Chapter VIII: Part 8

The other estimate of the amount of talent in existence has been made by one of our most eminent American sociologists, the late Lester F. Ward. The elaborate treatment of this matter is found in his "Applied Sociology," and offers an illustration of a most rigorous and thorough application of the scientific method to the subject in question. The essential facts for the study were furnished by Odin in his work on the genesis of the literary men of France, although Candole, Jacoby and others are laid under contribution for data. Maps, tables and diagrams are used whenever they can be made to secure results. Odin's study covered the period of over five hundred years of France and French regions, or from 1300 to 1825. Out of over thirteen thousand literary names he chose some 6,200 as representing men of genius, talent or merit, the former constituting much the smaller and the latter much the larger of the total number.

The object of Ward's investigation is to discover the factor or factors in the situation which are responsible for the production of genius. In the course of examination it was seen that certain communities were very much more prolific than others in producing talent. Paris, for instance, produced 123 per 100,000; Geneva, Switzerland, 196; certain chateaux as many as 200, and some communities none at all or very few. After considering the various factors which account for the high rate in certain localities and the low rate or absence of merit in others the conclusion is reached that we should expect the presence of the meritorious class generally in even greater numbers than it has existed in the most fruitful regions of the French people.

Mr. Ward's studies have led him to conclude that talent is latent in society, that it exists in greater abundance than we have ever dared to expect, that all classes possess it equally and would manifest it equally if obstacles were removed or opportunities offered for its development. Education is the key to the situation in his estimation. It affords the opportunity which latent talent requires for its promotion, and if this were intelligently applied to all classes and to both sexes alike instead of securing one man of talent for each 4,000 persons as Mr. Galton held, we would be able to mature one for every 500 of our population. This would represent an eight-hundred-per-cent. increase of the talented class, an eight-fold multiplication. It is an estimate of not the number of the talented who are known to be such, but of society's potential or latent talent.[2]

[2] Investigations made on school children by the Binet test indicate Ward's estimate is conservative. It has been found that from two to three out of every hundred children are of exceptional ability, thus belonging to the talented, or at least merit class.

Because these estimates are so divergent, it may be worth while to consider the reason for the difference. And in taking this up we come to the fundamentally distinct point of view of the two investigators. Mr. Galton's work is an illustration of the view which regards talent as a product of the hereditary factors. Mr. Galton believed that heredity accounts for talent and that it is so dominant in the lives of the talented that it is bound to express itself as talent. In his estimation there is no such thing as latent genius, because it is in the nature of genius that it surmounts all obstacles. He says:

'By natural ability, I mean those qualities of intellect and disposition, which urge and qualify a man to perform acts which lead to reputation. I do not mean capacity without zeal, nor zeal without capacity, nor even a combination of both of them, without an adequate power of doing a great deal of very laborious work. But I mean a nature which, when left to itself, will, urged by an inherent stimulus, climb the path that leads to eminence, and has strength to reach the summit--one which, if hindered or thwarted, will fret and strive until the hindrance is overcome, and it is again free to follow its labor-saving instinct.'[2]

[3] "Hereditary Genius," pp. 37-8.

This in reality amounts to saying that the genius is omnipotent. Nothing can prevent the development of the genius. He is master of all difficulties by the very fact that he is a genius. It is also equivalent, by implication, to saying that obstacles can have no qualifying effect on the course of such an individual. A great difficulty is no more to him than a small one. Hence no matter in what circumstances he lives he is always bound to gain the maximum of his development. He could not be either greater or less than he is, notwithstanding the force of circumstances, whether obstructive or propitious. The energy of a genius is thus differentiated from all other forms of energy. Other forms of energy are modified in their course and effects by preventing obstacles. Add to or subtract from the impediments and the effect of the energy is changed by the amount of the impediments. But this doctrine completely emancipates human energy, when manifested in the form of genius, from the working of the law of cause and effect.

It is especially noteworthy that it is not what we should expect in view of the place and function of the environment in the course of evolution. To say the least environment enjoys a very respectable influence in selecting and directing the forces of development. Some men have gone so far as to make the external factors account for everything in society. Discounting this claim, the minimum biological statement is that the environment exercises a selective function relative to organic forms and variations. It opposes itself to the transmission strain, and if unfavorable to it, may eliminate it entirely. To be able to accomplish this it must be regarded as having an influence on all forms. And as there are all grades of environment from the most unfavorable to the most propitious, similarly constituted organisms living in those various environments must perforce fare differently, some being hindered others being promoted in varying degrees. That is, should the most able by birth appear in the most unfavorable environment they could not be expected to make the same gains in life as similar congenitally able who appear in the most favorable conditions.

