Latest / The Art of War - Sun Tzu / War Is a Racket-Smedley Butler

Transcript

War Is a Racket-Smedley Butler · The Art of War - Sun Tzu

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter one of War is a Racket by Smedley Butler,
0:05
Speaker 1: Major General, retired, U. S. Marine Corps. This LibriVox recording
0:09
Speaker 1: is in the public domain. War is a racket by
0:12
Speaker 1: Smedley Butler, Major General, retired. Chapter one contents. Chapter one,
0:20
Speaker 1: War is a racket. Chapter two? Who makes the prophets?
0:25
Speaker 1: Chapter three? Who pays the bills? Chapter four? How to
0:31
Speaker 1: smash this racket? Chapter five to Hell with War. Smedley
0:38
Speaker 1: Darlington Butler born Westchester, Pennsylvania, July thirtieth, eighteen eighty one,
0:45
Speaker 1: Educated Haverford School, Married ethel C. Peters of Philadelphia June thirtieth,
0:51
Speaker 1: nineteen o five. Awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor one
0:56
Speaker 1: Capture of Veracruz, Mexico, nineteen fourteen, two to Capture of
1:01
Speaker 1: Fort Riviere Haiti nineteen seventeen. Distinguished Service Medal nineteen nineteen.
1:08
Speaker 1: Major General, United States Marine Corps. Retired October first, nineteen
1:14
Speaker 1: thirty one, on leave of absence to act as Director
1:18
Speaker 1: of Department of Safety, Philadelphia nineteen thirty two. Lecturer nineteen thirties,
1:25
Speaker 1: Republican candidate for Senate nineteen thirty two. Died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia,
1:32
Speaker 1: June twenty first, nineteen forty. For more information about Major
1:37
Speaker 1: General Butler, contact the United States Marine Corps Chapter one.
1:43
Speaker 1: War is a racket. War is a racket. It always
1:48
Speaker 1: has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable,
1:54
Speaker 1: surely the most vicious. It is the only one international
1:59
Speaker 1: in scope. It is the only one in which the
2:02
Speaker 1: profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
2:07
Speaker 1: A racket is best described, I believe, as something that
2:12
Speaker 1: is not what it seems to the majority of the people.
2:15
Speaker 1: Only a small inside group knows what it is about.
2:20
Speaker 1: It is conducted for the benefit of the very few,
2:24
Speaker 1: at the expense of the very many. Out of war,
2:29
Speaker 1: a few people make huge fortunes in the World War One,
2:35
Speaker 1: A mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At
2:39
Speaker 1: least twenty one thousand new millionaires and billionaires were made
2:44
Speaker 1: in the United States during the World War That many
2:49
Speaker 1: admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns.
2:53
Speaker 1: How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns. No
2:58
Speaker 1: one knows how many of these wore millionaires shouldered a rifle,
3:04
Speaker 1: how many of them dug a trench, how many of
3:08
Speaker 1: them knew what it meant to go hungry in a
3:11
Speaker 1: rat infested dugout. How many of them spent sleepless, frightened
3:16
Speaker 1: nights ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets. How
3:22
Speaker 1: many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy?
3:26
Speaker 1: How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
3:31
Speaker 1: Out of war, nations acquire additional territory. If they are victorious,
3:37
Speaker 1: they just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is
3:43
Speaker 1: exploited by the few, the self same few who rung
3:47
Speaker 1: dollars out of blood in the war. The general public
3:51
Speaker 1: shoulders the bill, and what is this bill? This bill
3:57
Speaker 1: renders a horrible accounting new placed gravestones, mangled bodies, shattered minds,
4:05
Speaker 1: broken hearts and homes, economic instability, depression and all its
4:12
Speaker 1: attendant miseries, backbreaking taxation for generations and generations. For a
4:20
Speaker 1: great many years as a soldier, I had a suspicion
4:25
Speaker 1: that war was a racket. Not until I retired to
4:30
Speaker 1: civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I
4:34
Speaker 1: see the international war clouds gathering as they are today,
4:39
Speaker 1: I must face it and speak out again. They are
4:44
Speaker 1: choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand
4:49
Speaker 1: side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a
4:54
Speaker 1: similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep eyes at each
5:00
Speaker 1: other forgetting for the nance. One unique occasion their dispute
5:06
Speaker 1: over the Polish Corridor, the assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia.
5:13
Speaker 1: Yugoslavia complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungry, long bitter enemies, were
5:22
Speaker 1: almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in,
5:28
Speaker 1: but France was waiting, so was Czechoslovakia. All of them
5:34
Speaker 1: are looking ahead to war, not the people, not those
5:39
Speaker 1: who fight and pay and die, only those who foment
5:44
Speaker 1: wars and remain safely at home to profit. There are
5:50
Speaker 1: forty million men under arms in the world to day,
5:55
Speaker 1: and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say
5:59
Speaker 1: that war is not in the making Hell's bells. Are
6:04
Speaker 1: these forty million men being trained to be dancers? Not
6:10
Speaker 1: in Italy. To be sure, Premier Mussolini knows what they
6:15
Speaker 1: are being trained for. He at least is frank enough
6:18
Speaker 1: to speak out. Only the other day Il duccei in
6:23
Speaker 1: International conciliation. The publication of the Carnegie endowment for international peace. Said,
6:30
Speaker 1: and above all, fascism, the more it considers and observes
6:35
Speaker 1: the future and the development of humanity, quite apart from
6:40
Speaker 1: political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility
6:45
Speaker 1: nor the utility of perpetual peace. War alone brings up
6:51
Speaker 1: to its highest tension all human energy and puts the
6:56
Speaker 1: stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage
7:00
Speaker 1: to meet it. Undoubtedly, Mussolini means exactly what he says.
