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    War Is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
    War Is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
    War Is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
    Ebook216 pages3 hours

    War Is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier

    By Smedley Darlington Butler, Jesse Ventura, David Talbot and Cindy Sheehan

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    About this ebook

    US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler collected an award cabinet full of medals for his battlefield bravery. But perhaps his bravest act of all was to declare, after his retirement in the early 1930s, who was really winning (and losing) during the bloody clashes.

    It was business interests, he revealed, who commercially benefited from warfare. War Is a Racket is the title of the influential speech Butler delivered on a tour across the United States, as well the expanded version of the talk that was later published in 1935and is now reprinted here. This seminal piece of writing rings as true today as it did during Butler’s lifetime.

    In his introduction, Jesse Ventura reviews Butler’s original writings and relates them to our current political climateexplaining how right he was, and how wrong our current system is. With an insightful new foreword by Salon.com founder David Talbot, this portable reference will appeal to anyone interested in the state of our country and the entire world.

    Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSkyhorse
    Release dateJun 14, 2016
    ISBN9781510704282
    War Is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier

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    Reviews for War Is a Racket

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      A very concise summation on the potential for corruption in the use of the military, particularly when military policy is wedded to corporate interests. Butler's statements are very powerful, particularly becuase of his personal experience on the subject.
    • 4/5
      A short condemnation of war by a man who spent his life fighting wars. Smedley demonstrates the high public cost and resultant high business profits of war, giving many examples of US companies which greatly increased their profits during WW1. He also describes the waste and corruption inherent in military spending.

      Smedley makes the amusing (from a detached perspective) observation that in WW1 the US cleverly replaced recruitment bonuses with medals. Giving soldiers medals for service was much cheaper than giving money, which was the norm in the US Civil War. He also points out that between taxes and bonds many enlisted soldiers effectively received no salary.

      Far less amusingly, Smedley describes how in 1916, a delegation from the allies visited President Wilson and bluntly told the president that the allies would lose the war, and thus no be able to repay the six billion dollars they owed to the USA. This was the galvanising motion for US involvement.

      War = $ is the message of this book.
    • 5/5
      The pieces that make up this book were first published about 70 years ago. Butler was a highly decorated Marine Brigadier General who was involved in many military expeditions in the early 20th century to countries like Haiti, China and Cuba. After retiring, he exposed a corporate/fascist plot to seize the White House right after Franklin Roosevelt became President. After that, he began to speak out about the real motives behind America's military actions--profit.Just before World War I, the profit margin of the average American corporation was in the single digits (6%, 8%, perhaps 10% profit yearly). Then why, when the war came, did that same profit margin skyrocket to hundreds, or even thousands of percent? The author also mentions several cases of companies who sold the US Government totally useless items. One company sold Uncle Sam 12 dozen 48-inch wrenches. The problem is that there was only one nut large enough for those wrenches; it holds the turbines at Niagara Falls. The wrenches were put on freight cars and sent all around America to try and find a use for them. When the war ended, the wrench maker was about to make some nuts to fit the wrenches. The parallels with today are too numerous to mention.The next time war is declared, and conscription is on the horizon, Butler proposes a limited national plebiscite on whether or not America should go to war. But the voting should be limited only to those of conscription age, those who will do the actual fighting and dying. Also, one month before anyone is conscripted, all of American business and industry who profits from war should be conscripted, from weapons makers to international banks to uniform makers. All employees of those companies, from the CEO down to the assembly line worker, should have their salary cut to equal the base pay of the soldier who is fighting, and dying, to improve their bottom line. Let's see how long the war fever lasts. Also, go to a VA hospital to see the real aftermath of war.This isn't so much an antiwar book as it is an isolationist book. The separate pieces were published in a time when many Americans felt that getting involved in another European war that had nothing to do with America, was a terrible idea. The author certainly pulls no punches. This book is very highly recommended, especially for those who think that war is a clean videogame where no one really gets hurt. It gets two strong thumbs up.
    • 5/5
      A classic exposé of war profiteering written by the most decorated Marine of his time, Major General Smedley Butler. The author, through a highly qualified argument supported by facts, thoroughly discounts the moral and ideological justification for war and concentrates on the geopolitical factors that actually motivate the cause for war. He was one of the first Americans to really bring the economic implications of war to the forefront of the public conscience. In War is a Racket Butler “names names” and lays out in wonderfully blunt detail how the American “military machine” was used to the benefit of wealthy American industrialists. He noted how proponents of war typically call on God as a supporter of the cause and how they embellish the mission as one of liberation and the spreading of freedom, but that these people tend to shy away from discussing the economic details of military ventures. In short, this book, though small, is an inspirational foundation for all anti-war arguments in our current times, a firsthand account of a story that tragically keeps repeating itself.
    • 4/5
      An extremely short and concise book on who benefits in monetary profits and who pays for those profits during war. Equally interesting is the role played by military operations in securing benefits and market areas for various corporations and international bankers. It is worth a read and, unfortunately, I think will be once again timely and prophetic in the near future as it was in regard to WWII. (The book was written prior to WWII and the author died before the US entry into that war.)
    • 5/5
      The only book on antiwar that matters.

