The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-12-26
PAYING THE PRICE

| tits the war;" was excuse Tor eV-
erything while the great conflice last
ed. 1t was, in particular, the excuse
for high prices. The fighting stop
ped over year ago and prices
throughout the world are higher than
ever. That excuse has almost disap-
peared from current speech, and num-
erous other explanations are advanc-
ed for the continuance of abnormal
costs, yet still, as truly as year ago,
or two years ago, "it's the war" That
appalling and altogether unpreceden-
ted calamity still hangs over us, and
| its economic effects will not entirey
disappear until we have paid the price
to the last dollar. The horrors of war
are not limited to bloodshed, nor to
the pestilence and famine which it
breeds. These in this war were
vast and destructive beyond any ca
tastrophe in the annals of mankind.
But to them must be added the eco
nomic consequences which, though not
comparable with the others in the
agony they cause, are far more wide
spread and more lasting. There is not
human being on earth who has not
paid toll to this war, and not one but
who will continue to pay for long
time. The price of war must be paid,
first in blood and then, through weary
years, in coin, and in every single
thing that we buy today we are pay
ing the cost of war. The war, and the
war alone, is responsible for the So
cial, industrial and economic condi-
lions that bewilder the world, and only
through the restoration of social, in
dustrial and economic equilibrium can
its evil effects be removed.
The cost of war! The cost of this
war is beyond human conception, or,
in all its ramifications, beyond hu-
man computation. But a number of
efforts have been made to compute it,
and the latest of these, and perhaps
the most complete, though none can
be complete, is that of Prof. Ernest
L. Bogart of the department of eco
Monies of the University of Illinois,
whose estimates have just been pub
lished by the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace. Prof. b.
CART, gathering all the trustworthy
statistics on the subject, puts the net
direct cost of the war at $1S6, 1888, 637 :
097. That this is conservative is in
Dictated by Secretary Bakers estimate
of $4,000, 100000. He estimates
the indirect cost at $151 ,612, 542, $50
In this he includes the capitalized val
ue of human life destroyed, the prop
erty losses and the loss of production.
The total of all costs he estimates at
$685., 94G, 179,657. To get even vague
comprehension of the meaning of
these stupendous figures some compar-
isons are necessary. Being stated in
terms of money, it will help some to
show their relation to the worlds stock
of money. According to the latest
available report of the Director of the
Mint, all the money in the world, gold
silver and uncovered paper, amounted
on December Is, 1915, to little over
$4,000, 100000. The cost Of the war
was therefore nineteen times the value
of all money in existence! The cost
to the United States alone was consid-
erably greater than all the money on
earth. Again, the total annual rev.
enue Of all the countries of the world
is approximately $21, 000,000,000. The
cost of the war therefore, is equal to
the worlds total governmental revenue
for sixteen years. Or consider this
The foreign commerce Of all the coun-
tries of the world, exports and imports
amounts to about $52,000,000, an
nually. This is the sum of all inter-
national trade, yet the cost of the war
is equal to over six years of that
trade. The total wealth Of the Unit
ed States-money, real estate, rail-
roads, farms, mines, factories, every
thing that has value, was estimated
in 1912, the latest computation, at
$1S7, 739, OH 900, which is not much
over one-half of the cost of the war,
That is to say, if every single one Of
the 100,000,000 inhabitants of the I'M
tied States were to give up everything
they possessed, down to their shoes,
the total would be but little more than
one-half the cost of the war. ~
Yet with all this we can get but a
vague conception of the vastness of
the economic penalty we and the rest
of the world must pay for the war.
The war is over, but we have only
begun to pay the price in money. The
cost is nineteen times the value of all
the money in the world, yet it is in
dollars and cents, or their equivalent,
that it must be paid. This cost is ex-