From the costs of war grew the pervasive suspicion that the United States had fought not to make the world safe for democracy, but to make the world safe for shareholders. The premise took its complete form in the 1934 bestseller, The Merchants of Death. Written by University of Chicago instructor Helmuth C. Engelbrecht and journalist Frank C. Hanighen—future cofounder of the conservative weekly Human Events—it was an instant hit and became a book of the month club selection.
Despite its provocative title, the book is an even-tempered exposé of weapons manufacturers, including their business practices, biographical chapters on half a dozen American and European firms, and an analysis of their behavior and profits during World War I. While explicitly denying that munitions makers were the sole cause of American participation in the war, the authors do conclude that “the rise and development of the arms merchants reveals them as a growing menace to world peace.”
Americans of all walks of life agreed. The same year Merchants of Death was published, 94,000 American farmers signed a petition in opposition to increased armaments. Fifty thousand veterans paraded through Washington on April 6, 1935, in a march for peace.
Marine Major General Smedley Butler, two-time Medal of Honor winner, joined the brouhaha with his 1935 book War Is a Racket. A veteran of 130 battles on three continents, Butler claimed in a simultaneously published magazine article that he had been “a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism.”
By the mid-1930s, the Merchants of Death thesis was accepted to varying degrees by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Federation of Labor, the National Grange, the Hearst newspaper chain, and the National Education Association.
Popular sentiment had its intended effect. Recounts historian Matthew W. Coulter: “The mounting criticism and public pressure drew attention from Du Pont officials, who in May [1934] ceased discussions with European gunpowder producers because ‘a formal agreement among manufacturers would cause the loudest and most violent criticism and put us in a very disagreeable position. We would be accused of joining together to foment wars, increase armament, etc.’”
The stage was set for a small group of dedicated activists and lawmakers to turn an all-encompassing antiwar climate into permanent policy and actionable reform. Their work would begin with further disclosures about the munitions industry.
Dorothy Detzer had served as the executive secretary of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom since 1924, a position previously held by the organization’s founder, Jane Addams. An ideological pacifist, Detzer had been lobbying Congress to investigate the munitions industry for years.
Riding the growing wave of public indignation, Detzer met privately with Sen. George Norris. Although supportive, he felt he was too old to lead such an undertaking. The two methodically went through a list of all 96 U.S. senators, crossing off names as they went. When they finished, only one man was left: Gerald Nye.