(#101) 18 July 2015, Vol.2, No.16 > PART II >
‘WAR IS A RACKET’!
The
POCAHONTAS CRIER
‘When the Righteous succeed the
people rejoice,
But when the bad govern, men groan!’
– Proverbs 29:2
PART II > ‘WAR IS A RACKET’!
In 1935, Marine Corp Major General
Smedley Butler wrote an historic book entitled ‘War Is A Racket’ in which he showed that wars only benefited WAR-MONGERS &
WAR-PROFITEERS and that they were rarely if ever beneficial to the general
public on either side. Here is a list of
his book’s content:
Contents:
Chapter 1: War Is A
Racket
Chapter 2: Who Makes
The Profits?
Chapter 3: Who Pays The
Bills?
Chapter 4: How To Smash
This Racket!
Chapter 5: To Hell With
War!
Background of Smedley
Darlington Butler:
• Born: West Chester, Pa.,
July 30, 1881
• Educated: Haverford School
• Married: Ethel C.
Peters, of Philadelphia,
June 30, 1905
• Awarded two
congressional medals of honor:
1. capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914
2. capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917
• Distinguished service
medal, 1919
• Major General -
United States Marine Corps
• Retired Oct. 1, 1931
• On leave of absence
to act as director of Dept. of Safety,
Philadelphia,
1932
• Lecturer— 1930's
• Republican Candidate
for Senate, 1932
• Died at Naval
Hospital, Philadelphia,
June 21, 1940
• For more information
about Major General Butler, contact the
United States
Marine Corps.
* CHAPTER ONE *
War Is A Racket
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the
oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the
losses in lives.
A racket is best
described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of
the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it
is about. It is conducted for the
benefit of the very few, at the
expense of the very many. Out of war a
few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a
mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and
billionaires were made in the United
States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in
their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax
returns no one knows.
How many of these war
millionaires shouldered a rifle? How
many of them dug a trench? How many of
them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless,
frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of
an enemy? How many of them were wounded
or killed in battle?
Out of war – nations
acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired
territory promptly is exploited by the few - the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in
the war. The general public shoulders
the bill.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a
horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones.
Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and
generations.
For a great many
years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I
retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that
I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it
and speak out.
Again they are choosing
sides. France
and Russia
met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar
agreement. Poland
and Germany
cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting
for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish
Corridor.
The assassination of
King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia]
complicated matters. Jugoslavia and
Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the
people - not those who fight and pay and die - only those who foment wars and
remain safely at home to profit.
There are 40,000,000 men
under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the
temerity to say that war is not in the making.
Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be
dancers?
Not in Italy,
to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what
they are being trained for. He, at least,
is frank enough to speak out. Only the
other day, II Duce in "International
Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, said:
"And above all. Fascism, the more it considers and
observes the future and the development of
humanity quite apart from political
considerations
of the moment, believes neither in the possibility
nor
the utility of perpetual peace. . . . War
alone brings up
to its highest tension all human energy and
puts the
stamp of nobility upon the people who have
the courage
to meet it."
Undoubtedly Mussolini
means exactly what he says. His
well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for
war – anxious for it, apparently. His
recent stand at the side of Hungary
in the latter' s dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on
the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe
too whose saber-rattling presages war, sooner or later.
Herr Hitler, with his
rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal
if not greater menace to peace. France only
recently increased the term of military service for
its youth from a year to eighteen months.
Yes, all over, nations
are camping in their arms. The mad dogs
of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in
1904, when Russia and Japan fought,
we kicked out our old
friends the Russians and backed Japan.
Then our very generous international
bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to
poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China
mean to us? Our trade with China is about
$90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in
thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have
private investments there of less than $200,000,000.
Then, to save that China trade of
about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than
$200,000,000 in the Philippines,
we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and
go
to war - a war that
might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives
of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and
mentally unbalanced men.
Of course, for this
loss, there would be a compensating profit - fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be
piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.
Yes, they are getting
ready for another war. Why shouldn't
they? It pays high dividends.
But what does it profit
the men who are killed? What does it
profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?
What does it profit
anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?
