Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1917-04-06
COST OF THE GREAT EUROPEAN
WAR PLACED AT Sc BILLIONS
Almost the Equal Third the Entire Wealth of the United
States Is Swallowed Up-May Reach S00,OO0,OOO.O00 by
Next Year-Aong With This Loss of Substance
Goes Frightfu Loss of Life

in herself, while Great Britain became
a world empire. its commerce, its do
mains, its investments, its every In
terest reaching all over the world.
Yet the genius of the French peo-
pie, though they went about 1t in an
entirely different way, proved just
as capable of taking care of the OBJ
| legations handed over to II from the
Napoleonic period as did that of the
English people.
New Heritage of Freedom.
If England emerged from that strug-
gle firmly possessed of an empire and
colonies and commerce extending to
all the continents and all the seas,
France emerged with a new heritage
Of freedom, of something like real
opportunity, with a redistribution of
its land and wealth, which vested the
average French family with a power
of productiveness quite beyond any
thing that had been dreamed of or
had been possible under the old regime
Of bourbonism and feudalism.
If England gained in substance,
France improved in spirit. If England
was able to go about paying off its
debts, France was able to increase
its producing capacity so greatly that
the burden of its debt was borne with
out difficulty and without interfering
with a vast and continuous enhance
ment of the national wealth.
Is it possible that this experience
of Europe following the Napoleonic
wars may be repeated after the pres
ent European struggle? For answer
to this question men with visions Of
the future have little difficulty finding
an affirmative; and they justify their
confidence by pointing out that this
war is as truly war of emancipation
as were the struggles that began with
the French Revolution.
If the revolution wrenched France
and the continent generally away from
the institutions of political feudalism
and spiritual repression, the present
war will, If its event be fortunate, lib
crate the world from the institutions
of political militarism and industrial
feudalism.
II the land of France was democra-
tized as to its ownership as a result
of the revolution the instruments of
factory production, of transportation,
of finance, developed since the revo-
luton, will be socialized as a result
of the present struggle.
If the revolution brought not only
to France but to the rest of Europe
juster distribution of political power,
the war of today will bring fairer
distribution of the products of the
worlds industry, a wider recognition
of mans rights in the pursuit of lib
erty and happiness, a great sharpen
ing of intelligence and widening of
educational opportunities.
Following the Napoleonic wars the |
big dominating fact in the economic |
of the nineteenth century |
was the rise of the factory system of |
production and the development of |
modern means of transportation. Fol- |
lowing the present war it may conf |
IDENTIFY be expected that there will be |
further and no less significant ad- I
vances in the methods of production, /
carrying to all the world the benefits
Of those big. highly organized and in
tensely efficient units whose growth