    Book preview

    War Is a Racket - Smedley Darlington Butler

    Cover Page of War Is a RacketHalf Title of War Is a Racket

    Smedley Butler with the USMC mascot bulldogs at an Army-Navy game.

    Title Page of War Is a Racket

    Additional material copyright © 2016, 2013 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

    Introduction copyright © 2013 by Jesse Ventura

    Foreword copyright © 2016 by David Talbot

    Afterword copyright © 2016 by Cindy Sheehan

    Photographs and radio address courtesy of the Butler Family

    Other materials courtesy of the Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections

    No claim is made to material contained in this work that is derived from government documents. Nevertheless, Skyhorse Publishing claims copyright in all additional content, including, but not limited to, compilation copyright and the copyright in and to any additional material, elements, design, images, or layout of whatever kind included herein.

    All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

    Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.

    Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

    Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    Jacket design by Rain Saukas

    Cover photo: iStockphoto

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

    ISBN: 978-1-5107-0427-5

    Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0428-2

    Printed in the United States of America

    Butler with his wife, Ethel Conway Peters Butler, circa 1901.

    Butler with his son, Smedley Butler Jr.

    Butler at home with his cat.

    Contents

    Editor’s Note

    Foreword by David Talbot

    Introduction by Jesse Ventura

    War Is a Racket

    Speeches:

    Memorial Day Speech (1931)

    Memorial Day Speech (1933)

    Discovering America (1939)

    The War in Europe (Undated)

    Avoiding the War in the Pacific by Attending to Our Own Business (1939)

    Concerning Law Enforcement (Undated)

    Veterans’ Rights (Undated)

    Radio Addresses:

    Address from October 11, 1939

    Articles:

    My Services with the Marines (Undated)

    Dictatorship? (Undated)

    The Peace Racket (Undated)

    Let’s Quit Kidding Ourselves (Undated)

    America’s Veteran Problem (1936)

    Government Aid for Veterans (Undated)

    The Chip on Uncle Sam’s Shoulder as told to Barney Yanofsky (Undated)

    War Is a Racket (Draft)

    Afterword by Cindy Sheehan

    An election flier from an unsuccessful run at U.S. Senator in 1932.

    Editor’s Note

    Major General Smedley D. Butler was an American hero. His knowledge and teachings not only improved our military, but our country as a whole.

    With special thanks to Molly Swanton and the Butler family, as well as Christopher Ellis at the Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections, we have been able to not only publish Major General Butler’s famous exposé, War Is a Racket, but several other essays, articles, and speeches.

    While we have transcribed several of these works, we wanted to include some of them in their original format. Because of this, there may be marks or other comments on the documents. We at Skyhorse felt that showing the truest and most authentic form of General Butler’s works would be best in remembering and respecting one of the most decorated Marines in United States history.