Yes, and what does it
profit the nation?
Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory
outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little
more than $1,000,000,000. Then we
became "internationally minded". We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the
Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances". We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a
direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had
jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the
twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we
ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been
ours without the wars.
It would have been far
cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay
out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other
underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always
transferred to the people – who do not profit.
* * CHAPTER
TWO * *
Who Makes The Profits?
The World War, rather
our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some $52,000,000,000.
Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man, woman,
and child. And we haven't paid the debt
yet. We are paying it, our children will
pay it, and our children's children probably still will be paying the cost of
that war.
The normal profits of a
business concern in the United
States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve
percent. But war-time profits – ah! that is another matter – twenty, sixty, one
hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the
limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.
Of course, it isn't put
that crudely in war time. It is dressed
into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel”, but the profits
jump and leap and skyrocket – and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few examples:
Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people –
didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder
won the war? Or saved the world for
democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for
the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to
get along on it. Now let's look at their
average yearly profit
during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight
million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly
ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were
pretty good. An
increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.
Take one of our little
steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and
girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged
$6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to
munitions making. Did their profits jump
– or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well,
their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!
Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year
period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then along came the war and up went the
profits. The average yearly
profit for the period 1914-1918 was 240,000,000. Not bad.
There you have some of
the steel and powder earnings. Let's
look at something else. A little copper,
perhaps. That always does well in war
times.
Anaconda, for instance. Average
yearly earnings during the pre-war years 1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the
war years 1914-1918 profits leaped to $34,000,000 per year.
Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the
1910-1914 period. Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the
war period.
Let's group these five,
with three smaller companies. The total
yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. Then along came the war. The average yearly
profits for this group
skyrocketed to $408,300,000.
A little increase in
profits of approximately 200 per cent.
Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren't the only ones. There are still others. Let's
take leather.
For the three-year period
before the war the total profits of Central
Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a year. Well, in
1916 Central Leather returned a profit of
$15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That's all. The General
Chemical Company averaged a profit for
the three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. Came the
war, and the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a leap of 1,400 per cent.
International Nickel
Company - and you can't have a
war without nickel - showed an increase in profits from a mere average of
$4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than
1,700 per cent.
American Sugar Refining
Company averaged $2,000,000 a
year for the three years before the war. In 1916 a
profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.
Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues.
Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton
manufacturers, 299
garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between
100 per cent and 7,856
per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago
packers doubled and tripled their earnings.
And let us
not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone had the cream of the profits it was
the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do
not have to report to stockholders. And
their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their
billions I do not know, because those little secrets never become public - even
before a Senate investigatory body.
But here's how some of
the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war
profits.
Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our
allies. Perhaps, like the munitions
manufacturers and
armament makers, they
also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is
a dollar whether it comes from Germany
or from France.
But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000
pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There
were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight pairs,
and more, to a soldier. My regiment
during the war had only one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably
are still in existence. They were good
shoes. But when the war was over Uncle
Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought – and paid for. Profits recorded and pocketed.
There was still lots of
leather left. So the leather people sold
your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there
wasn't any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this leather,
however. Somebody had to make a profit
in it – so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.
Also somebody had a lot
of mosquito netting. They sold your
Uncle Sam 20,000,000 mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas. I suppose the boys were expected to put it
over them as they tried to sleep in muddy trenches – one hand scratching
cooties on their backs and the other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not
one of these mosquito nets ever got to France!
Anyhow, these
thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier would be without
his mosquito net, so 40,000,000 additional yards of mosquito netting were sold
to Uncle Sam.
There were pretty good
profits in mosquito netting in those days, even if there were no mosquitoes in France.
I suppose, if the war had lasted just a little
longer, the enterprising mosquito netting manufacturers would have sold your
Uncle Sam a couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant in France so that
more mosquito netting would be in order.
Airplane and engine
manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs. So
$1,000,000,000 – count them if you live long enough – was spent
by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that never left the ground! Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion
dollars worth ordered, ever got into a battle in France. Just the same the
manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100, or perhaps 300 per cent.
