WEALTH IN AMERICA

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 193, 30 July 1932, Page 9

WEALTH IN AMERICA

RISE OF BOOTLEGGERS. FORMER MAGNATES POQRER. New York, July 17. Income tax statistics show that a new race of millionaires has been produced in the United States in the last few years. The great fortunes of the legitimate trader and business man have toppled, their incomes having shrunk 60 per cent., while bootleggers and racketeers have risen to high rank in the new dynasty of the wealthy. This is what is causing both the Republicans and the Democrats to modify radically their prohibition policy. Both parties see tho old aristocracy of legitimate trade decimated by the depression and burdened with taxes, giving way before the steady advance of the millionaire bootleggers, dividing among themselves thousands of millions of dollars which tho Government formerly collected by way of liquor taxes. In 1928 26 individuals admitted having annual incomes of £1,060,000. Today only three survive, namely’, namely, Messrs. J. D. Rockefeller, Pierpoint Morgan and Andrew Mellon. The President, Mr. Hoover, is cutting into his last 1,000,000 dollars.