THE INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR
Some curious facts were brought out in the effort of the Liberty Campaign propaganda to reach the individual investor. In the large cities the organization was remarkably successful. In the smaller communities it was a greater difficulty. In a suburb or a small town everybody knows everybody else and the Liberty Loan Committee had hard work in getting subscribers. Mr. A. W. Atwood of Princeton thinks that the occupational and vocational classification of possible investors was not tried. Widows and maiden ladies who had inherited $50,000 or $75,000 were not reached. Some of them who were patriotic came forward of their own accord. The little town of Kircunkson in New York State exceeded its quota many times and there was an item in the papers about it. The success of the Liberty Loan in that town was due to the fact that it contained a large sanitarium patronized by millionaires. Yet there were no banks in the town and if their banking resources were used as a basis their quota would have been very small indeed.
As to the assignment of quotas Mr. Atwood makes the point that it was sometimes based on population, sometimes based on the amount of bank resources. He thought that in small places it would be better to post up a list of those who had subscribed and he even thought that if the country made the effort it could ultimately raise a loan of $100,000,000,000, his reason being the following:
"This country is approaching, as England has long ago, the position of being a possessor of great accumulated wealth. One broker after another is really nothing but a family investment agent. That is what it amounts to. There are railroad magnates, bankers, steel kings, copper kings and so on indefinitely. Hundreds of firms in the New York Stock Exchange are nothing but channels for the investment of accumulated wealth and I do not think we realize how much there is of that in this country."
LIBERTY LOANS AND THRIFT
One of the best methods of testing the influence of Liberty Loan activities on the thrift of the country is used by Bradstreet's in its examination of the annual report of the United States League of Building and Loan Associations. These Associations, be it remembered, are not patronized by capitalists but almost wholly by wage earners. During the past fifteen years the membership of building and loan associations has increased 150 percent. and since the war broke in 1914, the number of members has extended 52 percent. The latest report shows a gain in assets of 30 percent. over the amount indicated in 1914. The following tables taken from Bradstreet's give detailed items of the financial situation of these important organizations:
The following table gives membership and total assets of building and loan associations for a fifteen-year period:
| Membership | Assets | |
|---|---|---|
| 1902—03 | 1,530,707 | $577,228,014 |
| 1903—04 | 1,566,700 | 579,556,112 |
| 1904—05 | 1,631,046 | 600,342,586 |
| 1905—06 | 1,642,127 | 629,344,257 |
| 1906—07 | 1,699,714 | 673,129,198 |
| 1907—08 | 1,839,119 | 731,508,446 |
| 1908—09 | 1,920,257 | 784,175,753 |
| 1909—10 | 2,016,651 | 856,332,719 |
| 1910—11 | 2,169,893 | 931,867,175 |
| 1911—12 | 2,332,829 | 1,030,687,031 |
| 1912—13 | 2,518,442 | 1,136,949,465 |
| 1914—15 | 3,103,935 | 1,357,707,900 |
| 1915—16 | 3,334,899 | 1,484,205,875 |
| 1916—17 | 3,568,342 | 1,696,707,041 |
| 1917—18 | 3,838,612 | 1,769,142,175 |
The following table shows total membership and total assets for States in which accurate statistics are compiled by state supervisors. The data for other States are consolidated under the heading, "Other States," and the figures given are estimated:
| 1917—18 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Members | Assets | Increase | |
| Pennsylvania | 677,911 | $324,265,393 | $25,438,326 |
| Ohio | 767,100 | 321,741,529 | 51,188,940 |
| New Jersey | 329,063 | 168,215,913 | 13,088,951 |
| Massachusetts | 247,725 | 126,695,037 | 13,389,130 |
| Illinois | 246,800 | 113,528,525 | 8,050,122 |
| New York | 199,571 | 86,072,829 | 6,442,948 |
| Indiana | 202,409 | 78,112,917 | 5,818,661 |
| Nebraska | 101,929 | 54,545,630 | 6,627,783 |
| California | 42,227 | 35,928,447 | 3,134,429 |
| Michigan | 69,041 | 35,659,360 | 4,279,888 |
| Kentucky | 62,846 | 27,085,282 | 1,272,372 |
| Missouri | 56,116 | 26,770,144 | 3,226,311 |
| Kansas | 66,442 | 26,000,167 | 2,446,058 |
| Louisiana | 47,793 | 25,911,928 | 1,362,683 |
| Dist. Columbia | 37,075 | 22,399,995 | 255,115 |
| Wisconsin | 50,612 | 19,887,368 | 3,013,526 |
| North Carolina | 37,400 | 17,608,000 | 1,703,230 |
| Washington | 46,318 | 14,444,177 | 2,366,450 |
| Arkansas | 21,053 | 10,583,447 | 409,439 |
| Iowa[3] | 33,035 | 9,638,852 | ........ |
| Minnesota | 22,020 | 8,979,642 | 626,537 |
| West Virginia | 21,500 | 8,119,131 | 369,564 |
| Colorado[3] | 10,200 | 6,688,983 | ........ |
| Maine | 14,959 | 6,671,239 | 233,961 |
| Oklahoma | 18,142 | 6,554,175 | 2,354,175 |
| Rhode Island | 11,499 | 5,938,436 | 577,906 |
| Connecticut | 14,900 | 4,869,748 | 610,423 |
| South Dakota | 5,857 | 3,603,836 | 89,286 |
| N. Hampshire | 8,554 | 3,336,072 | 322,812 |
| Tennessee | 5,166 | 3,207,754 | [4]112,865 |
| North Dakota | 5,785 | 2,837,118 | 90,308 |
| Texas | 7,156 | 2,314,927 | 372,489 |
| Montana | 4,239 | 1,849,935 | 209,906 |
| New Mexico | 3,545 | 1,469,276 | 72,660 |
| Vermont | 749 | 287,791 | 52,079 |
| Other States | 341,875 | 157,319,172 | 10,975,756 |
| ———— | ————— | ————— | |
| Total | 3,838,612 | $1,769,142,175 | $170,514,039 |