Mr. Ward, on the contrary, holds that genius, like all other forms of human ability, is the product of circumstances. It is determined in its raw form by heredity, to be sure. In similar circumstances it will affect more than the average man. But like all other forms of energy it is subject to the law of causality. It is not omnipotent so that it is able to set at naught the effects of opposing forces. Nor can it develop in the absence of nourishing circumstances. Deprive it of cultural opportunities and it is like the sprout of the majestic tree which is deprived of moisture, or the great river cut off from the supply of snow and rain. In other words, it is a product of all the factors at work in its being and environment, and the internal can not manifest itself or its powers without the presence of the external. Modify the external factors to a perceptible degree and the individual is modified to the same degree.

In seeking to find the factors which are accountable for the development of talent Mr. Ward takes into consideration those of the physical environment, the ethnological, the religious, the local, the economic, the social, and the educational. Each one of these items is given a searching examination as to its force. I shall briefly deal with each of these in turn, giving the import of the findings in each case and as many of the basic facts as possible in a small space.

By a consideration of French regions by departments, provinces, and principal sections, as to their yield of talent, the physical environment was found to have had no perceptible influence. The mountain-situated Geneva and the lowland Paris produced alike prolifically talented men. The valley of the Seine and that of the Loire competed for hegemony in fecundity. The facts contradicted the highland theory, the lowland theory, the coast theory, and every other theory of the dominance of physical environment.

To get at the influence of the ethnological factor the Gaulic, Cimbrian, Iberian, Ligurian and Belgic elements of the population were examined as to their fecundity in talent. Odin confesses to being unable to discover "the least connection between races and fecundity in men of letters." Attention was paid likewise to races speaking other than French language. Again there was a conflict of facts. Inside of France ethnological elements exerted "no appreciable influence upon literary productivity." In Belgium and Lorraine, where the German language dominated, it was found that French literature mastered the situation, thus indicating that a common language does not necessitate a common literature. The conclusion ethnologically is that races possess an equality in yielding talent.

The religious factor was found to have been more influential formerly in bringing to light talent than at the close of the five-hundred-year period. From 1300 to 1700 the church furnished on the average 37.8 per cent. of all literary talent. Its fecundity dropped to 29 in the period from 1700 to 1750. Between 1750 and 1825 it produced but 6.5 of the talent. As Galton has shown, eminent men were killed or driven out during the period of religious persecution in Spain, France and Italy. The celibacy of the clergy which gave undisturbed leisure may have been an element in making the church productive in the earlier years. On the other hand, the quieting effect of family life of the protestant ministry seems to have had a propitious influence in later times, as there appeared a relative increase among protestant clergy of talent, while the output among the catholic clergy continued to decline.

In this investigation the local environment appeared to have the most influence in the production of talent. Odin gave witness to having a suspicion that somewhere there was a neglected factor. The facts connected talent with the cities in an overwhelming manner. The statement that genius is the product of the rural regions seems to have had no legs to stand on. The majority of the talented were born in the cities and practically all of them were connected with city life.

In proportion to population the cities produced 12.77, almost thirteen times as many men of talent as rural regions. The whole of France produced 6,382, the number selected by Odin as the more meritorious of the men of letters. If all France had been as productive as Paris it would have yielded 53,640; if as fecund as the other chief cities, it would have produced 22,060; but if only as fertile as the country the number would have fallen to 1,522.

It would seem that the matter of population has something to do with the production of talent. Aggregations of population offer frequent contact of persons, division of labor, competition between individuals, a better coordination of society for cooperative results, neutralization of physical qualities, and the ascendancy of innovation over the conservative attitude. It is not the mere density of population which is the effective element. It is rather the dynamic density which is productive, that is, the manifestation of the common life and spirit. City life is specialized in structure and function, rendering men more interdependent and cooperative. Specialization means moral coalescence

The chateaux of France are very prolific in producing talent. They yielded 2 per cent. of all the talent of the period, seemingly out of proportion to their importance.

Why are certain of the cities and the chateaux more fertile than most cities and the country in producing the talented? We have a general reply in the statement as to the dynamic density of cities. A further analysis finds those communities are possessed of elements which the country does not have. Odin calls them "properties." They are the location of the political, administrative and judicial agencies of society; they are in possession of great wealth and talent; they are depositories of learning and the tools of information. The avenues which open upon talent and the tools and agencies by means of which the passage to it is to be made segregate themselves in cities and towns

As the result of his investigation into the distribution of men of science in the United States, Professor Cattell arrives at nearly the same conclusion. He writes:

'The main factors in producing scientific and other forms of intellectual performance seem to be density of population, institutions and social traditions and ideals. All these may be ultimately due to race, but, given the existing race, the scientific productivity of the nation can be increased in quantity, though not in quality, almost to the extent that we wish to increase it.'[4]

[4] "American Men of Science," Second edition, p. 654.

It is interesting to note that nearly all of the women of talent have been born in cities and chateaux. This means that women had to be born where the means of development were to be had, as they were not free to move about in society, as were men.

