Omaha daily bee., 1916-03-03
The War
and the
Birth Rate
ny WOODS HUTCHINSON, NJ. d.
PART |.

At first sight tho question. Can men
be killed moro rapidly by machinery
than by hand? would seem to have only
one possible answer.
The horrible curtain OF fro" which
can be poured into and stretched over
the hostile trenches, until every square
foot OF the ground has been smashed
and pulveriEed as II by gigantic trip
hammers, would seem TO spell absolute
annihilation for every living thing that
falls under its deadly shadow.
The literal tons OF both ammunition
and explosive projectiles fired In the
course OF single days battle; the s.g-
nifioant fact. for instance, that a modern
army requires at least one doublo-track
railroad in perfect working order and
run to its full train capacity to supply
II with ammunition alone, would look
as II the slaughtor produced by this
avalanche OF metal would exceed any
thing ever dreamed OF before.
But when we como down 10 the actual
cold figures Of killed and wounded we
find ourselves most happily disappointed
In this shudderng expectation.
With all its thunder and sputter ana
which Is now raging half over the world
is not killing any larger percentage OF
the men on the firing line than did the
the oruder and simpler methods OF fifty
or a hundred years ago. and far less
than those OF two or three hundred years
ago
OF course. tho returns are stlll far
from complete, and none OF the belllg-
erents are, TO say the least OF IT, over
stating their losses, but slaughter by
tens OF thousands has become such a
commonplace that most of the war de-
partments have become cRlloused and
post their list OF casualties almost as
coolly and as much a matter of course
as " they were base ball scores or stock
market quotations.
The latest compilation from all official
sources on both sides. corrected and
checked by experts according to the
known probabilities. shows a total OF
lives lost, killed outright. OF something
like a million and three-duartera
This is enough TO stagger belief and
defy realization In the mass but the
warning nations claim TO have over 30
| 10000 mon actually In the field, and
as this demons game has disRraced the
earth seventeen months and lonz aSo
celebrated it's first birthday in hell. this
makes only loss OF about per cAnt
per annum, only n little higher than that
OF our own civil war. so that the risk "a
the individual soldier Is scarcely more
that It was at Gettysburg OF Antietann.
So far as we are able to see at present
the individual soldiers chances OF being
killed are about the sans in this wal
as they were in the civil war, and q
little greater than they were in th'
and the Boer wars. all of which averaged
about I per cent per annum
As to the propeots of this wars effecti
upon the future Of the nations involved
the mathematical probabilities are in one
sense reassuring although in another dis
ouieting.
Even adding 50 per cent for Eoot
measure TO the known casualties ant
making the loss Of the five greatest ma
tions involved 100000 year. thi
actually represents only one-fifth OF th'
babies born during that period! And afte
deducting deaths for the year. the ne
gain of these SS0OOO,O00 OF people woul
be in the neiEhborhood OF 100000 souls
or 30 per cont more than the number los
in battle.
To put It in a little different way. III,
about four times as great as the norma
death rate for adult males In the coun
tries concerned during the same period.