War Is a Racket

by Smedley Darlington Butler

  It will take NOT LESS THAN ONE MILLION soldiers to invade the United States with any hope of getting ashore. These million men must come all at once. They must bring not less than SEVEN MILLION TONS OF BAGGAGE per man. One million men, seven tons of food, ammunition, whatnot.

  For instance, just one item: They must bring four hundred thousand vehicles alone, tractors, trucks, tanks and the like. They’ve got to find room for fifty gallons of gasoline per day for each vehicle for 270 days—that’s nine months’ supply. Why there are not enough ships in the whole world, including our own—and we certainly wouldn’t lend them outs—to carry that kind of an expedition. And remember these ships have to bring with them enough fuel to get back with—to make the round trips. We certainly aren’t going to give them fuel over here to go home with. Any dumb cluck can see that.

  But here’s some more. They’ve got to have harbors to land in, docks to get their stores ashore. You know you can’t stop twenty-five miles out at sea, drop a fifty ton armored tank overboard and tell it to swim ashore and meet you on Broadway. Remember, that with all the harbors, docks and ships of England and France at our disposal in the World War it took us nineteen months to get 1,900,000 men to France. And that though this expedition was headed for a friendly country and all possible help on the other side was ours, it took months of preparation after the United States had actually declared war before it was safe to send the actual troops over.

  You know very well WE aren’t going to open our harbors to them, prepare docks for them and invite them in. New York Harbor is the only big one we have on this coast and to block New York Harbor all you have to do is to dump two days’ garbage in the channel, instead of hauling it out to sea.

  Don’t you see, it’s all a question of supply—this invading business. Men and munitions, but chiefly munitions. Seems that munitions always run out before the supply of man is exhausted.

  Just figure it out for yourselves: For every man at the front you must start out from your home depots with a thousand lbs. of supplies: food, ammunition, gasoline, clothing, medical supplies, engineering supplies, spare parts etc. to say nothing of replacements of the above.

  You must also send off for every day of his absence half a ton of stuff per man at the front.

  Remember also that for every thousand miles you go across water on an invading expedition into a hostile land you must take ninety days’ stores of all kinds. It is over 3,000 miles across the Atlantic—three times ninety is two hundred and seventy days—nine months. No, the supply of an European Army is out of the question—that is a Army big enough to land here.

  There is another thing to remember: No fleet can operate more than 1500 miles from its base and Germany proper would be the base of a Hitler invading fleet. No he couldn’t get his fleet over here, or get it home again.

  But—they say—he might build a BASE somewhere in South America. Well, my friends, those who got up that little idea overlooked the fact that it is further by a good deal from Berlin to South America than from Berlin to New York, so that the difficulties of transport would be immeasurably more complicated than they already are anyhow. And when he got to South America, he would be a good deal further away from us, than if he had come straight over from Berlin. So don’t let that frighten you. It is all pure propaganda and insane at that to talk of Hitler invading us.

  And don’t forget, that we happen to have a Navy and it’s the best in the world too.

  Now, what about an serial invasion? Well,—Colonel Lindbergh and Eddie Rickenbacher, the two foremost fliers we have, already have told us it’s ridiculous to talk of an invasion by air or to talk or think about bombing New York from Berlin.

  But suppose they do invent a plane that might be able to do it. That airplane has got to make the round trip too. And without landing. With the fuel with which it started. And even if they achieve a plane that will do that we have enough brains in this country to make some sort of machine that will destroy it before it hurts our woman and children.

  And don’t forget we have an air force of our own, and a fine one too.

  So let’s take one thing at a time.

  This war’s in Europe, it isn’t over here. And it won’t come over here unless we invite it. And the last way to invite it is to raise this embargo and sell bombs and ammunitions. They’ll have the stamp of American makers on them and they’ll have the R.S.V.P. that will bring about that invitation. An invitation to go over there and join in the mess.

  Oh but the bogey boo is that someone will come over here. Don’t be alarmed. No one in Europe can afford to leave home. Why, if Hitler were to leave Germany with a million man to go anywhere, if he ever got back he’d find everybody speaking French or Russian. These babies would move in on him while he was gone.

  No, there isn’t a single crazy war dog than can come over here. We can build a defense of our own country that not even a rat, much less a mad dog could creep through.

  Let’s be consistent. We cry to high Heaven that we are a Christian and peace loving nation and therefore we don’t believe in shooting people, bombing their homes, knocking down their cities with cannon.

  And we really ARE a Christian and peace-loving people, and therefore it’s unchristian, hypocritical and commonly of us to say to the British and the French: “Sure, we’re against this fellow Hitler, but being Christian, WE can’t shoot him, WE can’t bomb him, but we’ll be delighted to see YOU do it, and we’ll furnish the guns and the bombs. That is provided you pay us double what they’re worth. And in order that there may be no mistake about it this time, you’ll pay us in advance.

  “You see we’re against going to war ourselves, but we’re not against YOUR wars. You go ahead. We’ll sell you the stuff.”

  But make no mistake about it. The time has come when we have got to answer the Big Question before us, and here it is:

  How often are we going over there to bail out Europe? Will we have to do it every twenty-five years?

