WAR AND THE ECONOMY (ISSUE)

Perhaps no other single activity has had a greater impact on the economy of the United States than war. But how war affected the economy of the nation changed drastically between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, war sometimes obstructed and other times invigorated the national economy. But in the twentieth century war provided a consistent impetus for prosperity, at the same time that it tied the U.S. economy closer and more intricately to a global market, a world alliance, and a defense industry.

For many U.S citizens independence from Britain didn't provide all the solutions it appeared to have promised. For some it only made things worse. The British Navigation Acts, although no longer restricting trade outside the Empire, were now applied against U.S. merchants who wished to trade inside the Empire. Moreover the mercantilist regulations of other European countries were often more stringent than the British laws had been. When the war ended the English proceeded to "dump" low-priced goods on the still infant American industries which had began to establish themselves during the years when the British Navy blockaded American ports. War-born industries found it impossible to compete against England's more mature industrial efficiency and economies of scale. Cheap British manufactured goods began reappearing on the U.S. market and the protection that U.S. industries had enjoyed due to trade disruptions during the war disappeared. Trade came to a standstill, domestic prices fell; farm produce also sold at the lower prices; consequently, unemployment rose sharply among urban and rural laborers.

In 1790 Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton (1789–1795), convinced Congress to assume the debts incurred by the individual states during and after the American Revolution (1775–1783). According to Hamilton, this plan would bind wealthy citizens to the new federal government, establish it as a good credit risk internationally, and provide a compelling rationale for an immediate and effective federal tax system. The funding and assumption of this enormous debt would serve several purposes. If the debt were gathered together as the sole responsibility of the federal government, the credit of the nation would be restored at home and abroad. As capital came out of hiding, interest rates would be lowered. With lower interest rates investments in land, commerce, and industry would increase, and capital would multiply along with wages and jobs. All that would then be required was a national bank to provide internal control of finances and national programs to stimulate commerce and industry within the nation.

The outcome of the American Civil War (1861–1865) was determined in large part by the economic disparity between the two regions in their manpower and their industrial resources. In 1860 the North had a population of about 19.5 million to the South's 11 million, about four million of which were slaves. Estimates placed the size of the northern armies at about 1.5 million to the Confederacy's nine hundred thousand. But the system of volunteers, even with the offer of bounties, proved to be unreliable to furnish the numbers needed to keep the armies up to strength and both the North and South were forced to use conscription.

An essential part of the war involved transportation of men and material. In 1859 the North had about 21,900 miles of railroads to the South's 6,600. In the North railroads connected the agricultural and manufacturing centers, but in the South railroads were inadequate in quality and lacked direct connections between major cities, thus there were problems getting supplies to where they were needed. The federal government also controlled the Navy and most of the merchant marine, which placed the South at a disadvantage in purchasing needed goods abroad and selling surplus agricultural products in foreign markets. While the North had 90 percent of the nation's industrial capacity, the South's lack of a developed industrial base created serious problems in acquiring sufficient supplies of arms and ammunition. Food supplies for the army were an even greater problem than equipment. The South's poor transportation system failed to get needed food to the armies in the field.

Perhaps one of the most telling reasons for the South's inability to win its independence was its inadequate financial system. There were no significant financial institutions in the Confederacy. At the close of the war the South would still depend upon banks in the North and in England for loans to rebuild the southern economy. The predominantly agricultural economy made it difficult to raise taxes or large sums of money. The devastation of a four-year war fought mainly in the South made this even harder. The provisional government finally resorted to printing paper money, but the currency came to have so little value that people eventually turned to barter. Ultimately the South was unable to raise the capital it needed to support the war effort. And its inability to amass capital continued well after the war was over. Some observers likened the post-Civil War South to a colony of the North: low-wage labor was there in abundance, but capital was lacking. Some historians note the attempt of the South to build a "New South" with developing industry over the next thirty years. But for much of the South the Civil War probably set things back a generation.

Statistics also tell the story of the effect of the Civil War on the economies of the South and of the North. From the South, 258,000 men died in the war. The North lost more—362,000. Those that survived were frequently maimed for life and rendered incapable of supporting themselves. In several southern states, the busiest manufacturing industries for several years after the war were producing prosthetic devices, such as wooden legs, for the wounded. The South also lost much of its livestock as well as its farm implements. Most significantly, the South lost its slave labor force, variously estimated at around 4 billion dollars (more expensive than all the land in the South).

Whereas the Southern economy had suffered a major set-back as a result of the war, the North had continued to advance. One important feature of this advance in the North was that, when the South seceded, the Northern Republicans, now in control of the 37th Congress, in 1862 proceeded to pass the elements of the Republican program that the southern Democrats in Congress had been impeding. The Homestead Act of 1862 provided free government land to farm families in the north and west. The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 set aside new money to build colleges for agriculture and industrial sciences. Subsidies for the transcontinental rail lines were also voted in, as was a National Banking Act to standardize the national currency. All of these measures pointed in the direction of a post-war program for farming, industrial expansion, and wage labor (as opposed to slavery). It was only through the Civil War that these advances were possible.

