MQEHWEAEHSMa r;

THE NEWSLAVERYFORAMERICA

By JOHN T. FLYNNAUTHOR orEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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The story that follows is an expansion of a broad.wt made by John T. Flynn over the facilities ofthe Mutual Broadcasting System on June 5, 1955,

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W 1%,JOHN T.FLYNN

MILITARISM—THE NEW SLAVERYFOR AMERICAby JOHN T. FLYNN

are now confronted by a move-ment to introduce into this countrythe project of Universal MilitaryTraining—UMT,as it is called—as apermanent institution. The ostensi-ble purpose is to create a great res-ervoir of manpower to fight what-ever global or other wars in whichwe may be involved. The assump-tion, of course, is that we live in aworld upon which Communist Rus-sia has hunched with appallingsuwessamonstrous plan to conquerit all for communism.Beforewegofurther,letmewarn

you to be on guard against the sup-position that UMT is esentially amilitary institution.There is agreatdealmoreto itthan national defenseand soldiering.Thereisnothm'gnewabout it. It has been used in everyimportant country of Western Eu-rope—except Bntam‘' ,to her eternalcredit. And it has brought everycmmtry that used it to bankruptcyand war.As long as I can recall there have

been groups here devoted to UMT,chiefly because they thought itoffered excellent discipline for ouryouth. But its sponsors got nowherewith that argument in freeAmerica.

THEpeople of the United States It is being urged now by the Presi-dent and a powerful group in Con-gress who insist we must be readyon a moment’s notice to defend our-selves against Russia. Now let merepeat the warning that we will gofarafieldifwethinkof UMTasamilitary institution. The idea takesnumerous forms in various propos~als to get it started or put it intoefiect either piecemeal or all atonce. However, I am not discusinghere any measure: or par-ticular legislation.I am referring topermanent UMT as a nationalpolicy—whatever form it may take.It is, in general,a plan to'conscriptafly-mmgmenmtothearmedserv-ice: for from six months to twoyears, afterwhichtheywillbedis—charged into a reserve, subject toannual training for years. But thisplan would not get very far if itwere proposed as a purely militar}measure, particularly in this day ofaerial and atomic warfare whenevenmany militan authoritiesques-tion theneed formass armies.Thereare other highly complimted ele-ments in it— purely political andemnomic.Unu‘l these are examinedand understood no intelligent opin-ion of it is possible.

No one who opposes UMT doesso because he wants to keep Amer—ica defenseless. Of course Amcrlcamust he prepared to resist assaultson us by a foreign power. But wemust never forget that there is aninfinitely more dangerous enemywithin our gates than Russia. It ap-nrently has not occurred to our

citizens that the institution of mili-tarism can be afar more formidableenemy within our gates than Com-munist Russia 5000 miles away.Wemust know how to defend ourselvesnot only against Communist Russiain Europe and Asia, but also againstCommunist agents within our owngates and against a strange collec-tion of other interests here in Amer-ica. If America is ever conqueredby communism, it will not be bythe armies of Communist Russia,but by a curious alliance of ordi-narily loyal elements within ourcountry. We have Communists, so-cialists,various editions of collectiv—ists,OneWorlders, plus a variety ofeconomicandsectionalgroups inter-ested for political or business rea-sons in measures that will breakdown and finally destroy our freesociety.. Fortunately UMT has been triedin many countries.We will do well,therefore,to keep an open mind un-tll we see clearly the various inter-ests behind this dangerous institu-tion.We can seethis in all its aspects

italic experience of Germany and

GERMANYAs we survey the institution of

Universal Military Training in Ger.many, we will go very far wronif we think of it in terms of a Pure]military organization. It did mak:a powerful appeal to those in Ger-many who lovcd military might anddiSplay. But there would have beenno UMT in Germany had there notbeen in that country far more for-midablc reasons for it. Actually ithad originated in France. And itfound little favor at first with theold Junker elements in Prussia. Theold army had been a prized profes-sional institution as a proper activityforyoung nobles. They found in theofficers’ corps a vocation suited totheir social level. When Germanyturned to Universal Military Train-ing there were not enough youngnobles qualified to provide the mili-tary with the great swarm of officersneeded. The immense number ofnon-noble applicants who crowdedinto the army tended to debase the“social standing" of the officers’corps. Hence the nobility of Prussiain particular looked on the experi-ment of UMT with grave misgiv-ings.We must look toother elementsof the population for the rise ofmilitarism in Germany. Foremostwere the politicans, the businessmen and the imperialists, wholooked with growing envy on theimperialist adventures of Britain,France and ltalv and who nursed

