Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, July 20, 1902, Page 23

- - s T TS Base Ball, King of Summer Sports | GLIMFSE OF WEST BLEACHERS AND GRANDSTAND. ' “PAPA BILL"” ROURKE IN A DEEP STUDY. Uncle Sam’s Store HROUGH the Treasury department cf his government at Washing- ton, Uncle Sam gave out a rather startling piece of news the other day, in the statement that this country, at this moment, possesses about a quarter of all the gold that has been made up into money in the entire world. To quote the official figures correctly, there is now in the United States (includ- ing treasury coin and bullion) one thou- gand two hundred miliions of gold money, whereas the world’'s entire stock of gold money i8 worth less than five thousani billlons ($4,906,700,000, according to the latest figures). New York financiers believa Uncle Sam’s figures as to his own gold money are shy, and that in truth the amount cf gold money in the country is close to $1,250,000,000—a billion and a quarter—while all the rest of the world possesses less than $3J750,000,000. Th's is a larger sum of coined gold than has ever been possessed by a single nation in the history of the world. Next to the United States, according to the latest reports, comes France, with $810,600,000, followed by the British empire with $769,700,000; Russia, with $724 300,000, and Germany, with $721,300,000. So far as coined gold is concerned, it will be ob- served, the United States is in a class by itself. The British empire is second in the sec- ond class, but Great Britain proper is last, its store of coined gold amounting only to $511,000,000. All other peoples are so far behind in the race as not to be eligible even for the second class. Austria-Hungary leads the third class with about $230,000,000, but even at that the great empire is very poor in gold money, relatively as well as actually, for her gold supply amounts to less than $4.90 per capita for her popua- tion of 47,000,000 souls. Uncle Sam’s chil- dren have nearly $16 in gold aplece, which is less than the citizens of the French republic, for each of whom there is a little pore than $21 of gold coin a head. Ger- many comes third in the per capita compu- tation, the figures being $12.81. Great Brit- tain’s being $12.34, and that of Russia, with her enormous population cf 128,300,- 000 only $5.64. The per capita figure for the entire British empire is a shade under $2.20, that for India’s enormous horde &f 297,000,- 000 beings being only 15 cents. Here, as in most other things, the British empire exhibits the most astonishing extremes, for there are parts thereof where the per cap- ita of coined gold is in great excess; in Australia, for instance, there is $24.26 in coined money for every man, woman and child. At one time the South African re- publics led this, with per capita figures of $26.34, but now Australasia is the high- est. Canada’s per capita is a few cents in excess of $3. But these per capita figures of coined gold should not be taken as indicative either of a country’s actual wealth or the per capita of money in circulation. The total amount of money of all sorts in the United States is rising of $2,600,000,000, or $28 for every citizen of Uncle Sam, about double the per capita of ‘gold. In Aus- tralasia, where the gold per capita is high- est, there is little money in circulation ex- cept that made from the precious yellow metal; in India the great preponderance is in silver, and this is true in even greater degree in China. Staggering Figures. It is doubtful whether anyone can com- prehend the meaning of figures as stupend- ous as those which are needed to express the present wealth of this country in coined gold. It would take a laborer earning a dollar a day 416,666 years to earn, $1,000,- 250,000, but at that he would have to have the longevity of more than 4,000 Methus- elahs. If the money had to be earned by day's work it would be better to put 416,- 666 laborers at it for a single year. Reduced to avoirdupols the $1,260,000,000 of gold dollars now in this country would represent 5,000,000 pounds, or 2,600 short tons of 2,000 pounds each. Packed away as CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES Snap ¢ hots Taken on Omaha | Grounds by a Staff Artist CLOSER VIEW OF THE BLEACHERS. A TWO-BA SE HIT OFF GORDON, CAPTAIN STEWART SCORES ON HICKEY'S DRIVE TO LEFT. Uncle Sam packs away his gold in the treasury at Washington and in the subtreas- ury, it would fill 2,600 strong boxes each 21x18x24 inches in seize, inside measurement, and containing six cubic feet. Piled up, the gold coin thus accumulated would make a heap containing 15,000 cubic feet; a bar of gold containing $1,250,000,000 worth of precious metal would be 5 feet square and 300 feet long; erected into auriferous monu- ment, it would be a highly imposing sight, and would make no mean showing beside the Washington monument {tself, albeit of about 200 feet less altitude than that pa- triotic structure. At two tons to the million it would take 2,600 double teams, or 5,000 horses, to haul this