The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1917-09-08
COST OF THE WAR IN MONEY

The argument has been advanced that the wealth and re-
sources of the United States are impaired to the extent of all
the money spent by the government for war purposes. The
argument is very unsound. There is a sharp contrast between
cost to the government and cost to the people of the country.
The United States has sold two billion dollars worth of
Liberty Loan bonds to the people of the United States and
therefore owes two billion dollars more than it did a few
months ago. When the money for the bonds has been collect
ed in full and been expended in full the matter will stand in
this shape:
The people of the United States will have loaned to their
government two billions of dollars, in return for which they
will have received two billion dollars worth of Liberty Loan
bonds, which is as valuable security as the world affords.
Moreover, they will have in their pockets or their banks the
two billion dollars which they loaned to their government. The
government will have expended part of this money itself and
those European nations engaged in war with Germany, whose
obligations our government has purchased with part of the
money realized from the sale of Liberty Loan bonds, will have
expended the other part, and all of it will have been expended
in America for American products and in payment of American
wages.
The resources of the nation, its capital stock, so to speak,
will not have been impaired at all. Our farms, our mines, our
factories, in fact all of our fixed property and industries will
remain intact. Our people will simply have sold some of the
annual products OF the country, the products of it's farms, the
product of its mines and the products of it's factories.
Thus the government will have value received for the
money it borrowed from the people and the people will have
value received for the money they loaned the government and
the products they sold their government and the European ma
tons engaged in war with Germany. AS Secretary of the
Treasury McAdoo has expressed it: "All of this financing is
largely merely IA matter of shifting credits. All the money will
remain in this country and will not involve any loss of gold or
any loss of values"
OF course the United States is going to pay these bonds at
maturity and is going to pay interest on them in the meanwhile.
1t is going to pay part with the money it will later collect from
our debtor European governments engaged in war with Ger
many; it is going to pay part with money raised by taxation. It
is not going to pay them out of the capital of the United States.
The money is to come from the annual income and production
of the country, which now amount to fifty billion.
The yearly agricultural production of the United States is
more than ten billion dollars and the mineral production three
billion. The profits of converting raw material into finished
products amount annually to ten billion dollars. These are just
some OF our main sources of annual income.
The raising of money by the sale of bonds and the expendi-
lure Of that money for purposes of war are not going to iniure
or destroy the productive capacity of our fields, factories or
mines. There is waste in war, and a great deal of waste, but
war is not all waste. The actual waste in this war NAV be
more than made up by the speeding up of our industries under
the stimulus of the war.
There is going to be loss by reason of this war = wealth
shot away in battle and wealth sunk at sea. And there is 60
ing to be loss of some of Americas bravest sons. But the price
is one that America is willing to pay, that her fighting men and
her people are willing to pay, for the maintenance of our
rights and of our national honor, the cause of democracy. the
preservation of liberty and civilization and humanity. The loss
caused by war will be small, compared to the worth of these
things to America and to the world.
III would seem as If a steamer owned by the government
might get into New York harbor without ramming a transport