Show COST OF WAR IVAR WOULD I HAVE BENEFITED WHOLE WORLD NEW V YORK Sept 23 For For lack of with which to d defray fray his expenses I in the Adirondacks for a year yar a young man suddenly stricken with tuberculosis losis osIs committed suicide in this cit city last week If he had had the price of one t of the large caliber shells that have been ben hurled by the millions at Verdun and on the Somme this young mans man's I life might have been saved savell The word if has been used in so fO many connections since the war In to L Europe started that it has remained L for an obscure New York Tork statistician to apply it to the cost of the conflict and what might have been done with the money i If it had been expended in constructive con con- instead of destructive ways The exact cost of the first two years years' conflict is more or l less ss of a mystery because every government endeavors ors to hoodwink its enemies by minimizing its expenses From official statements it may be gathered that in the first two years all the nations at war spent not less than which is three times more than the cost of ot the twenty twenty twenty ty years' years Napoleonic wars Jean Finot a Parisian authority has estimated that if it the war continues another year It it will have cost both sides more than one 1 hundred billions or two-thirds two of th the 1 national wealth of the United States The New York Tork statistician has studied studied stu stu- died these figures in a new light and J I shows not what has baa been accomplished d I with these huge sums but hut what might L have been ben accomplished for the benefit t of oC mankind if those billions had been beer I expended constructively instead of ot destructively de de- de He lie assumes that every P penny of the money spent on the conduct conduct con con- duct of ot the war is wasted as thoroughly thorough thorough- ly and completely as ag though It had been beer 1 cast into the sea and that the labor ot of t the millions of persons who have been beer 1 fighting and making munitions will b be C without benefit after the cessation ot of i hostilities One Hundred Panama Canals Reverting to the boy who for lack o of or I ended his life the statistician finds findt 3 that almost forty thousand boys could couk i have been sent to tuberculosis litins for a year with the I Great Britain spends every twenty four r hours on her war machine alone to say sa nothing of loans to colonies and allies allie 5 and other expenses If these forty thousand thou thou- sand boys Jo s 's regained their health am and I each one of them earned an average o of I 1000 a year thereafter it would tak take e ethem them more than 1200 years to earn th the S fifty billion dollars which all the na nations nations na at war have spent up to date The Panama canal is the most costly V public improvement in the history o of I Ithe the world yet it cost les less S I than the which poor poor bankrupt bankrupt bankrupt bank bank- rupt Turkey has spent on the war thus thu 5 far If It Europe had decided on building g Panama canals instead of ot wasting he her r money In buying gunpowder she could 1 have constructed more than one hundred hundred hundred hun hun- dred such gigantic waterways with th the e funds she already has spent and if sh she e had placed these fifty mile long canals canal S Send end to end they would reach from th the e English channel through Paris Berlin Berli a I and thence eastward to Petrograd I aI I where they could turned be-turned et southward LI LIto to reach the Indian ocean or eastward ii tp to run lun across Siberia and almost jol join a athe the Pacific ocean at t If the eight million soldiers wh who 0 have been ben diggin trenches and mines mine S along the fronts for two years had di directed directed directed di- di their energy at excavating thi this S gigantic canal crossing Europe and th the e greater part of oC Asia more than on one e thousand men could have haye been detailed d to each mile of ot the line and it is probable probable probable able that they could have completed complete d the task long before the armies In th the e go into winter quarters for th the ea a third time If each of these men ha had been paid at the rate of 2 a day fo for r their work the various governments government 5 now at war would have spent only 10 10 or tenth one-tenth of the sun sum U the they will spend if the conflict continue continues US S i another year Fifty Million College Educations I In rn recent years New Kew York City ha has haS' r been spending huge sums of public improvements improvements im im- of unparalleled size th the e two subway systems and the new Catskill Catskill Cat Cat- skill aqueduct alone costing more than that a That sum flows out o of f the British treasury every twenty Iou t days and when the war en ends s she will wit LI have not a mile of subways or aqueduct aqueduct aque aque- duct to show for it Russia which li needs public works as badly as an any V country could have duplicated the Ne NewYork New NewYork v Vv York subways and aqueduct almost almos t a twenty times with the mor mor- mory y y she abc has spent thus far Before BeCore te Oe war Russia's Russia's Rus Rus- sias sia's national debt was almost and she was unable to undertake undertake undertake under under- take huge public Improvements but in inthe inthe inthe the first two years of the tho conflict she has spent or one-fifth one of her total estimated national wealth The average cost of a college