dreams of colonial expansion.As a matter of fact, at the root

of the movement in Prussia was thepolitician. And the urge for it wasto be found in the rising tide ofsocialism in the German states. Bis-marck, one of the first German lead-ers to be alerted to the socialistthreat, was a pragmatic statesman.Socialism had had its origin in Ger-many, the birthplace of Marx andEngels. In their assault on the cap-italist society the socialists held outthe vision of “jobs for all and se-curity for all.” There can be nodoubt this gaudy promise had apotent impact on the minds of theGerman workers. Lassalle, then thesocialist leader in Germany, madesogreat an impression on Bismarck'smind thathe cultivated the socialistleader.Hebegan by adopting a fewsocialist welfare measures. But hecamearound after awhile to launch-ing a full-scale competition in so-cialist projects with the socialists.The greatGerman Chancellor de-

cided, after some experimenting,thathe could give the German peo-ple all that the socialists promisedwithout setting up socialism — atragic blunder which politicians inAmerica who have not read historyseem not to have comprehended tothis day. As early as 1887 variousGerman leaders were talking aboutcapitalism suffering from a “lack ofplanning.” Von Moltke and otherGerman military leaders, followingtheir great victories, were rewarded

by the German people with seats inthe Parliament. Under the influenceof this type of leadership “the peo-ple became inclined to believe in asuperior kind of planning," as onecommentator put it, “which thecrisis-beset capitalism did not knowhow to provide, but which was in-herent in successful military institu-tions and enterprises."Bismarck wasnot proposing a socialist Germany.Like many a naive American poli-tician, he recognized that Germanywas troubled by grave economicdislocations and that the govern—ment was being urged to do some-thing about it. He shied away fromthe word “socialism,” just as ourown bedeviled politicians do, andhe took refuge in the word “plan-ning.” Many Americans do not real-ize that around 1937 the SocialistParty in America ceased to exist asa real force. The word “socialism”was a poor brand label.A new andslicker school of socialistrevolution-aries adopted the term PlannedEconomy. And that is the brandname under which authentic social-ism is now being offered to theAmerican people.Bismarck adoptedtheterm in Germany and proceededto set in motion a chain of welfareand other socialist proposals for thepurpose of creating jobs.He soughtto take socialism away from thesocialists. He proposed in his ignor-ance of the explosive nature of thisidea, that he could defend capital-ism by adopting many of the root

ideas of socialism— and to this .headded the glamgrouS lOb'makmg0 1e of m‘ itarism.

befrfinigsocial area he establishedold-age pensions,unemployment in-surance and public works to absorbas many unemployed as possible.He encouraged the several Germanstates to take over railroads,electricower plants, water works, munici-

pal transport, telegraphs, forests,mines and industrial enterprises.His avowed purpose was to operatethese enterprises at a profit tolighten the burden of taxation onthe people. This has been calledState Capitalism.But all these adventures were not

sufficient to make the Planned So-ciety work— a society that wouldprovide jobsand security for all andtake the wind out of the sails of thesocialist revolutionaries.None of this was enough.And it

was no very broad jump for theJunker rulers of Germany to recog-nize the possibilities in UniversalMilitary Training.While they wereaware of its military value to 3Ger-many then straining at the leash forimperialistic adventures, they werealso aware of its job-making possi-bilities. These were derived fromtwo sources:

1. Conscription takes into thearmed forces great numbers ofyoung men on comin of a e whowould otherwise be sgekinggjobs inprivate industry,

2. Not only were these regis-

trants removed from the labor Inket, but they were provided mat;barracks, clothing, food, medic 1care at the expense of the taxpayer:But this program involved sfilianother and enormously imPOl‘tantdepartment. These huge levies ofmen had to be armed. This broughtinto existence Germany’s vast arma-ment industry, which became hergreatest industry. It involved notonly the manufacture of Weaponsand munitions,but itdrew upon theraw material industries for steelcopper, wood products, chemicals:the garment industry for makinguniforms; the shoe industry; thefarmers for the immense herds ofhorses for the cavalry and the feedfor horses and men. To which mustbe added thepay ofthe draftedmenwhich, however small,made a sub-stantial addition to the purchasingpower of the nation.The immensity of this huge mili-

