The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1921-10-28
Foreign Advertising Representative
THE AMERlCAN PRESS ASSOCIATION
NEED OF DISARMAMENT TO
RELIEVE ECONOMIC STRAIN.

NEED vi OlOkAENNA<ANAGN4 NJ
RELIEVE ECONOMIC STRAIN.
Extracts from article by Frank I.
Cobb, in Atlantic Monthly:
After war that cost approximate
ly $34S,0O0, 100000 in property
and production, nobody quite
knows the aggregate war budget OF
the nations. 1t has been variously
estimated at eight to ten bill
lion dollars a year. If we take the
smaller figure and capitalize it at
the modest rate of per cent, the
amount is $1,000, 900, 900, which
means that, after extinguishing
$34S, O00,O00,O0O of the worlds
wealth, $160,O00,O00,O00 Of what is
left is now set aside to pay the reck-
oning and make ready for new wars.
1t is needless to say that labor
and industry can not carry that bur-
den, and when the Government at
tempts to sweat them to that extent
it is defeating the very ends of ma
tional defense which it processes to
serve. War is no longer conflict
between uniformed forces OF profess
sional combatants. 1t is conflict
of all the resources of the belliger-
ents, of whatsoever kind and nature.
What ended this war was the over
whelming economic force of the
United States. What enabled Ger
many to fight all Europe to stand
still on two fronts was not it's su-
perior military establishment, but
it's superior economic system.
While military. experts are acri-
moniously discussing the lessons of
the war, the most important lesson
attracts practically no attention on
their part. 1t is the lesson that
was demonstrated in it's most dra-
matte form by the American inter-
vention-that Is, that economic re-
sources can be easily and quickly
translated into military resources;
that sound economic System is the
essential element in any extensive
military undertaking. But these
resources are not interchangeable.
Economic energy can be speedily
converted into military energy, but
military energy is not recoverable
into economic energy. Like the
radiated heat of the sun, it is lost.
1t can never be reassembled and
welded into another sun.
We are only beginning to compre-
bend the terrific impact of the blow
that the war dealt to the economic
structure of Europe; and from the
day the armistice was signed condi-
tons have grown steadily worse.
E. Obviously the place to begin the
work of reconstruction, so far as
the Government is concerned, is
with the burden of taxation under
which all the great nations are
grooming. The one point at which
an extensive reduction of taxation
can be made, which reduction will
have an instantaneous, effect, is
military expenditure.
The United States is spending on
future wars alone more than the en-
tire net expenses of the Federal
Government five years ago. 1t is
| spending as much as. the aggregate
net earnings of all the railroads of
the country in their most prosperous
year. Nobody has yet shown, where
in there is a shadow of an excuse
for this exhausting strain on the
Nations economic resources, or
what peril or policy of government
can warrant such expenditure. To
say that it is done for the national
defense is silly. The national de-
Tense is weakened, not strengthen
ed, by this excessive drain.
OF all the nonsense that is talked
about preparedness, no other nom
sense quite touches the depths of
imbecility which are reached by the
prattle about nations that are erich
but defenseless." Nations that are
rich are not defenseless. They con-
tain in themselves all the elements
for defense.
Spending money on competitive
armament at this time, under the
pretext of providing for national de-
tense, is like drawing blood from a
patient who is suffering from PERM
cious anemia.