Periods Rich Poor 1300-1500 24 1 1500-1550 39 4 1551-1600 42 -- 1601-1650 84 5 1651-1700 73 4 1701-1725 36 3 1726-1750 53 7 1751-1775 86 8 1776-1800 52 12 1801-1825 73 11 ---- ---- Total 562 57, or 9 per cent.

The economic factor has been an important one in offering the leisure which is necessary for the development of talent. Men who have to use their time and energy wholly in the support of themselves and families are deprived of the leisure which productivity and creativeness in work demands. Of the French men of letters 35 per cent. belonged to the wealthy or noble class, 42 per cent. to the middle class, and 23 per cent. to the working class. Odin was able to discover the economic environment of 619 men of talent. They were distributed by periods between the rich and poor as shown in the table on page 169.

Of one hundred foreign associates of the French Academy the membership of the wealthy, middle and working classes were 41, 52 and 7. A combination of two other of Candole's tables yields for those classes in per cents 35, 42 and 23. In ancient and medieval times practically all of the talented came from the wealthy class. On the whole, but about one eleventh of the men of talent had to fight with economic adversity. But when we remember that the wealthy class formed but a small portion of the population in each period, probably not more than one fourth, this means that as compared with members of the working class individuals of the wealthy class had forty or fifty times as good a chance of rising to a position of eminence. The contrast is so sharp that Odin is led to exclaim, "Genius is in things, not in man."

The social and the economic factors are so closely intertwined that the influence of the social environment is already seen in treating the economic. The social deals with matter of classes and callings. The upper classes are of course the wealthier classes so that the social and economic measures largely agree. In Mr. Galton's inquiry into the callings of English men of science which he made in 1873, it appears that out of 96 investigated 9 were noblemen or gentlemen, 18 government officials, 34 professional men, 43 business men, 2 farmers and 1 other. Unless the one other was a working man the workers produced none of these 96 men of science. Odin's classification of the French men of letters gives to the nobility 25.5 per cent., to government officials 20.0, liberal professions 23.0, bourgeoise 11.6, manual laborers 9.8. Only a little over one fifth of the talented were produced by the two lower classes. Yet in numerical weight those classes constituted 90 per cent. of the population. Data from four other European countries show very much the same results, except that the workers and bourgeoise classes make a better showing. It is unquestionable, therefore, that the opportunities for developing talent or genius are largely withheld from the working class and bestowed on the upper classes.

We have yet one other factor to treat in the production of talent, namely, the educational. The facts relative to the education of the talented contradicts the assumption usually made that genius depends on education and opportunity for none of its success, but rises to its heights in spite of or without them.

Of 827 men of talent (not merit class) Odin was able to investigate as to their education he found that only 1.8 per cent. had no education or a poor education, while 98.2 per cent. had a good education. This number investigated was 73 per cent. of all men of that class, and it is fair to assume that about the same proportion of educated existed in the other 27 per cent. whose education was not known. Of the 16 of poor or no education 13 were born in Paris, other large cities, or chateaux, and three in other localities. Thus they had the opportunities presented by the cities. Facts as to talented men in Spain, Italy, England and Germany indicate that anywhere from 92 to 98 per cent. have been highly educated, and probably the latter per cent. is correct.

These figures can have but one meaning. They indicate that talent and genius are dependent on educational and conventional agencies of the cultural kind, as are other human beings for their evolution. Otherwise we should expect the figures to be reversed. If education and cultural opportunities count for naught, then we should expect that, at a time when education was by no means universal, the 90 or 98 per cent. Of genius would mount on their eagle wings and soar to the summits of eminence, clearing completely the conventional educational devices which society had established.

Our conclusion, therefore, is that social and economic opportunities afford the leisure as well as cultural advantages for the improvement of talent; that the local environment is of vital importance, offering as it does the cultural advantages of cities of certain kinds and of chateaux, and that of the local environment the educational facilities are of the supremest importance. Consequently, it appears that Mr. Ward's estimate of one person of talent to the 500 instead of Mr. Galton's estimate of one to the 4,000 does not seem strained. Produce in society generally the opportunities and advantages which Geneva, Paris and the chateaux possessed and which gave them their great fecundity in talent, and all regions and places will yield up their potential or latent genius to development and the ratio will be obtained.

This position is likely to be criticized, unless it is remembered that we admit that there is a hereditary difference at birth, and that all we seek to establish is that, given these differences, what conditions are likely to mature and develop the men of born talent. Thus after the appearance of my "Vocational Education" I received a letter from Professor Eugene Davenport in which he makes this statement:

'Ward's arguments as here employed seem to show that environment is a powerful factor in bringing out talent even to the exclusion of heredity. I doubt if you would care to be understood to this limit, and yet where you enumerate on page 61 the reasons why certain cities are fecund in respective talents, you seem to have overlooked the fact that if these cities have been for many generations centers of talent to such an extent as to provide exceptional environmental influences, the same conditions would also provide exceptional parentage, so that the birthrate of talent would be much higher in such a region than the normal. In other words, the very same conditions which would provide exceptional opportunities for development also and at the same time provide an exceptional birth condition. This is the rock on which very many arguments tending to compare heredity and environment wreck themselves.'[5]

[5] This is a criticism that needs to be met. Mr. George R. Davies of this institution has submitted facts in a paper which appeared in the March number of the Quarterly Journal of the University of North Dakota, which fills in the gap. He shows relative to American cities that there has been little or no segregation of talented parentage.

