www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
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 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? Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few - the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out. 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. 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. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. 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. 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. 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. What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits? 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. 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. The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some $52,000,000,000. That means $400 to every American man, woman, and child. 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. 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? 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. Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. 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. 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? The normal earnings during the five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. The average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. 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. 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. The total yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000. A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent. For the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central Leather Company were $3,500,000. Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit of $15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. 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. American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three years before the war. 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. For instance the coal companies made between 100 per cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. 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. 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. 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. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. So the leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. Somebody had to make a profit in it - so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. 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 ...
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