State of the Union

ALIEN ENEMY PROPERTY

The wise determination that this property seized in war should be returned to its owners has proceeded with considerable rapidity. Of the original seized cash and property (valued at a total of about $625,000,000), all but $111,566,700 has been returned. Most of the remainder should be disposed of during the next year.

GENERAL ECONOMIC SITUATION

The country has enjoyed a large degree of prosperity and sound progress during the past year with a steady improvement in methods of production and distribution and consequent advancement in standards of living. Progress has, of course, been unequal among industries, and some, such as coal, lumber, leather, and textiles, still lag behind. The long upward trend of fundamental progress, however, gave rise to over-optimism as to profits, which translated itself into a wave of uncontrolled speculation in securities, resulting in the diversion of capital from business to the stock market and the inevita