The weird adventures of the American government in its global wars and alliances are important illustrations of the desperate efforts of our shortsighted politicians to fight their way out of a depression with soldiers and munitions of war. They did, indeed, succeed in blowing up a spurious and evil prosperity at a shocking cost in human life, human suffering and material values, including a smashing blow at our political and economic system. But the most dangerous menace to America today is not in Communist Russia or Communist China, abominable as these dictatorships are. Nor is it wholly—or at its roots—in the costly alliances with the so-called Western “democracies.” These alliances do, indeed, play a role in disturbing the pattern of a rational foreign policy for the United States. But the truly great war—the most destructive in which we have ever been trapped since 1861—is the war inside the United States waged against us by a dangerous alliance of forces within our own borders. The ultimate aim of this alliance is to wreck the American Republic as blueprinted by our Constitution and to establish here a collectivist society on the socialist model. The war we should most fear, but do not fight at all, is the war on our Constitution and the Republic which it defines.
Whether or not we can find some honorable escape from the trap that has been set for us in Europe and Asia remains to be seen. Certainly this is not a problem to be ignored. But I insist it is secondary and that whatever we do in this field must be subsidiary to what we do against the problem poised for us within our own borders. In general terms this problem comprises the following:
There is this plan to transform our own country into a socialist society.
Before this can be done, however, it is necessary to wreck our economic system of private enterprise by subjecting it to stresses and strains that will enfeeble and ultimately ruin it. This would include the straitjacket of government regulations, the enfeebling exactions of crushing taxation and the poisonous stimulus of endlessly mounting debt.
Essential to all this is the purpose of transforming fundamentally our political system as defined by the Constitution, which is totally unfitted for the organization and management of a socialist society.
As to the plan to wreck our system of private enterprise, that project has been advanced on an alarming scale. The system of private enterprise, if it is to function at all, must do so under conditions suited to its nature. There is no need to go into these conditions in detail, but it can be said in general that it can operate at its highest efficiency only in a free society. It is a free system, so that any citizen is at liberty to try his hand at the project of organizing, launching and operating a business of his own or in concert with others. It must operate at a profit. Those enterprisers who have the necessary qualifications will succeed. Those who do not will fail. But in general, and over the long pull, no industry can succeed unless it functions in a political and economic atmosphere suited to the special genius of the system.
Of course there will be some adventurers in enterprise who will not succeed, either because of poor judgment, inadequate capital or unfavorable economic conditions. There is no need to grow sentimental over this. It is not nearly so tragic as to plunge a great nation into a war to escape a depression, or to push it into socialism at the cost of its freedom. Capitalism is a system in which every man who has the requisite qualifications may launch his own enterprise and make it go, whether it be a great oil industry or a small village filling station. But he must have the talent for enterprise. It is the men and women who have this special qualification who make possible all the products and all the services and who create all the jobs and all the money income which all the rest of us use to purchase our necessities and luxuries.
No one can reasonably contend that this system is without its defects, as is anything human. No one has seen at close range this side of enterprise more than I have—its defects and the frailties of some of its promoters and managers. Few writers of my generation used more printer’s ink calling attention to its weaknesses before the crash of 1929. Aside from certain inherent defects which will be found in any human organization, there were a number of abuses introduced by those who exploited the system and were responsible for the severity of the crash of 1929—and the later and more shocking crisis of 1933.
The only substitute suggested in exchange for the system of private enterprise is some form of European collectivism—Marxian or Leninist socialism (communism), or some other limited form of collectivism. Obviously our system must be protected from the over-acquisitive man. No one can defend the various schemes and corporate inventions which marked the 25 years of the era preceding the Great Depression. These were managed mainly through the abuses of the corporation system. There was none of these which was not susceptible of correction. When the stock market crashed in 1929 and later when Mr. Roosevelt came to power in 1933, the way was open to a repentent and humbled nation to subject our whole system to a thorough housecleaning. Instead we beheld the most incredible and frantic improvisations not to restore and civilize but to cripple and even paralyze business I was in Washington a good deal in those days and saw the endless ranks of the crackpots pouring into that frenzied city—some of them youthful instructors fresh out of various colleges, some minor and even hungry scribblers on various left-wing periodicals, others weary old architects of various types of social heavens who had grown wan and discouraged offering them to an inattentive people. All now flocked into Washington where they got a hospitable hearing without delay. A number of them were swiftly installed in an office behind a desk, with a secretary and a grant of money and power from the White House.
It is not necessary to remind the attentive reader that almost all these bizarre schemes collapsed and that in the end Washington turned to the oldest, costliest and most wicked of all boondoggles in history—war—with millions of men drafted into the armies, other millions pouring into the war industries, billions of dollars pouring out of the printing presses in the form of government bonds hastily converted into expendable dollars at the banks. We were at war. The depression was over. The boom—the war boom—was on—the oldest known type of boom in history. That boom continues as I write—now 14 years old—still barging along on the same motor power; the same old engine spouting paper dollars, with only a change of engineers, and two terrifying differences: It continues to operate on the war theme when there is no war; and it is running out of gas.