became very communicative on another matter. His complete reply is—
- “No; but I can tell you something that may be of interest, and that is probably what you want to know. I had been very much disturbed by the unprepared condition of this country, so much so that I was one of the first men to support General Wood in the Plattsburg encampment, and I think he will admit I gave him the first money and told him whatever he did I would guarantee to stand behind that movement, which happily only took a few thousand dollars so far as I was concerned, having caught the public approval and it went ahead, and in that relation naturally one had to think about the mobilization of the industries of the country, because people do not fight alone with their hands; they have got to fight with things.”
It is thus shown that Mr. Baruch was a forehanded gentleman. It was only the year 1915. The European war had then not become more than an amazing spectacle to the mass of the American people. But still Mr. Baruch was convinced we were going to have war, and he spent money on his guess. The government which was then “keeping us out of war” was also consulting with Mr. Baruch who was already ahead of the government in creating the atmosphere of war in this country. If the reader, by a mental effort, can reconstruct the year of 1915, and then put into his picture of that year the element of which he was not then possessed, namely, the activity of Mr. Bernard M. Baruch and other Jews, he will see that he did not know much about what was going on, even if he did read the newspapers with attention!
To proceed with the examination, following the place where Mr. Baruch made his interesting disclosure of his part in the Plattsburg experiment:
- Mr. Graham—“That was about 1915, was it not?”
- Mr. Baruch—“Yes, 1915; and I had been thinking about it very seriously, and I thought we would be drawn into the war. I went off on a long trip, and it was while on this trip that I felt there ought to be some mobilization of the industries, and I was thinking about the scheme that practically was put into effect and was working
