Part 21 (1/2)

That amounts to a billion dollars in ten years. It is five billion dollars in fifty years. And we may be certain that five billion dollars will be spent, and probably much more, in the next fifty years on a standing army.

When that has been spent it is absolutely gone, just as much as though it had been invested in fire crackers and they had all been set off and there was nothing left, not even noise.

It is not contended that this country should spend _less_ than $100,000,000 a year on its army, _but it is contended that it should not spend more_.

And for what it does spend it should get larger results. $100,000,000 a year ought to be enough to maintain an army enlisted to the full strength of 100,000 men to which the army is now limited by Act of Congress. In addition it should support the necessary organization and training schools to furnish all the officers required for the National Construction Reserve and for the National Homecroft Reserve. The officers of the Homecroft Reserve should be permanently located as residents of the community where their regiment is established.

The officers for the National Construction Reserve should be attached to the Regular Army except when detailed for the work of training those reserves during the period set apart for that work each year. At least one-half of the rank and file of a regular force of 100,000 men in the Standing Army should be composed of men trained for service as officers in the National Construction Reserve, and available for instant transformation into such officers. The training of those officers should be one of the most important functions of the Regular Army. The Army should forthwith take up that work and cease any further connection with the civil work of internal improvements.

_If the Standing Army of the United States were increased to an actually enlisted strength of 200,000 men as is now being urged, it would mean the addition of another $100,000,000 a year to the military burdens of the people of the United States, and we would still be without any adequate national defense in case of war with a first-cla.s.s power._

Now compare the plan for a Homecroft Reserve and its results, from the financial point of view, with this proposition to increase the Regular Army to a total strength of 200,000 men.

The annual cost of an increase of 100,000 men in the Regular Army would be $100,000,000 a year; or $5,000,000,000 in fifty years. Every dollar of that huge sum would be drawn from the people by taxation. When spent it would be gone, leaving nothing to show for its expenditure. The economic value of the labor of 100,000 men would be wasted. That would be another $5,000,000,000 in fifty years, estimating the potential labor value of each man at $1000 a year. That makes the stupendous total economic loss and waste of money and human labor of ten billion dollars in fifty years,--an amount ten times as large as the whole national debt of the United States,--an amount as large as the combined national debts of Great Britain and France, which an eminent authority has said are so large that they never can be paid.

_Measure up against that proposition the Homecroft Reserve plan and compare results:_

Every $1000 of capital invested in the establishment of the Homecroft Reserve will reclaim and fully equip an acre Homecroft with a Reservist and his family on it. There is no reason why the capital necessary for that should be provided from current revenues. In fact it should not be so provided, because it would be invested in property to be perpetually owned by the national government, from which future generations will derive an enormous annual revenue.

A fixed average valuation of one thousand dollars for each Homecroft would be more than enough to cover the cost of reclamation, preparation for occupancy, building roads, houses, and outbuildings, water systems, sanitation, inst.i.tutes for instruction, schools, libraries,--in fact everything needed to be done to make each Homecroft ready for occupancy as a productive acre garden home, with a complete community organization. It would also cover the cost of the original military equipment of the Reservist who would occupy the Homecroft.

Each Reservist would pay for the use of the Homecroft and for educational instruction for himself and family, a net annual rental of $120, being twelve per cent on the fixed capitalized value of $1000 placed on each Homecroft. Of that rental of twelve per cent, four per cent would be apportioned to interest, and two per cent to create a sinking fund that would cover the entire princ.i.p.al in fifty years. The remaining six per cent would cover expenses of operation and maintenance, instruction, and all other expenses connected with the Homecroft Reserve Establishment, including military expenditures. The government would be under no expense whatsoever for the maintenance of this Homecroft Reserve Establishment that would have to be borne out of the general revenues, not even for field maneuvers. There would be no expenses of railway transportation to those maneuvers. Every regiment would march to and from its annual encampment.

One hundred and twenty dollars a year would be the revenue to the government from one Homecroft. After that it becomes merely a question of multiplying units. The revenue from 5,000,000 Homecrofts would be $600,000,000 a year. As fast as the capital was needed for investment in the creation and establishment of Homecroft Reserve Rural Settlements, it could be easily secured by the government. A plan that would insure this would be the adoption of a financial system to cover this branch of the operations of the Government which would be modeled after the French Rentes System. Instead of Government Bonds, as they are now called, Government Homecroft Certificates would be issued, bearing four per cent interest, in denominations of twenty-five dollars. The interest on each certificate would be one dollar a year. If such certificates were available, the purse strings of the people would be opened to take them as readily as those of the French people were opened to take the securities issued by the French Government to pay the war debt of a billion dollars to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War.

$500,000,000 a year of these certificates could be issued every year for ten years. That would complete the work of creating the entire Homecroft Reserve Establishment and provide the capital of $5,000,000,000 necessary for investment therein.

Starting from that point, in fifty years thereafter the entire investment of $5,000,000,000 would have been repaid with all current interest, and the government would own the 5,000,000 Homecrofts free and clear of all indebtedness or financial obligations relating thereto.

Now put the two propositions side by side and look at them.

An increase of 100,000 men in the Standing Army would mean in fifty years:

1. An expense of $5,000,000,000 for maintenance.

2. An economic waste of another $5,000,000,000, being the potential labor value of the 100,000 men who would be withdrawn from industry.

The Homecroft Reserve Establishment would provide a military force of 5,000,000 men instead of 100,000.

It would provide for the maintenance of this immense force during the fifty years without any ultimate cost to the government.

It would create and vest in the government in perpetual owners.h.i.+p property consisting of 5,000,000 acre Homecrofts worth $1000 apiece,--a total property value of $5,000,000,000 which would be acquired by the Government, and fully paid for from the Rental Revenues from the property during the fifty year period.

It would thereafter provide from those Rental Revenues an annual income to the government of six per cent on $5,000,000,000 amounting to $300,000,000 a year.

The potential labor value of the 100,000 men in each Homecroft Reserve Corps would be saved and transformed into an actual productive value of the $1000 which each would annually produce from his Homecroft. The productive labor value of each Corps of 100,000 Homecroft Reservists therefore would amount to $5,000,000 in fifty years. That is the same amount that would represent the economic waste during that same period, of the potential labor value of the additional force of 100,000 men which it is now proposed shall be added to the regular army.

The economic value of the productive labor of the entire Homecroft Reserve of 5,000,000 men in the fifty years would be fifty times $5,000,000,000.

And in order to save the enormous expense and waste that would result from increasing the standing army, and, in addition, to achieve the stupendous benefits that would result from the establishment of the Homecroft Reserve, it is only necessary that the same common sense business methods and principles should be applied to the operations of the government that any large corporation would adopt if it had the financial resources, of the United States.

_Why should anyone be staggered at the proposition for the establishment of the Homecroft Reserve, or balk at it because it is big?_