7:06
Speaker 1: His well trained army, his great fleet of plains, and
7:11
Speaker 1: even his navy are ready for war, anxious for it. Apparently,
7:17
Speaker 1: his recent stand at the side of Hungary in the
7:21
Speaker 1: latter's dispute with Zyugoslavia showed that, and the hurried mobilization
7:28
Speaker 1: of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination
7:33
Speaker 1: of Dolphus showed it too. There are others in Europe too,
7:38
Speaker 1: whose saber rattling presages war sooner or later. Her Hitler,
7:43
Speaker 1: with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more
7:48
Speaker 1: and more arms, is an equal, if not greater, menace
7:52
Speaker 1: to peace. France only recently increased the term of military
7:57
Speaker 1: service for its youth from a year to eighteen months. Yes,
8:03
Speaker 1: all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad
8:09
Speaker 1: dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient,
8:13
Speaker 1: the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in nineteen o four,
8:17
Speaker 1: when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends,
8:22
Speaker 1: the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international
8:28
Speaker 1: bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison
8:33
Speaker 1: us against the Japanese. What does the open door policy
8:38
Speaker 1: to China mean to us? Our trade with China is
8:42
Speaker 1: about ninety million dollars a year, or the Philippine Islands.
8:48
Speaker 1: We have spent about six hundred million dollars in the
8:52
Speaker 1: Philippines in thirty five years. And we are bankers and
8:58
Speaker 1: industrialists and speculation have private investments there of less than
9:04
Speaker 1: two hundred million dollars. Then to save that China trade
9:09
Speaker 1: of about ninety million dollars, or to protect these private
9:14
Speaker 1: investments of less than two hundred million dollars in the Philippines,
9:19
Speaker 1: we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and
9:23
Speaker 1: go to war, a war that might well cost us
9:27
Speaker 1: tens of billions of dollars hundreds of thousands of lives,
9:32
Speaker 1: of Americans and many more, hundreds of thousands of physically
9:37
Speaker 1: maimed and mentally unbalanced men. Of course, for this loss
9:44
Speaker 1: there would be a compensating profit. Fortunes would be made.
9:50
Speaker 1: Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up by
9:55
Speaker 1: a few munitions makers, bankers, ship builders, manufacturers, meat packers, speculators.
10:07
Speaker 1: They would fare well. Yes, they are getting ready for
10:12
Speaker 1: another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends. But
10:18
Speaker 1: what does it profit the men who were killed? What
10:22
Speaker 1: does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and
10:26
Speaker 1: their sweethearts? What does it profit their children? What does
10:31
Speaker 1: it profit any one except the very few, to whom
10:35
Speaker 1: war means huge profits? Yes, and what does it profit
10:40
Speaker 1: the nation? Take our own case. Until eighteen ninety eight,
10:47
Speaker 1: we didn't own a bit of territory outside the main
10:50
Speaker 1: land of North America. At that time, our national debt
10:55
Speaker 1: was a little more than one billion dollars. Then we
11:00
Speaker 1: became internationally minded. We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice
11:07
Speaker 1: of the father of our country. We forgot George Washington's
11:12
Speaker 1: warning about entangling alliances. We went to war. We acquired
11:19
Speaker 1: outside territory at the end of the World War period,
11:25
Speaker 1: as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs,
11:30
Speaker 1: our national debt had jumped to over twenty five billion dollars.
11:36
Speaker 1: Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty five year
11:40
Speaker 1: period was about twenty four billion dollars. Therefore, on a
11:47
Speaker 1: purely book keeping basis, we ran a little behind year
11:52
Speaker 1: for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours.
11:57
Speaker 1: Without the wars. It would have been far cheaper, not
12:02
Speaker 1: to say safer, for the average American who pays the
12:06
Speaker 1: bills to stay out of foreign entanglements for a very few.
12:12
Speaker 1: This racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits,
12:21
Speaker 1: but the cost of operations is always transferred to the
12:25
Speaker 1: people who do not profit. End of Chapter one. War
12:31
Speaker 1: is a Racket read by John Greenman. Chapter two of
12:40
Speaker 1: War is a Racket by Smedley Butler. This LibriVox recording
12:44
Speaker 1: is in the public domain. War is a Racket? Chapter two?
12:50
Speaker 1: Who makes the profits? The World War? Rather? Our brief
12:55
Speaker 1: participation in it has cost the United States some fifty
13:00
Speaker 1: two billion dollars. Figure it out. That means four hundred
13:06
Speaker 1: dollars to every American man, woman, and child, And we
13:11
Speaker 1: haven't paid the debt yet, we are paying it, our
13:15
Speaker 1: children will pay it, and our children's children probably still
13:20
Speaker 1: will be paying the cost of that war. The normal
13:24
Speaker 1: profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten,
13:31
Speaker 1: and sometimes twelve percent. But wartime profits, ah, that is
13:38
Speaker 1: another matter. Twenty sixty, one hundred, three hundred and even
13:47
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred percent. The sky is the limit all that
13:53
Speaker 1: traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money, let's get it.
14:00
Speaker 1: Of course, it isn't put that crudely. In war time.
14:04
Speaker 1: It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country,
14:10
Speaker 1: and we must all put our shoulders to the wheel.
14:15
Speaker 1: But the profits jump and leap and skyrocket and are
14:20
Speaker 1: all safely pocketed. Let's just take a few examples. Take
14:26
Speaker 1: our friends, the DuPonts, the powder people. Didn't one of
14:31
Speaker 1: them testify before the Senate Committee recently that their powder
14:36
Speaker 1: won the war or saved the world for democracy or something.
14:43
Speaker 1: How did they do in the war? They were a
14:46
Speaker 1: patriotic corporation. Well. The average earnings of the DuPonts for
14:52
Speaker 1: the period nineteen ten to nineteen fourteen were six million
14:57
Speaker 1: dollars a year. It wasn't much, but the DuPonts managed
15:01
Speaker 1: to get along on it. Now, let's look at their
15:04
Speaker 1: average yearly profit during the war years nineteen fourteen to
15:09
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen. Fifty eight million dollars a year. Profit we
15:15
Speaker 1: find nearly ten times that of normal times, and the
15:20
Speaker 1: profits of normal times were pretty good, an increase in
15:25
Speaker 1: profits of more than nine hundred and fifty percent. Take
15:30
Speaker 1: one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside
15:35
Speaker 1: the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture
15:41
Speaker 1: war materials. Well there, nineteen ten to nineteen fourteen yearly
15:47
Speaker 1: earnings averaged six million dollars. Then came the war, and
15:54
Speaker 1: like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munition making.
