The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-06-03
RE|CHSbANK STILL
TURNS OUT MARKS
To STEM TORRENT
Carpenter Tells How He Made
100000 Marks On His
Recent Visit
ALL GERMANY WILD WITH
FRENZY OF SPECULATION
Franz Won MendeIssohn, The
Berlin RothschiId, Dis
CuSSeS Sterilization
By FRANK G. CARPENTER

mark and as l try to follow it's
multitudinous gyrations l feel crazy,
too. have spent this week in the
stock exchange and among the big
bankers in a hopeless endeavor to
find just where the ebony angel In
the woodpile is hiding. l have given
up in despair. This Teutonic mad
ness Is such that it Is impossible for
the outsider to comprehend 1t, and
-justMho is making the profits l am
unable to say.
Printing Business Nets Millions
In the first place, let me state
just what the mark is. Before the
war it was a silver coin of the value
and size of quarter. 1t took tour
marks to equal one dollar and there
were twenty mark gold pieces worth
as much as five dollars. AS the war
went on the silver coins turned to
paper, and one mark notes, about the
size of business visiting card, took
their places. There were five and ten
mark notes which were little larg-
err, and we now have ten Thousand
note paper. The denominations are
still increasing. At the first of this
year they jumped from ten thousand
to twenty thousand, and the coun-
try will soon be flooded with bills
of fifty thousand and one hundred
thousand marks each.
AS it is now, the one mark and
five mark notes are not worth the
paper on which they are printed, but
those of the high denominations are
enormously valuable in comparison
with their cost, and the government
in this way is running a printing
business with a product which brings
in tens of millions of dollars. The
chances are that none of the marks
will have any permanent value, ana
the business resolves itself into that
of a printing establishment pure and
simple, where the power of the money
is all profit.
The Reichsbank paid dividend of
So per cent in 1920. 1t paid 10 per
cent in 1921, and it ought to pay
many times that this year If 1T has
any commission on the money 1t Is
sues. During my stay here 1 have
visited the institution and had talk
with some of the high officials. I
have asked them to let me see the
printing presses which are now turn
ing out from so to Is billion marks
per day, but have been refused.
Thousands of Billions Of Marks.
Ones head grows dizzy as he tries
to comprehend the enormous number
of marks in circulation. and the ex-
tent to which the Germans are going
IN QcDt, as estimated III tHSSe paper
promises to pay. l have figures stat
ing that the amount is now some
thing like 20 trillion, or 20 thousand
billion marks, and that the budget
of the government last year showed
a deficit of over seven thousand bill
lion marks. l have tried to figure out
what these sums might mean If one
had to count them. Let us go back
to the time OF the Pyramids and put
the treasury experts of Tut ankh-
amen at work. Let us suppose them
like the Wandering Jew, endowed
with perpetual life and forced to keep
going. How long would it take to
count the financial output of the
Germans if the same were divided
into notes of one mark? We shall
give each expert counting capacity
of 60 marks per minute or thirty-six
hundred marks an hour, and let him
work IL hours every day for the three
hundred working days of each year.
At this rate one man could count
just about thirteen million marks per
annum. and it would take him so
years or the maximum lifetime to
count UP to one billion. 1t would
take him eighty thousand years to
count every trillion, and sixteen hum
dred thousand years to go carefully
over the twenty trillions which the
Germans have issued. Surprising
King Tutankhamen to have lived
have put 266 experts at such counting
and they would be still on the job.
Do you wonder the thought makes
one crazy?
Speculation In Marks.
This speculation in marks is going
on not only in Germany but all over
the world. Every country of Europe
is engaged in it, and the great
financial nations have losses run
-
dollars. 1t is estimated that more
= than $1.000,000,000 in paper marks
have been sold in the United States,
and that more than ten million Amer
lean spectators have lost their
money that way. The British losses
cartoonists of London are laughing
at the "gulls" who have been feed
ing the Germans. Here. for in
stance is verse printed under a
cartoon published by the Daily Elk
press not long ago:
I've don't Want to pay,
But, by Chnko, if We do,
We've got no ships,
We've got no coal.
Und We gif de marks to you"
In former letters ! have shown how
the fall of the mark has financially
ruined the masses of Germany, but.
the nation, in one way or another
has involved the whole world in this
speculation and gotten some billions
of dollars for nothing. How many
of the billions still remain here. and
how much of the sum is on deposit
tc the credit of the great German
spectators In the banks of outside
nations. l do not attempt to con-
lecture.
All Germany SnecuIaf;ng
But come with me to the Berlin
Stock Exchange. 1t is the great
gambling hell of the nation and we
can see the financiers buying and
selling. There are six thousand men
customers from all over 'Germany
and, from all parts Of the world. II
used to be that anyone might have
access to the galleries but, since a
bomb was exploded in Wall STREET, all
entrances to the Berlin Bourse have
been closely guarded and now nc
stranger is admitted unless by special
officials. had a card from the presi-
dent of the exchange and was able to
have an interview with the director
and manager during my stay.
In this talk I asked him who was
doing the chief specializing. He re-
piled:
am sure there is none in this
building. Everyone from the bank
president to the taxi-driver. and from
the wife of the millionaire schieber
to the washerwoman, is betting on the
rise and fall of the mark. Even the
communists and socialists speculate
although every day or so ! get a
letter from one of them threateni.r,
o.ad cN - &c