"_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.... 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._" * * * * * During periods of peace, there tends to be established an equilibrium of supply and demand between our developed industries and our undeveloped resources. Consequently, when war comes and stimulates enormously all our developed industries--arts, sciences, and manufactures--a correspondingly greater demand is placed upon our natural resources, and their development is proportionately increased. The result is that the nation as a whole is not impoverished in the least by the burden of armaments, but is rather benefited by their support. Also, a nation may likewise be economically benefited by actual war, so long as it has such resources, number of population, industrial arts and sciences, and naval and military equipment as to prevent subjugation and the humiliation and degradation of being forced to pay ransom or tribute in the shape of a large war indemnity to a foreign Power. The fact that a war indemnity takes gold out of the country, and gives it to another people, makes the indemnity a national calamity. But when money is spent within the country, as it is for armaments, the condition is entirely different. The following excerpt from "The Valor of Ignorance," by General Homer Lea, admirably presents this: * * * * * "_Budgets are but the sums total of the symbols of wealth. Whether they are great or small, the wealth of the nation varies not one potato. An individual measures his wealth by coinage, but a nation only by that which coinage represents._ "_As a man squanders his money, he becomes impoverished; but it is only when the resources and means of producing that which money represents are destroyed or diminished that the wealth of a nation is lessened. The armament of a nation, instead of being indicative of its impoverishment, is rather an indication of its capacity._" * * * * *