On October 1, 1917, the Government appealed for popular subscriptions to the second Liberty Loan for $3,000,000,000. As in the case of the first Liberty Loan the response at the outset flagged. Two weeks later only 14 per cent. of the maximum total had been subscribed and a daily subscription of $358,000,000 was needed to make the loan a success within the time allotted for receiving subscriptions. A period of apprehension and misgiving followed; but that had happened during the floatation of the first loan, and no European war loan had been asked without a similar experience. It was not an easy task to draw three billion dollars from the public purse, and the purse was leisurely, even lax, in loosening its strings. It needed a nationwide advertising propaganda to open it. The President entered the fray by naming a Liberty Day, fixed for October 24, on which he asked the American people to assemble in their respective communities and pledge to one another and to the Government the fullest measure of financial support. "The might of the United States," he declared in his proclamation, "is being mobilized and organized to strike a mortal blow at autocracy in defense of outraged American rights and of the cause of liberty. Billions of dollars are required to arm, feed, and clothe the brave men who are going forth to fight our country's battles and to assist the nations with whom we are making common cause against a common foe. To subscribe to the Liberty Loan is to perform a service of patriotism. "Let the result be so impressive and emphatic that it will echo throughout the empire of our enemy as an index of what America intends to do to bring this war to a victorious conclusion." The Government's efforts to brace popular interest in the loan, aided by hundreds of thousands of voluntary workers throughout the country who formed Liberty Loan organizations, bankers, boy scouts, girl scouts, the newspapers and magazines, and patriotic, commercial, and fraternal bodies, produced a flood of subscriptions at the last moment which dissipated all fear of failure. The people needed driving, knew that their procrastination called for a dinning advertising campaign to translate intentions into deeds, and finally yielded good-humoredly to the impetus. They responded in such good measure that on October 27, 1917, when the loan closed, $4,617,532,300 had been subscribed, or $1,617,532,300 over the amount asked. The oversubscription exceeded that which the first loan yielded. Approximately 9,400,000 shared in applying for the loan. Of this number, it was estimated, 9,306,000, or 99 per cent., subscribed in amounts ranging from $50 to $50,000, the aggregate of such subscriptions being $2,488,469,350.