Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/187

Rh was in the war and was subsequently involved directly in the settlements. Decidedly different things happened in these two periods.

Previous to 1914 the American people had been for several years realizing a gross income of about 33 billion dollars per annum, out of which they had been saving about five billion dollars per annum, which was put mainly into railways, houses, public utilities, manufacturing plants, mines, etc. Relatively small sums were put into investments in foreign countries, especially in Canada, Mexico and Cuba. We were beginning to go into South America and were contemplating Siberia. During the first period of the war, 1914–1916, our domestic business was not greatly dislocated. Of course 1914 was relatively a bad year owing first to the obligation to meet sudden and tremendous liquidation of securities and next to the interruption of our normal export trade; but 1915 and 1916 were very good years, especially the latter, by virtue of our large sales of goods to Europe at rising prices. We continued to build houses at about the normal rate, and to make the other usual improvements in our national property and our surplus of earnings above our own consumption, i.e., our net earnings, were at least as large as in pre-war years and probably considerably larger. The increase was represented by the gold we got from Europe (about one billion dollars), our own securities that we bought back from Europe (about 1.7 billion dollars), and the bonds of European countries that we took (about 1.5 billion dollars), making a total of about 4.2 billion dollars that we got from Europe in 1915 and 1916. Allowing for the early months of 1917, before the United States entered the war, and for minor items