16:01
Speaker 1: Did their profits jump or did they let Uncle Sam
16:05
Speaker 1: in for a bargain? Well, they're nineteen fourteen to nineteen
16:10
Speaker 1: eighteen average was forty nine million dollars a year. Or
16:15
Speaker 1: let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the
16:19
Speaker 1: five year period prior to the war were one hundred
16:23
Speaker 1: and five million dollars a year. Not bad. Then along
16:28
Speaker 1: came the war and up went the profits. The average
16:33
Speaker 1: yearly profit for the period nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen
16:38
Speaker 1: was two hundred and forty million dollars. Not bad. There
16:44
Speaker 1: you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let's
16:47
Speaker 1: look at something else, a little copper perhaps, that always
16:52
Speaker 1: does well in war times. Anaconda, for instance, average yearly
16:58
Speaker 1: earnings during the pre war years nineteen ten to nineteen
17:03
Speaker 1: fourteen of ten million dollars. During the war years nineteen
17:09
Speaker 1: fourteen to nineteen eighteen, profits leapt to thirty four million
17:14
Speaker 1: dollars per year. Or Utah copper average of five million
17:19
Speaker 1: dollars per year during the nineteen ten to nineteen fourteen
17:24
Speaker 1: period jumped to an average of twenty one million dollars
17:28
Speaker 1: yearly profits for the war period. Let's group these five
17:33
Speaker 1: with three smaller companies. The total yearly average profits of
17:39
Speaker 1: the pre war period nineteen ten to nineteen fourteen were
17:43
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty seven thousand, four hundred and eighty dollars.
17:47
Speaker 1: Then along came the war. The average yearly profits for
17:50
Speaker 1: this group skyrocketed to four hundred and eight million, three
17:55
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. A little increase in profits of approximately
18:00
Speaker 1: two hundred percent. Does war pay? It paid them, But
18:07
Speaker 1: they aren't the only ones. There are still others. Let's
18:11
Speaker 1: take leather. For the three year period before the war,
18:17
Speaker 1: the total profits of Central Leather Company were three million,
18:21
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars. That was approximately one million, one
18:25
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars a year. Well, in
18:30
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, Central Leather returned a profit of fifteen million dollars,
18:36
Speaker 1: a small increase of one thousand, one hundred percent. That's all.
18:44
Speaker 1: The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three
18:48
Speaker 1: years before the war of a little over eight hundred
18:51
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year. Came the war, and the profits
18:56
Speaker 1: jumped to twelve million dollars, a leap of one thousand,
19:01
Speaker 1: four hundred percent. International Nickel Company and you can't have
19:07
Speaker 1: a war without nickel, showed an increase in profits from
19:11
Speaker 1: a mere average of four million dollars a year to
19:15
Speaker 1: seventy three million dollars yearly, not bad, an increase of
19:21
Speaker 1: more than one thousand, seven hundred percent. American Sugar Refining
19:26
Speaker 1: Company averaged two million dollars a year for the three
19:30
Speaker 1: years before the war. In nineteen sixteen, a profit of
19:35
Speaker 1: six million dollars was recorded. Listen to Senate document number
19:40
Speaker 1: two hundred fifty nine the sixty fifth Congress reporting on
19:45
Speaker 1: corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits of one
19:51
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty two meat packers, one hundred fifty three
19:55
Speaker 1: cotton manufacturers, two hundred and ninety nine the garment makers,
20:01
Speaker 1: forty nine steel plants, and three hundred and forty coal
20:07
Speaker 1: producers during the war, profits under twenty five percent were exceptional.
20:14
Speaker 1: For instance, the coal companies made between one hundred percent
20:19
Speaker 1: and seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty six percent on
20:24
Speaker 1: their capital stock during the war. The Chicago packers doubled
20:30
Speaker 1: and tripled their earnings. And let us not forget the
20:34
Speaker 1: bankers who financed the Great War. If anyone had the
20:38
Speaker 1: cream of the profits, it was the bankers. Being partnerships
20:44
Speaker 1: rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report
20:49
Speaker 1: to stockholders, and their profits were as secret as they
20:54
Speaker 1: were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions,
20:59
Speaker 1: eyed do not know, because those little secrets never become
21:05
Speaker 1: public even before a Senate investigatory body. But here's how
21:11
Speaker 1: some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their
21:15
Speaker 1: way into war profits. Take the shoe people, they like war.
21:21
Speaker 1: It brings business with abnormal profits. They made huge profits
21:26
Speaker 1: on sales abroad to our allies, perhaps like the munition's
21:31
Speaker 1: manufacturers and armament makers. They also sold to the enemy
21:38
Speaker 1: for a dollar is a dollar, whether it comes from
21:41
Speaker 1: Germany or from France. But they did well by Uncle
21:46
Speaker 1: Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam thirty five
21:51
Speaker 1: million pairs of hob nailed service shoes. There were four
21:56
Speaker 1: million soldiers eight pairs and more to a soldier. My
22:02
Speaker 1: regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier.
