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Title: War—What For?
Author: Kirkpatrick, George R.
Language: English
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[Illustration: INDUSTRIAL DESPOTISM, SHREWDLY CALLED FREEDOM.
/]
(Illustrating the Wage-Earner’s “Freedom of Contract.”)
WAR—WHAT FOR?
BY
GEORGE R. KIRKPATRICK
“The cannon’s prey has begun to think, and, thinking twice, loses its
admiration for being made a target.”—_Victor Hugo._
“A nod from a lord is a breakfast—for a fool.”—_Proverb._
“The poor souls for whom this hungry war opens its vast jaws.”—_William
Shakespeare._
First Edition, August, 1910.
Second Edition, October, 1910.
Third Edition, December, 1910.
Fourth Edition, April, 1911.
Fifth Edition, Thirtieth Thousand, May, 1911.
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR,
WEST LA FAYETTE, OHIO
COPYRIGHTED, 1910,
BY
GEORGE R. KIRKPATRICK.
All rights reserved,
including that of translation into foreign languages
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ON PAGE 350.
WAR—WHAT FOR?
SINGLE COPY, $1.20
Liberal discounts in clubs of 3, 10 and 25 or more.
By the same author:
THINK—OR SURRENDER
About 100 pages of elementary economics, politics and organization—for
the propaganda of Socialism. (Nearly ready.)
[Illustration]
This book is dedicated to the victims of the civil war in industry; that
is, to my brothers and sisters of the working class, the class who
furnish the blood and tears and cripples and corpses in all wars—yet win
no victories for their own class.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface 5
Ready 9
An Insult from the Commander-in-Chief 10
Chapter One: A Confidential Word with the Man of the
Working Class 11
Chapter Two: What Is War? 21
Chapter Three: The Situation—Also the Explanation 29
Chapter Four: The Cost of War—(1) In Blood, (2) In Cash 47
Chapter Five: Hell 77
Chapter Six: Tricked to the Trenches—Then Snubbed 107
Chapter Seven: For Father and the Boys 159
Chapter Eight: For Mother and the Boys—and Girls 207
Chapter Nine: The Cross, the Cannon, and the Cash
Register 244
Chapter Ten: Now What Shall We Do About It? 273
Chapter Eleven: A Short Lesson in the History of the
Working Class 317
Chapter Twelve: Suggestions—and What to Read 338
Illustrations:
Industrial Despotism, Craftily Called Freedom Frontispiece
Leading Citizens—“We Want Wars” 31
Leading Citizens—“We Declare Wars” 33
Citizens Who Are Led—“We Fight the Wars” 35
Hired Hands Facing p. 46
Worn-Out Boxing Gloves of the Ruling Class 51
The History of Ignorance and Meekness 53
The War Is the Class War 169
The Beneficiaries of Hell, Flirting with Heaven Facing p. 206
The Noble Rôle of Cossacks and Militiamen Facing p. 207
Preparing Boy-Scout Hired Hands Facing p. 220
Four Victims of Cheap Patriotism 241
In My Name! After Nineteen Hundred Years! 245
PREFACE.
Justice soothes.
Justice heals the wounds and sores in the social body.
Justice strikes down all robbery—illegal and legal.
Justice calms.
Injustice stings.
Injustice burns, irritates—kills sociability and creates conflict.
Injustice prevents brotherhood.
Injustice is unsocial—anti-social—and is thus a social sore.
Injustice, organized injustice, is the soul of all _class_-labor forms
of society.
The purpose of all class-labor forms of society is ROBBERY.
The robbed resist—sometimes.
The robbers are ready for resistance—always.
In all _class_-labor forms of society the ruling class always have:
FIRST, AN =ARMED= GUARD—READY:
ready to serve as tusk and fist of the robber ruling class,
ready to suppress protesting chattel-slaves,
ready to suppress protesting serfs,
ready to suppress protesting wage-earners,
ready to defend the class-labor system,
ready to extend the class-labor system,
ready to defy and defeat and hold down and kick the robbed working
class.
SECOND, AN =UNARMED= GUARD—composed of prideless purchasable
human things, social chameleons, moral eunuchs, political
flunkies—intellectual prostitutes—READY:
ready to make laws in the interest of the ruling class,
ready to interpret laws in the interest of the ruling class,
ready to execute laws in the interest of the ruling class,
ready to cunningly cajole and beguile the toil-cursed working class,
ready to cunningly teach meekness, humility and contentment—to the
working class,
ready to cunningly teach servility and obedience—to the working
class,
ready with grand words to cunningly dupe and chloroform—the working
class,
ready to bellow about “Law and Order” when the unemployed call
loudly for work or bread and when hungry strikers open their lips
in self-defense,
ready “for Jesus’ sake” (and a salary) to glorify war and scream to
the “God of Battles” (also the “God of Peace”) for victory; ready
to baptize wholesale murder and flatter the blood-stained
conquerors; ready to whine and mumble over the shell-torn corpses
of the victims and hypocritically sniffle and mouth consolatory
congratulations to the war-cursed widows and orphans—ready thus to
mock their own ruined victims—for a price; ready to preach—to the
workers—that they must fight like hell to “get a home in heaven.”
Many of my brothers—my betrayed younger brothers—are soldiers: they have
been seduced to serve as Armed Guard. They have been deceived. And they
are abused. Many of them are even driven insane. Insanity ranks _third_
in the long list of disablements for which our betrayed brothers are
dismissed from the service. (Report of the Department of War, 1908, p.
21.) A whole carload of insane soldiers were shipped through
Pittsburgh—home from the Philippines—December 11, 1909.
These men are indeed betrayed and abused—and ashamed. They even destroy
themselves to hide their shame and escape abuse. TWENTY-SIX TIMES AS
MANY enlisted men _committed suicide_ in 1908 as in 1907; AND
THIRTY-NINE TIMES AS MANY of them committed suicide in 1909 as in
1907.[1]
More and more the boys in the Army are _disgusted_ with the whole vile
business, but as the boys become increasingly sick of the service and
would like to run away, the War Department more and more prepares to
hold them _like rats in a trap_—just as the Secretary of War _boasted_
in his Report for 1908 (p. 19) that he _now_ finally had “an elaborate
system ... almost perfected well calculated to secure swift and certain
apprehension and punishment of deserters, and will ... have a marked
effect in reducing the crime to a minimum.” Thus the boys are trapped
and stung,—and some of them kill themselves.
The working class men _inside and outside the Army_ are confused.
They do not understand.
But they will understand.
AND WHEN THEY DO UNDERSTAND, their class loyalty and class pride will
astonish the world. They will stand erect in their vast class strength
and defend—THEMSELVES. They will cease to coax and tease; they will make
_demands_—unitedly. They will desert the armory; they will spike every
cannon on earth; they will scorn the commander; they will never club or
bayonet another striker; and in the legislatures of the world they will
shear the fatted parasites from the political and industrial body of
society.
But these things they will not do and _can not_ do till they are
_roused_—roused _because_ they understand.
Therefore, I “rise to a point of order”: The most important thing on the
program in the politics of the world today is to rouse the working class
to realize itself, to be conscious of itself, to see itself and also see
distinctly the age-long conspiracy of the ruling class; the first thing
is to rouse the working class to unite socially and unite industrially
and unite politically and seize all the powers of government in all the
world—for self-defense; the supreme business of the hour is to rouse the
working class for the crowning victory in the evolution of mankind—for
the industrial freedom of the working class, for the peace and the calm
born of justice, for the beauty and the glory of the brotherhood of man.
This book is written to help instruct and rouse the working class; and
if in some small measure this unpretentious book carries light to the
brains of my younger brothers on the big steel battleships, in the
barren gloomy barracks, and to my abused and cheated brothers (and
sisters) in the mills and mines and on the farms—and thus helps _stir my
class to a consciousness of their class and thus helps advance the
demand for justice and the demand for a reconstructed, socialized
society_, my reward will seem abundant.
GEORGE R. KIRKPATRICK.
July 4, 1910.
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION:
A few amusingly oracular and pitifully (not to say pardonably) impotent
voices have been raised—necessarily not very high, of course—against the
style of this book. Deferring, for the present, any discussion of
certain evident pedagogical exigencies, my reply is: In the ninth month
from the date of first issue, the book is in its Fifth Edition,
Thirtieth Thousand.
G. R. K.
May 24, 1911.
* * * * *
The pictures in this book add much to its interest and usefulness. Those
on pages 31 and 33 were made by Mr. Ryan Walker, of New York; all the
others were made by Mr. John Sloan, also of New York. The author is
genuinely grateful for their kind cooperation.
Ready.
The Roman slave-owners of two thousand years ago with their armed
slave-drivers; also the slave-owners of sixty years ago with their
hireling slave-drivers, armed with blacksnake whips and pistols, on
horseback in the cotton fields of the South—the ancient and the modern
chattel slave-owners thus were ready—_ready_ to murder the _slave_
working class.
The lords of serfdom with armed hirelings housed near their castles were
also ready—_ready_ to murder the _serf_ working class.
Recently, in 1907, when the number of the unemployed wage-earners in the
United States numbered over three millions, it was promptly planned by
the War Department serving the Caesars of industry that one machine-gun
company with six rapid-fire guns of the Maxim or some similar type
should be added to each of the thirty regiments of infantry and fifteen
regiments of cavalry now constituting the Army—a total of two hundred
and seventy of the most terrible murdering machines ever invented. With
these guns, each firing eight hundred shots per minute, eight million
six hundred and forty thousand cold steel nuggets of “law-and-order” and
“unparalleled prosperity” could be handed out to the unemployed in just
forty minutes,—to lovingly show the working class how, under the
wage-system-the present _class_-labor system,—“the interests of the
capitalist class and the interests of the working class are practically
the same.”
Thus the capitalists of our day are also ready—_ready_ to have wage-paid
soldiers, militiamen and policemen murder the _wage-earning_ working
class.
“Although the conventions of popular government are preserved,
capital is at least as absolute as under the Caesars. The
aristocracy which wields this autocratic power is beyond attack, for
it is defended by a wage-earning police, by the side of which the
[Roman] legions were a toy—a police so formidable that, for the
first time in history, revolt is hopeless and is not attempted. The
only question which preoccupies the ruling class is whether it is
cheaper to coerce or bribe.”—Brooks Adams: _The Law of Civilization
and Decay_, p. 292.
An Insult from the Commander=in=Chief:
“The fact can not be disregarded nor explained away that for some reason
or other the life of the soldier as at present constituted is not one to
attract the best and most desirable class of enlisted men....
“The [military] service should be made so attractive that it would not
be difficult to obtain intelligent and desirable men and to hold
them.”—William H. Taft, Secretary of War (now President and
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy): Annual Report of Secretary of
War, 1907, page 14. Mr. Taft repeated this insult in a public speech.
(See New York _Times_, April 26, 1908.)
In the Report of the Secretary of War, 1907, page 79, is the following
from the General Staff:
“The bulk of recruits come and must always come from the agricultural,
artisan, and laboring classes.”
* * * * *
How long will strong men of the working class accept a kick as a
compliment—from so-called “great” men?
-----
Footnote 1:
Reports of the Department of War for the years 1907, ’08, ’09, pp. 17,
21, and 18 respectively. The Reports of the Secretaries of War include
no losses by suicide from 1901 to 1906 inclusive. The suicide record
reported by the Secretaries of War for 1907, ’08, ’09, are: 1, 26, 39
respectively. Fifty-eight per cent. of all desertions in 1906 were
desertions by men (boys) in their first year of service; over half of
these in first half year of their service. See Index: “Desertions.”
CHAPTER ONE.
A Confidential Word With the Man of the Working Class.
BROTHER!
Whoever you are, wherever you are on all the earth, I greet you.
You are a member of the working class.
I am a member of the working class.
We are brothers.
Class brothers.
Let us repeat that:—Class Brothers.
Let us write that on our hearts and stamp it on our brains:—Class
Brothers.
I extend to you my right hand.
I make you a pledge.
Here is my pledge to you:—
I refuse to kill your father. I refuse to slay your mother’s son. I
refuse to plunge a bayonet into the breast of your sister’s brother. I
refuse to slaughter your sweetheart’s lover. I refuse to murder your
wife’s husband. I refuse to butcher your little child’s father. I refuse
to wet the earth with blood and blind kind eyes with tears. I refuse to
assassinate you and then hide my stained fists in the folds of _any_
flag.
I refuse to be flattered into hell’s nightmare by a class of well-fed
snobs, crooks and cowards who despise our class socially, rob our class
economically and betray our class politically.
Will you thus pledge me and pledge all the members of our working class?
Sit down a moment, and let us talk over this matter of war. We working
people have been tricked—tricked into a sort of huge steel-trap called
war.
Really, the smooth “leading citizens” tried their best to flim-flam me,
too. They cunningly urged me to join the militia and the army and be
ready to go to war. Their voices were soft, their smiles were bland,
they made war look bright, very bright. But I concluded not to train for
war or go to war—at least not until the brightness of war became bright
enough to attract those cunning people to war who tried to make war look
bright to me. I have waited a long time. I am still waiting. Thus I have
had plenty of opportunity to think it all over. And the more I think
about war the more clearly I see that a bayonet is a _stinger_, made by
the working class, sharpened by the working class, nicely polished by
the working class, and then “patriotically” thrust into the working
class by the working class—for the capitalist class.
The busy human bees sting themselves.
If I should enlist for service in the Department of Murder I should feel
thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed of myself. It is all clear to me now.
This is the way of it, brother:—
In going to war I must work like a horse and be as poor as a mouse, must
be as humble as a toad, as meek as a sheep and obey like a dog; I must
fight like a tiger, be as cruel as a shark, bear burdens like a mule and
eat stale food like a half-starved wolf; for fifteen or twenty dollars a
month I must turn against my own working class and thus make an ass and
a cat’s-paw of myself; and after the war I should be socially despised
and snubbed as a sucker and a cur by the same distinguished “leading
citizens” who wheedled me to war and afterward gave me the
horse-laugh;—and thus I should feel like a monkey and look like a
plucked goose in January.
Indeed I am glad to see it all clearly.
I want you to see it clearly.
The “leading citizens” shall never have opportunity to laugh at me for
doing drill “stunts” they would not do themselves and for going to a war
they could not be induced to go to themselves. Moreover, no member of
the working class can ever say that I voluntarily took up arms against
my own class.
If, however, years ago, I had joined the militia or the army I should
have been entirely innocent of doing voluntary wrong against my class,
because I did not understand—then. But it is different now. All is
changed now—because I do understand now. And I want you to understand
this matter. Indeed we members of the working class should help one
another understand. And this book is for that purpose. You will permit
me to explain very frankly—won’t you?
You will notice that this is a small book[2]—very much smaller than the
vast subject of wholesale murder called war. But kindly remember that
this book of suggestions—chiefly suggestions—is written for those, the
working class, whose lives are too weary and whose eyes are frequently
too full of dust and sweat and tears for them to read large and
“learned” works on war. This book is indeed written in behalf of the
working class—and the working class only. The lives and loves of the
working class, the hopes and the happiness of the working class, the
blood and tears of the working class are too sacred to be viciously
wasted as they have been wasted and are wasted by the crafty kings,
tsars, presidents, emperors, and the industrial tyrants of the earth.
This book contains no flattery.
We are flattered too much—by cunning people.
Flattery confuses most people. Flattery blinds us, and that is why
business men and their unarmed guardsmen flatter the working people.
A multitude of intelligent honey bees can be confused, hopelessly
confused, at swarming time, simply by beating an empty tin pan or drum
near them and calling loudly the almost patriotically stupid word,
“Boowah! Boowah! Woowah! Woowah!” And, indeed, down on the old home farm
in Ohio we often “brain-stormed” our swarming bees by just such simple
means—in order to hold them in slavery and thus have them near and tame.
We wished to rob them when they worked—later on.
This device works perfectly in human society also. The capitalist class
use this method with great success on the human honey bees, the working
class.
Millions of intelligent working men can be confused—and more easily
robbed later on—simply by flattering them carefully and then beating a
drum near them and cunningly calling out the pleasingly empty words,
“The Flag! The Flag! Patriotism! Patriotism! Brave boys!”
Bewildered moths rush into a flame of fire because it _is_ bright.
Bewildered working people rush to war and singe their own happiness,
snuff out their own lives—like moths—because war is _painted_ bright. In
the shining candle flame moths virtually commit suicide. In the
glittering “glory” of war multitudes of the working class practically
commit suicide. This will be clearer to you as you read these chapters.
Brother, let me help you tear the mask off this legalized outrage
against the working class, this huge and “_glorious_” crime called war.
At this horrible “Death’s feast” we working people spit in one another’s
faces, we scream in wild rage at one another, we curse and kill our own
working class brothers, we foolishly wallow in our own blood and
desolate our own homes—simply because we are craftily ordered to do so.
Thus we are both savage and ridiculous. Ridiculous did I say? Yes,
ridiculous. That word ridiculous sounds like a harsh word—doesn’t it?
But, remember, in _all_ wars the working class are always meanly
belittled, wronged—outraged.
We are the plucked geese in January—patriotically.
When we working people hear a fife and drum and see some handsomely
dressed, well-fed military officers and see their long butcher-knives
called swords—our confused hearts beat fast, our blood becomes blindly
and suicidally hot and eager.... Look out, brother! Take care! Remember:
Always in all wars everywhere the working class are confused,
bewildered—then shrewd people make tools, mules, fools, and foot-stools
of us!
“Follow the flag!” sounds good—but strikes blind the working class.
“Follow the flag!” sounds brave and grand. Very.
“Follow the flag!” is wine for the brain—of the working class.
“Follow the flag!” makes millions of our class blind and useable.
“Follow the flag!” stirs a savage passion cunningly called “patriotism.”
“Follow the flag!” _never_ confuses a man wearing a silk hat.
“Follow the flag!” is bait laid for fools, “rot” fed to mules, by every
tyrant king, tsar and president at the head of governments used by the
industrial ruling class.[3]
Governments—today under capitalism—are composed of “leading citizens.”
These “leading-citizen” governments quarrel over business—markets and
territory.
