WEALTH IN AMERICA

Taranaki Daily News, 30 July 1932, Page 9

WEALTH IN AMERICA

r RISE OF BOOTLEGGERS. FORMER. MAGNATES POORER. . ; New York, July 17. Income tax statistics show that a new race ;>f 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 shrank 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 Re* publicans and the Democrats to modify radically -their prohibition policy. Both parties see the 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 the Government formerly collected by way of liquor taxes. In 1828, 26 individuals admitted having annual incomes of £1,000,060. Today only three survive, namely, Messrs. J. D. Rockefeller, Pierpont Morgan and Andrew Mellon. The-President, Mr. Hoover, is cutting Into his last 1,000,000 dollars.