The Cost of War

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 17, 1876

The standing army of this country numbers, in time of peace, about 32,000 men and costs about $40,000,000, while the navy costs about $30,000,000 per annum. Pensions amount to $30,000,000 per annum, and the interest on the national debt (now some $2,225,000,000) reaches the sum of $111,250,000 per annum, making the sum total of $211,250,000! This sum divided among our estimated population, 44,000,000, would give to each man, woman, and child, of the whole country about $4.80, and to each family about $24.00 as their yearly contribution for the worship of the god of war. And let it be remembered that the whole national domain is mortgaged to the amount of $2,225,000,000 to be paid by us or our descendants, or remain as an incubus on the energies and enterprise of our prosperity in all coming time! And what have we in return for such an exorbitant expenditure? What besides a crippling of energies, a wanton waste life and property, a cherishing of the war spirit, and a fearful depression of the standard of morality, as indicated by a manifest increase of murders, thefts, robberies, and licentiousness?—Sel.