K
The Commoner
YOL 21, NO. 7
w.
u
Reduction of Armaments Urgent
(Prom Bureau of Research Robert Goldsmith,
director; Democratic National Committee,
Washington.)
Tho Four Horsemen df the Apocalypse have
ridden roughshod over the world leaving a trail
of want and woo. Everywhere tho hand of
industry is palsied with doubt and dread. Con
fidonco is at a premium. Credit is all but un
obtainable Disoaso is as universal as distress.
There are probably 5,000,000 children i'n
Europe on tho verge of starvation. Ninety
six per cent of tho 850,000 children of Vienna
aro undernourished and twonty-flvo per cent
of the deaths there last year were caused by
tuberculosis due to mal-nutrltion. In and
around tho city of Budapest, Hungary, 40,000
people live in freight cars. Upwards of 25,000.
000 in China aro in diro distress because of the
recent famine. The Armenians are be'ng ground
to extinction between tho upper millstone of Rus
sian bolshevism and the nether millstone of
Turkish nationalism.
INDUSTRIAL CHAOS
. In many places industry is slowly starving
to death for want of coal as people are starv
ing to death for want of bread. The nations
in need have neither the money nor the credit
with which to buy from the nations that are
surfeited with a surplus.
Because of underproduction on the one hand
and maldistribution on the other, unemploy
ment is widespread. It is estimated that the .
unemployed in the United States at the present
time number 4,000,000, in Great Britain 5,
000,000, in France 500,000, in Germany 450,
000, in Belgium 100,000, in Switzerland 125,
000. Similar conditions prevail in Japan, Italy,
Spain and the Scandinavian countries.
RUSSIA .
In Russia the Red regime is a talo of terror
and tragedy. A glimpse behind the censor's
curtain suggests that the dream of a happy
humanity is in reality a nightmare of social in
sanity. Instead of the liberty of the many there is
the license of the few. Asking for freedom and
justice the Russian people have been given pres
ent misery and the promise of future bliss.
Thoro is nowhere any freedom of speech, any
freedom of the press, any freedom of assembly,
any freedom of transit. Crops have failed.
Mines are flooded. Factories are idle. Ship
ping is congested. Transportation has gone to
rack and ruin. There is military conscription.
There is labor conscription. The deluded work
ingman is no longer the wage-slave of capital
ism; he is the bond-slave of bolshevism.
FRANCE
In France, the nightmare of fear is paralyzing
enterprise and making recovery all but impos
sible. The fear in France, together with the
lamentable recrudescence of Chauvinsim there,
1b tho central fact in the world situation today.
It explains why ships aro idle in every harbor.
It explains unemployment while the world is
waiting for the products of an accelerated in
dustry. It explains the feverish competition in
armament building.
Notwithstanding the fact that the war cost
Franco ?40, 000, 000, 000 in cash and one and
one-half -million men between the ages of 18
and 40 France is today bowed under the weight
of a standing army that numbers 800,000.
, Living in morbid fear of the revival of German
industrial and military power, and unfortified
by specific guarantees that the other western
powers will come immediately to her aid in the
event of renewed aggression a generation hence,
Franco feels, rightly or wronerty, that her only
recourse is to gird herself in full military pano
ply while civilization staggers beneath the bur
den of crushing armaments.
THE BURDEN OF ARMAMENTS
There Is much talk today, in and out of con
gress, about the criminal folly of competitive
armament. But nothing is more certain than
that plans look'ng towards disarmament are
foredoomed to failure unless they Include tho
structure of some sort of an international en
tente some kind of league of nations that
will lay tho ghosts of fear. Gigantic battle
ships, built at the enormous cost Qf $40,000 -000
or $45,000,000 each are m'snamed. They
are not "dreadnaughts." On the contrary they
are the outward sigh and symbol of morbid
dreads and doubts.
We may be the richest nation in the world
but a cusory study of proposed tax Schedules
should convince any sensible citizen that wo
can nof afford the costly luxury of competitive
armaments. And if we cannot afford it then cer
tainly no other nation on earth can. The burden
of armaments has become intolerable.
We have often been called a wasteful nation
and cannot well deny the charge. Periodically
we wax indignant over the waste of our water
power and yet we keep on pouring out money
like water for the maintenance of huge arma- -ments
in a mad race for military or naval pre
eminence. We grow nervously excited about
the prevention of fires in cities while we con
tinue to spend both our interest and capital,
our time and our labor, for armaments that in
vite international conflagration.
Decade after decade we have spent from two
thirds to four-fifths of our total ordinary dis
bursements for wars past, present and to come.
For the single year 1919-1920 the appropria
tions for the American army and navy (exclusive
of military academy, fortifications, etc.) was
$13,187,368,342, or nearly four times as much
as the expenditures for the same purpose for
the fourteen years from 1900 to 1914.
For the fiscal year ending Juno 30, 1921, our
expenditures for what may be called past wars
amounted to 67.9 per cent of our total expendi
tures and for present national defense (main
tenance and expansion of military and naval
establishments) amounted to another 20.5 per
cent. This means that 88.4 per cent went for
past wars and present defense while 11.6 per
cent had to suffice for all other government ser
vices (public works; primary governmental -functions
in the various branches and depart
ments; education and research). The disburse
ments f6r tho post office department are ex
cluded from these calculations as that depart
ment is supposed to be self-supporting.
For the fiscal year that will end June 30,
1922, the total appropriations for past wars
equals 57.6 per cent and for current national
defense equals 26.7 per cent, a total of 84.3 per
cent, which leaves 15.7 per cent. This is on
the theory that the estimated expenditure of
$376,904,981 for the military establishment and
$412,250,605 for the navy will not be increased
before the final passage of the pending bills.
