(2 of 7)
Lately, however, this version of why the U. S. joined the Allies has been challenged. Last spring Walter Millis, able young editorial writer of the New York Herald Tribune, published Road to War, a book which went far to provide the country with a new interpretation of its history. The U. S., according to Mr. Millis, had been sucked into war; Woodrow Wilson had been a victim of mistaken policies and a puppet of circumstance; the toils of propaganda, insidious stirrings of befuddled popular sympathy, the operation of businessmen and financiers, had dragged the U. S. into a foreign mess that took the lives of 126,000 citizen-soldiers. There were well-known facts: In the autumn of 1914 J. P. Morgan & Co. became agents for the purchase of war supplies by Great Britain; before the U. S. entered the War the House of Morgan bought three billion dollars' worth of goods for Allies on a commission of 1%; these purchases had made prosperity for U. S. farmers and manufacturers; to finance these huge purchases the Allies borrowed, first, privately from U. S. bankers, later publicly from U. S. investors. On these facts Author Millis constructed a new interpretation: "The mighty stream of supplies flowed out and the corresponding stream of prosperity flowed in. and the U. S. was enmeshed more deeply than ever in the cause of Allied victory."
In 1917 Senator Norris was almost alone in his interpretation of why the U. S. went to war. By 1936 a vast army of people and politicians, still sick and sore with the memory of what their country had gone through, were ready to agree with him. In a time of national enthusiasm for peace and neutrality, any stumpster could cry that the U. S. went to war "to save the skins of its bankers." The opportunity to accuse munitions makers and international bankers of having shoved the U. S. into a foreign war for their own selfish interests was too good to be missed by the U. S. Senate. Perhaps it might even succeed in making the new version of U. S. War history the authoritative one.
Senator Nye, brown-haired and youthful-looking, sitting as chairman at the centre of the Committee table with his pointed chin thrust out, looked as if he were oppressed by the knowledge that the eyes of the nation were on him. At his elbow, equally intent, sat the Committee's counsel, bushy-browed Stephen Raushenbush, who had conscientiously sifted thousands & thousands of documents in preparation for the hearing. Senator Vandenburg smoked a cigar, tried to look urbane. Senator Clark, with round pink face and snapping eyes, sat waiting to ask sharp, insinuating questions. One of the founders of the American Legion, the son of the late great Speaker of the House knew War at first hand. Before the Committee for settlement was a scandalous question: Should J. Pierpont Morgan be hated as a warmonger second only to Kaiser Wilhelm? Did U. S. blood on the fields of France save his financial skin?