Being proud, these “leading-citizen” governments pompously decide to
“protect their honor”—their alleged honor—“at _any_ cost.”
Lacking sufficient brains, they can not settle their quarrel with
brains.
Reverting to savagery, they decide that “might makes right.”
Being brutal, they decide to “fight it out.”
Being cowards, they decide to avoid personal danger—to themselves.
Knowing the working class are gullibly useable, these “leading-citizen”
governments decide to use the _workingmen_ as fists.
Being crafty, they decide to _seize the brain_ of the toiler—to _teach_
the working class:
To follow the flag—automatically—that is, patriotically
To follow the flag—blindly—tho’ “leading citizens” do _not_ follow the
flag into bloody danger
To follow the flag—blindly—cheered by silk-hatted cowards
To follow the flag—blindly—_no matter where it goes, no matter how
unjust the war may be_
To follow the flag—blindly—tho’ the working class fighters are to be
given no voice in declaring the war
To follow the flag—“patriotically”—like slaves defending masters who buy
and sell them as chattels—“patriotically”—like ancient serfs defending
the very landlords who robbed the serfs, insulted their wives and raped
their daughters
To follow the flag—brainlessly—like dumb cattle following a “trick” bull
to the bloody shambles of the slaughter house
To follow the flag, brainlessly, as a frog will swallow a bait of red
calico loaded with a deadly fish-hook
To follow the flag, automatically, to the horrors and hell of the firing
line—automatically, to the flaming cannon’s mouth and there butcher
other workingmen and be butchered by other workingmen who are
also—automatically—following another flag—like fools used as fists for
cowards.
And the leading citizens have indeed succeeded in doing what they
decided to do. They have had us taught disastrously.
Patriotically we have worn the yoke throughout the centuries—centuries
sad with tears and red with blood and fire.
Patriotically for thousands of years we have stormed the world with the
cannon’s roar—but never won a real victory for _our_ class.
And for a hundred years—when we could vote—we have stupidly followed the
political crook to the ballot-box, and then we have meekly teased for
laws, whined for relief, and humbly coaxed the “reformer.”
Gullibly we swallow the traducer’s lies that paralyze our brains, bind
our wrists, and lay us under the employer’s lash.
Deafened and stunned with a fool’s “hurrah,” we wade in our own blood
while those we love are broken in the embrace of despair.
And when on strike for bread and for the betterment of the women and the
little children, blindly on horseback we ride down and club one another,
blindly we bayonet one another at the factory, blindly we crush one
another at the mines, blindly with Gatling guns we sweep the streets and
hills with storms of lead and steel, and in a thousand ways blindly our
class destroy our class in the bitter and stupid civil war in capitalist
industry—cheaply we lend and rent ourselves for our own ruin.
Ah, my friend, there is a political earthquake coming which will swallow
up the political prostitutes and the industrial parasites and Caesars of
society—when our class open wide their eyes and see the great red
crime—not only on the battlefield, but around the factory and before the
miner’s cabin door. Not blindly but proudly and defiantly the workers
will then—but not till then-defend THEMSELVES.
This book is not a parasite’s platitudes, nor a hypocrite’s pretenses in
a Fakir’s Parliament; this book is not a tearful lament about war nor a
long-winded essay on militarism, nor a coward’s whine for peace.
This book is not intended to be harsh; it is frankly intended to be a
short, shrill call: “Danger!” and also a guide-board for the producer’s
road to power.
Too long, too madly and sadly, too gullibly the flimflammed working
class have broken their own hearts and wet the earth with their own
blood and tears; too meekly and weakly the toilers sweat themselves into
stupidity and then—like cheated children—gullibly hand over the choicest
culture, clothing, bread, wine and shelter to the robbers and rulers who
despise them and betray them.
What for?
They have the habit.
O, my brothers of the working class, no matter what language you speak,
no matter what God you worship, no matter how bitterly you would curse
those who would teach you and rouse you—wherever you are, in the
barracks or in the mines, in the armories or in the mills, in the
trenches at the front or in the furrows on the farm—let us clasp
hands—_as a class_. Let us talk over this matter. And in talking it over
among ourselves let us be frank. We must be very frank. And let us be
friends. Even as I write this, mighty fleets of gun-laden ships of steel
are steaming up and down the seas provoking, insulting, challenging war;
and in several parts of the world thousands of our working class
brothers are slaughtering one another in wars _they_ did not declare,
and they do so simply because they do not understand one another; and
they do not understand one another because THEY HAVE NEVER TALKED THIS
MATTER OVER AMONG THEMSELVES in friendly frankness—like brothers,
without flattery and without bitterness toward one another.
As you and I consider this matter now by ourselves and for ourselves, we
may for a moment—just for a moment—disagree somewhat; but if we do
disagree, let us disagree without bitterness toward one another. Let us
remember that we are class brothers, and permit nothing to injure our
friendship or class loyalty. Some things concerning war must be said
plainly—even bluntly—things neither flattering nor complimentary to
anybody. Remember, too, that a flattering friend is a dangerous friend.
Therefore I refuse to flatter you.
Stamp this into your brain: The _working_ class must defend the
_working_ class. In national and international fellowship we must stand
together _as a class_ in _class_ loyalty.
And now, first thing, let us get an idea of what war (one phase of the
great class struggle) is—for _our_ class. But before reading the next
chapter on “What Is War?” examine the photograph of hell here following:
“They say there are a great many mad men in our army as well as in
the enemy’s. [In the Russian and the Japanese armies.] Four lunatic
wards have been opened [in the hospital]....
“The wire, chopped through at one end, cut the air and coiled itself
around three soldiers. The barbs tore their uniforms and stuck into
their bodies, and, shrieking, the soldiers, coiled round like
snakes, spun round in a frenzy ... whirling and rolling over each
other.... No less than two thousand men were lost in that one wire
entanglement. While they were hacking at the wire and getting
entangled in its serpentine coils, they were pelted by an incessant
rain of balls and grapeshot.... It was very terrifying, and if only
they had known in which direction to run, that attack would have
ended in a panic flight. But ten or twelve continuous lines of wire,
and the struggle with it, a whole labyrinth of pitfalls with stakes
driven at the bottom, had muddled them so that they were quite
incapable of defining the direction of escape.
“Some, like blind men, fell into funnel-shaped pits, and hung upon
these sharp stakes, twitching convulsively and dancing like toy
clowns; they were crushed down by fresh bodies, and soon the whole
pit filled to the edges, and presented a writhing mass of bleeding
bodies, dead and living. Hands thrust themselves out of it in all
directions, the fingers working convulsively, catching at
everything; and those who once got caught in that trap could not get
back again: hundreds of fingers, strong and blind, like the claws of
a lobster, gripped them firmly by the legs, caught at their clothes,
threw them down upon themselves, gouged out their eyes and throttled
them. Many seemed as if they were intoxicated, and ran straight at
the wire, got caught in it, and remained shrieking, until a bullet
finished them.... Some swore dreadfully, others laughed when the
wire caught them by the arm or leg and died there and then....
“We walked along ... and with each step we made, that wild,
unearthly groan ... grew ominously, as if it was the red air, the
earth and sky that were groaning.... We could almost feel the
distorted mouths from which those terrible sounds were issuing ... a
loud, calling, crying groan.... All those dark mounds stirred and
crawled about with out-spread legs like half-dead lobsters let out
of a basket....
“The train was full, and our clothes were saturated with blood, as
if we had stood for a long time under a rain of blood, while the
wounded were still being brought in....
“Some of the wounded crawled up themselves, some walked up tottering
and falling. One soldier almost ran up to us. His face was smashed,
and only one eye remained, burning wildly and terribly. He was
almost naked....
“The ward was filled with a broad, rasping, crying groan, and from
all sides pale, yellow, exhausted faces, some eyeless, some so
monstrously mutilated that it seemed as if they had returned from
hell, turned toward us.
“I was beginning to get exhausted, and went a little way off to ...
rest a bit. The blood, dried to my hands, covered them like a pair
of black gloves, making it difficult for me to bend my fingers.”[4]
Would it not be a strange thing to see a banker, a bishop, a railway
president, a coal baron, an anti-labor injunction judge, and a
United States Senator all hanging on stakes in a pit with scores of
other men piled in on top of them—all clawing, kicking, cursing,
wiggling, screaming, groaning, bleeding, dying—“_following the
flag_”—patriotically?
Such would indeed be a strange and interesting sight.
Strange and interesting, extremely so—but _absolutely impossible_.
And there is good reason.
Let me explain.
-----
Footnote 2:
The present wholly unpretentious book has a distinct purpose
(announced in the Preface and also on this page), and has, too, it is
hoped, an effective plan and method for the realization of that
purpose. Readers in search of conventionally elaborated theses on war
are referred, for suggestions, to Chapter Twelve, Sections 8 and 9.
Footnote 3:
“An’ you’ll die like a fool of a soldier.
Fool, fool, fool of a soldier.”—Rudyard Kipling: “The Young British
Soldier,” in _Ballads_.
Footnote 4:
Andreief: _The Red Laugh_, passim. (Russian-Japanese War literature.
Published by J. Fisher Unwin, London.)
CHAPTER TWO.
What Is War?
War is wholesale, scientific suicide for the working class under orders
from their political and industrial masters.
War is:
For working class homes—emptiness,
For working class wives—heartache,
For working class mothers—loneliness,
For working class children—orphanage,
For working class sweethearts—agony,
For the nation’s choicest working class men—broken health or death,
For society—savagery,
For peace—defeat,
For bull-dogs—suggestions,
For the Devil—delight,
For death—a harvest,
For buzzards—a banquet,
For the grave—victory,
For worms—a feast,
For nations—debts,
For justice—nothing,
For “Thou shalt not kill”—boisterous laughter,
For literature—the realism of the slaughter house,
For the painter—the immortalization of wholesale murder,
For the public park—a famous butcher in stone or bronze,
For Roosevelts—opportunity to strut and brag of blood, and win a “war
record” for political purposes,
For Bryans—a military title and a “war record” for political purposes,
For Christ—contempt,
For “Put up thy sword”—a sneer,
For preachers, on both sides,—ferocious prayers for victory,
For Sunday-school teachers—blood-steaming stories for tender children
and helplessly impressible boys,
For bankers—bonds, interest (and working class substitutes),
For big manufacturers—business, profits (and working class substitutes),
For big business men of all sorts—“good times” (and working-class
substitutes),
For leading business men, for leading politicians, for leading
preachers, for leading educators, for leading editors, for leading
lecturers—for all of these windy patriots who talk bravely of war, who
talk heroically of the flag, who talk finely of national honor and talk
and talk of the glory of battle—for all these yawping talkers—never
positions as privates in the infantry on the firing line _up close_
where they are really likely to get their delicately perfumed flesh torn
to pieces.
Thus war is hell for the WORKING class.[5]
It is, of course, true that in ancient times the leading citizens did
much of the fighting—but that was very long ago, in the days when the
machine-gun had not yet been dreamed of. Even two thousand years ago the
plutocratic snobs were beginning to show traces of intelligence
sufficient to avoid going to hell voluntarily—afoot.
Says Professor E. A. Ross:[6]
“Service in the Roman cavalry, originally obligatory on all who
could furnish two horses, became after a time a badge of
superiority. ‘Young men of rank more and more withdrew from the
infantry, and the legionary cavalry became a close aristocratic
corps’.... Finally the rich came to feel that wealth ought to buy
its possessors clear of every onerous duty. In Caesar’s time ‘in the
soldiery not a trace of the better classes could any longer be
discovered ... the levy took place in the most irregular and unfair
manner. Numerous persons liable to serve were wholly passed over....
The Roman burgess cavalry now merely vegetated as a sort of mounted
noble guard, whose perfumed cavaliers and exquisite high-bred horses
only played a part in the festivals of the capital; the so-called
burgess infantry was a troop of mercenaries, swept together from the
lowest ranks of the burgess population.’”
At present a movement is being promoted by Harvard University
authorities to organize in the University “a fashionable troop of
cavalry.”[7] It does not seem likely that many members of the labor
unions, so heartily despised by scab-praising ex-president Eliot, will
be able to join this “fashionable troop of cavalry.” The labor unionists
on strike, unarmed and helpless, may later come in handy as targets for
practice by the highly educated “fashionable troop of cavalry.”
After all is “said and done” concerning wars past and present—what is
really determined by a so-called great war?
Which of two warring nations is the nobler—is that what a war decides?
Not at all.
Which of the two bleeding nations is the more refined—is the more
sensitive to the cry for justice, or has the greater literature, or the
keener appreciation of the fine arts, or is more devoted to the useful
arts and sciences, or contributes most to the profounder
philosophy—which of the two warring nations is the more truly
civilized—is that what is decided by war?
Not at all.
Which of the struggling nations is the more wholesomely social? Does a
war make that evident?
Not at all.
Which nation has the better cause? Is that, then, what a war decides?
Not at all.
Which nation does more for the progress of mankind? Is that made clear
by a war?
Not at all.
A war decides no such questions.
Well, then, what is determined when two nations go to war?
Simply this:—_which can make the better fight_.
That is all.
And that is exactly what is determined when two sharks fight, or when
two tom-cats, or two bull pups fight, or when a cruel hawk and a
sweet-throated song bird fight: which is superior _as a fighter_.
War is the ignoble trick of slitting open the blood vessels of the
excited working class to “satisfy” the “honor” and save the pride and
business of crowned and uncrowned cowards of the ruling class. There
never is a war and never can be a war till the _working_ men are willing
to do the marching, the trench-digging and the actual fighting, bleeding
and dying. And the working men are never willing to butcher and be
butchered wholesale till influential but coarse-grained people of the
capitalist class or “highly educated” panderers to the capitalist class,
craftily or ignorantly _excite_ the humble toilers to the fiend’s stupid
mood of savage hate. First come the “powerful editorials,” the “great
speeches,” the “eloquent sermons,” and ferocious prayers for the war;
then the fife and drum; then the brain-storm of the humble, humbugged
working men; then the recruiting; then the hand-waving and “Good-bye,
boys, good-bye, good-bye”; then the butchering and the blood; then the
tears and taxes.
It is, of course, true—grandly true—and is here gladly, gratefully
acknowledged—that some educated influential people are too highly
civilized, too finely noble, to stoop to the shameless business of
rousing the slumbering tiger in the human breast. Some of them proudly
scorn the vicious rôle of throwing fire-brands into the inflammable
imagination of the weary toilers. These have courage—true courage. These
we greet with profound gratitude.
But every lily-fingered snob, every socially gilt-edged coward, every
intellectual prostitute, every pro-war preacher, every self-exempting
political shark, and every well-fed money-glutton, who dares help excite
the working class for the hell of war—these, every one of these—in case
of war, should be forced to dance on the firing line to the hideous
music of the cannon’s roar till his own torn carcass decorates a “great
battle” field.
And to this end—as part of their own emancipation—the working class
should make all haste to seize the powers of government, and thus be in
position, by being in legal possession of the power, to make and enforce
all laws concerning war. Beginning _now_, always hereafter, the labor
unions, the working class political party, and all the other working
class organizations should _for future use_, keep a _careful record_ of
all male editors, teachers, preachers, lawyers, lecturers, and
“prominent business men” and politicians and “statesmen,” who _speak_,
or _write_ or even _clap their hands_ in favor of war; and in case of a
war thus fostered, these, all of these, should be forced by _special
draft_ to fight in the infantry, without promotion, on the firing line,
till _they_ get _their_ share of the cold lead and the cold steel. Thus
let the mouthers do the marching, let the shouters do the shooting, let
the bawlers do the bleeding, let the howlers have the hell—force them to
the firing line and force them to stay on the firing line—and there will
be far less yawping about the “honor” and the “glory” of war, and there
will be fewer humble homes of the poor damned with the desolation of
war.
But, you see, for all such self-defense the working class must as soon
as possible capture the powers of government. You see that, don’t you?
Friend, don’t curse the militiamen and the soldiers. No, no. They are
our brothers. Explain—with tireless patience explain—to them that the
capitalists seek to make tools and bullet-stoppers of them. Explain it
like a brother inside and outside the ranks till our working-class
brothers everywhere—inside and outside the ranks—are roused to a clear
consciousness of the meaning of a Gatling gun with a working-class “man
behind the gun” and a working-class man in front of the gun.
Brother, stamp this into your brain and _explain it into the brain of
our brothers_:—The _working_ class must themselves protect the _working_
class.
If in imagination the mothers, sisters, sweethearts and wives of the
world could get the roar of the cannon in their ears and feel the splash
of blood in their faces, could see and hear the horrors of the
battlefield and the agonies of the war hospital, they would never again
be fooled into smiling caressingly upon the haughty and jaunty “higher
officers,” when, like peacocks, these gilt-braided professional human
butchers strut through the ball-rooms and through the streets on
military dress parade, and these women would also regard the pro-war
orator with complete contempt.
