aiming of men and the destruction of resources to
attempt to wear out the enemy.

Already the cost of the war has mounted to over $130,000,000 a day, or
more than $100,000 every minute of the twelve hours that the sun shines
upon us. Contrast, for instance, the total cost, the lives lost, and
the numbers of men called to the colors in the twenty principal wars
during the last century and a quarter, from the Napoleonic Wars of
1793, with the figures for the present war to August 4, 1917, at the
end of the third year of the conflict.[1]

Twenty previous wars Present War
Total cost $26,123,546,240 $75,000,000,000
Total killed 6,498,097 5,000,000
Called to the colors 18,562,200 40,000,000

We have said that the cost of the war has now risen to the almost
unbelievable total of over $130,000,000 a day.[2] That is more than
the total cost of the whole war between Russia and Turkey in 1828. In
a single great day in the battles on the Somme, or in Belgium, the
British have used as much ammunition as they were able to manufacture
in the entire first ten months of the war in 1914.

Even before the end of 1915 the five great powers had more than doubled
their national debts. When will these debts be paid? Great Britain,
the wealthiest of the nations of Europe, after one hundred years of
peace still owes much of the debt incurred in the American Revolution
and all of the debt incurred in the Napoleonic Wars. The whole cost of
the American Civil War was only $5,000,000,000, and of the Napoleonic
Wars $6,000,000,000, while this war will cost over six times the amount
of either during this single year.

Great Britain's war debt at the end of the third year has reached the
enormous total of more than $20,000,000,000, or twenty times the
national debt of the United States at the beginning of the war, yet
even this does not begin to exhaust her resources. At the close of the
Napoleonic Wars Great Britain's debt was one-third of her national
resources. She can almost double her present enormous war debt before
utilizing a third of her wealth.

We have not in this calculation reckoned on the economic value of the
lives destroyed. That would average about $3,000 for each man. Five
million men killed means an economic loss to the countries concerned of
$15,000,000,000. But the economic value of the lives destroyed
represents only a small fracti