in continuous session since America entered
the war, ended its labors in mid-November.

For length, bulk of appropriations for the war and the number and
importance of legislative measures passed, the session was
unprecedented.

Appropriations passed aggregated $36,298,000,000, making the total for
this Congress more than $45,000,000,000, of which $19,412,000,000 was
appropriated at the first (an extra) session, at which war was declared
on Germany.

Legislation passed included bills authorizing billions of Liberty bonds;
creation of the War Finance Corporation; government control of
telegraphs, telephones and cables; executive reorganization of
government agencies, and extensions of the espionage act and the army
draft law by which men between eighteen and forty-five years of age were
required to register.

Prohibition and woman suffrage furnished sharp controversies throughout
the session. The war-time "dry" measure was completed, but after the
woman suffrage constitutional amendment resolution had been adopted,
January 10th, by the House, it was defeated in the Senate by two votes.

Every man, woman and child in the belligerent nations owed almost seven
times as much money when peace came as he did at the beginning of the
war.

Figures of the war's cost to the world compiled by the Federal Reserve
Board were summarized in the statement that the approximate public debt
per capita had increased from $60 before the war to almost $400 at the
end of July, 1918. To this was added the cost since July, which is at
the highest rate of the entire period.

The direct cost of the war was calculated by the board at somewhere
between $170,000,000,000 and $180,000,000,000, not taking into account
the authorization of the debt or the cost of indemnities.

Four-fifths of the huge burden fell upon the shoulders of the future,
only Great Britain and America absorbing a considerable amount by
taxation.

The total debt of the seven principal belligerents before the war did
not exceed $25,000,000,000.

The board contrasted these figures with the total value of the gold and
silver extracted from the earth since the beginning of the world, which,
it said, hardly exceeded $30,000,000,000.

The belligerent nations, therefore, owed about six times the amount of
all the gold and silver produced in all time.

Prices rose to three times the average of what they were at the
beginning of the war.

Great Britain's debt increased a