The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-08-04
TO DRAFT LABOR
IN COMING WAR
Disproving Lies of mo
Profiteering"

w AD1lI4NG YIN " Us aug o.
A whole series of special articles
are being published by capitalist
papers, trying to sugar-coat the plan
for CONSUMPTION of labor in industry
during the coming war with Eek
plantations" that this plan is going
"to take huge profits out Of war"
by "conscripting capital" This is
lie, nothing less.
In order to propaganda the
workers with the idea of how much
"nicer" the coming war is going to
be than the last one, Mr.. Gustavus
Myers, who once called himself a
socialist" gives, for example, long
list of profiteers in the last war,
preluded with the explanation"
that the commission of Congress
now at work on a plan for the
coming war, is not going to allow
such things. This is bunk.
Hoover Regulating" Profits
1t is admitted that after America
entered the last war, the capitalist
government pretended to regulate"
profits, and at that time assured
everybody that profittering would
not be allowed. But it was, just the
same. Such lies were useful in get
ing the workers to accept conscrip-
ton and being forced to give up de-
mands for higher wages, but they
were lies just the same. And now
more such lies are being spread TO
cover up PROTECTING in the next
war.
While workers went without sugar
or paid exorbitant prices, the Amer
lean Sugar Company increased their
dividends on preferred stock from
11.3 to 20.9 per cent. between 1914
and 1919, and its cash reserves grew
from 100000 to $40,493, 900.
From 1915 to 1917, the Meat
Packers cleaned up s140, 900, 900, and
Armour and Co., made really rs per
cent. profit in one year. While mil
lions of workers were fed moldy
"war bread" at high prices, and
were forced to go hungry "for pa
triotism," profits in flour rose from
IL per cent. in 1915 to SO per cent.
in 1917.
Hoover An Old Hand.
Bread was subjected to govern
ment CONTROL" and so was coal, but
in one single year under this "con-
troll" which was bossed by none other
than President Hoover, the coal COM
panies increased their profits from
8 cents to rs cents ton. That is
how Hoover will take the profit out
of" the next war! According to
Myers, soft coal bosses cleaned up
$1,000, 100000 by 1919. So much for
Hoover!
Clothing profits were five times
those of pre-war years. And the oil
companies, led by Rockefeller's
patriotic" trust, in two years, from
1916 to 1918, cleaned up around
S550,000,000. United tSates Steel
Corporation dividends went up from
IL per cent. to 1915 per cent. from
1913 to 1917, eighteen steel COM
panies totalling $1,o00,000,oo0 in
profiteering. Copper profits rose
f TN III per cent. to rs per cent,
though the ,vernment Jailed re-
volutionary workers who struck for
better wages for 20 year sentences
for being "seditious."
Manufacturers of explosives, of
course, reaped hundreds of millions
while $685. American workers died
on the battlefield, 14,742 died of
wounds, $4,000 died of disease, g.
092 were killed in accidents" and
2o5,6s0 were crippled by wounds.
But under Hoover's hypocritical
Control" the bosses cleaned up at
least s4,800,0o0,O0O year in pro-
fits. And the number of million
aires increased over three hundred
per cent.
No worker should be fooled, there
fore, about the "plan to take profits
out Of war" The plan, instead, is
to draft labor in the factories at
something near soldiers pay of $50
month, while the capitalists will
reap untold billions in the coming
war.