STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF AMERICAN 



FINANCE. 



BY ELLIS H. ROBERTS. 



[Ellis H. Roberts, treasurer of United States; born, Utica, N. Y., September 30, 1827; 

 graduated from Yale, 1850; principal, Utica free academy, 1851-59; editor of the Utica 

 Herald, 1851-80; member of New York legislature, 1866; member of congress, 1871-5; 

 assistant treasurer of the United States, 1889-93; president, Franklin National bank. 

 New York, 1893-7; treasurer of United States since 1897.] 



The United States is not asking for new loans. The 

 government is not increasing its debt by long bonds or by 

 exchequer bills for temporary needs. If in any month outlay 

 exceeds income, the deficit is covered by previous surplus laid 

 away. Individuals and corporations reach out for vast sums 

 in loans, but the nation is not a borrower in any market. Its 

 interest bearing debt at the beginning of the fiscal year 1898 

 was $847,365,130, and the annual interest was $34,387,315. 

 A loan of $200,000,000 was made by popular subscription for 

 war purposes. Yet at the start of the fiscal year of 1904 that 

 debt was only $895,157,440 and the annual interest $24,176,- 

 745. In the interval the government has paid the cost of the 

 Spanish war, $20,000,000 under the treaty of Paris, and $50,- 

 000,000 on account of the Panama canal. Now the nation 

 stands on a granite basis of credit, and over the door of the 

 treasury may be inscribed: "We are not borrowing here." 



This fact reduces the financial problem to simple terms. 

 The government leaves the loan market alone. Enough 

 factors remain, however, to make it worth while to study the 

 strength and the weakness of American finance. For a full 

 discussion of our theme, we might perhaps be required to treat 

 of the receipts and disbursements of the government. We 

 may, however, in these partisan days leave this branch to the 

 orators and the press of the political parties, who will be quite 

 ready to thresh out the straw to the uttermost. In an ideal 

 currency system, one would not expect to find besides sub- 

 sidiary and minor coin, and the disappearing treasury notes, 



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