WAR IS A RACKET
by Smedley Darlington Butler
Major General - United
States Marine Corps [Retired]
Born West Chester, Pa., July 30,
1881
from
Konformist Website
|
War Is A
Racket
From The Konformist
Smedley Butler on Interventionism
Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General
Smedley Butler, USMC.
A racket is best described, I believe,
as something that is not what it seems to the majority of 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 masses.
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If
a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble
with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here,
then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the
flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy
investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight
for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of
Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang
is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its
“muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war
preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison.
Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four
months in active military service as a member of this country’s most
agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned
ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that
period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for
Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a
racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure
of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had
a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties
remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of
higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil
interests in 1914.
I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for
the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the
raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits
of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify
Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in
1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American
sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that
Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a
swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al
Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket
in three districts. I operated on three continents.
Subject: US General S.Butler's book: "War is a Racket" 1935
For several decades, Major General Smedley Butler (US Marines)
helped lead many a US war in Latin America and elsewhere.
However, he later became one of the most eloquent opponents of
war and war profiteering that has ever existed! Ever heard of
him? He exposed, as few can, exactly how wars were being fought
to promote the interests of a corporate elite. His book is
reprinted below.
Attempts were even made by US industrialists to recruit Butler
to lead a fascist coup in the US in 1933! He turned them down,
told FDR about the plot and went public. Not surprisingly, few
people in the US (or elsewhere) have still ever heard of Butler
or the fascist plot of 1933. Clearly if this and similar
information were common knowledge, the war planners would have a
more difficult time deceiving us with their trickery.
A word of
caution to those who may think that this is a merely a
"conspiracy theory" -- and therefore automatically not true.
Please do some research on the internet for yourself and see
what you find. Here then is Smedley Butler's little book, first
published in 1935. Enjoy!
Richard Sanders
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Chapter One
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, Il 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 sabre 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 14˘ [cents] to make and uncle Sam
paid 30˘ to 40˘ 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. The 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 nations 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.
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.
-
We must take the profit out
of war
-
We must permit the youth of
the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not
there should be war
-
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!
