For several decades, Major General Smedley Butler (US Marines) helped
lead many a US war in
Latin America and elsewhere. However, he later became one of
the most eloquent opponents of
war and war profiteering that has ever existed! Ever heard of
him? He exposed, as few can,
exactly how wars were being fought to promote the interests of a corporate
elite. His book is
reprinted below.
Attempts were even made by US industrialist to recruit Butler to lead
a fascist coup in the US
in 1933! He turned them down, told FDR about the plot and went
public. Not surprisingly, few
people in the US (or elsewhere) have still ever heard of Butler or
the fascist plot of 1933.
Clearly if this and similar information were common knowledge, the
war planners would have a
more difficult time deceiving us with their trickery.
A word of caution to those who may think that this is a merely a "conspiracy
theory" -- and
therefore automatically not true. Please do some research on
the internet for yourself and see
what you find.
Here then is Smedley Butler's little book, first published in 1935. Enjoy!
Richard Sanders
----
Chapter One
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most
vicious. It is the only
one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits
are reckoned in dollars and
the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what
it seems to the majority
of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about.
It is conducted for the
benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war
a few people make huge
fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict.
At least 21,000 new
millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during
the World War. That many
admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many
other war millionaires
falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them
dug a trench? How many
of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out?
How many of them spent
sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine
gun bullets? How many of
them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded
or killed in battle?
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious.
They just take it.
This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few the
selfsame few who wrung
dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled
bodies. Shattered
minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and
all its attendant
miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was
a racket; not until I
retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international
war clouds
gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.
Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand
side by side. Italy
and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany
cast sheep's eyes at each
other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute
over the Polish Corridor.
The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated
matters. Jugoslavia
and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats.
Italy was ready to jump
in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are
looking ahead to war. Not
the people not those who fight and pay and die only those who foment
wars and remain safely
at home to profit.
There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen
and diplomats have
the temerity to say that war is not in the making.
Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?
Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being
trained for. He, at
least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in
"International
Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, said:
"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future
and the development of
humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes
neither in the
possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings
up to its highest tension
all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who
have the courage to meet
it."
Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army,
his great fleet of
planes, and even his navy are ready for war anxious for it, apparently.
His recent stand at
the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed
that. And the hurried
mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination
of Dollfuss showed it
too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war,
sooner or later.
Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for
more and more arms, is an
equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased
the term of military
service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.
Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe
are on the loose. In
the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia
and Japan fought, we
kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our
very generous international
bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against
the Japanese. What does the
"open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about
$90,000,000 a year. Or
the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines
in thirty-five
years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have
private investments there of
less than $200,000,000.
Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these
private investments of
less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred
up to hate Japan and go to
war a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds
of thousands of lives
of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed
and mentally unbalanced
men.
Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit fortunes
would be made.
Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions
makers. Bankers. Ship
builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare
well.
Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.
But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit
their mothers and sisters,
their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?
What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?
Yes, and what does it profit the nation?
Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside
the mainland of North
America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000.
Then we became
"internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of
the Father of our country.
We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances."
We went to war. We acquired
outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct
result of our fiddling in
international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000.
Our total
favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about
$24,000,000,000.
Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year
for year, and that
foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.
It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American
who pays the bills
to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like
bootlegging and other
underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations
is always transferred to
the people who do not profit.
CHAPTER TWO
WHO MAKES THE PROFITS?
The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United
States some
$52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man,
woman, and child. And we
haven't paid the debt yet. We are paying it, our children will pay
it, and our children's
children probably still will be paying the cost of that war.
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six,
eight, ten, and
sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits ah! that is another
matter twenty, sixty,
one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent the
sky is the limit. All that
traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.
Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into
speeches about patriotism,
love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,"
but the profits jump and
leap and skyrocket and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few
examples:
Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people didn't one of them
testify before a Senate
committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world
for democracy? Or
something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation.
Well, the average
earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000
a year. It wasn't much,
but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their
average yearly profit
during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year
profit we find! Nearly
ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were
pretty good. An increase
in profits of more than 950 per cent.
Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside
the making of rails and
girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914
yearly earnings
averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem
Steel promptly
turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump or did they let
Uncle Sam in for a
bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!
Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year
period prior to
the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then along came the war
and up went the profits. The
average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not
bad.
There you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let's look at
something else. A little
copper, perhaps. That always does well in war times.
Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war years
1910-1914 of
$10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918 profits leaped to $34,000,000
per year.
Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the 1910-1914
period. Jumped to an
average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the war period.
Let's group these five, with three smaller companies. The total yearly
average profits of the
pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. Then along came the war.
The average yearly profits
for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000.
A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.
Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren't the only ones. There are
still others. Let's take
leather.
