Every expenditure on weapons is theft
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
Full quote:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road. the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
- Source : "The Chance for Peace", Address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors
- Publication date : April 16, 1953
- Topics : Ethics , War , Military spending
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Commentary :
The full speech can be listened to HERE.
Eisenhower had the merit of delivering this famous speech at the very start of his first presidential term.
The quote is also used in the Brundtland Report on sustainable development, to emphasize that wars destroy the environment (air, land, water) and all development.
Source: UN World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987.
EISENHOWER Dwight D.
llustrious American general, renowned in particular for organizing the landing of American forces in support of the Allies during World War 2, while becoming fiercely opposed to all wars.
