War IS a racket

A few profit -- and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament
conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical
groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of
war.
The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations
manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of
the nation -- it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and
the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our
shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide
profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted -- to get $30 a month,
the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.
Let the workers in these plants get the same wages -- all the workers, all presidents, all executives,
all directors, all managers, all bankers -- yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and
all politicians and all government office holders -- everyone in the nation be restricted to a total
monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.
Why shouldn't they?
They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds
shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!
Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time,
will be no war. That will smash the war racket -- that and nothing else