The women of the world owe a great debt of gratitude to the writers of
some powerful pen pictures of war. The terrible but accurate realism of
some of their descriptions of war makes one hate the word war. Emile
Zola’s story, _The Downfall_,[8] is crowded with these pictures. _The
Downfall_ should be in a million American private libraries. Following
is a page of Zola’s flashlights from the battlefields of the
Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71:[9]
“At no time during the day had the artillery thundered more loudly
than now.... It was as if all the forces of the nether regions had
been unchained; the earth shook, the heavens were on fire. The ring
of flame-belching mouths of bronze that encircled Sedan, the eight
hundred cannon of the German armies ... were expending their
energies on the adjacent fields.... The crash that told of ruin and
destruction was heard.... Some lay face downward with their mouths
in a pool of blood, in danger of suffocating, others had bitten the
ground till their mouths were full of dry earth, others, where a
shell had fallen among a group, were a confused, intertwined heap of
mangled limbs and crushed trunks.... Some soldiers who were driving
a venerable lady from her home had compelled her to furnish matches
with which to fire her own beds and curtains. Lighted by blazing
brands and fed by petroleum in floods, fires were rising and
spreading in every quarter; it was no longer civilized warfare, but
a conflict of savages, maddened by the long-protracted strife,
wreaking vengeance for their dead, their heaps of dead, upon whom
they trod at every step they took. Yelling, shouting bands traversed
the streets amid the scurrying smoke and falling cinders, swelling
the hideous uproar into which entered sounds of every kind: shrieks,
groans, the rattle of musketry, the crash of falling wall. Men could
scarce see one another; great livid clouds drifted athwart the sun
and obscured his light, bearing with them an intolerable stench of
soot and blood, heavy with the abominations of the slaughter. In
every quarter the work of death and destruction still went on: the
human brute unchained, the imbecile wrath, the mad fury, of man
devouring his brother man.... Horses were rearing, pawing the air,
and falling backward; men were dismounted as if torn from their
saddle by the blast of a tornado, while others, shot through some
vital part, retained their seats and rode onward in the ranks with
vacant, sightless eyes.... Some there were who had fallen headlong
from their saddle and buried their face in the soft earth. Others
had alighted on their back and were staring up into the sun with
terror-stricken eyes that seemed bursting from their sockets. There
was a handsome black horse, an officer’s charger, that had been
disemboweled, and was making frantic efforts to rise, his fore feet
entangled in his entrails.... Of the brave men who rode into action
that day two-thirds remained upon the battlefield.... A lieutenant
from whose mouth exuded a bloody froth, had been tearing up the
grass by handfuls in his agony, and his stiffened fingers were still
buried in the ground. A little farther on a captain, prone on his
stomach, had raised his head to vent his anguish in yells and
screams, and death had caught and fixed him in that strange
attitude.... After that the road led along the brink of a little
ravine, and there they beheld a spectacle that aroused their horror
to the highest pitch as they looked down into the chasm, into which
an entire company seemed to have been blown by the fiery blast; it
was choked with corpses, a landslide, an avalanche of maimed and
mutilated men, bent and twisted in an inextricable tangle, who with
convulsed fingers had caught at the yellow clay of the bank to save
themselves in their descent, fruitlessly. And a dusky flock of
ravens flew away, croaking noisily, and swarms of flies, thousands
upon thousands of them, attracted by the odor of fresh blood, were
buzzing over the bodies and returning incessantly.”
But let this fact burn its way into your brain to save you from hell and
rouse you for the revolution—this fact:
NOWHERE ON ALL THAT BATTLEFIELD AMONG THE SHATTERED RIFLES AND WRECKED
CANNON, AMONG THE BROKEN AMBULANCES AND SPLINTERED AMMUNITION WAGONS,
NOWHERE IN THE MIRE AND MUSH OF BLOOD AND SAND, NOWHERE AMONG THE
BULGING AND BEFOULING CARCASSES OF DEAD HORSES AND THE SWELLING CORPSES
OF DEAD MEN AND BOYS—NOWHERE COULD BE FOUND THE TORN, BLOATED AND
FLY-BLOWN CARCASSES OF BANKERS, BISHOPS, POLITICIANS, “BRAINY
CAPITALISTS” AND OTHER ELEGANT AND EMINENT “VERY BEST PEOPLE.”
Well, hardly.
Naturally—such people were not there, _on the firing line_—up where
bayonets gleam, sabres flash, flesh is ripped, bones snap, brains are
dashed and blood splashes.
WHY NOT?
-----
Footnote 5:
See Chapter Seven (“For Father and the Boys”), Sections 14, 15,
16—“Were not some of the rich men of today soldiers at one time?”
Footnote 6:
_The Foundations of Sociology_, pp. 220–221.
Footnote 7:
See New York _World_, Nov. 21, 1909. Also Chapter Eight, Section 16.
Footnote 8:
Excellent English translation published by The Macmillan Company, New
York. Excerpt printed with kind permission of publishers.
Footnote 9:
In Chapter Five, “Hell,” Section 1, “Modern Murdering Machinery,” is
plenty of proof that since the war of 1870–71 the slaughtering
equipment has been improved _horribly_—more than a hundredfold. See
Index: “Franco-Prussian War.”
CHAPTER THREE.
The Situation—Also the Explanation.
The situation, the “lay of the land,” must be clearly seen by every
member of the working class who wishes to help himself and his fellow
workers avoid the vicious sacrifice of the working class by the
capitalist class.
In Chapter Ten of this book the unsocial nature of the present form and
structure of society is explained more fundamentally; but just here
notice the clash of _class_ interests in a war. War is a “good thing”
for one class and war is simply hell for the other class.
Who _want_ war?—What for?
Who _declare_ war?—What for?
Who _fight_ the wars?—What for?
Get these questions straight in your mind. First study the Situation;
then the Explanation. Now for the Situation. Here it is:
CAPITALISTS—“CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY”—“LEADING CITIZENS”:—
“We _want_ war.
“Mr. Wage-Earner, it is none of _your_ business _why_ we business men
want war. You are impudent even to inquire about such things. Little
boys and working men should be seen and not heard. You poor deluded
wage-earner, you just keep right on working and sweating till _we_ have
_you_ ordered to the front.
“Ha, ha, when we business men want a war we have a war—whether the
working people like it or don’t like it. We just show them some
bright-colored calico and urge them to _follow the flag_. Then they
promptly get ‘behind the gun’ (also in front of the gun). They like it
all right—we have ’em taught to like it.
“They are so easy.”
STATESMEN—POLITICIANS—“LEADING CITIZENS”:—
“We _declare_ war.
“Mr. Wage-Earner, don’t you ask any impertinent questions about _why_ we
statesmen declare war. That’s _our_ business. Attend to your own
business—working—just working and sweating—till we statesmen order you
to the front and ‘sic’ you on some other working people somewhere. When
we conclude to declare war, we don’t consult the working men’s wishes.
We simply don’t have to.
“They are so easy.”
WORKING CLASS BROTHERS—OFF FOR THE FRONT—TO KILL “THE ENEMY,” THEIR
WORKING CLASS BROTHERS:
“We _fight_ the wars.
“Friend, please _don’t ask us_ to explain why we fight the wars. We
really do not know why we fight the wars. We modern wage-earners do just
as the ancient chattel slaves and serfs did. We meekly do as we are told
to do by the ‘best people.’ The sleek, glossy folks tell us to ‘rush to
the front’—so we meekly march right to the front and blaze away. We
furnish the tears, blood, cripples and corpses. We are dead easy—and we
don’t understand it at all. Of course, we don’t like to shoot and
bayonet one another. It seems so strange to us that the working men
should always be ordered to shoot working men;—but our ‘betters,’ our
‘social superiors,’ the ‘men with the brains,’ tell us to ‘show the
_stuff_ that is in us’—so it must be all right. Great business men tell
us frequently, ‘What this country needs is confidence.’ Well, we working
people have the confidence—also the blisters and the lemons and the cold
lead.
“We are so easy.”
THE EXPLANATION.[10]
(A)—CAPITALISTS WANT WAR—BECAUSE—
War sends up prices—of most things.
[Illustration: LEADING CITIZENS: “WE _want_ WARS”]
War stimulates business—makes business brisk;—the more blood the more
business.
War means more investments and more profits;—the more blood the more
bonds, more interest; more land and more rent;—more unearned income.
War helps solve the problem of the unemployed. Simply have the surplus
workers go into a big field and kill themselves off—butcher one another.
It is so simple and easy.
War makes the working people clap their hands and yell so loudly they
can’t think, and as long as the working people don’t _think_, it is
_easy_ to keep the bridles and saddles on them. It is surely a
thoughtful scheme;—really, it is successful.
War—to advocate war, sometimes makes newspapers vastly more popular and
therefore more profitable; for recent example, the Hearst papers for the
Cuban war and the English jingo papers in the Boer war.[11]
[Illustration: LEADING CITIZENS: “WE _declare_ WARS”]
War makes a larger home market for toys; that is, for fifes and drums
with which the working people excite one another and get themselves into
a butchering mood,—“ready to die for their homes and country,” the
United States, for example, in which far more than half of all the
people have no homes of their own and live in rented houses, and more
than one-eighth of all the people live in mortgaged homes,[12] and in
which nearly all of the working class are kept so poor that they can’t
even have cream—real cream and plenty of it—for their cheap coffee. The
fife and drum and some patriotic wind stampede the working class easily.
“A nod from a lord is a breakfast for a fool.”
War—you see in a war soldiers produce nothing, but they consume and
destroy vast quantities of many things. Thus soldiers in war create a
larger market—though they create nothing whatever for that market. This
is fine for those capitalists whose puny souls can hope and plan for
nothing higher than more markets—and thus have more opportunity to sweat
more wage-earners simply in order to make more profits. Funerals look
good to the coffin trust and the undertaker, and war looks good to the
capitalist class.
War—PREPARATION for war on the huge scale of the present day—furnishes a
market for an enormous amount of commodities for sale by the capitalist
class, such as steel, clothing, leather products, lumber, food products,
horses, and the like. True, these things are worse than wasted; but just
as the capitalist class are willing to destroy part of the coffee
crop—in Brazil, for example—in order to keep up the price for profit’s
sake, so also are the capitalist class willing to fan the flames of war
and urge “preparation for war,” vast and senseless “preparation for
war,” in order to have a market into which to dump at a profit immense
stores of commodities.
“There is money in it.”
War is a means of opening up or protecting, for modern capitalistic
exploitation, new territory, such as Egypt, Algeria, Madagascar, South
Africa, India, Alaska, The Philippines, Borneo, Hawaii, Cuba, Porto
Rico, China, Korea.
United States Senator A. J. Beveredge puts the matter thus:[13]
“Every progressive nation in Europe today is seeking new lands to
colonize and governments to administer.”
[Illustration: CITIZENS WHO ARE LED: “WE _fight_ THE WARS”]
J. H. Rose:[14]
“In short, the crystallization of national existence at home has
necessitated the eager exploitation of new lands which forms so
noteworthy a feature of the life of today.”
Thus John Jay:[15]
“It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that
nations will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting
anything by it.”
Alexander Hamilton sneers thus at the windy blood-for-profit
statesmen:[16]
“Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the objects of
war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a
passion as that of power or glory? Have not there been as many wars
founded upon commercial motives since that has become the prevailing
system of nations as were before occasioned by the cupidity of
territory or dominion? Has not the spirit of commerce, in many
instances, administered new incentives to the appetite, both for the
one and for the other?”
Professor Simon N. Patten (University of Pennsylvania) states the case
bluntly:[17]
“Most nations have been formed by conquest, and have therefore
started with a dominant and a subject class. The former seize the
surplus, and force the latter to work for a bare minimum.”
The New York _World_ is commendably frank concerning this matter:[18]
“Commerce and conquest have always been the main causes of war. Back
of most slogans of strife has ever been the commercial
watchword—‘trade follows the flag.’”
As illustrations of wars due to economic causes, _The World_ mentions
the wars of Venice and Genoa, The Crusades, our French-and-Indian-War,
the American Revolutionary War, and the American Civil War.
General Fred D. Grant, of the United States Army, threw this into the
teeth of the lard-and-tallow magnates:[19]
“It is your statesmen and your people that create wars. First the
people become irritated, generally through some commercial
transaction. The statesmen then take hold of the matter and they
compromise, or try to, if the nations are nearly equal. If they are
not nearly equal the stronger one slaps the weaker one in the face
and the soldier is then called in to settle the matter.”
War _tightens the grip_ of the industrial ruling class on the working
class at home and all over the world.
War—mark this—war absolutely concentrates public attention upon _one
thing_, the war, the events of the battlefield. This gives the crafty
capitalists a _perfect opportunity to sneak_, to do things in the dark,
while the people are “not looking,” opportunity to slip into city
council chambers, state legislatures and national legislatures, and
there get “good things”—charters, contracts, franchises and other
profitable privileges.
* * * * *
Here is the substance of the matter:
Under capitalism the worker’s _consuming_ power is _arbitrarily
restricted_. Under a CLASS-labor system the worker’s life is always
arbitrarily repressed, the worker is FORCED TO PRODUCE MORE THAN HE IS
PERMITTED TO CONSUME, leaving a SURPLUS for the ruling class. Under
chattel slavery, of course, the slave’s life was arbitrarily restricted
by his master. The chattel slave was a human animal used to produce his
“keep”—_and a surplus_. Of course you see that—don’t you? Under serfdom
the serf’s life was arbitrarily restricted by his landlord-and-master.
The serf was a human animal used to produce his “keep”—_and a surplus_.
That’s easy to see, isn’t it? And now under capitalism the
_wage_-earner’s life is arbitrarily restricted, limited, by his
employer-master who allows the wage-earner a reward called _wages_. The
wage-earner is used as a human animal to produce his “keep”—a living for
himself and his family—_and a surplus_.
NOTICE: _wages_ will not buy _plenty_ of excellent food. _Wages_ will
not buy _plenty_ of good clothing. _Wages_ will not buy _plenty_ of
thoroughly good shelter. _Wages_ will not buy _plenty_ of high-grade
furniture. Though the wage-earner is able and willing to produce and
does produce all these things abundantly, yet his wages will not permit
him to _consume_ these things abundantly. _Wages_ will _not_ buy as much
value as wage-paid labor produces.
Thus there is a surplus.
If you will think about this a moment (if you will _think_) you will
understand how it is that a glossy, well-fed employer often smilingly
asserts that “there is prosperity—times are good—no cause for
complaint,” and so forth—even tho’ millions of the poor are in sore
want. You see _he_ can smile as gently and fraternally as a hyena—_he
feels good_; he can smile as long as there is that surplus. That’s his.
It’s lovely—for him.
Surplus—fascinating surplus.
Surplus—for “our very _best_ people.”
“... As soon [in the evolution of human industry] as the amount
produced began at all to exceed the immediate requirements of life,
the struggle commenced for the possession of the surplus. The
methods employed were as varied as the human mind was fertile.”[20]
Not alone chattel slaves and serfs, but _wage_-slaves also, are used
simply, only, _always_, as domesticated _human animals_ to produce a
surplus for their masters.
Slavery was a surplus game.
Serfdom was a surplus game.
Capitalism is also a surplus game.
By pinching, repressing, restricting the wage-earner’s life the
capitalist employer skims off a surplus. By _belittling_ the
wage-earner’s life the employer _increases_ his own life—with the
surplus _legally_ filched from the life of the wage-earner.
The wage-worker, under capitalism, is forced by the lash of threatening
starvation, forced by the fear of the bayonet, forced by the threat of
the injunction court—is forced to produce a surplus.
Besides producing the _equivalent of his wages_ and all other necessary
expenses of production the worker is compelled to toil on for weary
hours producing for his capitalist employer THIS SURPLUS. (See Note, end
of present Chapter.)
This surplus is the sacred wafer of the capitalist.
This surplus is the capitalist’s heart’s desire.
This surplus is the lode-stone, the purpose, the one and only true god
of the capitalist class.
With this surplus the capitalist pays the capitalist’s “other expenses,”
and also pays political party campaign expenses, bribes city councils,
state and national legislatures, courts, mayors, governors, and
presidents—and precinct captains.
With this surplus the capitalist buys fine wine, beautiful automobiles,
yachts, opera boxes, and homes—“and so forth.”
With this surplus the capitalist pets and protects his parasitic
favorites, male and female.
This sacred surplus.
Sweet and juicy surplus, bubbling, bubbling, ever bubbling up from the
well-springs of capitalism—that is, from certain _“sacred” property
rights_, the right to own PRIVATELY the industrial FOUNDATIONS OF
SOCIETY.
Surplus—stolen life—by means of the _wage_-system legally pumped from
the veins of the wage-paid toilers.
Surplus.
Let that word sink deep into your mind.
Fasten your eye upon that surplus.
Now, notice carefully:
First—Part of this surplus the capitalists at present consume
personally;
Second—Part of this surplus the capitalists invest profitably;
Third—For a part of this surplus a _foreign_ market must be found. Even
tho’ millions of honest workers whose labor produced this surplus, even
tho’ these and millions of their wives and children starve and shiver
for the use of this surplus—still part of this surplus must be _shipped
out of the country_. For the part of the surplus which the capitalist
class do not consume personally and cannot invest profitably—for that
part of the surplus a _foreign_ market must be had tho’ millions suffer
and sicken for higher WAGES WITH WHICH TO BUY that surplus which is
being shipped abroad. Because your _wages_ will not _permit you_ to buy
and enjoy even that part of the surplus, a _foreign_ market must be
found _and defended_.
And now we come to the _bayonet and the Gatling gun_—what they are for.
Commit to memory and _discuss with your fellow workers_ the following:
Capitalists want soldiers, marines, militia, cossacks, Pinkertons,
“coal-and-iron police,” and so forth—chiefly for THREE general purposes:
FIRST: TO HOLD DOWN the wage-earners and _force them to consent_ to
produce a surplus,—that is, more than their wages will buy;—or, in other
words, to _force them to consent_ to produce far more than they are
permitted to consume. If the employer can’t get a palavering, lying
prostitute to wheedle the workers to consent—well, there’s the bayonet.
See that?
SECOND: TO OPEN UP FOREIGN MARKETS for that part of the surplus which
the workers are not permitted to consume and the capitalists do not
consume personally or invest profitably;
THIRD: TO DEFEND THE FOREIGN MARKETS for this part of the surplus.
Professor. T. N. Carver (Department of Political Economy, Harvard
University) states the case perfectly:[21]
“WHILE COMPETITION IS ABSENT, COMMERCE IS INDEED A BOND OF PEACE AND
GOOD WILL BETWEEN THOSE WHO SELL IN RETURN. BUT THE MOMENT THAT TWO
NATIONS EMBARK EXTENSIVELY IN THE SAME LINE OF INDUSTRY, THAT MOMENT
COMMERCE BECOMES A SWORD, DIVIDING AND SETTING AT ENMITY THOSE WHO ARE
RIVALS FOR THE SAME MARKETS.... THE PROSPERITY OF ONE IS THE OTHER’S
DESTRUCTION. SUCH NATIONS STAND TO EACH OTHER AS TWO INDIAN TRIBES WHERE
THERE IS BUT GAME ENOUGH FOR ONE.”
Thus commerce develops into militarism.
