Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/192

170 The figures given by Friday for 1917 and subsequent years were before deducting our war expenditures. “If the Government had not taken these sums by extra taxes they would have been available for investment, either in government bonds or in corporate securities.” That, of course, is true, but the Government did take them and spent them in prosecuting the war, wherefore net earnings became wastes instead of capital accumulations. So far as yet known, the direct cost of the war to the United States was as follows, the figures being brought down to Jan. 1, 1921:

Military coat, as per Secretary Houston............... $24,010,000,000 Extra governmental costs, as per Secretary of Treasury. 4,500,000,000 Red Cross contributions...........0...0. 0000 cece eee 978,512,225 Other relief funds.........0. 0.0... cee ec ence cence 700,000,000 © Total..... 0... ccc cect tenet tae tennee $30,188,512,225

In addition to the above we let Europe have goods and credits to the amount of $10,141,000,000 which is now owed to us. Our total expense was therefore about 40.3 billion dollars. But, furthermore, the officials of Court of Claims expect over two billion dollars of claims against the government will be filed during the next few months. Contracts for millions of dollars of war munitions were cancelled following the armistice. Also, there is the claim of the railways for about one billion dollars. Therefore, it is not yet known positively just what was the cost of the war.

All of the above figures are expressed in terms of inflated prices, or in “fifty-cent dollars” as is sometimes said. After making these deductions, the residue should appear in the form of plant extensions and the