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when the war ends; and the companion institution—labor camps—to train youth in military and industrial activities—is a part of thesame purpose. The National Resources Planning Board in one of itsofficial pamphlets, sent out from the executive office of the President,estimated an expenditure of five billions a year on defense when thenation returns to peace. This will be plus the nine billions for intereston the war loans.The great and glamorous industry is here—the industry of militarism.And when the war is ended the country is going to be askedif it seriously wishes to demobilize an industry that can employ somany men, create so much national income when the nation is facedwith the probability of vast unemployment in industry. All the wellknownarguments, used so long and so successfully in Europe, inGermany, in Italy, and in France, will be dusted off—America withher high purposes of world regeneration must have the power toback up her magnificent ideals; America cannot afford to grow soft,and the Army and the Navy must be continued on a vast scale totoughen the moral and physical sinews of our youth; America darenot live in a world of gangsters and aggressors without keeping herfull power mustered; America can find a moral equivalent for warin a great peacetime army which will primarily train our youth forlife and health with adequate military training thrown in, and aboveand below and all around these sentiments will be the sinister allurementof the perpetuation of the great industry which can never knowa depression because it will have but one customer—the Americangovernment to whose pocket there is no bottom.Let no one soothe himself, therefore, with the assurance that wein America, having gone in for spending and autarchy, will not addthe third fascist or national socialist ingredient to our society—militarism.V · American ImperialismEMBARKED, as we seem to be, upon a career of militarism, we shall,like every other country, have to find the means when the war ends212