Liberty Loans now range below par.
But Liberty Bonds are below par only
because the buyers did not follow the
advice of the government and retain
them instead of regarding these securi-
ties almost from the first as mere legal
tender.
Bonds decline in quoted values only
because holders are willing to sell them.
The more people there are ready to sell
the lower the rate is likely to decline
until wiser investors are enabled to ac-
quire all the benefits that should have
fallen to the original bond buyer. If
bonds had been regarded as the means of
popular investment, which the govern
ment intended them to be, they would
be above par now. The inexperience Of
the amateur investor is to blame for the
present quotations on Liberty Bonds.
So, too, is the American tendency to ex-
travagance in all things.
There is no man who, having sold his
government sec'IYities at a rate below
par, will not admit, if he is frank with
himself, that he might have retained the
bonds by little self-denial and thus
profited in the end as the fnanciers are
profiting who buy bonds of the various
war issues to hold them until they may
collect the full sum of the original in
vestment, with accumulated interest.
Investors in the Victory Loan are
made almost safe from themselves. The
new bonds are to be redeemable in three
years at their face value. It is improb-
able that this issue of government paper
will be as profitable as the previous ones
have been to spectators who wait
around for the small investor to unload
There is no reason why the Victory Bond
should ever go below par, since the short
term of the coming loan will do much tc
fix the value of the securities perma,
nently
There is a sentimental side to the Vic
tory Loan. The funds now being sought
by the government are to pay the accrued
| costs of the most momentous victory
ever won by Americans and to insure the
safety, the comfort and the general we'll
being of the noblest army ever mustered
The loan is necessary in order that
the men who were hurt or disabled shal
be cared for and given a new start.
The money must be found in order
that families that gave their best to the
nation shall not be desolate and that tht
soldiers themselves shall not have reason
to feel that the nation is cynical or un
grateful or ready to pay them with al
empty cheer for their loss or their sac
rifices.
1t is to be hoped that the new bond.
will not "move slow" We in America
are unbelevably fortunate. Alone
among the western nations we are mo-
| facad with the necessity for having vas
war bills through sweat and deprivation