The Northwest worker. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1915-1917, 1915-09-16
The Cost of War
IN TIMES OF PEACE!
FROM WAR, WHAT FORw
Inn Gnnrraa " ix.I.x.l. -

What Is the significance of the pres
ent cost of militarism for the world
annually? No human mind can dis
Germ or take in the vast meaning of
the neutrality-suspicious. politics that
holds and damns the world today.
Eight Billion Dollarsl $4,000, 900, 900
Tossed to Mars, the red-stained god
of war! While the human race fes-
tiers in ignorance! $4,000, 900 ,OOO-to
blind and blindfold the multitude with
their own blood and rags while their
lives are robbed and ravaged by the
eminent and respectable profit-glut-
ton parasites of mankind
ONE ITEM ALONE IN THIS COST
OF MILITARIsM Is ALMOST FOUR
BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR. That
single item is the wealth that is not
produced, but that could be produced
If the six million five hundred thou
sand carefully selected young men in
the standing armies of these twenty
one countries were engaged in pro-
ducing wealth with modern tools, mod
ern machinery and modern knowledge
of production
Eight billion dollars, $4,000, 600, 900.
Men and women shudder when the
telegraph flashes over the world that
a city has suffered a ten-million or a
twenty-million dollar fire. Let us try
to get an idea of the cost of wealth
wasting militarism by expressing it
in terms of loss by the devourer fire.
Eight billion dollars! This sum,
this expense of bull-dog-and-tiger
craftsmanship of militarism in twenty
highly civilized" countries - for
twelve months in times of peace, is
equivalent to continuous loss by
fire, throughout the year, day and
night, of more than $4,000 an hour,
or about $15,219 per minute.
This sum, worse than wasted an
nually to be "prepared"-to slaughter
is equal to a loss by fire burning
day and night throughout the year, de-
vouring seven homes per minute, each
worth $1,700 and each home contain
ing also $475 worth of furniture.
The average working-class family
contains about six members, two par
ents and four children; the average
working-class family would consider
itself in good fortune to have home
worth $1,000 and provided with s475
worth of furniture. Seven such homes
would contain forty-two members.
Now, imagine an unbroken stream
OF people-men, women and little chill
dren, frightened, pale, shuddering, the
children screaming, the women in
tears, fleeing past you in the street,
driven by fire from their ruined homes
|-forty-two people rushing by you ev-
cry minute-day and night, year after
year, on and on, an endless stream of
humbled and saddened souls, plunged
in misery, their happiness swallowed
by pitiless fire; Or
Imagine fire rushing faster than
strong man at brisk walk-imagine
a fire rushing forward more than
eight miles an hour, consuming fifty
such homes per mile, making each
year thirty-six round trips, burning
going and coming from New York City
to St Louis, Missouri; or one such
round trip every ten days-imagine
these losses, these annual losses-and
you will perhaps have some idea of
what it costs these twenty-one coun-
tries to brag and strut and piously
prepare to settle their disputes as
tigers settle theirs-by force!
1t is as if the fiends of hell were
crazed and loose on the earth
AND THIS is CRAFTSMANSHIP!
ONE YEAR-$s, Oo0, ooo,o 900!
One years cost of militarism in
these twenty-one countries ($S,O0O,-
OO0,0OO) would keep thirty-two million
students in college for one year, al
lowing $3.50 each.
The cost of militarism in these
twenty-one countries for less than nine
hours and a half would pay all the ex-
penses of $500 students in Harvard
University for four years, allowing
each student $500 per year.
Six per cent. interest on this S.
600, 100000 for one year would provide
a four-year college education for $780,
600 young men and women, allowing
each student $3.50 per year.
Eight billion dollars every twelve
months on war and preparation for
war-and yet not a single silk-hatted
snob sleeps in the dingy barracks, or
eats the cheap grub" fed to the pri-
Yates, or submits to the humiliating
insults from superior officers, or
spills his blood on the firing line