The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-04-26
WHICH MOULD YOU PAY?

A
| Congressman Luce, Of Massachu-
tsetts. in recent speech before Con-
gress, declared that the expenditures
sof the United States during the wal
exceeded themoney worth of every ar
ticle. every object, every substance
every structure, every foot of land to
which man has attached value be-
tween the Arctic ocean and the 18TH
mus of Panama.
Said he:
mo more grave crisis has confront
led the people since the days immed-
lately before the Civil War. Class is
arrayed against class; social, political
and industrial institutions are at
tackled; millions of our people are suf-
fering ills arising from conditions
which they do not understand. The
end of every month finds them poorer
in purchasing power than when that
month began, forcing them, to hard
ships to which they have never before
been accustomed. Daily the cost of liv-
ing rises, daily unrest spreads, daily
there is more suffering from the NAL
adjustment of wages and incomes. So
bear with me for just few minutes
while l expose to you, if I can, the
causes, the remedy and the lesson. The
fundamental cause 1 laid before the
House on previous occasion-t h e
enormous waste produced by the war.
At the time L pointed out to you the
remarkable coincidence between the
fact that the total assessed valuation
of this country in 1912 was put at
$1S7, 000o00,000, and that the expendi-
lures by the principal nations engaged
in the war, as set forth in our own
officiaI qualification, amounted to $780,
iQ0n 10 I'D
ment for International Peace has COM
puted the other costs, bringing US the
amazing total of s33S. 100000 of
economic loss due to the war.
But Congressman Luce has this to
lremember,-if it had cost all of this
and the life of every man, woman and
child in the United States, even that
price would have been better, than the
domination of this nation by the Hun.
One of the strangest things about
the present hostile attitude of the men
who wrangle in Congress about the cost
of the war, is that they never seem to
bear in mind that civilization has been
fighting for its very life. There was
one thing that counted more than any
other thing and that was time. 1t was
necessary to annihilate time, to do the
work of a century in a year. And we
did II. II we PAID a nlgn price IN golo,
through that very payment, we saved
the manhood of this nation to the
world.
Who can say what the outcome might
have been had we been even one month
later placing our men on the battle
fields of Europe. Who can say what
price we might have paid in lives of
the, young manhood of this country,
if we had counted the money cost
Is not honor more than gold, and the
lives of our American youth worth
more than all the structures that money
can ever produce
IL these men in Washington who
spend their time discrediting this ma
ton, would turn their attention to the
red menace and the profiteering which
has succeeded the war. the world would
profit far more thereby than from the
constant post mortems they are hold
ing and the bugaboos they are erecting
Ito frighten the people of the United
States into a Republican administra-
ton.
As long as the congress was Demo-
cratic in it's ma jority, it functioned and
functioned well. If we paid a high
price for the war, any price were better
than German domination in this coun-
try. And that would most certainly
have been the aftermath of a German
victory over England and France.