The greatest of all human tragedies.
War’s Aftermath.—War is waste. It destroys life and property, uses up the accumulated wealth of nations, and saddles them with huge debts which future generations have to pay. The cost of a war can never be reckoned in full until long after the treaty of peace has been signed. The Civil War came to an end more than fifty years ago, but we are still paying more than two hundred million dollars per annum in pensions to veterans of that struggle or to their widows. The number of Civil War pensioners and their widows now on the roll is more than five hundred thousand. It was not until 1906 that the last surviving widow of a veteran of the Revolutionary War died. The burden of pensions growing out of the World War is just beginning to accumulate; the country will not feel its full weight for many years to come. A generation born after this war ended will be required to defray its cost. War also leaves, as its tragic aftermath, large numbers of wounded, disabled, or invalided soldiers who must be cared for at the public expense. No nation which values its own honor can afford to leave its veterans unaided in suffering and want. In the United States we have made provision for affording medical care to those soldiers of the World War who require it and for giving vocational education to those partially disabled men who need it in order to fit them for success in life.
General References
C. A. Beard, American Government and Politics, pp. 342-357; Ibid., Readings in American Government and Politics, pp. 308-322;
Everett Kimball, National Government of the United States, pp. 423-444;
W. B. Munro, The Government of the United States, pp. 265-276;
A. B. Hart, Actual Government, pp. 459-480;
P. S. Reinsch, Readings in American Federal Government, pp. 610-650;
Edward F. Allen and Raymond Fosdick, Keeping Our Fighters Fit, passim;