The Waste of War by G. B. T.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 4, 1915

The Waste of War

By G. B. T.

WHEN our attention is called to the large loans called for by the belligerent nations engaged in the shocking slaughter of men across the sea, in order to continue the deadly strife, a glimpse of the tremendous waste of war dawns upon us. The waste is so great as to stagger the imagination, and is beyond the average mind to comprehend. Billions of dollars are called for in a single loan.

But how much is a billion? Does anybody really know? Allowing twenty-four hours to a day, three hundred and sixty days to a year, and seven thousand years since Adam was placed in Eden (and this is not intended as an exact computation), we have considerable less than four billion minutes since the creation of the world.

Our own nation is at peace. At present we are not waging an armed conflict with any nation. Expenses for the equipment and munitions of war are supposed to be on a peace footing, yet we read that the United States spent in the past two years more than a billion dollars for war purposes. Quite a sum indeed! In nineteen centuries of the Christian era there are less than a billion minutes. At peace, yet spending in two years a dollar for every minute since the birth of Christ! And this is called a state of “unpreparedness.” To prepare for what statesmen deem to be the inevitable, billions more are needed.

One writer tells us that a billion dollar bills placed one on top of the other would make a pile fifty-five miles high.

It is interesting to consider what could be accomplished with our war money if turned into constructive and philanthropic channels. I clip the following from the Chicago News of Oct. 21, 1915:—

The very best two-room modern rural school can be built for $4,000. Our annual war bill applied to this purpose would build 2,500 such schools in every State of the Union. If applied every year, it would give every high school student in the United States a high school education and the necessary books. It would also give a free college education to six times the number of people enrolled in our colleges. The price of one battleship would more than pay for all the schoolbooks used in the United States in a year.

From the standpoint of the philanthropist, our yearly war budget would provide the following institutions for the betterment of humanity: Ten hospitals at $200,000 each, two insane asylums at $500,000 each, four blind schools at $250,000 each, four old people's homes at $250,000 each, two reform schools at $250,000 each, two schools for defectives at $250,000 each, four industrial training schools at $250,000, twenty agricultural high schools at $50,000 each, a model farm in every county of the United States at $2,000, one thousand visiting nurses at $100 per month for the prevention of diseases, $250,000 for the relief of the poor, and another million dollars left for any other purpose.

And this awful waste of war takes no account of the wreck and ruin of homes and cities, the stagnation of industries, the slaughter and mutilation of hundreds of thousands in the flower of manhood.

It tells nothing of the anguish and horror as the angel of death hovers near, as wives, fathers, mothers, and other loved ones see bulletined the death of those at the front whom they fondly hoped would return to their homes.

And the awful carnage continues. The most civilized and enlightened nations of the world are turned into a slaughter pit. The storm cloud is growing darker, larger, and more threatening, demanding a greater outlay in money, and a more terrible sacrifice in men. These things ought to admonish us that the end of all nations is here, and we should prepare for a place in the kingdom which shall never be moved. G. B. T.