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PDF | ASCII text formats )
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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.
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