education education tion In this country is estimated at 2000 If It the monarchs of Europe had determined to send their youthful subjects subjects sub sub- to the campus instead of to the camps fifty million young men would this day be preparing to return to their institutions to take up their Junior year studies If the monarchs were afraid of trusting their subjects with too much education they might have placed the eight million men in manufacturing businesses similar to those in which a alike alike like number of 1 persons in the United States are engaged According to the thelast thelast last census this persons persons per per- sons engaged in manufacturing per per-I required re re- re- re a capital of only I or one third one third the sum that Europe has I invested in the war Avar to date and the I value of their products Is while the net yearly profit 1 is 8 8 a year If It the nations of Europe had gone into the open marl market et to buy territory instead of fighting for it they might have saved billions The United States has bought large areas of property at prices which would give heart disease to a Vesey street auctioneer The Louisiana purchase which was one of the best real estate deals deas that Uncle Sam ever undertook added to our territory ter ten almost square guare miles or about the same area as as the Belgian which the kaiser is said to have coveted and it cost this government only Support for families Poverty stricken Japan had to borrow borrow bor bor- row twice the sum that we paid for tOI the I Louisiana territory in order that she might go across the way and capture I i Klau-chou Klau chou an an exploit that cost her I before she got the tle WellI Well I done from her ally Great Britain The I Gadsen Alaska and Hawaiian Islands purchases cost the Uni United ed States and added to the national national national na na- na- na territory more than square miles of territory or four times the area of the kaisers kaiser's empire in Europe and exactly the same area as the three Prussian colonies in Africa which ar not nearly as Teutonic as they used to be Of course is not such a large sum of money to the kaiser kaiser kaiser kai kai- kai kai- ser who gets a salary of oC a year besides an Income from a vast amount of private property castles and forests but it is one-half one of what the war has cost Bulgaria and she has not an inch of territory that isn't mortgaged mortgaged mortgaged mort mort- for fifty years to come Some social investigators recently discovered that no family could live on onless onless onless less than a year If It that is true then the fifty billion which the war has cost up to the present time would have pai paid the years year's living expenses of 70 I families averaging five persons each or persons If It the I estimate of one hundred billion dollars as the cost if It the war lasts another year is correct then thea that sum would provide I I the living expenses for one year of one- one I half of the billion and a half human be beIngs beings he- he i ings on the face of the earth If that one hundred billion were distributed among the people of oC the United States it t would give 1000 to every man woman woman wom worn an and child in the country and ana if it were divided among the residents of New York City each one would receive i or enough to buy a fine house I and lot in the suburbs an automobile a phonograph a a. parrot a dog and a cat and leave ten thousand dollars or I thereabouts in the bank for incidentals or a rainy da day Would Have Transformed ed Africa i If It the European nations had had desired I to 0 o improve the waste places of the I earth as as for instance the United States I is doing in the Philippines they might I not now be appointing commissions to find markets after the war The United States is is spending the huge sum of yearly in the Philippines and those islands which a few years ago were the worst examples of the colonization system toda today are smiling with prosperity and contentment If Europe's hundred billion that is going up In war had b been n applied to the continent continent con con- of Africa in the same judicious Intelligent uns unselfish manner in which the American millions have been applied ap ap- ap- ap plied in the Philippines since Admiral Dewey steamed teamed Into Manila bay the whole Dark Darl Continent could have been transformed into a teeming leeming market marketplace marketplace marketplace place large enough to satisfy the era cravings cray cray- v- v ings of all the grasping commercial rivals of Europe With the money that the nations of Europe pour out in a month the great Sahara desert could have been Irrigated so that ten million of Europe's overpopulated countries could have quenched their thirst for expansion With the same sums suma the waste places of Asia and South America Ameri ca co could have been ben developed and Amerl made to support the surplus population of Europe which yearly grew more and more land hungry And now those who were land hungry hungry hun bun gry are wiping out the surplus population tion lion so that when the war ends the land lanel hunger unger of at least the vanquished will have disappeared Then those unfortunate survivors sitting in sorrow and anel poverty will frame a greater ir if than any person In war spared America Amen Ameri I Ameri-I I ca can speak and it will be in this wise wise How How happy and prosperous we would be If 11 we had been constructive I I instead of destructive |