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Show Miscellany A Mathematical Calculation, j ! Our first selective draft took out of i the industrial machinery of America ap- proximately 1.000.000 iinits. Another 50,000 must be added in men who vol-! unteered their services to their conn- t ry. For their absence from the em- : ployment the nation must strike a bal- ance in its usual workadav operations, for while these men are umler arms they cannot contribute to the wealth of the country by their creative labor. The simple statement that we have i i l,250,0no men now serving their flag is not adequate to express fairly the di- j mensions of the gap their withdrawal from the economic life of the nation has j made in our industrial machinery and which to replace will require increased energy on the part of those who remain behind. Cold mathematics, however, will convey to our mind what loss the peaceful development of the nation has sustained through the diversion of so many men to non-productive activities. Assuming the average wage of these men to be $2 a dav, the loss of wage hire is $2,500,000 daily, or $750,000,000 per annum, basing the calculation of 300 working days a year. Assuming that for ; each dollar an employer receives out of j the labor he hires h gross return of $3 and we confront the loss of $1,250,000,-000 $1,250,000,-000 every year it is necessary to main- tain such a large army in the'field. It is j true that these men receive compensa- , tion from onr government, yet the offset off-set from this is slight, for the men still are not creating any new wealth; they cannot do so by the very nature of their occupation. What creative energy, therefore, that is lost must be made up from somewhere some-where else and it is here where the conservation con-servation of human energy fills the gap, but before it is tilled the nation must adjust itself to the changed conditions. J It is this process through which we are passing a course unavoidable and which all the other combatant, nations have either already experienced or are now in the process of experiencing. New York Financial World. |