WHY WAR?
Howe, Frederic C.
Why War? By FREDERIC C. HOWE (In the Preface of his latest Book, "Why War?") MODERN WAR is the result of a combination of explosives much as a thunderstorm is the result of a combination of...
...To protect their investments and insure their loans and concessions the investors demanded a great military and naval establishment...
...Surplus wealth in search of monopoly profits led the financiers of Europe into distant parts...
...They menace our peaceful security...
...it is against Junkerism in politics, in diplomacy, and primarily in finance...
...of the partition of Persia by Russia and England...
...AS A RESULT of the European war the United States is confronted with the same forces that have drawn Europe into the present conflict...
...But it is not the Junkerism of Germany alone, it is the Junkerism of England, Russia, and Austria-Hungary as well...
...WHEN the story of the war comes to be written the origin will be found hidden in the diplomatic victories and resentments over Morocco and Turkey rather than in the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand...
...And were we moved by acts of oppression committed by the Christian powers as we are by the atrocities of the Turks in Armenia, we should find in these records a story of cruelty and disregard of human rights and liberties that has few parallels in modern times...
...Surplus wealth seeking privileges in foreign lands is the proximate cause of the war just as wealth seeking monopoly profits is the cause of civil conflicts that have involved our cities and Slates...
...it is to be found in the new economic and financial forces set in motion in the closing years of the last century...
...It is they who are the jingoes, it is they who are loudest in advocating preparedness, it is they who talk most of national dignity and honor...
...In its final causes it is not a war of aggression or defense, as were the recent wars of Germany, Austria, Italy, and France...
...It is a merger of seventeenth and twentieth century feudalism...
...Together they have made common cause with the munition makers and the trading classes...
...The colossal profits of the past two decades from exploitation are no longer possible...
...They have led to the ending of the liberties of free peoples, to colonies and protectorates, to the closed door, to the imprisonment of the Mediterranean, to the raising of obstacles and Gibraltars to freedom of trade and commerce...
...But a cross-section of one nation is a cross-section of the other...
...The gravest danger to the country is from within...
...MODERN WAR is the result of a combination of explosives much as a thunderstorm is the result of a combination of unusual atmospheric conditions...
...These conflicts have been on a titanic scale...
...The indictment is against the ruling classes, not against the people...
...The foreign office and governments became involved...
...They have created a thousand rumors, suspicions, and hatreds, a great increase in armaments for the protection of private investments...
...The war is not the result Of patriotic uprisings on the part of the people, of the over-crowding of population, of any social unrest at home, or a national desire for overseas markets...
...These forces are the state much as Louis XIV or Frederick the Great was the state...
...Present-day wars are primarily the result of the conflict of powerful economic interests radiating out from the capitals of Europe, which, with the foreign office behind them, have laid the whole world with explosives which only needed a spark to set all Europe aflame...
...The war is not the personal war of any ruler as were the wars of Frederick the Great or Napoleon, as were the wars of Bismarck fifty years ago...
...The cause of the present European war is not to be discovered in the White Book, the Yellow Book, or the Orange Book...
...Ambitions and fears have been aroused that have united the privileged classes in a movement for financial imperialism, for a great naval programme, for colossal expenditures for preparedness, and unless some hand interposes to prevent it the ideals of America and the democratic traditions of a century will be submerged in the new imperialistic programme that has no place in our life...
...it will be found in the aggressions of British, French, and German financiers and concession seekers rather than in the ambitions of the Czar and Kaiser, it will be found in the struggle for the exploitation of weaker peoples, of whom no less than 140,000,000 together with 10,000,000 square miles of territory have fallen under the dominion of Great Britain, France, and Germany during the last thirty years...
...For if the war in Europe teaches anything it is that the foes within are responsible for the foes without...
...It is a danger from within rather than from without...
...of the intimacy of the munition makers and the financiers with their respective governments and foreign offices...
...In this record there is little to distinguish the act of one nation from another's...
...they have given birth to diplomatic intrigues and demontra-tions of force that have changed a conflict of private groups into a conflict of peoples...
...And if we take adequate precautions against the foes within the country we shall safeguard ourselves against those without...
...The spark may be ignited in Berlin, Petrograd, Vienna, or London, but the explosive combination is likely to be found in obscure portions of the world...
...It is a danger we should anticipate and provide against, just as we provide against a foreign foe...
...It is they, too, who insist on the destiny of the country and a place in the sun...
...They are society...
...The present war and the wars of the past ten years are the result of endless conflicts and suspicions, of balked ambitions and fears, of diplomatic overreachings and injured dignity, of a thousand irritations that do not appear in the diplomatic correspondence...
...of the struggles of the powers over the building of the Bagdad Railway...
...of French aggressions in Algeria, Tunis, and Morocco...
...of the intrigues and bad faith of the powers toward the Balkan states, China, Persia, and Morocco...
...They can only be secured in the less developed places of the globe, where backward peoples and lack of capital offer opportunities for investment...
...The real cause of the war is to be found back of the summer of 1914...
...Irritations and diplomatic controversies finally ripened into war as the only means for the arbitrament of the conflict...
...They control political advancement...
...It is the struggle of high finance bent on the exploitation of weaker peoples that has turned Europe into a human slaughterhouse and arrayed 400,000,000 peaceful people against one another in a death struggle...
...the war did not originate in the capitals of Europe, even though the first overt acts were there committed...
...Any question as to the correctness of this interpretation of the cause of the European war will, I think, be laid at rest by reading of the record of British penetration into Egypt and Africa...
...There is scarcely a war or war scare of the past twenty years, unless it be those of the Balkans, that, in its last analysis, is not the result of the activities of individuals and classes within the country rather than of aggressive foes from without...
...If greater emphasis seems to be laid on the acts of Great Britain and France it is due to the fact that greater liberty of expression prevails in these countries than in Germany and Russia, and the records have been more frankly exposed to view...
...These are the conditions that have preceded imperialism and aggression the world over...
...They mould public opinion...
...When the history of the war is finally written these forces will be found to be of secondary importance...
...We have become a creditor nation...
...Financial morals are the same the world over when weaker peoples are involved...
...of the balked ambitions of the mine-owners that brought on the Boer War...
...Behind these private groups of financiers and concession seekers one finds the foreign office and diplomacy, the war lords and the ruling caste...
...Outside of France, and to some extent Great Britain and Italy, the state in its foreign relations is little more than the political and financial will of the ruling classes...
...Here they came into conflict with other financiers in search of similar gains...
...of German relations with Turkey...
...Private interests are at war with the, interests of the nation...
...of the diplomatic moves of the chancellories of Europe during the last quarter of a century...
...These classes own or control great portions of the press...
...The resources and railroads of the country have passed under monopoly control...
...This is the danger which now confronts us...
...Surplus wealth has appeared...
...The danger is as real as any that ever confronted us...
Vol. 8 • May 1916 • No. 5
