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6 Conservative.
TIIK COST OF A NATIONAL CIIIMK.
Tin : CoNSRKVATivn published recently
nn article entitled the "Hell of Wnr and
its Penalties. " Since then the report of
the secretary of the treasury has been
issued and the following facts have
been compiled therefrom by Edward
Atkinson , of Boston :
In tlio fiscal yi-nr ending Juno ! JO ,
1807 , deducting from the receipts
tlio ninunnt.s recovered for bonds
ntlvnnccd to the Pacific railroad ,
and applied to tlio payment of
the ebonds and interest , the de
ficit was $103,000,000
Tlio secretary computing the defic
iency in tno fiscal year ending
Juno TO , ISlfl , at 112,000,000
Total $215,000,000
The proceeds of the war loan and fif
teen million dollars over will therefore
have been expended within the six
months after Jan. 1 , nnd on Juno 550,1899 ,
another deficit will be drawing cash
from the treasury reserves. This con
gress will expire March 4 , and the new
congress will not meet unless in extra
session until December , 1899 , in the
middle of the fiscal year ending June JJO ,
1900.
The secretary computes the revenue
from taxation in the fiscal year ending
Juno ! 50 , 1000 , at $510,000,000
, . - Expenditures at 540,048,378
Deficit ? 30,048,378
The population for the fiscal year end
ing June 150 , 1900 , will be somewhat less
than 78,000,000 , but , adopting that num
ber , the normal revenue and expendi
ture at $5 per head would come to
$490,000,000.
According to the secretary's estimate
all the existing taxes will yield per head
six dollars and fifty-two cents ( $6.52) ) ,
while the computed expenditures will
come to over seven dollars ( $7.00) ) per
head.
Additional taxation will therefore be
come necessary , even if the secretary's
sanguine estimates of revenue and ex
penditure arc justified.
It will , however , bo observed that he
assumes that the revenues now derived
from sugar and tobacco will continue as
they are. But if the imperialist or an
nexation policy prevails , the islands of
Cuba and Porto Rico cannot be treated
on any other basis than the Hawaiian
group ; hence a necessary loss of revenue
in 1900 , computed by myself at not less
than 80 cents per head , or $ (52,000,000 ( ,
to be added to the deficit computed by
the secretary of $30,000,000 , malcing
$92,000,000. This sum must bo provided
from new sources of direct internal tax
ation.
But it will be remembered that the
secretary's estimates of expenditure in
the fiscal year ending June 80 , 1900 , are
wholly inconsistent with the increase of
the army recommended by the secretary
of war or the increase of the navy rec
ommended by the secretary of the navy.
Neither is any provision made in
these estimates for the construction or
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renovation of coast defences in Cuba ,
Porto Rico , or Hawaii , nor is there any
provision made for public buildings in
iheso islands. The Philippines are also
wholly ignored.
The only safe computation that can bo
made for the fiscal year 1900 , if the im
perialist policy prevails would be as fol
lows :
Revenues as compiled by the secre
tary $510,000,000
Deduct loss of revenue on HURar , to
bacco , rice , and fruits. 02,000,000
Not revenue under existing laws ,
less loss on sugar , etc. , at fOpur
head , or $1 above the normal rate
of $5. > j:448,000,000 :
KXPKND1TUKES.
As per secretary's estimate. . $540,000,000
And for proposed increase of army
to 100,000 men , increase of navy ,
coast defences in Cuba , Porto
Rico , and Hawaii , only $1 per head 78,000,000
Total at a fraction under $8 per
head . $018,000,000
Deficit $170,000,000
This deficit of over $2 per head must
bo provided by direct taxation.
78.000,000 persons taxed at $8 per
head pay . $02.1,000,000
If taxed at the nominal rate of $5
per head , which has sufllced for 21
yours , the sum would be. 890,000,000
Cost of Imperialism , $3 per head $231,000,000
This policy will raise the tax on every
family of five persons from $25 to $40 a
year.
But the whole cost is not oven yet dis
closed. The increase of the army from
25,000 to 100,000 men can only contem
plate service in Cuba , Porto Rico , and
the Philippines of a force of at least
60,000 out of .the 100,000 , leaving 40,000
for home service where 25,000 have
amply sufficed.
At least one-half the force of 60,000
will either die or become disabled every
year. According to English experience
in India , and French experience in their
tropical colonies , of a death rate of 100
in each 1,000 , five per cent will be sent
home every year to bo supported in hos
pitals or at the public cost from venereal
diseases only , by which more than half
the army is infected.
Yet the secretary of the treasury re
duces the estimate for pensions in 1900
below that of the present year. This
can only bo due to inadvertence , but
how much must be added no one can
compute.
In my previous guarded analysis I
overestimated the income from the war-
revenue act now in force. All my other
computations are more than sustained
by the report of the secretary of the
treasury.
The money cost of the national crime
which the advocates of imperialism pro
pose to commit in the face of the
declaration of President McKinley that
such an act would be one of "criminal
aggression" will bo not less than $8 per
head , $15 per family , in amount $284-
000,000 , in the next fiscal year , and prob
ably more.
The pretexts upon which this so-called
policy of imperialism is promoted con
sists of mixed motives of piety , profits ,
and patriotism.
To the advocates who hope for n great
field in missionary service wo may put
the question , how many of the youth of
America will you subject to vice as a
sacrifice for each heathen convert that
you may make ?
To the advocates of the expansion of
commerce wo will put the qxiestiou , how
much will you increase the power of
; ho people of the Philippine Islands to
consume American goods when in fact
during the last ten years they have
jought of us on the average one hundred
thousand 'dollars' ( $100,000) ) worth a'
year ? Yet we have bought of thorn an
nually in the same period an average of
seven million dollars' ( $7,000,000) ) worth ,
mainly of sugar and hemp , and from the
export duties on these products the
Spanish government has secured its prin
cipal revenue ; such export taxes being
forbidden by the constitution of the
United States.
To those who sot up the pretext of pa
triotism wo call attention to the reflex
of militarism , the pauper labor of conti
nental Europe waiting for its remedy
until the masses who carry the guns
turn them against the classes who carry
the sword to their oppression in the
conscript service , which is eating out the
lieart of Europe.
To the workmen we put the question ,
how long will you bear an additional tax
on the articles of common use which are
consumed not in proportion to ability
but in proportion to numbers , from
which the principal revenues of the
United States are collected , such addi
tional tax upon every one of your fami
lies of five persons surely coming to not
less than fifteen dollars ( $15) ) a year ?
The pretexts are piety , profits , and pa
triotism ; the conclusions vice , venality ,
and pauperism. These are the constants
which surely accompany the rule of
blood and iron and the control of the
masses by the military classes.
Running a free lunch counter in Cuba
and paying three millions of dollars to al
leged soldiers of Cuba for having fought
or run to free themselves is an expensive
and absurd proceeding of our common
and beloved Uncle Sam. This is especi
ally observable in the light of those
precedents made by the legislative
branch of this government wherein aid
to drouth-stricken settlers in Nebraska
and to drowned-out farmers on the
lower Mississippi was denied because no
constitutional right existed for giving of
alms. It seems now however that a
humanity and benevolence which can
not be lawfully exercised at homo , by
being generous in the bestowal of public
money upon our own citizens , may
jump from Florida to Cuba and exercise
all sorts of extravagance in behalf of
hungry hybrids , mulatoes and half-
Spanish-half-Indian creatures. Beauti
ful benevolence !