22:06
Speaker 1: Some of these shoes probably are still in existence. They
22:11
Speaker 1: were good shoes. But when the war was over, Uncle
22:15
Speaker 1: Sam has a matter of twenty five million pairs left over,
22:20
Speaker 1: bought and paid for, profits recorded and pocketed. There were
22:27
Speaker 1: still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold
22:31
Speaker 1: your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for
22:36
Speaker 1: the cavalry. But there wasn't any American cavalry overseas. Somebody
22:42
Speaker 1: had to get rid of this leather. However, somebody had
22:45
Speaker 1: to make a profit in it. So we had a
22:48
Speaker 1: lot of McClellan saddles, and we probably have those. Yet. Also,
22:55
Speaker 1: somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your
23:00
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam twenty million mosquito nets for the use of
23:04
Speaker 1: the soldiers overseas. I suppose the boys were expected to
23:09
Speaker 1: put it over them as they tried to sleep in
23:12
Speaker 1: muddy trenches, one hand scratching cooties on their backs, and
23:17
Speaker 1: the other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one
23:24
Speaker 1: of these mosquito nets ever got to France. Anyhow, These
23:30
Speaker 1: thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier would
23:35
Speaker 1: be without his mosquito net, so forty million additional yards
23:40
Speaker 1: of mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam. There were
23:46
Speaker 1: pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days, even
23:50
Speaker 1: if there were no mosquitoes in France. I suppose if
23:55
Speaker 1: the war had lasted just a little longer, the enterprising
23:59
Speaker 1: mosquito netting manufacturers would have sold your Uncle Sam a
24:04
Speaker 1: couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant in France so
24:09
Speaker 1: that more mosquito netting would be in order. Airplane and
24:14
Speaker 1: engine manufacturers felt they too, should get their just profits
24:19
Speaker 1: out of this war. Why not everybody else was getting theirs?
24:24
Speaker 1: So one billion dollars count them if you live long
24:30
Speaker 1: enough was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines
24:35
Speaker 1: that never left the ground. Not one plane or motor
24:41
Speaker 1: out of the billion dollars worth ordered ever got into
24:46
Speaker 1: a battle in France. Just the same the manufacturers made
24:51
Speaker 1: their little profit of thirty one hundred or perhaps three
24:56
Speaker 1: hundred percent. Undershirts for so soldiers cost fourteen cents to make,
25:03
Speaker 1: and Uncle Sam paid thirty cents to forty cents each
25:08
Speaker 1: for them. A nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer,
25:14
Speaker 1: and the stocking manufacturer, and the uniform manufacturers, and the
25:20
Speaker 1: tap manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers all got theirs.
25:27
Speaker 1: Why when the war was over, some four million sets
25:31
Speaker 1: of equipment, knapsacks and the things that go to fill
25:35
Speaker 1: them crammed warehouses on this side. Now they are being
25:41
Speaker 1: scrapped because the regulations have changed the contents. But the
25:45
Speaker 1: manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them, and they will
25:50
Speaker 1: do it all over again the next time. There were
25:54
Speaker 1: lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.
26:00
Speaker 1: Very versatile Patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen forty eight
26:06
Speaker 1: inch wrenches. Oh they were very nice wrenches. The only
26:11
Speaker 1: trouble was that there was only one nut ever made
26:16
Speaker 1: that was large enough for these wrenches. That is the
26:19
Speaker 1: one that holds the turbans at Niagara Falls. Well. After
26:25
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam had bought them and the manufacturer had pocketed
26:29
Speaker 1: the profit, the wrenches were put on freight cars and
26:33
Speaker 1: shunted all around United States in an effort to find
26:38
Speaker 1: a use for them. When the armistice was signed, it
26:42
Speaker 1: was indeed a sad blow to the wrench manufacturer. He
26:48
Speaker 1: was just about to make some nuts to fit the wrenches.
26:52
Speaker 1: Then he planned to sell these too, to your Uncle Sam.
26:57
Speaker 1: Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride
27:02
Speaker 1: in automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One
27:08
Speaker 1: has probably seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in
27:12
Speaker 1: a buckboard. Well, some six thousand buckboards were sold to
27:18
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam for the use of colonels. Not one of
27:22
Speaker 1: them was used, but the buckboard manufacturer got his war profit.
27:27
Speaker 1: The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of
27:31
Speaker 1: it too. They built a lot of ships that made
27:35
Speaker 1: a lot of profit, more than three billion dollars worth.
27:41
Speaker 1: Some of the ships were all right, but six hundred
27:45
Speaker 1: and thirty five million dollars worth of them were made
27:49
Speaker 1: of wood and wouldn't float. The seams opened up and
27:55
Speaker 1: they sank. We paid for them, though, and somebody pucked
28:00
Speaker 1: the profits. It has been estimated by statisticians and economists
28:07
Speaker 1: and researchers that the war cost your uncle Sam fifty
28:12
Speaker 1: two billion dollars. Of this sum, thirty nine billion dollars
28:18
Speaker 1: was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded
28:24
Speaker 1: sixteen billion dollars in profits. That is how the twenty
28:30
Speaker 1: one thousand billionaires and millionaires got that way. This sixteen
28:36
Speaker 1: billion dollars profits is not to be sneezed at. It
28:40
Speaker 1: is quite a tidy sum, and it went to a
28:44
Speaker 1: very few. The Senate NI Committee probe of the munition's
28:50
Speaker 1: industry and its wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly
28:56
Speaker 1: has scratched the surface. Even so, it has had some effect.
29:02
Speaker 1: The State Department has been studying for some time methods
29:08
Speaker 1: of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly decides
29:13
Speaker 1: it has a wonderful plan to spring. The administration names
29:17
Speaker 1: a committee with the War and Navy departments ably represented,
29:23
Speaker 1: under the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator, to limit
29:28
Speaker 1: profits in war time to what extent isn't suggested, hum
29:35
Speaker 1: possibly the profits of three hundred and six hundred and
29:40
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred percent of those who turned blood into gold
29:45
Speaker 1: in the World War would be limited to some smaller
29:49
Speaker 1: figure apparently. However, the plan does not call for any
29:54
Speaker 1: limitation of losses, that is, the losses of those who
29:59
Speaker 1: fight the war. As far as I have been able
30:02
Speaker 1: to ascertain, there is nothing in the scheme to limit
30:07
Speaker 1: a soldier to the loss of but one eye or
30:11
Speaker 1: one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or
30:15
Speaker 1: two or three, or to limit the loss of life.
