2023-09-11_War_is_a_Racket
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00:00:27.300 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now,
00:00:38.100 | while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:41.100 | My name is Joshua Sheets. I am your host.
00:00:42.900 | And today on the show, I want to talk with you about one of those big-picture financial topics.
00:00:47.700 | It's not about personal finance.
00:00:49.900 | It is, however, about how the world works.
00:00:53.900 | And I think it's important that you and I pay attention to these things when they come across our desks.
00:00:59.900 | I watched today on Twitter, I watched a comment from Senator McConnell, the United States Senator, a comment that he made here on Twitter.
00:01:10.400 | I want to read it to you. Published September 7, 2023 at 1044 AM from Leader McConnell in the United States Senate.
00:01:17.800 | Quote, "Standing with our allies against Russian aggression isn't charity.
00:01:24.000 | In fact, it's a direct investment in replenishing America's arsenal with American weapons built by American workers.
00:01:32.700 | Expanding our defense industrial base puts America in a stronger position to out-compete China."
00:01:42.400 | Now, this particular Twitter comment to me is rather shocking because it seems like a textbook example of what we sometimes refer to as saying the quiet part out loud.
00:01:53.300 | And I thought, you know, there is a very important essay that I have thought about for many years, read many years ago, probably reread it at least every couple of years or so.
00:02:03.400 | I've talked about it on the show, but I've never read to you.
00:02:06.600 | And I believe this is one of the more useful essays for you to have in the back of your mind.
00:02:12.100 | You see, current events are hard to parse through.
00:02:15.900 | They're confusing, hard to figure out, etc.
00:02:19.600 | But sometimes you can look back at history and by seeing what has happened in history, you can understand your present day a little bit more clearly.
00:02:28.700 | The essay I want to read you is called War is a Racket.
00:02:32.200 | This is a fairly well-known essay by Major General Smedley Butler, a long ago retired United States Marine Corps Major General.
00:02:43.300 | And what is interesting about General Butler, Major General Butler, is that he is one of those men who was incredibly decorated, very highly placed in the overall military.
00:02:59.500 | Reading from his Wikipedia entry, Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, July 30, 1881 to June 21, 1940, nicknamed the Maverick Marine, was a senior United States Marine Corps officer.
00:03:14.600 | During his 34-year career, he fought in the Philippine-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, and World War I.
00:03:23.100 | At the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.
00:03:28.600 | By the end of his career, so I repeat that in case you missed it, at the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.
00:03:38.000 | By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, including five for heroism.
00:03:43.500 | He is the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal, as well as two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
00:03:52.900 | In 1933, I'll skip the other controversies, after Butler retired from the military, he became well-known for giving a speech and for a pamphlet that he wrote called "War is a Racket."
00:04:09.000 | It's a speech in a 1935 short book that he wrote and published, and it talks about what war is.
00:04:17.800 | And without further ado, let me just read this to you so that you understand.
00:04:22.200 | And I want you to have Leader McConnell's tweet in the back of your mind as I read this to you.
00:04:31.000 | Chapter one, "War is a Racket."
00:04:36.100 | War is a racket. It always has been.
00:04:40.300 | It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
00:04:48.400 | It is the only one international in scope.
00:04:51.600 | It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
00:04:58.500 | A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people.
00:05:05.200 | Only a small inside group knows what it is about.
00:05:09.700 | It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many.
00:05:14.900 | Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes.
00:05:19.100 | In the World War, meaning of course World War I, in the World War, a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict.
00:05:25.700 | At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War.
00:05:33.000 | That many admitted their huge blood games in their income tax returns.
00:05:38.000 | How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns? No one knows.
00:05:42.900 | How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle?
00:05:45.800 | How many of them dug a trench?
00:05:47.600 | How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dugout?
00:05:52.300 | How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets?
00:05:59.200 | How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy?
00:06:02.500 | How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
00:06:06.900 | Out of war, nations acquire additional territory if they are victorious.
00:06:11.000 | They just take it.
00:06:12.600 | This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few.
00:06:16.600 | The selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war.
00:06:21.100 | The general public shoulders the bill.
00:06:23.900 | And what is this bill?
00:06:26.000 | This bill renders a horrible accounting.
00:06:28.900 | Newly placed gravestones, mangled bodies, shattered minds, broken hearts and homes.
00:06:38.500 | Economic instability, depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.
00:06:49.900 | For a great many years as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket.
00:06:55.100 | Not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.
00:06:59.300 | Now that I see the international war clouds gathering as they are today, I must face it and speak out.
00:07:07.300 | Again, they are choosing sides.
00:07:09.500 | France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side.
00:07:13.300 | Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement.
00:07:16.300 | Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other,
00:07:20.100 | forgetting for the nonce, meaning one unique occasion, their dispute over the Polish corridor.
00:07:26.700 | The assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia complicated matters.
00:07:31.000 | Yugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats.