We have arrived at a point where we are able to consider the question of the conservation of talent. A position of advantage has been gained from which to view this question. For we have seen that talent has a decidedly important and indispensable social function to perform. It is the creative and contributive agency, the cause of achievement, and a vital factor in progress. Its conservation is consequently devoutly to be desired. We have also discovered the fact that, while a rare commodity, it is present in society in a larger measure than we have commonly believed. If progress is desirable in a measure it is likely to be desirable in a large measure. If talent is able to carry us forward at a certain rate with the development of a minimum of the quantity that is in existence we should be able to greatly accelerate our progress if all that is latent could be developed and put into active operation. Further, we have obtained some insight into the conditions which favor the development of talent and likewise some of the obstacles to its manifestation. If it abounds where certain conditions are present in the situation and fails to appear where those conditions are absent, we have a fertile suggestion as to the method of social control and direction which will bring the latent talent to fertility.

We must undoubtedly hold that if a larger supply of talent exists than is discovered, developed and put to use that, since, as we have seen, it is so valuable when estimated in terms of social progress, we are dealing wastefully with talent. We are allowing great ability to go to waste since we are leaving it lie in its undeveloped form. Therefore one of the problems of the proper conservation of talent consists in finding a method of discovering and releasing this valuable form of social energy.

When we come to inquire how this may be done, how this discovery is to take place, we must take for our guide the facts which were found to bear on the maturing of talent in the above studies. We discovered that the local environment seemed to contain the influential element in bringing forth talent. When that local environment was analyzed it turned out that the items of opportunity for leisure and the facilities for education were the most fruitful factors. Leisure is absolutely essential to afford that opportunity for self-development which is required even of the most talented. This can only be had when the income of the individual is sufficient to give him a considerable part of his active time for carrying out his intellectual aspirations. We have great numbers of people whom we have reason to believe are as able on the average, have as large a proportion of talent as the well-to-do, whose poverty is so crushing and whose days of toil are so long and so consuming of energy that the element of leisure is lacking. It is only an occasional individual of this class of people who is able to secure the wealth which means a measure of leisure by which he is able to mount out of obscurity. An improvement in the physical conditions of life of these people, together with an increase in their economic possibilities is a necessary means to the proper conservation of the talent of this group.

The cultural factor is one which must be made more omnipresent than it is now before we shall be able to awake the latent talent of the masses of people. There are certain sections of all nations, and more especially of such nations as the United States, where the population is widely scattered over vast areas of farming regions in which the opportunities for education and stimulative enterprises and institutions are lacking or meager. The same is true of very large sections of the populations of the cities. In both cases large neighborhoods exist in which the lives of the people move in a humdrum rut, never disturbed by matters which arouse the creative element in human nature. Especially is this important in the early years of life where the outlook for the whole future of the individual is so strongly stamped. To come into contact with no stimulus and arousing agent in the home, or the neighborhood in the earliest years is to become settled into a life-long habit of inert dullness.

When we revert to the schools which so generally abound, we fail to find the stimulating element in them which might be regarded as the necessary opportunity to develop talent. The vast majority of elementary teachers are persons whose intellectual natures have never been aroused. Their imaginative and sympathetic capacities lie undeveloped. Their work in the school is conducted on the basis of memory. It is parrot work and ends in making parrots of the pupils. The rational and causal as agencies in education are hardly ever appealed to. Until our teaching force is itself developed in the directions and capacities which alone characterize the intellectual we can not hope for much in the way of recovering the rich field of latent talent from its infertility.

Something remains to be said about the proper utilization of talent which has been developed. Did all genius depend on the hereditary factor and consequently we had developed all individuals possessing exceptional ability into contributors and creators, the question of their complete utilization by society remains. That all able men and women are working at the exact thing and in the exact place and under the exact methods which will yield the greatest and most fruitful results for society only the superficial could believe. Herbert Spencer used up a very large part of his superb ability during the larger portion of his life in the drudgery of making a living. The work of the national eugenics laboratory of England is carried on by a man of great talent, Professor Carl Pearson, in cramped quarters and with insufficient equipment and support. The enterprise is as important as any in England, that of discovering the conditions and means of improving the human race. The laboratory was built up in the first instance by the sacrifice of Sir Francis Galton, and it is maintained by means of the bequest of his personal fortune.

