Image by Sandip Karangiya.
In his award-winning book about World War I, the historian Paul Fussell began The Great War and Modern Memory with the words: “Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected.”
He was all too correct. During four years of bloodshed, 1914 to 1918, at least 8.5 million combatants were killed, many more were wounded, and close to 10 million non-combatants perished. In terms of economic expenditure, the war cost between $185 billion and $200 billion, roughly equivalent to $6 trillion today.
World War II was even more devastating in terms of lost lives and economic costs, with the economic loss alone running between $4 trillion and $5 trillion in 1940 dollars. Today that would be somewhere around $104 trillion. The Vietnam War cost approximately $168 billion (in today’s dollars, $1 trillion). The Gulf War of 1990-91, though brief, ended up devouring approximately $600 billion, and the Iraq-Afghanistan Wars around $8 trillion. The cost of the current conflict in Iran is expected to exceed $1 trillion.
The Iran war raises a fundamental question peace advocates have been asking since the conclusion of World War I: shouldn’t the wealth of nations be spent improving the lives of their citizens instead of wasting it on war? What if the money allocated for military purposes was used, instead, to make college more accessible, fund health care for all, ameliorate world hunger, fund disease prevention programs, and expand education programs for all children? The costs for this present conflict are already being borne out in terms of high energy costs and rising food prices directly impacting the lives of the less fortunate in our society.
Curiously, this question was conveyed in a popular bubble gum trading card marketed shortly before the advent of World War II. That card, “The Frightful Cost of War,” resonates just as loudly today as it did 88 years ago.
Historically, the card’s origin dates back to July 1937. While listening to radio broadcasts and reading press accounts about Japan’s unprovoked military invasion of the Chinese mainland, Warren Bowman, a Philadelphia gum manufacturer, commissioned an advertising company from nearby Abington, Pennsylvania, to create a series of collector cards depicting the brutality of war. All depictions and descriptions created were based on current radio reports and newspaper stories. Each piece of gum contained in a wrapper, which sold for a penny, also included a card. On the back of each card was printed the caption: “To Know the HORRORS OF WAR is to want PEACE.”
“The Horrors of War” collection became an instant financial success, producing some 100 million cards and netting the company over $40,000 a week. Indeed, the collection remains the most popular non-sports card set ever manufactured. A portion of the cards covered the Spanish Civil War, Mussolini’s incursion in Ethiopia, and―a very small number―Hitler’s threats to peace in Central Europe. The initial set consisted of 240 cards. Another 48 were added later. These cards contained crisp depictions with colored artwork―illustrating and describing the various military conflicts and bombings of civilians then taking place—on the front of each 2.5”x 3” rectangular card. Eye-popping drawings and chilling narratives appeared on the back.
Nearly one-third of the set focused on the impact of war on innocent civilians. In an effort to influence the mind-set of pre-adolescent purchasers, many of these cards depicted young children and babies being killed. This novel cultural approach led some critics to charge that the cards exaggerated combat scenes and ruthless killings of noncombatants by using red ink for maximum effect, thus appearing to instrumentalize war in the minds of children rather than rejecting it. Mothers and many schoolteachers questioned the effectiveness of the set as an educational lesson due to its graphic nature.
Yet most commentators agreed about the set’s lesson for children, as well as for adults, when it came to one very special card. By design, when the trading cards hit the market in the spring of 1938, the very last one in the initial set encapsulated the true message of the “Horrors of War.” That card, “The Frightful Cost of War,” is cast in a setting where children’s eyes are directed to gaze upon a blood-red setting sun surrounded by an atmosphere of smoke and fire from a destroyed farm, a cemetery filled with white crosses, fleeing wounded soldiers walking or being carried on a stretcher, amputees in a wheelchair and crutches, and what appear to be scavengers, soaring overhead. In the middle is the Grim Reaper on a white horse wielding his scythe. Frightening, yes indeed! But it also effectively challenged the popular idea that war is glorious, by illustrating the losses it entails.
This message was powerfully conveyed in the narrative on the back of the card. “War costs money…billions of dollars!” it declared. “War takes human lives…millions of them! War makes children old, breaks parents’ hearts, kills morale! War destroys cities, art treasure, civilization.”
Unfortunately, the set soon fell victim to the very evil it sought to eradicate. Less than a year after the complete set was produced, another global conflagration was underway―the most destructive war in human history. In this context, the message of the bubble gun card was quickly forgotten.
That message is needed now. When it comes to yet another unpopular war in the Middle East, “The Frightful Cost of War” remains as powerful today as it was when it first appeared on the doorstep of World War II. Now is the time for people and nations to learn its lesson and not forget it.