00:07:35.400 | Italy was ready to jump in, but France was waiting.
00:07:39.300 | So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war.
00:07:44.400 | Not the people, not those who fight and pay and die.
00:07:49.000 | Only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.
00:07:55.000 | There are 40 million men under arms in the world today,
00:07:58.200 | and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.
00:08:05.000 | Hell's bells. Are these 40 million men being trained to be dancers?
00:08:11.300 | Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for.
00:08:15.900 | He at least is frank enough to speak out.
00:08:18.800 | Only the other day, Il Duche in International Conciliation,
00:08:22.600 | the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said,
00:08:26.400 | "And above all, fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity,
00:08:32.000 | quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility
00:08:36.800 | nor the utility of perpetual peace. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy
00:08:44.900 | and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."
00:08:50.300 | Undoubtedly, Mussolini means exactly what he says.
00:08:53.600 | His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war.
00:08:59.400 | Anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary
00:09:04.600 | and the latter's dispute with Yugoslavia showed that.
00:09:07.500 | And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border
00:09:10.700 | after the assassination of Dolfuss showed it too.
00:09:14.200 | There are others in Europe too whose saber-rattling presages war sooner or later.
00:09:21.800 | Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms,
00:09:27.500 | is an equal, if not greater, menace to peace.
00:09:30.800 | France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to 18 months.
00:09:37.800 | Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose.
00:09:45.300 | In the Orient, the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought,
00:09:53.800 | we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan.
00:09:57.200 | Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan.
00:10:01.400 | Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese.
00:10:04.700 | What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us?
00:10:08.500 | Our trade with China is about 90 million dollars a year.
00:10:11.800 | Or the Philippine Islands, we've spent about 600 million dollars in the Philippines in 35 years,
00:10:17.000 | and we, our bankers and industrialists and speculators,
00:10:21.100 | have private investments there of less than 200 million dollars.
00:10:26.100 | Then, to save that China trade of about 90 million dollars,
00:10:29.500 | or to protect these private investments of less than 200 million dollars in the Philippines,
00:10:34.500 | we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war.
00:10:37.700 | A war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars,
00:10:41.200 | hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans,
00:10:43.700 | and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.
00:10:49.100 | Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit.
00:10:54.400 | Fortunes would be made.
00:10:56.100 | Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up, by a few.
00:11:01.200 | Munitions makers, bankers, shipbuilders, manufacturers, meatpackers, speculators.
00:11:09.000 | They would fare well.
00:11:11.500 | Yes, they are getting ready for another war.
00:11:14.800 | Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.
00:11:17.800 | But what does it profit the men who are killed?
00:11:21.100 | What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts?
00:11:25.200 | What does it profit their children?
00:11:28.300 | What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?
00:11:33.600 | Yes.
00:11:35.200 | And what does it profit the nation?
00:11:38.800 | Take our own case.
00:11:40.100 | Until 1898, we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America.
00:11:45.700 | At that time, our national debt was a little more than one trillion dollars.
00:11:49.600 | Then we became internationally minded.
00:11:54.000 | We forgot or shunted aside the advice of the father of our country.
00:11:59.500 | We forgot George Washington's warning about entangling alliances.
00:12:05.200 | We went to war. We acquired outside territory.
00:12:09.600 | At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs,
00:12:14.400 | our national debt had jumped to over 25 trillion dollars.
00:12:18.500 | Our total favorable trade balance during the 25-year period was about 24 billion dollars.
00:12:31.200 | There should have been 1 billion dollars, 25 billion dollars, and 24 trillion dollars.
00:12:35.300 | Our total favorable trade balance during the 25-year period was about 24 billion dollars.
00:12:41.100 | Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year.
00:12:45.600 | And that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.
00:12:49.800 | It would have been far cheaper, not to say safer, for the average American
00:12:53.900 | who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements.
00:12:57.100 | For a very few, this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits.
00:13:03.200 | But the cost of operations is always transferred to the people, who do not profit.
00:13:11.400 | Chapter 2, Who Makes the Profits?
00:13:14.900 | The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some 52 billion dollars.
00:13:23.000 | Figure it out.
00:13:24.200 | That means 400 dollars to every American man, woman, and child.
00:13:28.200 | And we haven't paid the debt yet.
00:13:30.300 | We are paying it.
00:13:31.600 | Our children will pay it, and our children's children probably still will be paying the cost of that war.
00:13:38.400 | The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are 6, 8, 10, and sometimes 12%.
00:13:45.200 | But wartime profits, that is another matter.
00:13:50.300 | 20, 60, 100, 300, and even 1800%.
00:13:55.600 | The sky is the limit.
00:13:57.600 | All that traffic will bear.
00:13:59.500 | Uncle Sam has the money, let's get it.
00:14:02.300 | Of course, it isn't put that crudely in wartime.
00:14:05.500 | It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and we must all put our shoulders to the wheel.
00:14:13.700 | But the profits jump and leap and skyrocket and are safely pocketed.
