THE HIGH COST OF MILITARISM
ALLEN, DEVERE
THE HIGH COST OF MILITARISM By DEVERE ALLEN CTIMSON comes home from Geneva empty handed, having failed to advance the cause of disarmament an iota. Hoover seeks ways in which wage cuts may be put...
...If the reason for going hopefully to the Republicand Democratic conventions is one of practical politic submit that suoli a procedure is about the last worn impracticably...
...Meantime Congress alternately fumes and dodderveering from panic over the needs of our naval forcfor huge increases to fantastic projects for reductioof costs without reduction of fighting machinery...
...THE MILITARISTS LIKE HOOVER The salary budget for oflkials of the State Dejxirtent amounts to $155,800...
...both are equally hypocritical...
...But of real disarmament we hear scant talk...
...We have to pay on threduction of public "debt—an expense due almost whollto war-something like a half billion dollars annuallInterest on public debt amounts (o even more—wel Tl uver $61)0,000,000...
...BOTH OLD J'ARTIES ARE RESPONSIBLE But it should be noted that so far as Republicans anemocrats arc concerned, disarmament is not a partuestion...
...There iot merely promise in what he says...
...In the meantime, where doeandidate Smith stand on National Defense...
...And that is the provision for military anaval preparedness, which is taking out of the pocketf the American people—and that, too, at a time whehey can afford it less than ever before—at leas721,000,000 a year...
...Though I am not a cynic about human nature, ould hardly begin a campaign for public sanitatiorith an appeal to the undertakers...
...Although some of these women ary friends, I confess I find their tactics more than ifle juvenile...
...Economic warfare caalways break over into combat warfare, and economiwarfare we shall have as long as the capitalist chaos.which we foolishly label "system"—survives...
...there is convicion...
...There is more than a slight connection between these two facts, tor although France has reasons of her own for wanting to pervert a disarmament conference into a society for the increase of armaments, she can look across the water and point with justice to our huge and No mere disarmament of combat weapons would daway with the menace of war...
...DISARMAMENT IS IMPORTANT But disarmament Is still of tremendous importancnot only because it would at least reduce a good deof nationalist provocation but because it would liftuseless burden from the backs of the working class iall countries...
...But we prefehe four square declaration of Mr...
...both aqually responsible for the delay in disarmament anor the outrageous extravagance for which the peoplust pay in money, added risk of conflict, and, in thogical finality of armaments, with lives...
...Thus thast two come to $315,500, almost twice the amount footh the State and Agriculture Departments, anearly four times that of the Department of Labor...
...he woulnow perfectly well that there was a trap door undeeath the table...
...THouse committee on economies actually got so far to propose the amalgamation of the War and NavDepartments into a single Department of NationDefense...
...War costs us far more than everything else in oufederal outlay combined...
...the Department of Agriulture $178,300...
...Obviusly he is playing for the pacifist vote...
...There is only one thing that can be said for thmeasure: it might, if put through, diminish a trifle thextraordinary pressure continuously exerted on Cogress from both the present departments for biggand better appropriations...
...Both are equally voluble in their protestions of peace...
...Hoover seeks ways in which wage cuts may be put over on Federal employees, notoriously underpaid as a rule, while insisting that no cuts of serious importance be made in the army and navy...
...Herbert Hooverespite his pseudo-Quakerism, has on the whole servehe propagandists for bigger armaments very well...
...With the exception of the latter itcn\ which coule drastically pruned without injustice to the victimf conscription in the late crusade for democracy, thoregoing charges are pretty well fixed and belong the bloody past from which this generation can nevescape...
...The Veterans Bureau, which, inidentally, provides benefits for no fewer than 82,00en whose disabilities were contracted after the wanded, costs more than a billion dollars every year...
...It might, in addition, sava hundred thousand dollars, but a hundred thousandollars, as navies go, is an infinitesimal sum, hardlcapable of paying for one eighth of a quarter deck THE WAR COST IN DOLLARS The futility of all these evasive proposals may l>seen if our military and naval expenditures are carefully examined...
...Leaving out of account the silliness of the Smitheference, and acknowledging that the sheer impetus ofe depression has so far held back tl* jingoes from uge naval building program, it cannot be denied thoover has been a good man from the viewj>oint of thmerican militarists...
...In view of the Republican and Democratic recorn militarism, armaments, and international relatioenerally, it is hard to become exhilerated when I reaf a great crusade, undertaken by a nation-wide grouf well-known jtfacc-loving women, to persuade thwo large parties to place in their platforms strongtatements looking toward anti-war measures...
...But there is one item which certainly can be prunend which, if eliminated entirely, in the writer's opinon, would leave this country fully as secure as it ioday...
...the Department of Labor $85,100he salary rolll of the War Department is $186,30nd that of the Navy Department $129,200...
...Hoover's emphatic utterances, weel that he realizes that there must be an increase ihe Army, and, certainly, the enactment of the Butleuilding program...
...But anyone who knows anythint all about their record or their methods would hardle deceived by tiiis familiar feat of magic...
...Until workers foeace are in it, until it is a power in the land, most oeir political efforts against war are foredoomed tustration...
...Odelegation to the Geneva conference has contributenot a little to the gayety of nations by urging tabolition of "aggressive" weapons, basing their pleon a distinction between aggression and defense whicis beyond the human imagination...
...THE ONE PARTY OF PEACE There is one party in the United States which ipable of meaning business on disarmament and interationalism, and which means business because its aimre based not on political expediency but on principlhat party is the Socialist Party...
...I have no doubt that if large enougressure were applied to the political magicians of tho>arties, they could pull a beautiful white dove out oheir shiny silk hats...
...I928 when he ran for office, the Army and Navy Joural on October 13th declared, "Placing our own interretation upon Mr...
...These figures are symptomatic...
Vol. 13 • May 1932 • No. 19
