The total amount that we spend each year on our Army and Navy is about $250,000,000. Consequently, we spend more than twelve times as much on alcoholic drinks and tobacco as we do on our Army and Navy.
I do not mean to preach a temperance sermon, or to advise against the use of tobacco. Nevertheless, I do think that for every dollar we spend on indulgence, we might drop a couple of cents into the side-till just for insurance—for the safety of our country against war, in order that our joys of living may be continued.
The small burden of armaments in proportion to the burden of luxuries is very well stated in the following quotation from "Some Economic Aspects of War," by Professor C. Emery:—
"Certainly Bloch is not likely to minimize the extent of such expenditures, as he has been one of the leading writers to show the immensity of this burden, and yet he himself states that the military expenditures of different European countries vary from 2 per cent. to 3.8 per cent. of the total income. Even Germany, with her great organization, takes less than 3 per cent. of the actual income for its maintenance, both of army and navy; and when we think of the expenditures for luxuries, many of them harmful in themselves, the extent of military expenditures appears even less. In Germany, for instance, three times as much is spent for intoxicating drinks as for the support of military and naval establishments. One-third less consumption of beer and liquor on the part of the German people would take care of this part of the budget altogether."
Some Annual United States Expenditures
There is no branch of insurance so important as insurance against war. There is no other thing insured, of which the loss is so vital as that of one's country, and there is no kind of insurance where the cost of security is so small in comparison with the value of the thing insured. Mr. Stockton puts this very clearly in his book, "Peace Insurance":—