Chapter 4

Nor were the European countries alone the “potential enemies” whose vital economic defenses were thus impaired by subtly imposed cartel restrictions. In this hemisphere, likewise and not least of all in our own country, the cartel device was sedulously--and effectively--used for the same ulterior purpose. As President Woodrow Wilson declared shortly after the first World War, “Our complete dependence upon German [dyestuffs] supplies before the war made the interruption of trade a cause of exceptional economic distu…