ONE ITEM ALONE IN THIS COST OF MILITARISM IS ALMOST FOUR BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR. That single item is the wealth that is _not_ produced, but _could be produced_ if the six million five hundred thousand strong, carefully selected young men in the standing armies of these twenty-one countries _were_ engaged in producing wealth with _modern_ tools, _modern_ machinery, and _modern_ knowledge of production. It is to be noted that in this estimate all of South America, China and other large parts of the world are not included. Eight Billion Dollars—$8,000,000,000. Men and women shudder when the telegraph flashes over the world that a city has suffered a ten-million or a twenty-million dollar fire. Let us try to get an idea of the cost of wealth-wasting militarism by expressing it in terms of loss by the devourer, fire. $8,000,000,000—Eight Billion Dollars. This sum, this expense of bull-dog-and-tiger statesmanship, of militarism, in twenty-one “highly civilized” countries—for twelve months in times of peace—is equivalent to a continuous loss by fire, throughout the year, day and night, of more than $913,000 an hour; or, about $15,219 per minute. This sum, worse than wasted annually to be “prepared”—to slaughter—is equal to a loss by fire, burning day and night throughout the year, devouring seven homes per minute, each home worth $1,700 and each home containing also $475 worth of furniture. The average working class family contains about six members—two parents and four children; and the average working class family would consider itself in good fortune to have a home worth $1,700 and provided with $475 worth of furniture. Seven such homes would contain forty-two members. Now imagine an unbroken stream of people—men, women, and little children, frightened, pale, shuddering, the children screaming, the women in tears—fleeing past you through the street, driven by fire from their ruined homes, forty-two people rushing by you every minute, day and night, year after year, on and on, an endless stream of humbled and saddened souls, plunged in misery, their happiness swallowed by pitiless fire; or, Imagine a fire _rushing_ faster than a strong man at a brisk walk—imagine a fire rushing forward more than _eight miles an hour, consuming fifty such homes per mile_, making each year _thirty-six round trips_, burning going and coming, from New York City to St. Louis, Missouri; or one such round trip every ten days—imagine these losses, these annual losses—and you will perhaps have some idea of what it costs these twenty-one countries to brag and strut and piously prepare to settle their disputes as tigers settle theirs—by force. It is as if the fiends of hell were crazed and loose on the earth. And this is statesmanship!