  In addition to going ourselves last time, are we going to send our children today, are we going to be ready to send our grandchildren twenty five years from now? Isn’t it time to make a stand about this thing here and now?

  Are we so much interested right now that we want to contribute five million of the finest and strongest boys that the great Mothers of America have produced? Are you mothers and fathers so deeply interested that you want to furnish your sons? Well,—start selling them ammunition, and that’s what you’ll have to do.

  Don’t you realize that the money you’ll get for your ammunition will be covered with blood? And as time goes on this blood will be the blood of your children.

  Has blood money ever brought anything but misery to those who got that money?

  Look what happened to the billions of dollars we made out of the last war: It brought us a situation where even today—twenty years later—there are ten millions of us out of work. And if we allow ourselves to handle any more of this stinking blood money, there’ll be twenty millions of us out of work—maybe for the next fifty years.

  But that isn’t all. Let’s go back to cases and look at this thing from a personal view point, which is the only one that counts in the long run: It’s all very well and high sounding to say: The Government declares war. To say helplessly: as individuals we have nothing to do with it, can’t prevent it.

  But WHO ARE “WE”?

  Well, “we” right now are the mothers and fathers of every ablebodied boy of military age in the United States. “We” are also you young man of voting age and over, that they’ll use for cannon fodder. And “we” CAN prevent it.

  Now—YOU MOTHERS, particularly:

  The only way you can resist all this war hysteria and beating of tomhoms is by hanging onto the love you bear your boys. When you listen to some well worded, well delivered war speech, just remember it’s nothing but sound. It’s your boy that matters. And no amount of sound can make up to you for the loss of your Boy.

  After you’ve heard one
of those speeches and your blood is all hot and you want to go and bite someone like Hitler—go upstairs where your boy’s asleep.

  Go into his bedroom. You’ll find him lying there, pillows all messed up, covers all tangled, sleeping away so hard. Look at him. Put your hand on that spot at the back of his neck, the place you used to love to kiss when he was a baby. Just stroke it a little. You won’t wake him up, he knows it’s you. Just look at his strong fine young body—because only the BEST boys are chosen for war. Look at this splendid young creature who’s apart of yourself, and then close your eyes for a moment and I’ll tell you what can happen. YOU won’t actually see it, you won’t be there, but I have seen it, and I can describe it to you.

  But before I do that I have to remind you that you have a fifty-fifty chance of never seeing your boy again at all, if you let this embargo an arms be raised and your boy is conscripted and sent overseas to fight. And if you ever do see him again, fifty times out of a hundred he’ll be a helpless cripple or nervously shot all his life.

  Have you ever been for one of those huge Veterans Hospitals it has been necessary to build to take care of the thousands of helpless and maimed cripples still with us from the LAST war?

  If you have, you will not need a reminder of what war can do to your boy, how it can render his life useless and broken at twenty, and yet keep him cruelly alive through the whole span of it.

  If you have not, I advise you to go and see one of them, for nothing could bring home to you more clearly or tragically the fact that in the last analysis it is your boy who is going to pay the piper. Few there are who come back entirely unsheathed, and some come back in such a way that you would find yourself praying for their release from pain.

  Those withered, elderly, spiritless men who lie and sit so patiently in their wards day after day in those hospitals, waiting for the end as they have waited since they got there twenty years ago, weres the flower of our boys in their time. It is not age that has brought them to this pass, for their average age is little over forty, it is war. Like the Unknown Soldier who was one of them, they too had mothers and fathers who felt towards them as you do about your boy.

  Now get this picture of your boy, as you stand there in the dark of the bedroom, where has peacefully sleeping—trusting you.

  You brought him into the world. You cared for him. That boy relies on you. You taught him to that, didn’t you?

  Now I ask you: Are you going to run out on him? Are you going to let someone beat a drum or blew a bugle and make him chase after it and get himself killed or crippled in a foreign land?

  Thank God, this is a democracy, and by your voice and by your vote you can save your boy. YOU are the bosses of this country—you mothers, you fathers.

  And that brings up another point: If you let this country go into a European war you will lose this democracy, don’t forget that.

  And now for that other picture I said I’d give you, that other picture that could be the picture of your boy, if you let him go abroad to fight. It may help you to build up resistance against all this propaganda which will almost drown you.

  Somewhere in a muddy trench, thousands of miles from you and his time your boy, the same one that was sleeping so sweetly and safely in his bed when you watched him in a dead of night—is waiting to “go over the top.” Four o’clock in the morning, drizzling rain, dark and dismal, face caked with mad and tears, so so homesick and longing for you and home—thinks of you on your knees praying for him—frightened to death, but still more scared the boy next to him will discover his terror, that’s your boy. Stomach as big as an egg, I know, I’ve had that sensation many times I was sixteen the first time anyone shot at me in Cuba, two thousand miles from my home, waiting the same way . . . God, the suspense!

  Do you want him to be next Unknown Soldier? The Unknown Soldier had a mother, you know, and a father. He didn’t just appear out of the air.

