Watauga Democrat

WHAT THE WAR SERVICE COST.

A favorite statement of partisan critics of the War Department that over a billion dollars was spent for aircraft during the war and nothing done is riddled by L. D. Gardner, publisher of Aviation and Aircraft Journal, who establishes the facts from the official records in Washington. The total cost of the Army Air Service including expenditures for all purposes, equipment, maintenance, training fields and so on, was actually less than $600,000,000.

The total appropriations for the Army Air Service during the war amounted to $1,687,054,758, of which sum $487,000,000 was revoked by Congress, leaving available for expenditure $1,200,054,758. The Liquidation Division has returned to the United States Treasury $582,564,781, and there still remains a surplus to be disposed of.

In the United States the Government spent $113,721,043 for army aeroplanes, and received 13,894 planes. It spent $139,000,000 abroad for training, cantonments and equipment and other purposes and received 5,198 aeroplanes, making in all 19,092 airplanes in twenty one months.

When the armistice was signed the United States had shipped 2,091 airplanes to France and 1,040 were on the way. Of American-made machines, 667 were in service at the front.

All of these facts and figures were accessible to the investigation committees that the Republicans in Congress sent forth in search of campaign material, but the committees were not looking for that kind of information. But it is never too late to tell the American people the truth, that they may pass judgement on those who wilfully mislead them.

New York World