EXPOSING OUR MUNITIONS "PATRIOTS"
Exposing Our Munitions "Patriots" PREPAREDNESS for profit received a severe jolt when the Navy Department awarded a $3,141,000 contract to Hadfields—English munitions makers—for the...
...Patriotism of that sort comes high to the tax payer who not only has to pay the bill but also to do the fighting and the dying when "preparedness" ends in war...
...If our nation manufactured its own munitions in its own factories at cost, it would take the private profit out of war, and the war traders out of American politics...
...President Grace piously exclaimed: "It is our duty to do everything we can to make our plant and experience available for the use of the American government...
...Its bids were from 35 to 40 per cent...
...It has been known for years that the munitions makers have been picking Uncle Sam's pockets...
...But this bid of Hadfield's serves to turn the flash light upon their light-fingered operations with dramatic effect...
...And it would not have been possible to secure the votes of any considerable number of Senators and Representatives for that indefensible appropriation except for the artificial coldblooded, selfish propaganda—bought and paid for at tremendous expense—and which raised false fears under the stress of which the munition makers were permitted to raid the Treasury...
...Exposing Our Munitions "Patriots" PREPAREDNESS for profit received a severe jolt when the Navy Department awarded a $3,141,000 contract to Hadfields—English munitions makers—for the manufacture of 14 and 16 inch armor-piercing projectiles for the United States Navy...
...Officers of the big armament companies hurriedly staged a series of banquet speeches, alternately attacking the United States government for its terrible affront to "patriotic" and "self-sacrificing" home industries and complaining that it was the victim of rigid standards on the part of the Navy Department...
...And at Steel Trust prices...
...They even declared they would make "fresh bids" on battleship contracts and at a "sacrifice"—of course from a purely patriotic desire to help save the Nation...
...This sensational and convincing revelation of the degree to which the government has been gouged by our own munitions makers affronted the whole nation...
...This British concern was awarded the coutract because it was the LOWEST BIDDER...
...Marked impetus was given to the proposal for government owned and operated plants to provide the country with munitions at cost...
...Charles M. Schwab, Chairman, and Eugene G. Grace, President, of the Bethlehem Steel company, rushed into print with expensive display advertisements in the newspapers in an effort to stem the tide of popular indignation...
...And now they are justly outraged at the revelation that a manufacturer in a country that is at war, can profitably UNDERBID our own munitions patriots by NEARLY ONE-HALF...
...Vociferous jingoes sent wild appeals to their Steel Trust friends to "cut down prices" so that "the country would not be deprived of war materials...
...It is the same kind of "patriotism" that was so successful last year in stampeding Congress into appropriating nearly $800,000,000 for the big military program—an appalling load to place upon the backs of the American people, already staggering under trust prices for the bare necessities of life...
...But the American people remember the fact that, in time of peace, these same interests sold munitions of war more cheaply to foreign powers than they charged their own government...
...Most distressing of all, Steel stocks began to tumble...
...Labor in England is now as highly paid as it is in this industry in the United States...
...LOWER than the bids of the UNITED STATES MANUTURERS...
...As Secretary Daniels expresses it: "I have believed that American steel companies have been demanding extortionate prices for shells for the Navy, and now I have proof of i t ." Desperate attempts are being made by the war traders and the munitions ring to set themselves right with the American people...
...At once the Steel Trust began to make frenzied explanations...
...They could not explain the discrepancy on the ground that labor costs in England were so much lower, and manufacturing efficiency so much higher than their own, that their English competitor could furnish projectiles to Uncle Sam at ALMOST HALF the price they offered...
...Patriotism...
Vol. 9 • January 1917 • No. 1
