Walter M. Pierce

I'm reading Dustbury and he points to an article on Knol, which might be an attempt by Google to horn in on Wikipedia's territory.

Anyway, I'm reading the article about Allied Industrialists doing business with Hitler during WWII, and I come across this little bit:

Alcoa sabotage of American war production had already cost the U.S. "10,000 fighters or 1,665 bombers," according to Congressman Pierce of Oregon speaking in May 1941, because of "the effort to protect Alcoa's monopolistic position. . ." [13].

Hey! I live in Oregon, and a congress critter from Oregon stood up and said something righteous in Congress! Cool!

Just for grins, I look up this guy, just to see if anyone else has ever heard of him, and lo and behold, he has his own Wiki-article, where I find this little tidbit:

Pierce and his wife both became involved in the anti-Japanese movement during World War II, in response to a concern on the part of local residents about the success of Japanese truckers in certain areas of Oregon.

Those dog-gone Japs! They are driving trucks that real Americans ought to be driving! It's probably a plot! Let's lock 'em all up!

Okay, not so cool. Jeez, people are creepy.

The article on Knol is a little slanted. A lot of people were doing business with Germany before WWII, and you can't really blame them for that. After the war started, well, then it gets a little hazy. How much control would a foreign company have over a subsidiary operating in Germany? But then there's the last little bit, where the big time operators get small time prison sentences. That stinks, but whatchaya gonna do?

You might want to read what Smedley Butler has to say about war.