War Is A Racket
By Major General Smedley Butler
Contents
Chapter 1: War Is A Racket
Chapter 2: Who Makes The Profits?
Chapter 3: Who Pays The Bills?
Chapter 4: How To Smash This Racket!
Chapter 5: To Hell With War!
Smedley Darlington Butler
* 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:
1. capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914
2. 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.
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
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 place
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/war_is_a_racket_033103.htm
Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), nicknamed "the fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye," was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. Butler was awarded the Medal of Honor twice during his career, one of only 19 people to be so decorated. He was noted for his outspoken left-wing views and his book War is a Racket, one of the first works describing the military-industrial complex. After retiring from service, Butler was a popular speaker at veterans rallies, communist, pacifist and church groups in the 1930s, Butler came forward to the U.S. Congress in 1934 to report that a proposed coup had been plotted by wealthy industrialists to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. (See Business Plot)
Early life
Butler was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the oldest in a family of three sons of Thomas Stalker and Maud (Darlington) Butler, both members of distinguished Quaker families. His father was a lawyer, judge, and for thirty-one years a Congressman. During his time in congress, Thomas S. Butler was chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee during the Harding and Coolidge administrations.
Butler was educated at the Friends' Graded High School at West Chester and later at the The Haverford School near Philadelphia.
Military career
In spite of his father's insistence that he remain in school, Smedley Butler dropped out when the United States declared war against Spain in 1898. Being only sixteen years old, Butler lied about his age to secure a second lieutenant's commission in the Marines.
"How old did ye say thou wast?" asked Thomas Butler, to which Smedley confessed that he had told the commandant that he was 18, born on April 20, 1880. "If ye is determined to go, thou shalt go," Thomas replied, "but don't add another year to your age, my son. Thy mother and I weren't married until 1879."
After six weeks of basic training, Second Lieutenant Butler was sent to Guantanamo, Cuba, in July 1898. The bay was already secured, but a Spanish sniper's bullet barely missed Butler's head one night.
Butler was twice wounded during the Boxer rebellion. Following one engagement near Tientsin on July 13, 1900, Butler, another lieutenant and four enlisted men carried a wounded officer to the rear for medical attention — a 17-mile trek under heavy fire. Four of the men received the Medal of Honor. At that time, however, officers were not eligible to receive the award. In recognition of his bravery in the incident, Butler was commissioned a captain by brevet, receiving his promotion while in the hospital recovering from a wound incurred at the Battle of Tientsin, two weeks before his nineteenth birthday.
In 1903, he fought to protect the U.S. Consulate in Honduras from rebels. An incident during that expedition allegedly earned him the first of several colorful nicknames, "Old Gimlet Eye," attributed to the feverish, bloodshot eyes which enhanced his habitually penetrating and bellicose stare.
Butler was married in 1905 to Ethel C. Peters, of Philadelphia. He had a daug
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
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