tary industry in Germany by 1907may be seen from some figures.There were 600,000 men in theArmy and 33,000in theNavy.Therewere 1,800,000employed in thema-terials industriessuch asmining andmetals and forestry and commerceand trade, entirely dependent ongovernmentmilitary orders.Actual-ly militarism became a huge PWA(PublicWorks Administration) thatprovided jobs for vast military andindustrial armies.When critics com-plained of the oppressive taxes andborrowings to support this enter-

rise, the reply, to quote pire-cabi-net oflicial referring to the mrhtaryinduStT)’, was that “The nationaleconomy,with its thousand wheels,through which millions find a living,cannot stand still for long.” AnotherGerman statesman, at the PeaceConference in 1898, declared that“the armies are not irnpoverishingthe people and the military servicewas not a burden.” And he declaredthat “Germany owed her prosperityto military service.”Of course,therewas the inevitable professor to as-sure the people that “In spite of thefact that millions in taxes were re-quired to maintain this rapidly in-creasing naval power, the public ingeneral was pleased with the newnavalism.” In fact the Herr Doctordeclared:

mgmfihisflfiafifafipymgamémilitaristic props, and they seemedto be convinced that this prosperitywould continue if the fightin forcesof the nation were continua y mod-emized."

This is not an interpretation puton these policies after the event.The German leaders knew quitewell what they were doing andwhy'.An English writer in 1942 calledattention to this gaudy boondogglein our own time.Hewrote:

"The special features of the de-mand for armaments which has en-abled it to be used as a solution ofthe unemplo ent problem are two.In the first p ace, the demand, beingunlimited, imposes a system notmerely of planned production but of

planned cmuumption. Secondly, thelan of consumption is not deter-

mined by considerations of prim andprofit.”

Of course the same result can beobtained from peace—time projects,but there is always a resistance tospending on peace-time projects.But on armies and armaments it ispossible to break down the resist-ance by promoting fears of externaldanger, threats of war, or invasion.There is another reason. W'heremoney was spent on war goodsthose who benefited were highlyorganized— as the huge armamentindustries in Germany which main—tained powerful lobbies and couldalso keep alive endless war scares.Indeed it became a policy with thearmament industries to employ re-tired arrny officers who enjoyedeasy access and influence over thepolicy and purchasing bureaus ofthe government.However, this policy confronted

Bismarck’s Germany with one dan-gerous problem. Itwas never possi-ble to collect enough taxes to paythe bills. In 1870Germany defeatedFrance and created the unificationof the German states into the Ger—man Empire. Bismarck wrung fromFrance an indemnity of 4,467,000,-000marks—a hugesum in thevaluesof that day. But despite this greatbankroll to start with, the new em-pire began immediately to go intodebt.Here arethefigures on the riseof Germany’s national debt follow- '

in the Franco-Prussian war, duechiefly to military enterprises:

MARKS1871 ................................. 01885 ........... .. 410,000,0001897 ..... 2,317,000,0001909 ..... 4,233,000,0001913 ................................. 4,897,000,000In addition to this huge debt ofnearly five billion marks of the cen-tral government, all the states andlocal governments were piling uphuge deficits. The total of federal,state and local debts in 1913was:

MARKSFederal government ........ 4,897,000,000States ................................ l4,262,000,000Local governments .......... 5,295,000,000

Total ........................ 24,454,000,000These totals may not seem ex-

travagant to the youth of our daywho think in terms of war-inflatedmoney. But it was a staggering bur-den toGermany in the money valuesof that period, prior to two worldwars. In 1918,on the eve of WorldWar I, the Finance Minister of Ger-many declared that “the vital ques-tion of Germany’s finances must besolvedNOW.”He said the “stabilityof the empire is exposed to risk."In the hope of surmounting the

difficulty, the cities and states beganbuying up private enterprises, hop-ing to operate them at a profit toovercome the immense burden ofsocial welfare and military services.They never succeeded. Germany‘ approached national bankruptcy.

