(3) Some American capitalists and craftily noble statesmen also secured some Cuban Revolutionary bonds at extremely low prices or as gifts, and they hoped and struggled to have the interest and principal guaranteed by the United States Government, and thus have these bonds rise in price at least to par—which would mean enormous profits. (4) There was also at least some possibility (seriously discussed by prominent statesmen in Washington) that Spanish-Cuban bonds, said by some to aggregate hundreds of millions, already issued by the Spanish Government against the revenues of the Island of Cuba,—a possibility that these bonds also would be guaranteed by the United States Government.[162] In case of war these bonds would become doubtful, would fall very low in price, and then they could, of course, be bought up for almost nothing. Then, if guaranteed by our Government, they would rise high in price and become a “good thing” for those who bought them at a sacrifice price and then made all haste to have them thus guaranteed. Here again the goal was profits. (5) American capitalists well knew that intervention in Cuba would involve a costly war—so expensive as to make “necessary” the issuing of interest-bearing United States bonds, purchasing which, the buyers could milk the nation in interest for a generation or more. House Bill No. 10,100[163] actually proposed that our Government should issue, “for Cuban War expenses,” $500,000,000 in 3 per cent. untaxable bonds, which, if purchased at par, would annually yield the purchasers the snug little sum of $15,000,000, in profits, besides other immense pecuniary advantages. “And under the authority to borrow conferred by the Act of June 13, 1898, $200,000,000 of 3 per cent. bonds were actually sold.... The total subscriptions [offers for the bonds] amounted to $1,400,000,000.... Within a few months the original holdings passed into the possession of a comparatively few persons and corporations.”[164] That is, the bond-buying patriots who were not at the front eating canned beef were _willing_ to buy _seven times as many bonds as were offered_ and thus in tender “love of country,” fasten themselves, like leeches, to the social body—profitably. (6) It was absolutely certain that such a war would vigorously stimulate business—and thus increase profits. (7) A war in Cuba was also certain to make “necessary” a larger standing army. And an army is very useful to the capitalist class in holding down the working class—in the game of profits. Thus there were seven, or more, patriotic (and profitable) reasons for having Cuba “freed.”