War Is a Racket

by Smedley Darlington Butler

  “Oh de states is full o’ people tellin’ how de war is fit, But when hit comes to fightin’, never fit a single bit.”

  That pretty well expresses my personal views on the futility of the peace racket. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that world peace is an empty dream. I am not predicting that just because we always have had wars in the past, that we must have wars in the future. Once upon a time, in the enthusiasm of my militaristic environment, I really used to think that way. The professional patriots had me, as well as millions of others, convinced that the instinct for war is a human impulse that can never be restrained or refined. Up until my retirement, after more than thirty years active service in the United States Marine Corps. I was absolutely sure that the people of every either country in the world were just a bunch of cut-throats ready to spring Uncle Sam the moment he dared to drop his guard.

  But I have learned to think differently, I have spent the past few years meeting and mingling with people all over the country. I have a new conception of the American mind and today I am convinced that we can look forward with some hope to eventual world peace. I admit this condition may not arrive for the next fifty or a hundred years. But in the meantime we can make some headway toward that goal by increasing the normal cycle of years between wars. However, the more I see and learn about the activities of those back of the present peace racket, the more I am convinced that one thing is certain. There is only one element in our American citizenship that can keep us from having another war, at least for the next few generations. That element is composed of the men who stopped the last war. I mean the men who actually did the stopping—the real overseas veterans, the men who went to France and actually lived in the muck and the poison and the blood of war as it was fought on the field of battle, rather than the way it is pictured in history or on the screen.

  Don’t get me wrong. I am not thinking of the professional veteran—the fellow who spent thirty to sixty days in some nearby camp and then came home posing as one of the “strong, silent men” who helped save the world for democracy. I am not speaking of the chap who by political pull, or through a generous campaign contribution was able to get himself a set of gleaming spurs and the bars of a second lieutenant. Too many of these chaps are active in our veteran organizations today. That explains why in some sections the veteran organizations have thus far failed to reach their peak strength. Too many of these pseudo veterans have taken it upon themselves to speak for the real veteran. And when you hear them on the radio, or the public platform, they will “bleed on the battlefield” more profusely and “pay the supreme sacrifice” more frequently than a thousand other veterans who really know what the hell of war is all about.

  The revelations of the Nye committee have demonstrated that the business of making profits out of war is a practical profession. It is not conducted by idealists and visionaries but by men who are politically showed and commercially smart. They use practical methods to gain their ends and they are smart enough to use cold logic in preference to fanciful theories. If that is how people start wars, than that’s how we will have to stop them. By being practical, cold and calculating. Most of all, we can be politically intelligent

  The overseas veterans of this country are the only ones who can really guarantee the peaceful security of this nation in the future. First, because the overseas veteran is the only man who can speak sincerely and from personal experience on the horrors of war and its futility as a means of setting international disputes. In the second place, the overseas veterans of this country are held together by a common bond of comradeship that can never be dissolved by religious or political differences. This tie of comradeship will always exist between the men who composed the A.E.F. It provides the foundation for an organization nationwide in scope, that can really do something practical in the desire for peace. With the passing of the years, as these men become older, this bond becomes more firmly cemented and the results of their efforts can be preserved.

  You ask the question, “How can the overseas veterans of this country constitute a constructive force toward world peace?” Here is my answer. During the years that have elapsed since the World War, the average overseas veteran has acquired many hard knocks, common sense and considerable experience. He represents the one large group of American citizens that is thoroughly disillusioned about the glories of war. He can no longer be fooled by the fanfare and the panoply of marching troops, and the oratorical pap of the flag wavers. In the intervening years since the Armistice, he has had sufficient time to analyze the emotions that drove him forward while in the service. He knows now that he was merely a poem in a game that was being played by others and that all his patriotic emotions were the result of artificial stimulation. Today he recognizes the motive in the propaganda that once nearly made his uniformed breast burst with pride. He realize that most of the people who patted him on the back, when he went away, and told him to “Give the Kaiser hell for me!” never really cared a tinker’s darn whether he came back, or how will he might fare should he to lucky enough to return. He has had too many doors slammed in his face when looking for a job. He has heard himself and his buddies, on too many occasions described as “treasury raiders.” He has seen too many politicians, and their patrons, benefit from the profits they made cut of the war. He has witnessed too much graft, and waste of government funds, while ready veterans were told by Presidents that they had done nothing to deserve special consideration.

