Smedley D. Butler - War is a racket

War Is a Racket is the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler. In them, Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests commercially benefit (including war profiteering) from warfare.

After his retirement from the Marine Corps, Butler made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech War is a Racket. The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a small book with the same title that was published in 1935.

Smedley D. Butler

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RLull 30.11.15

Ttulo original: War is a racket

Smedley D. Butler, 1935

Editor digital: RLull

ePub base r1.2

SMEDLEY DARLINGTON BUTLER (1881-1940). TEXTO

Born: West Chester, Pa., July 30, 1881 Educated: Haverford School Married: Ethel C. Peters, of Philadelphia, June 30, 1905 Awarded two congressional medals of honor: capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914 capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917 Distinguished service medal, 1919 Major General - United States Marine Corps Retired Oct. 1, 1931 On leave of absence to act as director of Dept. of Safety, Philadelphia, 1932 Lecturer -- 1930's Republican Candidate for Senate, 1932 Died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, June 21, 1940 For more information about Major General Butler, contact the United States Marine Corps.

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 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.

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. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheeps eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.

The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each others 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.

Hells 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, Il 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 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 Hungary in the latters dispute with Jugoslavia 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 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 in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia 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 to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90.000.000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600.000.000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists 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. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldnt they? It pays high dividends.