For the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central
Leather Company were
$3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a year. Well, in 1916
Central Leather returned a
profit of $15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That's all.
The General Chemical
Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little
over $800,000 a year.
Came the war, and the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a leap of 1,400
per cent.
International Nickel Company and you can't have a war without nickel
showed an increase in
profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly.
Not bad? An increase of
more than 1,700 per cent.
American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three
years before the war.
In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.
Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting
on corporate earnings
and government revenues. Considering the profits of 122 meat packers,
153 cotton manufacturers,
299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during
the war. Profits under 25
per cent were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between
100 per cent and 7,856
per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago packers
doubled and tripled their
earnings.
And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone
had the cream of the
profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated
organizations, they do
not have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret
as they were immense. How
the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know, because
those little secrets
never become public even before a Senate investigatory body.
But here's how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators
chiseled their way
into war profits.
Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal
profits. They made huge
profits on sales abroad to our allies. Perhaps, like the munitions
manufacturers and armament
makers, they also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether
it comes from Germany or
from France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they
sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000
pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight
pairs, and more, to a
soldier. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier.
Some of these shoes
probably are still in existence. They were good shoes. But when the
war was over Uncle Sam has
a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought and paid for. Profits
recorded and pocketed.
There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold your
Uncle Sam hundreds of
thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there wasn't any
American cavalry overseas!
Somebody had to get rid of this leather, however. Somebody had to make
a profit in it so we
had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.
Also somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your Uncle Sam
20,000,000 mosquito nets
for the use of the soldiers overseas. I suppose the boys were expected
to put it over them as
they tried to sleep in muddy trenches one hand scratching cooties
on their backs and the
other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one of these mosquito
nets ever got to France!
Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier
would be without his
mosquito net, so 40,000,000 additional yards of mosquito netting were
sold to Uncle Sam.
There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days, even
if there were no
mosquitoes in France. I suppose, if the war had lasted just a little
longer, the enterprising
mosquito netting manufacturers would have sold your Uncle Sam a couple
of consignments of
mosquitoes to plant in France so that more mosquito netting would be
in order.
Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just
profits out of this
war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs. So $1,000,000,000
count them if you live
long enough was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that
never left the ground!
Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion dollars worth ordered,
ever got into a battle in
France. Just the same the manufacturers made their little profit of
30, 100, or perhaps 300 per
cent.
Undershirts for soldiers cost 14¢ [cents] to make and uncle Sam
paid 30¢ to 40¢ each for them
a nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer. And the stocking
manufacturer and the
uniform manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet
manufacturers all got
theirs.
Why, when the war was over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment knapsacks
and the things that go
to fill them crammed warehouses on this side. Now they are being
scrapped because the
regulations have changed the contents. But the manufacturers collected
their wartime profits on
them and they will do it all over again the next time.
There were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.
One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch wrenches.
Oh, they were very
nice wrenches. The only trouble was that there was only one nut ever
made that was large enough
for these wrenches. That is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara
Falls. Well, after Uncle
Sam had bought them and the manufacturer had pocketed the profit, the
wrenches were put on
freight cars and shunted all around the United States in an effort
to find a use for them. When
the Armistice was signed it was indeed a sad blow to the wrench manufacturer.
He was just about
to make some nuts to fit the wrenches. Then he planned to sell these,
too, to your Uncle Sam.
Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in
automobiles, nor should
they even ride on horseback. One has probably seen a picture of Andy
Jackson riding in a
buckboard. Well, some 6,000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the
use of colonels! Not one
of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war profit.
The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built
a lot of ships that
made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships
were all right. But
$635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float! The
seams opened up and they
sank. We paid for them, though. And somebody pocketed the profits.
It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers
that the war cost your
Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended
in the actual war itself.
This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the
21,000 billionaires and
millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be
sneezed at. It is quite a
tidy sum. And it went to a very few.
The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime
profits, despite its
sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.
Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying
"for some time" methods
of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly decides it has a
wonderful plan to spring.
The Administration names a committee with the War and Navy Departments
ably represented under
the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator to limit profits in
war time. To what extent
isn't suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600
per cent of those who
turned blood into gold in the World War would be limited to some smaller
figure.
Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses
that is, the losses
of those who fight the war. As far as I have been able to ascertain
there is nothing in the
scheme to limit a soldier to the loss of but one eye, or one arm, or
to limit his wounds to one
or two or three. Or to limit the loss of life.
There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than
12 per cent of a regiment
shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 per cent in a division
shall be killed.
Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.
CHAPTER THREE
WHO PAYS THE BILLS?
Who provides the profits these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300,
1,500 and 1,800 per cent?
