Buckeye Steel Castings Co., 1910 Military Industrial Superiority Complexes By Kevin Phillips Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee (New York: Scribner, 1997) described the tactical genesis of this class denial: or political reasons, office seekers in the Bush fam- Prescott’s recorded reminiscences, given in 1966, present, ily have frequently misrepresented their social and somewhat disingenuously, a hint of genteel poverty, un- Feconomic status. Senator Prescott Bush pretended that doubtedly a habit cultivated by one who had spent the modest income kept his father from sending him to law bulk of his previous two decades canvassing for votes school after he graduated from Yale. George H.W. Bush among ordinary people. To deny the realities of his back- purported to have “interviewed” for his first job. George ground, the stature of his father [Samuel Bush] as a lead- W. Bush chose to portray himself as a young man molded ing industrialist of the day, was consistent with perpetu- and Texified by San Jacinto Junior High School. ating the myth of the self-made man. Prescott Bush, a Historian Herbert Parmet, in his biography George U.S. Senator at the time of the interview, was practised amuel Bush and George Herbert the committee, but the American Ship Corp. as a private vehicle for U.S. Walker knew some of the reviled and Commerce Corp. (in which he was ambitions and investments in Europe Sweapons merchants – the WWI- very involved) had partial ownership and Russia. A collateral objective was era munitions makers, “armor trust” and influence over the German Ham- to abet any Bolshevik-inspired up- members and arms manufacturers who burg-Amerika line which may have heaval in Germany that might end were later investigated during Presi- helped Remington Arms ship weapons German participation in the war.1 dent Franklin D. Roosevelt’s early New to right-wing, German political fac- In 1916, the American Interna- Deal years. For example, both Samuel tions in the early 1930s. tional Corp. (AIC) bought New York Bush and G.H. Walker knew Samuel George Herbert Walker and Shipbuilding, a major navy contractor, Frazier Pryor, the president of Samuel Frazier Pryor had several which by 1918 owned the world’s big- Remington Arms, whose firm was que- things in common. They were of the gest shipyard.2 More than a year ear- ried by the Nye Committee* about the same generation; they were friends lier, some of the same New York in- clandestine flow of American-made with kindred business backgrounds be- terests, centered on National City weaponry to Germany through Hol- fore the war in St. Louis; and they Bank, had reorganized the principal land in the early 1930s. shared a taste for guns and financial U.S. small-arms and munition pro- Walker was not investigated by buccaneering. Both were on the pe- ducer, hundred-year-old Remington riphery of a frequently collaborative Arms, installing Pryor as general man- Kevin Phillips wrote The Emerging group of moneymen – Averell Har- ager and later president, to meet what Republican Majority (1967) and was riman, Percy Rockefeller at National became an avalanche of wartime de- the Republican presidential cam- City Bank, and others at Guaranty mand. Ultimately, as company publi- paign’s chief political analyst in 1968 Trust – who had large international cations boasted, Remington Arms pro- and worked in the Nixon White House. plans. In 1915, a number of these busi- duced 69% of all rifles manufactured In the 1980s, he turned away from the ness and financial leaders had helped for U.S. troops during WWI, as well Republican Party. Among his books are to set up the American International as over 50% of all the small-arms am- The Politics of Rich and Poor (1990), * The Senate’s Nye Committee on the munition for the U.S. and the Allies.3 Boiling Point: Republicans, Demo- Investigation of the Munitions Indus- After the war’s end, Remington crats and the Decline of Middle-Class try, nicknamed the “Merchants of Arms officials wondered about their Prosperity (1993), Arrogant Capital: Death” investigation, issued its report next markets. Russia wouldn’t be Washington, Wall Street and the Frus- “Investigation of the Munitions Indus- among them, because in 1917 the new tration of American Politics (1994) try,” on February 24, 1936 <www. revolutionary government had voided and Wealth and Democracy (2002). mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nye.htm> Remington Arms’s multimillion-dol- 8 Press for Conversion! Issue # 54 August 2004 at minimizing his pedigree. He claimed Ohio subsidiaries, of the Hocking Valley Rail- that his father did not have enough money way, the Norfolk & Western Railway, and the to put him through law school, a notion of Huntington National Bank. financial limitations not only at