Life — October 11, 1917 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

OCTOBER 11, 1917 “While there is Life there's Hope"* Neo. Publis! VOL. 70 1824 ed by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY J. A. Mitenett, Pres’t A, Minter, Sec’y and Treas. 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York English Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bidgs., London, E. C. WING to the stress of war de- mands, our government will now be obliged if we will fork out three billion dollars. And the Secretary of the Treas- ury hopes we will make it five, and re- serves to himself the privilege of ac- cepting half of all over-subscriptions. Certainly, Government, certainly! Now let us see! There are a hundred million of us, counting the babies, and three billion dollars means thirty dol- lars apiece. But the babies have not that much mon yet; have no pock- ets and nothing in them; and a good many elders who have pockets can turn them out without producing thirty dollars. Nevertheless there is in the country much more than three billion dollars which can and will be produced to carry on the war. The babies and other people who have less than thirty dollars available for this use are offset by persons who have more than thirty dollars, and are willing to buy Liberty Bonds with it. There are some fortunate people who ve money to their credit in banks. Their case is easy. They draw checks for what they can spare and buy bonds As a rule, if you work your with it. bond offering through a bank you can buy bonds on margin. That is, if you pay a fifth, or a quarter, or a third, or some other convenient fraction of the bond you aspire to buy, the bank will be apt to lend you enough money on the bond as security to make the other payments due on it. The bond pays you four per cent., and you will proba- bly have to pay the bank five or six per cent. on what you borrow. So you won't get immediately rich on your investment, but you will help our Uncle carry on the war, and that, of course, is what we all want to do. OME people whose incomes or earn- ings exceed their daily needs, have wonderful gifts of not spending the excess, and have savings, or can achieve them, that they can put right into bond payments. Such persons will be welcomed in at the front door of any bond agency, and if they don’t know the way the policeman will glad- ly direct them. Other persons, less fortunate, whose daily in-takings are precisely devoured by expenditures for rent, wages, drinks, the Red Cross, garments, food, life insurance, income and other taxes, agricultural outgoes, shoes, school bills, allowances, gasoline, tires, coal, pew rent, club dues and the other natural incidents of expenditure, will have to scrape what they can out of, their leaky money pot, and express the rest of their patriotism by lending Uncle Sam their credit. It will be by that method that the bulk of the three billions will be raised. People will buy the bonds largely with money that they haven't got. Banks and insurance companies will buy them with other people’s money. The beauty of them is that when you buy them you get something that you can raise money on. If you buy them on credit, you swap your credit for Uncle Sam's, and Uncle’s credit is good, and is likely to be at least as good as yours till the world comes right again and destruc- tion stops, and peaceful industry has a long inning, and all these bonds are paid. In this matter of getting money to buy bonds with we are in a position not so very unlike that of the Germans. They raise a raft of money from time to time, and spend it mostly in Ger- many, so that it runs back in their banks, and presently they can borrow it all out again. So this three or four billions that we are loaning our govern- ment will be spent in this country to pay for government orders,-or loaned to our Allies, who will spend it here, so that most of it will presently be back in our banks where we can bor- row it again to buy more bonds with when Uncle needs to sell them. This is not the way that nations get rich, but it helps to finance wars. Wars are sprees that nations go on. Nobody expects to get rich on a spree, and no nation but Germany has expected this long time to get rich by war. It is a very bad expectation, and it is very necessary to the repose of the world to disappoint it. Get right in then, fellow * spite of the majority for Mr. Ben- nett that the recount showed in the Republican primary, Mayor Mitchel has acceded to the enthusiastic request of many citizens to run for re-election. Please, everybody who wants decent government in New York, step up now and holler for him, and work and vote to continue him in office! If anyone has any doubt about the inexpediency of letting a good mayor be turned down, will they please read in the pa- pers what has been going on in Phila- delphia? The Philadelphians had a spasm of virtue and elected a good mayor, and had pretty good govern- comicbooks}