lion dollar plant, which had sustained only $5,000 loss by fire, the insurance company would charge one-half of one per cent, and in the case of the plant which had never suffered a fire would charge nothing.

In actual practice an owner figures the amount he should carry, and an insurance company figures the rate to be charged, not on what damage may have been done to that particular property in the past, but on what damage may be done in the future. That is estimated, in one case, by taking the total value of the plant, and in the other, by the experience of similar plants with that kind of loss. Therefore, in figuring what our war losses may be and how much we must regard as our principal sum of insurance, we should not average our past losses, but should take into consideration what other nations have lost through war. In doing so, we see that many of them have lost the nation itself, as such, and all that goes therewith. Poland, for instance, certainly lost much through war. The Aztec and North American Indians lost their all through conquest. Spain and France lost their American territory. Mexico lost California, Texas, and other territory through its war with the United States, and almost lost its entire existence, as a nation, in the time of our Civil War. Spain lost Cuba, the PhilipTurkey lost Tripoli. France

pines, and Porto Rico.

lost Alsace-Lorraine. Russia lost its hold on Korea.

China has been continually a prey to partition by the great and more powerful military states; and, finally, England lost all that the United States represented at the time of the War of the Revolution. So could an indefinite list be compiled of nations which have become entirely extinct as such, or where they have lost priceless portions of their possessions through conquest both in ancient and modern times.

To estimate our probable future war losses at $200,000,000 annually is absurd. In fact, it is absurd to attempt to place any estimate thereon. Rather must we be prepared to defend ourselves, or to lose any portion, or all, of our wealth. We must, moreover, include our right to control our internal affairs, such as what immigrants shall and shall not be admitted, on what terms they shall come here and hold land, and other matters of vital concern to our citizens, including the entire foreign policy of the United States. The very fact that England lost, through war, that which has grown into all the wealth of the United States today, shows that we might lose at least our entire national wealth if we could not defend it. Thus it is that General Chittenden's method of estimating our probable losses is entirely erroneous, and could not be maintained for an instant before any body of business men.

Comparing the amount spent for insurance

against war with other kinds of insurance, we find that for fire insurance alone the people of the United States pay $406,336,104 per year, or $161,336,104 more than the combined cost of the army, the navy, and the National Guard. This sum, moreover, is not for insurance against fire, but for insurance against loss by fire, and it does not even fully accomplish the latter end.

To reach a correct estimate of what we spend for insurance, against loss by fire and against fire itself, we must add to the four hundred and six and one-third million dollars spent as premiums for insurance the seventy-five million dollars expended in various forms on fire departments as an insurance against fire itself. Thus we find that in insuring only such portion of our wealth as is destructible by fire, we expend over twice as much as to insure the entire wealth of our nation against war.

For insurance against loss by burglary, the nation expends $2,850,000 annually; for insurance against crime in the form of municipal, county, and state police we expend $110,000,000 annually; making a total of $112,850,000 expended for premiums on crime insurance alone. Hence, a total annual amount on fire and crime insurance combined is $594,186,104, or about 350 million more than for all our military forces. Considering these figures we may conclude that our military expenditures are by no means greater than the probable loss by a

war; that they are small compared with the amounts spent for fire and crime insurance, and that the insurance rate is low, compared with that for other kinds of insurance in effect in the business world (Plate 1).

Again, military force can show that for the amounts expended in premiums much return has been given, for under its "Paid to policy holders column may be placed the birth of the original thirteen colonies as a nation, the saving of that nation in 1812, the accession of Texas and California and adjacent territory in the forties, the retention of almost one-half of our territory in the sixties, the freedom of the negro, the accession of Porto Rico, the freedom of Cuba, etc. Again we have items of infinite value upon which we will attempt to place no price. Who can accurately value these things?

It will be charged that error has been made in figuring the cost of our military force at its present peace strength, and failing to consider the times, notably during the Civil War, when our military establishment's cost increased manifoldly. It should be remembered, however, and will later be proved, that the cost of our wars were due to lack of military force, and not to their existence. It was lack of trained military force on the northern side which permitted the first southern success at Bull Run, thereby compelling the North to stand idle while the South continued its preparations in a manner which