Ida Tarbell Quotes

It can’t be any other than madness to commence hostilities before we have established resources on a sure plan for certain and effectual military supplies. Men in that case will not be wanting.

In time of war steamships and improved arms are the most important things.

I came here as a practical man, to talk, not simply on the question of peace and war, but to treat another question which is of hardly less importance - the enormous and burdensome standing armaments which it is the practice of modern Governments to sustain in time of peace.

Our guns are not called upon to hurl huge projectiles each one of which costs as much as the construction of a happy home.

It would be unwise to assume that we can defeat Germany by simply outproducing her. One hundred thousand airplanes would be of little value to us if these airplanes could not be used because of lack of trained personnel, lack of operating airdromes in the theater, and lack of shipping to maintain the air squadrons in the theater .... Wars are won on sound strategy implemented by well-trained forces which are adequately and effectively equipped.

I want you all to understand that we are at war and we will stay as war until this is done. Nothing else matters. Everything is available for the pursuit of this war. Any barriers in your way, they’re gone. Any money you need, you have it. This is our only agenda.

Endless money forms the sinews of war. Nervi belli pecunia infinita.

Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so

It is often easier to assemble armies than it is to assemble army revenues.

War is the national industry of Germany [Prussia].

… war is a matter not so much of arms as of money

It may safely be asserted that the art of war will soon be reduced to a simple question of expenditure and credit, and that the largest purse will be the strongest arm.

He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war.

I went over to the Charlestown Navy Yard yesterday and saw some big men of war, one over 100 guns.

We can do without butter, but, despite all our love of peace, not without arms. One cannot shoot with butter, but with guns.

Let us assume that the ideal were reached; let us imagine a state of international life in which the danger of war no longer exists. Then no one would dare to demand a penny for obviously completely superfluous armaments.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

Don't forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.

It is idle to say that nations can struggle to outdo each other in building armaments and never use them. History demonstrates the contrary, and we have but to go back to the last war to see the appalling effect of nations competing in great armaments.

The sinews of war are infinite money.

War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures.

Mankind will never win lasting peace so long as men use their full resources only in tasks of war. While we are yet at peace, let us mobilize the potentialities, particularly the moral and spiritual potentialities, which we usually reserve for war.

The unvarnished truth is that we have spent the last decade funding the machinery of war, and our children have been sacrificed.

We need to stop spending money on death, the war in Iraq and on enhancing the lives of the people in our own country.

The old saying that war is a racket has taken on an even more shameful meaning.