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.
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