The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-01-06

that much money as something on the order of a
chunk.
But Mr.. Richard would have had to live about
1000 life times as lucky the he did live to
handle as much money the people of the United
States will owe in June 1885, when the deficit Will
come to roughly, S31000000000 They use the word
roughly down here nowadays in speaking of the
figures of the national debt and it seems appropriate
at that for they speak only in big coarse figures
Just FeJU Billions
FIND among my friends the Washington jour-
i nalists, a tendency to speak in terms of billions
and some odd hundred millions and there is one youSg
man of my acquaintance who has been doing a
rewrite job for some time treasury figures who
has asked the typewriter service man to see if he
can't fix him up a type-bar on his machine which
will print nine Zeroes at once.
Nobody seems to have any real understanding of
the actual amount Of billion dollars. The boys sit
around and talk six billion this and ten billion that
and the statesmen look at the figures and gulp and
just trust to God and the future and the luck of
the U. S. A.
1t is very doubtful that any man In the United
States has an actual personal understanding of the
amount of thirtyone billion dollars
Thirty-one billion dollars is so many Of those
dollars that if you had contract spend that much
money, somewhat on the order of the young man in
the story Of Brewster's millions, you could buy IN
whole countries compete with kings and wars and
nonoathng Georgian princes for all your daughters
and still have much money left that you would
nave 70 start buying things for yourself.
All Look the Same
ON paper the figures look the same as money fig
~ ures and some of the new brains in the gov
eminent are so ingenious that they might come LID
with an entirely new system of mathematics one
OF these days and show how country can turn The
books inside out and spend itself out of debt.
long time ago, during the fake world series in
cincinnati there appeared in town in hotel suite
that occupied whole floor group of about a dozen
teamsters from Texas who had bought some leases
Tor few dollars when the first of the oil fields were
about to come in and had sold out to The big oil
companies for millions of dollars They used to sit
around the floor in fancy silk underwear that was
more ike lady stuff than mems shooting craps for
thousand-dollar bills which they were peeling off
rolls as big cabbages
4hey didn't have any change but shot Grams
strictly IN thousands day and night and when q
mans cabbage roll would get down to the core he
Wou4o just write check and buy some fresh money
from one OF the big winners. The Cincinnati banks
ulol nave enough big, coarse money to keep them
IN actlon, SO they had some sent in by express
few years later met Mr. OSwin King of Dallas
journalist who had come up to the world series
WIN them and was writing play by play accounts of
ther crap game, and asked him what ever had be-
come OF the millionaire teamsters
sure, know. But I am an inveterate worrier
ana keep thinking about the country that shoots
OHllon or no dice and the boys out of Texas who
are PACK pushing lot Of hard-tails around in tina
mua or breaking eggs into the skillet in the Elite
od4e' tapIeS Tor ladies, open all night"
Copyright, 1884, BY United Features
5yndlcate. Incl