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

1 Washington Aug. 25- Interest Ing comp arisoP on the cost of the world war 10 America with the cost at which the wAr r.th Spain was I fought back in N made by Rep resentative '. Sa 7ers; former | governor of Luu.si-aa, Tn a speech in the House of Repraseu tatives.
 Complete refutation 2f Republican charges of eXtravaganA Was fur nished by RepresentatiA Sanders, who showed that cost per man Il. der arms to the United States was not 1 much greater in the late war than | during the Spanish war ThNs dcs- bite the fact that everythinN inc government needed to equip, suNain and support it's army during the Ito war cost far more than back in IN 1 nlnetles, in many instances a hundreN per cent more than the market rricos | that prevailed at that time.
 The period of real fighting in the Spanish h-American war was only about three months; officially, the coontry was at war from the latter part of April, 1898, to April II, 1899. when the peace treaties were ex- Ichanged, or a little less than a year. The total number of men in the army l during the Spanish war was 27S,OOO, | Of whom only a small number ever reached Cuba. To prosecute that war cost the country s877 ,OOO, or ! about $1,350 per man for little less l than a 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 3D. 1919, the peace treaty still being unsigned, America had been at war with Germany two and a quarter | years. The cost of that war to the United States is reckoned at $21.- OOO,O00,O00, which, Mr Sanders esti- mated is approximately $2,543 per year per man under arms for the | two and quarter years.
 Tn 1917 and 191S," said Mir. San ders, just 20 years after the Spanish 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.
 We raised, equipBed and trans | ported an army at d cost per man less than 100 per cent. greater than 1t took 10 do the same thing in 1898, and we raised a better organized army; we equipped it better than we
 
 5000 miles over hostile seas, where we had to face only a peaceful strait in 1898. And the cost was maintain ed at a level less than twice the cost l per man of the previous war, and we cared for our soldiers better, gave them better food and equipment
 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 any nation ever gave it's fighting men in this or any other war in history"
 MT. Sanders showed that in our war with Germany had the death rate from disease been the same as in the Spanish war, losses from di- sease alone would have been from September 1, 1917, to May 2, 1919 over 112,000 men; they were actually less than 5O,000. Had the Civil War
 death rate prevailed, they would hve been over 227. .OOO.
 Statistics show, MT. 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 II 900; they were actually 13. Had
 the Spanish war dysentery death rate
 prevailed during the war with Ger
 many, they would have numbered
 over 5000; if the Civil War death
 rate had prevailed, they would have | numbered 63,000. The deaths from | 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-
 mately S1,O0O,OOO,oOO. Pay for sol diers, privates receiving $3O per
 month accounted for about s4,OOO,- OOO,OOO.
 After referring to the investigation of the food scandal of the Spanish war, when a court of inquiry. named under the direction of President Mo
 Kinloy, characterized the handling [ of the supply as a "colossal blun- , der" MT. Sanders said:
 l ''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- ! delible. nauSeat.ng meat was ever ! vice of his country in France. ) "I contend that the great war, be- 3 sides being shining achievement in
 the cause of humanity, was an achievement in efficiency and econ omy unrivaled in the life of our na- ton, and the indisputable evidence
 or the history of all past wars bears ! out this assertion.
 , "America's achievement in the war 2 just ended is the marvel of the ages,
 and unstinted praise comes from all the world. and the nations that we
 rescued from the grasp of the Hun stand even today amazed at the ra-
 p!dity of our participation in the , 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- | pieteness 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 admins