These are but instances of the many which exist where talented individuals are working under great handicaps which neither promote their talent nor secure fecundity of results to collective man. In nearly every line of human endeavor gifted individuals are consuming in an unnecessarily wasteful manner, from the point of view of social improvement, their splendid abilities. In educational institutions trained experts and specialists are doing the work which very ordinary ability of a merely clerical kind could conduct, sacrificing the higher and more fruitful attainments thereby. I have known a faculty of some forty members who were compelled to register the term standings by sitting in a circle and calling off the grades of several hundred students student by student and class by class for each student as it came their turn, while a clerk recorded the grades. The process consumed about ten hours per member each term, or something over a thousand hours a year for the whole faculty. Both economically and socially it was expensive and wasteful because a cheap clerk could have done the whole far better and have released the talent for productive purposes.

We shall be wise when we realize the worth of our workable talent and so establish its working conditions that it may secure the full measure of its productiveness. If scientific management for the mass of laborers of a nation is worth while how much more serviceable would it be to extend its fructifying influence to the most able members of the community.

But how to proceed in order to make the discovery of the latent talent is the pressing problem. For a long time our methods promise to be as empirical as are those we employ for the advancement of science. Relative to the latter, after enumerating a large list of conditions for promoting science of which we are ignorant, Professor Cattell says:

'In the face of endless problems of this character we are as empirical in our methods as the doctor of physic a hundred years ago or the agricultural laborer to-day. It is surely time for scientific men to apply scientific methods to determine the circumstances that promote or hinder the advancement of science.'[6]

[6] "American Men of Science," p. 565.

Since the discovery and utilization of genius and talent in general are so closely related to the problem of the promotion of science, his statement may be adopted to express the demand existing in those directions.

WAR, BUSINESS AND INSURANCE[1]

[1] Chairman's address on Peace Day of the Insurance Congress, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, October 11, 1915.

BY CHANCELLOR DAVID STARR JORDAN

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

THE complications behind the war in Europe are very many, ruthless exploitation, heartless and brainless diplomacy, futile dreams of national expansion (the "Mirage of the Map"), of national enrichment through the use of force (the "Great Illusion"), and withal a widespread vulgar belief in indemnities or highway robberies as a means of enriching a nation.

All these would represent only the unavoidable collision, unrest and ambition of human nature, were it not that every element involved in it was armed to the teeth. "When blood is their argument" in matters of business or politics, all rational interests are imperilled. The gray old strategists to whom the control of armament was assigned saw the nations moving towards peaceful solution of their real and imaginary difficulties. The young men of Europe had visions of a broader world, one cleared of lies and hate and the poison of an ingrowing patriotism. After a generation of doubt and pessimism in which world progress seemed to end in a blind sack, there was rising a vision of continental cooperation, a glimpse of the time when science, always international, should also internationalize the art of living.

Clearly the close season for war was near at hand. The old men found means to bring it on and in so doing to exploit the patriotism, enthusiasm, devotion and love of adventure of the young men of the whole world.

The use of fear and force as an argument in politics or in business--this is war. It is a futile argument because of itself it settles nothing. Its conclusion bears no certain relation to its initial aim. It must end where it should begin, with an agreement among the parties concerned. War is only the blind negation, the denial of all law, and only the recognition of the supremacy of some law can bring war to an end. In time of war all laws are silent as are all efforts for progress, for justice, for the betterment of human kind. If history were written truthfully every page in the story of war would be left blank, or printed black, with only fine white letters in the darkness to mark the efforts for humanity, which war can never wholly suppress.

In this paper I propose to consider only economic effects of this war and with special reference to the great industry which brings most of this audience together, the business of insurance.

The great war debts of the nations of Europe began with representative government. Kings borrowed money when they could, bankrupting themselves at intervals and sometimes wrecking their nations. Kings have always been uncertain pay. Not many loaned money to them willingly and only in small amounts and at usurious rates of interest. To float a "patriotic loan," it was often necessary to make use of the prison or the rack. With the advent of parliaments and chambers of deputies, the credit of nations improved and it became easy to borrow money. There was developed a special class of financiers, the Rothschilds at their head, pawnbrokers rather than bankers, men able and willing to take a whole nation into pawn. And with the advent of great loans, as Goldwin Smith wisely observed, "there was removed the last check on war."

With better social and business adjustments, and especially with the progress of railways and steam navigation with other applications of science to personal and national interests, the process of borrowing became easier, as also the payment of interest on which borrowing depends. Hence more borrowing, always the easiest solution of any financial complication or embarrassment. Through the substitution of regular methods of taxation for the collection of tribute, the nations became solidified. Only a solidified nation can borrow money. The loose and lawless regions called Kingdoms and Empires under feudalism were not nations at all. A nation is a region in which the people are normally at peace among themselves. In civil war, a nation's existence may be dissolved.

