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Contents
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Chapter
1: War Is
A Racket
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Chapter
2: Who
Makes The Profits?
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Chapter
3: Who
Pays The Bills?
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Chapter
4: How To
Smash This Racket!
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Chapter
5: To Hell
With War!
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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
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.
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, 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.
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!
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