War is just a racket. 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 masses."
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...
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 tax returns no one knows...
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...
...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...
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...