In all the ages war costs all that it can. All that can be extorted or borrowed is cast into the melting pot, for the sake of self-preservation or for the sake of victory. If the nations had any more to give war would demand it. The king could extort, but there are limits to extortion. The nation could borrow, and to borrowing there is but one limit, that of actual exhaustion.

Mr. H. Bell, cashier of Lloyd's Bank in London, said in 1913:

'The London bankers are not lending on the continent any more. We can see already the handwriting on the wall and that spells REPUDIATION. The people of Europe will say: "We know that we have had all this money and that we ought to pay interest on it. But we must live; and we can not live and pay."'

The chief motive for borrowing on the part of every nation has been war or preparation for war. If it were not for war no nation on earth need ever have borrowed a dollar. If provinces and municipalities could use all the taxes their people pay, for purposes of peace, they could pay off all their debts and start free. In Europe, for the last hundred years, in time of so-called peace, nations have paid more for war than for anything else. It is not strange therefore that this armed peace has "found its verification in war." It has been the "Dry War," the "Race for the Abyss," which the gray old strategists of the general staff have brought to final culmination.

The debt of Great Britain began with the revolution of 1869, with about $1,250,000. This unpopular move, known as Dutch finance, was the work of William of Orange. Other loans followed, based on customs duties with "taxes on bachelors, widows, marriages and funerals," and the profits on lotteries. At the end of the war of the revolution the debt reached $1,250,000,000, and with the gigantic borrowings of Pitt, in the interest of the overthrow of Napoleon, the debt reached its highest point, $4,430,000,000. The savings of peace duly reduced this debt, but the Boer war, for which about $800,000,000 was borrowed, swept these savings away. When the present war began the national debt had been reduced to a little less than $400,000,000 which sum a year of world war has brought up to $10,000,000,000.

The debt of France dates from the French Revolution. Through reckless management it soon rose to $700,000,000, which sum was cut by paper money, confiscation and other repudiations to $160,000,000. This process of easing the government at the expense of the people spread consternation and bankruptcy far and wide. A great program of public expenditure following the costly war and its soon repaid indemnity raised the debt of France to over $6,000,000,000. The interest alone amounted to nearly $1,000,000,000. A year of the present war has brought this debt to the unheard of figure of about $11,000,000,000. Thus nearly two million bondholders and their families in and out of France have become annual pensioners on the public purse, in addition to all the pensioners produced by war.

Germany is still a very young nation and as an empire more thrifty than her largest state. The imperial debt was in 1908 a little over $1,000,000,000. The total debt of the empire and the states combined was about $4,000,000,000 at the outbreak of the war. It is now stated at about $9,000,000,000, a large part of the increase being in the form of "patriotic" loans from helpless corporations.

The small debt of the United States rose after the Civil War to $2,773,000,000. It has been reduced to about $915,000,000, proportionately less than in any other civilized nation. The local debts of states and municipalities in this and other countries are, however, very large and are steadily rising. As Mr. E. S. Martin observes,

'We have long since passed the simple stage of living beyond our incomes. We are engaged in living beyond the incomes of generations to come.'

Let me illustrate by a supposititious example. A nation has an expenditure of $100,000,000 a year. It raises the sum by taxation of some sort and thus lives within its means. But $100,000,000 is the interest on a much larger sum, let us say $2,500,000,000. If instead of paying out a hundred million year by year for expenses, we capitalize it, we may have immediately at hand a sum twenty-five times as great. The interest on this sum is the same as the annual expense account. Let us then borrow $2,500,000,000 on which the interest charges are $100,000,000 a year. But while paying these charges the nation has the principal to live on for a generation. Half of it will meet current expenses for a dozen years, and the other half is at once available for public purposes, for dockyards, for wharves, for fortresses, for public buildings and, above all, for the ever-growing demands of military conscription and of naval power. Meanwhile the nation is not standing still. In these twelve years the progress of invention and of commerce may have doubled the national income. There is then still another $100,000,000 yearly to be added to the sum available for running expenses. This again can be capitalized, another $2,500,000,000 can be borrowed, not all at once perhaps, but with due regard to the exigencies of banking and the temper of the people. With repeated borrowings the rate of taxation rises. Living on the principal sets a new fashion in expenditure. The same fashion extends throughout the body politic. Individuals, corporations, municipalities all live on their principal.

The purchase of railways and other public utilities by the government tends further to complicate the problems of national debt. It is clear that this system of buying without paying can not go on forever. The growth of wealth and population can not keep step with borrowing, even though all funds were expended for the actual needs of society. Of late years, war preparation has come to take the lion's share of all funds, however gathered, "consuming the fruits of progress." What the end shall be, and by what forces it will be brought about, no one can now say. This is still a very rich world, even though insolvent and under control of its creditors. There is a growing unrest among taxpayers. There would be a still greater unrest if posterity could be heard from, for it can only save itself by new inventions and new exploitations or by frugality of administration of which no nation gives an example to-day.