30:20
Speaker 1: There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not
30:25
Speaker 1: more than twelve percent of a regiment shall be wounded
30:28
Speaker 1: in battle, or that not more than seven percent in
30:33
Speaker 1: a division shall be killed. Of course, the Committee cannot
30:37
Speaker 1: be bothered with such trifling matters. End of Chapter two.
30:43
Speaker 1: Who makes the prophets? Read by John Greenman. Chapter three
30:53
Speaker 1: of War is a racket. This LibriVox recording is in
30:56
Speaker 1: the public domain. War is a racket by Smith Butler
31:00
Speaker 1: Chapter three. Who pays the bills? Who provides the profits?
31:07
Speaker 1: These nice little profits of twenty one hundred, three hundred,
31:13
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred and eighteen hundred percent, We all pay them
31:20
Speaker 1: in taxation. We paid the bankers their profits when we
31:25
Speaker 1: bought liberty bonds at one hundred dollars and sold them
31:30
Speaker 1: back at eighty four dollars or eighty six dollars to
31:34
Speaker 1: the bankers. These bankers collected one hundred dollars plus. It
31:40
Speaker 1: was a simple manipulation. The bankers controlled the security marts.
31:46
Speaker 1: It was easy for them to depress the price of
31:49
Speaker 1: these bonds. Then all of us the people got frightened
31:55
Speaker 1: and sold the bonds at eighty four dollars or eighty
31:59
Speaker 1: six dollars. The bankers bought them. Then these same bankers
32:05
Speaker 1: stimulated a boom, and government bonds went to par and above.
32:12
Speaker 1: Then the bankers collected their profits, but the soldier pays
32:18
Speaker 1: the biggest part of the bill. If you don't believe this,
32:23
Speaker 1: visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad, or visit
32:28
Speaker 1: any of the veterans hospitals in the United States. On
32:33
Speaker 1: a tour of the country in the midst of which
32:36
Speaker 1: I am at the time of this writing, I have
32:40
Speaker 1: visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are a
32:45
Speaker 1: total of about fifty thousand destroyed men, men who were
32:51
Speaker 1: the pick of the nation. Eighteen years ago, the very
32:56
Speaker 1: able chief surgeon at the Government hospital at Millie, where
33:01
Speaker 1: there are three thousand, eight hundred of the living dead,
33:05
Speaker 1: told me that mortality among veterans is three times as
33:11
Speaker 1: great as among those who stayed at home. Boys with
33:16
Speaker 1: a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and
33:20
Speaker 1: offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There.
33:26
Speaker 1: They were remolded, They were made over, They were made
33:31
Speaker 1: to about face, to regard murder as the order of
33:36
Speaker 1: the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder, and through
33:41
Speaker 1: mass psychology they were entirely changed. We used them for
33:46
Speaker 1: a couple of years and trained them to think nothing
33:50
Speaker 1: at all of killing or of being killed. Then suddenly
33:56
Speaker 1: we discharged them and told them to make an another
34:00
Speaker 1: about face. This time they had to do their own readjustment,
34:06
Speaker 1: sans without mass psychology, sans officers aid and advice, and
34:14
Speaker 1: sans nationwide propaganda. We didn't need them anymore, so we
34:21
Speaker 1: scattered them about without any three minute or liberty Loan
34:26
Speaker 1: speeches or parades. Many too many of these fine young
34:32
Speaker 1: boys are eventually destroyed mentally because they could not make
34:37
Speaker 1: that final about face alone in the government hospital in Marion, Indiana.
34:44
Speaker 1: One thousand, eight hundred of these boys are in pens,
34:49
Speaker 1: five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars
34:53
Speaker 1: and wires all around. Outside the buildings and on the porches.
34:59
Speaker 1: These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't even
35:05
Speaker 1: look like human beings, oh the looks on their faces.
35:10
Speaker 1: Physically they are in good shape. Mentally they are gone.
35:18
Speaker 1: There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more
35:22
Speaker 1: and more are coming in all the time. The tremendous
35:27
Speaker 1: excitement of the war, the sudden cutting off of that excitement,
35:31
Speaker 1: the young boys couldn't stand it. That's a part of
35:37
Speaker 1: the bill. So much for the dead, they have paid
35:41
Speaker 1: their part of the war profits. So much for the
35:45
Speaker 1: mentally and physically wounded. They are paying now their share
35:51
Speaker 1: of the war profits. But the others paid too. They
35:56
Speaker 1: paid with heartbreaks when they tore themselves away from their
36:00
Speaker 1: firesides and their families to don the uniform of Uncle
36:04
Speaker 1: Sam on which a profit had been made. They paid
36:09
Speaker 1: another part in the training camps where they were regimented
36:13
Speaker 1: and drilled while others took their jobs and their places
36:18
Speaker 1: in the lives of their communities. They paid for it
36:21
Speaker 1: in the trenches where they shot and were shot, where
36:26
Speaker 1: they were hungry for days at a time, where they
36:29
Speaker 1: slept in the mud and the cold, and in the rain,
36:33
Speaker 1: with the moans and shrieks of the dying for a
36:37
Speaker 1: horrible lullaby. But don't forget the soldier paid part of
36:42
Speaker 1: the dollars and cents bill too. Up to and including
36:47
Speaker 1: the Spanish American War, we had a prize system, and
36:52
Speaker 1: soldiers and sailors fought for money. During the Civil War,
36:57
Speaker 1: they were paid bonuses many instances before they went into service.
37:04
Speaker 1: The government or states paid as high as twelve hundred
37:08
Speaker 1: dollars for an enlistment. In the Spanish American War, they
37:13
Speaker 1: gave prize money when we captured any vessels. The soldiers
37:18
Speaker 1: all got their share, at least they were supposed to.
37:23
Speaker 1: Then it was found that we could reduce the cost
37:27
Speaker 1: of wars by taking all the prize money and keeping it,
37:32
Speaker 1: but conscripting drafting the soldier anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain
37:39
Speaker 1: for their labor. Everyone else could bargain, but the soldier couldn't.
