to have been a rapid cooling of gen¬ erosity under the prospect of colossal sales. And the upshot of it was that, after all the hurrah, the govern¬ ment really paid about 27 cents.
What these figures mean, can be deduced from the fact that during the war the government bought 592,258,674 pounds of copper. If the reader is not already staggered by the import of these facts, there remains one more for him to consider— After the armistice the surplus copper was sold back to the copper producers. In April and May, 1919, the American Metals Selling Company received from the United States Government over 16,500,000 pounds of copper at a fraction over 15 cents. This was less than the boasted patriotic price of 16 2-3 cents at the beginning. Not counting what they had received from the government for the copper in the first place, their profits on the difference between the price they paid for the surplus copper and the price for which they sold it again, were beyond counting.