We all pay them in taxation. We paid the bankers their profits when
we bought Liberty Bonds
at $100.00 and sold them back at $84 or $86 to the bankers. These bankers
collected $100 plus.
It was a simple manipulation. The bankers control the security marts.
It was easy for them to
depress the price of these bonds. Then all of us the people got
frightened and sold the
bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers bought them. Then these same bankers
stimulated a boom and
government bonds went to par and above. Then the bankers collected
their profits.
But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.
If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields
abroad. Or visit
any of the veteran's hospitals in the United States. On a tour of the
country, in the midst of
which I am at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen government
hospitals for
veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men men who
were the pick of the
nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government
hospital; at
Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality
among veterans is
three times as great as among those who stayed at home.
Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices
and factories and
classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were
made over; they were
made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They
were put shoulder to
shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed.
We used them for a couple of
years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being
killed.
Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about
face" ! This time they
had to do their own readjustment, sans [without] mass psychology, sans
officers' aid and advice
and sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we
scattered them about
without any "three-minute" or "Liberty Loan" speeches or parades. Many,
too many, of these fine
young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not
make that final "about
face" alone.
In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are
in pens! Five hundred of
them in a barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the
buildings and on the
porches. These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't
even look like human
beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good
shape; mentally, they are
gone.
There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and more
are coming in all the time.
The tremendous excitement of the war, the sudden cutting off of that
excitement the young
boys couldn't stand it.
That's a part of the bill. So much for the dead they have paid their
part of the war profits.
So much for the mentally and physically wounded they are paying now
their share of the war
profits. But the others paid, too they paid with heartbreaks when
they tore themselves away
from their firesides and their families to don the uniform of Uncle
Sam on which a profit had
been made. They paid another part in the training camps where they
were regimented and drilled
while others took their jobs and their places in the lives of their
communities. The paid for
it in the trenches where they shot and were shot; where they were hungry
for days at a time;
where they slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain with the
moans and shrieks of the
dying for a horrible lullaby.
But don't forget the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bill too.
Up to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize system,
and soldiers and sailors
fought for money. During the Civil War they were paid bonuses, in many
instances, before they
went into service. The government, or states, paid as high as $1,200
for an enlistment. In the
Spanish-American War they gave prize money. When we captured any vessels,
the soldiers all got
their share at least, they were supposed to. Then it was found that
we could reduce the cost
of wars by taking all the prize money and keeping it, but conscripting
[drafting] the soldier
anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain for their labor, Everyone else
could bargain, but the
soldier couldn't.
Napoleon once said,
"All men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger for them."
So by developing the Napoleonic system the medal business the government
learned it could
get soldiers for less money, because the boys liked to be decorated.
Until the Civil War there
were no medals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out.
It made enlistments
easier. After the Civil War no new medals were issued until the Spanish-American
War.
In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription.
They were made to
feel ashamed if they didn't join the army.
So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it.
With few exceptions our
clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans.
God is on our
side...it is His will that the Germans be killed.
And in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the
allies...to please the
same God. That was a part of the general propaganda, built up to make
people war conscious and
murder conscious.
Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die.
This was the "war to end
all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy."
No one mentioned to them,
as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge
war profits. No one told
these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made
by their own brothers
here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross
might be torpedoed by
submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it
was to be a "glorious
adventure."
Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to
make them help pay for
the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.
All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones
behind, give up their
jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get
it) and kill and kill and
kill...and be killed.
But wait!
Half of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or
a laborer in a munitions
factory safe at home made in a day) was promptly taken from him to
support his dependents, so
that they would not become a charge upon his community. Then we made
him pay what amounted to
accident insurance something the employer pays for in an enlightened
state and that cost
him $6 a month. He had less than $9 a month left.
Then, the most crowning insolence of all he was virtually blackjacked
into paying for his own
ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy Liberty Bonds.
Most soldiers got no money
at all on pay days.
We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back
when they came back from
the war and couldn't find work at $84 and $86. And the soldiers bought
about $2,000,000,000
worth of these bonds!
Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays
too. They pay it in the
same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they suffer. At nights,
as he lay in the trenches
and watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in their beds and
tossed sleeplessly his
father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons,
and his daughters.
When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind
broken, they suffered too
as much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes, and they, too, contributed
their dollars to
the profits of the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and
the manufacturers and the
speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty Bonds and contributed to
the profit of the bankers
after the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond
prices.
And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken
and those who never
were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying.
CHAPTER FOUR
HOW TO SMASH THIS RACKET!
WELL, it's a racket, all right.
A few profit and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You
can't end it by disarmament
conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning
but impractical
groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively
only by taking the
profit out of war.