37:45
Speaker 1: Napoleon once said, all men are enamored of decorations. They
37:52
Speaker 1: positively hunger for them. So by developing the Napoleonic system
37:58
Speaker 1: the metal business, the government learned it could get soldiers
38:03
Speaker 1: for less money because the boys liked to be decorated.
38:09
Speaker 1: Until the Civil War there were no medals. Then the
38:14
Speaker 1: Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made enlistments easier.
38:21
Speaker 1: After the Civil War, no new medals were issued until
38:25
Speaker 1: the Spanish American War. In the World War, we used
38:31
Speaker 1: propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made
38:36
Speaker 1: to feel ashamed if they didn't join the army. So
38:41
Speaker 1: vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought
38:45
Speaker 1: into it, with few exceptions. Our clergymen joined in the
38:50
Speaker 1: clamor to kill, kill, kill, to kill the Germans. God
38:55
Speaker 1: is on our side. It is his will that the
38:59
Speaker 1: Germans be killed. And in Germany the good pastors called
39:04
Speaker 1: upon the Germans to kill the Allies to please the
39:08
Speaker 1: same God. That was a part of the general propaganda
39:13
Speaker 1: built up to make people war conscious and murder conscious.
39:19
Speaker 1: Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent
39:23
Speaker 1: out to die. This was the war to end all wars.
39:29
Speaker 1: This was the war to make the world safe for democracy.
39:34
Speaker 1: No one mentioned to them as they marched away that
39:38
Speaker 1: their going and their dying would mean huge war prophets.
39:44
Speaker 1: No one told these American soldiers that they might be
39:48
Speaker 1: shot down by bullets made by their own brothers. Here.
39:53
Speaker 1: No one told them that the ships on which they
39:56
Speaker 1: were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built
40:01
Speaker 1: with United States patents. They were just told it was
40:06
Speaker 1: to be a glorious adventure. Thus, having stuffed patriotism down
40:13
Speaker 1: their throats, it was decided to make them help pay
40:17
Speaker 1: for the war too, So we gave them the large
40:22
Speaker 1: salary of thirty dollars a month. All they had to
40:27
Speaker 1: do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear
40:31
Speaker 1: ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches,
40:38
Speaker 1: eat canned willie or when they could get it, and
40:42
Speaker 1: kill and kill and kill and be killed. But wait,
40:50
Speaker 1: half of that wage, just a little more than a
40:53
Speaker 1: riveter in a shipyard or a laborer in a munition's factory,
40:57
Speaker 1: safe at home, made in a day, was promptly taken
41:02
Speaker 1: from him to support his dependence, so that they would
41:06
Speaker 1: not become a charge upon his community. Then we made
41:10
Speaker 1: him pay what amounted to accident insurance, something the employer
41:16
Speaker 1: pays for in an enlightened state, and that cost him
41:20
Speaker 1: six dollars a month. He had less than nine dollars
41:24
Speaker 1: a month left. Then the most crowning insolence of all,
41:30
Speaker 1: he was virtually blackjacked into paying for his own ammunition, clothing,
41:35
Speaker 1: and food by being made to buy liberty bonds. Most
41:41
Speaker 1: soldiers got no money at all on pay days. We
41:45
Speaker 1: made them buy liberty bonds at one hundred dollars. Then
41:50
Speaker 1: we bought them back when they came back from the
41:53
Speaker 1: war and couldn't find work at eighty four dollars and
41:58
Speaker 1: eighty six dollars. And the soldiers bought about two billion
42:03
Speaker 1: dollars worth of these bonds. Yes, the soldier pays the
42:09
Speaker 1: greater part of the bill. His family pays two. They
42:14
Speaker 1: paid in the same heart break that he does. As
42:19
Speaker 1: he suffers. They suffer at nights as he lay in
42:24
Speaker 1: the trenches and watched shrapnel burst about him. They lay
42:29
Speaker 1: home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly his father, his mother,
42:36
Speaker 1: his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters.
42:43
Speaker 1: When he returned home minus an eye or minus a leg,
42:50
Speaker 1: or with his mind broken. They suffer'd too, as much
42:55
Speaker 1: as and even sometimes more than he, And they too
43:02
Speaker 1: contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers
43:07
Speaker 1: and bankers, and shipbuilders, and the manufacturers and the speculators
43:15
Speaker 1: made They too bought liberty bonds and contributed to the
43:21
Speaker 1: profit of the bankers after the armistice in the hocus
43:25
Speaker 1: pocus of manipulated liberty bond prices. And even now the
43:31
Speaker 1: families of the wounded men, and of the mentally broken,
43:36
Speaker 1: and those who never were able to readjust themselves are
43:40
Speaker 1: still suffering and still paying. End of chapter three. Who
43:46
Speaker 1: pays the bills? Read by John Greenman. Chapter four of
43:56
Speaker 1: War is a racket. This LibriVox recording is in the
43:59
Speaker 1: public mean War is a racket by Smedley Butler, Chapter four.
44:05
Speaker 1: How to smash this racket? Well, it is a racket,
44:09
Speaker 1: all right. A few profit and the many pay. But
44:14
Speaker 1: there is a way to stop it. You can't end
44:17
Speaker 1: it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace
44:23
Speaker 1: parleys at Geneva. Well meaning but impractical groups can't wipe
44:28
Speaker 1: it out by resolutions. It can be smashed defectively only
44:34
Speaker 1: by taking the profit out of war. The only way
44:39
Speaker 1: to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry
44:43
Speaker 1: and labor before the nation's manhood can be conscripted. One
44:49
Speaker 1: month before the government can conscript the young man of
44:52
Speaker 1: the nation, it must conscript capital and industry and labor.
