The standardizing of the press had already proceeded to inordinate lengths before the war. As one sectional bookcase may differ from another of the same pattern only in its greater or lesser number of sections, so differs one American newspaper from another American newspaper. However, some small opportunity for individuality, for thought or pretense of thought, still existed, but even this has ended. With the opening of the war the American press ceased to think. The abstention has been so complete and prolonged that it may never be possible to resume the habit of thinking.
Look over these newspapers as they come in from the mails. Flag-waving of the cheapest, most brainless sort, Liberty Bonds, Thrift Stamps, Red Cross. This is the gamut that has countless repetition from New York to San Francisco, supplemented only by supercensored, mercilessly standardized stuff from the fighting fronts.
The writer of this book gave his support to the war against
Germany, and has no apology to make for that course. He
believed that the world would be a safer place for radicals
to work in when the Kaiser had been overthrown; he still believes
this—even though at the moment it seems that the result
of our fighting has been to set up new imperialisms in
Italy, France, England and America.
But my support of the war did not mean that I had given myself into the hands of war-profiteers. I saw that the old-time plunderers of America were among the war's most ardent supporters, and they went right on with their plundering—becoming "dollar-a-year" men in Washington, with a great cry of patriotism, and letting themselves contracts out of which hundreds of millions of profit were made! The Beef Trust, the Steel Trust, the Oil Trust, the Powder Trust, multiplied many times over the profits they were taking from the necessities of the people; also they dictated legislation which spared their profits, and saddled the cost of the war upon future generations. A war has to be won with materials then existing in the world, or immediately produced; it manifestly cannot be won with materials produced a generation later. The only question is, shall the necessary materials be taken from the owners by means of taxes, or shall they be borrowed, shall the labor of future generations be pledged in exchange? This is clear and simple; but if you tried to explain it to the people during the war you would be lynched, or sent to jail for twenty years.
It was the grand chance for the plunderers of America to put their enemies, the radicals, out of the way. Many of these radicals opposed the war, but others were put out of the way