A PROTECTIVE TARIFF WALL IS EVIDENCE AND CONFESSION OF THE EXISTENCE OF
EMBARRASSING NATIONAL SURPLUSES OF PRODUCTS.
The capitalist employer does not wish the wage-earners to get such
things into their minds.
“Don’t say a word,” caution the capitalists,—“the workers can’t see the
point at all. Ha, ha,—all they want is a job. How meek they are. How
lamblike.... Just suppose they should wake up.... Here! you flunkies,
you bribed lecturers, orators and editors, keep _busy_. Keep right on
talking to the working people. Tell the working class to be satisfied
and humble and contented; preach to them that it will be all right in
the ‘sweet bye and bye.’ Oh, ha, ha, ha—all right for the workers ‘_in
the end_.’ Don’t tell them which end. Tell the workers that ‘_something_
will turn up, sometime—_sure_.’ Tell them to be ‘patient and _hopeful_,’
to ‘hope for a home _over there_.’ (See Chapter Eleven.)
“It is a ‘cinch.’
“If the workers go on strike to get a small thin slice of the
surplus—why, we CAPITALISTS have the militia, we _capitalists_ have
police, we _capitalists_ have the cossacks, we _capitalists_ have the
mounted State guards, we _capitalists_ have the regular troops and
marines, and we _capitalists_ also have the injunction courts and jails
and ‘bull-pens,’—we _capitalists_ have all this armed, bribed outfit to
help us starve the workers back to their jobs.
“We have a ‘sure thing.’
“Lie low. Keep quiet.
“_Let no one speak to the workers about this matter of the surplus._ The
worker who sees that beautiful thing called surplus, ceases to be a
tame, blind thing, a humble lump, contented with only _part_ of the
product of his labor.... But whatever happens—we business men control
the powers of government—and that gives us the use of all the judges in
gowns and all the armed men in khaki we need to _defend our surplus
game_. A meek, satisfied, contented wage-earner is such a useful
animal—just as satisfactory as a _chattel_ slave. Like the slave, he’s
willing to produce a surplus. _When he objects we have him whipped and
kicked_—with a policeman’s club or a bayonet.”
Discuss _with your fellow-workers_ this also:—
Armed men, MORE AND MORE ARMED MEN, must be had _at once_ for a new and
special reason. A new danger is now growing vast and dark,—like an
increasing storm. The _army of the unemployed_—hungry, insulted and
angry, not permitted to work, not permitted to produce, not permitted to
enjoy, not even permitted to beg,—this army of eager, disgusted, angry
men and women are looking through the masters’ palace windows, where the
masters and their pets feast on good things and sneer at the unemployed.
With _modern_ machinery, _modern_ methods, _modern_ knowledge, and
_modern_ skill the workers can produce _vast_ surpluses _so rapidly_
that the capitalists _can’t dispose of it all promptly either in home
markets or foreign markets_; and thus cannot—dare not—employ all the
workers all the time all the workers are willing to work. Thus some
factories are run part time, some are run reduced force, and thus
millions of willing workers are snubbed at the mill, snubbed at the
mine, and snubbed at the factory door where they _coax for permission to
serve society_ by producing useful things. Millions in danger of losing
their jobs, millions working part time, millions with wages reduced,
millions out of work—millions—these millions are growing restless,
fretful, _thoughtful_; the capitalist fears this meek fretfulness and
thoughtfulness will grow into a vast, _loud_, BOLD ROAR OF
PROTEST-AND-DEMAND BY THE WORKING CLASS.
Therefore,
Capitalists want more military legislation—and get it.
Capitalists want the strongest, healthiest jobless men to join the
militia and the army and be ready to crush the other jobless men, ready
to thrust bayonets into the rag-covered breasts of their weaker brothers
if they should become loudly desperate with hunger.
Therefore,
Congress in 1907–08, legislating, as usual, in the service of the
capitalist class, logically, naturally, obediently, _still further
developed_ the armed guard—the militia, the army and the navy—the
_fighting machine_, the fist of the capitalist class. In March, 1908,
the United States Government suddenly opened up many extra recruiting
stations in New York City—in the open air in the public parks, where
tens of thousands of jobless, discouraged, hungry men were to be found.
The recruiting officers’ chief argument was “plenty of good food and
clothing and not much to do.”[22]
Capitalists want working class militiamen and soldiers, in order also to
keep them so flattered and excited about “protecting property” that they
won’t notice the fact that the armed defenders of property have no
property of their own to protect.
It is so simple and easy.
Capitalists do indeed want war and military servants—but the capitalists
are too shrewd, too self-respecting, too proud to expose their own
well-fed glossy bodies to the modern butchering machinery. In time of
war or “labor troubles” these “prominent citizens” stay at home, eat
fine food, wear good clothes, sleep in warm dreamy beds—and secretly
laugh at the poor hoodwinked fellows on the firing line eating
“hard-tack”;—they stay at home and plan for more profits—ever more
profits from the increasing surplus.
Capitalists band together and stand together. Capitalists are CLASS
loyal. The capitalist class even hire working-class men to defend the
capitalist class with rifles; shrewdly the employers confuse and hire
the working class to get “behind the gun” to murder the working class in
front of the gun.
(B)—THE POLITICIANS DECLARE WAR:
Because the capitalists want war.
The politicians are either capitalists themselves or the political
lackeys of the capitalists; and these ignoble flunkies take their pay in
offices and opportunities to get graft. The capitalists pay the campaign
expenses of their political flunkies, and, of course, whenever the
capitalists _want_ war their political flunkey prostitutes _declare_
war.[23] After the war, on great public occasions, the politicians serve
up some oratorically noisy nonsense to the widows and orphans and the
poor old broken-down veterans about the “glory” of the war—about the
grandeur of slaughtering and being slaughtered. Right here is where the
fun comes in for the politicians, and sometimes for _some_ ministers,—in
seeing an opera-houseful or a groveful of working men clap their hands
together and yell when the politicians, or some ministers, sometimes,
whoop and yawp and tell the working class all about the glory and
grandeur of war. No wonder the politicians secretly laugh. How stupidly
ridiculous!
The glory of brothers butchering and being butchered—by themselves!
To “declare war” makes statesmen and rulers popular. In our own country
“war” presidents, “war” governors, “war” congressmen, _are almost
invariably re-elected_.
“The temptations of party politicians are of many kinds.... The
worst is the temptation to war.... Many wars have been begun or have
been prolonged in order to consolidate a dynasty or a party; in
order to give it popularity or at least to save it from
unpopularity; in order to divert the minds of men from internal
questions which have become embarrassing, or to efface the memory of
past quarrels, mistakes or crimes. Experience unfortunately shows
only too clearly how the combative passion can be aroused and how
much popularity can be gained from a successful war.”[24]
Politicians do not join the militia and the army for actual service on
the firing line—oh, no! No, thank you. They pass laws “to make the
service attractive”—but they are so very careful not to let the
attractions attract them.
The fact is, my friend, the “cold shoulder” from superior officers, and
cold victuals, cold tents, cold lead, cold steel, and a puny fifteen or
twenty dollars per month for murdering and being murdered—and the cold,
cold ground for their own cold corpses—with infinite heartache, sighs,
sobs, tears, and loneliness for their own dear ones—these things have no
attraction for the shrewd men who profit by war and the crafty men who
declare war.
Capitalist statesmen—that is, small men with big manners—politicians of
the capitalist class, politicians financed by and for the capitalist
class—these all band together, stand together. The capitalist
“_reformer_” always stands for CAPITALISM—tho’ he is willing to spray it
heavily with perfume. These are CLASS loyal. They manipulate all the
powers of government—including the department of war—in defence of the
capitalist CLASS. They even hire working men—with rifles.
(C)—THE WORKING MEN FIGHT THE WAR:
Because they are meek and modest and humble and docile, and are always
gullibly ready to obediently do whatever their crafty political and
industrial masters order them to do. So, whenever the capitalists want
war and the politicians declare war, the flimflammed, bamboozled
_working_ man straps on a knapsack, shoulders a rifle (or takes a
policeman’s club), kisses his wife and children good-bye, and marches
away to fight a war _he_ didn’t want, a war _he_ didn’t declare, a war
that belittles and wrongs _him_ by injuring _his class_,—and marches
away to butcher _other_ working men whom he _doesn’t know_ and against
whom he _has no quarrel_. He yells, kills, and slaughters—because—simply
because—because—some crafty crooks, called “prominent people,” _tell_
him to do so. He screams and gets slain, he yells and gets
slaughtered—simply because he _does not understand_ the sly, devilish
trick that is thus being played upon him and his class. Young working
men are shrewdly flattered into joining the militia and the army in
order to help the capitalist class _force the working class to keep
still and starve_; or accept _cheap_ food, _cheap_ clothing, _cheap_
shelter and _cheap_ furniture as _all_ of their share for _all_ their
work for _all_ their lives.
Suppose the working man has a son in the local militia company, and
suppose Mr. Workingman goes out on strike for two or three more nickels
per day with which to _buy better food for the young militiaman’s own
mother and his little brothers and sisters_. This young man in the
militia company can be ordered to shoot or bayonet his own father who,
on strike, is struggling for a few cents more with which to buy better
food for the humble mother and hungry little brothers and sisters—if the
father _on strike_ doesn’t _keep quiet and remain docile_ while the
local industrial masters starve him back to his old job at his old
wages. The capitalist holds the whip of hunger over the working class
father’s back, and the working class son holds a rifle at his own
father’s breast. The father must surrender. Thus the young militiaman
wrongs his own class, outrages his own father, helps humble his own
little brothers and sisters, and spits in his own mother’s face.
The war is the _class_ war.
The militiamen and policemen are _local soldiers_ ready for orders to
shoot their neighbors, friends and relatives in the struggle for
existence. In the industrial civil war the capitalist class starve,
seduce and bribe the working class to fight BOTH SIDES OF THE BATTLES.
The rulers rule. They think—and win BY THINKING.
Think it over, young man. Be loyal to your own father and mother and
your own brothers and sisters—and your own class. Be class loyal.
The _working_ class _themselves_ must save the _working_ class.
Read Chapter Ten: “Now, What Shall We Do About It?”
NOTE: It is of the greatest importance that the working class reader
should learn what his employer does not wish to have him learn
concerning value, surplus value, rate of surplus value, profit, rate
of profit, profit to capitalist class, profit to individual
capitalist employer, division of the spoils of exploitation among
capitalists, etc., etc. Mr. Joseph E. Cohen’s small book, _Socialism
for Students_, is a model of clearness for the reader who is too
busy to read big books and yet wishes to inform himself accurately
on the secrets of this legalized robbery. This book (published by
Charles H. Kerr and Company, Chicago) is just what a busy worker
needs in making a beginning in those economic and sociological
studies which will give him a large outlook upon the world and a
deep inlook into the mainsprings of human society.
[Illustration:
Soldiers, cossacks and militiamen are to the capitalist class what
beaks are to eagles and tusks are to tigers.
]
-----
Footnote 10:
On the historical _origin_ of war and of the working class, see
Chapter Eleven.
Footnote 11:
“The modern newspaper is a Roman arena, a Spanish bull-fight and an
English prize fight rolled into one. The popularization of the power
to read has made the press the chief instrument of brutality. For a
half penny every man, woman and child can stimulate and feed those
lusts of blood and physical cruelty which it is the chief aim of
civilization to repress and which in their literal modes of
realization have been assigned ... to soldiers, butchers, sportsmen,
and a few other trained professions.... The most momentous lesson of
the [Boer] war is its revelation of the methods by which a knot of
men, financiers and politicians can capture the mind of the nation,
arouse its passion and impose a policy.”—John A. Hobson: _The
Psychology of Jingoism_, pp. 29 and 107.
“The Bourses [the European Wall Streets] of the West have made Cairo
and Alexandria hunting-grounds for their speculation. Their class owns
or influences half the Press of Europe. It influences, and sometimes
makes, half the Governments of Europe.”—Frederic Harrison: _National
and Social Problems_, p. 208. See also John Bascom: _Social Theories_,
pp. 100–116; and W. J. Ghent: _Our Benevolent Feudalism_, Chapter 7.
Footnote 12:
Census Report, 1900. Vol. II., p. cxcii.
Footnote 13:
_The Meaning of the Times_, p. 131.
Footnote 14:
_The Development of the European Nations_, 1870–1900, Vol. II., p.
333.
Footnote 15:
_The Federalist_, Number 4. (The numbering of _The Federalist_ papers
varies slightly in different editions.)
Footnote 16:
_The Federalist_, Number 6.
Footnote 17:
_The Theory of Prosperity_, p. 4.
Footnote 18:
Editorial, Oct. 13, 1909.
Footnote 19:
May 5, 1909, Chicago, Illinois, at banquet given by the Chicago
Association of Commerce; Press reports.
Footnote 20:
Lester F. Ward, _Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., p. 582.
Footnote 21:
_Sociology and Social Progress_, p. 170. Emphasis mine.—G. R. K.
Footnote 22:
See Index: “Recruiting.”
Footnote 23:
For excellent example, see Chapter VI: “Tricked to the Trenches—Then
Snubbed,” Fifth Illustration.
Footnote 24:
W. E. Lecky: _The Map of Life_, pp. 153–54.
CHAPTER FOUR.
The Cost of War—In Blood and In Cash.
SECTION I: THE COST IN BLOOD.
“Ez fer war—I call it murder.”—James Russell Lowell.[25]
“The hero is a species of assassin.”—Victor Hugo.[26]
Human blood, human life, under the present industrial form of society,
is so cheap that even a sweet child’s life, as a _wage_-earner, in the
factory, can be bought for a few cents a day—almost a drug on the
market, the “labor market.” So cheap indeed is the life of the
wage-working class that the blood cost of war is regarded as
comparatively unimportant—considered unimportant by all except those who
are sneeringly referred to as “sentimental people.” These “sentimental
people” presume to assert that the superiority of a nation’s
civilization is more convincingly indicated by its sacred regard for the
purity and dignity of human blood than by its cheap and swaggering
boasts about big battleships, “blooded” cattle, “blooded” horses, and
“young men not only willing but _anxious_ to fight,”[27] or by the
nation’s strutting announcement of our “readiness” to spill the toilers’
blood at the factory door and on the battlefield.
Cheaply spilt human blood surely indicates a civilization fundamentally
coarse and cheap.
Until human blood, human life, becomes too sacred to be sold for cash to
escape starvation or bought for cash to win a profit on the bartered
labor power—too sacred to be thus placed on sale, exchanged in the
“labor market” as horses and sheep are bought and sold in the
“live-stock market,”—until then it will simply be impossible to realize
the hideousness of the blood cost of war, impossible to compute and
realize the vastness of the red crime committed against the working
class,—against
“The poor souls for whom this hungry war opens its vast jaws.”
The blood cost of war?
War spills the blood of slain soldiers.
War spills the blood of non-combatants.
War weakens the blood of soldiers who are smitten with befouling fevers
and whose wounds and sores fester unattended on the battlefield or are
ill-attended in rude military hospitals. Disease, in war, strikes with
death four times as many soldiers as are killed with lead and steel.[28]
War weakens the national blood by selecting the strong-blooded for
slaughter, thus reversing nature’s method of selecting the weaker
blooded for destruction.
War tends to open opportunity in the struggle for existence for the
relatively weaker blooded to multiply in disproportionate degree.
War, it is estimated,[29] prevents, on the average, the birth of one
child per soldier slaughtered on the battlefield, or serving three years
or more in peace or war.
War weakens the blood of the nation by worse than wasting enormous
supplies of food material and thus underfeeding those who toil.
War weakens the national blood by tainting the blood of great numbers of
soldiers and through these tainting the blood of women and children—with
venereal diseases contracted in unusual degree near the barracks and
during war, and immediately following war. President William H. Taft, as
Secretary of War, has said:[30]
“Venereal diseases were again by far the most important diseases
affecting the efficiency of the Army during the year. There were
constantly on sick report for this class of affections 739 men,
equal to the loss for the entire year of the service of about eleven
full companies of infantry.... As a cause for discharge venereal
diseases were second.”
Still more recently the Secretary of War, Mr. J. M. Dickinson, reports
thus on the befouling of the blood of soldiers:[31]
“_The diseases causing the greatest non-effective rate are in the order
of importance: venereal diseases, tuberculosis, malaria, rheumatism,
tonsilitis, dysentery, diarrhea, bronchitis, measles, typhoid fever._
“VENEREAL DISEASES CAUSE A GREATER SICK RATE THAN ALL THE OTHERS ADDED
TOGETHER.”
One of the best known publicists in the world, Mr. William T. Stead,
puts the matter thus:
“Four out of five of all English soldiers who serve two years or
more are tainted with venereal diseases.”[32]
In the present chapter, devoted to the cost of war in blood and in cash,
there is for the “blood cost” space for but little more than some
statistics sufficient to indicate, for illustrative purposes, the amount
of blood _actually spilt_ in war during the last three generations. The
authority for the statistical matter following is, chiefly,
Chatterton-Hill’s _Heredity and Selection in Sociology_; G. de Lapouge’s
_Les Selections Sociales_; and J. Bloch’s _The Future of War_.[33]
The hot, red flood gushing from the torn veins of the working class,
seduced or forced to attend “Death’s feast” to slaughter and be
slaughtered in little more than one brief hundred recent years, may be
measured thus:
In the French Wars of the Revolution, 1789–1795—
Frenchmen 1,800,000
Other Europeans 2,500,000
Wars of the Empire, 1795–1815—
Frenchmen 2,600,000
Other Europeans 3,500,000
In European and American wars since 1815—
According to Lapouge’s estimate 9,450,000
Grand (Extremely Grand) Total 19,850,000[34]
This total does not show the spilt blood of perhaps one hundred million
men wounded, in battle, but _not killed_.
It is specially important to consider also that this enormous total of
twenty million—in round numbers—does not include many millions of
_non-combatants_ who in one way and another were destroyed during the
wars _and in consequence of the wars_, nor the immense number of
non-combatants _wounded_ but not _destroyed_ nor the vast amount of
blood befouled and weakened with disease.
