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American Business and the Approach of War 1935–1941

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Roland N. Stromberg
Roland N. Stromberg
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
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Extract

The question whether business, or capitalism, has been a force for peace or for war has been one of some historical interest. Before 1914 there were few to challenge the thesis of the great liberal-capitalist ideologists—Comte, Spencer, Fiske, to name only outstanding specimens —that the triumph of free enterprise meant the end of war, or its progressive decline; that the businessman would make a world in which the arts of peace permanently displaced those of war. But after the World War there naturally arose schools which sought to establish that capitalism carried within itself the seeds of ferocious wars. The thinking of a disillusioned generation was powerfully influenced in this direction. The loosely drawn but vehement indictment of capitalism as partner of Mars can be read in such typical pieces of the ʼ30s as H. N. Brailsford's Property or Peace (New York: Covici, Friede, 1934) and C. H. Grattan's Preface to Chaos (New York: Dodge Publishing Co., 1936). But these Marxist theories have been subjected to devastating criticism.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Winter 1953 , pp. 58 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1953

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References

1 The following may be mentioned: Robbins, Lionel, The Economic Causes of War (London: Jonathan Cape, 1939)Google Scholar; Sulzbach, Walter, “Capitalistic Warmongers”—A Modern Superstition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1942)Google Scholar; Staley, Eugene, War and the Private Investor (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1935)Google Scholar; Viner, Jacob, in De Huszar, G. B., ed., New Perspectives on Peace (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1944)Google Scholar, chap. v. See also Langer's, W. L. “A Critique of Imperialism,” Foreign Affairs, October 1935.Google Scholar

2 See such studies as Schlesinger, A. M., The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1918)Google Scholar; East, R. A., Business Enterprise in the American Revolutionary Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 1938)Google Scholar; Sellers, Leila, Charleston Business on the Eve of the Revolution (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1934)Google Scholar.

3 Harold, and Sprout, Margaret, The Rise of American Naval Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939), chaps, i-ivGoogle Scholar; Pratt, J. W., Expansionists of 1812 (New York: Peter Smith, 1949)Google Scholar; East, R. A., “Economic Development and New England Federalism,” New England Quarterly, X (1937), pp. 430–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 See chiefly Foner's, P. S. excellent Business and Slavery (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1941)Google Scholar.

5 Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925), I, 204.Google Scholar

6 Pratt, J. W., Expansionists of 1898 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1930)Google Scholar; “American Business and the Spanish-American War,” Hispanic American Historical Review, XIV (1934)Google Scholar.

7 Beard, Charles, The Idea of National Interests (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1934), pp. 183–95Google Scholar; Reinsch, P. S., An American Diplomat in China (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1922)Google Scholar.

8 Davis, G. T., A Navy Second to None (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1940)Google Scholar; Sprout and Sprout, op. cit., pp. 267–68.

9 Curti, Merle, Peace or War (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1936), pp. 213–14Google Scholar; Pratt, S. S. and others, “Finance and Commerce—Their Relation to International Good Will,” in Documents of the American Association for International Conciliation (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1912).Google Scholar

10 H. C. Styrett, “The Business Press and American Neutrality, 1914–17,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, September 1945.

11 Grattan, C. H., Why We Fought (New York: The Vanguard Press, 1929)Google Scholar; Millis, Walter, The Road to War (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1935)Google Scholar; Beard, Charles, The Devil Theory of War (New York: The Vanguard Press, 1936)Google Scholar, versus Baker, Newton D., Why We Went to War (New York: Harper & Bros, for Council on Foreign Relations, 1936)Google Scholar; Seymour, Charles, American Neutrality 1914–1917 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935)Google Scholar; Borchard, Edwin and Lage, William Potter, Neutrality for the United States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940)Google Scholar; Tansill, Charles C., America Goes to War (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1938)Google Scholar, especially chaps, iii, iv, v.

12 De Huszar, ed., New Perspectives on Peace, pp. 97–98.

13 Schenk, H. G., The Aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 178.Google Scholar

14 Curti, Peace or War, p. 213; Carl Schurz and others in Documents of the American Association for International Conciliation, 1912, especially p. 10.

15 Ibid., pp. 41 ff.

16 Quoted with comment in Steel, October 21, 1935, p. 29.

17 Speech at Boston, October 15, 1928. The New York Times, October 16, 1928, p. 1.

18 Magazine of Wall Street, January 2, 1937, p. 332; Chemical Industries, March 1939, editorial; National Association of Manufacturers, platform resolution, December 8, 1937; Steel, October 21, 1935, p. 29.

19 Magazine of Wall Street, September 28, 1935, p. 573.

20 Samuel Grafton, New York, Post, December 14, 1940; cf. Charles Beard's insinuation in The Devil Theory of War, p. 107, that the seekers of profit would again try to involve the country in war.

21 W. E. Whipp, speech at Cleveland, October 2, 1939, reported in The New York Times, October 3, 1939, p. 31; E. T. Weir, speech before Congress of American Industry, December 7. 1939.