00:14:20.400 | Let's just take a few examples.
00:14:22.600 | Take our friends, the DuPonts, the powder people.
00:14:26.100 | 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?
00:14:34.800 | How did they do in the war?
00:14:36.800 | They were a patriotic corporation.
00:14:39.800 | Well, the average earnings of the DuPonts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6 million a year.
00:14:46.100 | It wasn't much, but the DuPonts managed to get along on it.
00:14:50.500 | Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918.
00:14:56.600 | $58 million a year profit, we find.
00:15:01.000 | Nearly 10 times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good.
00:15:06.000 | An increase in profits of more than 950%.
00:15:10.200 | Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials.
00:15:20.100 | Well, their 1910 to 1914 yearly earnings averaged $6 million.
00:15:26.300 | Then came the war, and like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making.
00:15:34.600 | Did their profits jump, or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain?
00:15:38.800 | Well, their 1914 to 1918 average was $49 million a year.
00:15:46.200 | Or let's take United States Steel.
00:15:49.000 | The normal earnings during the five-year period prior to the war were $105 million a year.
00:15:53.900 | Not bad.
00:15:56.000 | Then along came the war, and up went the profits.
00:15:59.100 | The average yearly profit for the period 1914 to 1918 was $240 million.
00:16:06.500 | Not bad.
00:16:08.300 | There you have some of the steel and powder earnings.
00:16:12.200 | Let's look at something else, a little copper perhaps.
00:16:14.800 | That always does well in war times.
00:16:17.000 | Anaconda, for instance, average yearly earnings during the pre-war years, 1910 to 1914, of $10 million.
00:16:24.600 | During the war years, 1914 to 1918, profits leaped to $34 million per year.
00:16:31.500 | Or Utah Copper, average of $5 million per year during the 1910 to 1914 period,
00:16:36.800 | jumped to an average of $21 million yearly profits for the war period.
00:16:42.200 | Let's group these five with three smaller companies.
00:16:44.700 | The total yearly average profits of the pre-war period, 1910 to 1914, were $137,480,000.
00:16:52.600 | Then along came the war.
00:16:54.400 | The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000,
00:17:00.700 | a little increase in profits of approximately 200%.
00:17:05.100 | Does war pay?
00:17:06.700 | They paid them.
00:17:08.000 | But they aren't the only ones.
00:17:09.100 | There are still others.
00:17:10.600 | Let's take leather.
00:17:12.200 | For the three-year period before the war, the total profits of Central Leather Company were $3.5 million.
00:17:18.400 | That was approximately $1,167,000 a year.
00:17:22.700 | Well, in 1916, Central Leather returned a profit of $15 million, a small increase of 1,100%.
00:17:31.000 | That's all.
00:17:32.400 | The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year.
00:17:37.800 | Came the war and the profits jumped to $12 million, a leap of 1,400%.
00:17:45.100 | International Nickel Company, and you can't have a war without nickel,
00:17:49.900 | showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4 million a year to $73 million yearly.
00:17:57.300 | Not bad.
00:17:58.500 | An increase of more than 1,700%.
00:18:02.700 | American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2 million a year for the three years before the war.
00:18:07.500 | In 1916, a profit of $6 million was recorded.
00:18:11.600 | Listen to Senate Document No. 259, the 65th Congress, reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues.
00:18:19.500 | Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war,
00:18:30.900 | profits under 25% were exceptional.
00:18:33.800 | For instance, the coal companies made between 100% and 7,856% on their capital stock during the war.
00:18:44.600 | The Chicago Packers doubled and tripled their earnings.
00:18:47.600 | And let us not forget the bankers who financed the Great War.
00:18:51.200 | If anyone had the cream of the profits, it was the bankers.
00:18:54.400 | Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders.
00:19:00.400 | And their profits were as secret as they were immense.
00:19:06.900 | How the bankers made their millions and their billions, I do not know.
00:19:10.200 | Because those little secrets never become public, even before a Senate investigatory body.
00:19:16.900 | But here's how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.
00:19:22.600 | Take the shoe people.
00:19:24.400 | They like war.
00:19:25.600 | It brings business with abnormal profits.
00:19:28.400 | They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies.
00:19:32.600 | Perhaps like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold to the enemy.
00:19:39.000 | For a dollar is a dollar, whether it comes from Germany or from France.
00:19:44.000 | But they did well by Uncle Sam, too.
00:19:46.600 | For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35 million pairs of hobnailed service shoes.
00:19:51.800 | There were 4 million soldiers, 8 pairs and more to a soldier.
00:19:56.900 | My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier.
00:20:00.300 | Some of these shoes probably are still in existence.
00:20:03.300 | They were good shoes.
00:20:05.300 | But when the war was over, Uncle Sam has a matter of 25 million pairs left over, bought and paid for.
00:20:13.100 | Profits recorded and pocketed.