The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry
and labor before the
nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government
can conscript the young men
of the nation it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let
the officers and the
directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories
and our munitions makers
and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers
of all the other things
that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators,
be conscripted to
get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.
Let the workers in these plants get the same wages all the workers,
all presidents, all
executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers
yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians
and all government
office holders everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly
income not to exceed
that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those
workers in industry and
all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly
$30 wage to their families
and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.
Why shouldn't they?
They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies
mangled or their minds
shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry.
The soldiers are!
Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and
you will find, by that
time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket that and
nothing else.
Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital
won't permit the
taking of the profit out of war until the people those who do the
suffering and still pay the
price make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do
their bidding, and not
that of the profiteers.
Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the
limited plebiscite to
determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not of all
the voters but merely of
those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying. There
wouldn't be very much sense
in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed
head of an
international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing
plant all of
whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event of war voting
on whether the nation
should go to war or not. They never would be called upon to shoulder
arms to sleep in a
trench and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk
their lives for their
country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the
nation should go to war.
There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected.
Many of our states have
restrictions on those permitted to vote. In most, it is necessary to
be able to read and write
before you may vote. In some, you must own property. It would be a
simple matter each year for
the men coming of military age to register in their communities as
they did in the draft during
the World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and
who would therefore be
called upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote
in a limited plebiscite.
They should be the ones to have the power to decide and not a Congress
few of whose members
are within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition
to bear arms. Only
those who must suffer should have the right to vote.
A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make
certain that our military
forces are truly forces for defense only.
At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations
comes up. The
swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of
them) are very adroit
lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot
of battleships to war on
this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known
that America is menaced
by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you,
the great fleet of this
supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people.
Just like that. Then
they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy?
Oh my, no. Oh, no. For
defense purposes only.
Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.
The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on
the Pacific. Will the
maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The
maneuvers will be two
thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.
The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression
to see the united
States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would
be the residents of
California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the
Japanese fleet playing at
war games off Los Angeles.
The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited,
by law, to within 200
miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898 the Maine would
never have gone to Havana
Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no
war with Spain with its
attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion
of experts, for defense
purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can't
go further than 200 miles
from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles
from the coast for
purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial
limits of our
nation.
To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
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 all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents
of those who profit by
war. They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously
limit armaments.
The chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not been
to achieve disarmament to
prevent war but rather to get more armament for itself and less for
any potential foe.
There is only one way to disarm with any semblance of practicability.
That is for all nations
to get together and scrap every ship, every gun, every rifle, every
tank, every war plane. Even
this, if it were possible, would not be enough.
The next war, according to experts, will be fought not with battleships,
not by artillery, not
with rifles and not with machine guns. It will be fought with deadly
chemicals and gases.
Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier
means of annihilating its
foes wholesale. Yes, ships will continue to be built, for the shipbuilders
must make their
profits. And guns still will be manufactured and powder and rifles
will be made, for the
munitions makers must make their huge profits. And the soldiers, of
course, must wear uniforms,
for the manufacturer must make their war profits too.
But victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.
If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish
mechanical and explosive
instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive
job of building greater
prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we
can all make more money out
of peace than we can out of war even the munitions makers.
So...I say,
TO HELL WITH WAR!
----
Smedley Darlington Butler
Major General - United States Marine Corps [Retired]
Born West Chester, Pa., July 30, 1881
Educated Haverford School
Married Ethel C. Peters, of Philadelphia, June 30, 1905
Awarded two congressional medals of honor, for capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914,
and for capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917
Distinguished service medal, 1919
Retired Oct. 1, 1931
On leave of absence to act as director of Department of Safety, Philadelphia, 1932
Lecturer - 1930's
Republican Candidate for Senate, 1932
Died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, June 21, 1940
For more information about Major General Smedley Butler, contact the
United States Marine
Corps.
----
Two upcoming events in Ottawa:
(1) WORKSHOP with BARRIE ZWICKER:
"Are the Mainstream/Corporate Media a Lost Cause for Activists?"
Friday, April 26, 2002,
7:30 pm.
Ottawa Public Library (Main
Branch)
120 Metcalfe St. (at Laurier)
(2) SEPTEMBER 11: A PRETEXT for WAR
SPEAKERS: MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY and BARRIE ZWICKER
Saturday, April 27, 7:00
- 9:30 p.m.
Room 203, Montpetit Hall,
125 University Ave.
University of Ottawa.
For more info see
http://www.ncf.ca/coat/links_main/september_11.htm
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Richard Sanders, Coordinator, Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)
(A network of individuals and NGOs across Canada and around the world)
Tel: 613-231-3076 Email: ad207@ncf.ca Web:
http://www.ncf.ca/coat
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