---------------------------------
1913 | 1,081,293,417 | 100.0
1914 | 1,019,018,207 | 94.2
1915 | 1,073,472,988 | 99.3
1916 | 1,162,489,530 | 107.5
1917 | 1,241,173,806 | 114.8
1918 | 1,247,787,883 | 115.4
1919 | 1,117,181,233 | 103.3
-------------------------------------

If we attach the index of prices during these periods and compare them
with the per cent variation in commodity production and bank deposits,
we have the following interesting parallels:

------------------------------------------------------
| | | Department
| Per Cent | Per Cent | of Labor
| Change in | Change in | Wholesale
| Production | Bank Deposits | Index
Year | from 1913 | from 1913 | of All
| | | Commodities
------------------------------------------------------
1913 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0
1914 | 94.2 | 105.1 | 99.3
1915 | 99.3 | 107.8 | 100.5
1916 | 107.5 | 135.2 | 120.5
1917 | 114.8 | 161.9 | 175.9
1918 | 115.4 | 179.3 | 196.6
1919 | 103.3 | 219.2 | 214.5
------------------------------------------------------

Two different extreme schools of economics will interpret these tables
differently. One will hold that the increase in credit and money must
influence prices in exact ratio. The other will hold the rise of prices
as due to shortage in production, either at home or abroad, and that
rise in price necessitates an increase in credits and money to carry on
commerce. Both are probably right, for short production and inflation
probably alternatively serve as cause and effect. The first school has
some claims upon the large volume of gold we imported the first three
years of the war and multiplied into credits--as the cause prior to our
coming into the war. They can also point out that our Treasury and banks
deliberately inflated bank credits in order to place war loans and that
if this form of credits was removed our expansion would be nothing like
its present volume. As necessary as it may have been to use this method
in securing quick money at a low rate during the war, there are the
strongest objections to it since the armistice was signed. If our
post-war finance at least had been secured from savings by offering
sufficiently attractive terms, the