The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 3, 1918, Page 10

_ Billions in Money A OurArmy Takes |_ READY TO WARN OF A RAID . | Another Letter From E. B. Fussell on the Marvels of America’s Military Preparations Training Sc¢hool, Ordnance Field Service, University of California, Berkeley, Cal. EFORE I got into the army, two things used to trouble me sometimes. I wondered why the gov- ernment needed so much money to run the army, and why it took so mmuch time to train soldiers for action. It looks simple enough to take a gun, put it into a man’s hands, call him a soldier and tell him to shoot. And it looks as if it wouldn’t cost much, either, at a “salary” of $30 per month. But calling a man a soldier doesn’t make him one. There are thousands of things a soldier has Soldiers Ask That Firesof Democracy Be Kept Burning at Home While They Are Gone ' 12 weeks preliminary ground course and then go to an aviatibn camp somewhere for actual work with machines that cost $5,000 apiece. Only those that pass the most rigid kinds of tests, mental and physical, are accepted; this means there is a considerable amount of waste work. I have heard it said that it costs the government $5,000 to train each aviator, as compared with $500 for an ordnance man, and I can well believe .it. : Now stop and consider that there are in round numbers, 2,090,000 men in training now. Multiply 2,000,000 by the $500 or so that it takes to train an average soldier BEFORE HE IS READY TO DO ANYTHING IN THE FIGHTING LINE, and you have some idea / to do besides shoot, in fact it is doubtful if he is likely to be actually engaged in shooting one-thou- sandth of the time he is in the army, even under campaign conditions. And every one of the other thousands of things that the soldier must do, or that must be done for him, cost money. Just take my own case. Fifty others and my- self are being trained here at Berkeley for ord- nance work, that is, supplying the fighting equip- ment to the actual fighters. There are half a dozen other schools in the country, all turning out men. COSTS $500 AT THE START Now the ordnance training is comparatively simple, very simple indeed, as compared with the training that an aviator gets, or an artilleryman. No expensive equipment is involved, like aeroplanes or big guns that cost $10,000 each time they are fired. I was counting up the other day what Uncle Sam was spending on each of us, during our 12 weeks’ .training course. First I put down $100 as the cost of personal equipment which each of us gets. That, I understand, will cover a rifle and field equip- ment such as meat, bacon and condiment can, first aid outfit, etc., which goes with the soldier, as well as a couple of suits of clothing, hat, underwear and shoes and blankets. Next take the item of transportation. Uncle Sam shipped me from St. Paul to Jefferson Bar- racks, near St. Louis, to be outfitted, then to Cali- fornia to take the first part of my course, at the state university. He will ship me to some arsenal for the second part of my course. 'Altogether the cost of transportation for me will be about $150, 1 figure. - The Campanile, ‘or bell tower, at the University of California. A service flag of the university is being unrolled. It shows 2,200 students and grad- uates in service. Aviators in training at the ground school are grouped at the foot of the tower. Next take the cost of instruction. There are three army instructors detailed for the 50 men here, beside the instructors that the university provides, out of its regular staff, as the university contri- bution to the war. At the arsenal there are more instructors for each 50 men than there are here. Figuring the salary and expenses allowed the of- ficers, the instruction supplies furnished by the government, and so forth, I suppose that it will cost nearly $100 for each student before the course is completed. That brings the total cost per sol- dier up to $350. > And then take the item of pay of the soldier, which really is a minor matter. Each man begins drawing pay from the moment he is enlisted, in my case 12 days be- fore my instruction started. At the rate of $30 a month I will have drawn $100 before I finish my course, which brings the total up to $450. Add to that the cost of rations for the sol- dier at 30 cents-a day taking the university course, 40 cents a day ~ while he is at an ar- senal and as much as $1.50 & day when he is traveling, and you have a total cost of $500 for BEFORE HE HAS STARTED., HIS AC- TUAL WORK AS A SOLDIER! And that doesn’t count the cost of maintaining barracks for him to sleep in, giv- ~ing him medical at- - tention and a thousand ‘.