  Sad experience has made the overseas veteran practical and that’s why these men have reached the very definite conclusion that the only way to stop war is to take the profits out of war. Proof of this trend of thinking in the minds of American’s ex-service men was plainly evident when the American Legion held its last convention in Miami. And the veterans of foreign wars of the United States assembled in Louisville. The American Legion took a very decisive step in this direction, with a resolution urging the federal government on the same basis of the wages we pay our troops. In time of war, the veterans want to see the workers in every factory paid proportionately the same as the doughboy in uniform receives. They would let every foremen have a salary equivalent to the salary of a corporal and every superintendent the pay of a lieutenant. Others higher up in the scale of our industrial structure would receive the same money that we pay for the use of brains and intelligence in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. They are entitled to no more. As far a wealth and properties are concerned, the government should have the same right to take over a building or a manufacturing plant as it has to draft a human being. As a direct result of this universal draft plan being fostered and promoted by veterans, I am predicting that legislation of this character will actually be approved by this or the next session of Congress.

  But these veterans will not be content with merely a wartime blow at profiteering. They recognize, in the existing methods and means being employed by the manufacturers of munitions, a constant menace to the peace and security of America. They demand that the threat of war be destroyed before it becomes too late. These veterans ask immediate federal control of all munitions plants. They would put these wholesalers of death and destruction out of business without waiting until the belligerents get a chance to arm themselves for war. They would prevent the promotion and instigation of wars and choke them off before their inception. They would stop the sale of arms and arrangements, in this country, in peace times, to nations that may later declare war upon the United States and use these same guns to annihilate armies of American young men.

  Among the ex-service men of American we have a group of citizens whose loyalty and patriotism can never be questioned. Nobody can accuse them of being pacifists or conscientious objectors. No one can accuse them of being internationalists. No one can charge that these men, who have already demonstrated their respect for American’s traditions, will deliver this country into the hands of its enemies. As leaders of the movement for world peace, this is the only group of citizens that can hope to inspire and attra
ct the moral support and the confidence of the people as a whole.

  Unfortunately, the problem of veteran welfare legislation in this country has been a political football from the very beginning. The need to overcome the injustices the truly deserving disabled veteran has suffered, as a result of this situation, has made the ex-service men of this country politically smart. And each succeeding election shows that they are rapidly becoming smarter. To hold their own, they have learned they must resort to the same political tricks, and the same organized pressure, that other groups employ to accomplish their objectives. More than one million veterans are today affiliated with the five major veteran groups. Within the not far distant future, the great majority of America’s approximately four and one-half million ex-service men will be banded together as members of these various associations.

  Peace will come to this country when we make it impossible for anyone to profit through the promotion of wars. We can never hope to remove the profits of war until Congress passes the necessary legislation. Congress will never adopt such legislation until the individual members of that body are told that they have to vote accordingly or sacrifice their places on the government payroll. The only one who can speak to a politician, and get any degree of attention, is the voter in his home bailiwick. If a sufficient number of these voters make their demands simultaneously. Mr. Congressman will vote to keep his job. After all, the average congress member comes from a district where are no munitions plants and he need not worry about treading on tender toes.

  The five major veteran organizations in this country are well organized in every Congressional district. The ex-service men represent the one organized force that can act in this direction. If those wealthy idealists, and peace loving philanthropists, are sincere in their desires for peace, they will abandon their fancy theories and look these facts source in the face. If they have to give money to the cause—let them spend it in cooperation with the veteran organizations whose individual members will constitute a nationwide force of personal instructors in an educational campaign for peace. By themselves, and with their relatives, veterans can influence the imposing total of at least twenty million votes, and twenty million votes will just about control any election in any man’s country. When our peace advocates eventually realize and appreciate the fact that world courts, international leagues and foreign entanglements are merely institutions designed to create further controversies, they will throw these absurd ideas overboard and turn to the who brought our last war to a close to keep us from becoming involved in the next one.

  Although this program is fundamentally national in scope, it has a definite relation to the peaceful security of the world as a whole. If the veterans in this country are permitted to demonstrate to the veterans of other countries how they too can lead their people away from the dangers and the havoc of war, the movement is certain to become international. The veterans of France, England and Germany have already proved that they constitute a dominant force within the confines of their own boundaries. They too will be impelled to demand federal control of munitions plants in their respective countries. And when this is accomplished, the people of the world will be closer to universal peace and brotherhood among men than the fondest dreams our most ardent pacifists have ever anticipated.

  Let’s Quit Kidding Ourselves (Undated)

  Arecent newspaper paragraph reveals that statisticians have completed a survey of the mental capabilities of the American people and have come to the discouraging conclusion that one per cent of our population are morons. Based on a population estimate of 120 million individuals, these statistics would indicate we have well over a million morons numbered among our friends and neighbors in the United States. Personally, if this situation exists, I feel certain that this estimate most also include those who are alarmed by statistics cited in support of economic theories. That fairly sums up what I think of statistics and statisticians, and our professional economists who quote statistics to confirm the logic of their conclusions.