00:20:17.000 | There was still lots of leather left.
00:20:18.500 | So the leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry.
00:20:24.800 | But there wasn't any American cavalry overseas.
00:20:27.700 | Somebody had to get rid of this leather, however.
00:20:29.800 | Somebody had to make a profit in it.
00:20:32.000 | So we had a lot of McClellan saddles.
00:20:35.000 | And we probably have those yet.
00:20:37.500 | Also, somebody had a lot of mosquito netting.
00:20:39.800 | They sold your Uncle Sam 20 million mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas.
00:20:44.100 | I suppose the boys were expected to put it over them as they tried to sleep in muddy trenches,
00:20:49.000 | one hand scratching cooties on their backs and the other making passes at scurrying rats.
00:20:55.200 | Well, not one of those mosquito nets ever got to France.
00:20:59.500 | Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier would be without his mosquito net.
00:21:06.000 | So 40 million additional yards of mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam.
00:21:12.400 | There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days, even if there were no mosquitoes in France.
00:21:18.100 | I suppose if the war had lasted just a little longer,
00:21:21.100 | the enterprising mosquito netting manufacturers would have sold your Uncle Sam a couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant in France,
00:21:27.900 | so that more mosquito netting would be in order.
00:21:32.100 | Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they too should get their just profits out of this war.
00:21:38.500 | Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs.
00:21:41.800 | So $1 billion, count them if you live long enough, was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that never left the ground.
00:21:51.600 | Not one plane or motor out of the billion dollars worth ordered ever got into a battle in France.
00:21:58.500 | Just the same, the manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100 or perhaps 300 percent.
00:22:05.700 | Undershirts for soldiers cost 14 cents to make, and Uncle Sam paid 30 cents to 40 cents each for them.
00:22:12.100 | A nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer, and the stocking manufacturer, and the uniform manufacturers,
00:22:18.800 | and the cap manufacturers, and the steel helmet manufacturers all got theirs.
00:22:24.600 | Why, when the war was over, some 4 million sets of equipment, knapsacks and the things that go to fill them, crammed warehouses on this side.
00:22:34.200 | Now they are being scrapped because the regulations have changed the contents.
00:22:39.100 | But the manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them, and they will do it all over again the next time.
00:22:46.900 | There were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.
00:22:50.600 | One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam 12 dozen 48 inch wrenches.
00:22:57.800 | They were very nice wrenches.
00:23:00.500 | The only trouble was that there was only one nut ever made that was large enough for these wrenches.
00:23:07.700 | That is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara Falls.
00:23:12.700 | Well, after Uncle Sam had bought them and the manufacturer had pocketed the profit,
00:23:17.300 | the wrenches were put on freight cars and shunted all around the United States in an effort to find a use for them.
00:23:24.900 | When the armistice was signed, it was indeed a sad blow to the wrench manufacturer.
00:23:30.400 | He was just about to make some nuts to fit the wrenches.
00:23:34.800 | Then he planned to sell these two to your Uncle Sam.
00:23:39.300 | Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback.
00:23:46.900 | One has probably seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buck board.
00:23:51.900 | Well, some 6000 buck boards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels.
00:23:57.700 | Not one of them was used, but the buck board manufacturer got his war profit.
00:24:03.400 | The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too.
00:24:06.500 | They built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit.
00:24:09.300 | More than $3 billion worth. Some of the ships were all right,
00:24:13.600 | but $635 million worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float.
00:24:19.600 | The seams opened up and they sank.
00:24:22.700 | We paid for them, though, and somebody pocketed the profits.
00:24:27.000 | It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52 billion.
00:24:36.000 | Of this sum, $39 billion was expended in the actual war itself.
00:24:41.300 | This expenditure yielded $16 billion in profits.
00:24:46.400 | That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way.
00:24:51.100 | This $16 billion of profits is not to be sneezed at.
00:24:55.600 | It is quite a tidy sum, and it went to a very few.
00:25:01.800 | The Senate, nigh committee, probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits,
00:25:07.200 | despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.
00:25:12.000 | Even so, it has had some effect.
00:25:15.100 | The State Department has been studying for some time methods of keeping out of war.
00:25:22.400 | The War Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring.
00:25:27.100 | The administration names a committee with the War and Navy Departments ably represented
00:25:33.500 | under the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator to limit profits in wartime.
00:25:40.000 | To what extent isn't suggested.
00:25:45.700 | Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 percent of those who turned blood into gold
00:25:53.200 | in the World War would be limited to some smaller figure.
00:25:59.600 | Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses.
00:26:05.800 | That is, the losses of those who fight the war.
00:26:10.600 | As far as I have been able to ascertain, there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier
00:26:14.600 | to the loss of but one eye or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two or three,
00:26:22.200 | or to limit the loss of life.
00:26:24.500 | There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 percent of a regiment
00:26:30.000 | shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 percent in a division shall be killed.
00:26:35.800 | Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.
