Source: Socialist Appeal, Vol. III No. 74, 29 September 1939, p. 2.
Transcription/HTML Markup: 2016 by Einde O’Callaghan.
Public Domain: Joseph Hansen Internet Archive 2016; This work is completely free. In any reproduction, we ask that you cite this Internet address and the publishing information above.
The most important task now facing the capitalist class, according to the confidential report issued by the Tax Research Institute, is the completion of preparations for the war into, which Roosevelt will plunge the United States in the immediate future.
The inside information, according to this bulletin issued by the top circle of Big Business for the benefit of the capitalist class, is that American participation in the second world war is imminent, and every capitalist must hasten his preparations in order to reap the enormous profits that will drain from the blood-soaked battlefields.
An important part in these preparations is thorough understanding of the new role that will be played by Roosevelt and his regime.
In language clear enough to penetrate the iron skulls of even the most reactionary members of the capitalist class, the bulletin explains that Roosevelt will act solely in the interests of capitalism when he clasps down the military dictatorship in America which has already been prepared for the day when the dough-boys start sailing for their graves in Europe.
“Primarily,” says the bulletin, “business must understand two facts: (1) the plan is NOT new: it is not a ‘New Deal’ accomplishment; (2) the plan is the product of the joint efforts of the War and Navy Departments applied to the business problem since the close of the World War.”
This declaration concerning the Industrial Mobilization Plan is true in that the Republican regimes have fostered it as much as the Democratic, but it fails to give Roosevelt the credit that is conspicuously due him for his indefatigable efforts to push the plan throughout his term of office and to see to it that it got funds diverted from relief allowances.
This slight omission of the credit line in the bulletin is clearly designed to appeal to those old-fashioned die-hards who look at the world through the door of their office safe and who have been particularly exercised over the pink New Deal paint Roosevelt sprayed over his administration. Big Business is anxious to end factionalism in the capitalist class in the interests of unity in the face of war and the dangerous operation of wringing maximum profits from a blood-bath that will inevitably deal the coup de grace to more than one capitalist state in its death agony.
Army officers are back of this plan, the bulletin therefore explains soothingly, the same men who run the National Guard, men who see eye to eye with you about profits, bayonets, and labor problems.
But the bulletin does not stop with this explanation. Big Business, stream-lining itself for the super-profits of modern warfare, wishes to assure that no capitalist – not even those with the antiquated mentality of the flint pistol – crosses the interests of his class because of past factional differences as to just how the executive arm in Washington should have conducted its tactics before the war broke out.
“The Industrial Mobilization Plan,” continues the bulletin, “... is the work of the Army and Navy Munitions Board, the coordinating agency which acts for both departments of War and Navy in the problems of war planning and procurement. The War Resources Board which has just been appointed will act as the civilian advisory committee fo the Army and Navy Munitions Board. This civilian board will review the policies already prepared pertaining to the mobilization of industry and the nation’s economic resources.”
That this civilian War Resources Board is not simply a reviewing stand of flag-wavers for Army parade day but in reality an executive committee directly representing the interests of Big Business is explained in the following paragraph:
“As soon as the President declares that an emergency exists, however, the War Resources Board will become THE important executive agency of the Government with the broad powers exercised by the old War Industries Board. The possibility that, shortly after war breaks on the European continent, the President WILL find that an emergency exists in the United States and that war is imminent, makes the War Resources Board of paramount importance to business. The Board will then be in a position to exercise its full-fledged role in the preparation of American business for its part in the war.”
One would think that such a paragraph explaining the complete wiping out not only of the entire “New Deal” but every one of the democratic institutions that might possibly boomerang against the interests of the capitalist class could not be misunderstood by any one capable of clipping a coupon. But the confidential bulletin goes still further and even fills in the names and addresses:
“T.R.I. Observation: It is important to note that despite the New Deal Administration, if the War Resources Board plays its emergency roll, its effect upon American Business will be that of a conservative agency. Note the names of the Board: The chairman is Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., U.S. Steel Corp., Board Chairman. The other five members of the Board are: Karl T. Compton, President, M.I.T.; Walter S. Gifford, President, Amer. Tel. & Tel.; Harold G. Moulton, President, Brookings Institution; John Lee Pratt, Director, General Motors; and General Robert E. Wood, Chairman, Sears Roebuck & Co. The Board’s Secretary, Col. Harry K. Rutherford, is particularly equipped for the analysis of the military-industrial problem.”
A wax museum wishing to depict the murderous overseers hired by the Sixty Families – Morgan, Rockefeller, Mellon, DuPont, Girdler, etc. – could not have chosen a list of names more gory than these.
In brief, the political tip of this confidential bulletin to the capitalist class is this: The New Deal is wiped out. The War Deal now reigns. Big Business runs the War Deal. Stop all factionalism. Prepare your business operations for the PROFITS OF WAR.
(The third installment in this series of articles exposing the preparations among the capitalists for war will appear in the next issue of the Socialist Appeal.)
Last updated on: 13 February 2018