22 Business Week, November 11, 1939, editorial, discusses these polls.

23 Curti, Peace or War, pp. 274–75.

24 Iron Age, October 5, 1939, p. 23.

25 Washington Review, May 4, 1936, p. 9.

26 Barton's, October 14, 1935, p. 12; Commercial and Financial Chronicle, October 12, 1935, p. 2324; World Petroleum, December 1935, p. 709.

27 Washington Review, May 4, 1936, p. 9; Oil Weekly, February io, 1936, p. 12; World Petroleum, March 1936, editorial.

28 American Exporter, March 1936, p. 42; July 1938, p. 34; November 1938, p. 28, etc.

29 See numerous editorials during 1935, e.g., July 27, p. 496, and August 24, p. 1151.

30 Journal of Commerce, November 20, 1935; Magazine of Wall Street, September 28, 1935, P. 573, and December 5, 1936, p. 199.

31 Business Week, August 31, 1935, p. 32, and December 21, 1935, editorial; Wall Street Journal, October 31 and November 8, 1935.

32 Magazine of Wall Street, September 28, 1935, p. 573.

33 Wall Street Journal, October 26 and December 12, 1935; Sphere, October 1935.

34 Sphere, January 1936 and May 1936; see also Business Week, December 21, 1935, editorial, which found additional reasons for isolationism in the “astounding Hoare-Laval deal.”

35 Commercial and Financial Chronicle, August 10, 1935, p. 813, November 2, 1935, p. 2791, etc.; Magazine of Wall Street, April 24, 1937, p. 7; Iron Age, September 28, 1939, p. 34; Wall Street Journal, September 12, 1938; Business Week, November 30, 1935.

36 See the Wall Street Journal's alarmed front-page editorial, October 8, 1937; Barron's, October 11, 1937, p. 10; Business Week's editorial, October 16, 1937; and Commercial and Financial Chronicle, October 16, 1937, p. 2451. The American Exporter (December 1937, p. 42) repeated the foreign traders' opposition to anything that suggested “boycotts and economic sanctions”—whether in the name of isolationism or collective security.

37 October 10, 1936, p. 750.

38 New York Journal of Commerce, September 10, 1937.

39 See New York Journal of Commerce, July 17, 1937; Business Week, August 7, 1937; Annalist, October 15, 1937, p. 61;. Cotton interests suggested that we might have a greater stake in the Orient than was commonly supposed.—Manufacturers Record, October 1937, p. 66. But the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, November 6, 1937, p. 2912, suggested that China might well be the “manifest destiny” of Nippon's enterprising sons. The curious fact that American businessmen in China sympathized with the Japanese has often been noted.—Johnstone, W. C., The United States and Japan's New Order (London: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 214.Google Scholar

40 Financial World, October 12, 1938; Commercial and Financial Chronicle, October 1, p. 1968, and October 8, p. 2143; Wall Street Journal, October 1; Sphere, November 1938; Manufacturers Record, cover, October 1938.

41 Magazine of Wall Street, November 5, 1938; Business Digest, November 1938, p. 2; American Exporter, July 1938, p. 34, an example of warning against appeasement even before Munich. Business Week (November 5 editorial) had contempt for the betrayers of Czechoslovakia, but found in this another reason for keeping clear of perfidious Europe!

42 Barron's, November 28, 1938, p. 10; American Banker, October 11, 1937; Banker and Tradesman, September 9, 1939.

43 Sphere was notable in this respect; see editorials, January 1939, etc.

44 April 22, 1939, p. 7.

45 American Exporter, July 1938, p. 34.

46 June 1, 1939, p. 33.

47 Factory Management and Maintenance, May 1938, p. 45; Iron Age, June 1, 1939, p. 48.

48 Factory Management and Maintenance, May 1938; Mill and Factory, November and December 1939; Steel, December 11, 1939. The War Resources Board was discontinued in the summer of 1939, which added to industry's suspicions; this organization had included prominent businessmen and was designed to gain industry's co-operation in planning for industrial mobilization. Its demise was widely interpreted as a victory for the “left,” and industry remained convinced that the government would “crack down” in time of war without consulting industry.

49 Automotive Industries, July 1, 1939, p. 21; Banker and Tradesman, December 3, 1939; Sphere, May 1939.

50 Nation's Business, October 1939; Wall Street Journal, September 5; radio speech by President Coonley of the National Association of Manufacturers, September 19; and the editorial “Business Stands against War” which appeared in all McGraw-Hill publications during October.

51 American Exporter, November 1939, p. 34.

52 National City Bank of New York, monthly news letter, October 1939; Guaranty Survey, of the Guaranty Trust Company, same month; Factory Management, same month, war supplement.

53 Textile World, September 1939, p. 53; National City Bank news letter, October 1939.

54 See National Foreign Trade Council resolutions, reported in American Exporter, November 1939; New York Chamber of Commerce, in Commercial and Financial Chronicle, October 7, 1939, p. 2169; also same journal, October 21, p. 2453.

