The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., July 01, 1925, Page 13, Image 13

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JULY 1925
THE UNITED AMERICAN
American consumers between 1928 and 1930, by which
time the price of rubber will be “anything that Great
Britain determines to make it.”
Though Great Britain is tightening the screws,
enterprising Americans are busy scouring the world
from the Philippines to Florida, from South America
to Africa for rubber producing fields.
Henry Firestone has already obtained control of a
vast plantation in Liberia, where he hopes to produce
rubber, at ten cents per pound.
Henry Ford is conducting secret experiments in
the Florida Everglades with a rubber vine imported
from Madagascar.
The United Fruit Company is employing its
vast resources in half a dozen South American
countries where rubber was once produced in pro­
digious quantities.
Summed up in a few words, the situation is this:
’ First, the United States consumes three-
fourths of the world’s rubber.
Second, Great Britain controls the production
of three-fourths of the world’s rubber.
All but five per cent of the world’s crude rubber
supply comes from plantations in the Far East. Three-
fourths of these plantations are under British control,
and nearly all the remaining one-fourth is controlled
by the Dutch.
The British production is strictly controlled and
so manipulated that it practically determines the price
of raw rubber throughout the world.
Let us hope that America’s commercial genius finds
the means by which the English trade control in the
rubber market may be broken through the fair channel
of competitive production and supply.
LITTLE FELLOW’S AGGREGATE TAX­
POWER IS AMERICA’S MAIN SUPPORT
MOT ONE in a million in America has an income
of over a million dollars, according to the statistics
for 1923, as only eighty-six Americans paid taxes for
that year in excess of one million.
Of the eighty-six persons so listed the incomes
of thirty-nine were $1,000,000 to $1,500,000, twelve
paid taxes on incomes of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000;
the same number paid rates on income of $2,000,000
to $3,000,000; six reported incomes of $3,000,000 to
$4,000,000; one reported an income of $4,000,000 to
$5,000,000, and four were listed as receiving incomes
in excess of $5,000,000.
Among the big income taxpayers, according to the
returns made public in 1924, covering the calendar
year 1923, were the Rockefellers, father and son;
Henry Ford, Andrew W. Mellon, Cyrus H. K. Curtis
and Senator James Couzens of Michigan. The total
income of the eighty-six men who contributed large
sums to the Treasury in the form of taxes was more
than $152,000,000. The tax collected in these cases
totaled $35,788,475.
These figures were made public early in July as
part of a revision of the income class distribution of
the returns filed by individuals for 1923 which cor­
rected figures perviously given out. The corrections
eliminated a duplication of the returns in several of
the classes having net incomes in excess of $5,000
THE
with a shortage in the income classes showing net
income of less than $5,000.
The net difference for the whole United States is
a reduction in the aggregate net income in 1923 from
$26,336,337,843 to $24,840,137,364 and in the total
tax from $703,962,165 to $663,651,505. There were
7,698,321 income taxpayers in 1923.
The largest number of taxpayers were represented
by the group receiving salaries of $1,000 to $2,000.
They numbered 2,515,324. The next largest group
received salaries of $2,000 to $3,000, numbering
2,470,970. Those receiving salaries of $3,000 to $4,000
numbered 1,125,462. The group receiving salaries
of $4,000 to $5,000 numbered 592,166. Thirty-eight
persons paid tax on salaries running from $750,000
to $1,000,000. Their total income was $32,591,313
and the tax amounted in the aggregate to $9,415,930.
RUSSIANS MINTING GOLD
JUDGING by the following summary of the activities
of the Russian Mint which appears in the New York
Board of Trade Journal, the bolshevists must have
discovered that paper money without gold value to back
it up is not conducive to prosperity.
The summary reads:
The Leningrad Mint started minting a fresh batch of
4,000,000 gold chervontsi on July 1. The productivity of
the Mint has increased to such an extent that the whole
order was carried out in a few days. The Leningrad Mint
is now able to issue 1,800,000 coins daily. Up to April 11
126,500,000 rubles’ worth of small silver coins had been
minted, including the order for 20,000,000 rubles’ worth exe­
cuted in London. One hundred million rubles’ worth of
copper has already been put into circulation. Seven million
rubles’ worth of copper had been minted by the same date,
of which 4,000,000 rubles is in circulation. The amount of
paper currency of small denomination had decreased on April
11 from twenty-seven to seventeen million rubles. In view
of the bulk and general inconvenience of copper coinage, the
Commissariat of Finance proposes to issue a new coinage of
five, three and two copek values, composed of an alloy of-
bronze and other metals. The Leningrad Mint has been
instructed to prepare various samples on the pattern of foreign
coinage.
Perhaps the bolshevists may yet learn that the
means-of-exchange system used in other countries is
not so bad after all.
PAID IN FULL
IV HILE MANY people contend that America owes
** France a debt that can never be repaid it is
interesting to note what Henry White Cannon has to
say on the subject in a recent issue of The Chase,
a magazine published in the interest of employes of
The Chace National Bank. Basing his figures on
“A Sketch of the Finances of the United States” which
was published in 1796, Mr. Cannon contends that our
debt to France for advances made to us during the
Revolutionary War was paid in full with interest,
without any reduction or depreciation. His clinching
argument reads:
The United States borrowed money from France from
1777 to 1784, and on Dec. 31, 1789, owed France with accumu­
lated interest, $7,895,300. Payments were made on account
of principal and interest of this debt by our Government,
during the years from 1790 to 1795, amounting in the aggre­
gate to $7,151,896. On Jan. 1, 1796 certificates of debt were
issued to France, payable in this country for $2,024,900 to
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