﻿2io	WAR BORROWING

towards installment payment. Some encourage-
ment for this view would seem to be afforded by
the large proportions of the four Liberty Loans
paid “ in full ” upon allotment or upon the first
installment date. But we have no knowledge as
to in how far this overpayment was influenced by
the acquiescence of the Treasury and carried out
by the cooperation of the banks. Of the number
and volume of subscriptions made nominally in
accordance with the terms of the loan, but actually
paid by the subscribers through the banks in weekly
or monthly installments — we have no available
data. It is probable that a considerable part of the
great army of new subscribers to each succeeding
loan were either secured through or at any rate
availed themselves of these facilities. Installment
payment is a familiar procedure in American mid-
dle-class economy, and the recent successful ad-
vocacy of its use in connection with income and
excess profits taxation suggests its wider con-
venience. With installment payment incorporated
into the essential plan of the loan and with the
whole weight and energy of the loan campaign
expended in its behalf, the results would be reason-
ably secure.

The entire course of our war financing has been
an impressive exhibit of popular response. That
more than 21,000,000 subscribers4 could be en-
rolled for a Fourth Liberty Loan or that 14,472

4 Some uncertainty has existed as to whether, in this as in
earlier loans, the aggregate refers to “ subscribers ” or “ sub-
scriptions”; but all doubt is removed by the explicit use by
the Secretary of the Treasury on November 1, 1918, of “sub-
scribers” (Federal Reserve Bulletin, November, 1918, p. 1045).