Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/188

166 unenumerated, we may assume that the United States got about five billion dollars from Europe during this period and we would have stood enriched to that amount at the expense of Europe if the war had ended then and there.

Ah, if the war had but ended then and there! Alas! The seeds of profligacy had already been sown in 1915 and were bearing fruit in 1916, first among the profiteers who could not help profiting owing to their possession of stocks of goods that rose in value; and finally among classes of labor who were bid away from their former employments in order to make munitions of war. Hence, it is doubtful whether the savings of the country in 1915 and 1916 increased by the full amount of gold, securities and due-bills that we got from Europe. And it is certain that our system became permeated with the false ideas of rapacity, slackness and wantonness that were destined to make our behavior in 1917–1920 so wasteful.

We entered 1917 with the demoralization of the people far advanced. The early successes of the profiteers had been followed by the successful demands of labor to participate in the luxuries of high living. Already were laborers going to their work in automobiles and ceasing work for holidays whenever the spirit moved them. The railway brotherhoods had forced the enactment of the Adamson law by a cowardly Congress and an acquiescent Administration. Prices had risen largely and the cost of living had increased greatly, and much—too much—was made of that. Dismissing the exhaustive analyses of that subject, the obvious fact was that if living costs and wages had both doubled the wage-earner would be simply where he