, 1958-01-08
LEGISLATIVE RECORD
Continued from yesterday
Our W ~handYwork

~ III OW1l Ud44Qy WOAA & $3.50 .2 Il. #&I
In August. 1858 / made a statement that, since the
year 1850, total bank deposits in the Virgin Islands has HaI
creased $2,200,000 in that two and one-haf year PERIOD
imports@into the Virgin Islands had increased by Sl@OoO5l
600 and exports by 100000, and that travel statistlcsI
showed that $4,000 tourists visited ST. Thomas and spent
So. OO0, 900 IN the year 1852, and that $4,000 arrived dur
cling the following year and spent approximately So, 4OO,OOO
But look what happened to these same induces since
THAT 1853 suppertimec chat: Total bank deposits in the Viz
Gin Islands, which were $6,475 ,669.49 on June 30, 1893,
are shown on the published statements OF the two banks
in the Virgin Islands tobe $16,806,9 28.84 on December 81
1856, an increase Of over $101nillion in three and a hall
Years. Total income taxes paid in the Virgin Islands IN 1893
were $720,314.36. Total income taxes paid in the Virgin
Islands in 1855 amounted to $1,059, 631.61, and in 1856 fnr1
!. come taxes increased to 1,549, 309. 68-or double the
amount paid three and a half years ago.
Our Tourist Development Board estimated that in 1858
visitors to the Virgin Islands, in the tourist economy of the
islands, spent approximately $5,400,000. In 1856 gross
tourist expenditures were estimated to be $ll,645,988,
again more than double the amount spent by tourists
three and a half years ago. In 1852 total imports into the
Virgin Islands were ST. 1872 88. In 1855, our imports
jumped to $16,255,575 an increase OF ~$4,OOO.OOO. During
the same period exports from the Virgin Islands increased
from $2,477655 to $4,277,314 an increase Of 100000.
DO you care to listen to a few more startling conpari-
sons? The assertion was made not so long ago, that Vir-''
gin Islanders are not industrious, not given to hard toll
and sacrifice. Well, looked for the facts and l found that
in the year 1855 there were 8,138 workers in all the Vir-
gin Islands covered by Workmens compensation, Of whom
80 ncidentaliy-4,345 were engaged IN private, | repeat
in private employment and 1913 in government work.
This figure represents nearly four times as many workers
in private employment as in government employment on
these small islands where government naturally COM
bines all levels of city. county, state, and federal activities.
Let it be remembered too, and let it be quoted widely, that
the people Of the Virgin Islands today raise more than 10
times the local revenues than they did 20 years ago, and
Oh times the local taxes they raised 10 years ago. Here are
the figures In 1886 local revenues totaled $288, 438; in
1916 local revenues had increased to 81, 374,2596l; and in
1956revenues from local taxes amounted to $2,9ll,775,O8.
Unlike the buccaneers of old, we have not been trun-
ding wheelbarrowsful of bullion down Main Street lately,
nor are we paving the new waterfront highway with the
heavy, yellow ingots. Yet, despite the pinch of poverty,
felt here as elsewhere among our iHhoused and ill-fed citi-
zens; grass is definitely not growing on Main Street
and that is not because of any water shortage, either. And
here's another fact: keeping pace with out economic ad-
vaneement, we have been building steadily solid and last
ing monuments-not alone Of stone and of eoncrete-but of
human resources as we'll in the health and ~well-being of
our citizens. in the letters. and in the arts.
Dear friends T 10 moved 70 hrinn to 1uitnncc thic