00:26:44.700 | Chapter 3.
00:26:45.880 | Who Pays the Bills?
00:26:48.240 | Who provides the profits, the nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500, and 1,800
00:26:55.600 | percent?
00:26:56.600 | We all pay them in taxation.
00:26:59.760 | We paid the bankers their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at $100 and sold them
00:27:04.840 | back at $84 or $86 to the bankers.
00:27:08.880 | These bankers collected $100 plus.
00:27:11.600 | It was a simple manipulation.
00:27:13.520 | The bankers controlled the security marts.
00:27:15.760 | It was easy for them to depress the price of these bonds.
00:27:19.160 | Then all of us, the people, got frightened and sold the bonds at $84 or $86.
00:27:26.520 | The bankers bought them.
00:27:28.100 | Then these same bankers stimulated a boom and government bonds went to par and above.
00:27:34.380 | Then the bankers collected their profits.
00:27:37.160 | But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.
00:27:39.640 | If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad, or
00:27:45.680 | visit any of the veterans' hospitals in the United States.
00:27:49.240 | On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am at the time of this writing, I
00:27:54.880 | have visited 18 government hospitals for veterans.
00:27:59.560 | Among them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men, men who were the pick of the nation 18
00:28:06.360 | years ago.
00:28:07.840 | The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800
00:28:13.720 | of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as
00:28:19.580 | among those who stayed at home.
00:28:22.540 | Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and
00:28:26.720 | classrooms and put into the ranks.
00:28:29.440 | There they were remolded.
00:28:32.200 | They were made over.
00:28:34.000 | They were made to about face, to regard murder as the order of the day.
00:28:40.200 | They were put shoulder to shoulder and through mass psychology, they were entirely changed.
00:28:48.720 | We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or
00:28:56.400 | of being killed.
00:28:58.600 | Then suddenly we discharged them and told them to make another about face.
00:29:03.360 | This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans mass psychology, sans officers aid and
00:29:09.480 | advice and sans nationwide propaganda.
00:29:14.080 | We didn't need them anymore.
00:29:16.400 | So we scattered them about without any three minute or liberty loan speeches or parades.
00:29:23.800 | Many, too many of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed mentally because they
00:29:33.560 | could not make that final about face alone.
00:29:38.640 | In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are in pens, 500 of them
00:29:46.680 | in a barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches.
00:29:52.660 | These already have been mentally destroyed.
00:29:55.560 | These boys don't even look like human beings.
00:29:59.920 | Looks on their faces.
00:30:00.920 | Physically, they're in good shape.
00:30:03.720 | Mentally they are gone.
00:30:07.480 | There are thousands and thousands of these cases and more and more are coming in all
00:30:11.360 | the time.
00:30:12.360 | The tremendous excitement of the war, the sudden cutting off of that excitement, the
00:30:18.960 | young boys couldn't stand it.
00:30:22.000 | That's a part of the bill.
00:30:25.120 | So much for the dead.
00:30:26.320 | They have paid their part of the war profits.
00:30:29.420 | So much for the mentally and physically wounded.
00:30:31.840 | They are paying now their share of the war profits.
00:30:36.180 | But the others paid, too.
00:30:38.300 | They paid with heartbreaks when they tore themselves away from their firesides and their
00:30:42.320 | families to don the uniform of Uncle Sam on which a profit had been made.
00:30:48.700 | They paid another part in the training camps where they were regimented and drilled while
00:30:52.420 | others took their jobs and their places in the lives of their communities.
00:30:57.460 | They paid for it in the trenches where they shot and were shot, where they were hungry
00:31:02.820 | for days at a time, where they slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain with the
00:31:09.340 | moans and shrieks of the dying for a horrible lullaby.
00:31:14.260 | But don't forget, the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bills, too.
00:31:20.460 | Up to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize system, and soldiers and sailors
00:31:27.260 | fought for money.
00:31:29.500 | During the Civil War, they were paid bonuses, in many instances before they went into service.
00:31:35.300 | The government or states paid as high as $1,200 for an enlistment.
00:31:41.600 | In the Spanish-American War, they gave prize money.
00:31:44.500 | When we captured any vessels, the soldiers all got their share, or at least they were
00:31:48.140 | supposed to.
00:31:49.820 | Then it was found that we could reduce the cost of wars by taking all the prize money
00:31:54.380 | and keeping it, but conscripting the soldier anyway.
00:32:00.740 | Then soldiers couldn't bargain for their labor.
00:32:04.020 | Everyone else could bargain, but the soldier couldn't.
00:32:08.500 | Napoleon once said, "All men are enamored of decorations.
00:32:13.500 | They positively hunger for them."
00:32:16.940 | So by developing the Napoleonic system, the medal business, the government learned it
00:32:23.220 | could get soldiers for less money because the boys liked to be decorated.
00:32:28.580 | Until the Civil War, there were no medals.
00:32:31.780 | Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out.