In the case of both the Spanish-American War (1898) and World War I (1914–1918) war now became a stimulus to economic development. World War I initially cost the United States government about $33 billion plus interest. But rather than hurting the domestic economy, the war effort strengthened and improved the United State's competitive position in the world. Farmers enjoyed boom years as agricultural prices rose and the international market for their products expanded. Real wages for blue-collar workers increased modestly and all sectors profited from the war. Wartime demands for industrial products raised profits for many companies. The DuPont Company's stock multiplied by 1600 percent between 1914 and 1918 and DuPont grew from a debtor company to one with a surplus of $68 million at the end of the war. Steel production reached twice its prewar level by 1917. The standardization effort during the war led to greater postwar industrial efficiency and production.

President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921) did much to encourage the United State's changing role in the world economy. In Wilson's view free trade promoted both universal prosperity and universal peace and democracy. International commerce led to a strong domestic economy and exports were essential for continued U.S. economic growth. Wilson felt that restrictions on trade, such as tariffs and trade agreements, hindered efficiency and denied the natural cycle of the international economy. Wilson firmly believed that goodwill flowed along with goods and that commercial contacts were effective guarantors of peaceful relations among states.

The war almost instantly reversed the credit standing of the United States. The nation, by the war's end, held billions of dollars in European debt obligations and was the globe's greatest creditor as well as its greatest economic power. By forcing the Europeans to accept goods instead of loans, the Wilson administration guaranteed that the country would be banker, arsenal, and breadbasket to the Allies. World War I set the foundation for the prosperity of the twenties and some economists argue, the background for the Great Depression (1929–1939) as well.

The outbreak of World War II (1939–1945) began the United State's climb out of the depths of the Depression. U.S. businesses profited from increased orders for military and non-military goods by European nations engaged in the conflict. Industries such as steel sold war goods to all parties and reaped a handsome profit. Later as the Europeans ran short of cash, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945) developed a policy of U.S. funding for allied purchases. The policy was announced as a means whereby the United States would become the "arsenal of democracy," and was designed to advance U.S. political and economic interests without involving the nation in war. But even policy supporters within the Roosevelt administration doubted that the United States could stay out of the conflict and they began preparing the United States for war. The government increased its purchases of military goods from private industry, spurring production and creating jobs.

Despite the Roosevelt administration's friendly attitude toward big business, an unregulated marketplace approach to the war economy was impossible. Shortages and allocations of vital raw materials required economic oversight and coordination. By executive order Roosevelt created a variety of new agencies to oversee mobilization. Among these agencies were the War Production Board (WPB), which coordinated war-related industries, and the Office of Price Administration (OPA), which set prices on thousands of items to control inflation. There was also the National War Labor Board (NWLB), which set wages, monitored working conditions, and, if necessary, seized industrial plants in the event of labor strife. Roosevelt also converted older New Deal agencies into wartime organizations. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) made loans to small businesses and homeowners during the Depression. During World War II the RFC loaned money at excellent terms to industries expanding to meet wartime demand.

The administration's combination of private capitalism and public stimulus accomplished exactly what the government intended: it made the United States the largest arms manufacturer in world history. U.S. labor built nearly 300,000 airplanes, nearly 400,000 pieces of artillery, 47 million tons of artillery ammunition, 44 billion rounds of small arms ammo, 86,000 tanks, and 6,500 ships. Many of these planes, tanks, and ships were used in the European and Pacific theaters of war, often with Russian, British, or other Allied soldiers using them. Frequently the infusion of U.S.-made material proved decisive in battle.

At the end of the war U.S. business and the economy were radically different than they were before Pearl Harbor. U.S. citizens enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. Corporate profits had skyrocketed. In 1943 alone earnings jumped $2.1 million over the prewar level. Workers' wages on average doubled; they increased from almost $25 a week to $50 a week and many people earned hefty overtime bonuses. Even farm income increased an incredible 250 percent, despite the loss of nearly 800,000 agricultural workers during the war.

The character of the economy also changed due to war. Despite administration attempts to distribute the benefits of government contracts broadly, 71 percent of all contracts went to the 100 largest U.S. corporations. By the end of 1942 there were 300,000 fewer small companies than there had been before the war, and fewer small farms. Labor also got bigger. The total labor force increased by 22 percent during the war, which along with the draft eliminated unemployment. Labor unions grew from 10.5 million members in 1939 to 14.75 million members in 1945 and they intended to make up for wages lost due to the "wage freeze" of the war years. As in the case of the post-World War I strike wave in 1919, there was a tremendous strike upheaval in 1945 and 1946.

An acknowledged power in the U.S. marketplace, big labor insured that many of the wage and benefit gains of the war years would continue into the next decades. Moreover because of wartime labor shortages the workforce was more diverse than before. Almost 60 percent of women in the United States were employed during the war. Industry, which for so long had closed its doors to African Americans, during the war employed 1.2 million. Sixty thousand African Americans migrated to Detroit alone during the war. The one problem with all this prosperity was that it was purchased with government deficits justified by the pressure of war.

The new administration under President Harry S. Truman (1945–1953) was faced with a significant economic problem: how to maintain wartime prosperity without a war. But the potential military confrontation with the Soviet Union not only cemented U.S. economic ties with Western Europe and increased U.S. trade, it also provided Truman with the perfect solution—a viable rationale for increased military expenditures. By the end of the 1940s, prosperity was insured by the twin forces of expansive U.S. trade and the growth of what President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) would later term "the military industrial complex."

WAR AND THE ECONOMY (ISSUE)

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