Montana labor news., 1934-04-26
MERCHANTS
OF DEATH ARE
UNDER FIRE

Editors Note: This is the first of
a series Of three articles on munitions
manufacturers.
NEW Y0RK-(FP)- The makers
of iron, blood and profits, the mer-
chants of death-the warmakers, in
short-are themselves under fire, at
last.
Book and magazine publishers race
with Congress to see which shall ex-
pose the arms trust most quickly and
most effectively. The worldwide ris-
ing tide of expenditures for arma-
ments is met by an equal flood of pro-
tests against pouring new billions OF
dollars, new millions of boys, into the
profit chest of the worlds arms trust.
Fortune, radical $10-a-year maya
zine for millionaires, was first in the
race with an expose in its March issue
which was singing in its attack. 1t
began by picturing the German can
non on an English village green, bear
ing on one side the name of the boys
who had died capturing it and on the
other the name Of its manufacturer
Vickers, British firm. It ended by
saying that armorers, not to clever,
miss the main point-that fire tren-
ches and shell holes are but the pri-
mary LESSONS of a social disease which
inevitably attacks the blood and bones
of nations that go to war and means
"the eventual end Of %capitalistic in
dustry." Strong medicine for $10-a-
year subscribers.
Fortunes expose really set off the
book publishers race. Here's the
story: About 1925 George Seldes,
American newspaperman, made a re-
port on the armament trust for the
League of Nations, muttered to HIM
self as he had on other subjects, "PIl
write a book on that sometime" When
he delayed, wrote other books first, II.
C. E~nglebrecht and Francis G. HAM
CHEN jumped in and wrote their book,
Merchants of Death, probably using
the League of Nations report freely.
What Seldes muttered when he saw
in Forunte that Merchants Of Death
had been Gust published by Dodd-
Mead" isn't known. No matter; it
couldn't be printed anyway. Mer-
chants of Death wasn't Gust publish
ed" in February, however, possibly
because of lawyers arguings over that
unlucky Chapter 13 having to do with
William B. Shearer, Americas war
propagandist at peace conferences. 1t
is being published April rs. 1t has
been chosen as the Book of the Month
Club selection for May.
SO Seldes grabbed his typewriter
and went to work on Iron, Blood and
Profits. Harper and Bros. copy boys
grabbed the sheets as they leaped
from his machine and it was soon an
nounced that his book would be pub
lished April 25. Second place is a tie
The U. S. Senate swings along in
third place under the Nye resolution
calling for a thorough investigation Of
all firms engaged in the manufacture
or sale Of arms, the organizations tc
which they belong, the methods they
use in promoting their sales, and i'm
ports and exports of arms. Punmak-
ers predict they'll find dynamite.
They will certainly find that arma-
ment manufacturers sit on leading
delegations to disarmament confer
ences-which inevitably fail; that the
arms ring is international, slipping
necessary materials to the enemy
through neutral countries in wartime
Frenchmen supporting Hitler 80 as
to sell more arms to frightened pa
%triots; that Bethlehem Steel, which
fights unions with the same skill with
which it makes both armor-piercine
shells and non-piercable armor, made
huge profits out of the World War
and is running its arms plant at tor
speed now.