00:32:35.520 | It made enlistments easier.
00:32:38.340 | After the Civil War, no new medals were issued until the Spanish-American War.
00:32:44.180 | In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription.
00:32:49.420 | They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join the army.
00:32:54.440 | So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it.
00:32:59.060 | With few exceptions, our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill, to kill
00:33:04.260 | the Germans.
00:33:05.260 | "God is on our side.
00:33:07.180 | It is his will that the Germans be killed."
00:33:10.560 | And in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the allies to please the
00:33:15.700 | same God.
00:33:18.180 | That was a part of the general propaganda built up to make people war-conscious and
00:33:23.340 | murder-conscious.
00:33:25.900 | Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die.
00:33:29.820 | This was the war to end all wars.
00:33:32.840 | This was the war to make the world safe for democracy.
00:33:37.900 | No one mentioned to them as they marched away that their going and their dying would mean
00:33:44.180 | huge war profits.
00:33:47.980 | No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their
00:33:52.220 | own brothers here.
00:33:55.300 | No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by
00:33:59.780 | submarines built with United States patents.
00:34:04.060 | They were just told it was to be a glorious adventure.
00:34:07.900 | Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help
00:34:13.860 | pay for the war too.
00:34:15.900 | So we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.
00:34:20.140 | All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give
00:34:25.020 | up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy when they could get it, and kill
00:34:30.380 | and kill and kill and be killed.
00:34:34.420 | But wait!
00:34:36.100 | Half of that wage, just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a laborer in a
00:34:40.500 | munitions factory safe at home made in a day, was promptly taken from him to support his
00:34:45.900 | dependents, so that they would not become a charge upon his community.
00:34:51.380 | Then we made him pay what amounted to accident insurance, something the employer pays for
00:34:56.340 | in an enlightened state, and that cost him $6 a month.
00:35:01.180 | He had less than $9 a month left.
00:35:04.540 | Then the most crowning insolence of all, he was virtually blackjacked into paying for
00:35:11.500 | his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy liberty bonds.
00:35:18.740 | Most soldiers got no money at all on paydays.
00:35:22.420 | We made them buy liberty bonds at $100, and then we bought them back when they came back
00:35:27.460 | from the war and couldn't find work at $84 and $86.
00:35:33.780 | And the soldiers bought about $2 billion worth of these bonds.
00:35:38.820 | Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill.
00:35:44.100 | His family pays too.
00:35:46.140 | They pay it in the same heartbreak that he does.
00:35:49.300 | As he suffers, they suffer.
00:35:52.940 | At nights as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in
00:35:59.060 | their beds and tossed sleeplessly, his father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers,
00:36:06.620 | his sons, and his daughters.
00:36:10.260 | When he returned home minus an eye or minus a leg or with his mind broken, they suffered
00:36:16.940 | too, as much as and even sometimes more than he.
00:36:21.580 | Yes, and they too contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers and
00:36:27.180 | bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators made.
00:36:32.860 | They too bought liberty bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the armistice
00:36:37.660 | and the hocus pocus of manipulated liberty bond prices.
00:36:42.940 | And even now, the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who
00:36:47.780 | never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying.
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00:37:30.380 | Chapter 4 How to Smash This Racket
00:37:33.700 | Well, it's a racket, alright.
00:37:37.660 | A few profit and the many pay.
00:37:41.300 | But there is a way to stop it.
00:37:43.320 | You can't end it by disarmament conferences.
00:37:46.100 | You can't eliminate it by peace parlays at Geneva.
00:37:49.780 | Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions.
00:37:54.160 | It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
00:38:01.000 | The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the
00:38:06.720 | nation's manhood can be conscripted.
00:38:10.060 | One month before the government can conscript the young men of the nation, it must conscript
00:38:14.440 | capital and industry and labor.
00:38:17.080 | Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories
00:38:21.820 | and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers
00:38:27.560 | of all the other things that provide profit in wartime, as well as the bankers and the
00:38:32.480 | speculators, be conscripted to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches
00:38:39.640 | get.
00:38:40.640 | Let the workers in these plants get the same wage as all the workers, all presidents, all
00:38:45.740 | executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers, yes, and all generals and all admirals
00:38:50.840 | and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders, everyone in the
00:38:55.360 | nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in
00:39:01.560 | the trenches.
00:39:02.560 | Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry
00:39:08.920 | and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their
00:39:14.400 | families and pay war risk insurance and buy liberty bonds.
00:39:19.720 | Why shouldn't they?
00:39:21.480 | They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their
00:39:25.200 | minds shattered.
00:39:26.560 | They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches.
00:39:28.160 | They aren't hungry.
00:39:29.160 | The soldiers are.
00:39:31.120 | Give capital and industry and labor 30 days to think it over and you will find by that
00:39:35.880 | time there will be no war.
00:39:38.400 | They will smash the war racket.
00:39:40.800 | That and nothing else.
