New-York tribune., 1918-09-23

done there Still VIII remain q very
much larger part which must be laid
upon the shoulders of others. The
rich are few, the others are many. 1t
would be just about as reasonable to
expect to fill the ranks of the army
with rich mems sons alone as to cx
pect to fill the government treasury
out of rich mems incomes alone.
All Must Help
Pay for War
Much might be said as to the justice
of making posterity take part Of the
load; much might be said as to the
justice Of appropriating accumulated
wealth, and much might be said as TO
the justice of making the rich now liv-
ing bear pretty much all Of the burden
but nothing is to be gained by discuss
ing any of these things. 1t is absolute
ly impossible to do any one of them.
The fact is that we now and all of us
must shoulder all Of the load, and
shoulder it now. This is our war. 1t
is being fought now and must be paid
for now. 1t is everybody's war, and
everybody must help pay for it, and do
it now.
Because of the immensity of this
proposed expenditure and the immens-
lty Of the sacrifices it involves, some
one may question our ability to effect
1t without bringing the country to the
verge OF economic exhaustion.
We are asked to give up approx
mately onc-half of what we produce.
other half?" The answer is, eve Ger
tainly can"
In earlier times people have lived
and increased on an amount of total
product per capita equal to but a small
fractional part of onc-half of what we
IN this country now consume
It. is less than one hundred and fifty
years since the peasants of the sister
Republic with which and for which we
are fighting lived on one-siXteenth as
much per capita as we ourselves Gus
tomarily consume. Not one-sixteenth
in "dollars' and cents worth" but one
sixteenth in bushels. yards and pounds.
These people producA but one-fourth
as much per capita as we produce. and
they were compelled to give I'D to the
state, the church and the overlords of
Their country, roughly, three -fourths os
all they produced.
with respect to manner of living it
is a far cry from the French peasant
OF the eighteenth century to the Amer
lcan citizen of the twentieth. SO far a
~, liiueeu, that comparison is almost
meaningless. The facts arc recited
merely to show that it is humanity and
physically possible for people to exist
on very little.
We are in this fight to win. We are
willing to live on very little to win.
We are willing to make any sacrifice
that is physically possible to win. We
are tghtlng for principle. We are
flghting for the word that came two
thousand years ago from Galilee. We
are fighting for morality, for every high
ideal and hope it has been given men
to know. We are fighting to show that
Christianity is mightier than Kultur,
that the spirit is mghtier than the
body, that there is God in heaven.
We must win and we are going to win.
The question is not and never has
been how far we are willing to 90 to
win, but merely how far we are able
TO go. The answer is, we are able to
go not only this far but much further.
Our country will be very far from
economic exhaustion when it gives up
half of what it produces. No one can
be more sure than the writer that the
mephltlc powers now seeking to de-
stroy human freedom will be swept
from the face of the earth long before
our country even approaches economic
exhaustion