- Mr. Graham—“Did the President express any opinion about the advisability of adopting the scheme you proposed?”
- Mr. Baruch—“I think I did most of the talking. I do not remember what the President said on that subject, but I think it can be best seen as expressed in the bill.”
- Mr. Graham—“Did you impress him with your belief that we were going to get into the war?”
- Mr. Baruch—“I probably did. I would like to tell you exactly, but I do not want to guess at it.”
- Mr. Graham—“That was your opinion at the time?”
- Mr. Baruch—“Yes; I thought we were going to get into the war. I thought a war was coming long before it did.”
The examination then reverted to Mr. Baruch’s conference with the Secretary of War, in which the former had said he “would like to have something different.”
- Mr. Graham—“Mr. Baker said he thought that was the best that could be gotten at that time?”
- Mr. Baruch—“I got that impression. Whether he said so or not, I do not know, but I got that impression that that was the best that could be gotten at that time.”
If the event had not turned out exactly as Mr. Baruch planned it, a great deal of his testimony might be discounted on the principle of the natural boastfulness of the Jew after a scheme has succeeded; but there is no discounting anything that he says. The President did exactly what Baruch wanted in a thousand matters, and what Baruch apparently wanted most of all was a ruling hand upon productive America. And that he got. He got it in a larger measure than even Lenin ever got in Russia; for here in the United States the people saw nothing but the patriotic element; they did not see the Jewish Government looming above them. Yet it was there.
The Council of National Defense, as originally constituted—“the best that could be gotten at that time,” though Mr. Baruch “would like something different”—was headed by six secretaries of the Cabinet, the secretaries of War, Navy, Interior, Agriculture,