~ and one other things that might be. : AVIATORS AT - $5,000 EACH - i This American, now in the first line trenches on the French front, is ready to . - But hold on. Ord- i fire the signal rocket to warn the waiting American troops that a German at- | tack has begun. This picture, one of the first to come over of our boys on the I~ actual fighting front, was taken at the Lorraine sector. The United States gov- . | ernment sent us this photograph, and it will send one to you if you will clip this - out and send it to the Bureau of Public Information, Wash-: . LG ; ington, D. C., with 10 cents. . BSSe -nance training is com- paratively simple. There are a couple of hundred or so aviators training here ' at the university. They . get . -PAGE TEN. : i when he is on furlough _“-each ordnance man in_ ...preliminary instruction- of how expensive war is. Then figure that the ex- pense of providing ammunition, barracks, aero- ‘planes, artillery, ships and food must all be added to the individual cost per soldier and you will have some idea of why it is necessary to raise billions upon billions by the sale of Liberty bonds and War Savings stamps to back up the fighting men. And figure, too, on what the men who are in the army are giving. I spoke before of our getting 30 cents a day while here for ration money. Of course, that doesn’t begin to cover our living ex- penses and with what we -pay extra for food and ‘ledging, text books, and so forth, the course here will cost each ordnance man $100 out of his own pocket. 3 A CLEANUP WHEN THE BOYS COME HOME Of course that isn’t the main thing that the men are giving. I don’t believe there is a man in the course, excepting a few college students who haven’t been on the payroll yet, who wasn’t mak- ing, before he entered the army, more per week than the army pays him per month. And the pay of some men amounted to 10 times what they are ° getting, as buck privates in the rear rank, at present. These men are giving up more than the pay they are losing, too. They are giving up chances of advancement in their chosen profession. We hope that there won’t be many casualties, but we know, too, that there will be a lot. These men have a right, they think, to expect some things of the people at home. One is that they be supported loyally with the money that is necessary to win the war—the money and the food. And another right is that advantage be not taken of their absence. Profiteers will be tak- ing advantage of the war to win riches at the expense of the fighters, profits that the soldiers will have to pay, in the form of war taxes, when they come back. But I have before me, as I write this, a letter from a friend in France who went over with one of the first detachments. Probably he is some- where in the fighting line as I read his letter, though when he wrote it he was, he said, boring !mles. putting bolts through the holes and screw- ing nuts on the ends of the bolts, and saw number- less more holes waiting to be bored. And this is what my friend writes me: : _“Over here the boys are talking a lot about what will happen after the war is over. They wonder what is to be done to compensate them for the gacnficgs they have made, or think they have made, in coming over. They are talking a lot about getting free land, about the government taking it away from landlords who are holding it idle, They . gre talking ahout gding into' politics to get thefr. -And then-my friend goes on to tell me that HE - HAS HEARD ABOUT THE FIGHT THAT THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE IS MAKING FOR DE- MOCRACY AT HOME AS WELL AS DEMOC- RACY ABROAD. He heard about it from a Mon- tana man in the same regiment, and he writes me u; %fit i%l!(ll%lfacvi\;?s’ tohlearn what plan the farmers o e Middle West have for political rec - tion 'after the war. i qnstmc_ And that, it seems to me, is some indication of the need for some action of this kind, both to back up the nation in the fight and to see that no skulk- ing profiteers take advantage of the absent - fighters. : ‘For there aré still profitcers abroad, - Maybe - some time later I will be able to tell something of * Iny own experiences in that line. Meanwhile, hop- - ing that you keep up the good fight at home; I am Yours very truly, , 2 { S G— E. B. FUSSELL, b 3 3 o { \ Y AR 3 P i R AF 7 y w”“l‘flf;v—” 'fi""?"j‘ T » ¢ ! []