BOOTLEGGERS’ RISE

Evening Star, Issue 21171, 3 August 1932, Page 7

BOOTLEGGERS’ RISE

AMERICA'S HEWLY-RICH VANCOUVER, July 21. A new race of millionaires has been produced in the United States in the last few years, income tax statistics show. The great fortunes of the legitimate trader and business man have toppled, their incomes shrinking CO per cent., while bootleggers and racketeers have risen to high rang in the new dynasty of the wealthy. This is what is causing both the Republicans and the Democrats to modify radically their Prohibition policy. They see the old aristocracy of legitimate trade decimated by' the depression and burdened with taxes, giving away before the steady advance of the millionaire bootlegger, dividing among them thousands of millions of dollars which the Government formerly collected in liquor taxes. In 1928 there wore twenty-six individuals admitting annual incomes of £1,000,000. To-day only three survive —J. D. Rockefeller, Pierpont Morgan, and Andrew Mellon. President Hoover himself is cutting into his last 1,000,000 dollars. A rift in the clouds is the continued rise of commodity prices. During the month ending July 12, throughout the United States the index figure for wholesale commodity prices improved by 5 per cent. This was initiated by a rise in sugar and pigs, quickly spreading to other products. At the same time there is no sign of Uncle Sam’s foreign trade improving. June exports were the lowest since before the war—£23,ooo,ooo. compared with £180,000,000 in June, 1929,