The War to End All Wars had already started. I did not see it at the time, but the military establishments on both sides knew it was coming. Britain, France, Germany, and Austria had all begun preparations for a dynastic war decades before the actuality. It was a war between the old dynastic rulers, the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollern, with their hatred and fear of the very idea of democracy, and the democratic states of Europe. The Central Powers rightly feared the democratization of Europe and intended to bring back the autocratic states of old, once and for all. They plunged the continent into war on the flimsiest of pretexts, and isn’t it amazing how many wars have been started with the flimsiest of pretexts or outright lies, and people never quite seem to catch on, instead being caught up in Patriotic fervor that the rulers use to lead them blindly into war.
The grandest war of history started all so slowly from the perspective of one living in New York; an assassination, recriminations, bluffs, harsh words, then the gradual mobilization. As I read about it, I was certain that sanity would prevail. Obviously, the great powers could not go to war on this slim provocation. But the stated reasons were not the real reasons and Europe blundered into a ghastly war with the old Dynastic powers of the center sure they could wipe out these democratic upstarts. The Hohenzollern and Habsburgs had never accepted the revolutions and truly believed they could turn back the clock in Europe.
Again, I was made wealthy both in the transportation of materials to Europe and the vast raw materials needed for the war. I could, I suppose, regret that I made money from the horrendous suffering of the war. But someone would have, whether it was I or another wouldn’t have mattered in the least. War is a completely irrational activity once begun. Yes, the fortune I leave behind will be tainted with blood money. But then how many fortunes do not contain some?
Three long years later, Russia was convulsed by Revolution and withdrew from the war. Even the doves in the American Congress realized by now that a victory of the Central Powers would wipe democracy from Europe and thankfully for those of us who despise German cooking, they entered the war. Again, a pretext was used and the newspapers beat the drums of war, just as they did for later presidents. But it was a pretext that convinced the common man, not the real reason.
Suddenly, all of my war profiteering was a great patriotic enterprise, and I was lauded for furthering the war effort. All of my friends were ever so anxious to know of the progress towards supplying the army and navy to beat the Central Powers. I was a bit of a hero. I, of course, could not enjoy that any more than I had in 1915 when I was a profiteer. But such is the capriciousness of man.
The war apparently ended in complete victory. But the Allied powers failed in their duty to prevent the next war, instead punishing the Germans to the point that the war never ended, there was simply an interregnum until ten years later when Europe again began the slide into the second half of the Great War in 1940.
The proximate cause of that slide was the Great Depression, which started as a simple stock price correction and would have been a small recession, like many before. I was well prepared to ride it out having been through many panics and recessions. But the newly created Federal Reserve Bank of the United States constricted the money supply right when it should have expanded it. In addition, the Congress, as always politicians doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, following two idiots, Smoot and Hawley, quadrupled tariffs effectively terminating trade with foreign countries and destroying many enterprises that depended on trade. At the same time, and only a politician could be this blind, Hoover used the bully pulpit to force businesses to overpay workers, which of course led to fewer workers being employed, the unemployment rate shooting up to double digits. What is amazing is the continued stupidity of governements which implement minimum wage laws which directly increase unemployment. Won't they ever learn? The result of the Government interfering in a small recession became the Great Depression, which Congress repeatedly made worse with misguided New Deal programs throughout the 1930's. What had been a price correction became a decade long crisis. If Congress would follow the Doctor’s oath, first do no harm, there would be fewer laws and happier richer Americans.
(Editor’s Note: Does that sound to anyone like the current political shenanigans surrounding global warming?)
I rode out the depression, expanding investments overseas. Without having to overcome the meddling of the American Congress and Roosevelt’s misguided New Deal, the rest of the world recovered much faster from the depression not suffering from the New Deal.
Then I saw it coming again. Long life does give one experience. I could see the war coming again in Europe. I could also see it happening in Asia. That was something new. I pulled back from foreign investments, of which I had many in Indonesia and Malaysia which were doing quite well. By the time the war resumed, again with America sitting on the sidelines too long lengthening the war, I was mostly invested in the Americas.
Transportation was still my métier and I had become enamored of the possibilities of aircraft. This followed the same reasoning that had taken me into rails and barges in the early 1800s, a new form of transportation. When America was thrust into the war by Roosevelt’s dramatic speech, the war machinery of America turned to high gear. While it was unpatriotic to ‘profiteer’ the truth is, there was plenty of profit to be had supporting the war. America beat the Axis with logistics, we simply produced more than they could destroy. The companies I was invested in produced more aircraft a year than Japan did in the entire war. Germany had better weapons through much of the war, but we had so much more, supplying not only our own armies, but the other allies as well, that the Axis was overwhelmed by American industrial might and by Russian blood.
Copyright Rod O'Steele © 2007, 2013