00:39:43.540 | Maybe I am a little too optimistic.
00:39:45.920 | Capital still has some say.
00:39:47.840 | So capital won't permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people, those
00:39:52.840 | who do the suffering and still pay the price, make up their minds that those they elect
00:39:57.280 | to office shall do their bidding and not that of the profiteers.
00:40:03.020 | Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited plebiscite to
00:40:07.360 | determine whether a war should be declared.
00:40:10.160 | A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those who would be called upon to do the
00:40:15.920 | fighting and dying.
00:40:18.480 | There wouldn't be very much sense in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory
00:40:23.480 | or the flat-footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of
00:40:29.120 | a uniform manufacturing plant, all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event
00:40:34.080 | of war, voting on whether the nation should go to war or not.
00:40:38.540 | They never would be called upon to shoulder arms, to sleep in a trench, and to be shot.
00:40:44.100 | Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have
00:40:48.280 | the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.
00:40:52.800 | There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected.
00:40:56.720 | Many of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote.
00:41:00.480 | In most, it is necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote.
00:41:05.080 | In some, you must own property.
00:41:07.560 | It would be a simple matter each year for the men coming of military age to register
00:41:11.640 | in their communities as they did in the draft during the World War and be examined physically.
00:41:16.900 | Those who could pass, and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of
00:41:20.680 | war, would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite.
00:41:24.680 | They should be the ones to have the power to decide, and not a Congress, few of whose
00:41:29.600 | members are within the age limit, and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to
00:41:33.920 | bear arms.
00:41:35.680 | Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.
00:41:41.840 | A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our
00:41:45.640 | military forces are truly forces for defense only.
00:41:49.920 | At each session of Congress, the question of further naval appropriations comes up.
00:41:54.340 | The swivel chair admirals of Washington, and there are always a lot of them, are very adroit
00:41:59.760 | lobbyists, and they are smart.
00:42:03.040 | They don't shout that "we need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation."
00:42:07.160 | Oh no.
00:42:08.800 | First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power.
00:42:14.040 | Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will
00:42:18.000 | strike suddenly and annihilate 125 million people just like that.
00:42:24.460 | Then they begin to cry for a larger navy.
00:42:27.120 | For what?
00:42:28.120 | To fight the enemy?
00:42:29.120 | Oh my no.
00:42:30.320 | Oh no.
00:42:31.400 | For defense purposes only.
00:42:33.920 | Then incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific for defense.
00:42:41.440 | The Pacific is a great big ocean.
00:42:43.560 | We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific.
00:42:46.920 | Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles?
00:42:51.080 | Oh no.
00:42:52.960 | The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles off the coast.
00:43:00.440 | The Japanese, a proud people of course, will be pleased beyond expression to see the United
00:43:07.160 | States fleet so close to Nippon's shores.
00:43:11.560 | Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through
00:43:17.160 | the morning mist the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.
00:43:24.280 | The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited by law to within two
00:43:29.680 | hundred miles of our coastline.
00:43:32.720 | Had that been the law in 1898, the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor.
00:43:37.600 | She never would have been blown up.
00:43:39.400 | There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life.
00:43:43.320 | Two hundred miles is ample in the opinion of experts for defense purposes.
00:43:48.040 | Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can't go further than two hundred
00:43:53.000 | miles from the coastline.
00:43:55.160 | Planes might be permitted to go as far as five hundred miles from the coast for the
00:43:58.880 | purposes of reconnaissance, and the army should never leave the territorial limits of our
00:44:04.760 | nation.
00:44:06.560 | To summarize, three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
00:44:11.240 | One, we must take the prophet out of war.
00:44:16.760 | Two, we must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not
00:44:22.360 | there should be war.
00:44:24.320 | Three, we must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.
00:44:35.640 | Chapter Five.
00:44:37.000 | To Hell With War.
00:44:39.120 | I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past.
00:44:43.120 | I know the people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we cannot be pushed into
00:44:48.260 | another war.
00:44:50.200 | Going back, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had
00:44:55.920 | kept us out of war and on the implied promise that he would keep us out of war.
00:45:01.880 | Yet five months later, he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
00:45:06.840 | In that five-month interval, the people had not been asked whether they had changed their
00:45:11.000 | minds.
00:45:12.240 | The four million young men who put on uniforms and marched or sailed away were not asked
00:45:16.800 | whether they wanted to go forth to suffer and die.
00:45:20.800 | Then what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?
00:45:25.120 | Money.
00:45:27.760 | An allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly before the war declaration
00:45:31.560 | and called on the president.
00:45:33.400 | The president summoned a group of advisors.
00:45:35.880 | The head of the commission spoke.
00:45:38.120 | Stripped of its diplomatic language, this is what he told the president and his group.
00:45:44.600 | There is no use kidding ourselves any longer.
00:45:46.920 | The cause of the allies is lost.
