War Is A Racket
By Major General Smedley Butler
Contents
Chapter 1: War Is A Racket
Chapter 2: Who Makes The Profits?
Chapter 3: Who Pays The Bills?
Chapter 4: How To Smash This Racket!
Chapter 5: To Hell With War!
Smedley Darlington Butler
* Born: West Chester, Pa., July 30, 1881
* Educated: Haverford School * Married: Ethel C. Peters, of Philadelphia,
June 30, 1905
* Awarded two congressional medals of honor:
1. capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914
2. capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917
* Distinguished service medal, 1919
* Major General - United States Marine Corps * Retired Oct. 1, 1931
* On leave of absence to act as director of Dept. of Safety, Philadelphia,
1932
* Lecturer -- 1930's
* Republican Candidate for Senate, 1932
* Died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, June 21, 1940
* For more information about Major General Butler, contact the United
States Marine Corps.
CHAPTER ONE
War Is A Racket
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!
Visit our Sponsor Morgan'
Rare Books for books on this subject and much, much more.
|
