The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-07-21
America Prepares for War
by Grotter

answer. "Does it not consist of international
rivalry in trade and finance, and are not the
two greatest rivals in this field England and
the United States?"
War Departments Five Year Plan.
The War Departments five-year plan has
been very effective in its own inhuman way.
The army has actually organized school,
the Army Industrial College, to teach officers
the most efficient ways of linking peacetime
industries with the War Department so that,
now, as Frank CORN, former chief of the pro-
curement division of the U. S. Army Chemical
Warfare Service, has declared According to
plans which are fairly well completed at the
very hour, or possibly a few hours before,
America next declares war, tersely worded Of
fetal kilograms will automatically 20 forward
from Washington to several hundred chemical
plants scattered throughout the East and
Middle West In substance. the messages will
say: 60 Ahead, and the innumerable war
contracts which are being signed in these quiet
times of peace will Immediately become eff
fective." This tender care of industries which
can turn out war materials is not confined to
the chemical group. According to former
Secretary of War Davis, the same solicitude
is extended to every industry that will be
utilized in the next war, be it automobile,
steel, clothing, munitions, or aviation. The
National Defense Committee of the United
States Chamber of Commerce has actually
started to rehearse the big industrial estab-
lishments which will so quickly be converted
into war industries.
Mobilization Has Been Speeded Up.
In half the time that it took the United
States to mobilize its forces in the last war,
Davis adds, the War Department will be able to
assemble 4,3Ol,947 enlisted men and 247.767
officers. This is an army, he boasts, 20 per
how hot he
last war. The War Department seems to
have accelerated it's program. In 1927 it was
decided to have 400 training planes in service
by 1882. Only last week 402 training planes
were ordered, along with 1000 engines. This
is speeding up with vengeance.
In this greatest of all capitalist countries
where 1892 per cent of the population gets
less than $4,000 year, and where the average
wage of workers in manufactures in 1927 was
$1,216; where there more than 100000
unemployed at conservative estimates while.
the two chief executives in "their" government,
Hoover and Mellon, own between them
$6O0,000,000, Congress has voted Ss47,O1O,858
to the army and navy for the fiscal year
1930-1931 an increase over last year of
$21, 504,834
Every attempt, no matter how hypocritical
in intention to aid these 100000 jobless
workers, has been met by Hoover with the plea
that the government must economic" That
is why the fantastic $7OO0O00,OO0 construc-
ton program that was to "help" the unem-
ployed has fallen to $24,O00,000, and why 5000
postal employees have been discharged in a
time of severe crisis. But no matter how
heavy are the burdens which the masses must
carry, no matter how quickly programs to
"aid" them are forgotten, the cost of war con-
tinues to mount. There is never need for the
army and navy to economic.
" Cents of Every Dollar Goes For War.
According to government figures, three
fourths of the $3.50, 445,231 to be spent by
"our" government this year will go to pay for
past wars and the next war. That is to say.
" cents of every dollar bald by the taxpayers
to the government is used ~ nav for the
der of workers acting in the interest of their
exploiters. And for numbering and being MUIR
dered, American soldiers an Hp A..
the munficent salaries Of S21 per month.
Fxperts agree that the coming war will be
unexampled in its ferocity. Donald Cameron.
in his excellent pamphlet, chemical Warfare"
describes what workers are going to meet in
the next war Chemical warfare seeks mans
Achilles heel-his tenderest and least pro-
tected parts. As new gases were introduced
first his lungs were attacked, then his eyes,
then his nose and throat, and finally his skin.
Gas can kill-silently, swiftly, surely. It can
disable men and cause horrible wounds that