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There remained only the ancient es-cape of bedeviled nations ~WAR.As usual the war was fought on vasttaxes and huge credits. From 1914to 1918Germany spent 164,299,000,.000 marks. Of this amount she bor-rowed 60per cent. This huge deficit,piled on the vast pre-war deficits 0ffifty years, brought her politiciansto those desperate experiments thatculminated in the grotesque infla-tion of 1923-24. Thus the debt of4,685,000,000marks in 1922becamein two years nearly seven trillionmarks (6,955,000,000,000). One re-sult was that money lost its valueand the bondholders lost theirbonds. The debt was wiped out byinflation, including the savings andinsurance policies of everybody inGermany. It became necessary tostop the printing presses grindingout trillions of worthless marks andto introduce a new money unit—theRentenmark. One Rentenmark wasworth one trillion old marks.This is what militarism and wel-

fare and boondoggling did to Ger-many. The imperial government felland the new revolutionary republi-can government proceeded to re-peat this crazy experience all over.Between 1926and 1931 it built up anew national debt of nearly sevenbillion Rentenmarks. Adding thedebts of the state governments, Ger—many had a new debt of 21 billionRentenmarks. The appalling finaleof all this was Hitler, who did whatthe Kaiser did in 1914—he turned to

it

. V

war as an escape—war, the supremero'ect of obfuscated politicians

fra ed in impossible promises, inoverpowering taxes and crushing

d‘Ll'IIJ‘liese facts will illustrate what Imeant by describing militarism assomething more than a mere mlll-tary enterprise. It was all mixed upwith the efforts of the German gov-ernment to resist the socialist ad-ance by outdoing the socialists in

welfare and economic promises. Atthe outset I cautioned that we mustrecognize that the subject ofmilitar-ism, of which Universal MilitaryTraining is the base, could not beunderstood merely in terms of mili-tary policy. It was made possible inGermany by the decision of theGerman Junkers to go into competi-tion with the socialists and theirpromise of jobs for all. Welfare didnot put people to work, and govern-ment-owned and operated railroads,street-car lines, electric powerlants and other industries merelyadded to the deficits. The supremeproject, which fascinated the mindsof military zealots, pan-Germans,imperialists and industrialists, pro-vided the perfect answer. It tookhuge numbers of men out of thelabor supply into the armies andeven many more into the armamentindustries, all paid for out of taxesand crushing public debt. The cap-italist sector of the national econ—omy had to pay its own bills andundertake, by paying taxes, a huge

9

part of the losses on the govem-ment’s socialist industries. Even thiswas not enough. It had to supporta mountainous debt that ultimatelycrushedGermanytwice—once underthe Republic and once again underHitler.

ITALY

The story of militarism in Ger-many ought to suffice. But its usein Italy will enable us to see thewhole tragic experiment on a difier-ent stage. In the Italy of the late19th Century the general methodsof parliamentary government werein practice. It was a constitutionalmonarchy and instruments of pro-duction and distribution wereowned by private enterprise. Thecentral government was endowedwith more authority than in Ger-many, which encouraged politiciansto use it. It fell into the habit oferecting bureaus like our numerousWPA’s and AAA’s and NRA’s. De-pretis, a conservative, was premier.Like Bismarck, he went in heavilyfor social welfare measures, but wasnever able to collect enough taxesto pay the bills. LikeGermany, Italywas bedeviled by socialist agitatorswho promised jobs and handoutsfor all if they would only junkcapitalism.This made a powerful appeal to

the masses who had been used .toshort rations for years. Here again,as in Germany, the politicians of

the Right supposed they could si-lence the demand for socialist insti-tutions by actually giving the peoplea heavy dose of socialism. It was,of course, never possible to providesufficient jobs in govemment—op-erated industries and bureaus tosupplement the heavily taxed andregulated private ones. Depretistried building roads, financing co-operatives, providing unemploy-ment insurance, health insuranceand handouts of all kinds to variousminority groups.More radical leaders were de—

manding more radical measuressuch as dividing the land among thepeasants. And, of course, and in-evitably, Italy turned to militarism.Youth were conscripted into thearmies, and the armaments industrywas set off into violent energy pro-viding weapons and munitions forthe army and navy—which meant,as in Germany, as many jobs as inthe armed forces themselves. Inshort, the conscript amries and theimmense industry necessary tohouse, feed, clothe and arm theseforces became the greatest job-making enterprise in Italy. The gov-ernment was spending on the armedservices five times as much as on allother forms of government job-making such as public works. Thecost of the armed services consumed63 per cent of the whole cost ofgovernment. Health insurance, un-employment insurance, funds forcooperatives, old-age pensions, sub-

