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a national economic necessity. Then in good time defense calls forthe seizure of some neighbor's territory or of some remote strategicisland or the rectification of frontiers for military purposes. Theraw materials of war must be accumulated and these perhaps arefound in the hands of weaker small peoples with whom quarrels arequickly brewed. National pride, the dignity of the race, patriotism—all these well-known and well-exploited emotions are played on.And of course, as the apprehensions of the people grow, the armygrows with them, and so, too, the unbalanced budget—acclaimedby the most energetic conservative enemies of big budgets.These policies, of course, could not be developed in Italy withoutthe aid of the purple people, the inflammable spirits who love adventureand the dangerous life, who swell to ecstasy when the wardrums roll but whose zeal for high emprise would be unavailing ifharder and more cynical motives did not inspire the realists inpower.Many explanations of this phenomenon have been offered. In Germechanicmultitude that stayed at home should not go without their share of the publicsalaries, and yet should not have them given them for sitting still and doing nothing, tothat end, he thought fit to bring in among them, with the approbation of the people, thesevast projects of public buildings and designs of works, that would be of some continuancebefore they were finished, and would give employment to numerous arts, so that the partof the people that stayed at home might, no less than those that were at sea or in garrisonsor on expeditions, have a fair and just occasion of receiving the benefit and having theirshare of the public moneys."Plutarch then enumerates the trades that were aided by this: "The materials were stone,brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress-wood; and the arts of trades that wrought and fashionedthem were smiths and carpenters, moulders, founders and braziers, stone-cutters, dyers,goldsmiths, ivory-workers, painters, embroiderers, turners; those again that conveyed themto the town for use, merchants and mariners and ship-masters by sea and by land, cartwrights,cattle-breeders, wagoners, rope-makers, flax-workers, shoemakers and leatherdressers, road makers, miners. . . . Thus to say all in a word, the occasions and services ofthese public works distributed plenty through every age and condition."Here was an authentic PWA four hundred years before Christ. But this would not becomplete if we did not name the source whence these moneys came. The Delian League,composed of the Greek cities opposed to Sparta, had created a fund to be preserved for usein the event of the inevitable war against Sparta and Corinth. This fund consisted of yearlycontributions of coin by all these cities. Athens was entrusted, as leader of the League,with the custody of this great and ever-growing treasure which was kept on the Isle ofDelos. It was this fund, and not taxation, to which Pericles turned to finance his publicworks and other government spending activities. And so we understand when Plutarch says:"This [the public works program] was of all his actions in the government which hisenemies most looked askance on and cavilled at in the popular assemblies, crying out howthat the Commonwealth of Athens had lost its reputation and was ill-spoken of abroad forremoving the common treasure of the Greeks from the Isle of Delos into their own custody."21