Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-09-12
BY WILLIS j. BALLI\GER.

away like hungry moths
into the fabric of individual health
and welfare. We waste in production
Of necessary goods. We waste in the
production of needless and poisonous
articles. The cost runs into billions
and billions annually.
Our annual cost of Sinning--the
money we spend to wreck ourselves
physically and morally-is put at over
thirteen billions annually, and this is
an estimate by "A sober business man
who has sat on great directorate
boards and has the conservative. bus
mess way Of looking at things. A
great American editor says that this
estimate is much too little and that
the figure should he in the neighbor
hood of forty billions for our annual
sin bill.
Some of us think Of waste as the
particular disgrace of government.
But that is just its beginning. Like
terrible blood disease it has contain
mated the whole body polite. and it
is beginning to take its frightful toll
in moral depravity. feebleness of
body and all the approaching appear
ances of national coma.
Wants Disease Stopped Now.
Stop the disease now. is the counsel
of Harry Elmer Barnes. famous So
haustive study of this social disease
Of waste. When we talk about our
terrible crime waves, our drunken
ness and insanity, the poverty OF
some parts of our population, we are
talking about the manifestations OF
this waste. They are the branches
that are nourished by the trunk of
the tree of waste. We produce drugs,
and drugs make criminals. We pro
duce things that are of no real ben
eft to anybody instead of turning
out a greater supply of useful and
necessary things SO that poverty
might be eliminated.
DIR. Barnes remarked. crisply: AS
Senator Borah has we'll said. The
great forces of destruction against
which governments and civilizations
must be on guard constantly come
often unannOunCed and unknown. In
the moisture of lethargy the germs
OF disease thrive powerfully What
we must do is to sound the tocSin Of
national alarm. Wake the people up
to this condition. Make Paul Revere
rides into sleeping hamlets and arouse
them to the enemy within our Dor
ders who is sniping at us from be-
hind walls of ignorance and lassitude
We must get across to the peO-
pie a picture of how bad the whole
field of waste is in America. Today
too many people have only partial
gimpses of the complete picture.
Some people think that waste is the
exclusive province of government and
of some form of government-fed-
eral. state or local.
Waste Reverses Fortune.
Radicals pick at industries and aim
their sCorn on particular conditions
Now is the time to piece the whole
picture together. 1t is an old saying
in the world of inherited wealth.
Three generations from shirt sleeves
to shirt sleeves Waste does that for
individuals. 1t is also possible for a
nation to go from shirt sleeves 10
shirt sleeves, and that is what we
will do if we don't wake up
DR.. Barnes. | began, let's take an
orderly stock of this waste in America.
Let's parade the facts out. Perhaps
those many heralded harbingers of our
present prosperity are jim reality Vul-
lures clustering about the diseased
body Of American welfare. He an
swered
MONARCHY fell from tyranny.
Democracy may fall from waste
One is just as effective in destroying
human happiness as the other. Let's
begin with government. Let's clarity
the general notion that exists that gov
eminent is 'wasteful-partiCuarly dem
ocratic government, about which II
has been said that no other form of
government brings so many SHOUTS
TO the public trough
LET me Just reel off facts. They
tell a story completely in themselves.
From 1871 to 1900. the first decade OF
our national existence. the cost OF
government averaged $13 per indivld-
ual. From 1911 to 1920 the lndlVldual
cost of government had scared to $425
per person.
Costs Mount Rapidly.
.In one wear 1922. Federal expendi-
lures were approximately $34 per in
dividual. The cost of one wear was
more than twice the individual bur
dens of government for the whole
first decade of our history.
'Since the Civil War We have an
nually thrown away $oU,0o0,o0O Tor
dredging useless streams ana rlNulets.
That was our pork barrel curse that
is lust as much alive today as II was
so wears ago. Added TO il has been
an increasingly alarming amount an
nually appropriated for building elab-
crate Federal buildings in places
where such elaborateness was unneces-
sarv. From 1902 TO 1919 appropria-
,ions for Federal office buildings were
four times as great as they were Tor
the WnOle llo year pIVNNbliS'
I'VE have bestowed elaborate granite
or brick structures adequate for the
needs of a thriving city of 100000 upon
nettv hamletS where post office needs
could have been amply cared Tor IN
corner of a drug store. Prof. MaKeN'
In making a recent study OF TINS con
tinuous evil, reports IN 1919 that
Basin Wyo. with population OF 90
was given an appropriation that year
- n ,ost office costing $40 900: FallOn,
New with a population of 74l. $oo,-
600 palace; Big Stone Gap. W. Va
with :. $50 souls 100000 castle; Jel-
lco. Tenn. with 1862, an $So.ooO edl-
dca. Those were only few places
mentioned by Prof. MaXey.
Sees Waste in Pensions.
Think of the waste in the Pension
Office in Washington, especially since
1909 From 1905 to 1916. 80 per cent
more special pensions We're granted
than In the whole IL years preceding
from, 1861 to 1908 And vet we all re-
member the public scandals OF Presi-
dent Harrison S administration. when
CORP Tanner depleted the Federal
Treasury by his pension lavishness.
Prof MaXey says on this point:
when we read of the deSerters, the
bounty jumpers. the unpensionable
widows the remote relatives spring
ing I'D over night. the post-betlum
recruits and the various other species
of undeserving scoundrels who have
had their names inscribed on our
tension rolls. we wonder Whether
every omnibus hin is not a tissue
Of venality and corruption
In la-I 10 .p.,. s. 80 .000. aS
,ompared with only Sl6.33N 600 in
1858 and Vet the civil War was ore
Of our greatest military contests.