55 Steel, September 4, 1939, p. 34; the same journal for October 2 reports the opinions of many steel men.

56 Banker and Tradesman, July 8, October 7, 1939.

57 Commercial West, October 21, 1939.

58 Wall Street Journal, September 7, September 18, 1939; Magazine of Wall Street, September 23, 1939, p. 594. See the comment of Steel, October 9, 1939, p. 36.

59 A minor point that greatly agitated business for a time was the effort to extend the meaning of the term “belligerent ports” to include colonial ports of belligerent powers, perhaps far from the battle zone. There was an outcry against it in the business press, and it was finally removed from the neutrality bill. This agreed with the President's desires; businessmen's desire for trade and the Administration's desire to aid the Allies coincided here.

60 Editorial, December 1939.

61 Iron Age, editorials, May and June 1940; E. T. Weir, of the American Iron and Steel Institute, speech of May 23, 1940; United States News, May 24, 1940; National Association of Manufacturers advertisement, The New York Times, June 23, p. 10.

62 Banker and Tradesman, May n and May 18, 1940; Manufacturers Record, June 1940, p. 23, a statement which may be compared with the same journal's opinion of October 1939.

63 Commercial and Financial Chronicle, January 4, 1941, p. 13. Styrett, “The Business Press and American Neutrality,” notes that this journal was the lone opponent of a declaration of war in 1917, among business journals examined. It is, of course, the oldest and among the most distinguished of all American business publications, with strong traditional influences.

64 Wall Street Journal, January 11, March 4, March 12, 1941; also Railway Age and Nation's Business, cited below.

65 Railway Age, February 1, 1941, p. 237. Railways were, obviously, peculiarly sensitive to the danger of socialization in wartime.

66 Steel, February 17, 1941. Other pro-Lend-Lease opinions may be found in American Business, Magazine of Wall Street, Financial World, Manufacturers Record, Mill and Factory, Sphere, American Exporter, United States News, Fortune.

67 Nation's Business, March 1941 and April 1941, editorials. For Kemper's testimony, Wall Street Journal, February 6, 1941. The revolt of one local group against his position is reported in The New York Times, February 16, 1941, p. 9.

68 May 1, 1941.

69 Research Institute of America, Bulletin, March 4, 1939; July 20, 1940.

70 Sales Management, July 15, 1940, p. 58.

71 Kiplinger Washington letter, May 18, 1940.

72 Editorial in all McGraw-Hill magazines, June 1940. Cf. address by W. R. Burgess to the American Bankers Association, reported in Commercial and Financial Chronicle, September 28, 1940, p. 1759.

73 Magazine of Watt Street, April 5, 1941, p. 742; annual meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board, reported in Commercial and Financial Chronicle, May 25, 1940, pp. 3247, 3261.

74 Nation's Business, July 1940; Commercial and Financial Chronicle, June 21, 1940, p. 3871. Cf. the program outlined editorially in American Machinist, June 12.

75 Iron Age, June 6, 1940, p. 37; editorials in the American Machinist, June 26 and July 10, 1940; Factory Management, October 1940, pp. 42–52.

76 Sales Management, April 1, 1941.

77 “Inside the America First Movement,” American Mercury, January 1942.

78 See, for example, Business Week, September 5, 1936, “Fascism Means Socialism.” The business press of the whole period abounds in expressions of this same idea.

79 Mooncy, James D., as quoted in The New York Times, December 15, 1939, p. 10Google Scholar, is an example; see also comments in Sphere, November 1938, and the printing in Nation's Business, April 1938, of a pro-Nazi article by the notorious propagandist, George Viereck.

80 The editor of Nation's Business asserted in November 1940 that this country was just as totalitarian as Germany and that a crusade for democracy under the New Deal was meaningless.

81 Wall Street Journal, April 17, 1939; Iron Age, April 11, 1940. This is reminiscent of an argument of similar purport on the Left, except that the danger at home was Fascism from the Right, including big business!

82 See remarks in American Machinist, January 11, 1939; Sales Management, December 15, 1940, p. 15; and especially Charles Benedict's columns in the Magazine of Wall Street, e.g., January 11, 1941, p. 361.

83 Speech of Lewis W. Douglas, reported in The New York Times, May 3, 1940, p. 4.

84 American Business, January 1941, commenting on Hitler's harangue delivered to German factory workers, as reported verbatim in The New York Times, December 11, 1940.

85 Financial World, January 15, 1941, p. 12; Manufacturers Record, January 1941, p. 19.

86 See Commonwealth, September 29, 1939, p. 518, for a summary of business opinion on this. The business press seems to have commented very little on Mr. Luce's book.

87 Commercial and Financial Chronicle, August 3, 1940, p. 647, the remarks of a prominent business spokesman; Walter Lippmann's forceful column of June 22, 1940, in New York Herald Tribune evidently impressed many businessmen.

88 The indictments contained in the Truman Committee's Second Annual Report, March 11, 1943, pp. 5–6, and in Stone's, I. F.Business as Usual (1941)Google Scholar may be compared with Janeway's analysis. The business press was drawn into the controversy over production; Fortune and the Magazine of Wall Street excoriated industry for a failure to realize the needs of the emergency.