The Daily Banner

Where Your
Taxes Go
How Uncle Sam Spends
Your Money in Conducting
Your Business
By EDWARD G. LOWRY
Author "Washington Close-Ups." "Banks and
Financial Systems." etc. Contributor Political
and Economic Articles to Leading Periodicals
and a Writer of Recognized Authority on the
National Government's Business Methods.
Copyright. Western Newspaper Union
VII.
WAR'S HORRIBLE WASTE
Mr. R. G. Leffingwell was the assistant secretary of the treasury in
charge of finances during the war. While he was in the treasury he became
deeply impressed with the magnitude of government expenditures and
the looseness, inefficiency and waste that are a part of government method.
All the secretaries of the treasury since the outbreak of the war
have shared this feeling of apprehension and concern with Mr. Leffingwell.
I quote here a recent utterance of his on war expenditures:
"Of the $10,000,000,000, exclusive of
interest on the public debt, spent in
the fiscal year 1921, $1,101,615,013.32
was spent by the War department.
$650,373,835.58 by the Navy department.
$500,000,000 on the railroads.
$430,000,000 by the bureau of war risk
insurance, and $35,814,507.01 by the
Interior department, mostly, I take it,
for Civil war and Spanish war pensions;
a total of $2,717,803,356.91 under
these heads.
"In the fiscal year 1919 the War department
spent $1,660,000,000, and the
Navy department $700,000,000, a total
of $2,360,000,000. Secretary Mellon
estimates that in the fiscal year 1921,
the War department will spend $1,025,
000,000 and the Navy department
$700,000,000, a total of $1,725,000,000;
and that in the fiscal year 1922 the
War department will spend $570,000,-
000, and the Navy department $545,-
000,000, a total of $1,115,000,000. This
makes a three-years' total of $5,190,-
000,000.
"Germany went to war to realize on
her investment in arms and armies.
The burden of universal military service,
expenditures on the army and
navy, subsidies and doles, became intolerable.
She thought she would repeat
the exploit of 1870 and make war
so profitable in territory and indemnities
as to recoup herself for the
outlay of 40 years' preparation. The
splendid resistance of the Belgians and
the French and of the little British
expeditionary force made the short
war a futile dream. The untrained
manhood and unmortgaged resources
of the Western World, of the British
empire overseas, and finally of America,
determined the issue. Germany
suffered economic collapse, though her
armies, beaten but not routed, were
still on enemy soil. So Germany's
military preparedness was her cause
for making war and was the cause of
her defeat. In the issue, it was economic
preparedness that mattered most.
"Today, men, women and little children
are starving to death in Europe because
of the war's horrible waste and
because of the still more horrible waste
of after the war. Two years and a
half after Christmas nearly two years
at peace
Germany and the allies, millions
men are under arms, eating and wearing
the produce of the fields and of
the labor of a civilian population
which must bear the load of taxes and
inflation necessary to maintain those
armies in economic idleness. The peoples
of continental Europe are staggering
under the load of armaments,
far too great before the war and intolerable
now. Their rulers hold themselves
in power by subsidies and doles,
by playing, now on their fears, and
again on their avarice, still again on
nationalistic ambitions or ancient racial
hatreds. The allies have undertaken
to insure Germany's economic
recovery by insisting upon her disarmament
and the payment of reparations
which means the development of a
huge export balance; but for themselves
they reserve the doubtful privilege
of remaining armed to the teeth...
"We have demonstrated our military
power. We have shown what
may be done in a few short months
to make an army and transport it to
wage a foreign war. We have no need
to be aggressors abroad, we are invulnerable
at home. Let us accept the
responsibilities of the position of leadership
which is ours, show the world
how to beat swords into plow-shares,
relieve the peoples of the world of apprehension
and lead them back into
the ways of peace and plenty. If we
prepare for war we shall have it. If
we lead the world in preparation for
peace we may have that."