The number of men destroyed as combatants in the Franco-German War was
215,000. Lapouge estimates that for the brief Franco-German War the
number of deaths among the non-combatants _above_ the number that _would
have died at the normal death rate_ within the period consumed by the
war _if there had been peace_, was 450,000. That is to say, during that
short war of 1870–71 the number of non-combatants whose death was due to
the war was _more than double_ the number destroyed directly in the war.
Now if this extra death-harvest rate among the non-combatants be
calculated as being somewhat less than _half_ true for all the wars of
the civilized world for about one hundred years following 1789, we can
safely _add_ to the twenty millions slaughtered on the battlefield and
in the military hospitals—to these, I say, we can add twenty millions
more, who, like the four hundred and fifty thousand non-combatants in
1870–71, were smitten with the death-breath of war.
[Illustration: WORN-OUT BOXING GLOVES OF THE RULING CLASS]
This gives us a “grand” total of forty millions (40,000,000) men, women,
and children actually slaughtered or otherwise destroyed as a result of
_one hundred_ years of “splendid” and “glorious” and, “grand” and
“Christianized” war;—_and_ (blessed be the “_mysterious_ will of God who
reigns” but doesn’t rule under capitalism) these forty million lives
were mostly WORKING CLASS LIVES.
Forty million lives in one brief century slashed down by Mars, the
“glorious” god of battles.
One Christian century—a festival of fiends, a loud ha, ha from Hell.
One Christian century—a gash in the breast of the working class.
One Christian century—Mars and Caesar spitting in the face of the nobly
peaceful Christ.
One Christian century—a sea of blood.
One Christian century—an ocean of tears.
One Christian century—the butchering of brothers by brothers.
One Christian century—a groan, a sigh, a sob.
Mars, god of war, devourer of men, scourge of women and curse of little
children; Mars, “strife and slaughter ... the condition of his
existence,” rushing in “without question as to which side is right, ...
on his head the gleaming helmet and floating plume”; Mars,
“well-favored, stately, swift, unwearied, puissant, gigantic ... foe of
wisdom and scourge of mortals”; Mars whose “emblems are the spear and
the burning torch, his chosen animals the vulture and the dog”;[35]
Mars, butcher of mankind; Mars fiendishly drunk on the tears of women
and children; Mars, the mock of mothers,—this race-cursing god, hour
after hour, _day and night_, through a whole hundred recent years, has
devoured one human being, has drunk more than two gallons of human
blood—every twenty minutes.
A torrent of blood has gushed from the deep, damned war-wound in the
breast of the working class. And in this the morning of the twentieth
Christian century we _hear_ the mouthings of hypocrisy, but we see the
strut and dare of crowned and flattered brutes and buccaneers
everywhere.
[Illustration: THE HISTORY OF IGNORANCE OBEYING ORDERS]
“Base distrust, the red-eyed hound of hate,
Rules in a world by phantom foes alarmed.”
Everywhere we see the crowned and consecrated cut-throats preparing for
war. Soon again the booming roar of “gun thunder” will terrify the
world. Even now in Turkey, in Russia, in Spain and in Africa the blood
of humble working class brothers is being splashed in the face of
mankind.
Rouse, brothers, rouse!
Refuse! Refuse to paint this sad world red with the blood of the toilers
fooled by the mocking flattery of gilded cowards.
Let us force Senators, Congressmen, and Presidents—let us force Tsars,
Emperors, Kings, Lords, Dukes and the Industrial Masters also—let us
force every one of these shrewd, proud cowards into the bloody mire of
the firing line and compel them to stay there till by spilling their own
blood they learn what war is—for the working class.
The capture of the powers of government by the working class for the
working class—that is our first move.
The _working_ class must defend the _working_ class.
SECTION II: THE COST IN CASH.
Remember—always remember: All the expenses of all the wars in all the
world in all time have been paid with the results of productive labor.
Always—finally—the working class pay all the expenses of all wars.
In a war
(1) Soldiers cease to produce wealth,
(2) Soldiers continue to consume wealth,
(3) Soldiers actively destroy wealth.
A war involves three general items of expense; namely,
Expenses before the war:—preparation
Expenses during the war:—direct expenses, destruction of property,
loss of producing power, etc.
Expenses after the war:—pensions, interest on bonds, etc.
“In determining the cost of a war,” says one writer,[36] “the items to
be considered may be set down as follows:
(1) Preparations for prospective wars
(2) Direct expenditures
(3) Indirect losses
(a) Destruction and depreciation of property (b) Labor value
wasted (c) Damage to trade (d) Displacement of capital
(4) Subsequent expenditures
(a) Compensation for property destroyed (b) Pensions and relief
for the distressed (c) Interest on debt incurred
(5) Deterioration of population
(6) Moral results and effects on the vanquished.”
Now let us try to get an idea of the actual cash cost of war in general
by studying, first, the cash cost of one war as a specimen. Let us take
the American Civil War. In the statement here following, items (4b) and
(5) are somewhat over-estimated; item (6) is greatly underestimated. It
is to be noted also that the following on the Civil War does not include
all the items of the actual cash cost of that war; for examples, the
economic loss in the weakening of the _national_ blood, and the loss of
the producing power of the soldiers on both sides _during_ the war, the
latter loss being probably more than $2,000,000,000. Two other very
heavy items omitted here are the more than $2,000,000,000 that must in
future years be paid out as interest on Civil War bonds and as Civil War
pensions; and the $600,000,000 paid out in Civil War pensions from 1906
to 1910. However, if the omissions are carefully noted, the itemized
statement will be found helpful in realizing the cash cost of war.
The American Civil War—Its Cost in Cash:
(1) Direct expenditures, South $5,000,000,000.00
(2) Direct expenditures, North 5,000,000,000.00
(3) Increase in National Debt 2,800,000,000.00
(4) Interest on National War Debt:
(a) 1865 to 1898 2,562,619,835.00
(b) 1898 to 1910 (estimated) 400,000,000.00
(5) Pensions, total to June 30, 1906 3,259,195,396.60
(6) Lost labor-power:
One million selected men, slaughtered in battle
or destroyed during the war by disease;[37] or
from wounds and disease rendered wholly or
partially unproductive for an average term of
twenty-five years _following_ the war:—an
average loss to society per man, thus killed
or weakened, of $500 for twenty-five years for
one million men 12,500,000,000.00
——————————————————
Total (“Grand” Total) $31,521,815,231.60
This sum, more than thirty-one and a half billion dollars, _this_ sum
looks different from the “Cost of the Civil War” as it is commonly set
forth in elementary school histories for deludable children.[38]
Here is a suggestion: Have your child or some child of your acquaintance
discuss this matter in the public school. The child should be assisted
in preparing an attack upon the misrepresentation in the ordinary common
school “History of the United States.”
This sum, thirty-one and a half billion dollars, is well worth
consideration.
This sum would pay for a 1700–dollar home and also for 400 dollars’
worth of furniture for each home—for a total population of 90 million
people, estimating six per family in each home; or,
This sum is equivalent to the total savings of two million farmers for
thirty weary years, supposing each farmer to save $500 per year;—and
sufficient besides to establish eighty agricultural colleges and ninety
teachers’ colleges, _each_ of these one hundred and seventy institutions
provided with four million dollars’ worth of land, buildings and
equipment, each institution also provided with four million dollars as
endowment fund to pay running expenses;—with a balance sufficient to
construct a double-track railway from New York City to San Francisco at
a cost of more than $48,000 per mile; or,
This sum is more than equivalent to the total wheat crop worth $1.00 per
bushel growing on twenty-five million acres of fine land averaging
twenty bushels per acre for over sixty-three years; or,
This sum would pay all the salaries of twenty-five thousand school
teachers at $625 per year from the birth of Christ to the year 1909, and
leave sufficient to establish fifty universities, each institution
provided with ten million dollars’ worth of buildings and equipment and
each institution provided also with a ten-million dollar endowment fund
for running expenses; or,
This sum is equal to the total savings of five million wage-earners,
each saving one dollar per day, three hundred days per year for
twenty-one years.
And we are not yet through with our Civil War expenses and shall not be
for a long time. Professor Albert S. Bolles calls attention to the fact
that we are not even yet through with the expenses of our Revolutionary
War of more than one hundred years ago. Professor Bolles also says of
the Civil War:[39]
“A hundred years are likely to pass before the account books for
suppressing the Rebellion will be closed.”
This is a good place to remind the reader that, of course, as soon as
the soldiers got home from the Civil War they had to go to work to help
create the wealth to pay the principal and the interest on the war bonds
held by the bankers and other leading citizens who were too shrewd to go
to the war themselves. Professor John C. Ridpath wrote thus of the war
bond-leech:[40]
“To him (the capitalist) it is all one whether this world blooms
with gardens, ripens with oranges, smiles with harvest of wheat, or
whether it is trodden into mire and blood under the raging charges
of cavalry and the explosions of horrid shells; that is, it is all
one to him if his coupons are promptly paid and his bond is
extended.”
Now, my friend, when the Honorable Mr. Noisy from Washington or your
legislature or elsewhere, gets you and your neighbors out in the woods
next Thirtieth of May or Fourth of July and proceeds to fill the forest
full of cheap and stupid noise about the grandeur and glory of war, you
should promptly treat him with the contempt he deserves. You should also
protect the young people of your family and community from the savage
and dangerous suggestions made by many speakers on such
occasions—protect them by having the “other side” of war presented. The
literature of peace-born-of-justice might well be distributed on such
occasions.
The cash cost of war is easily made evident by an examination of our
annual current national bill for militarism. Indeed, the annual cash
cost of prize-fighter statesmanship, the annual cost of developing the
national fist, the annual cash cost of this hypocritical “preservation
of peace” by preparing for war, needs special attention.
The combined average annual expense of militarism, that is, of the
Department of War and the Department of the Navy (the Departments of
Murder), is, for the United States, as follows:
The Army and the Navy $200,000,000
The loss of producing power, the worse than lost
labor-power, of 121,786 “picked” men (83,286 in
the Army and 38,500 in the Navy), estimated at
$600 each per year 73,071,600
Interest on Public Debt (chiefly an expense of
militarism), at present 22,000,000
Pensions (admittedly a war burden) 150,000,000
Depreciation of forts, arsenals, ships, weapons
and other war equipments by decay, and from the
necessary discarding of “outgrown” murdering
machinery 5,000,000
————————————
Total $450,071,600
Since none of the items here set down is over-estimated and since
several of them are much underestimated, the grand total of four hundred
and fifty millions must be regarded as an extremely conservative
estimate of the annual cost (in times of peace) of keeping the national
fist ready for a fight.[41]
But four hundred and fifty million dollars means nothing sufficiently
definite to the human mind until it is considered in units larger than
single dollars and smaller than a million dollars. The sum of money
“_necessary_” to defray a year’s expenses of a _poor_ man’s son or
daughter in a high-grade Middle Western college or university—may be
taken as a convenient unit of expense in considering the cash cost of
war.
Many worthy young men and women in the United States pay their total
annual expenses in high-grade colleges and universities with $250. This
estimate is confirmed by the author’s personal observation and by a
letter of recent date from the President of the University of Iowa to
the author.
OUR ANNUAL NATIONAL EXPENSE OF MILITARISM, $450,000,000, WOULD PAY THE
ANNUAL COLLEGE EXPENSES OF 1,800,000 YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN; THAT IS, OF
NEARLY TWELVE TIMES AS MANY AS THERE WERE IN THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30,
1908, IN THE FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE COLLEGES, UNIVERSITIES AND
TECHNOLOGICAL SCHOOLS OF THE UNITED STATES.
_Five per cent. interest_ on $450,000,000 for _six minutes_ would
provide $250 for a year’s college expenses.
_Five per cent. interest_ on one year’s expense of militarism in the
United States for _two weeks and three days_ would keep one full
regiment (1,000) young men in college for _four years_.
_Less than seven per cent._ interest on $450,000,000 for one year would
pay one year’s college expenses for a total number of young men and
women equal to the total number of men in both the Army and the Navy,
officers, privates and all.
The total present-rate cost of militarism in the United States for two
and a half years is $1,125,000,000. _Three and a half per cent.
interest_ for _one_ year on this amount would be $39,375,000. This
interest would pay the college expenses of the total number of young men
and women in all the 573 colleges, universities and technological
schools in the United States for the one year ending June 30, 1908 (that
is, for 150,187 students), estimating the average expense at $250 for
the year,—with a balance remaining of almost $2,000,000 for extra
expenses.
According to Mr. E. J. Dillon,[42] “The cost of each of the new armored
battleships planned for the French Navy is estimated at more than
$15,000,000.”
“Chairman Tawney of the House Committee on Appropriations in
promising to fight against the new $18,000,000 battleships, pledges
himself to a worthy cause.”[43]
_Six and two-thirds per cent. interest_ for _one_ year on the cost of a
$15,000,000 battleship would provide a _four-year_ college education for
the 1,000 marines on board.
_Six per cent. interest_ for _ten hours_ on the cost of a $15,000,000
battleship would pay the total expenses of a young man or woman while
doing the _four years’_ work for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the
great University of Iowa.
ONE NEW-TYPE “DREADNOUGHT” OF THE SORT NOW BEING CONSTRUCTED FOR THE
BRITISH NAVY (WHICH IS TO BE PRACTICALLY DUPLICATED BY ALL THE OTHER
“GREAT POWERS”)—ONE OF THESE MONSTERS WILL COST THREE TIMES AS MUCH AS
ALL OF THE NOBLE BUILDINGS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ERECTED UP TO
JUNE 30, 1905; THAT IS, THREE TIMES AS MUCH AS ALL THE BEAUTIFUL HALLS
CONSTRUCTED DURING THE UNIVERSITY’S FIRST THIRTEEN YEARS OF UNPARALLELED
ACTIVITY IN BUILDING.
The total value of all gifts and bequests received by all the higher
institutions of learning in the United States in the year ending June
30, 1908, was $14,820,955; that is, $179,000 less than the cost of one
first class British battleship.[44]
If there are forty-five State Universities in the United States with a
total of 6,750 teachers (150 each) receiving an average salary of
$2,000, their combined salaries are less than the cost of one
“Dreadnought.”
_Five per cent. interest_ on the cost of one “Dreadnought” would pay the
combined salaries of 1,500 country school teachers at $500 per year; or,
the combined salaries of 750 country preachers at $1,000 per year. (The
average salary of a minister in Massachusetts is less than $800.)
ONE PER CENT. INTEREST ON ONE “DREADNOUGHT” WOULD PAY THE COMBINED
SALARIES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF TWENTY-FIVE OF THE GREATEST UNIVERSITIES
IN THE UNITED STATES—AT AN AVERAGE SALARY OF $6,000 PER YEAR.
It is to be remembered, too, that a battleship is out-classed, out of
date and useless within fifteen years after it first glides proudly into
the water. But education—the systematic development of the intellectual
and social powers and tastes, the ripening of the appetites for the
deeper, higher, finer forms of life, charging the soul with knowledge
and power for pleasure and achievement—education, which is “to the human
soul what sculpture is to a block of marble,”—education, in its glorious
influences, is immortal.
Prize-fighter statesmanship sounds loud and is, therefore, great; looks
attractive and is, therefore, splendid—in the judgment of the gullible.
Prize-fighter statesmanship rests upon the gullibility of ignorance.
Of special importance in this connection is the item of information,
furnished in a personal letter to the author of the present volume, by
Dr. William T. Harris, who was for many years preceding 1906 our
National Commissioner of Education. The information is: _That of all the
children in the United States more than 76 in every 100 never enter even
the first year of the high school or schools of the high-school grade._
Think of this matter in still another way.
The total cost of militarism in the United States for the year 1907–8
was over _six and a half times as great_ as the total income
($66,790,924) of all our 464 universities, colleges and technological
schools _from all sources and for all purposes for that same year_.[45]
THE TOTAL COST OF MILITARISM IN THE UNITED STATES FOR THE FIFTEEN AND A
HALF MONTHS ENDING JUNE 30, 1909, WAS GREATER THAN THE TOTAL VALUE OF
ALL THE BOOKS, LIBRARIES, LANDS, GROUNDS, BUILDINGS, FURNITURE,
SCIENTIFIC APPARATUS, MACHINERY, AND ALL THE ENDOWMENTS, ALL THE
INVESTMENTS AND ALL “PRODUCTIVE FUNDS” OF ALL KINDS BELONGING TO ALL OUR
464 HIGHER INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING.
There are in the United States 464 colleges, universities and
technological schools admitting men only and both men and women; these
institutions have in their libraries a total of 12,636,656 volumes,
having (according to our Commissioner of Education, in his Report for
the year ending June 30, 1908, page 617) a total value of
$16,262,027—which sum is almost equalled by the cost of one first-class
modern murdering machine, one “Dreadnought.”
One 14–inch cannon and equipment costs $170,000. One target-practice
shot costs as much as President John Adams’s education at Harvard
University.
“Whether your shell hits the target or not,
Your cost is six hundred dollars a shot.
You thing of noise and flame and power,
We feed you a hundred barrels of flour
Each time you roar. Your flame is fed
With twenty thousand loaves of bread.
Silence! A million hungry men
Seek bread to fill their mouths again.”[46]
One broadside from a modern “Dreadnought” costs almost $20,000.
“The fact that we are spending during this fiscal year 72 per cent.
of our aggregate revenue in preparing for war and on account of past
wars (pensions, interest and principal payments on war debts),
leaving only 28 per cent. of our revenue available to meet all our
other governmental expenditures, including internal improvements,
the erection of public buildings, the improvement of rivers and
harbors, and the conservation of our natural resources, is, to my
mind, appalling.”—Congressman J. A. Tawney.[47]
“For the fiscal year 1908–9 the ordinary income of the United States
was $604,000,000. Of that sum ... 70 per cent. was spent for past
wars and preparations for war....”[48]
This same “civilized” savagery is rampant everywhere.
