The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-03-18


 of the St. Joseph diocese, and the
 oldest Catholic bishop in the United
 States in point of service, died at
 his home here early today. He was
 T6 years old and had been in fall
 ing health three years. The last l five months the diocese had been
 administered by coadjutor bishop
 the Rt. Rev Francis Gilfllan, for
 merly of St. Louis, with right of suc- | cession.
 tive of gold rapidly shrank. It soon dropped from one-fourth of a dollar to one-siNteenth of a dollar. That was in August. 1919. Six months later one could buy 90 marks for dollar and shortly after that 15. In January 1922, the mark had so fallen that it took 200 to equal one dollar in gold. Nevertheless the Germans still had faith in their government, and it was not until almost a year later that i their currency took it's seat on the electric toboggan. It's first jump was from 200 to 400 per dollar. It soon req ched GOO. and at the beginning of l last December it was already 1000 to i the dollar. It went down about 5000 i that month and it has since been 50, i 00o to the dollar and lower. In this i letter I shall figure the mark at 50,- 1 00o to the dollar or at 500 marks to i one cent, which is as high as it is 1 likely to be for long time to come. | From Silver to Star Dust.
 l Before the war the German mark was a coin the size of our silver 25- cent piece, and it was worth almost as much. If you will take a silver quarter and grind it up into star dust, | each dust grain would have about the value represented by the paper mark of today. There would be over 12,50e | grains, each so small that you would | have to take a microscope to separate 1 it from the others. and it would, l venture, take at least 50 of these bits of silver dust to make one of the stars l that eReirele the head of the Goddess 1 of Liberty under the motto "1n God i We Trust" Take a red cent and d. ] vide it into 800 pieces and every piece will represent as much value as the i mark l am using.
 This gives some idea of the enor- nous decline of the currency of Ger many It shows also the shrinkage i of every gilt edge security, of every bond and mortgage, and of almost all accumulated savings these people had 
 In other words. to get the gold value of any security in the Germany of today, you must divide it's face value by 9 900 or more. and all wages and incomes must be figured out the same 1 way.
 If We Were Germans. | can explain the situation best by supposing the fate of Germany to come to the United States. One of l you, for instance, has been saving | for years to have comfortable sum for your family and now at 60 have accumulated fifty thousand dollars i in good government bonds or other | gilt-edge securities. We shall say that the interest on your savings at i per cent gives you an income of i three thousand dollars a year, which | is enough to keep the wolf from the door for man of small family. Then | out Of the clear sky comes such a calamity as has fallen on Germany i within less than two years You 1 awake to find your fifty thousand i dollar ehrunken to gold purchas- i ing value of less than i've dollars. i You sill have the same figures on your notes or your bank book but the actual value is only Sf.o0 instead ! 0
 you hold on to your investments and
 draw only the interest. You will
 still get three thousand dollars q
 yea, put it will be worth only ,! cents. instead of having about fifty dollars a week to spend, your income
 will be less than one cent per month. That would be your condi 1 ton If you lived here and had such an investment in the Germany oi today. ] How'n Affects Savings Bank.
 Or yvur money may be in a savings bank. The United states has seven teen hundred such banks with more l than twelve million depositors and ] the total amount of their savings averages just about six hundred dol 1 lars per head. If those banks were i in Germany. the average six Hundred dollar deposit would be worth just 1 exactly five cents You might go tt i the savings bank and draw out youl money. The banker would pay you your six hundred dollars, but the ! gold value of the notes would be 1 paying today for ride on the street car.
 Butter At &s.0OO n Pound.
 How would you like to pay three i thousand dollars for pound of but ter? That is what you would proba- bly have to do if the fate of Ger many came to the United States. we i will suppose that you have now three thousand dollars in building asso- citation or in Liberty Bonds or gilt edge mortgage worth several times the amount of the loar. and tonight
 ,sri, a darkness, our credit and securities are changed to the condition of those of the Germany of today. Tomorrow morning you decide to draw your i three thousand dollars out of the building association. or se,l your se- curities for the three thousand dol lars that they represent You would get the actual meney and 1t woulo look the same as that in which you