THOSE WAR DEBTS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 58, 9 March 1928, Page 9

THOSE WAR DEBTS

AMERICA'S HONOUR CHAMPION FOR PEABODY (From ''The Post's" Representative,) ..■■' . : NEW YORK, Bth February. The now famous letter of. Frederick W. Peabody to President Coolidge was adjudged the most devastating criticism which has yet appeared from any American source regarding the policy of the- United' States on British and . Allied war debt repayments. ' Now.comes a more devasfcing one, in the form of evidence volunteered to aid Mr. Peabody in his campaign for are- ! vision of the whole question of war debts. In a recent letter to the''New York Times," Mr. Peabody said: "We have hoard much about what our allies owe *us, but who has said anything about what we owe them?" An answer to the query came from an active colouelof the United States regular army. He says:—"l feel sure that you did express the sentiments of countless Americans to whom the dishonour of America is a personal dishonour, and who resent the actions of those "who are placing us in- the catagory of Shyloek. You ask very rightly what wo owo our allies. To this question I reply by submitting from memory a fow figures and data of what might justly'be-considered our debts " to our allies as follows:—. "Total time in war, 6tli April, 1917, to ; ] Ith November, 1918,. 10. months 5. days.;.- ' ,i ' . • .■■' '■■'■, EXPRESSED IN DOLLARS. "While- wo were represented in the fighting prior to I.7th September, 1918, . . in -several engagements, by units in \,.;Size;;froni..a regiment to a division, we did not take a man's part in the. fight- . .' ing until 12th Septembor, 1918, when •we, with allied assistance, took-the St. Michael Salient. ' "It therefore seems that we do ourselves full justice when we say that wn did a man's share of tho fighting tor the last three months of the war. JFor the sake of easy computation, however, 'let us say we took a fullpart in .. the fighting for, one-sixth of the full period of nineteen months,' five days, ■which is quite a bit more than we. can justly claim. , "Then for one-sixth of the war period our losses were approximately: Killed, 50,000; wounded, 210,000. Placing a value of 50,000 dollnrs on each young ' man wo lost, our life cost expressed in money, was two and a half billions of dollars. ' . "According to a roport of the Medical Department, U.S. Army, the cost to the Government of those wounded : during the samo period of our activity was, up to 30th June, 1925, just over three billions of dollars. So tho total ■ cost of killed and wounded was five ■ billion and a half dollars, disregarding the continuing cost of the wounded. N "Since the enemy was on the run during the greater part of the period ( ■ of our active participation in the. fighting, it is fair to assume that our lossoa : per month' were- less than they would have beeiv the first five-sixths of the time, and bdfore tho enemy had broken. To be conservative, however, let us assume that they would havo been the same. Then, our losses, in men killed, would have been three hundred thousand, and, in wounded, a million two . hundred thousand—or, expressed in money, thirty-three billions of dollars. The saving to us duo to our allies doing our fighting for five-sixths of pur war time is, therefore, twenty seven and a half billions of dollars. . h MONUMENTAL OBLIGATION. "Now doesn't it appear to you, as it does to me, to be a monstrous thing to demand the return of the advances made for our own benefit to our allies ■with more than a hundred per cent, additional we call interest, and to ignore our monumental obligation to them, for which they ask nothing? ■ "For obvious reasons tho name of my army correspondent cannot be disclosed, but I may give you tho name of another army officer, in calling your attention to what he thinks about these alleged debts. In a speech at Denver in August, 1924, the Commandor-in-CEief of the Amorican armies in Prance said: 'What was the situation in 1917? We had no plan, no preparation, no artitlery, no transportation, no ships; in fact, nothing. If it had not boon that the allies were able- to hold the lines iot fifteen months after we had entered the war, hold them with tho support of loans we made, tho war might well have been lost. We scarcely realise what those loans meant to them and to us. ■..'. We were responsible. We gave the'money knowing it would be used to hold the Boche until we could prepare. Fifteen months! Think of itl We sent our first men in June, and they were not ready to go into the front lines until the following year.'"