The Elk Mountain pilot., 1921-02-24
SHALL WE FEED THE GIANT?


fact and menace He lives and con-
sumes. He has devoured 80 million
lives in so months. He is devouring
additional thousands of human beings
at this moment. He threatens the
white mans continued domination of
the world.
This giants best known name is
Armament-militari The world,
the United States, are slaves to this
ogre. We are keeping alive monster
which, if permitted to live, will one
day destroy those who provide it
with its huge pearly tribute of blood
and taxes.
The giant has just presented the
world with a war bill of 80 millions
of lives lost; 300 billions of property
destroyed, 219 billions of public debt
added. 40 billions of paper money
which must be Debated, and a shrink
age in the worlds gold reserve from
70 to IL per cent.
The appropriations of the United
States Government for 1920 show the
huge tribute this giant is exacting
from us, the worlds most peaceful
nation. Read it. This statement is
vouched for as correct by DIR. Edward
Rosa of the United States Bureau of
Standards:
For Past Wars ...S3,S55, ,4S2,5 $50
For Future Wars. 1.424, 4,13S,677 25%o
For Civil Depart
ments .......... 81,O87, ,225 go
For Public Works. 16S,203,667 go
For Education and
Science ....... 57,093,661 10
Total SIS $50, ,O05, FOG 100
Two years after world-exhausting
war; with this nation at peace, the
military moloch is absorbing SO per
cent of all our federal revenues, ex-
ceeding billion dollars annually.
But this is not enough. Blunder-
bore has demanded that Congress
spend this year 5 million dollars a
day for every working day in the year
on our army and navy-nearly Ia
billion dollars for direct military pur-
poses. At the same time he waits
impatiently for a favorable moment
in which to demand and exact conn
pulsory military training at an addi-
tional cost of 81, ,125 ,OOO. 900 a year.
And while he cries for more! more!
more!-always and constantly more
he promises no relief; but instead,
sometime in the future, another
Great War which we all know civili-
zation cannot survive.
1.-THE annual expense of our navy
for several years past has been up
ward of million dollars" protested
the great Sumner in the Senate of
the SOS. What would Sumner say
now when single battleship costs
40 million dollars?
At a time when Washington de-
spairs of levying sufficient taxes to
meet 2. billion deficit, when this
Government is borrowing 200 millions
of dollars from month to month from
the banks at 6 per cent with which
to meet current expenses, when ~
billions of Government war obliga-
tions are coming due within the next
two years; the War Department, hav-
ing spent all and more than all of the
huge appropriations provided for it
last year, brings in bill for SIG, ,27s,-
127 extra for recruiting campaign
which increased this country's mill
tary expenditures to almost 21a mil
lions day. This additional expense
has been incurred in recruiting
drive, such as the United States has
never before seen in a time OF peace,
to bring the army to a strength of
287, 900 men. the limit set by the
Army Reorganization Act, altho Con-
gress last year had definitely provided
that the standing army should not
exceed 175,00O men.
cite these facts as showing how
the appetite of the military giant
consistently grows with what it
feeds on. Instead of a big standing
army in time of peace, we should
build up our National Guard The
saving could well be spent on our war
veterans, especially the crippled and
the gassed.
Speaking at a public dinner in New
York, General Tasker H. Bliss said
that Marshall Foch and other great
military figures, shared his view that
some cessation of the present naval
building and arming is absolutely
necessary. eve may well ask our
Selves he said, whether civilization
does not really reach point where it
begins to destroy itself, and whether
we are thus doomed to go headlong
down thru destructive war to bar
barism."
When famous military leaders talk