10

sidies for farmers and other govern-ment plans to spend money wereadopted.After World War I the experi-

ment was continued, with the in.evitable rise of deficits, as follows:

LIRA1919-20 ............................ 11,494,000,0001920-21 ............ 20,955,000,0001921-22 ............................ 17,169,000,000In the single year 1920-21the deficitwas five billion lira greater than theaccumulated deficits of pre-warItaly for fifty years. By 1922 thepational debt was 92,648,000,000tra. -The government built 162,000

dwelling, 346 town halls, 255 hos-pitals, 1156 schools, 1000 churches,alongwith roads, railways, drainageprojects, irrigation works. This en-abled the politicians to provide agreat number of jobs. One may ask— what was wrong about this?Werenot these desirable contributions toItaly’s well-being, to say nothing ofthe impact on unemployment? Theanswer, of course, is obvious. Theseadventures in job—making by thegovernment were made possibleonly by heavy taxation and endlessborrowing. The debt soared. Italy’sresourceswere exhausted.Thework—ers, their appetites stimulated bythese measures, continued to de—mand more and more. This spend-ing of borrowed money, largely bor-rowed from the banks, produces aninflation. The inflation forces prices

The rising prices lead to de-u gnds for wage increases. The in-

meased costs force over heavierbbfrowing until the economic sys-tem approaches a crisis. One indus—tr after another falls 1nto idleness.Workers are laid off and the ex-eriment— in reverse — proceeds todevour itself. Six hundred thousandworkers in Italy were on strike insix hundred plants. Italy was bank-ru t. The Communists ran amuck,took over many of the plants andhoisted the Red flag.The climax of this gaudy and

tragic folly was Mussolini and hisFasci di Combattimento. Of courseMussolini proceeded to give the de-luded Italian people more of thesame.He demanded a new constitu-tion, nationalization of arms andmunition plants, national control offactories, railroads, public servicesto be controlled by workers’ coun-cils, confiscation of war profits, so-cial insurance, heavy inheritancetaxes and (with a gleam of satire)“no form of dictatorship.” He pro-ceeded to do precisely what the oldparties did— to which he addedmilitarism on an even greater scale.It is interesting to recall that manyAmericans visited Italy and com-mented on the skill with whichMussolini solved Italy’s economicproblems with his vast military ad—ventures. Militarism on a granderscale became the base of Italyseconomic system. No thoughtfulman can escape the historic fact that

in German and I _European cbuntriestadybotzng) Other. nserv-atlves and radicals turned to im-mense military establishments tosolve the problem of unemployment— and to get the funds for this pur—pose from oppressive taxation andfantastic borrowing.There are, of course, great num.

bers who love military institutionsfor their own sake—the externalexpression of national might, ,,thedisplay of power and glory in themarching legions, the flying flags,the martial music. But there wouldhave been no militarism but for thedesperate search by frustrated poli-ticians promising jobs for all andabundance for all. The promise is re-deemed by vast armies, an equallyvast military industry, handouts fornumerous groups, heavy taxationand endless borrowing. It is neverpossible to pay these exhaustingbills out of mere taxes. Always andeverywhere these promise-makingdictators and demagogues and mih-tary heroes turn to the ultimatedestructive weapon — governmentborrowing-endless debt, until thewhole tragi-comedy sinks mto thearms of bankruptcy and war’war,which affords a brief refuge andends the whole ghastly tragedy-

THE UNITED STATESWhat we have seen in Germany

and Italy was duplicated in Austria,France, Russia and other European

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countries and in Japan. It of course of Europe and Asia, has theproduced a spurious prosperity by intention of risking the losses fcreating millions of jobs in the these vast areas to engage in a m'lqarmed services and the war indus- tary war against the United Stat1 1-

tries. But this evil institution had a But the President declares We mes.more iniquitous effect. After all, it undertake the defense of somethiUStwas a form of servitude— slavery — he calls the “Free World.” He toldenforced labor. The government as- Congress in 1948:serted the right to take the mind “Universal Military Trainin .and body of every young man, put necessity . . . (It) should be egadfeé‘him in military encampments and as 5.00“ as ”5.51516. in the interest ofp . . national security and to let thesubject him to a process of mdoc- know that Am ' ' . world. . . em“ 5 Champlomng oftnnation desrgned to create an elec— .,torate subdued to these principles.