44:58
Speaker 1: Let the officers and the directors and the high powered
45:02
Speaker 1: executives of our armament factories, and our munitions makers, and
45:08
Speaker 1: our ship builders and our airplane builders, and the manufacturers
45:13
Speaker 1: of all the other things that provide profit in wartime,
45:17
Speaker 1: as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted
45:23
Speaker 1: to get thirty dollars a month, the same wage as
45:27
Speaker 1: the lads in the trenches get. Let the workers in
45:31
Speaker 1: these plants get the same wages. All the workers, all presidents,
45:37
Speaker 1: all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers, yes, and
45:44
Speaker 1: all generals and all admirals and all officers, and all
45:50
Speaker 1: politicians and all government office holders, everyone in the nation
45:56
Speaker 1: be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed
46:01
Speaker 1: that paid to the soldier in the trenches. Let all
46:05
Speaker 1: these kings and tycoons and masters of business, and all
46:11
Speaker 1: those workers in industry, and all our senators and governors
46:16
Speaker 1: and majors pay half of their monthly thirty dollar wage
46:22
Speaker 1: to their families, and pay war risk insurance and buy
46:27
Speaker 1: liberty bonds. Why shouldn't they They aren't running any risk
46:32
Speaker 1: of being killed, or of having their bodies mangled or
46:37
Speaker 1: their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They
46:43
Speaker 1: aren't hungry. The soldiers are Give capital and industry and
46:51
Speaker 1: labor thirty days to think it over, and you will
46:55
Speaker 1: find by that time there will be no war that
47:01
Speaker 1: will smash the war racket. That and nothing else. Maybe
47:06
Speaker 1: I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some
47:11
Speaker 1: say so. Capital won't permit the taking of the profit
47:16
Speaker 1: out of war until the people, those who do the
47:20
Speaker 1: suffering and still pay the price, make up their minds
47:24
Speaker 1: that those they elect to office shall do their bidding
47:29
Speaker 1: and not that of the profiteers. Another step necessary in
47:34
Speaker 1: this fight to smash the war racket is the limited
47:38
Speaker 1: plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared, a
47:43
Speaker 1: plebiscite not of all the voters, but merely of those
47:48
Speaker 1: who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying.
47:52
Speaker 1: There wouldn't be very much sense in having a seventy
47:56
Speaker 1: six year old president of a munition's factor or the
48:01
Speaker 1: flat footed head of an international banking firm, or the
48:06
Speaker 1: cross eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing plant, all of
48:11
Speaker 1: whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event of
48:15
Speaker 1: war voting on whether the nation should go to war
48:19
Speaker 1: or not. They never would be called upon to shoulder arms,
48:25
Speaker 1: to sleep in a trench, and to be shot. Only
48:29
Speaker 1: those who would be called upon to risk their lives
48:33
Speaker 1: for their country should have the privilege of voting to
48:37
Speaker 1: determine whether the nation should go to war. There is
48:42
Speaker 1: ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many
48:47
Speaker 1: of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote.
48:52
Speaker 1: In most, it is necessary to be able to read
48:56
Speaker 1: and write before you may vote. In some you must
49:00
Speaker 1: own property. It would be a simple matter each year
49:05
Speaker 1: for the men coming of military age to register in
49:10
Speaker 1: their communities, as they did in the draft during the
49:14
Speaker 1: World War, and be examined physically. Those who could pass,
49:20
Speaker 1: and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms
49:24
Speaker 1: in the event of war, would be eligible to vote
49:28
Speaker 1: in a limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to
49:31
Speaker 1: have the power to decide, and not a congress, few
49:36
Speaker 1: of whose members are within the age limit, and fewer still,
49:40
Speaker 1: of whom are in physical condition to bear arms. Only
49:45
Speaker 1: those who must suffer should have the right to vote.
49:50
Speaker 1: A third step in this business of smashing the war
49:54
Speaker 1: racket is to make certain that our military forces are
49:58
Speaker 1: truly forces for defense. Only at each session of Congress
50:05
Speaker 1: the question of further naval appropriations comes up the swivel chair.
50:10
Speaker 1: Admirals of Washington, and there are always a lot of them,
50:15
Speaker 1: are very adroit lobbyists, and they are smart. They don't
50:20
Speaker 1: shout that we need a lot of battleships to war
50:24
Speaker 1: on this nation or that nation. Oh No. First of all,
50:28
Speaker 1: they let it be known that America is menaced by
50:32
Speaker 1: a great naval power. Almost any day. These admirals will
50:37
Speaker 1: tell you the great fleet of this supposed enemy will
50:40
Speaker 1: strike suddenly and annihilate one hundred and twenty five million
50:45
Speaker 1: people just like that. Then they begin to cry for
50:49
Speaker 1: a larger navy. For what to fight the enemy? Oh mine, no, oh, no,
50:56
Speaker 1: for defense purposes. Only then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in
51:02
Speaker 1: the Pacific for defense. Ah, The Pacific is a great,
51:08
Speaker 1: big ocean. We have a tremendous coast line on the Pacific.
51:14
Speaker 1: Will the maneuvers be off the coast two or three
51:17
Speaker 1: hundred miles. Oh, no, the maneuvers will be two thousand, yes,
51:24
Speaker 1: perhaps even thirty five hundred miles off the coast. The Japanese,
51:31
Speaker 1: a proud people, of course, will be pleased beyond expression
51:36
Speaker 1: to see the United States fleet so close to Nippon's shores,
51:41
Speaker 1: even as pleased as would be the residents of California
51:45
Speaker 1: were they to dimly discern through the morning mist the
51:50
Speaker 1: Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles. The
51:56
Speaker 1: ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be
52:00
Speaker 1: specifically limited by law to within two hundred miles of
52:05
Speaker 1: our coast line. Had that been the law in eighteen
52:09
Speaker 1: ninety eight, the main would never have gone to Havana Harbor.
52:15
Speaker 1: She never would have been blown up. There would have
52:18
Speaker 1: been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life.
52:24
Speaker 1: Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts.
