The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-07-30
by Labor Research Association

by Labor Research Association
The third and final volume OF the
hearings before the War Policies
Commission have now been printed
The testimony and exhibits take up
nearly 900 pages of government
oaper.
The Commission, it will be remem-
:. ,ered, was set up by the last Con-
80 gress, -ostensibly ito promote peace
and to equalize the burdens and to
minimize the profits OF war! The
chairman Of the Commission, COM
posed of cabinet heads and represen-
1atives from the House and Senate,
. Is Secretary of War, P. j. Hurley.
Before the Commission appeared va
rtous capitalists, militarists, profess
4, sional patriots, politicians, and paci-
1ss fists, most of them submitting Sug-
gestions as to how to make war more
efficient - under capitalism and
A. -. how to conduct it that it will not
. snd~in revolution.
Profiteering in war was frequent
" referred to but practically all the
witnesses agreed that a reasonable
: profit" should be allowed, say about
seven per cent considered all right"
by r. T. O'Neil, national command
sr Of the American Legion. Con-
gresham j. A Frear of Wisconsin,
told how he had been a member of
IS q congressional committee in 1921,
which had investigated war graft in
the making of airplanes, etc. That
investigation, he declared, "disclos-
ed waste Of money in practically ev-
cry line OF service through war prof
iteers, cost-plus contracts, and other
profit methods scandalous beyond
measure as to amount or character"
Are the capitalists right now in
terested in getting in on the fat war
time contracts from the government?
Colonel Charles B. Robbins, president
o. the Cedar Rapids Life Insurance
Company, and assistant secretary of
war in 1928-1929, answered this ques-
ton when he told how in working on
industrial preparedness plans he met
With great enthusiasm from the pro-
fiteers He said:
Il spent one day in Pittsburgh
when the heads of practically every
Industry in Pittsburgh stayed in q
room from nine o'clock in the morn
ing until five o'clock in the after
noon with just an adjournment for !
lunch, discussing the plan and there
was q considerable difference Of /
opinion on some parts of it and they
asked me what I thought of it at !
the end. I said, I am not so sur /
prised there would be a difference of /
opinion as am surprised at the fact .
that the heads of all the great steel /
corporations and the Westinghouse
people and all those people would
spend an entire day discussing a by
pothetical situation - take their
time to do it. They we're that in
terested 4"
He added that he found none of
them who we're in favor of war
profits; that IS, excessive profits" He
remarked naively that all they had
expressed q desire for was mod
crate return. This was precisely
the position taken by the munitions
manufacturers before the war of
1s14-1918.
Many Of the iberJls who appeared
we're eager to help Sle capitalist gov
eminent carry on ne next war more
scientifically and with less waste
than it had the last one. All sorts
Of articles on economic planning and
he naturalization Of capitalist pro-
cesses were poured into the record.
For example, Professor r. M Low
EFT OF Chicago University filed for
Insertion in the record the articles
On economic planning that had ap-
~peared in the New Republic by Geo.
-Souie, prominent eX-radical, and L. L.
Lorwin Gouis Levine) former pal
of Emma Goldman and now a re-
spectacle professor Of economics.
Benjamin G. March, a somewhat
cynical but energetic liberal, who ,
heads the Peoples Lobby, pre- =
dicted that another scale war :
will end the present economic sys- ,
tenn" and that this fact initiates
against war and operates to put the =
world organization on q cooperative ,
basis which alone can prevent an 6
other conflict Which. in plain En- {
slish. means that the capitalists are
so AFRAID Of another war that they 6
will start to cooperate" and hence E
there Will be no war; This is pre- 2
war stuff Of the sort we heard ut I
tered way back in 1918 by such 4
practical pacifists as Norman An
CELL 4
& Esr Marsh hastened to straighten c
out bis position with the Commission 2
by assuring them that II am not I
against the Government; I am al E
ways for gradual change sometimes q
they have to be rapid - by peaceful e
methods. .. should try to change r
fthe government while we have DO O
htcal parties, so that if the people Il
IN an orderly way want to change
things, we can. That is our saliva n
ton. That is why I do not like the Ii
hsrd-and-fast system that they have e.
In Russia, for one thing" I
Norman Thomas, the Socialist Par r
to. leader ~oT,tribufad +t-a fo1Ia--,...