Page:Scott Nearing - The Germs of War (1916).djvu/19

 Because of the business nature of up-to-date warfare, business thrives on a war just as a fire thrives on fuel. During peace times buyers are careful; they look the goods over, and are slow in making up their minds. Peace times are times of calm and deliberation. War times are times of fever. Men's souls are aflame with patriotism, fear, blood-lust, hate. "Everything goes in war time," and at handsome prices.

The European War has been a wind-fall for the United States. Not since the Civil War have there been such opportunities. Contracts are large, the need is pressing, price is an incident, and even quality is sacrificed to speed.

Since the outbreak of the European War, wealth has piled up in the United States at an unheard of rate. There have been immense increases in the prices of rubber, copper, lead, zine, petroleum, steel and other minerals, and like increases in the prices that manufacturers have been able to get for their products; the earnings of the munition factories have been phenomenal as have the dividends paid by many of the war-trade industries. Export trade is at the highest point in our history. The war in Europe is the greatest boon that American business has perhaps ever experienced.

America is enjoying real prosperity—phenomenal prosperity. To the American business world the war has been a Godsend.

War a Godsend!

Down below in the abyss from which America is drawing her countless millions, there are other countless millions. Cannons crash and guns sputter. Commands, shouts, cries, curses, screams and groans fill the air. Broken bodies writhe in agony. Other bodies lie still. Families are torn forever asunder; homes are desolated; children are weeping for their fathers, wives for their husbands, and mothers for their sons; villages lie in ashes and cities in ruins. Pestilence creeps from house to house, and famine whines at the door. Death in every hideous shape stalks through the war-torn countries.