 War is a racket by Major General Smedley Butler. Contents. Chapter 1. War is a racket. Chapter 2. Who makes the profits? Chapter 3. Who pays the bills? Chapter 4. How to smash this racket? Chapter 5. To hell with war. Chapter 1. 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 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, 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 and their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows? How many of these war millionaires shoulder a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat infested dugout? How many of them spent sleepless frightened nights ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them part 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 self-same few who run 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 that 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 men agree to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurry to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep eyes at each other, forgetting for the ones. One unique occasion, their dispute over the Polish Corridor. The assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia complicated matters. Yugoslavia 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 for profits. There are 40 million men under arms in the world today. And our statesmen and diplomats have the tyrannity to say that war is not in the making. Hell's bells are these 40 million 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 international conciliation. The publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said, At above all, fascism. The more it considers and observes the future of 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 tensions 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 Yugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dolfos showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose saber-rattling presages war sooner or later. Herr Hitler and his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms isn't equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to 18 months. Yes, all over, nations were 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 picked out our old friends, the Russians, and back 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 990 million a year. Or the Philippine Islands, where we spend about 600 million in the Philippines in 35 years and we, our bankers and industrialists and speculators, have private investments there of less than 200 million. Then to save that China trade of about 90 million or to protect these private investments of less than 200 million 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. Munition makers, bankers, shipbuilders, 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 billion dollars. 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 billion. Our total favorable trade balance during the 25-year period was about 24 billion. 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, this bootlegging and other underworld rackets brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people who do not profit. Chapter 2 Who Makes the Profits? The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some $52 billion. Figure it out, that means $400 for 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 6, 8, 10 and sometimes 12%. But wartime profits, ah, that is another matter. 26, 100, 300 and even 800%. 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 to put that crudely in wartime. It is addressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and we all, 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 Duponts, 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 Duponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were 6 million a year. It wasn't much, but the Duponts managed to get along on it. Now look at their average yearly profits during the war years, 1914 to 1918. $58 million a year profit we find, nearly 10 times that of normal times. And the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950%. Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war material. Well, their 1910 to 1914 yearly earnings were $6 million. 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 bargain? Well, their 1914 to 1918 average was 49 million a year. Or let's take United Steel. The normal earnings during the five year period prior to war were 150 million a year. Not bad. Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for the period 1914 to 1918 was 240 million. Not bad. There we have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let's look at something else. A little copper perhaps. That always does well in wartime. Anaconda for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war year is 1910 to 1914 of 10 million. During the war years 1914 to 1918 profits leaped to 34 million per year. Or Utah copper average of $5 million per year during the 1910 to 1914 period. Jump to an average of $21 million a year yearly profit for the war period. Let's group these five with three smaller companies. The total yearly average profit of the pre-war period 1910 to 1914 were $137,480,000. Then along came the war. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed to $408 million. A little increase in profits of approximately 200%. 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 million. A small increase of 1,100%. That's all. The general chemical company averaged the profit for the three year period three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. Came the war and profits jumped $12 million. A leap of 1,400%. International nickel company, and you can't have a war without nickel, showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4 million a year to $73 million yearly. Not bad. An increase of more than 1,700%. American sugar refining company averaged $2 million a year for the three years before the war. In 1916, a profit of $6 million was recorded. Listen to Senate document number 259, the 65th Congress reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues, considering the profits of 121 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25% were exceptional. For instance, the coal companies made between 100% and 7,856% under 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 a secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know. But those little secrets never became public. Even before a Senate investigatory body. But here's how some of the other patriotic industries 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 and 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 million pairs of hob-nailed service shoes. There were 4 million soldiers, 8 pairs and more to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier. Some of their shoes probably are still in existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over, Uncle Sam had a matter of 25 million pairs left over. Bought and paid for. Prophets recorded and pocketed. There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McLaren sandals for the Calvary. 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 McLaren sandals and we probably have those yet. Also, somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your Uncle Sam some 20 million mosquito nets for the use of soldiers overseas. I suppose the boys were expected to put it on them as they tried to sleep in muddy trenches. One hand scratching, queues on their backs and the other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one of these mosquito nets ever got to France. However, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier would be without his mosquito net. So 40 million 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 consignment of mosquitoes to plant in France so that more mosquito netting would be ordered. 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 billion dollars, count them if you lived 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 battle in France. Just the same the manufacturers made their little profits of 30, 100 or perhaps 300 percent. Under shirts for soldiers cost 14 cents to make and Uncle Sam paid 30 to 40 cents each for them. A nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturers and the stocking manufacturers and uniform manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers all got theirs. Why? When the war was over some 40 million sets of equipment, knapsacks and the things that go to fill them cramped 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 12,000 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 and 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 the use for them. When the armistice was signed it was indeed the sad blow to the wrench manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to fit those wrenches. Then he planned to sell these to your Uncle Sam. Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in automobiles nor should they even ride in horseback. One has probably seen a picture of Andrew Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some 6000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels. Not one of them was used but the buckboard manufacturers got their war profits. 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 billion dollars worth. Some of the ships were alright but 635 million dollars worth of them were made of wood and wind float. The seams opened up and they sank. We paid them though and somebody pocketed the profits. It has been estimated by statisticians, economists and researchers that the war cost Uncle Sam some 52 billion dollars. Of this sum 39 billion was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded 16 billion dollars in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. The 16 billion dollars in profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum and it went to a very few. The Senate and I Committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly had 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 State Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The administration names a committee with war navy departments aptly represented under the chairmanship of Wall Street speculator to limit profits in wartime. To what extent isn't suggested? Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600% 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 their wounds to one or two or three or to limit their loss of life. There is nothing in the scheme apparently that says that not more than 12% of a regiment shall be wounded in battle or that not more than 7% in a division shall be killed. Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters. Chapter 3 Who pays the bills? Who provides the profits? These nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500 and 1,800%. We all pay them in taxation. The bankers their profits when we bought Liberty bonds at $100 and sold them back at $84 and $86 to the bankers. These bankers collected $100 plus. It was a simple manipulation. The bankers controlled 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 in $84 and $86. The bankers bought them. Then these same banks, bankers, stimulated a boom and government bonds went to par and above. Then the bankers collected their profits. But the soldiers pay 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 veterans 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 18 government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 deployed men. Men who were the pick of the nations 18 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 the mortality among veterans is 3 times as great as among those who stay at home. Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put in the ranks. They were remoulded. 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 adjustment. Sans, without mass psychology. Sans, officers, aid and advice and sans, nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them anymore. So we shattered them about without any 3-minute or liberty-loan speeches or parade. Many, too many of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed mentally because they could not make their final about face alone. In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana 1,800 of these boys are in pens. 500 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 of 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 and cutting off that excitement the young boys couldn't stand it. That's 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 on Uncle Sam on which a profit has been made. They paid another part in the training camps where they were regimented and drilled while others took their jobs in their places in the lives of their communities. They paid for it in the trenches where they were 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 dying for a horrible lullaby. But don't forget the soldiers paid part of the dollars and cents billed too. Up to and including the Spanish-American War we had a prize system and soldiers and sailors fought for the 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 enlistment. In the Spanish-American War when we captured any vessel 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 soldiers anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain for their labor. Everyone else could bargain but the soldiers couldn't. Napoleon once said all men are enamored of decorations. They positively hunger for them. So by developing the Napoleonic system the metal business the government learned it could get soldiers for less money because the boys like to be decorated. Until the Civil War there was no metals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made enlistments easier. After the Civil War new metals 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 the clamor to kill, kill, kill to kill the Germans. God is on our side. 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 ideas were painted for our boys who went 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 bladders 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 municent sum was to leave their loved ones behind give up their jobs, lies when 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 shipyard or laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day was probably taken from him to support his dependents so they would not become a charge upon his community. Then we made him pay what amounted to accident insurance something the employer pays for 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 blackjacketed into paying for his own munitions clothing and food by being made to buy livery bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on paydays. We made them buy livery 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 billion worth of these bonds. Yes, the soldiers pay the greater part of the bill his family pays too they pay in the same heartbreak that he does. As he suffers they suffer. At nights as he lay in the trenches and watch shrapnel burst about him they lay home in their beds and tossed and sleeplessly his father, his mother, his wife his sister, his brother, his son and his daughters. When he returned home mine as an eye or mine as a lay 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 the bankers and shipbuilders and manufacturers and the speculators made. They too bought livery bonds and contributed the profits of the bankers after the armistice and 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 4 how to smash this racket well it's a racket alright 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 parlays 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 labour 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 labour. Not the officers and the directors of the high powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our ship builders and our plane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and speculators be conscripted to get $30 a month the same wage as the lads that the trenches get that 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 pay to the soldier in the trenches let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers and industry and all 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 and their minds shattered they aren't sleeping in muddy trenches they aren't hungry the soldiers are give capital and industry and labor 30 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 being a little too optimistic capital has still has some say so capital won't permit the taking of the profits of war until the people those who do the suffering and still pay the price make up their minds that those that 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 to limit 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 won't be very much sense in having a 76 year old president of the munitions factory or the flat footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-site 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's ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected many of our states have restricted 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 to be examined physically those who could pass and would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote in limited plebiscite this should be the ones to have the power to decide and not a congress few of those 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 and at each session of congress the question of further naval appropriation comes up the swirl chair admirals of washington and there are always a lot of them are very adroit lobbyist and they are smart they don't shout that we need a lot of battleships to war to war on this nation or on that nation or no first of all they let it be known that america is menaced by a great naval power almost almost any day these admirals will tell you the great fleet of the supposed enemy will strike suddenly annihilate 125 million people just like that they then they begin to cry for a larger navy for what to fight the enemy or my 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 2 or 300 miles oh no the maneuvers will be 2,000 yes perhaps even 3,500 miles off the coast the japanese the proud people of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united states fleet so close to nippon shores even as pleased as would be the residents of california were they to dimly discern through the morning mist the japanese fleet playing a war games off los angeles the ships of our navy should be specifically limited by law to within 200 miles of her coastline had that been the law in 1898 the main would never have gone to have ana harbor she never would have been blown up there would have been no war with spain with its attended loss of life 200 miles is ample in the opinion of experts for defense purposes our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships cannot go further than 200 miles from the coastline planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purpose of reconnaissance and the army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation to summarize 3 steps must be taken to smash the war racket 1 we must take profit out of war 2 we must permit the youth of the land who bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war 3 we must limit our military forces to home defense purposes chapter 5 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 withdrawal wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had kept us out of the war and on the implied promise they would keep us out of the war yet 5 months later he asked congress to declare war in Germany in that 5 month interval the people had not been asked whether they had changed their minds the 4 million 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 advisors the head of the commission spoke stripped of his 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 just we now owe you American bankers American munitions makers American manufacturers American speculators American exporters 5 or 6 billion dollars if we lose and without the help of the united states we must lose we, England, France and Italy this money and Germany won't so had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiators 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 18 years after the world has less of democracy than it had then besides what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies whether they are fascist or communist 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 result of another has been nullified we send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences and what happens the professional soldier 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 these conferences they are all powerful just the same or 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, 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 the 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 studying and perfecting newer and gaslier means of annihilating foes wholesale yes, ships will continue to be built for the shipbuilders must make their profits and guns still will be manufactured powder and rifles will be made for the munitions makers must make their huge profits soldiers of course must wear uniforms for the manufacturers must make their 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