free peoples was here to stay.But he believes militar‘ '

ismTo escape this form of servitude Is amillions of men left Germany,

good thing in itself. In 1949be de-clared that everybody ought to be

France, Italy,Austria and other Eu- trained and that, as reported b thropean countries to breathe in New York Times, “in futurewe: th:America the air of freedom. And women will have to be drafted aswhat is more, it was the inevitable well as the men.” As a job-makinroad to war. The system so crushed boondoggle, we must set up as mgthe nation under the burden of taxes policeman of the world. The generaland debt that in the end befuddled idea of UMT is for ayear of traininministers of state sought escape followed by six or more years in thgfrom its consequences in war. reserve subject to annual training_ Now this evil thing rears its head periods. The President has gone soin our America. It was promoted by far as to say that six months of thisGeneral Eisenhower—a confirmed should be served in Europe. Thismilitarist— before he became Presi- of course, would be outside and if;dent, and a powerful group in both addition to the regular armed forces.parties insist that is necessary on the It is obvious this adventurewouldtheory that we must defend our- get nowhere but for certain resultsselves against Communist Russia. it produces that have no connectionYou can t have militarism without with the business of soldiering. We

a reasonably prospective enemy— will not understand this until weand 'Russra provides our militarist recapture a clear picture of eventssplihcmns with that essential, al- in America since 1929 when the

thgflftlfifstfammhlnhhhs senses believes Great Depression reared its head.and . _ .w 1c as been handed I make no apology for that disaster.

IS in possessron of three-fourths It took its roots in the folly and

12

slightest r-adventurous busi-' e of We ged by certain“we oura“355mg? ;I;:omfits. The faith ofcrack? art of the business worldsmiths;e Pre.depression fairylandm ics was in full bloom until

econogays before the crash of 1929.:Iif‘fi’ought President Franklin D.goosevelt into the White House in

1933 atwhich time thewhole flimsystrudtufe crashed around our heads.It was at this point, though fewrealized it, that the climate wascreated forUniversalMilitaryTram-in in this country. President Roose—velt launched a rapid and sensa-tional succession of plans to createemployment and coax prosperityback to the nation. He also maugu-rated some social and economic re-forms, some of which were useful,but almost all of which were mereplans to spend money created bygovernmentborrowing at the banks.However well-intentioned these ef-forts were, they did not bring pros-perity back to the American people.When Mr. Roosevelt took officethere was an immense number ofworkers out of employment. But sixyears later, in 1939, when the warbroke in Europe, there were still 11,-369,000 people unemployed. Whenhe was inaugurated there were 5,-176,000 households on relief. Sevenyears later there were still 4,912,000households on relief comprising19,000,000 people. Mr. Roosevelt asa candidate denounced PresidentHoover for borrowing money for

relief. When in office, he borrowedon an enormous scale. The depres-s10n persisted. And then in 1939came the war in Europe.I have noted these facts because

I hope to make the reader—Par-50‘11311)’young readers—realize howfrustrated politicians in America ofboth parties finally turned to militar-ism as an escape from their dilem-ma. It is a fact that none of thenumerous relief agencies ended thedepression. It was the war whichended it. When the war broke inEurope we had 335,000men in ourarmed forces. In 1941, as our entryinto the war approached, we had1,801,000. In 1945we had 12,123,-000 in the armed forces.Thenumberof persons employed in the civilianservice of the government on warduties and the number of men andwomen employed in the war indus-tries, producing guns and planesand tanks andmunitions of all sorts.including uniforms, foods, medl-cines and other necessities for thefighting men, was far in excess ofanother 12million.The immense sums paid to these

people flooded into the markets andfarms of the nation, creating'othel'millions of employment. All thiswasaid for out of taxes and govefil'ment loans in fantastic sums‘ .n1939, the year the wt mead:r0 , our overnmen . "

Ellildih’;welfagre,boondogglmg,farmsubsidies, make-work adventurirssvall sorts—were $3,700,000,000- o

13

compare these expenditures withthe following:1940 ........................... $ 8,998,000,0001942 .. 32,396,000,0001943 .. 78,178,000,0001944 .. 93,743,000,0001945 100,404,000,000

