The Du Pont Dynasty & the 'Merchants of Death'

The du Pont family built one of America's longest-running industrial dynasties. DOCUMENTED [Historical record]: founded in 1802 as a gunpowder maker, DuPont became a chemical giant and a major munitions supplier — by WWI a dominant explosives producer. The 1934–36 Nye Committee (an official U.S. Senate investigation into the munitions industry, nicknamed the 'Merchants of Death' hearings) documented how arms makers, including DuPont, profited enormously from war and had incentives against disarmament. Separately, in 1934, decorated Marine Gen. Smedley Butler testified to Congress about an alleged 'Business Plot' — a scheme by certain wealthy interests to organize a coup against President Roosevelt. DOCUMENTED: Butler's testimony is real and a congressional committee found it credible enough to report. CONTESTED/SPECULATIVE [Speculative]: how serious or organized the plot actually was — no one was prosecuted, and historians still debate it. The verified core matters on its own: official hearings established that war can be a profit center for concentrated interests, which is precisely why Butler — who fought the wars — warned that 'war is a racket.' Follow the incentives, not the slogans.