War Is A Racket

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. Backbreaking 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-fiveyear 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 heartbreak 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 highpowered 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 crosseyed 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.
We must take the profit out of war.
We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be
war.
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 allpowerful, 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!