Page:Scott Nearing - The Germs of War (1916).djvu/23

 people's money, have been paying $115,075 for supplies which could have been obtained for $58,246, should somewhere or in some manner be required to make a public accounting for their acts."

Congressman Tavenner goes into the question of armor plate manufacturé, which he describes as "one long scandal." He shows that nine official estimates place the cost of making a ton of armor plate at $247.17. "Yet since 1887 we have purchased 217,379 tons of armor, paying the Armor ring an average of $440.04 per ton." Then he shows how the armor plate makers of England, Germany, Austria, France, Italy and the United States formed an armor plate trust, and he tells of the scandals in all of those countries and in Japan that arose out of the efforts of these war traffickers to sell more armor and thus make more profits.

He shows how the war makers manufacture news, misrepresent events, publish false alarms, and create fear in order to sell munitions. Case after case he cites, in which European Governments explored the trail of the war makers, and found them plotting and planning to create the same kind of intolerable friction between European Governments that the American interests referred to by the President have been attempting to create between the United States and Mexico.

Most vital of all, he shows that while the United States Government was experimenting with powder, and turning the results of their experiments over to a great American firm of powder manufacturers, this American firm had a contract with a German firm which required it to inform the German firm of "any and every improvement" in their processes of manufacture, and to keep them advised of the orders for powder received "from the government of the United States, or any other parties." This firm was actually turning over to the German firm full information regarding all of the powder secrets and powder business of the United States Government.

Furthermore, Congressman Tavenner shows that a man high in the military circles of the United States was