| Value in 1919 | $13,500,000,000 |
| Value in 1920 | 9,000,000,000 |
| Value in 1921 | 5,675,000,000 |
In each of these years there was practically the same acreage under cultivation, 350,000,000 acres. In 1919, farm products were worth $39 per acre, in 1920, $26 per acre and in 1921, $16 per acre. Here is where the Federal Reserve credit crusher pulpified the finest—at the very foundation of all industry! The production of these basic farm products—the real foundation of all this Federal Reserve splendor—was practically the same in volume for these three years, but the Federal Reserve credit crusher crushed it from $39 to $26 to $16 per acre measured by its purchasing value! That's the Tragedy of Drastic Deflation in its final analysis battering down the money value of America's basic industry almost two-thirds! But the profits of the Federal Reserve System—and its exorbitant expense account and its lavish salary rolls—kept off the toboggan down which slid all the others!
THE PALACES OF THE MONSTER
EDERAL Reserve Oligarchy houses itself most palatially. There is nothing in Government annals or in corporate prodigality private or public to anywhere approximate the absolute squandermania of Federal Reserve obsession for luxurious quarters.
If you want in your city a Post Office Building, a Federal Court Building or a Custom House Building you must lobby and beseech and petition and "trade" and pull wires in Congress until you do—or don't—get it. But it's different with Federal Reserve satraps. By merely a Federal Reserve ukase or decree or resolution or order an Aladdin's Palace arises like magic—paid for by your money. No such squandermaniac obsession has ever before been seen in this country in prodigality of buildings, in luxuriance of equipment or in splendor of quarters. And not only that, but the speed with which enormous sums have been "charged off" from building accounts is absolutely appalling. Take a look at some of the items of this profligacy.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank bought a building for $600,000 and spent in "remodeling" it $1,099,638, making a total cost to September 30, 1921, of $1,699,638, and then "charged off" to "depreciation allowance" the enormous sum of $1,166,848! In other words, after spending $1,099,638 in "remodeling" its building it "charges off" for "depreciation" $1,166,848, or $67,210 more than it cost to "remodel" it! So that after spending $1,099,638 on "remodeling" the whole property is worth only $532,790, or $67,210 less than it cost before "remodeling." Either Philadelphia real estate depreciates with lightning-like rapidity or Federal Reserve judgment isn't worth a picayune or this huge "charge out" for "depreciation" is a mere camouflage or deception. Take your choice. It's either damphoolishness or incompetency's height of deception. And that's all you can make it.