unthinkable mass of coined treasure over the average roads of the country. Fixing fifty pounds as the proper load for the average man to carry any distance, it would require an army of 100,000 to pack the stuff. In ranks of twelve moving in fairly open order this army of gold-bearers would stretch over eleven or twelve miles, or about the length of Broadway on the island of Manhattan. There is little danger that the yellow specie of the great republic will be looted and carried away “by hand.” What Our Coined Gold Would Buy. One thousand, two hundred and fifty mil- lions of dollars would buy an enormous amount of merchandise, and would pay the expenses of no end of wars or merrymaking. A few weeks ago, before it could be fore- seen that the coronation of King Edward VII. would be postponed by a royal iliness, it was estimated that the total cost of the ceremonies to government and Baglish peo- ple would be not far from $7,000,000. At that price for such jubllations Uncle Sam's stock of coined gold would foot the bill for 179 coronations and leave some millions over. A blllion and a quarter dollars would build eighty Brooklyn bridges. It would build, equip and put in commission more than 400 great battleships. It would prob- ably suffice to buy the whole British navy, providing that aggregation of marine fight- ing machines could be purchased at any- thing like a fair valuation. At $1,000,000 a day, the approximate cost of the civil war, the colned gold now in the country would wage a war for more than three years and four months, Comparison of the quantity of coined gold In the country with the value of some of the country’s staple products is somewhat start- ling. For in:tance, in round numbers the output of coal, both soft and hard, in 1901 was $322,000,000, of pigiron more than $250,- €00,(00, of silver more than $36,000,000 of crude petroleum more than $76,000,000, of corn, wheat and oate nearly $209,000,000, of butter and cheese more than $384,000,000, Yet the $1,250,000,000 of coined gold now in the United States would buy all these prod- ucts and leave a trifling matter of $27,875,- 857 as a nest egg around which to accumu- late another $1,200,000,000 or so. It would bulld 62,600 miles of railroad at $20,000 a mile, nearly a third of all the rallroad mile- age now in the United States. Thousands of Acres of Ple, But it is when the purchasing power of $1,250,000,000 gold as applied to pie is con- sidered that the ordinary mind may come nearest to grappling with the real meaning of such a vast sum. Good, fair ples can be bought for 10 cents apiece, and thus the colned gold now in the country would buy 12,600,000,000 of pies. The square surface covered by ples varies, but fifty square Inches for each would not be far out of the way, allowing for the waste room that would have to be allowed for, supposing tne pies are round. On this basis the gold coln in circulation in Uncle S8am’s dominlons would buy ples enough to cover at least 4,000 acres of land. How many ple bakers it would take to bake this enormous ngErega- tion of toothsomeness in one day 1s matter for conjecture only. Yet all this gold could be packed into a very small space, relatively speaking. Made into a pile forty feet square, it would be only a little more than nine fest high, and its weight of 5,000 tons JOE HORRIGAN, THE OMAHA MAS- COT. of Gold Mouants Above the Billion Mark would not furnish a full curgo for any one of several of the great ocean liners now plowing the Atlantic ocean, though It would bulld hundreds of them. All in all, good Americans may well be proud of the magnificent showing our gold coin enables us to make before the world, yet there {s another and a more serious aspect of the situation to be con- sidered—an aspect, by the way, that thoughtful men are examining with much gravity. Wil the presence of so much gold In the country produce the apparently logical result of permanently holding up the price of all things eatable by reason of its own comparativey cheapness? Some economic philosophers declare that it win beyond the shadow of a doubt. In time they say there will also be a general up- lifting of the scale of wages, but not until it i1s settled whether the present pleni- tude of the yellow metal is permanent or not. Naturally, in the meantime, the man who works will have increased problems to meet. On the other hand, a plenitude of gold will mean lively c!reu'ation, and that will mean a continuance of the present ‘‘good times” for a considerable period to come. And, if the prophets speak wisely, the present unexampled quantity of coincd gold in this country is only a forerunner of the future. Unless all signs fail, say they, the day is not far distant when we shall have $2,000,000,000,000 instead of $1,250,000,- 000 o gold coin in our land, Had to Decide Chicago News: Two Jolly sons of Erin halted at a wayside inn “Phwat does the solgn say, Pat?’ asked one. “* ‘Accommodation read the other. “Thin lit's go in.” ‘““Hould on.” “Phwat for?" “Which av us will be th® mon an' which th' baste?" for mon an' baste,'"