Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-03-31
If War Taxes Continue

OMETfTING of Midas touch will be
needed to solve the Governments
forthcoming financial problems, if Sec
rotary Weeks, OF the War Department, has
figured Alright. Within the next thirty
months, it seems, the Treasury
must have at least seventeen bill
lion dollars for current expenses and re-
funding operations The latter alone require
seven billion three hundred and ninety-sev-
en- million for the following purposes: Vic
tory notes maturing May 20, 1928, $780,
100000; War Savings stamps, matu.ing
January l, 1928, 100000, 900; tax and
loan certificates due in 1921 $2,397 Geo, 900.
These obligations allow less than ten bill
hons, out of the Secretary's estimated seven
teen billions, for running expenses through
the thirty-months period. His estimates,
which are altogether conservative, give anx-
iety because they leave less than four bill
lion a year for running expenses.
Time was, and not far in the past when
four billion a year for Governmental opera
tions would have been considered not only
enormously excessive but well-nigh incon-
ceivable. A budget system, diligently fol-
lowed and reinforced by other efficiencies
such as we'll conducted private business
employs, would be worth a great deal. At
the least, it would substitute definite pro-
grams for much that is now vague and I'm
planned and would afford accurate stand
ards and tests for administrative compe
tency-both of which results would lead in
turn to important economies. Tax payers
should persist in demanding the adoption of
these businesslike methods, for want of
which public money is often wasted and puo
lie enterprises neglected or i'll managed.
But no amount of efficiency can keep
Governmental expenses within moderate
bounds so long as we must play the sub
stance-sapping game of armament building
in competition with other nations. Not until
the old atmosphere of international distrust
and smouldering hostility gives place to
international reasonableness and fair deal
ing can we hope for large or permanent re-
auctions in the rising cost of government
Nor can we expect anything like adequate
funds for constructive undertakings for the
cOmmonWeal such as education and the de-
velopment of natural resources. We are pay
ing now for the consequences of a militar-
ism that drew us into combat despite our
utmost efforts to keep out; and we consider
the bill burdensome, though incomparably
less so than dishonor and the triumph Of
Prussianism would have been. But the sew
enteen billion dollars which must be paid, by
one means or another, within the next TWO
and a half years is but mite to the load
we shall have to carry later, if preparation
for war Indefinitely continues and brute
force rather than reason and justice is to be
the method of settling differences between
peoples. Tremendous as are the costs of the
recent war, together with the armament
building which foreran it. they are but an
index of what the costs of the next war-if
''next" there must be-will aggregate.
IF we are to go on as world Of war
makers we may as we'll abandon hopes Of
human progress and culture. and prepare
for the harshest the bleakest, the barrenest
of Spartanized existence. No one now can
contend that vast ornaments tend to pre-
vent or delay war, rather they make it in
evitable and precipitate it. If we would clear
the way for a solution of tax problems and
for governmental enterprises that will pro-
mote the common and fundamental interests
of men. we must somehow or other stop the
need and the urge Of monster bills for war
making and war-planning.