The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-08-02
We Fought
tor Billions
(By Labor Research Association.)

(By Labor Research AssOciatiOn.)
Right now when readiness for war
on the grandest scale ever known is
being pushed throughout the capital
list world, effective work in spiking
the imperialist guns can be done
with the facts contained in C. Hart
ley Grattan's "Why We Fought"
Together with "Cameron's Chemical
Warfare" published by International
Pamphlets, it is a good book for
workers to read in training for the
class struggle.
Grattan summarizes and brings
down to date the excellent job of
debunking the gruesome conflict of
1914. That America was heels over
head in war activity before the for
NAL declaration on April 6, 1917;
that Admiral Sims was sent to ar
range for naval cooperation with
England while America was still
technically at peace with Germany;
that Wilson's reelection campaign
managers put him over with the
slogan "He kept us out of war;"
while secretly they were working day
and night to get the country into
war via the peace proposal route, are
some of the valuable points brought
out.
Most interesting, however, are the
chapters showing the economic con-
nections which slowly dragged
America into the fiery furnace.
Economics provide the dynamics
of history" says Grattan. "The
world war is on all tours with every
other war in having an economic
foundation. Every reputable his
torian who has dealt with it regards
the diplomacy, the propaganda, the
alleged aims and objects for fight
ing, as mere secondary structures
based on the foundation of money
and trade"
That America would eventually
enter the war on the side of the
allies, if they needed such assistance,
was predetermined by one fact: The
big bankers were pro-British by
business and social connections, and
had been so for years. T. W. La
mont, of j. P. Morgan & Co., said:
"Our firm had never for one mo-
ment been neutral. From the very
start we did everything that we
could to contribute to the cause of
the allies"
H. P. Dawson, also of the house
of Morgan, declared: "Some of US
in America realized that this was
our war from the very start" Otto
Kahn stated that from August, 1914,
he took his "stand unequivocally
with the allied cause"
Hardly had the war begun when
Charles Schwab made the Bethle-
hem Steel Co. zone of the strongest
industrial allies of the British gov
eminent" by guaranteeing to Lord
Kitchener that he would not sell con-
troll inside of five years. Early the
next year E. r. Stettinieus of the
Diamond Match Co. was head of a
central allied purchasing organiza-
ton spending $1O,O0O,OOO a day
much of it in the United States.
Since the British fleet controlled
the seas, American manufacturers
and business men could sell very
little to Germany. Hence their to-
tai accounts with the allies grew
into the billions, and with their &C.
counts grew their sympathies. The
German U-boat campaign, the sink
ing of the Lusitania and the cooked
up yarns about Belgian atrocities,
only provided "moral" excuses for
plunging into bloodshed to safeguard
these accounts.
In the coming war the capitalists
of America will send the workers to
fight, not for old accounts, but for
future trade and raw materials to
exploit :.
("Why We Fought" by C. Hartley
Grattan, Vanguard Press, S2.50.)
-SOLON DELEON.