War and waste Author:David Starr Jordan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE PERENNIAL BOGEY OF WAR IT IS an open secret, a very open one, that springtide war scares have but one purpose, the extension of our already m... more »onstrous military and naval appropriations. The real object of attack is found in Congress. When the victory there is won, the appropriations made, another cipher added to the "endless caravan" of waste, there is no external sign of jubilation. Those concerned put their pasteboard armies back into the box and settle down quietly to the business of spending until the annual budget is made up again. There can be no doubt that the most powerful lobby in the world is that employed by the great armament builders of England and Germany. It is equally plain that these huge rival war trusts consciously and purposely play into each other's hands. The war scare as promulgated through the "Armor- Plate Press" of these countries is the chief agency for affecting public opinion and controlling the action of Reichstag and Parliament. The greater s and more imminent the danger, the louder the " journalistic noise, the greater the appropriations are likely to be. But when one remembers that the financial resources of all the nations concerned are already strained to the limit of exhaustion by war expenditures in time of peace, and this in spite of the interrelations and mutual dependence of the civilized world which render war impossible, one f can see no reality in these clamours. They would be simply ridiculous were it not for their malicious efficiency in wasting the substance of the people. Except as a result of accidental clash in uncontrollable war machinery, international war is already impossible. Even these war schemers do not want war. All they care for is appropriations. And as wolves wear sheep's clothing at times,...« less