Nevertheless, this burden of past debt, with all its many ramifications and its interest charges, is not the heaviest the nations have placed on themselves. The annual cost of army and navy in the world before the war was about double the sum of interest paid on the bonded debt. This annual sum represented preparation for future war, because in the intricacies of modern warfare "hostilities must be begun" long before the materialization of any enemy. In estimating the annual cost of war, to the original interest of upwards of $1,500,000,000 we must add yearly about $2,500,000,000 of actual expenditure for fighters, guns and ships. We must further consider the generous allowance some nations make for pensions. A large and unestimated sum may also be added to the account from loss of military conscription, again not counting the losses to society through those forms of poverty which have their primal cause in war. For in the words of Bastiat, "War is an ogre that devours as much when he sleeps as when he is awake." It was Gambetta who foretold that the final end of armament rivalry must be "a beggar crouching by a barrack door."

When the great war began, the nations of Europe were thus waist deep in debt, the total amount of national bonded indebtedness being about $30,000,000,000, or nearly three times the total sum of actual gold and silver, coined or not in all the world. A year of war at the rate of $50,000,000 to $70,000,000 per day has increased this indebtedness to nearly $50,000,000,000, the bonds themselves rated at half or less their normal value, while the actual financial loss through destruction of life and property has been estimated at upwards of $40,000,000,000.

In "The Unseen Empire," the forceful and prophetic drama of Mr. Atherton Brownell, the American ambassador, Stephan Channing, tries to show the chancellor of Germany that war with Great Britain is not a "good business proposition." He says:

'Our Civil War has cost us to date, if you count pensions for the wrecks it left--mental and physical--nearly twenty billions of dollars. And that doesn't include property losses, nor destruction of trade, nor broken hearts and desolate homes--that's just cold hard cash that we have actually paid out. You can't even think it. There have been only about one billion minutes since Christ was born. Now if there had been four million slaves and we had bought every one of them at an average of one thousand dollars apiece, set them free and had no war, we should have been in pocket to day just sixteen billion dollars. That one crime cost us in cash just about the equal of sixteen dollars a minute from the beginning of the Christian era.'

The war as forecast in the play is now on in fact, and one certain truth in regard to it is that it is assuredly not "a good business proposition" for anybody in any nation, excepting of course, the makers of the instruments of death.

DAILY COST OF GREAT EUROPEAN WAR (Charles Richet, 1912)

Feed of men. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $12,600,000 Feed of horses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000,000 Pay (European rates) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,250,000 Pay of workmen in the arsenals and ports (100 per day)1,000,000 Transportation (60 miles in 10 days) . . . . . . 2,100,000 Transportation for provisions. . . . . . . . . . 4,200,000 Munitions: Infantry 10 cartridges a day. . . . . 4,200,000 Artillery: 10 shots per day. . . . . . . . . . . 1,200,000 Marine: 2 shots per day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400,000 Equipment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,200,000 Ambulances: 500,000 wounded or ill ($1 per day). . 500,000 War ships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500,000 Reduction of imports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,000,000 Help to the poor (20 cents per day to 1 in 10) . 6,800,000 Destruction of towns, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000,000 Total per day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$49,950,000

The actual war began, in accord with Professor Richet's calculation, at a cost of $50,000,000 per day. Previous to this the "dry war" or "armed peace" cost only $10,000,000 per day. This is Richet's calculation in 1912, an underestimate as to expenses on the sea and in the air. These with the growing scarcity of bread and shrapnel, the equipment of automobiles, and the unparalleled ruin of cities have raised this cost to $70,000,000 per day.

This again takes no account of the waste of men and horses, less costly than the other material of war and not necessarily replaced. All this is piled on top of "the endless caravan of ciphers" ($30,000,000,000), which represents the accumulated and unpaid war debt of the nineteenth century.

War is indeed the sport for kings, but it is no sport for the people who pay and die, and in the long run the workers of the world must pay the cost of it. As Benjamin Franklin observed:

'War is not paid for in war time) the bill comes later.'

And what a bill!

Yves Guyot, the French economist, estimates that the first six months of war cost western Europe in cash $5,400,000,000, to which should be added further destruction estimated at $11,600,000,000, making a total of $17,000,000,000. The entire amount of coin in the world is less than $12,000,000,000. Edgar Crammond, secretary of the Liverpool Stock Exchange, another high authority, estimates the cash cost of a year of war, to August 1, 1915, at $17,000,000,000, while other losses will mount up to make a grand total of $46,000,000,000. Mr. Crammond estimates that the cost to Great Britain for a year of war will reach $3,500,000,000. This sum is about equivalent to the accumulated war debt of Great Britain for a hundred years before the war. The war debt of Germany (including Prussia) is now about the same.