“The great countries are raising enormous revenues ... it is equally
true that one half of the national revenues of the great countries
in Europe is being spent on what are, after all, preparations to
kill each other.”—Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary, British
Cabinet.[49]
G. de Molinari sums up thus:[50]
“Two-thirds of their [European nations’] combined budgets are
devoted to the service of this debt [war debt], and to the
maintenance of their armed forces by sea and land.”
The New York _World_ speaks boldly thus:[51]
“The preparations for war bear with tremendous weight in times of
peace.... Six million picked men in the flower of youth are in arms
in Europe. They are all strong men, those who would be most useful
in industry. Great Britain’s war-costs [today, in times of peace]
including national debt service, $444,000,000, ... are now nearly
six times as great as her elementary school costs. An even more
bitter contest over a greater war deficit which must be met by
increased taxation is going on in Germany.... Russia runs behind
$200,000,000 a year in her national finances ... and famine is
perpetual.”
All the great governments of the world are increasing their murdering
equipment—to be “prepared for war”;—that is, prepared to provoke and
dare. The annual expenses for war in England have doubled within the
last ten years, and still the stupidity grows. England has 52
battleships, 4 armored cruisers, 16 cruisers, 84 destroyers, 20
submarines, and to these are to be added at once 8 “Dreadnoughts”
costing from $12,000,000 to $15,000,000 each, and also an “appropriate”
number of auxiliaries—armored and unarmored cruisers, torpedo boats,
etc., the _additions_ to the present naval outfit to cost over
$300,000,000. France has 21 battleships with an “appropriate” number of
auxiliaries, and is building 8 more battleships with auxiliaries. In
Germany militarism amounts to even greater madness. In 1872, immediately
following a great war, the German Empire spent $73,750,000 as direct
expense of militarism; in 1898, not including the loss in labor power,
the cost of the departments of murder was $337,500,000. Increases in
German militarism since 1898 have been startling, and so furious is the
spirit of militarism and so insanely is the government already burdened
with “war charges,” that in the year 1907–8 bonds were sold to the
extent of $25,000,000, as part of a special effort to raise an extra
fund with which to make additions to her murdering equipment.
And thus it is with all the other “great” nations.
Although Russia now staggers under a four-and-a-half billion dollar
national debt, and in 1908 was forced to borrow $75,000,000 to meet
current expenses (and did her best to borrow $400,000,000); although
millions of her citizens face starvation and hundreds of thousands of
them are forced into trampdom—yet Russian statesmen and naval experts
are planning a billion-dollar navy.[52]
“Certain facts will surely, some day, burn themselves into the
consciousness of thinking men.... The extravagance of the
militarists will bring about their ruin. They cry for
battleships ... and Parliament or Congress votes them. But later on
it is explained that battleships are worthless without cruisers,
cruisers are worthless without torpedo boats, torpedo boats are
worthless without torpedo destroyers, all these are worthless
without colliers, ammunition boats, hospital boats, repair boats;
and these all together are worthless without deeper harbors, longer
docks, more spacious navy yards.
“And what are all these worth without officers and men, upon whose
education millions of dollars have been lavished? When at last the
navy has been fairly launched, the officials of the army come
forward and demonstrate that a navy, after all, is worthless unless
it is supported by a colossal land force. Thus are the governments
led on, step by step, into a treacherous morass, in which they are
at first entangled, and finally overwhelmed.”[53]
J. H. Rose, in his _Development of European Nations_, Vol. II., p. 336,
surveying the chief events in the evolution of Europe since 1870,
writes:
“The individual is crushed by a sense of helplessness as he gazes at
the armed millions on all sides of him. Tho’ a freeman in the
constitutional sense of the term, he has entered into a state of
military serfdom. There he is but a bondman, toiling to add his few
blocks to the colossal pyramid of war.... From that life there can
come no song ... some malignant Fury masquerading in the garb of
Peace.”
Nearly everywhere war debts are piled like mountains upon the backs of
the people. Twenty-three years ago (1887) Professor H. C. Adams
(University of Michigan, Department of Finance) sounded the alarm and
stated the case strikingly:[54]
“The civilized governments of the present day are resting under a
burden of indebtedness computed at $27,000,000,000. This sum, which
does not include local obligations of any sort, constitutes a
mortgage of $722 [now about $950] upon each square mile of territory
over which the burdened governments extend their jurisdiction, and
shows a per capita indebtedness of $23 upon their subjects. The
total amount of national obligations is equal to seven times the
aggregate annual revenue of the indebted states. At the liberal
estimate of $1.50 per day, the payment of the accruing interest,
computed at five per cent., would demand the continuous labor of
three million men.... Previous to the present [nineteenth] century,
England and Holland were the only nations that had learned by
experience the weight of national obligations; but at the present
time the phenomenon of public debts is almost universal....
“It is all the more difficult to understand this new method of
financiering, because it has made its appearance while wealth has
been rapidly increasing. The world is daily growing richer as nature
yields her forces with ever increasing willingness to serve the
purposes of men; yet, notwithstanding increased opulence, the
governments of the world are plunging headlong into debt.”
The reader should keep in mind that the burdens of debt discussed here
by Dr. Adams are almost wholly war debts, and that they have, since
1887, increased heavily—to about $35,000,000,000, _almost three times
the total amount of cash in the entire world_.
“Reflect for an hour upon the appalling aggregate,” wrote Professor
Ridpath (De Pauw University),[55] “consider the pressure of this
intolerable incubus; try to estimate the horror of this hell; weigh
the woe and anguish of them who rest under it, and then—despair and
die.
“Twenty thousand millions of dollars; statesmen, philanthropists,
preachers, journalists, mouthpieces of civilization, one and all of
you, how do you like the exhibit? Does it not suffice? Who is going
to pay the account? The people. Who, without lifting a hand or
turning in their downy beds, will gather this infamous harvest
during all of the twentieth century? Plutocracy.
“It has been the immemorial policy of the Money Power to foment wars
among the nations; to edge on the conflict until both parties pass
under the impending bankruptcy; to buy up the prodigious debt of
both with a pail full of gold; to raise the debt to par; to invent
patriotic proclamations for preserving the National Honor; and
finally to hire the presses and pulpits of two generations to
glorify a crime.”
Henry Ward Beecher put the matter thus:
“Most of the debts of Europe represent condensed drops of blood.”
Reflect again:
“In one short eighteen months the [British] war party now sitting on
our necks has dissipated [in the Boer War] more money than the
working class managed to accumulate out of their wages during the
whole reign of the late Queen Victoria.” (That is, from 1837 to
1901.) “The patient savings of two generations were [in the Boer
War] dissipated at one cruel swoop.”[56]
The following table shows the proportion in which the “great” capitalist
governments spend the outraged people’s substance for education and for
militarism—in prize-fighter statesmanship:[57]
Education. Militarism.
England $1.00 $4.25
France 1.00 4.80
Germany 1.00 2.57
Austria 1.00 4.50
United States 1.00 1.25
Denmark 1.00 3.66
Greece 1.00 5.00
Sweden 1.00 2.25
Italy 1.00 9.00
Belgium 1.00 2.00
Switzerland 1.00 .54
Russia 1.00 12.00
An American educator has written thus of the civilized savagery to be
seen in these worse than wasted treasures of the people:[58]
“The national debts of Europe represent a series of colossal crimes
against the people. They were incurred in the prosecution of
unnecessary wars, and for the support of unnecessary standing
armies. With relation to these debts the people are divided into
_two_ classes—one class _owns_ them and the other _pays the
interest_ on them. This relation comprehends the future generations
in perpetuity. Every child born in Europe inherits either an estate
in these debts or an obligation to pay interest upon them. Thus the
_fruits of a great crime have been transmitted into a vested right
in one class of people, or a vested wrong in another class_.
“If the European standing armies and navies had not been raised and
kept up, and if the revenue devoted to their support had been
expended for schools, there would not now be an uneducated person in
Europe. If these standing armies and navies were now disbanded, and
the revenue at present expended for their support diverted to the
support of schools, and so applied for half a century, there would
not be, at the end of that period, an illiterate person in Europe.”
The following paragraph by Helmuth v. Gerlach is worthy of the
workingman’s special consideration:[59]
“Of all the German political parties one, viz., the Social
Democratic [the Socialist] Party, has always been a consistent
opponent of militarism. It looks upon militarism as the strongest
support of the capitalistic régime, and therefore attacks it
theoretically and actually with equal vigor. Its watchword is: ‘No
men and no money.’”[60]
But everywhere these senseless burdens grow more vast. The end is not
yet. The insanity of vanity and greed increases alarmingly—everywhere;
but worst of all, the people are unwarned by the all-powerful capitalist
press. Fortunately there are exceptions; for example, the New York
_World_. Boldly and powerfully the _World_ has recently warned the
people. On July 20, 1908, the _World_ said editorially:
“No more effective peace sermon could be preached than the estimate
of General Blume, published by the German General Staff, as to the
probable cost of a modern European war. Putting the number of troops
that Germany could call to arms at 4,759,000, the cost to Germany,
he says, of a war with another European power would be [_direct_
expenses] $1,500,000,000 a year as long as the war lasted. On the
basis of the war between Russia and Japan, in which the Japanese
lost in killed and wounded 20 per cent. of their armies, Germany
would lose in the same length of time approximately 900,000 men....
“The account in blood and money would be duplicated if Germany were
engaged with only one power. If three or four or even more powers
were involved, as seems probable in the light of existing alliances,
Europe would be ‘bled white’ and plunged in lasting disaster.
“_This is the other side of the question which public men who talk
glibly about the war seek to have the people forget._ They do not
dwell on the immense debt of victorious Japan, and its practical
impoverishment, nor do they recall to attention the appalling waste
of Russia’s resources, its rickety finances, its shrunken commerce
and the tens of millions of starving subjects of the Czar. It will
be many years before the public credit of Great Britain, proud of
the national wealth, recovers from the setback caused by the Boer
War and the government is able to face much-needed reforms at home
without misgivings about its income.”[61]
Statesmanship!
“Defense of our foreign commerce” is one of the heaviest arguments
offered by capitalist statesmen in defense of the vast cost of
militarism—with insufferable ignorance neglecting the fact that the
total annual cost of militarism for nineteen European countries and the
United States and Japan (eight billion dollars) is equal to more than 66
per cent. of the total annual export trade of all the nations of all the
world.[62]
Statesmanship!
“Great” men guiding the “Ship of State”—to the rocks!
Thus the nations stagger round and round in a stupid circle, the
statesmen planning international wholesale butcherings, the working
class blinded with blood and sweat and tears. Greater armies, greater
navies,—then still greater armies and still greater navies,—and then
still more powerful armies and navies: then impossible taxation,
intolerable burdens: then bankruptcy:—then wrath, rebellion and
revolution,—this constitutes the near-future program for at least eight
“great” nations of the world, if they continue, as at present, to
surrender to the vanity of kings, tsars, presidents, mikados, and give
free rein to the profit-lusting capitalist masters of the world.
Militarism is the international political whirlpool. The maelstrom
opens—the chasm yawns, spreads wide its huge jaws for the capitalist
ship of state.
_Be not deceived_:
IT IS SINCERE, WELL-FOUNDED FEAR OF BANKRUPTCY (AND IT IS NOT
CONSCIENCE) THAT CHIEFLY INDUCES MANY CAPITALIST STATESMEN TO
CO-OPERATE, AT PRESENT, SO LOUDLY (AND PIOUSLY) WITH INTERNATIONAL PEACE
SOCIETIES.
Bankruptcy, rebellion, revolution—
It is time for Caesar to be pious and whine for “a limitation on
armaments.”
THE STARVED SLAVE BEGINS TO ASK QUESTIONS OF THE FAT STATESMAN.
The ship of state begins to rock in the growing storm.
Statesmanship!
Industrial democracy stands by to seize its opportunity.
The producers will be the successors to plutocracy.
Despotism is digging its own grave.
Anent this matter a truly great authority, Professor J. E. Thorold
Rogers, says:[63]
“Many parts of the earth were once occupied by rich and industrious
peoples which are now wholly waste. Such a decline may come from the
effects of a destructive conquest, of long and ruinous wars. But in
_almost all cases, the ruin of a race_ is the fault of its
_government_.... _Nations_ will not ruin themselves, said Adam
Smith, but _governments_ may ruin them.... I will not say that
spectacles of this kind will never be seen again, of nations
perishing by the vices of those who administer their affairs....
Governments may borrow for the purpose of carrying on a war, or of
defending themselves against aggression. The government generally
asserts that it is the latter motive which influences it, when every
one sees it is the former. Whether their subjects or citizens see it
or not, governments generally, almost invariably, avow it so
persistently or savagely that their subjects are brought to agree
with them.”
What is the significance of the present cost of militarism for the world
annually? No human mind can discern or take in the vast meaning of the
blood-and-profit-lust politics that holds and damns the world today.
$8,000,000,000—Eight Billion Dollars!
Tossed to Mars, the red-stained god of war!
While the human race festers in ignorance!
$8,000,000,000—to blind and blindfold the multitude with their own blood
and rags while their lives are robbed and ravaged by the eminent and
respectable profit-glutton parasites of mankind.
$8,000,000,000—this huge sum baffles comprehension. Pronounce it: “Eight
Billion Dollars.” That sum embarrasses not only the mind, but the lips
and the tongue.
Think that sum for a moment.
Now consider the fact that in twenty-one countries, namely, those of
Europe and also Japan and the United States, militarism costs more than
eight billion dollars—every twelve months.
ONE ITEM ALONE IN THIS COST OF MILITARISM IS ALMOST FOUR BILLION DOLLARS
PER YEAR. That single item is the wealth that is _not_ produced, but
_could be produced_ if the six million five hundred thousand strong,
carefully selected young men in the standing armies of these twenty-one
countries _were_ engaged in producing wealth with _modern_ tools,
_modern_ machinery, and _modern_ knowledge of production. It is to be
noted that in this estimate all of South America, China and other large
parts of the world are not included.
Eight Billion Dollars—$8,000,000,000.
Men and women shudder when the telegraph flashes over the world that a
city has suffered a ten-million or a twenty-million dollar fire. Let us
try to get an idea of the cost of wealth-wasting militarism by
expressing it in terms of loss by the devourer, fire.
$8,000,000,000—Eight Billion Dollars.
This sum, this expense of bull-dog-and-tiger statesmanship, of
militarism, in twenty-one “highly civilized” countries—for twelve months
in times of peace—is equivalent to a continuous loss by fire, throughout
the year, day and night, of more than $913,000 an hour; or, about
$15,219 per minute.
This sum, worse than wasted annually to be “prepared”—to slaughter—is
equal to a loss by fire, burning day and night throughout the year,
devouring seven homes per minute, each home worth $1,700 and each home
containing also $475 worth of furniture.
The average working class family contains about six members—two parents
and four children; and the average working class family would consider
itself in good fortune to have a home worth $1,700 and provided with
$475 worth of furniture. Seven such homes would contain forty-two
members.
Now imagine an unbroken stream of people—men, women, and little
children, frightened, pale, shuddering, the children screaming, the
women in tears—fleeing past you through the street, driven by fire from
their ruined homes, forty-two people rushing by you every minute, day
and night, year after year, on and on, an endless stream of humbled and
saddened souls, plunged in misery, their happiness swallowed by pitiless
fire; or,
Imagine a fire _rushing_ faster than a strong man at a brisk
walk—imagine a fire rushing forward more than _eight miles an hour,
consuming fifty such homes per mile_, making each year _thirty-six round
trips_, burning going and coming, from New York City to St. Louis,
Missouri; or one such round trip every ten days—imagine these losses,
these annual losses—and you will perhaps have some idea of what it costs
these twenty-one countries to brag and strut and piously prepare to
settle their disputes as tigers settle theirs—by force.
It is as if the fiends of hell were crazed and loose on the earth.
And this is statesmanship!
Eight billion dollars virtually tossed into the flames by the well-fed
kings, emperors, tsars, presidents, and champagne-guzzlers in the
national legislatures of twenty-one “highly civilized” countries—while
tens of millions of the toilers in these same countries shiver and
starve, meanly clothed, meanly housed, meanly fed, their children
growing up in the dull ignorance that renders them the easy tools and
fools for the firing line.
One year’s cost of militarism in these twenty-one countries
($8,000,000,000) would keep thirty-two million students in college for
one year—allowing $250 each.
The cost of militarism in these twenty-one countries for less than nine
hours and a half would pay all the expenses of 4,500 students in Harvard
University for four years, allowing each student $500 per year.
SIX PER CENT. INTEREST ON THIS $8,000,000,000 FOR ONE YEAR WOULD PROVIDE
A FOUR-YEAR COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR 480,000 YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, ALLOWING
EACH STUDENT $250 PER YEAR.
$8,000,0000,000 annually—in time of peace!
Clap your hands in stupid glee, O, blind devotees of the blood god Mars!
Celebrate!
Scream “Hurrah! Hurrah!”—in idiotic glad madness.
Yell, fool, yell: “Hurrah for hell!”
For war!
War! War! War!
It is great!
Isn’t it?
It must be great, for “_great_ men” say it is so.
“_Great_ men” never deceive humble, common working men. Never. Of course
not.
When “great men” call: “Rally to the flag, boys!” will my toiling
brothers become again the fools and tools for such as they who in
Parliaments and Congresses vote for this red-dripping stupidity?
$8,000,000,000 every twelve months on war and preparations for war—and
yet _not a single silk-hatted snob sleeps in the dingy barracks, or eats
the cheap “grub” fed to the privates, or submits to humiliating insults
from “superior” officers, or spills his blood on the firing line_—not
one anywhere in all the world.
$8,000,000,000—the annual cost of lust—war lust.
The annual cost of jungle statesmanship.
THE COST THE WORKING CLASS PAY FOR BEING MEEK, DOCILE, OBEDIENT—READY TO
SLAUGHTER THEMSELVES, READY TO BUTCHER THEIR BROTHERS OF THE WORKING
CLASS.
$8,000,000,000, the price the working class pay for being prejudiced,
ignorant, unwilling to read;—and for cringing, for neglecting to place
the _working_ class in the _legislatures of the world_.
