The Germs of War/Chapter 7
7. War Business is Good Business.
War business, or business war? There is nothing in a name but there is a great deal in the connection that exists between modern war and modern business.
The modern war is a business proposition.
The nation which prepares for war mobilizes munitions, materials, money and men. The experience of the past few months has showed that the hardest thing to get is munitions and the easiest thing is men.
Why are munitions so hard to get? Because in a modern war the amount of munitions consumed in a single engagement would have sufficed for an eighteenth century campaign. There have been days, during the present war, when one side at one point in one battle front has fired a quarter of a million shells per day, and continued this huge expenditure day after day. This is a greater use of ammunition than was dreamed of ten years ago, even among military experts.
The peace footing of most nations has called for a comparatively small capital invested in munition factories. The countries now at war multiplied their munitions capital many times before they were on a war basis. This sudden increase in a highly specialized industry and the economic changes necessary to meet the situation, have called into prominence a new arm of the military establishment. Today the success or failure of a war is in the hands of the "Minister of Munitions," who has leaped into a position of supreme importance.
Preparedness for war involves munition-shops, woolen-mills, and stable credit before one regiment can be put in the field. War today is largely a combination of business organization and applied science. Men are incidental. They direct the war machines. They are "cannon fodder." They play almost the same role that machine hands play in an up-to-date factory.
Because of the business nature of up-to-date warfare, business thrives on a war just as a fire thrives on fuel. During peace times buyers are careful; they look the goods over, and are slow in making up their minds. Peace times are times of calm and deliberation. War times are times of fever. Men's souls are aflame with patriotism, fear, blood-lust, hate. "Everything goes in war time," and at handsome prices.
The European War has been a wind-fall for the United States. Not since the Civil War have there been such opportunities. Contracts are large, the need is pressing, price is an incident, and even quality is sacrificed to speed.
Since the outbreak of the European War, wealth has piled up in the United States at an unheard of rate. There have been immense increases in the prices of rubber, copper, lead, zine, petroleum, steel and other minerals, and like increases in the prices that manufacturers have been able to get for their products; the earnings of the munition factories have been phenomenal as have the dividends paid by many of the war-trade industries. Export trade is at the highest point in our history. The war in Europe is the greatest boon that American business has perhaps ever experienced.
America is enjoying real prosperity—phenomenal prosperity. To the American business world the war has been a Godsend.
War a Godsend!
Down below in the abyss from which America is drawing her countless millions, there are other countless millions. Cannons crash and guns sputter. Commands, shouts, cries, curses, screams and groans fill the air. Broken bodies writhe in agony. Other bodies lie still. Families are torn forever asunder; homes are desolated; children are weeping for their fathers, wives for their husbands, and mothers for their sons; villages lie in ashes and cities in ruins. Pestilence creeps from house to house, and famine whines at the door. Death in every hideous shape stalks through the war-torn countries. Nations heap up mountains of debt that must crush joy out of Europe for fifty years. Through the crevices and the yawning chasms of this frightful wreckage tiny yellow rivulets and large yellow streams make their way, forming pools and little lakes in the hollows. Upon these we fling ourselves in an ecstacy of mad joy, warning all others back, and crying "Profit! Profit! Mine! My very own!"
In this connection, note the Ballad of Bethlehem Steel; or, The Need for Preparedness:
(By Grace Isabel Colbron, printed in the Public, December 10, 1915.)
A fort is taken, the papers say,
Five thousand dead in the murderous deal.
A victory? No, just another grim day.
But—up to five hundred goes Bethlehem Steel.
A whisper, a rumor, one knows not where—
A sigh, a prayer from a torn heart rent—
A murmur of Peace on the death-laden air—
But—Bethlehem Steel drops thirty per cent.
"We'll fight to the death," the diplomats cry.
"We'll fight to the death," sigh the weary men.
As the battle roars to the shuddering sky—
And—Bethlehem Steel has a rise of ten.
What matters the loss of a million men?
What matters the waste of blossoming lands?
The children's cry or the women's pain?
If—Bethlehem Steel at six hundred stands?
And so we must join in the slaughter-mill,
We must arm ourselves for a senseless hate,
We must waste our youths in the murder drill—
That Bethlehem Steel may hold its state.
That is the point, exactly. War has become a matter of business. War profits are large profits. So much the better. We will make hay while the sun shines!
But suppose the sun should cease to shine? Suppose the war should stop tomorrow? What would become of the hundreds of millions of capital that have been invested in munitions plants?
There is nothing easier! We must begin now to prepare a market that may be used in just such an emergency. A large navy, and a good-sized standing army will keep a good deal of munitions capital busy, even in peace times.