variance Before 1917, Samuel Bush did government with his career and lifestyle but also one relations work for the U.S. Chamber of Com- strongly rejected by those who knew any- merce and was the first president of the Na- thing about him. tional Association of Manufacturers. [Note: These two big business organizations had Samuel Prescott Bush strong fascist tendancies.] He also founded amuel Bush became wealthy as president the Ohio Tax League and was a director of Sof Buckeye Steel Castings, a railroad- the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. He equipment-manufacturing firm that he sent his children to private boarding schools headed from 1908 until he retired in 1927. – the girls to Connecticut’s Westover and the Sprawling across many acres, it specialized in railroad cou- boys (including Prescott) to Episcopalian St. George’s in plings and other steel castings needed by the large rail sys- Newport, Rhode Island. tems controlled by the Morgans, Harrimans and Rockefel- From 1917 to 1918, Samuel Bush served on the War lers. Frank Rockefeller, the brother of John D. and William, Industries Board (WIB), where he was in charge of the who went into Great Lakes iron ore and steel, preceded forgings, guns, small arms and ammunition section. [Note: Samuel Bush as Buckeye’s president from 1906 to 1908. The WIB was in charge of mobilizing U.S. industries for Through Buckeye, Bush had ties to the Rockefeller family, WWI, i.e., converting civilian industries to military pro- with its Standard Oil and National City Bank holdings. duction. The U.S. National Archives destroyed most of the Prominent in Ohio railroading as well as steel, WIB’s records on Samuel Bush’s arms-related work with Samuel became a director of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s ... continued on the next page lar arms contract with the czar’s re- Corp. (UBC) in New York on behalf bers to make no reference to secret re- gime – and some of those rifles instead of the politically active German steel ports about German rearmament.6 No armed White Russian troops to fight baron Fritz Thyssen, control of UBC documentation exists for how many the Bolsheviks. Remington Arms ex- was held by a Dutch entity, the Rotter- Remington-made weapons reached ecutives looked to other major markets dam-based Bank voor Handel en Germany through Dutch barge routes – for example, Germany. Scheepvart. This Dutch bank, in turn, or Thyssen transport. In 1919, National City Bank was owned by Berlin’s August Thys- By 1933, Remington Arms let joined in setting up the new W.A. Har- sen Bank. The Rotterdam bank, it has Du Pont, the nation’s leading muni- riman and Co., soon to be under been proven, handled some of Thys- tions maker, acquire a controlling in- George H. Walker’s presidency. Like sen’s 1920s contributions to the fledg- terest.7 War was not far off and once Harriman and Walker, National City ling Nazi Party. Samuel Pryor of again the company became the princi- would do a lot of 1920s business in Remington Arms was named an origi- pal U.S. small-arms and ammunition Germany. Percy Rockefeller of Na- nal director of UBC. He seems to have supplier. Its payroll rose from under tional City, a moving force in the been a tight third side of the Harriman- 4,000 in 1939 to 82,500 at the peak of 8 Remington Arms reorganization – and German triangle. Indeed, after he died production in 1943. a director there as well as at AIC – in 1934, his son became a director of Notes also became a W.A.Harriman director.4 Harriman Securities Corp., joining the Remington Arms’s Samuel two Harriman brothers, Averell and 1. Antony Sutton, Wall Street and the Bol- shevik Revolution. Western Australia: Pryor was part of this cabal, and took Roland.5 This does make one wonder Veritas Publishing, 1981, pp.83, 91. a role in the first big Harriman-Walker about Remington-made arms going to 2. Matthew Ware Coulter, The Senate Mu- international gambit: the arrangement Thyssen – or Thyssen’s friends. nitions Inquiry of the 1930s. Westport, of a major participation in Germany’s The Nye Committee never got Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997, p.67. once great Hamburg-Amerika steam- too deeply into the major 1933-1934 3. K.D. Kirkland, Remington. New York: ship line. Harriman and Walker held surge of U.S. military exports to Hit- Exeter Books, 1988, p.46. their Hamburg-Amerika shares ler’s Germany. Although the commit- 4. The Directory of Directors in the City through another mutual framework, tee chairman cited figures that exports of New York, 1916-1933. the American Ship and Commerce to Germany by United Aircraft (Boeing 5. Directory of Directors, 1936-39. 6. Matthew Ware Coulter, Senate Muni- Corp. Pryor was named one of its di- Aircraft, ChanceVought, and Pratt and tions Inquiry, p.45.