$8,000,000,000—this sum proves the moral bankruptcy, proves the colossal
savagery—of capitalists who _want_ war, and proves also the intellectual
and moral bankruptcy, the brainless incapacity and unspeakable villainy
of the gilt-edged crooks called statesmen who are always ready to
_declare_ wars and who perpetually bleed society by thus “preparing for
wars” in which they themselves, like the “business men,” are too proud
and cunning to fight on the firing line.
This sum also shows that the working class, stripped and dulled to
supply this annual sum, _ignorantly consenting to and blindly hurrahing
for their own destruction_, are in the condition of _hypnotized
children_—almost utterly helpless, their eyes blinded with tears, their
ears stopped with blood, their souls numb and dumb in a living death.
This sum—all this cash cost—is, in its last analysis, slyly _subtracted
from the lives of the producing class, the working class—sucked from the
veins of the humble multitude of toilers_, and the workers are so meek
and weak and bloodless and stunned and stunted—so constantly in a dull,
prideless stupor—that they are unable to stand erect in holy
indignation, seize the powers of government and sweep this hell’s
nightmare from the world.
War devours the welfare of the workers.
The _capitalist_ class dare not _place all the facts frankly before the
working class_. Everywhere it is: “Hush! Hush! The _working_ class must
not study the burdens of war.”
The workers? “They must not _think_. They must not _think_. They must
_obey_.”
That is the word for the working class:
OBEY.
A very eminent authority on war[64] says:
“Only _once_ in recent history do I remember _any attempt_ on the
part of a European government to calculate the economic consequences
of war under _modern_ conditions. It was when M. Burdeau was in the
French Ministry. He appointed a committee of economists for the
purpose of ascertaining how the social organism would continue to
function in a time of war, how from day to day their bread would be
given to the French population. But _no sooner had he begun his
investigation than a strong objection was raised by the military
authorities_, and out of deference to their protest the inquiry was
_indefinitely postponed_. Hence we are going forward blindfold.”
A real statesman, Senator Charles Sumner, has said:[65]
“All history is a vain word, and all experience is at fault, if
large war preparations ... have not been constant provocatives of
war. Pretended protectors against war, they have been the real
instigators of war. They have excited the evil against which they
were to guard. The habit of wearing arms in private life exercised a
kindred influence.... The Standing Army is to the nation what the
sword was to the modern gentleman, the stiletto to the Italian, the
knife to the Spaniard, the pistol to our slavemaster,—furnishing,
like these, the means of death; and its possessor is not slow to use
it.”
“Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the world from error,
There would be no need of arsenals and forts.”[66]
“Workers of the world, unite!” Rouse. Think. Rise. Hurl this curse of
war from the world.
On the battlefield of industry unite.
On the battlefield of politics unite.
Seize the powers of government.
Use these powers of government—in self-defense.
Great working class multitude, great meek majority! Stand erect in your
vast class might and become—authority.
The working class must themselves defend the working class.
“Do not expect your chains to forge themselves into the key of freedom.”
Begin.
Begin now.
Begin a campaign to capture the brain of your working class neighbor for
the grand new Movement for the Freedom of the Working Class.
Do something.
Be Somebody.
Help conquer in our day.
War costs.
Meekness costs—costs the working class its labor, its blood and tears,
its happiness—its Life.
Let us defend ourselves—AS A CLASS.
-----
Footnote 25:
Biglow Papers.
Footnote 26:
Lecture on Voltaire.
Footnote 27:
“I want for soldiers young men not only willing but _anxious_ to
fight,”—that foul and savage saying is one of the choice mouthings of
Theodore Roosevelt, in a public address in which that cheap,
distinguished and much flattered Noise disgraced the office of
President of the American “Republic.”
Footnote 28:
See Chapter Five, Section Two; Chapter Eight, Section 11; also Index:
“Disease in the Army.”
Footnote 29:
Chatterton-Hill: _Heredity and Selection in Sociology_, pp. 320–22.
Footnote 30:
Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1907, p. 17.
Footnote 31:
Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1909, p. 17. Emphasis mine. G.
R. K.
Footnote 32:
Quoted by Elbert Hubbard in _Health and Wealth_. See _New Age_, Aug.
5, 1909.
Footnote 33:
See also President D. S. Jordan’s brilliant sociological studies of
war, references in Chapter XII. of present volume. Of some interest
are Victor Hugo’s estimates in _William Shakespeare_, Part Third, Book
III., Chapter I.
Footnote 34:
Chatterton-Hill in _Heredity and Selection in Sociology_ makes the
total 21,000,000.
Footnote 35:
See Galey: _Classic Myths of English Literature_, pp. 57–8.
Footnote 36:
Restelle: _Arena_, October, 1906.
Footnote 37:
“In round numbers ... so that it is safe to say that more than 700,000
men were killed in the war.”—Professor MacMaster: _School History of
the United States_, p. 422. See Index: “Non-combatants.”
Footnote 38:
See quotation from Preface of Bloch’s _Future of War_ near close of
present chapter.
Footnote 39:
_Financial History of the United States_, Vol. III., p. 241.
Footnote 40:
_Arena_, Jan., 1897.
Footnote 41:
The appropriations for the Navy alone in 1910 are $134,000,000,—which
amount is just ten times as great as in 1886. The New York _World’s_
estimate (editorial, March, 1910) is $500,000,000 as the annual cost
of militarism in the United States.
Footnote 42:
_The Contemporary Review_, August, 1909.
Footnote 43:
New York _World_, March 1, 1910. See also _The World_, February 1,
1910.
Footnote 44:
See Report of Commissioner of Education, 1908, Vol. II., p. 617.
Footnote 45:
See Report of Commissioner of Education for 1908, Vol. II., pp.
616–17. These 464 admit men only, or both men and women.
Footnote 46:
P. F. McCarthy in the New York _World_.
Footnote 47:
Address delivered at the Peace Banquet, Chicago, May 4, 1909; quoted
in _Unity_, June 3, 1909.
Footnote 48:
New York _World_, April 4, 1910. See also New York _Times_ editorial,
February 19, 1910.
Footnote 49:
In the House of Commons, March 29, 1909.
Footnote 50:
_The Society of Tomorrow_, p. 30.
Footnote 51:
Editorial, May 4, 1909.
Footnote 52:
Reference for most of the phrasing of this paragraph has been lost.
Footnote 53:
C. E. Jefferson, in the _Atlantic Monthly_, quoted in _Public Opinion_
(address?), March 26, 1909.
Footnote 54:
_Public Debts_, pp. 3, 4, 6.
Footnote 55:
_Arena_, January, 1898.
Footnote 56:
See _The Investor’s Review_, London, April, 1901, and _National
Review_, London, June, 1903, respectively; quoted by Walter Walsh:
_Moral Damage of War_, pp. 416–17.
Footnote 57:
See Bloch’s _Future of War_, pp. 137–39; recent _Statesman’s
Year-Books_, “national expense” tables; also _Labor Leader_ (London),
Nov. 1, 1907.
Footnote 58:
Kim: _Mind and Hand_, pp. 290–92. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 59:
_The International_, July, 1908.
Footnote 60:
See Index: “Socialist Party and War.”
Footnote 61:
Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 62:
“The export trade of all nations combined amounts to less than
$12,000,000,000 per annum.” Harold Bolce: _The New Internationalism_,
p. 87.
Footnote 63:
_Economic Interpretation of History_, pp. 393–94. Italics mine. G. R.
K.
Footnote 64:
Bloch: _The Future of War_, Preface, p. XLVIII. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 65:
_Addresses on War_, p. 292.
Footnote 66:
Henry W. Longfellow: “The Arsenal at Springfield.”
CHAPTER FIVE.
Hell.
SECTION ONE: MODERN MURDERING MACHINERY.
Ah, so you are on your way to the recruiting station, are you? Well,
there will be plenty of time to enlist tomorrow, and there are also
seven days of next week that have not been touched yet. Do not be in a
hurry to sign your name. Wait a little—wait at least till you have read
the first two sections of this chapter.
Perhaps you are feverish.
Cool off before you enlist.[67]
Go back to the 60’s and read three or four lines of American Civil War
history before you enlist. Here they are in the words of a distinguished
authority, A. S. Bolles:[68]
“With the swift cooling of the war fever bounties became necessary
to stimulate enlistment.... In 1861 the highways were filled with
volunteers eagerly rushing to the front; but in 1865 they went with
much slower pace and with a much better conception of the hazardous
game of war.”
The hateful method called drafting had to be vigorously applied by the
Federal Government after the young men found out what war really
meant—for them.
And Professor John B. McMaster (University of Pennsylvania) makes it
clear that even the hot blood of the young men of the South also cooled
down to an extremely rational temperature as the slaughter proceeded. He
says:[69]
“Quite as desperate were the shifts to which the South was put for
soldiers. At first every young man was eager to rush to the front.
But as time passed ... it became necessary to force men into the
ranks, to ‘conscript’ them....”
In this connection read the words of a great Union soldier, General
Sherman:
“I confess without shame that I am tired and sick of the war. Its
glory is all moonshine. Even success the most brilliant is over dead
and mangled bodies, the anguish and lamentations of distant families
appealing to me for missing sons, husbands and fathers. It is only
those who have not heard a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of
the wounded and lacerated that cry aloud for more blood, more
vengeance, more desolation.”[70]
It is especially important that before you enlist you should get a
distinct idea of the horrible deadliness of modern butchering machinery.
Since General Sherman made the comment just quoted on the American Civil
War the killing machinery has been improved astonishingly.
IN THE RECENT RUSSIAN-JAPANESE WAR INDIVIDUAL SOLDIERS, AS SHOWN BY
ACTUAL COUNT AND OFFICIAL REPORT, RECEIVED AS MANY AS SEVENTY BULLET
WOUNDS,—THEY WERE RIDDLED—TORN TO PIECES—WITH LEAD AND STEEL FIRED FROM
MODERN SLAUGHTERING MACHINES. IF YOU WILL READ ALL OF THE PRESENT AND
THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS YOU WILL NO LONGER WONDER WHY THE “VERY BEST
PEOPLE” DO NOT ENLIST FOR ACTUAL SERVICE—AT THE FRONT.
I would suggest and even urge, brothers, that, before you enlist, you
visit your dear pastor and read with him all of the present section on
“Hell,” and then ask him whether he and his sons will probably enlist
for actual firing-line-sword-rifle-and-bayonet service. Also have a
heart-to-heart talk with your loving friend, your banker, who takes care
of your money for you. Read these paragraphs to him and ask him whether
he is eager to rush to the front and whether he is urging his sons and
sons-in-law to be ready to rush with him to the front for real fighting
into “the grasp of death,” into “the hurricane’s fiery breath,” where
sabres flash, bullets hiss, and cannon roar.
By the way, do you deposit much money in the bank? Do you often visit
socially at the banker’s home? Did you ever see a cheap,
fifteen-dollar-a-month soldier courting the banker’s or the big
manufacturer’s daughter?
Well, hardly.
Wake up, my working class brother.
These leading citizens strut before you and fill you full of fierce and
splendid talk about becoming “brave boys behind the gun”; but at the
same time they despise you socially. Don’t foolishly get _behind_ the
gun or in _front_ of the gun—not at least till you have studied the gun.
A high-grade modern rifle can be fired twenty-five times per minute.
This gun will pierce 60 pine boards each one inch thick. It will kill a
man at a distance of four miles. A bullet with sufficient force to
pierce a one-inch pine board will kill a man or a horse. Actual tests
show that the best modern rifles will force a bullet through a target
made of the following combination:—fifteen folds of cow-hide, sixteen
one-inch pine boards, and one and four-fifths inches of hard beech wood.
Bullets fired from rifles used in the American Civil War would do little
damage after passing into or through the bodies of soldiers in the front
ranks. Men in the second and third ranks felt much protected by the
bodies of men in front of them. ALL IS DIFFERENT NOW. The best modern
rifles will force a bullet through five horses at 27 yards; four horses
at 220 yards; two horses at 1,100 yards. Even as recently as the war of
1870–71 and the war of 1877–78, bullets from rifles then used in the
German army would not pierce a human skull at a distance of 1,760 yards,
one mile; but with the best modern rifles bullets can be fired through
the thick bones of an ox at a range of 3,850 yards, about two and
one-fifth miles. Experiments demonstrate that the best modern rifles
will force a bullet through three human bodies at a range of 3,900 feet;
and through five human bodies at 1,200 feet. In the American Civil War
bullets for long range work had to be fired high, describing a long high
arch, thus missing all objects on the battlefield between the gun and
the object aimed at. A bullet from a modern rifle will fly straight
across the field for hundreds of yards with no elevation, even half a
mile and more with but little elevation, sweeping the whole width of the
field between the gun and the target.[71]
The deadliness of the modern rifle can be made clear in another way.
Says Bloch:
“According to the data of the Prussian general Rohne one hundred
sharp-shooters will put a battery out of action, firing at a
distance of 88 yards in the course of two and two-fifths minutes,
1,100 yards in the course of four minutes, 1,320 yards in the course
of seven and a half minutes, 1,650 yards in the course of twenty-two
minutes.”
“The new Springfield rifle,” says Fitzmorris,[72] “has a range of
five miles, the bullet having a velocity of 2,300 feet per second
leaving the weapon, or sufficient to drive it through four and a
half feet of white pine.”
The “attractiveness” of war increases, of course, with the likelihood
that the improving marksmanship of the enemy will increase one’s chances
for meeting an “attraction.” The accuracy of fire is being rapidly
improved by tireless target practice in all the great armies of the
world. Says Mr. Wright, Ex-Secretary of War:[73]
“The results from target practice for the year 1907 and 1908 show
that the average battery-hitting capacity has been rapidly
increased.... About sixteen times as many hits were made in 1906
from the same gun in a given time at the same range as were made in
1900.”
Under no circumstances should the delicate flesh of a big business man
be exposed to well-aimed bullets fired from a modern rifle. His flesh
is, of course, specially sensitive and precious. Moreover, it is wholly
unnecessary, because he can buy the flesh of a common working class man
for bullet stopper purposes very, very cheap, as a substitute. That is a
much better arrangement, the big business man thinks, and, of course,
the working men agree with the business men on this matter just as they
do on nearly everything else.
The Danish “Rexer” rifle is another instrument ready for use in war and
in pacifying hungry people on strike. The “Rexer” weighs only eighteen
pounds, uses high-power, small-calibre ammunition, is easily and
accurately operated from a handy, portable “rest,” can be conveniently
carried on horseback, rushed up front for short distances by infantry,
can be fired slowly or, if desired, by simply holding the trigger, 300
times per minute. Equipped with this rifle one full regiment of soldiers
or militiamen, each firing only 75 shots per minute, could fire into the
ranks of wildly hungry strikers or unemployed one million five hundred
thousand prosperity slugs in twenty minutes. With this gun ten
militiamen could “quiet” five thousand strikers with twenty-five
thousand shots in ten minutes.[74]
With the improved murdering machine called the Maxim gun 700 bullets per
minute can be fired, bullets that will kill a man at a range of one and
a half miles, bullets that will pacify a striker at a range of two
miles. The Gatling gun equipped with an electric motor will discharge
1,800 death-dealing bullets per minute.[75]
“The Gatling gun,” says Morris,[76] “... is now, in its perfected
form, in use all over the world. This consists of a cluster of
rifle-barrels arranged around a central shaft and rotated by a
crank. The magazine contains a supply of cartridges, which drop down
and are rammed home one after another as the barrels rotate. This,
in the later improved forms, is done with such rapidity that the gun
can discharge its balls at the rate of 3,000 per minute.... Machine
guns were designed for service against bodies of men.”
ONE MODERN GATLING GUN WILL TEAR A BOARD FENCE TO PIECES A MILE AWAY IN
FOUR MINUTES, AND AT A RANGE OF ONE MILE IT WILL GNAW OFF A FOOT-THICK
PINE POST IN SEVEN MINUTES.
Don’t enlist till next week.
No wonder the politicians and big business men are “too busy” to get in
line on the firing-line—patriotically. And, of course, they do not want
their sons and sons-in-law to get up close in front of a belching
Gatling gun,—in front of a modern murdering machine—patriotically.
IF A BATTERY OF MODERN GATLING GUNS, CONCEALED, USING SMOKELESS POWDER,
LOCATED OUT OF HEARING A MILE AWAY OR NEARER AND EQUIPPED WITH A MAXIM
NOISELESS ATTACHMENT,—SHOULD BE TRAINED UPON A REGIMENT OF MEN, EACH GUN
POURING ONE THOUSAND BULLETS PER MINUTE INTO AN EXPOSED REGIMENT, THE
ONLY OBSERVABLE RESULT WOULD BE THIS: THE REGIMENT WOULD MELT, STRICKEN
BY AN UNSEEN, UNHEARD BREATH OF DEATH.
General William P. Duval, of the United States Military Staff and War
College, estimates that the Maxim noiseless attachment for fire-arms
“would produce just as much of a revolution in the art of war as did the
smokeless powder. Psychologically, this new gun would double the terror
inspired by the enemy possessing it.... The fear of the enemy would ...
at least be doubled.”
_Ordering the working class to go to war with the present fire-arms is
like ordering a working man to make a gun, load it, dig his own grave,
crawl down into it, and there scream “Hurrah for death!” and then shoot
himself._
Perhaps the best way, at least the safest way, to get an accurate idea
of the effectiveness of the slaughtering machinery of our day is to read
what these guns accomplish in actual operation on the battlefield,
pouring showers, streams, storms of lead and steel into the ranks of
men. The propaganda of peace is powerfully served by books giving
distinct impressions of war as it may be seen (and felt) on the field
where modern arms are used. Some specially excellent books for such use
are: _Human Bullets_, by T. Sakurai, a Japanese soldier;[77] _Port
Arthur, A Monster Heroism_, by Richard Barry;[78] _The Red Laugh_, by
Leonid Andreief;[79] _The Downfall_, by Emile Zola;[80] _The Future of
War_, by Jean Bloch.[81]
Here following are some paragraphs from a vigorous book of this type,
_Human Bullets_, just noted, passim, which treats of the
Russian-Japanese War:
“The dismal horror of it [battle] can best be observed when the
actual struggle is over. The shadow of impartial Death visits friend
and foe alike. When a shocking massacre is over, countless corpses
covered with blood lie flat in the grass and between the stones.