Undershirts for
soldiers cost 140 [cents] to make and uncle Sam paid 300 to 400 each for them –
a nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer. And the stocking manufacturer and the uniform
manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers –
all got theirs.
Why, when the war was
over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment -- knapsacks and the things that go to
fill them – crammed warehouses on this side. Now they are being scrapped because the regulations
have changed the contents. But the
manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them – and they will do it all
over again the next time.
There were lots of
brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.
One very versatile
patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch wrenches. Oh, they were very nice wrenches. The only trouble was that there was only one
nut ever made that was large enough for these
wrenches. That is the one that holds the
turbines at Niagara Falls.
Well, after Uncle Sam had bought them
and the manufacturer had pocketed the profit, the wrenches were put on
freight cars and shunted all around the United States in an effort to find
a use for them. When the Armistice was
signed it was indeed a sad blow to the wrench manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to fit the
wrenches. Then he planned to sell these,
too, to your Uncle Sam.
Still another had the
brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in automobiles, nor should they
even ride on horseback. One has probably
seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some 6,000
buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels! Not one of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war
profit.
The shipbuilders felt
they should come in on some of it, too. They
built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But
$635,000,000 worth of
them were made of wood and wouldn't float! The seams opened up – and they sank. We paid
for them, though. And somebody pocketed
the profits.
It has
been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war
cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended
in the actual war itself. This
expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and
millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed
at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.
The Senate (Nye)
committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits, despite its
sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.
Even so, it has had
some effect. The State Department has
been studying "for some time"
methods of keeping out of war. The War Department
suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The Administration names a committee – with
the War and Navy Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall
Street speculator – to limit profits in war time. To what extent isn't suggested. Hmmm! Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 per cent
of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would be limited to some
smaller figure.
Apparently, however,
the plan does not call for any limitation of losses – that is, the losses of
those who fight the war. As far as I
have been able to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier
to the loss of but one eye, or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two or
three. Or to limit the loss of life.
There is nothing in
this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 per cent of a regiment
shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 per cent in a division
shall be killed.
Of course, the
committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.
* * * CHAPTER
THREE * * *
Who Pays The Bills?
Who provides the
profits – these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay
them – in taxation. We paid the bankers their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at $100.00 and
sold them back at $84 or $86 to the bankers. These bankers collected $100 plus. It was a simple manipulation. The bankers control the security marts. It was easy for them to depress the price of
these bonds. Then all of us -- the
people – got frightened and sold the bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers bought
them. Then these same bankers stimulated a boom and government
bonds went to par – and above. Then the
bankers collected their profits.
But the soldier pays the
biggest part of the bill.
If you don't believe
this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the
United States.
On a tour of the country, in the midst
of which I am at the time
of this writing, I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them
are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men – men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years
ago. The
very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the
living dead, told me that mortality among
veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home.
Boys with
a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and
classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made
over; they were made to "about
face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put
shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of
years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.
Then, suddenly, we
discharged them and told them to make another "about face" ! This time they had to do their own
readjustment, sans [without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and sans
nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need
them any more. So we scattered them
about without any "three-minute"
or "Liberty Loan" speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are
eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone.
In the
government hospital in Marion,
Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are
in pens! Five hundred of them in a
barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches.
These already have been mentally
destroyed. These boys don't even look
like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good shape; mentally,
they are gone.
There are thousands and
thousands of these cases, and more and more are coming in all the time. The
tremendous excitement of the war, the sudden cutting off of that excitement –
the young boys couldn't
stand it.
That's a
part of the bill. So much for the dead –
they have paid their part of the war profits. So much for the mentally and physically
wounded – they are paying now their share of the war profits. But the others paid, too – they paid with heartbreaks
when they tore themselves away from their firesides and their families to don
the uniform of Uncle Sam – on which a
profit
had been made. They paid another part in the training camps
where they were regimented and drilled while others took their jobs and their
places in the lives of their communities. They paid for it in the trenches
where they shot and were shot; where they were hungry for days at a time; where
they slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain – with the moans and shrieks
of the dying for a horrible lullaby.
But don't forget – the
soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bill too.
