Take the Profit Out of War.

• Author: Follette, Robert M. La
• Position: BLAST FROM THE PAST

It is repugnant to every moral sense that governments should even indirectly be drawn into making and prosecuting a war through the machinations of those who make money by it. Yet the vast capital privately invested in plants for naval construction, and the manufacture of munitions of war necessary for the equipment of armies, has the strongest possible inducement to employ every means to shape conditions and influence policies which lead on to armed conflict. It means business. It means dividends. It means great accumulations of wealth in private hands to be again turned, through organization, into the building of more plants, more battleships, the manufacture of more powder, more shot and shell. In the end it has but one purpose and that is to sacrifice human life for private gain.

Back of every big army and navy appropriation bill is the organized power of private interest, pressing for larger appropriations, for more battleships, more armor plate...