Evening star., 1947-12-21
y. inDebt
FOrDeCades
Each Persons Share
of Indebtedness
Set at $1,789
By CIorke Beech

debt is about $25s 1000, 900 900. Your
share is s1,789 and, if you have a
family of four, you owe a little
more than $1,000. You are paying
interest on it, in taxes, at about 2
per cent per year.
Your forefathers in 1885 and 1886
owed not a cent of public debt. The
account had been practically wiped
out by good husbandry and sale OF
public lands.
In 1887, because of a depression,
the Government began little bor-
rowing-$336 6O0O-and the long up
ward climb began. The debt has
been in the millions and billions
since 1888.
Went Up With Civil War
The United States started out in
life with a debt, a total Of S75,88O,-
900 in 1890 (per person, 1892.
This comprised chiefly Revolution
airy War expenses of both the Fed
eral Government and the States.
The small, young Nation tightened
it's belt and achieved a remarkable
reduction of the debt to $45 1000, 600
by the time the War of 1872 began.
This was despite President Jeffer-
sons expenditure of $11 100000 for
the Louisiana Territory, deemed a
gross extravaganza by many.
The whiting was done largely
through a plan of Albert Ganatin,
fourth Secretary of the Treasury
whose statue was recently erected
in front of our ebt-burdened Treas
ury.
The debt first went into billion
dollar figures after the Civil War.
The Union in 1866 owed s2,755, ,763,-
900 (s77.69 per person.. This debt
was retired slowly, but fairly con-
sistently, until the Spanish-Ameri-
can War gave 1t boost.
Construction of the Panama
Canal and some other expenses kept
the figure high.
The national debt was about ST.
900 100000 in 1914. The First World
War raised 1t to s25, ,484, 100000 (s253
per person.. In the 1920s we paid
off at the rate of about 212 per cent
a year and reduced the total to
S16,185, 1903 900 in 1880.
A Government Obligation
Deficit spending in the depression
years brought the debt to $40, AS
417,0O0 In 1889. To finance the last
war we borrowed about 1925 ,000,-
100000 bringing the national debt
to it's all-time peak of $279, ,764 ,O00,-
900 on February %, 1916.
No people in the world ever owed
so much real money as We do. For
eign nations debts through none
tary imitation have reached numeri-
cally higher figures, but every dol
lar of our debt is Government
obligation which can be cashed in
for money 1t is, of course, an in
ternal" debt-owned by large por-
ton of our people, financed by the
whole people.
The whole idea of Government
borrowing seems to be relatively
modern. Very little was done until
the latter part of the 1700s. Before
that Government loans were tram
sactions between kings and private
money lenders.
(Kings had poor credit standings.
The lenders often used to make
them put up the crown jewels or
the crown lands).
Political philosophers frowned on
public borrowing. David Hume in
1852 warned that it would waste
the public's money in interest
charges, and that it would encour-
age idleness among those living on
the interest. Adam Smith in 1776
predicted that borrowing would ruin
any State which tried it.
But the habit of borrowing grew
with the development Of democ-
racies. The people willingly sup
ported taxation, and Government
obligations were viewed as sound in
vestments.
Scholars changed their opinions.
C. F. Bastable wrote in 1892: I'VE
may say that any State that pre-
tends to be civilized regards the
creation of a debt as one of the
essential marks of its having
reached that position.
British Owe Plenty, Too
Great Britain is one of the most
practiced borrowers in the world.
She had a debt of 100000
pounds in IT'S. At the end of
the Napoleonic wars she owed 861,-
100000 pounds. The British national
debt had risen to LII 900, 900
pounds by the time the First World
War began.
Most of the British debt in 1914
was about 100 years old. The gov
ernment had redeemed only about
IS per cent of it in a century.
The First World War raised the
total of the British debt elevenfold,
and interest charges just after the
war amounted to 46 per cent of the
tax yield.
The British debt at present
amounts to about $103, ,000, ,000, 900,
of which all but about $4,000, ,000, 900
is an internal obligation.
Russia, despite her scorn of cap
italistic processes, has contracted
quite a substantial internal debt
1872 billion rubles, as reported by
the State Department previous to
the conversion of the ruble last
week. ct is not yet known how the
conversion will affect this total)
In terms of the new diplomatic rate
of exchange, this amounts to $22,-