00:45:49.440 | We now owe you, American bankers, American munitions makers, American manufacturers,
00:45:54.400 | American speculators, American exporters, five or six billion dollars.
00:45:58.400 | If we lose, and without the help of the United States, we must lose, we, England, France,
00:46:03.240 | and Italy cannot pay back this money, and Germany won't.
00:46:08.000 | So had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and had the press
00:46:16.440 | been invited to be present at that conference, or had radio been available to broadcast the
00:46:21.400 | proceedings, America never would have entered the World War.
00:46:25.280 | But this conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy.
00:46:31.520 | When our boys were sent off to war, they were told it was a war to make the world safe for
00:46:36.480 | democracy, and a war to end all wars.
00:46:41.480 | Well, 18 years after, the world has less of democracy than it had then.
00:46:48.040 | Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or
00:46:53.320 | Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies, whether they are fascists or communists?
00:47:00.160 | Our problem is to preserve our own democracy.
00:47:02.920 | And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really
00:47:07.280 | the war to end all wars.
00:47:09.600 | Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences.
00:47:15.800 | They don't mean a thing.
00:47:17.680 | One has just failed.
00:47:19.120 | The results of another have been nullified.
00:47:22.360 | We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats
00:47:27.680 | to these conferences, and what happens?
00:47:31.880 | Professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm.
00:47:34.680 | No admiral wants to be without a ship.
00:47:37.040 | No general wants to be without a command.
00:47:39.720 | Both mean men without jobs.
00:47:41.920 | They are not for disarmament.
00:47:44.000 | They cannot be for limitations of arms.
00:47:46.960 | And at all these conferences, lurking in the background, but all powerful just the same,
00:47:51.720 | are the sinister agents of those who profit by war.
00:47:55.360 | They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.
00:48:01.160 | The chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not been to achieve disarmament
00:48:05.680 | to prevent war, but rather to get more armament for itself and less for any potential foe.
00:48:12.640 | There is only one way to disarm with any semblance of practicability.
00:48:16.720 | That is, for all nations to get together and scrap every ship, every gun, every rifle,
00:48:21.760 | every tank, every warplane.
00:48:23.880 | Even this, if it were possible, would not be enough.
00:48:27.400 | The next war, according to experts, will be fought not with battleships, not by artillery,
00:48:32.280 | not with rifles, and not with machine guns.
00:48:34.560 | It will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases.
00:48:37.760 | Secretly, each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating
00:48:43.360 | its foes wholesale.
00:48:45.160 | Yes, ships will continue to be built, for the shipbuilders must make their profits.
00:48:50.320 | And guns still will be manufactured, and powder and rifles will be made, for the munitions
00:48:55.280 | makers must make their huge profits.
00:48:58.160 | And the soldiers, of course, must wear uniforms, for the manufacturer must make their war profits
00:49:03.080 | too.
00:49:04.080 | But victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.
00:49:10.440 | If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive
00:49:15.440 | instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building
00:49:20.000 | greater prosperity for all peoples.
00:49:22.920 | By putting them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace than we can
00:49:27.320 | out of war, even the munitions makers.
00:49:30.800 | So I say, to hell with war.
00:49:37.920 | Thus concludes Major General Butler's pamphlet and his speech.
00:49:45.920 | It's hard for me to know what to say because here we are more than a hundred years later
00:49:51.760 | and you can see as well as I can what of his comments have held true and what hasn't.
00:50:02.800 | Difficult issue is simply that we should pay attention to the details that we need to know
00:50:07.000 | about.
00:50:08.000 | But we should not delude ourselves by thinking that war is exclusively about what is right
00:50:18.360 | and wrong, nor should we delude ourselves to think that in most cases war is even primarily
00:50:24.720 | about what is right and wrong.
00:50:27.920 | I myself don't know exactly where all those lines are drawn.
00:50:31.040 | You look at some conflicts and the morality is clearer than in others.
00:50:35.520 | I don't know exactly where you should draw the lines of each different thing.
00:50:41.720 | All I know is that war is hell and it ought not to be profited on.
00:50:50.120 | I don't want any money from it.
00:50:52.320 | I hope that you don't want any money from it.
00:50:54.320 | But at the end of the day, the world is full of wicked men who are going to profit on war
00:50:59.400 | until righteous men stand up and say enough is enough.
00:51:02.840 | I have no idea how to do that.
00:51:05.740 | But I wanted to be faithful to wage my little protest here in the form of reading you this
00:51:12.520 | essay.
00:51:13.520 | As far as I'm concerned, this essay should be mandatory reading for every person, every
00:51:21.640 | citizen, every voter, every young person, every young man or woman, whoever wants to
00:51:26.960 | go and enlist in the military must read this essay first and then act accordingly.
00:51:33.400 | I pray that God would give us wisdom of how to defend righteousness and justice and to
00:51:40.560 | eliminate wickedness and violence all over the world.
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00:52:16.960 | (dramatic music)