  Do you want your boy, tangled in the barbed wire, or struggling for a last gasp of breath in a stinking trench somewhere abroad, do you want him to cry out: “Oh Mother, oh, Father, why did you let them do it?”

  Think it over my dear fellow Americans.

  Can’t we be satisfied with defending our own homes, our own women, our own children? Right here in America?

  There are only two reasons why you should ever be asked to give your youngsters. One is the defense of our homes. The other is the defense of the Bill of Rights and particularly the right to worship God as we see fit. Every other reason advanced for the murder of young men is a racket, pure and simple.

  And yet, if you sit still, and allow this thing to happen, if you allow this hysteria to mount, this propaganda to take hold of you, if you allow our national pockets to jingle with blood money, I tell you that you may as well prepare to say goodbye to your boy.

  The meat of this whole American Coconut is the Embargo on Arms. Whether or not we run a real risk of becoming involved depends on whether we keep the lid on the Embargo. We know that if we keep it on we shall have no war profits. If we take it off we may make some money, but it will all be “stage money” and covered with blood to boot.

  Keep the arms Embargo on tight: They’ve been fighting for a thousand years in Europe. Don’t let them dot again those blood drenched foreign fields with the bodies of our American boys. Sit down this very minute and write a message to your Congressman, and your Senator, and your President. That’s your right—your constitutional right of appeal. It’s also your privilege. Right now, I firmly believe it’s your duty, if you want to save your boys.

  Good night.

  Veterans’ Rights (Undated)

  Address From October 11, 1939

  My Services with the Marines (Undated)

  Dictatorship? (Undated)

  Editor’s note: Page two of this document was unavailable and is not included.

  The Peace Racket (Undated)

  Having devoted most of the years of my life to the study of legalized murder, by which I mean the so-called science of war, I find it impossible to accept the theories of those idealists who are innocent enough to believe that the attainment of world peace is merely a question of joining the World Court, the league of Nations or some other international association for the promotion of brotherly love.

  I have said in the past, and I still repeat, that war is a racket. I made this charge long before the Nye Committee of the United States Senate exposed the munitions industry and proved that—for a respectable profit—any manufacturer of armaments will sell his guns to an enemy of his own country. The Nye Committee uncovered some astounding information about the munitions industry, including a confession to profits as high as 800 percent.

  But just as the business of war has been an age-old racket, in this country and in Europe, so is the cause of peace becoming a racket. There are at least one hundred or more, known and unknown, national and international, peace societies operating in America and most of them have their headquarters in Washington, D.C. There are probably several hundred minor groups that also believe they are destined to bring about world peace. Many of these are designated by fanciful titles built around the word “peace,” while others disguise their aims and purposes with some other name to avoid the charge of being pacifists.

  I say the cause of peace is becoming a racket in this country today because every one of these so-called peace committees and organizations must have money with which to function. Salaries have to be paid to executive secretaries and office staffs. Printers must be paid for the publication of pamphlets and brochures. Landlords must have their rent. Lecturers must have expense accounts as well as remuneration. Where are they getting all this money, these millions of dollars that are being spent annually? The answer is simple. We gullible Americans who are philanthropically inclined, dig down in our pockets for generous donations and contributions. We buy memberships on national committees. We are flattered when our names are printed on their stationary, in company with a long list of America’s most disting
uished philanthropists and world peace advocates. Every penny that these peace societies are spending can come only from the pockets of the American people. Professional pacifists have discovered that they can work upon the emotions of some of our wealthy citizens with encouraging financial results.

  I don’t mean that all of these organizations are promoted by personal profit seeking individuals. Some of them are headed by sincere but misguided people who have adopted the cause of world peace as a hobby. World peace is a hobby that a lot of people like to indulge because it represents a popular cause, and they enjoy the spotlight of prominence. Naturally, everybody is in favor of world peace. No one who talks or gets emotional about the prospects of world peace is going to afford his neighbor of a different religion, or political creed, or hurt the feelings of a prospective business customer. In fact, the peace racket is harmless hobby in every respect except one. In most instances, the peace racket of today is purely a commercial endeavor that is extracting millions of dollars from soft-headed people by imposing upon their humanitarian impulse with flattery, false hopes and impossible schemes. If these professional pacifists would dare to use the same tactics in nearly any other field of effort, they could be convicted of fraud.

  One particular peace seeking group is planned as a thoroughly businesslike, non-profit organization, basing its campaigns on economically sound theories. Its sponsors have apparently accepted the idea that world peace can be accomplished through the education of the masses on the evils of war. They are employing the strategy of a nationwide publicity campaign with full page magazine insertions, outdoor advertising, newspaper columns, radio addresses and the publication of special volumes on war and munitions.

  The names of college presidents, editors, authors, professors in theological seminaries, executives of religious organizations and nationally known preachers and rabbis can be found in abundance on stationary that goes out from Washington bearing plaintive appeals for moral support—and frequently for funds. If the funds are not forthcoming in actual cash, the equivalent in free newspaper or magazine space is always acceptable. And when I glance over these names, I think of a little ditty that was popular with a Maryland outfit of negro engineers in the A. E. F., back in 1918. The theme of this little chant was well expressed in the following: