The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1921-01-08
We CAN USE THAT
TEN BILLIONS

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Newspapers have been calling at
tention recently to some OF the uses
the United States could make of the
$4,000. 100000 the United States has
loaned to European nations and
which, eventually, we hope to have
repaid. A number of those who have
commented on this subject have point
ed out that at an average cost of $685.
900 a mile, the ten billion dollars
would construct 100000 miles Of hard
surfaced highway-enough to give the
United States the best highways In
the world. Suggestions along this
line evidently are made. not with a
view of advising what should be done
with the money. but what might be
done with the amount-the purpose
being to illustrate In a concrete way
what ten billion dollars means.
The fact of the matter is that few
people are able to grasp the immen-
sity OF valuation expressed with a
dollar sign, a figure 1. and ten ciphers.
All of us can recognize dollar when
It looks like forty cents. Many of us
can remember when a dollar looked
as big as a cart wheel. Some of us
can visualize thousand dollars, per
haps; and we presume there may be
some people who really can under
stand what a million dollars means.
But ten billions is beyond the power
of any human mind to grasp unless II
Is translated into some concrete
form with which we are more famfl-
far and which we can stretch oui
imaginations to comprehend. There
fore, when some newspapers trans
lated our foreign loans into miles OF
hard-surfaced highway, they rendered
a real public service, for they helped
the people of the United States to I'M
derstand exactly what Is proposed by
those Missionaries who advocate the
cancellation of European debts to the
United States.
There are other good and useful
things the United States can and will
do with that ten billions when We get
It back. In the first place. the United
States owes some $4,000 100000 on
which 1t is paying interest. This in
terest charge goes far to swell the
taxes the American people are called
upon to pay each year. A consider
able part of that ten billions could
be applied to liquidation OF debts
owed by the United States. thus stop
ping interest charges.
Moreover, II considerable part of
that ten billions we're applied to the
payment Of outstanding Liberty bonds
those bonds, which are now worth
about eighty-five cents on the dollar.
would advance in market value and
perhaps reach par People who
loaned their money to the govern
ment on the assurance that the loan
would be safe investment. but who
have witnessed 15-per-cent decline
in the value of their security, will
scarcely favor cancellation Of the
$40 000, 10000 debt when 1t could be
applied to payment of the obligations
the government owes them.
Cancellation of the $4,000. 100000
debt would be relief to the people
of European nations to, that extent,
but It would be in effect an additional
burden upon the American people to
a similar extent. Cancellation Of the
debt would postpone the time when
the United States will be able to pay
its own bonds, would extend the pc
Rod during which American taxpay-
ers must raise money to pay interest.
and would delay the time when LIB
erty bonds will be restored to pay.