Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1895 — OUR NATIONAL WEALTH. [ARTICLE]

OUR NATIONAL WEALTH.

Our savings banks, being supported ' mostly by the middle and poorer cl - , tsses of people, furnish perhaps the test ! Indication of the prosperity or adven tity of the masses Gold and silver are much more ex-1 tensively used In the West than in the East. On the Pacific coast the gold and sliver almost supplant the.paper money as a circulating medium. According to the eleventh census; the wealth of the country was distributed yery unevenly, the Northern and Western States being far heavier In proportion to population than the Southern. The greatest difficulty In estimating the wealth of the United States lies in ascertaining the value of the personal property 7 , which constitutes a very 7 considerable item of our national wealth, i In wealth, Pennsylvania ranks next j to New York, having an assessed valuation of $1,683,459,016, owing largely to the enormous manufactures carried on within the limits of this commonwealth.

An authority on clothing estimates that every man, woman and chdid m this country has at least $lO worth of clothes. This would make the value of our national garments exreeed $600,000,000. The total amount of gold coined at our mints from 1793 to 1892 was $1,582,000,000; of silver, during the same period, tt)ere have been $657,000,0«K3; and of subsidiary coinage of all denrominations, $24,000,000. In the year 1891 there were circulating in the United States $1,175,000,(900. The gold, silver and currency held in the United States treasury at the sa me time would increase the nominal sum to over $2,000,000,000.