Thesevastfloods of billionsflowedover the United States— to pay thearmed forces, the great army ofcivilians in government war bu—reaus; to pay the cost of manufac-turing guns, endless floods of planes,munitions, uniforms, food, medi-cines, naval vessels and all the nec—essary materiél of war. Factoriesworked night and day. And theworkers flooded into all the shopsof the land with their rising wages.Now, on a somewhat smaller

scale, these fantastic expenditurescontinue to the present time. Thereis no war. Even the Korean "policeaction” has been over for two years.But the war boom continues. Russiaas an enemy has become almost anecessity to our government. It isthe bugaboo used to frighten ourpeople into fantastic spending oftaxes and borrowed money. Tenyears after the end ofWorld War IIour government in a single year,1955, spent SIXTY-THREE BIL-LON DOLLARS. Of this overFIFTY-TWO BILLION was spenton militarism and related subjects:Armed forces andmunitions .................. $40,644,000,000

International Affairs ...... 1,200,000,000Veterans Services .......... 4,408,000 000Interest on the war debt 6,475,000,000

Total ...................... $52,727,000,00014

This means the ex )en 'over 52 billion dollarsI onddflgge 0fmilitary adventures—ten years affldthe war ended in Europe and As'erThese vast billions, taken from 1a.in taxes and in borrowings mailstheir way into the hands of govern6ment workers, workers in the wa—industries, to banks and private per:sons as interest on the war bonds inpayments for food, clothing, me’di_eines and weapons for our “nobleallies” and the support of 3,400 000still in the armed services. Of coursethese funds flow on to all the depart-ments of private industry Wherethey are finally spent by those whoreceive them from the government.But it must be obvious this can-

not be kept up forever. At somepoint the war racket will just wearout. Business prospers while thisexperiment lasts. Great numbers ac-cept it as something desirable with-out understanding the dangerousmeans by which this prosperity isgenerated. And while many othersdo not like it, they live in fear ofthe time when it will come to anend. But this must be obvious to anymind acquainted with the structureand dynamics of our system of pri-vate enterprise —- namely that it willcome to an end, as it has in everycountry that has used this evil thingcalled militarism to generate pros-perity. The creation of millions ofjobs in the armed forces and themunitions plants can be defendedonly when the nation is confronted

’ar. Now, everyan er of w . ws

With thlfoitudies this sublect 1:131“)mantvllere is no way we caln gnohingthat ithout actually an erwar now ves. But this could nevanone (“it ded before the Americbe de en ther excuseence some 0 .

peogleimH found to continue themusPelicy’ ' f th's s stemham ions 0 i y .

T111310;profposed that the Unitedhave 115 up as the police-et herse

Ediezstheworld. This gaudy boon—doggle is composed of two paigts.One is the principle of OneWor —l—la world in which all the nations w1sink their sovereignty into one greatoverall sovereignty that Will under-take to govern the world. We willkeep in existence an army of a mil-lion or twomen (andmaybewomentoo), ready to send troops to gainthe troops of our “noble allies tosuppress any attempt to break thepeace. In addition to that we Willhave Universal Military Training,'which will keep, in addition to thedraft army, a million or more youngmen in barracks where they willstudy the arts of war, carry out thediscipline, indoctrination and life ofthe soldier and then pass into a re-servewhich can be called each yearfor maneuvers and be ready to goto any part of the world where hos—tilities are threatened.Of course our militarists insist

that the life of the barracks and thesubmission to the slavery of con-

. ‘K

' ' ' ' eace is oodscription in time of p . gr oung men.” But it 15 not

filed)1forlfree young Americanségsifiood for the politicians £1 odancetgo continue to promise ahun radlef‘” a” “d “53°11’13gf533‘ftoftie i..-rave. 1 .

ZZrhlaiignalists who wish to indoc-trinate our young men a

nd womenin the principles of One Worldism.It is good for the “statesmen” wllliloalive t 's' ine they can keep .

fixaiglulent prosperity by crushingtaxes and endless borrowing.

The da of borrowing is appring its edd. Senator Harry F. Bytidhas recently called attenhon'to efact that the national debt 15 nowequal to the total value of .all. theland, all the farms, all the buildings,all the mines, all the machinery, allthe livestock — everything of tangi-ble value — in the United States. Inshort, the nation is now mortgagedto the top of itsbefuddled skull.,4 .When Germany and France andItaly launched their UMT’s theywere free of debt. It did not takemany years to pile the debts so highthat the economic system began tocrack and the distraught “states-men” sought an escape in war,which, of course, merely doubledthe burden and darkened the in-evitable tragedy. This is the fatecertain powerful groups in theUnited States now seek to imposeon free America—the slavery ofmilitarism.

15

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