  Every book, every magazine and every newspaper today offers a variety of causes for the depression and a thousand and one theories that are guaranteed to save the United States from complete collapse economically. The air lanes are loaded with oratorical panaceas and cure-alls. Nine out of every ten people you meet on the street can point out one hundred different weaknesses in our present economic system. At least eight out of these nine are voluble disciples of some different school of thought.

  During the past few years I have traveled this country from stem to stem. As a lecturer I have addressed probably several hundred thousands people, including those who membership in Rotary Clubs and Chambers of Commerce, as well as those who might be classed as charter members of the so-called masses. The majority of my audiences have been composed of former sliders. This means I have been speaking to a cross-section of America’s citizenship, because when Uncle Sam decided to equip his male population with uniforms and markets, back in 1917, he took his recruits from the counting houses, as well as the factories.

  In keeping with an insatiable desire to know what the average man’s thought are on the popular questions of the day. I never passed up an opportunity that might help me in my personal survey of conditions in different sections of the country people everywhere have been grist to my mill--newspaper publishers, farmers, bank clerks, shop-keepers, cotton growers, manufacturers, and those who are working as well as those who are unemployed.

  As a result of these interviews, I have reached one definite conclusion. If one percent of our population are morons, as the statisticians contend, then the remaining ninety-nine percent of our people are suffering from an epidemic of delusions that threaten to tear down the moral fibre and character of the American people, unless something happens in the near future in the form of industrial recovery.

  I am not trying to solve an economic situation that is without parallel in the history of this country. But I am convinced that we will accomplish little or nothing toward the goal of preventing our economic difficulties after this depression has been put to rout until the people of this nation decide to face the facts and recognize truths as they actually exist. Ever since 1929, when we learned to our dismay that there is nothing permanent in prosperity builded upon a synthetic foundation, we have been trying to find some get-rich-quick method of defeating the depression. We have been bombarded with hundreds of different schemes and theories, all of them designed to over-come the evils of hard times without taking into consideration the causes.

  Despite all the recovery measures being ballyhooed by the Longs, Coughlins, the General Johnsons, the Townsends and the Liberals and the conservatives, of both the Democratic and Republican parties, I maintain that the major evils that exist today will never be eliminated until the American public regains its common sense and quits kidding itself in anticipation of miracles.

  I wear no collegiate cap and gown, and I possess no degrees that might identify me with professional wisdom. I know practically nothing of the scientific theory of economics. My knowledge of the mysteries of monetary manipulations is confined to marine corps pay checks, my monthly domestic bills and household mortgages. In fact, it is the absence of these qualifications and these collegiate degrees that qualify me—in my opinion—to express my views on this particular subject. My vision has not been beclouded by the scientific conclusions of students whose practical experience has been confined to the perusal of ponderous tomes written by students before them.

  In 1917, the total gross public debt of the United States was less than 3 billion dollars. The public debt per capita was $28.57. By 1932, the public debt had increased to nearly 20 billion dollars, with the per capita debt increased to $155.85. By the close of the present fiscal year, federal treasury authorities state that our public debt will reach a total of approximately 30 billion dollars. It requires no economic brilliance to understand why taxes are high when our public debt is high—or vice versa.

  According to all reports on No
vember 11, 1918, Germany lost the world war. But today the per capita public debt in Germany is only $37.65 while in the United States it is $64.09. It would certainly appear from these figures the report of Germany’s defeat was grossly exaggerated.

  Before business conditions went hay-wire, back in 1929, our national income amounted to 90 billion dollars. With an income of 90 billion dollars, a tax bill of 10 billion dollars was no serious drain on the pocketbooks of the American people. But when that income is reduced by one-half, and our tax bill jumps to its present status of 15 billion dollars, the circumstances are something to worry about.

  Fundamentally, Uncle Sam is merely the head of a household. His problems, on a larger scale, are identical with yours and mine. The moment we, as individuals, permit our expenditures to exceed our incomes, we invite grief. The average man learns from and experience that a beer income is insufficient for champagne tastes. The thrill of “keeping up with the Joneses” can only be temporary, because sooner or later the sheriff or the wolf is waiting at the doorstep. Our politicians and our economic experts may be able to cite a thousand different reasons for our present plight. They can probably likewise suggest a thousand different economic prescriptions. They can point to statistics from here to the moon, and recite theories from now until Doomsday, but unless they recognize that neither Uncle Sam, nor anyone else, can perform the miracle of spending more than he earns—they are wasting their ammunition with a barrage that is landing far beyond far beyond its target.