Up to and including the
Spanish-American War, we had a prize system, and soldiers and sailors fought
for money. During the Civil War they
were paid bonuses, in many instances, before they went into service. The government, or states, paid as high as
$1,200 for an enlistment. In the
Spanish-American War they gave prize money. When we captured any vessels, the soldiers all
got their share - at least, they were supposed to. Then it was found that we could reduce the
cost of wars by taking all the prize money and keeping it, but conscripting
[drafting] the soldier anyway. Then soldiers couldn't
bargain for their labor. Everyone else could
bargain, but the soldier couldn't.
Napoleon once said, "All men are
enamored of decorations . . . they positively hunger for them."
So by
developing the Napoleonic system - the medal business - the government learned
it could get soldiers for less money, because the boys liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there were no medals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was
handed out. It made enlistments easier. After the Civil War no new medals were issued
until the Spanish- American War.
In the World War, we
used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't
join the army.
So vicious was this war
propaganda that even ‘God’ was
brought into it. With few exceptions our
clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. ‘God’
is on our side…it is His will that the Germans be killed.
And in Germany,
the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the allies ... to please the
same ‘God’. That was a part of the general propaganda,
built up to make people war conscious and murder conscious.
Beautiful ideals were
painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the “war to end all wars”. This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy". No one
mentioned to them, as they marched
away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these
American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own
brothers here. No one told them that the
ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built
with United States
patents. They were just told it was to
be a "glorious adventure".
Thus, having stuffed
patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the
war, too. So, we gave them the large
salary of $30 a month.
All they had to do for
this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs,
lie in swampy trenches, eat ‘canned willy’
(when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill . . . and be
killed.
But wait!
Half of
that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a laborer in a
munitions factory safe at home made in a day) was promptly taken from him to support
his dependents, so that they would not become a charge upon his community. Then we made him pay what amounted to accident
insurance – something the employer pays for in an enlightened state – and that
cost him $6 a month. He had less than $9
a month left.
Then, the
most crowning insolence of all – he was virtually blackjacked into paying for
his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money
at all on pay days.
We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and
then we bought them back – when they came back from the war and couldn't find
work – at $84 and $86. And the soldiers
bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these bonds!
Yes, the soldier pays
the greater part of the bill. His family
pays too. They pay it in the same
heart-break that he does. As he suffers,
they suffer. At nights, as he lay in the
trenches and watched shrapnel burst
about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly – his father, his
mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters.
When he returned home
minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind broken, they suffered too – as
much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes,
and they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers
and bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty
Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the Armistice in the
hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty
Bond prices.
And even now the
families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who never were
able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying.
* * * * CHAPTER FOUR * * * *
How To Smash This
Racket!
WELL, it's a racket,
all right.
A few profit – and the
many pay. But there is a way to stop it.
You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe
it out by resolutions. It can be smashed
effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
The only way to smash
this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nation’s
manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript
the young men of the nation – it must conscript capital and industry and labor.
Let the officers and the directors and
the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and
our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the
other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the
speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in
the trenches get.
Let the
workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers, all presidents,
all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers – yes, and all
generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all
government office holders – everyone in the nation be restricted to a total
monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let all these kings and
tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our
senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war
risk insurance and buy Liberty
Bonds.
Why shouldn't they?
They aren't running any
risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds
shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy
trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!
Give
capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find,
by that time, there will be no war. That
will smash the war racket – that and nothing else.
Maybe I am a little too
optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital won't permit the taking of the profit
out of war until the people – those who do the suffering and still pay the price
– make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding,
and not that of the profiteers.
Another step
necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited plebiscite to
determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely
of those who would be
called upon to do the fighting and dying. There wouldn't be very much sense in
having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed head
of an international banking
firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing plant - all of whom
see visions of tremendous profits in the event of war - voting on whether the nation should go to war
or not. They never would be called upon
to shoulder arms - to sleep in a trench
and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives
for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the
nation should go to war.
There is ample
precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many of our states have restrictions on those
permitted to vote. In most, it is
necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote. In some, you must own property. It would be a simple matter each year for the
men coming of military age to register in their communities as they did in the
draft during the World War and be examined physically. Those who
could pass and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of
war would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be the
ones to have the power to decide – and not a Congress few of whose members are
within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to bear
arms. Only those
who must suffer should have the right to vote for war.
A third step in this
business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military forces
are truly forces for defense only.
At each session of
Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of
them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that
nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is
menaced by a great naval power.
Almost any day, these admirals will tell
you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate
125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a
larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.
Then, incidentally,
they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For
defense. Uh, huh.
The Pacific is a great
big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline
on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be
off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes,
perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.
The Japanese, a proud
people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even
as pleased as would be the residents of California
were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing
at war games off Los Angeles.
The ships of our navy,
it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by law, to within 200 miles of
our coastline. Had that been the law in
1898 the Maine
would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its
attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts,
for defense purposes. Our nation cannot
start an offensive war if its ships can't go further than 200 miles from the
coastline. Planes might be permitted to
go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the
territorial limits of our nation.
To summarize: Three
steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
1. We must take the
profit out of war.
2. We must permit the
youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be
war.
3. We must limit our
military forces to home defense purposes.
* * * * * CHAPTER FIVE * * * * *
To Hell With War!
I am not a fool as to
believe that war is a thing of the past. I know the people do not want war, but there
is no use in saying we cannot be pushed into another war.
Looking back, Woodrow
Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had "kept us out of war" and on the
implied promise that he would "keep
us out of war." Yet, five months later he
asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
In that five-month
interval the people had not been asked whether they had changed their minds. The
4,000,000 young men who put on uniforms and marched or sailed away were not asked whether they
wanted to go forth to suffer and die.
Then what caused our
government to change its mind so suddenly?
Money.
An allied commission,
it may be recalled, came over shortly before the war declaration and called on
the President. The President summoned a
group of advisers. The head of the commission spoke. Stripped of its diplomatic language, this is
what he told the President and his group:
"There is no use kidding ourselves any
longer. The
cause of the allies is lost. We now owe you
(American bankers, American munitions makers, American manufacturers, American
speculators, American exporters) five or six billion dollars. If we lose (and without the help of the United States
we must lose) we, England, France and Italy, cannot pay back
this money . . . and Germany won't.
So ... "
Had secrecy been
outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and had the press been
invited to be present at that conference, or had radio been available to
broadcast the
proceedings, America never
would have entered the World War. But this
conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When our boys were
sent off to war they were told it was a "war to make the world safe for
democracy" and a "war to
end all wars."
Well, eighteen years
after, the world has less of democracy than it had then. Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany
or England or France or Italy
or Austria
live under democracies or monarchies? Whether
they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy.
And very little, if
anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the
war to end all wars.
Yes, we have had
disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of another
have been nullified. We send our
professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to
these conferences. And what happens?
The professional
soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command. Both mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot be for limitations of arms. And at all
these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same,
are the sinister agents of those who profit by war. They see to it that
these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.
The chief aim of any
power at any of these conferences has not been to achieve disarmament to
prevent war but rather to get more armament for itself and less for any
potential foe.
There is only one way
to disarm with any semblance of practicability. That is for all nations to get together and
scrap every ship, every gun, every rifle, every tank, every war plane. Even this, if it were
possible, would not be enough.
The next war, according
to experts, will be fought not with battleships, not by artillery, not with
rifles and not with machine guns. It
will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases.
Secretly each nation is
studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its foes
wholesale. Yes, ships will continue to
be built, for the shipbuilders must make their profits. And guns still will be manufactured and powder
and rifles will be made, for the munitions makers must make their huge profits.
And the soldiers, of course, must wear
uniforms, for the manufacturer must make their war profits too.
But victory
or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.
If we put them to work
making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive
instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of
building greater prosperity for all peoples. By putting
them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace than we can
out of war – even the munitions makers.
So. ..I say,
TO HELL WITH WAR!
ONE WAY OR ANOTHER…WE ALL REAP WHAT WE HAVE SOWN…&
then some!
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
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