Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/174

152 about four-fifths of the annual requirement. In other words there was nearly 10 months supply on hand. This is about what would be expected.

I must now proceed further in the field of conjecture. In this I shall not be a solitary wanderer. The census figures for 1912 on this subject are in themselves largely the result of conjecture, and that which I am going to make is of precisely the same nature.

The first effect of the demands upon us by Europe in 1915 was to cause drafts upon our stocks of goods. For some greatly needed commodities the corners of the warehouses were ransacked. It was this urgent demand that started the upward movement in prices and the profits that we realized in 1915 were largely the result of the sale of our surplus stocks on a rising market. By 1916 we had begun to manufacture on an increased scale, but not enough to replenish our stock of goods on the whole. As for many commodities we did not have any stocks at all. At the end of 1916 the stock of goods in the aggregate in the United States was relatively depleted by comparison with the normal. A conjecture of a total of nine months supply will in no way violate common sense, especially when the increase in population be taken into account. Even so, the value of the stocks at the end of 1916 may have been larger than at the end of 1913 for prices had increased from the index number of 100 to about 125.

In 1917-1920 the conditions were such as to cause further depletion. A large number of our workers were withdrawn from production and put into military service. A further large number was transferred from the production of consumption goods to the building of ships, cantonments, and such things. Both during