    We hope that you enjoy his work as much as we have and that you’ll gain much wisdom and insight from The Old Gimlet.

    Foreword

    By David Talbot

    Boys dream of war. That’s how I began Devil Dog, my illustrated biography of Smedley Darlington Butler, the legendary Marine hero. Butler ran off to join the Marines at the tender age of sixteen in 1898, just as the American empire began its rise. He made his military debut in Cuba during the Spanish American War—and then proceeded to follow America’s bloody imperial path around the world. Like many young men of his time—and today—Butler thought of war as a glorious, flag-waving adventure. As a youngster, I loved the excitement of battle, he said late in his life. "It’s lots of fun, you know, and it’s nice to strut around in front of your wife—or somebody else’s wife—and display your medals and your uniform.

    But there’s another side to it, Butler bleakly added, making it clear that he had seen all too much of that side. In the course of his exploits, Butler became the most decorated Marine hero of his day. But by the time he retired from the military thirty-three years after he enlisted, Butler was thoroughly sickened by war and by what America demanded of its soldiers in the hellholes of empire. He and his fellow Marines had been called upon to brutally put down wars of national liberation all over the world, from the Far East to the Caribbean. And, as Butler came to realize, there was nothing patriotic or noble about what his leathernecks had been ordered to do.

    In enforcing America’s will and commercial claims, Butler’s men engaged in the inevitable crimes and savagery of imperial war—torching villages, subjecting insufficiently compliant peasants to baroque forms of torture, raping women, and orphaning children. Butler knew that these grimy wars took as much from his fighting men’s souls as it did from their bodies. And the bloodletting was all about the filthy dollar, not about freedom or justice or the American Way, or any of the other self-aggrandizing claims of presidents and secretaries of state.

    I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and the bankers, Butler wrote, in 1935, in a bracingly honest article for a left-wing magazine called Common Sense. "In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for National City Bank boys to collect revenues. I helped in the raping of a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. . . . Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents."

    Butler’s blunt truth-telling about what President Eisenhower would later label the military-industrial complex was all the more remarkable because he came from a Philadelphia family of influential politicians and bankers. Although the blue-blooded Butlers were Quakers, Smedley’s father—the powerful Republican congressman Thomas Butler—saw nothing wrong with using his seat on the Naval Affairs Committee to push for a bigger US war machine. But after he finally quit the Marines—leaving the service with the rank of major general, the highest rank of the time—Smedley would become one of the country’s toughest and best-known critics of the American war lobby.

    Butler always stayed loyal to his former troops, risking his reputation by speaking before the Bonus Army encampment in Washington in July 1932—the ragtag assembly of World War I veterans who had occupied the nation’s capital to demand reimbursement for their military service. The protestors were later violently routed by troops under the command of another military legend, General Douglas MacArthur, assisted by his young aide Dwight Eisenhower (to Ike’s everlasting shame).

    Butler crisscrossed the country, championing veterans’ rights and stumping for peace. He was appalled to see how shabbily veterans were treated—especially those who had sustained lifelong physical and mental wounds and were warehoused in federal hospitals that Butler called graveyards of the living dead. In Indiana, the general came upon a particularly dismal facility where hundreds of shell-shocked veterans were held in old barracks that Butler compared to pens for rabid dogs.

    The crusading Marine was determined that the United States should never again maim a generation of America’s finest in a war of greed—and then discard these young men like spent cartridges. He poured his grief and outrage into his classic 1935 jeremiad War Is a Racket. If the United States ever went to war again, he argued in the book, this time it should be fought by the rich and powerful. The First World War had created over twenty thousand new millionaires, he pointed out. How many of these war profiteers shouldered a rifle, he acidly observed. How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine-gun bullets?

    Butler never cashed in on war, never joined the boards of defense companies like other retired generals. After taking off his uniform, he supported his family by writing and speaking—giving away half of what he made to veterans’ causes. He remained so popular among rank-and-file soldiers that a group of wealthy conspirators approached him in 1933 about leading another Bonus Army–type march on Washington—this time with armed veterans—to overthrow President

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