Some of my favourite quotes....
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
- Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
Menahem sighed. "How does one explain colors
to a blind man?"
"One says," snapped Rek, "that red is like silk, blue is like cool water, and yellow is like sunshine on the face."
- David Gemmell, "Legend"
"The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed
entirely of lost airline luggage."
- Mark Russell
"What is inconceivable about the universe is that it is at all conceivable."
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."
"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it"
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
- Albert Einstein (1875–1955)
"I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children
for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible;
in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him."
- Albert Einstein (Letter to Edgar Meyer, Jan. 2, 1915)
"The two most abundant things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity."
- Harlan Ellison
"I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me."
- Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere
in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. - Calvin"
- Bill Waterson
"In the last few millennia we have made the most astonising
and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place in it, explorations
that are exhilarating to consider."
“Virtually every major technological advance in the history of the human species - back to the invention of stone tools and the domestication of fire - has been ethically ambiguous”
"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."
- Carl Sagan (1934–1996)
"Being open minded is good, but not so much that your brains fall out"
- Carl Sagan, quoting James Oberg
"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this
world to another."
- Plato (c. 428–348 B.C.)
"A belief is not true because it is useful."
- Henri-Frederic Amiel (1821–1881)
Voltaire observed: "The truths of religion are never so well understood
as by those who have lost the power of reasoning."
"An economist's guess is likely to be as good as anyone else's"
- Will Rogers (1879–1935)
"The growing and dangerous intrusion of this new technology, threatens
an entire industry's economic vitality and future security"
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American
public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone"
- Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association
of America to the House Judiciary Committee in 1982.
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but
that's not why we do it."
- Richard Feynman
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being
attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger."
- Hermann Goering (1893–1946)
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and
servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
- Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
"Terrorism can never defeat America. Only America can defeat America.
Bad choices, bad decisions, misleading the public for private reasons into
public policy, spurning Allies, recklessly discarding statecraft and international
treaties, and asserting dubious pre-emptive policy rights while denying International
Courts of Justice, all these things can weaken America."
- Eric Idle
"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty or safety."
- Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
"The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute
it."
- Sitting Bull (1831–1890)
"Death is a part of life, and pretending that the dead are gathering
in a television studio in New York to talk twaddle with a former ballroom-dance
instructor is an insult to the intelligence and humanity of the living."
- Michael Shermer, criticising "psychic" John Edward
"The very concept of sin comes from the bible. Christianity offers to
solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut
you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?"
- Dan Barker
"It is as respectable to be a modified monkey as modified dirt."
- Thomas Huxley (1825–1895)
"If you are ethical only because you believe in God, you are buying your
ticket to heaven or trying to tear up your ticket to hell. In either case,
you are just being a shrewd profiteer, nothing else. The idea of being ethical
is to be ethical for no reason except that that is the way to be if you want
the world to run smoothly. I think that people who say virtue is its own reward
or honesty is the best policy have the right idea."
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
- Issac Asimov (1920–1992)
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses."
- Arthur C. Clarke
"The lead sheep doesn't necessarilly know where it's going."
- Me
"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers
that may never be questioned."
- Unknown
"We are all atheists, some of us just believe in fewer gods than others.
When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will
understand why I dismiss yours."
- Stephen Roberts
"We look at the ancient Greeks with their gods on a mountain top throwing
lightning bolts and say, 'Those ancient Greeks. They were so silly. So primitive
and naive. Not like our religions. We have burning bushes talking to people
and guys walking on water. We're ...sophisticated.'"
- Paul Provenza
"Facts seldom interfere with belief."
- James Randi
"For every complex problem, there is a simple, easy to understand, incorrect
answer."
- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893–1986)
"If you are a young person, you also need to face the fact that you
will never grow old in this present system of things. .....all evidence in
fulfillment of Bible prophecy indicates that this corrupt system is due to
end in a few years. ....as a young person you will never fulfill any career
that this system offers. If you are in high school and thinking about a college
education, it means at least four, perhaps even six or eight more years to
graduate into a specialized career. But where will this system of things be
by that time? It will be well on the way toward its finish, if not actually
gone!"
- Awake, 22 May 1969, page 15 (a publication similar to the Watchtower)
"Even you must agree that some things in the Bible shouldn't be taken
literally. Surely you don't expect to sprout wings even though the Bible says
that's the case:
(Isa 40:31 NIV) but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."
"(Job 38:4-6 NIV) Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. {5} Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? {6} On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone"
- Chris from alt.talk.creationism
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from
religious conviction."
- Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
From the Bible:
"Slaves are to submit to their masters and please them in all things. They must not answer back or steal from them. Instead, they must show that they are always good and faithful, so as to bring credit to the teaching about God our saviour in all they do." Paul's letter to Titus 2.9
"Do not eat pigs" Leviticus 11.7
"You may eat any kind of fish that has fins and scales, but anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales must not be eaten" Leviticus 11.9
"You may eat locusts, crickets, or grasshoppers." Leviticus 11.22
"Do not disgrace your father by having intercourse with your mother. You must not disgrace your own mother. Do not disgrace your father by having intercourse with any of his other wives." Leviticus 18.7
"Do not take your wife's sister as one of your wives, as long as your wife is living." Leviticus 18.18
"No man is to have sexual relations with another man" Leviticus 18.22
"Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall be put to death" Leviticus 20.9
"Do not hold back the wages of someone you have hired, not even for one night." Leviticus 19.13
"Do not wear clothes made of two kinds of material" Leviticus 19.19
"Do not cut the hair on the side of your head or trim your beard" Leviticus 19.27
"For we conclude that a person is put right with God only through faith, and not by doing what the law commands" Romans 3.28
"You see, then, that it is by his actions that a person is put right
with God, and not by his faith alone." James 2.24
Genocide does not occur in nature - that, unfortunately, is a uniquely human activity. That said, it should be noted that the Hebrew scriptures have several accounts of God commanding the Israelites to wipe out entire ethnic groups.
e.g.: God, through Samuel, instructed Saul to "utterly distroy" the Amalekites including every man, woman, child and suckling, ox, sheep, camel and ass. When Saul spared the Amalekite king Agag [as well as some of the better quality livestock], Samuel rebuked him and had nothing to do with Saul from that point forward (1Sa 15).
So while genocide is not natural, it is certainly acceptable if God commands it.
- Unknown
WAR IS A RACKET
by Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, U.S.M.C.
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
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.
The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia
[
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
"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
Herr Hitler, with his rearming
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
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
The normal profits of a business concern in the
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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,
Well, eighteen years after, the world has less of democracy than it had then.
Besides, what business is it of ours whether
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!