Since none of the items here set down is over-estimated and since several of them are much underestimated, the grand total of four hundred and fifty millions must be regarded as an extremely conservative estimate of the annual cost (in times of peace) of keeping the national fist ready for a fight.[[41]]
But four hundred and fifty million dollars means nothing sufficiently definite to the human mind until it is considered in units larger than single dollars and smaller than a million dollars. The sum of money “necessary” to defray a year’s expenses of a poor man’s son or daughter in a high-grade Middle Western college or university—may be taken as a convenient unit of expense in considering the cash cost of war.
Many worthy young men and women in the United States pay their total annual expenses in high-grade colleges and universities with $250. This estimate is confirmed by the author’s personal observation and by a letter of recent date from the President of the University of Iowa to the author.
Our annual national expense of militarism, $450,000,000, would pay the annual college expenses of 1,800,000 young men and women; that is, of nearly twelve times as many as there were in the year ending june 30, 1908, in the five hundred and seventy-three colleges, universities and technological schools of the united states.
Five per cent. interest on $450,000,000 for six minutes would provide $250 for a year’s college expenses.
Five per cent. interest on one year’s expense of militarism in the United States for two weeks and three days would keep one full regiment (1,000) young men in college for four years.
Less than seven per cent. interest on $450,000,000 for one year would pay one year’s college expenses for a total number of young men and women equal to the total number of men in both the Army and the Navy, officers, privates and all.
The total present-rate cost of militarism in the United States for two and a half years is $1,125,000,000. Three and a half per cent. interest for one year on this amount would be $39,375,000. This interest would pay the college expenses of the total number of young men and women in all the 573 colleges, universities and technological schools in the United States for the one year ending June 30, 1908 (that is, for 150,187 students), estimating the average expense at $250 for the year,—with a balance remaining of almost $2,000,000 for extra expenses.
According to Mr. E. J. Dillon,[[42]] “The cost of each of the new armored battleships planned for the French Navy is estimated at more than $15,000,000.”
“Chairman Tawney of the House Committee on Appropriations in promising to fight against the new $18,000,000 battleships, pledges himself to a worthy cause.”[[43]]