The labor argus. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1906-1915, 1911-03-16

some people despise socialists be
cause they think they are going to
destroy homes. Which would you
rather do, live In home of your own
or live in rented home and every
thirty days meet that strange and
terrible creature called the landlord?
For my own part, I will take the
home of my own, even though it is
only a seventeen hundred dollar cot
tage and four hundred and ten dol
lars worth of furniture.
Well, the American Civil War,
costing thirty one and half billion
dollars would provide a seventeen
hundred dollar home and four hun
dred an ten dollars worth of fur
niture for every home, in a popula-
ton Of ninety millions of people.
another way: The American> Civil
war was equivalent to the total wheat
crop, one dollar bushel on twenty
bushels to the acre--that would be
a big yield,-and a big price, on
twenty five million acres of land for
sixty two years Let us talk to the
school teachers in the audience. The
American Civil War cost an equval
ent of twenty-five thousand school
teachers at six hundred and twenty
five dollars apiece a year from the
time of Jesus Christ until now cloud
applause).
To find out which way we are go
ing to skin the working class. Let
us take 1t another way: I haven't
mentioned the blood cost. You
know the statesmen who declare war
have the strong men picked out to be
butchered. The best blood is des-
troyed, then. That weakens the ma
tional blood. War spills the blood
of the men who are actually slain. OF
those who are crippled, and also of
those who catch disease in war. The
blood of the nation weakens. because
don't reproduce their kind. 1t is es-
timated that in an average one child
to each soldier is born. These men
cease to be reproductive of their
kind. In many ways war weakens
the national blood. Savage wars are
n natural merhod of picking out the
weak ones. In civilized society, we
pick out the strong ones and have
them butcher one another.
Let us get at the cash cost, be-
cause that is the way Americans ere
inclined to measure everything. They
are trying to measure everything by
cash. When a young lady is report
ed to soon be married, the neighbors
inquire, did she do well?' That
means, Has he got the plunk?'. They
inquire casually as to his character,
or morality, but more particularly,
Will she have one servant, or three?
Let us take the annual cost of the
War Department,-the annual cost
of militarism. Some one said few
years ago, that the annual cost of
HIN inn
dollars year. My own estimate is
four hundred and fifty millions, and
that is a very conservative estimate.
Let us estimate it at four hundred
and fifty millions year. That is an
underestimate, but what does that
amount to? Let us estimate it in
terms of an education. Everybody
wants an education, or ought to have
it. That is the only thing you can't
steal from a man. They can almost
take the color out of his eye, but
they can't take his education. Every
body ought to have an education, and
Increase the more their happiness.
know there are thousands of young
men and women going to college on
$4,000 a year. there are lots Of
young men and women in West Vir.
ginia who would go to college if they
had S25O.OO? Four hundred and
fifty million dollars a year spent il
American Militarism would keel
eighteen hundred thousand young
men and women in college. The az
nual cost of militarism would keoi
twelve times as many in college az
were in college year before last, il
all the colleges in the United States
The annual cost of militarism is ST,
times the total running expenses I"
all the four hundred and sixty foul
colleges and universities in America
Put it another way: Take tht
cost of militarism for thirty months
and invest at at three and one-hal
per cent, and the income will keel
in college n number of men ant
women equal to the total number o
men and women in college year before
last.--just the interest on it fol
thirty months. Take the cost fol
fifteen months. and that sum is equa
to the total value of all the propert.
belonging to all the colleges, the foul
hundred and sixty leading college:
and universities of America, inclui
ing books, libraries, lands and al
the property they have Fifteer
months of militarism is equal to tht
value of all their plant.