The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-08-25
COST PER MAN IN WORLD WAR WAS NOT HIGH Amount Only Little Above
 Costs In War of
 1898. CHARGES AGAINST ADMINISTRATION VOID Former Louisiana Governor
 Makes Expose In
 Speech.


 at which the war with SDain was fought back in 1893 Is made by Rep resentatlNe J Y. Sanders former governor of Louisiana Tn a speech in the House of Representatives.
 Complete refutation Of Republican charges of eXtrava gance was fur nished by Representative Sanders, who showed that cost per man under arms to the United States was not much greater in the late war than during the Spanish war. This des- pite the fact that everything the government needed to equip, sustain and support its army during the late war cost far more than back in the nineties, in many instances a hundred lper cent. more than the market prices that prevailed at that time.
 The period of real fighting in the Spanish-American war was only about three months; officially the country was at war from the latter part of April, 1898, to April II, 1899, when the peace treaties were ex- changed, or a little less than a year The total number of men in the army | during the Spanish war was 27s,OOO, | of whom only small number ever reached Cuba. To prosecute that war cost the country s877,OOO,OOO, or about $l,S50 per man for a little less than year of war, a war fought in Cuba, but a step away from the coast of the United States
 Americas participation in the world war dates from April, 1917 At the end of the present fiscal year, June 30, 1919, the peace treaty still being unsigned, America had been at war | with Germany two and a quarter nf I,,+ | United States is reckoned at S2l.- | 0O0,000,0OO, which, MT Sanders esti- mated is approximately S2,543 per 1 year per man under arms for the | two and a quarter years.
 l Tn 1917 and 191S," said Mir. San l ders, just 20 years after the Spanish l war when the price of everything had doubled and quadrupled, the | price of the war per man was actu- | ally held down to a negligible in crease over the cost per man in 1898. 1 We raised, equipNad and trans | ported an army at d cost per man | less than 100 per cent. greater than 1 1t took to do the same thing in 1898, | and we raised a better organized | army; we equipped it better than we 1 did 20 years ago; we transported it 5000 miles over hostile seas where
 
 in 1S9S. And the cost was maintain ed at a level less than twice the cost per man of the previous war, and we ! cared for our soldiers better gave ] them better food and equipment i gave them more of it, and paid them | more money and gave them more benefits than we did during our war with Spain, and gave them more in combined salary and various war | benefits, family allowances, insur- ance privileges, and so forth, than l any nation ever gave its fighting men ! in this or any other war in history"
 Mir. Sanders showed that in our war with Germany, had the death rate from disease been the same as 1 in the Spanish war, losses from di- sease alone would have been from | September l, 1917, to May 2, 1919, over 112,OOO men; they were actually less than 5O,000. Had the Civil War death rate prevailed, they would hve been over 227, coo.
 Statistics show, Mir. Sanders point ed out, that had the death rate from malaria that prevailed during the Spanish war prevailed during the late war, deaths from that cause during the same period would have number ed 11,00O; they were actually 13 Had | the Spanish war dysentery death rate l prevailed during the war with Ger many, they would have numbered over 6,000; if the Civil War death rate had prevailed, they would have , numbered 63,OOO. The deaths from i dysentery actually numbered 42. Where one man died from dysentery during the late war, 142 died during the Spanish war and 1,5OO during the Civil War
 Another item which entered into the cost of the late war that of course did not appear In the others was aviation, which cost approxi- mateIy $1,OOO, ,0OO,OOO Pay for sol diers, privates receiving s3O per | month accounted for about s4,0OO,- 1 oOO,OOO.
 After referring to the investigation ! of the food scandal of the Spanish war, when a court of inquiry, named l under the direction of President Mc- | Kinley, characterized the handling of the supply as a colossal blum der" MT. Sanders said:
 'Whatever else may have been said by our men returned from over seas as to their hardships, none has yet said, to my knowledge. that in- | deNble, nauseat!ns meat was ever vice of his country in France "I contend that the great war be- i sides being a shining achievement in the cause of humanity, was an achievement in efficiency and econ- omy unrivaled in the life of our na- | tion, and the indisputable evidence of the history of all past wars bears | out this assertion.
 l Americas achievement in the war just ended is the marvel of the ages, ! and unstinted praise comes from all l the world. and the nations that we | rescued from the grasp of the Hun stand even today amazed at the ra- | pidity of our participation in the l struggle Not a voice is raised in all | the world at what We did or how we | did it save here at home. The har- | mony of the chorus of approval of all humanity is marred in its com | pleteness only by the critic in our midst. and his criticism will be lost as the years go by the universal &C., claim accorded the splendid adminis- tration that so splendidly handled 1 the splendid resources and splendid linen of . splendid. people"