52:28
Speaker 1: For defense purposes, our nation cannot start an offensive war
52:35
Speaker 1: if its ships can't go further than two hundred miles
52:39
Speaker 1: from the coast line. Plains might be permitted to go
52:43
Speaker 1: as far as five hundred miles from the coast for
52:47
Speaker 1: purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the
52:51
Speaker 1: territorial limits of our nation. To summarize, three steps must
52:58
Speaker 1: be taken to smash the war racket. One we must
53:04
Speaker 1: take the profit out of war. Two we must permit
53:10
Speaker 1: the youth of the land who would bear arms, to
53:13
Speaker 1: decide whether or not there should be war. Three we
53:18
Speaker 1: must limit our military forces to home defense purposes. End
53:25
Speaker 1: of chapter four. How to smash this racket read by
53:29
Speaker 1: John Greenman. Chapter five of War is a racket. This
53:39
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. War is a
53:42
Speaker 1: racket by Smedley Butler, Chapter five, To Hell with War.
53:49
Speaker 1: I am not a fool as to believe that war
53:53
Speaker 1: is a thing of the past. I know the people
53:56
Speaker 1: do not want war, but there is no use in
53:59
Speaker 1: saying we cannot be pushed into another war looking back.
54:05
Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson was re elected president in nineteen sixteen on
54:09
Speaker 1: a platform that he had kept us out of war
54:14
Speaker 1: and on the implied promise that he would keep us
54:18
Speaker 1: out of war. Yet five months later he asked Congress
54:23
Speaker 1: to declare war on Germany. In that five month interval,
54:29
Speaker 1: the people had not been asked whether they had changed
54:31
Speaker 1: their minds. The four million young men who put on
54:36
Speaker 1: uniforms and marched or sailed away were not asked whether
54:40
Speaker 1: they wanted to go forth to suffer and die? Then
54:44
Speaker 1: what caused our government to change its mind? So suddenly money?
54:50
Speaker 1: An Allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly
54:54
Speaker 1: before the war declaration and called on the President. The
54:58
Speaker 1: President summoned group of advisers. The head of the commission
55:03
Speaker 1: spoke stripped of its diplomatic language. This is what he
55:07
Speaker 1: told the President and his group. There is no use
55:11
Speaker 1: kidding ourselves any longer. The cause of the Allies is lost.
55:15
Speaker 1: We now owe you American bankers, American munitions makers, American manufacturers,
55:22
Speaker 1: American speculators, American exporters five or six billion dollars. If
55:30
Speaker 1: we lose, and without the help of the United States,
55:33
Speaker 1: we must lose. We England, France, and Italy cannot pay
55:38
Speaker 1: back this money, and Germany won't. So had secrecy been
55:45
Speaker 1: outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and had
55:50
Speaker 1: the press been invited to be present at that conference,
55:54
Speaker 1: or had radio been available to broadcast the proceedings, America
55:59
Speaker 1: never would have entered the World War. But this conference,
56:03
Speaker 1: like all war discussions was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When
56:08
Speaker 1: our boys were sent off to war, they were told
56:11
Speaker 1: it was a war to make the world safe for
56:15
Speaker 1: democracy and a war to end all wars. Well, eighteen
56:22
Speaker 1: years after the world has less of democracy than it
56:26
Speaker 1: had then. Besides, what business is it of ours? Whether
56:31
Speaker 1: Russia or Germany, or England or France, or Italy or
56:36
Speaker 1: Austria live under democracies or monarchies, whether they are fascists
56:42
Speaker 1: or communists. Our problem is to preserve our own democracy.
56:48
Speaker 1: And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure
56:53
Speaker 1: us that the World War was really the war to
56:57
Speaker 1: end all wars. Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and
57:02
Speaker 1: limitations of arms conferences. They don't mean a thing. One
57:08
Speaker 1: has just failed, the results of another have been nullified.
57:12
Speaker 1: We send our professional soldiers and our sailors, and our
57:16
Speaker 1: politicians and our diplomats to these conferences, and what happens.
57:22
Speaker 1: The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No
57:27
Speaker 1: admiral wants to be without a ship, No general wants
57:31
Speaker 1: to be without a command. Both mean men without jobs.
57:35
Speaker 1: They are not for disarmament, they cannot be for limitations
57:40
Speaker 1: of arms and at all these conferences, lurking in the background,
57:45
Speaker 1: but all powerful just the same are the sinister agents
57:49
Speaker 1: of those who profit by war. They see to it
57:53
Speaker 1: that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.
57:59
Speaker 1: The chief aim of any power at any of these
58:02
Speaker 1: conferences has not been to achieve disarmament to prevent war,
58:07
Speaker 1: but rather to get more armament for itself and less
58:11
Speaker 1: for any potential foul. There is only one way to
58:16
Speaker 1: disarm with any semblance of practicability. That is, for all
58:21
Speaker 1: nations to get together and scrap every ship, every gun,
58:26
Speaker 1: every rifle, every tank, every war plane. Even this, if
58:32
Speaker 1: it were possible, would not be enough. The next war,
58:36
Speaker 1: according to experts, will be fought not with battleships, not
58:41
Speaker 1: by artillery, not with rifles, and not with machine guns.
58:47
Speaker 1: It will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases. Secretly,
58:52
Speaker 1: each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means
58:57
Speaker 1: of annihilating its foes whole sale. Yes, ships will continue
59:02
Speaker 1: to be built for the shipbuilders must make their profits,
59:06
Speaker 1: and guns still will be manufactured, and powder and rifles
59:11
Speaker 1: will be made for the munitions makers must make their
59:15
Speaker 1: huge profits, and The soldiers, of course, must wear uniforms,
59:20
Speaker 1: for the manufacturer must make their war profits too. But
59:25
Speaker 1: victory or defeat will be determined by this skill and
59:29
Speaker 1: ingenuity of our scientists. If we put them to work
59:34
Speaker 1: making poison gas and more and more fiendish, mechanical and
59:39
Speaker 1: explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for
59:43
Speaker 1: the constructive job of building greater prosperity for all peoples.
59:49
Speaker 1: By putting them to this useful job, we can all
59:53
Speaker 1: make more money out of peace than we can out
59:57
Speaker 1: of war, even munitions makers. So I say, to hell
1:00:04
Speaker 1: with war end of Chapter five. To Hell with War
1:00:08
Speaker 1: and end of War is a racket by Major General
1:00:12
Speaker 1: Smedley Butler, read by John Greenman