No one can have any conception of what $46,000,000,000 may be. It is four times all the gold and silver in the world. It represents, it is stated, about 100,000 tons of gold, and would probably outweigh the Washington monument. We have no data as to what monuments weigh, but we may try a few other calculations. If this sum were measured out in $20 gold pieces and they were placed side by side on the railway track, on each rail, they would line with gold every line from New York to the Pacific Ocean, and there would be enough left to cover each rail of the Siberian railway from Vladivostock to Petrograd. There would still be enough left to rehabilitate Belgium and to buy the whole of Turkey, at her own valuation, wiping her finally from the map.

Or we may figure in some other fashion. The average working man in America earns $518 per year. It would take ninety million years' work to pay the cost of the war; or ninety million American laborers might pay it off in one year, if all their living expenses were paid. The working men of Europe receive from half to a third the wages in America. They are the ones who have this bill to pay.

The cost of a year of the great war is a little greater than the estimated value of all the property of the United States west of Chicago. It is nearly equal to the total value of all the property in Germany ($48,000,000,000) as figured in 1906. The whole Russian Empire ($35,000,000,000) could have been bought for a less sum before the war began. It could be had on a cash sale for half that now. It would have paid for all the property in Italy ($13,000,000,000); Japan ($10,000,000,000); Holland ($5,000,000,000); Belgium ($7,000,000,000); Spain ($6,000,000,000) and Portugal ($2,500,000,000). It is three times the entire yearly earnings in wages and salaries of the people of the United States ($15,500,000,000).

We could go on indefinitely with this, playing with figures which nobody can understand, for the greatest fortune ever accumulated by man, in whatever fashion, would not pay for three days of this war.

The cost of this war would pay the national debts of all the nations in the world at the time the war broke out, and this aggregate sum of $45,000,000,000 for the world was all accumulated in the criminal stupidity of the wars of the nineteenth century. If all the farms, farming lands, and factories of the United States were wiped out of existence, the cost of this war would more than replace them. If all the personal and real property of half our nation were destroyed, or if an earthquake of incredible dimensions should shake down every house from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the waste would be less than that involved in this war. And an elemental catastrophe leaves behind it no costly legacy of hate; even the financial troubles are not ended with the treaty of peace. The credit of Europe is gone for one does not know how long. Before the war, it is said, there were $200,000,000,000 in bonds and stocks in circulation in Europe. Much of this has been sold for whatever it would bring. Some of the rest is worth its face value Some of it is worth nothing. In the final adjustment who can know whether he is a banker or a beggar?

The American Ambassador was quite within bounds when he said: "There isn't so much money in the world; you can't even think it!"

Or we may calculate (with Dr. Edward T. Devine) in a totally different way. The cost of this war would have covered every moral social, economic and sanitary reform ever asked for in the civilized world, in so far as money properly expended can compass such results. It could eliminate infectious disease, feeble-mindedness, the slums and the centers of vice. It could provide adequate housing, continuity of labor, insurance against accident; in other words it could abolish almost every kind of suffering due to outside influences and not inherent in the character of the person concerned.

A Russian writer, quoted by Dr. John H. Finley, puts this idea in a different form:

'Our most awful enemies, the elements and germs and insect destroyers, attack us every minute without cease, yet we murder one another as if we were out of our senses. Death is ever on the watch for us, and we think of nothing but to snatch a few patches of land! About 5,000,000,000 days of work go every year to the displacement of boundary lines. Think of what humanity could obtain if that prodigious effort were devoted to fighting our real enemies, the noxious species and our hostile environment. We should conquer them in a few years. The entire globe would turn into a model farm. Every plant would grow for our use. The savage animals would disappear, and the infinitely tiny animals would be reduced to impotence by hygiene and cleanliness. The earth would be conducted according to our convenience. In short, the day men realize who their worst enemies are, they will form an alliance against them, they will cease to murder one another like wild beasts from sheer folly. Then they will be the true rulers of the planet, the lords of creation.'

Says Robert L. Duffus:

'Money spent in warfare is not like spending money in other industries. It will bring far more beastliness, far more injustice, far more tyranny, far more danger to all that is honorable, generous and noble in the world, far more grief and rage than money spent in any other way. Not one per cent. of the amount devoted to these purposes, is, for the end aimed at, wasted.'

It is said that the main cause of the war lay in the envy of German commerce by British rivals. This is assuredly not true. But if it were, let us look at the business side of it. Taking the net profits of over-seas trade as stated two years ago by the Hamburg-American Company, the strongest in the world, and estimating the rest, we have something like this:

During the "Dry War" the net earnings of the German Mercantile fleet was about one third the cost of the navy supposed to protect it. It would take seventy years of trade, on the scale of the last year before the war, to repay Germany's expenses for a year of war. To make good all the losses of Europe would require more than one hundred years of the over-seas trading profits of all the world. War is therefore death to trade, as it is to every other agency of civilization.

At the beginning of the war the value of stocks and bonds in circulation in Europe amounted to about $200,000,000,000. What is the present value of all these certificates of ownership? What is the present value of any particular industrial plant or commercial venture?