War Is a Racket Read online

  That, again, feels to me like we’re in a déjà vu today.

  Smedley Butler didn’t live a whole lot longer. He died at age fifty-eight on June 21, 1940, in the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia, after becoming ill with probable stomach cancer a few weeks earlier. But he left us all an amazing legacy in this book, War Is a Racket. It’s an anti-war classic by a man who knew firsthand what he was talking about.

  Like Smedley, I enlisted against my father’s wishes, going into the Navy right after I finished high school. Every member of my immediate family is a war veteran. My father had seven Bronze Battle Stars in World War II. My mother was an Army nurse in North Africa. My brother is a Vietnam veteran. So I know whereof I speak, too, when I stand with General Butler against America’s ongoing imperialist wars. I opposed the invasion of Iraq from day one, because we were lining our military up against another sovereign nation as an aggressor and an occupier. And who benefited from our lying our way into Iraq? The Halliburtons of this world, the war profiteer contractors and their banker backers.

  Here’s the way Butler puts it in chapter 3 of War Is a Racket:

  “Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the ‘war to end wars.’ This was the ‘war to make the world safe for democracy.’ No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason.”

  He also points out that our national debt—such a rallying cry today—is directly tied big-time to “our fiddling in international affairs.”

  “We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our children’s children probably still will be paying the cost of that war.”

  And he was talking then about World War I!

  I also resonated strongly with Butler’s noting the terrible dichotomy between those who promote these wars and those who must fight them. “How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle?” he writes. “How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?”

  This goes along with something I’ve proposed in the past. If I ever became president, I’d push with every ounce of power I had for Congress to pass this into law:

  Every elected federal official must pre-designate an individual in their immediate family who has to begin military service—the moment that official casts an affirmative vote toward going to war. This could be a grandchild, a niece or nephew, but someone. It doesn’t mean they necessarily go to the war zone. What it does mean is that they and their family experience some personal discomfort because of this decision. Going to war should bring difficulty, especially to those who are the orchestrators or the authorizers. Right now, it’s far too easy for them to go on TV with their bleeding hearts and give standing ovations to our service personnel. War should not be laissez-faire. If you’re not willing to send someone from your family, how can you be so willing to send someone else’s?

  All in all, War Is a Racket demands a contemporary audience. We need real heroes for our young people to emulate, individuals who weren’t afraid to take a stand for the sake of our country. I believe the story—and the words—of General Butler need to be as widely known as those of Washington and Lincoln. If this means making us think about the fact that wealthy people can sometimes be out for evil purposes, let the chips fall where they may. Thank you, General Butler, for your inspiration!

  Jesse Ventura

  1 Quote spoken by Novelist Mary Roberts Rinehart, after receiving a letter from U.S. Secretary of War Newton Baker.

  CHAPTER ONE

  War Is a Racket!

  WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

  A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of 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 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 income 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 dugout? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried the bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

  Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few—the self-same few who 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 again 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, their dispute over the Polish Corridor. The assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia complicated matters. Yugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other’s throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people—not those who fight and pay and die—only those who foment wars and remain safely at home 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, II 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 for the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it.

  Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war—anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter’s dispute with Yugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of 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 a 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 on their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose.

  In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russian 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 in China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,00
0 in the Philippines in 35 years and we (our bankers and industrials 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. 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 masses?

  What does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit the men who are maimed? 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 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. Therefore, on a purely financial 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 even twelve per cent. But wartime 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 the 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 shoulder to the wheel,” but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket—and are safely pocketed. Let’s just take a few examples:

  Take our friend the du Ponts, the powder people—didn’t one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? 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 was $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 so 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 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 a$137,480,000. Then along came the war. The yearly average 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 $15,500,000, 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.

  Then 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 $73,500,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.

  American Sugar Refining Company averaged $200,000 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 manufactures, 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 this great war. If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organization, 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 a 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 had 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 on it—so we had a lot of those Mc
Clellan 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 the 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 war 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 airplanes and 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 cents to 40 cents each for them—a nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer. And the stocking manufacturers and the uniform manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers—all got theirs.