Defenseless America

nvironing stimuli, it naturally follows that those

that he is able to master, he is strengthened, not weakened, by the burden or the trial. Every individual is constantly being attacked by microbes of disease. So long as he possesses sufficient powers of re

and then to scratch for them and hunt for them until they are able to take care of themselves. She is stronger, healthier, more intelligent, more competent, and altogether a

or each other and their children are able to arrive thereby, and only thereby, at most complete living and the goal of supreme happiness. Happ

the general welfare of its people. We may help our understanding of this matter by recognizing the truth that everything primarily comes out of the ground, and that whatever comes out of the gro

and supporting a standing army, the cost of building, manning, and supporting a large navy, and the expense of manufacturing an

lies of food and clothing, require large numbers of laborers and skilled artisans, who become a great market for food and supplies of every description for their con

s burdensome, and not their size. If the ability to pay a given amount in tax be

a demand for labor, is a direct stimulus to prosperity, by increasing both the number o

work by the government in the production of war-materials, there wo

s raised so much by military training, and industry is so stimulated to meet government requirements, that the Germa

ties-joy food, joy drink, joy dope, and night-outings-nine thousand million dollars, which,

,000,000 each. We could build, for what we spend on sensuous indulgence, 750 super-dreadnoughts; we could build 160 super-dreadnoughts

out $250,000,000. Consequently, we spend more than twelve times as

hink that for every dollar we spend on indulgence, we might drop a couple of cents into the side-till just

f luxuries is very well stated in the following quotation f

of the total income. Even Germany, with her great organization, takes less than 3 per cent. of the actual income for its maintenance, both of army and navy; and when we think of the expenditures for luxuries, many of them harmful in themselves, the extent of military expenditures app

United State

loss is so vital as that of one's country, and there is no kind of insurance where the cost of security is so small i

on crime insurance alone.... A total annual amount on fire and crime insurance combined is $594,186,104, or about 350 million more than for all our military forces. Considering these figures we may conclude that our military expenditures are by n

undeveloped resources. Consequently, when war comes and stimulates enormously all our developed industries-arts, sciences, and man

ikewise be economically benefited by actual war, so long as it has such resources, number of population, industrial arts and sciences, and naval and military equipm

other people, makes the indemnity a national calamity. But when money is spent

alor of Ignorance," by General Ho

at or small, the wealth of the nation varies not one potato. An individual mea

ing that which money represents are destroyed or diminished that the wealth of a nation is lessened. The arma

except through such trial. By consequence, it is evident that supreme trial is an indispensability to the best development of either individuals or nations. However severe may be

each pocket, so it is impossible to get a complex thought into a mind not sufficiently complex to receive it. It is doubtless impossi

money nor wealth; it merely represents time. It does not hurt the laborers to do the work; on the contrary, it does them good. They pay but an infinitesimal part of the tax for building the ships. Their occupation constitutes them a market for manufactured articles and farm produce, which pays the manufacturers and the farmers a profit far in excess of their part of the tax for the ships, since by the increased demand they both get better prices and sell more goods. The farmer exerts additional effort t

n the contrary, their production has benefited all. Everyb

taxpayers. Consequently, the burden of taxation is thereby borne by a larger number of persons, with a corresponding lessening of the burde

out of the ground and making us happier. It may be argued that this would not be true if our economic institutions were not slack, and that, by perfecting these institutions, every one would receive his due amount of normal stimulus, and would be gettin

us cost, we are strongly impressed with the colossal expenditure, not realizing that the Navy h

of more than a hundred and thirty billion dollars, with an annual increase of wealth of over four billion dollars, becomes insignificant compared with the ability to support it.

ll us that they are destined so to exhaust themselves that, when the war is over, we need have no fear of a

urces of the

hing largely holds true in the case of war that holds true in the case of armaments in time of peace. The cost comes out of the ground, for the most part. In short, the wealth created by the added stimulus in great measure compensates for the loss, especially when the money s

ring the first six months is estimated at about two million.

age furnished from the United Kingdom to the number of its inhabitants. Consequently, the total loss in killed and wounded during the first six months of the war was less than a half of one per cent. of the population, and as t

d wounded will not exceed one per cent. of the inhabitants, a

any is exceedingly humbled, will be in better condition in every