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 the War 
 
 A concise argument against 
 
 "Rich Man's War" 
 Propaganda 
 
 Issued by 
 
 Publicity Department 
 
 Commission of Public Safety 
 
 Saint Paul, Minn. 
 
of 
 23 1919 
 
Wall Street and theWzr 
 
 This war is everybody's war; we are 
 all in it. It was made by the Government 
 of the United States in behalf of all the 
 people. It was not undertaken for the 
 benefit of any section or class in the 
 nation. It was not begun at the behest 
 of any fragment of the people. The 
 benefit which will be derived from the 
 successful prosecution of this war will 
 not go to any class or group. They will 
 be shared by all the people, but chiefly 
 enjoyed by the poorer classes. The 
 burdens of the war will be borne by all 
 classes, not chiefly by the poorer. In 
 particular it is to be noted that, among 
 business men, the makers of munitions 
 will not profit greatly from the entry of 
 the United States into the war. Rather 
 they will be worse off than before that 
 event. 
 
 This war was undertaken to crush 
 finally the menace of Prussian despotism 
 and "to make the world safe for de- 
 
mocracy." The German Empire rests 
 on the might of the Prussian army and 
 that army owes obedience not to the 
 people nor even to Parliament, but to 
 the King alone. 
 
 Speaking to the Prussian Parliament 
 some time before the outbreak of the 
 present war, Bethmann-Hollweg declared ; 
 "The dearest desire of every Prussian is 
 to see the King's army remain complete- 
 ly under the control of the King and not 
 to become the army of Parliament." 
 
 Professor Delbruck of the University 
 of Berlin has written thus of the army: 
 "The King is their comrade and they are 
 attached to him as their war lord, and 
 this is the very foundation of our national 
 life. The essence of our monarchy resides 
 in its relations with the army. Whoever 
 knows our officers must know that they 
 would never tolerate the government of a 
 minister of war issuing from Parliament " 
 
 There are, indeed, Parliaments in 
 Prussia and in the German Empire, but 
 they are weak bodies, being little more 
 than debating societies. German writers 
 
have called the Reichstag, the most 
 powerful assembly in Germany, a "Hall 
 of Echoes." Even this body can do 
 little except to register its assent or 
 disapproval of plans presented to it by 
 the Emperor's ministers. These ministers 
 can, and on occasion do, defy the repre- 
 sentatives of the German people and 
 taunt them with their powerlessness to 
 oppose the wishes of the Emperor. There 
 is no democracy in the German Govern- 
 ment, nor any safety for democracy in 
 any land while the despotism of Prussia 
 exists. This power, resting, upon a large 
 structure of militarism which has sacri- 
 ficed everything to make the nation 
 efficient in war, is the power which has 
 attacked the United States. It can be 
 resisted only by force of arms, because 
 that is the argument to which it has 
 appealed. This means that unless this 
 war is won by the forces which are 
 fighting in defense of democracy, we must 
 prepare ourselves to undergo a discipline 
 as rigorous and to support a burden as 
 heavy as that now borne by the German 
 people. A standing army of tremendous 
 

 size, supported by huge expenditures for 
 the latest and best equipment, would be 
 forced upon this nation as a permanent 
 institution, so long as the menace of 
 Prussian military power remained. There 
 is not only mighty force in Germany, 
 but the determination to use that force 
 in aggression against the rest of the world. 
 The declarations of the Emperor to 
 Ambassador Gerard show that Germany 
 was planning to strike at the United 
 States when she had finished the present 
 conflict. Already official German press 
 dispatches talk of "the next war" which 
 shall give Germany the world dominion 
 she so much covets. The chief benefit 
 of a victory for the opponents of such 
 aggression would be greater safety for 
 democracy, which is but another way of 
 saying greater freedom and opportunity 
 for the common man in every nation. 
 
 This, and other gains from this war 
 belongs to the rich man and the poor 
 man alike. This war, which secures such 
 benefits, is indeed everybody's war. 
 
 The costs of this great struggle are 
 tremendous and they are to be borne by 
 
those to whom the benefits shall come. 
 As all the people gain, so all contribute 
 of their services and powers to the 
 support of the government in its prosecu- 
 tion of the war. The Selective Service 
 
 Law has given us a truly democratic 
 army into which we have called all our 
 young men, without distinction between 
 rich and poor. In calling for contribu- 
 tions of money, also, the Government has 
 not laid upon the poor burdens greater 
 than they ought to be called upon to 
 bear in this hour of great danger to the 
 nation. The charge that this war was 
 undertaken at the behest of the rich men 
 of the country finds strong refutation in 
 the distribution of taxes in all war 
 revenue bills passed by the last Congress. 
 In this law the heaviest contributions are 
 laid upon large incomes and profits from 
 great business. A Congress which made 
 war upon the order of the wealthy would 
 hardly have dared to treat its masters 
 so. The taxes which would most directly 
 affect the great mass of the people, such 
 as those on tea, coffee and sugar were 
 not accepted by the lawmakers, though 
 
urged upon their attention. It cannot, 
 however, be argued that the rich man is 
 only paying for special advantages he 
 will gain from the war. There are no 
 gains which will come to the rich in which 
 all the people will not share. The ad- 
 vantages of living in a world freed from 
 the menace of Prussian Militarism are of 
 greater value to the poor man than to 
 the rich. In a state where there is no 
 democracy the advantages of the rich 
 man over the poor are greatly increased. 
 The security won by this war is valuable 
 to all Americans, without respect to 
 wealth. In no sense can this be called a 
 rich man's war. 
 
