Rich America

What would the physical assets of the U.S. bring at forced sale?

Interior Secretary Harold Ickes sharpened his pencil, put down his findings in the American Magazine. His total: $12 trillion, $23 billion. Divided among 135,000,000 people, the sum would give each American man, woman & child a nest egg of $89,000.

This is the value, guessed Harold Ickes, of all the coal, iron ore, copper, zinc, lead and other minerals; of petroleum and natural gas; of water power, farms, forests, fisheries, public and private utilities, industry, public and private buildings. Cried Honest Harold: "We are every one a Croesus."

But, said Mr. Ickes, lifting a warning finger: oil reserves might be exhausted in 20 years, zinc in 25, copper in 30, lead in 30 to 40, and high-grade iron ore in 50. But coal deposits, which Harold Ickes valued at $10 trillion, could last 50 centuries.

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