Paradoxical it may be, but it is nevertheless
tragically true that international affairs are the
most local of all issues. The relatives and
friends of the ten or twelve millions killed in the
recent war can testify that foreign problems
are personal problems.
The old diplomacy will have much to answer
for on the Judgment Day of History. It has
been not only secret, but selfish; not only blind
but brutal. Diplomats have drawn a veil of
vagueness over their machinations. They have
made diplomacy synonymous with duplicity, and
statesmanship with subtlety.
Tho old diplomacy is archaic and must become
obsolete, before there can be any ,real healing
of the nations there must be a new diplomacy
more modern, more practical, more public,
more respons'ble, more ethical. In the relations
between nations the force of law must take the
place of the law of force.
The most characteristic fact about antebellum
diplomacy is that it was the ripo fruit of the
politics of prestige in a word it was battle
ship diplomacy. The perfect symbol of the old
statesmanship was a sharp sword in a shining
scabbard rattling with menace.
The statesmen of the old school (and far too
many of thorn still sit in the seats of the
mighty) were convinced that the only way to
play the game was with loaded TUce and loaded
guns. To brag, to bluff, to bulldoze to Yiake
other aUons cringe in fear this is what went
by the name of "diplomacy" before the war
And of course great naval fleets and mighty
standing armies were the tools of the diplomats'
trade.
But the politics of prestige has had its fl'ntr
and we have seen what it has cost unwardq
to 10,000,000 in human lives and over $350
000,000,000 in property and productivity
Battleship diplomacy must be torpedoed and
sunk by the aroused and determined public
opinion of the world. i'uuuc
thAfnueaSter ressmaker is quoted as saving
that it costs three , times as much to dresV"a
woman now as it did.Wyears.agb. Xpplyinl'ull
principles of mathematics to the relative quan
tltjes used this would mean that .prices are about
lix times what they were then; -
TWO DEMOCRATS
In the Fifty-second congress away back
yonder, nearly thirty years ago two young
men of eloquence and much, promise one from
tho east", the other from the west held seats
in the House. One had been a member of that
body before, for one term. The other was mak
ing his debut in national politics. Both wero
assigned to the most important of tho House
committees ways and means an unusual com
pliment for beginners.
Tariff reform was the issue of the day, and
they were in full agreement on ' it, standing
shoulder to shoulder in the advocacy of a tariff
for revenue only.
Four years, later the Democratic party made
a shift, and put the financial question above the
tariff question, and the young man from the
west became the party's leader, taking the hon
or in circumstances of dramatic intensity at the
party's national convention.
The young man from the east bolted the
nomination, and stumped the country against
the candidate; and with his aid the candidate
was defeated. They have, not been in agree
ment since, though both have remained Demo
crats. Last year they met as delegates at San
Francisco, the man from the east as the cham
pion of the wets, the man from the west the
champion of the drys.
The two men were in the big stone building
on Capitol Hill the other day the one again a
member of the House chatting with friends
in the chamber,-the other entertaining a knot
of admirers in one of tho corridors. They are
no longer young, but neither gives the sug
gestion of age. The figures of both have filled
out. The one has lost much of his hair, but
what remains retains its youthful color. Tho
hair of the other is still in boyish abundance,
but white as snow. '
Upon the whole, time has dealt kindly with
both W. Bourse Cockran and William J. Bryan.
Washington Star. ...
MR. BRYAN AND TJIE .SOUTH
United States Senator Tom Watson, we learn
from his Columbia (Ga.) Sentinel,' is so cock
sure that William J. Bryan will never be elect
ed to the senate from Florida that one not famil
iar with the senator's lack of reputation as a
prophet would be pardoned for concluding that
Mr. Bryan's cake is all dough before he gets
the ingredients mixed. Recently Mr. Bryan
stated that on account of Mrs. Bryan's health
he had decided to make his home in Florida.
At cv?e a number of the political wiseacres
jumped to the conclusion that this was tan
tamount to an announcement of his candidacy
for the senate from that state. Possibly their
guess is a good one, but Mr. Bryan has not con
firmed it. For the good of Florida, the balance
of the south and the couritry generally, The
Times h,opes Mr. Bryan Will enter the senate
race next year in Florida and that he will he
elected. He would make an ideal senator. His
election would add brains to that body, of which
it is sadly in need. No sectional issue can he
raised in Florida or elsewhere against Mr.
Bryan. For the last generation he has gone un
and down the land speaking on every phase of
government .as only one gifted as he is can
speak and not one word has he said at which
the people of any section could take offense.
In season and out of season he has been a
friend of the south. No sensible citizen of
Florda would refuse to vote .for "Mr. Bryan be
cause he formerly1 lived in Nebraska. From
Fort Mill, S. C, Times. , "
Ninety-one thousand persons spent $1,600,000
to see Jack Dempsey whip Georges Carpentier in
twelve minutes. If money is" so scarce in the
east as we have been told most of the per capita
must have been consumed in that brief period.
Large rents were found in his clothmg says
the report of the finding of the. body of a New
York man. Well, if such things must be we
would much rather the victim would be a prof
iteering landlord than anybody else.
COMMONER BACK VOLUMES FOR SALE
For lack of room to keep them, 1 offer for sale
the first eighteen volumes of Tjie Commoner
U901 to 1918) v unbound.- -Rl HUNGER
FORD, 222.-N.St.fN. W-Washington, D. C.
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