The Fourth Liberty Loan followed in October, 1918, the request being for $6,000,000,000. The amount asked for equaled the combined requests of the Second and the Third Loans, all three occurring within one year. It was the largest single loan any nation, at that time, had ever asked of its people and was described by the Secretary of the Treasury as “the greatest financial achievement of all history.” No American can fail to feel that it was a privilege and a milestone in his life to witness and be a part of the patriotic fervor that carried it to a triumphant conclusion. The influenza epidemic that swept the country during the period of the loan kept many hundreds of thousands of people in sick-beds or sent them to their graves, disorganized business for many weeks, closed schools, churches, theaters, and all public assemblies in many places and everywhere interfered seriously with the progress of the campaign. Nevertheless, it was over-subscribed by almost $1,000,000,000. More than 21,000,000 people subscribed for bonds, thus making, if five persons be counted to the family, an average of a bond for every family in the country. The rising tide of the nation’s spirit was marked by the increase of subscribers from loan to loan. The number subscribing to the second loan doubled those to the first, and the third almost doubled those to the second, while the fourth made a huge leap forward of 3,000,000 subscribers beyond the third. The over-subscription to the Fourth Liberty Loan, all of which was allotted, was sixteen and a half per cent. As in the previous loans, the great bulk of the securities taken was in the smaller amounts, thus proving the almost unlimited extent to which the mass of the people, of small fortune, were willing to stand behind the government with their savings.