The Triumph of
a Depressed Nation

“With all of these considerable changes in the wealth and income of the American people since 1929, and with the corresponding catastrophic declines in purchasing power, America is still in possession of the largest volume of liquid credit capital reserves of any nation in the world. In 1929 the United States held 44.6 percent of the total wealth of the world. In 1932 that proportion has increased to almost 50 percent. In all of the items of economic importance and efficiency, the United States still stands supreme. We still have half the banking-power of the world. We still have half the income. Our capacity for industrial and agricultural production still stands overwhelmingly greater than that of our nearest competitor… Can it be that we are poor in wit alone?”

Whether it was a poverty of wit or lucre, the nation was strapped for cash – regardless of what Robert R. Doane and his charts indicated. The same year this optimistic article appeared on the newsstands, 29 people were known to have died of starvation in New York City.