He then went on to speak of the possibilities of this inflation and uttered a warning of the danger, because the only obstacle in the way was the good sense and conservatism of the American banks. Some authorities hold that a war cannot be fought without inflation. Mr. Snyder thought that the United States with large ante-war income could and should have tried the experiment. People want easy money and flush times. If credit were contracted there would be tight money and a high interest rate. Mr. McAdoo and the Administration at Washington feel highly elated when they roll up five billion of statistics, half of which are merely bank rolls. It seems not to matter that all this may add two or three billion to the already swollen credit currency and that the millions of poor people, small investors and life insurance holders who cannot expand their income in any adequate way must pay the piper. These are the millions who rarely have any voice in national affairs, and all the more so because they are for the most part ignorant. It seems an idle consequence that we may spend perhaps ten long weary years of hard times, of falling prices, declining business and sharp distress, paying for the orgy of inflated prices, waste and extravagance in which we are now indulging.
Photo by Paul Thompson
Ship-building at Camden, N.J.
One of the financial effects of the war was the transformation of the United States from a debtor to a creditor nation. Immense private fortunes were made. In no industry was there a greater boom than in ship-building.
CREDIT EXPANSION
The wide expansion of credit can be studied by making a comparison of the gold holdings of the leading nations. For example, in 1914 just before the outbreak of the war, the amount of cash held by all the banks of the United States was estimated at about $1,639,000,000. Of this amount about $913,000,000 was in the form of gold or gold certificates. Upon this basis there rested a structure of credit amounting to $21,351,000,000. In other words the gold basis of the country's deposit credits amounted to 4.27 percent.
In 1916 the cash held was $1,911,000,000; about $1,140,000,000 was in gold; and on this basis there rested a credit structure of $28,250,000,000.
UNITED STATES A CREDITOR NATION
One of the financial effects of the war was the transformation of the United States from a debtor to a creditor nation. The reconstruction period in finance is certain to bring about a situation described by a writer in the Wall Street Journal as one of the most interesting developments known in financial history. Financial waste in emergency measures was a superficial side of America's part in the World War. But this writer considers that what happened during the war was not altogether financial waste: