I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General.

Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.

It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country...but the profits...skyrocket.

...Senate Doc. # 259. The 65th congress(:)...The coal companies made between 100% and 7,856% on their capital stock during the war (to end all wars, WWI). ...The leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of saddles for the calvary. But there wasn't any calvary overseas!

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.