Demobilization (Volume 6); Our Industrial and Military Demobilization After the Armistice, 1918-1920 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1921 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIX THE BALANCE SHEET HAT did the war cost America? It may be that an accurate answer to that question will never be given. Certainly it cannot be given now, when the stocks of surplus materials are still being sold and the final settlements of the more difficult claims are still being made. Still, we can arrive at a fair approximation of what the war cost the War Department alone. In doing so we must deal with billions of dollars in our columns, and therefore errors and differences of a few millions, or even of a few hundred millions, have no important effect upon the totals. Even if all costs and credits could be figured out to the penny, the result would not be much unlike the estimates which follow. As a starting point we can take the appropriations for the Army made by Congress, since all the war costs of the War Department must be included within those appropriations. And we find that for the Army Congress appropriated in all, for every war purpose, the sum of $24,373,274,223.67. But not all these appropriations were expended. Some were made late in the war, and none of the money authorized by these acts to be spent was even obligated before the armistice terminated all proposed new projects. Congress hastened to repeal the untouched appropriations, and the various repeal acts canceled authorizations to the amount of $7,703,448,569.36. Therefore, the net amount made available to the War Department by the war appropriations was $16,669,825,654.31. This figure still does not represent the gross war cost of maintaining the War Department, but it is close to it. Since final expenditures and reimbursements have not yet been determined, but are still growing, as claims are paid and surplus property is sold, it is necessary that we accept a date some...