 A further burden now being borne by 
 the property owners of this country 
 arises from the depreciation in the value 
 of their investments in stocks and bonds. 
 Many of the most reliable issues have 
 suffered a serious decline in price. The 
 underlying cause is not to be found in the 
 activities of speculators and jugglers of 
 the stock market. Many factors com- 
 bine to produce this result, among which 
 should certainly be named the heavy 
 
taxes which have been found necessary 
 in order to support this war. The United 
 States Government, further, has come 
 into the financial field offering bonds at 
 an unusually high rate of interest and 
 this has had the effect of making other 
 investments less attractive and hence of 
 lowering their price. It is idle to argue 
 that these losses are only on paper. 
 They are real losses in value, since they 
 are based on the decreases in the income 
 yielded by the securities. Nor can it be 
 argued that the rich get a return for the 
 burden thus borne, since they gain 
 nothing from this war which is not shared 
 by everyone in the country, whether 
 or not he owns a single bond or share of 
 stock. 
 
 In particular it can be shown clearly 
 and briefly that the American participa- 
 tion in this war does not benefit the 
 makers of munitions in any such degree 
 as the public has been led to believe. 
 The first false impression to be over- 
 come is the notion that the making of 
 munitions during the present war has 
 been uniformly profitable at a fabulous 
 
rate. The fact is quite the contrary. 
 
 Figures compiled by the United States 
 Treasury Department reveal that only 
 about half the munition makers of the 
 country earned enough to make them 
 taxable under the special taxes imposed 
 by Congress. These figures relate to the 
 period prior to the declaration of war by 
 the United States, the time when the 
 profits in this particular business were 
 at their greatest. Figures produced in 
 Congress during the debates on the sub- 
 ject of special taxation of profits from 
 munition making proved clearly, that, 
 while a few concerns had made large 
 amounts of money, the general run of 
 concerns in this business had not earned 
 a rate of profit upon their investments 
 equal to that obtained in the field of 
 ordinary business. To use a business 
 phrase, the making of munitions has been 
 a particularly "spotty" sort of enterprise. 
 It is notable that one of the concerns 
 whose aggregate gains have reached the 
 highest figure has actually earned a rate 
 of profit less than that prevailing in the 
 general run of industrial undertakings. 
 Bankruptcy has been the fate of many 
 
an enterprise in this field. This experi- 
 ence, it should be added, has not been 
 confined to the United States, but has 
 been duplicated in all the belligerent 
 countries. Abroad most of the war taxa- 
 tion of excess profits was at first aimed 
 solely at the munition manufacturers, be- 
 cause it was thought that they would be 
 most likely to reap unusual gains from 
 the war situation. In all these countries 
 the event proved this to be a false as- 
 sumption, and the taxes have therefore 
 been broadened to include other lines of 
 enterprise. The fact of the matter is 
 that those who reap the greatest gains 
 from their nation's participation in war 
 are the_ producers of the fundamental raw 
 materials upon which the structure of 
 industry rests. The list of such pro- 
 ducers includes the miner and the farmer, 
 but not the maker of shrapnel. 
 
 The entry of the United States into 
 the war has, moreover, hurt, rather than 
 helped the munition makers. Their taxes 
 have been increased, until they now 
 bear a burden heavier than that laid 
 upon similar industries in Great Britian. 
 Though the rate of the American tax is 
 lower, the basis upon which excess profits 
 are computed in such less favorable to 
 the corporations than that used in 
 England. In addition to this our muni- 
 
—KV v, co N G RESS 
 
 tion manufacturers ®*8 465 842 2 
 the advantageous market they ionnci v 
 enjoyed. Their dealings with our own 
 Government are on the basis of fixed 
 prices which cut the margin of profit to a 
 small figure. As the buying of the Allies 
 becomes centralized the possibility of 
 getting a higher price from foreign govern- 
 ments also disappears. Without mention- 
 ing increasing costs due to labor condi- 
 tions consequent upon the entry of this 
 country into the war the situation of the 
 maker of munitions is worse than it was 
 before the United States joined the ranks 
 of Germany's foes. The munition makers 
 were in a position to know these things 
 before our Government declared war. 
 They can hardly be thought to have 
 urged such a step. 
 
 The war cannot be called a "rich man's 
 war," for it is everybody's war. The 
 benefits to be gained belong to everyone 
 in the nation. In particular, it is fallacy 
 to hold that the rich man, or any frag- 
 ment of them, such as the munition 
 makers, urged the war for their own gains. 
 They now bear a heavy burden, it is 
 true, but they will derive no benefits 
 other than those shared by all the people 
 when the world shall have been made safe 
 for all the people. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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