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Show m Thirty Million Coupon j Clippers j By Frederic J. Ha skin. WAUHl.W.TOX. T C. Sepi. Viu-lc Sum is 0:11 to pay out more mony in lme:v.s; alone this year to t.e tinr:y-ocM .million holders of Luurty boau.s than it cost him to rim t;ic ovenmr.Mit l.-ofotv the war. During the nrxt twelve months he will have to hand over nearly a billion dollars to :ho l; reat army of American citizens who bought his war bonds. He fore the war the coupon-clii'p'.nn individuals in-dividuals of the country constituted :i small and exclusive class. Now, one out of every three persons in the t'nited States has t no con pon -clipping habit. Twice every year each of tho thirty million mil-lion will so to the sale, or some other place where the bonds are securely tucked' away, clip off the coupon, present it at a bank and receive the interest. Such a transaction makes you feel like a millionaire mil-lionaire whether you are or not. The next clipping day is t lie ir.th of September. That's the day when you ?Jot out the Liberty bonds, pick out those labeled "Third "Liberty Loan," take 'em to the bank and yet vour share of the ?SS.T30.081.81 that " Uncle Sam pays to holders of these securiiies on that day. The 15th of October is another pleasant day, in the same fashion, and so is the same' date in November and in December. Decem-ber. The government lias chosen the fifteenth fif-teenth day of eitfht months to honor ns interest dates for tho Liberty and Victory loans. The first interest date fell on March 15. Others are April 15. May 15, June 15, and then none until September Septem-ber 15. Totaling all of the amounts paid in interest in-terest by the government on the various issuers of bonds and notes, the sum for the year makes the nation's operating expenses ex-penses for such old-fashioned years as the three which preceded the war look- rather picayune. In l!i 1 9 Uncle Sam will have to pay ?S10,000.000 of interest on government govern-ment securities. In 1014 congress appropriated ap-propriated $tS4,7r7,276.26 for the running of the government. 1'ncle Sam wa.s even more frugal in HM5, spending a few million mil-lion dollars less, and in 1916 it cost about the same to run tho country. You realize how war boosts the cost of living for nations when you compare this with our war bill of about thirty billions of dollars. It's pleasant to clip the coupons and have the man behind the screened window push out $2.12 for each 4 per cent $100 bond you1 own. You get this much twice a year. But when you (start wondering what will happen if everybody who gets a dip into this big money starts spending it, it may make you somewhat nervous. Ig everybody decides to spend his share ' of the SS8.000.bdO that will be paid to people peo-ple all over the country on September 15, what will happen? i St There will be .iust that much more money in circulation and more money in circulation means that prices must go up. And if'the people of the country in one year spend more extra money than it cost annually to run the government a few years aero, the present shortages in food and clothing and all of the other things people buy obviously will be increased, and this again will boost prices. But there are other things to do with money besides spending it. The majority of people, who bought Liberty bonds saved the money with which to buy them out of their earnings. They do not need the interest in-terest money for their living expenses. This interest money is velvet, and therefore there-fore It can be saved most advantageously. The government is yearning to borrow7 it, and to pay an even better Interest rate for it. By putting the interest money right back into government security in the form of war savings stamps it can be immediately put to work aryi made to earn 4 per cent, compounded quarterly. The government debt is an interesting thing to study. It indicates that some of the sovereign American people have been very, careless. There is a column In the national ledger bended, "Debt upon which interest has ceased." The item amounts to more than SI ,000.000. Investigation shows that this amount of money is held in the treasury to pay bonds issued during the civil war, and at other periods, that have reached maturity, but have never been redeemed. Somebody, somewhere, has probablv left these bonds in the drawer of an old bookcase book-case that has gone out of fashion and has been stored away in the attic until it becomes "antique"' enough to be restored re-stored to the library. Or some may have been lost through fires and burglaries and other accidents. Every now and then one of these old bonds turns up and is cashed. $ :; 'Jfi Holders of most of the present war securities se-curities are not likely to be so careless. And so it may as well be pointed out. right now, that it does no good to hold the bonds with their coimons attached after these become due. The coupons do not bear interest, neither do the interest checks mailed in payment of interest to holders of noncoupon bonds. The coupons should he clipped promptly on September 15, or as soon thereafter as convenient, and immediately' reinvested in war savings sav-ings stamps. In this way the interest money does not lie idle, but is at once set to work. The treasury department will mail 750.-000 750.-000 checks to holders of registered bonds on September 15. Payment Jn interest on the war debt of a sum larger than that required to pay all of the expenses of the government a few years ago seems to indicate a rather hnpele.es task, until one looks back into the history of the financing of previous wars. The total cost of the war between the states was approximately three and a half billions, according to a close estimate a littlp more than one-tenth of the cost of our part in the great war. At the end of the civil war there was talk, serious consideration even, of declaring de-claring the government, bankrupt, like an Insolvent individual, and of wholly repudiating re-pudiating the na tional debt. There were many men of influence and standing who believed the na tion could never lift this stagsrering burden of debt. And yet. within ten years, government bonds that had sold as low as J50 in gold went up in price to as "high as $1 09. This wns due, In part, to the fact that the purchasing power of the dollar in 1G4 was only 39.7 cents that is. a paper dollar vouched for hy banks and hy the government was only worth that amount. ): ' No such rise in the. puvchasing power of the dollar is likelv to follow the present period of high prices and low purchasing power. But many authorities state the belief be-lief that as product ion is incren sod, and the world settles down to a normal economic eco-nomic basis, prices will decline considerably. consid-erably. And so. it's a good idea right now to hang onto the dollar, and let it earn some more dollars. When this country was something of a calf, and was wobbling about on unsteady un-steady legs, not knowing whether it w.i? going to live or not. it was handicanned hv its first war debt. Tt cot our forefathers fore-fathers a little more than SSn.nnn.onn to win their independence n little le? than the amount of interest that holders of third Liberty bonds will reap in a few dnvs. A bit Inter one, the wnr of l s 12 se"t the national debt up to s127.ann.nofl. Then we bad peace a nd nrosneriM- for a long period. Ami from IMC to iRSfi. Inclusive, In-clusive, the annual income of the tren . urv substantially exceeded the expenditures. expendi-tures. The debt was srrnduMlv dim!'i'Fhefi and after a few years the T'nited States, with a. cash surolns in the trnnirv, presented pre-sented what a. historic n has c lied "tin t happy spe.ctncle of a people substantially free from the smallest portion of debt." We had a great deal of land in those davs. and the government sold it nt a fair return to newcomers to our shoves. That nionev helped to par off the little obligation obliga-tion which we Incurred in getting independence. inde-pendence. Then a panic came along in 1R?7 and! the surplus in the treasury disappeared. ! There, is not likely to bp annt her surplus ! for a long time. Tt will take nt leart j twenty-five years to pay off the present ! war debt. I |