PERILS. — WEALTH. 1G5 



than one-half the actual cost; for these 3,000,000 men 

 and more are withdrawn from industrial pm-suits in the 

 flower of their youth. If the time of privates is worth 

 seventy-five cents a day, and that of officers two dollars, 

 the value of labor annually lost to Europe by her stand- 

 ing armies is $758,978,000. In 1889 we expended on our 

 army and navy $65,000,000; and, reckoning the time of 

 the private soldier here worth a dollar and a half a day, 

 and that of the officer Avorth four dollars, the value of 

 the labor lost by our army in 1889 was only $16,000,000. 

 That is, in competing with Europe for wealth, our loca- 

 tion is worth to us about $1,576,000,000 a year.i The 

 editor of the London Spectator says: '^ " Observers in the 

 Old World cannot help admiring or envj'ing the Ameri- 

 can Treasury, ..... which does not know what to do 

 with its wealth .... and which declares that its_ sav- 

 ings are so vast as to impede and endanger all commer- 

 cial business. . . . Much credit is due to the American 

 Constitution, if only because the people worship it after 

 a century's experience ; but this prosperity of the Treas- 

 ury is not due to it, but to a situation on this planet 

 icnpar allele d at once in its exemption from danger and 

 in the natural wealth it places at the disposal of an 

 industrious people.'' In 1880 our wealth was 23.93 per 

 cent, of the wealth of all Europe ; our earnings were 28. - 

 01 per cent, of those of Europe; and our increase of 

 wealth was 49.28 per cent, of European increase. From 

 1870 to 1880 there was a decrease of wealth per caput, in 

 Europe, of nearly 3 per cent., while here there was an 

 increase of 39 per cent. If existing conditions con- 

 tinue, the time will undoubtedly come when the people 

 of the United States will possess more wealth than all 

 the nations of Europe. Our riches, together with 

 the power, the problems and dangers which attend 



* It is said our pensions cost us as much as a large standing army. This 

 is true, but our pension appi-opriations in 1890 ($109,000,000), the largest ever 

 made up to date, were not one-half as large as those made by Europe 

 annually. 



2 The Spectator, December 7. l'^S9. Quoted in Our Race. p. Vl\. 