What a deep philosophy their cold faces tell! When we saw the dead
at Nanshan, we could not help covering our eyes in horror and
disgust.... Some were crushed in head and face. Their brains mixed
with dust and earth. The intestines were torn out and blood was
trickling from them.... Some had photographs of their wives and
children in their bosoms, and these pictures were spattered with
blood.... After this battle we captured some damaged machine-guns.
This fire-arm was most dreaded by us.... It can be made to sprinkle
its shots as roads are watered with a hose. It can cover a larger or
smaller space, or fire to greater or less distance as the gunner
wills.... If one becomes the target for this terrible engine of
destruction, three or four shots may go through the same place
making a wound very large.... And the sound it makes ... is like a
power-loom. It is a sickening horrible sound! The Russians regarded
this machine as their best friend. And it certainly did very much as
a means of defense. They were wonderfully clever in the use of this
machine. They would wait till our men came very near them, four or
five ken only, and just as we were ready to shout a triumphant
‘Banzai!’ this dreadful machine would begin to sweep over us the
besom of destruction, the result being hills and mounds of dead.
After this battle we discovered one soldier ... who had no less than
forty-seven shots in his body.... Another soldier of a neighboring
regiment received more than seventy shots. These instances prove how
destructive is the machine-gun. The surgeons could not locate so
many wounds in one body, and they invented a new name [meaning]
‘whole-body-honey-combed-with-gun-wounds.’ ... It was invariably
this machine-gun that made us suffer most severely.... The bodies of
the brave dead built hill upon hill, their blood made streams in the
valley. Shattered bones, torn flesh, flowing blood, were mingled
with broken swords and split rifles. What could be more shocking
than this scene! We jumped over or stepped on the heaped up corpses
and went on holding our noses. What a grief it was to have to tread
on the bodies of our heroic dead!... What a horrible sight! Their
bodies were piled up two or three or even four deep.... A sad
groaning came from the wounded who were buried under the dead. When
this gallant assaulting column had pressed upon the enemy’s forts,
stepping over their dead comrades’ bodies, the terrible and skilful
fire of the machine-guns had killed them all, close by the forts,
piling the dead upon the wounded.... After a while the shells ...
began to burst briskly above our heads. Percussion balls fell around
us and hurled up smoke and blood together. Legs, hands and necks
were cut into black fragments and scattered about. I shut my
eyes....”
In what unqualified contempt do the masters of the world hold the
toilers whom they send into such blood-wasting hells. Shakespeare has
expressed the masters’ scorn for the common soldier’s flesh and blood
thus:
“Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder; food for powder;
they’ll fill a pit as well as better.”
Here is a glimpse of the battle of Sedan:[82]
“Let your readers fancy masses of colored rags glued together with
blood and brains, pinned into strange shapes by fragments of bones.
Let them conceive men’s bodies without legs, and legs without
bodies, heaps of human entrails attached to red and blue cloth, and
disembowelled corpses in uniform, bodies lying about in all
attitudes with skulls shattered, faces blown off, hips smashed,
bones, flesh and gay clothing all pounded together as if brayed in a
mortar, extending for miles, not very thick in any one place, but
recurring perpetually for weary hours, and then they can not with
the most vivid imagination come up to the sickening reality of that
butchery [the battle of Sedan, 1870].”
IT IS RELIABLY ESTIMATED THAT MODERN ARTILLERY IS CAPABLE OF DOING ONE
HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN TIMES MORE DAMAGE THAN THE ARTILLERY USED BY THE
GERMAN ARMY IN 1870. Even the simple instrument known as the
range-finder adds much to effectiveness,—it enables soldiers to find the
range in three minutes and pour death-dealing missiles into the human
targets promptly. This instrument weighs about sixty pounds and is being
rapidly improved.[83] A single battery of modern artillery can hurl
1,450 rounds upon ten regiments of men while they march one mile and a
half. These 1,450 shells arranged with time fuses to burst at the target
would sweep these ten thousand men with 275,000 bullets and ragged iron
scraps. Bloch says:[84]
“In 1870 an ordinary shell when it burst broke into from 19 to 30
pieces. Today it bursts into 240 pieces. Shrapnel in 1870 scattered
only 37 death-dealing missiles. Now it scatters 340. A bomb weighing
about 70 pounds, thirty years ago, would have burst into 42
fragments. Today, when it is charged with peroxilene, it breaks into
1,200 pieces, each of which is hurled with much greater velocity
than the larger lumps which were scattered by a gunpowder explosion.
It is estimated that such a bomb would destroy all life within a
range of 200 metres [about 200 yards] of the point of the
explosion.... With the increase in the number of bullets and
fragments, and in the forces which disperse them, increases also the
area which they affect. Splinters and bullets bring death and
destruction, not only as in 1870, to those in the vicinity of the
explosion, but at a distance of 220 yards away, and this tho’ fired
from a distance of 3,300 yards [about two miles].... In a time when
rifle and artillery fire were beyond comparison weaker than they are
now, those who were left unhelped on the battlefield might hope for
safety. But now, when the whole field of battle is covered with an
uninterrupted hail of bullets and fragments of shells [at night too,
with a searchlight equipment], there is little place for such hope.”
Surely you can easily see that a business man’s soft, fat flesh won’t do
for a bullet-stopper. Here is where the cheap, meek, weak wage-slaves
come in handy—the _very stuff for bullet-stoppers_.
In connection with this subject, remember that a bullet fired from a
modern rifle or a Gatling gun rotates over 3,800 times per second. This
rotary motion produces the effect of an explosion when the bullet
strikes the stomach, bladder, or heart—where there are liquids. The
effect is horrible; with terrible violence “the liquids are cast on all
sides with the destructive effect of an explosion.”—(Bloch.)
Of course, the business man knows that _his_ flesh should never be torn
with such a horrible thing. He has nothing to fear, however. He will not
go to war. He will send a cheap man, a wage-slave substitute. He knows
it doesn’t make any difference in the case of a cheap wage-earner who is
only a working-class slave.
Ah, my working-class reader, it _will_ make a difference when the
working class become proud enough and shrewd enough to defiantly declare
that it _shall_ be different. The business man is too proud and shrewd
to stand up before these modern flesh-tearing machines.
Don’t be in a hurry to enlist, brother. Wait a few more days. Two weeks
after next will do. The “very _best_ people” in your town are not
hurrying to enlist. Can’t you see the point? Before you enlist, or
before you consent to have your son or younger brother enlist, be sure
to read some books describing real war with improved murdering
machinery. A brilliant war correspondent, Mr. Richard Barry, thus
describes a modern war-storm in his book, descriptive of the
Japanese-Russian War, _Port Arthur, A Monster Heroism_, passim:[85]
“Toward three o’clock a second advance is ordered ... nearly 15,000
men close in ... now they are through [the wire fence] ... half
naked, savage, yelling, even Japanese stoicism gone. Up to the very
muzzles of the first entrenchments they surge, waver and break like
the dash of angry waves against a rock-bound coast.... _Officers are
picked off by sharp-shooters, as flies are flecked from a molasses
jug_.... So up they go, for the tenth time.... Spottsylvania Court
House was no more savage.... Thus hand to hand they grapple, sweat,
bleed, shout, expire. The veneer of culture sloughed as a snake his
cast-off skin; they spit and chew, claw and grip as their
forefathers beyond the memory of man.... The cost! The fleeing ones
left _five hundred corpses in four trenches_. The others paid _seven
times that price_—killed and wounded—to turn across the page of the
world’s warfare that word Nanshan.... A hospital ship left every day
for Japan carrying from 200 to 1,000.... I lay in the broiling sun
watching the soldiers huddle against the barbed-wire, under the
machine guns ... only to melt away like chaff before a wind.... The
‘pioneers’ met with the death-sprinkle of the Maxim [guns] ... a
machine rattled and the shale beyond spattered. I was carried back
[in memory] to a boiler factory and an automatic riveter. Of all war
sounds that of the machine gun is least poetic, is most deadly....
The regiment under fire of the machine guns retreated precipitately,
leaving _one-half its number_ on the slope.... Overwhelmed on all
sides, tricked, defeated, _two-thirds of its men killed or
wounded_ ... for out of that [another] brigade of 6,000 men there
are ... uninjured but 640.... Moreover in throwing up their
trenches ... _corpses had to be used to improvise the walls_....
_The dead were being used to more quickly fill the embankments_....
Soon dawn came and with it hell. The battle was on again. Within his
sight were more than a hundred dead and twice as many wounded.
Groans welled up like bubbles from a pot. Arms tossed feverishly.
Backs writhed in despair.... Almost crazed by thirst and hunger, he
[a wounded soldier unattended for days on the battlefield] at length
severed the arteries of one of his comrades newly dead, and lived on
[that is, sucked blood from a comrade’s corpse?]. He found worms
crawling in the wounds of his legs. He tore up the shirt of a corpse
and bound them.... How like a living thing a shell snarls—as some
wild beast, in ferocious glee thrusting its cruel fangs in earth and
rock, rending livid flesh with its savage claws, and its fetid
breath of poison powder scorching in the autumn winds.... All the
way up the base of the hill ... they were almost unmolested.... This
made them confident. But the Russian general ... had ordered his men
to reserve their fire till we got within close range, and then to
give it to us with machine guns.... The aim was so sure and firing
so heavy that _nearly two-thirds of the command was mowed down at
once_.... Then came the thud of a bullet. It was a different thud
from any we had heard up to that time, and though I had never before
heard bullet strike flesh, I could not mistake the sound. It goes
into the earth wholesome and angry, into flesh ripping and sick with
a splash like a hoof-beat of mud in the face.... The parapets of
four forts were alive with bursting shrapnel. A hundred a minute
were exploding on each (at fifteen gold dollars apiece). The air
above them was black with glycerine gases of the motor shells, and
the wind blowing ... held huge quantities of dust.... ‘No, the truth
about war can not be told. It is too horrible. _The public will not
listen._ A white bandage about the forehead with a strawberry mark
in the center—is the picture they want of the wounded. _They won’t
let you tell them the truth_ and show bowels ripped out, brains
spilled, eyes gouged away, faces blanched with horror.... Archibald
Forbes predicted twenty years ago that the time would come when
armies would no longer be able to take their wounded from the field
of battle. That day has come. We are living in it. Wounded have
existed—how, God knows—on that field out there without help for
twelve days, while shells and bullets rained about them, and if a
comrade had dared to come to their assistance, his would have been a
useless suicide. The searchlight, enginery of scientific trenches,
machine-guns, rifles point blank at 200 yards with a range of over
2,000—these things have helped to make war more terrible than ever
before in history. Red Cross societies and scientific
text-books—they sell well and look pretty, but as for “humane
warfare”—was there ever put into words a mightier sarcasm!’”
Read all of Mr. Barry’s thrilling book and thus learn why the haughty
“very best people,” who despise the workingmen, socially, don’t go
themselves, up close, to the foul and bloody hell called war.
In the Russian-Japanese war 275 officers and 1,349 men were treated in a
single hospital for insanity. Says Dr. Awtokratow:
“As might be anticipated, in the acute insanities, particularly in
neurasthenic and confusional cases, the influence of the war gave a
characteristic color to the mental symptoms, phases of panic terror,
with hallucinations of bursting shells, pursuing enemies, putrefying
corpses, and so forth, being especially frequent.”[86]
A special despatch in the New York _Times_ of December 11, 1909, reads:
“A carload of insane soldiers from the Philippines passed through
Pittsburgh [Pennsylvania] today in charge of Major J. M. Kennedy,
who was taking them to Washington from the Pacific Coast.”[87]
The soldiers of the American Civil War did not use—had not even heard
of—the terrible explosives of our day. Melinite, dynamite, cordite,
indurite, motorite, ecrasite, peroxilene and other explosive compounds
vastly increase the effectiveness of modern arms and in other ways also
multiply the dangers of the modern battlefield.
Mr. Charles Morris describes a dynamite gun as follows:[88]
“The dynamite gun, compressed air usually being employed, while
forty feet long, has a barrel of three-eighth inch iron, with
one-eighth inch brass tubing. The projectile is of brass, forty
inches long, rotation being given it by spiral vanes fixed to its
base. It has a conical cast-iron point, twelve inches long. At a
trial in 1895 shells were thrown as far as two thousand five hundred
yards, and one containing one hundred pounds of dynamite was thrown
a distance of two miles. Great accuracy of aim was attained. This
dangerous weapon is an object of dread by naval officers.”
Writing of modern explosives, M. Bloch says, in substance: Such enormous
energy is developed in firing cannon using some of these explosives that
gun, gunners and horses have been dragged a considerable distance. In
the case of a shell exploding by slight accident due to excitement the
body of the gun was broken into twenty pieces, the carriage and wheels
were reduced to a pile of shapeless steel and wooden splinters; single
fragments of the destroyed gun “weighed 363 pounds and were hurled 99
yards forward and backward from the place where the gun was fired, and
nearly 108 yards on either side.” He calls special attention to the
_dangers due to having such explosives on the field of battle_. He
says:[89]
“Notwithstanding the distance between guns, _a single explosion
might embrace several guns and all their ammunition_.
“Not far from the battery ammunition cases will be placed. If these
be not exploded by the concussion of the atmosphere they may very
easily be exploded by some of the heavy fragments which fall upon
them.”
Let us look for a moment at a new kind of storm—a possible dynamite
storm.
A rifle bullet fired into a stick of dynamite will explode the dynamite.
A bullet accidentally fired from a high-power rifle into a dynamite
factory even a mile distant might easily destroy the entire factory and
destroy at the same time all life in and within hundreds of yards of the
factory, because of the highly explosive nature of the dynamite. The
same is true of factories in which other terrible explosives are being
prepared for use on the battlefield. Such explosive materials in chests
on the field of battle create, of course, enormous danger that
_thousands may be destroyed with their own ammunition_. One steel
bullet, or one shell, fired from a modern high-power gun into a chest of
shells or bombs, loaded as they are with highly explosive material,—one
such bullet or shell thus fired, might set off a chest of shells and
carry death to all around, these shells, exploding other chests of
shells, and these still others, creating a sort of _hell in all
directions_. The possibilities thus created by modern highly explosive
ammunition materials are terrible, horrible to contemplate. Suppose ten
thousand men on the battlefield, and suppose an explosion due to a
single shell crashing into a chest of shells. A series of explosions
might follow. The first explosion, caused by one shot, might be
communicated from the first bursting shell to the next, and so on in
succession with startling rapidity. The thundering explosions would
cause a cyclone of flying splinters of wood and steel, scrap-iron,
cannon barrels, wagon wheels, the torn carcasses, the mingled flesh,
blood and bones of dismembered horses and men,—a storm of hopeless and
hideous confusion, a harvest of death utterly indescribable. Thousands
of brave young fellows from the farm, factories, mines and other
industries would thus be practically annihilated with their own
ammunition.
What a place this would be (up close) for “prominent citizens”—bankers,
priests, preachers, bishops, senators, lawyers and “captains of
industry”! A storm of blood and steel! No, brother, oh, no. No dynamite
cyclone for these pulmonary patriots. Hardly. There is plenty of
“common” flesh and “common” blood of the “plain people” which can be
bought cheap, dirt cheap.
Reflect for a moment on the horrible possibilities of the airship
carrying a light machine gun with a good supply of ammunition, or
carrying 1,000 or 1,500 pounds of dynamite aloft over an army, a city,
or a fleet. The airship, though still very new, is already sufficiently
developed to make it practicable to work wholesale ruin in this way. In
March, 1909, Count Zeppelin’s dirigible airship, 445 feet long, 50 feet
in diameter, carrying three motors, a searchlight, and twenty-five
people, fifteen of them soldiers, made a hundred-and-fifty-mile trip at
the rate of almost forty miles an hour. Hudson Maxim, the inventor and
expert in high explosives, torpedo boat-destroyers, noiseless gun
attachments, and the like, speaks thus of the airship as a fighting
machine:[90]
“The great field for operations with high explosives carried in
airships will be the raiders’ outfit. Aerial raiders would be able
to do wide destruction on unprotected inland cities and towns,
destroying railroads, blowing up bridges, arsenals, public stores,
powder magazines and powder mills, and in levying ransom on moneyed
institutions.... In future wars, the fronts of battle will be
skyline and opposing skyline, and over the stupendous arena missiles
of death will shriek and roar, while sharp-shooters with silent
rifles will make ambush in copse and every hedge and highway.”
Now let us look for a moment at the greater cannon.
“A day will come,” said Victor Hugo,[91] “when a cannon will be
exhibited in the public museums, just as an instrument of torture is
now, and people will be astonished how such thing could have been.”
The new 14–inch gun fires a 1,600–pound projectile. Used at its maximum
capacity it puts itself out of commission in six and one-half hours
because of the frightful wear of the gun’s heavy charges upon
itself.[92] The 16–inch seacoast gun exhibited at the World’s Fair in
1904 is officially described as having a “muzzle energy of
projectile ... 76,904 foot tons.”
“The Masonic Temple in Chicago, until recently the largest office
building in the world, weighs 30,000 tons. In firing a 14–inch gun,
sufficient energy is developed to lift the Masonic Temple two feet
in one second. The force behind a single eight-gun broadside from
14–inch guns would raise that building sixteen feet in a single
second.”[93]
The United States Government has a 16–inch cannon; it can throw a shot
weighing 2,000 pounds to an extreme range of twenty-one miles, and has
an effective range of twelve miles. It has been fired four times.
And now think of a murdering machine 50 feet long, weighing 260,000
pounds, consuming 612 pounds of smokeless powder per charge, firing a
projectile weighing 2,400 pounds through 23½ inches of Krupp steel
armor, and having a range of almost nine miles—a monster butchering
machine. The United States Government exhibited such a gun at the
World’s Fair, at St. Louis, in 1904,—exhibited this hell’s masterpiece
with pride, true, Christian, savage pride.
This huge gun was exhibited—shrewdly.
What for?
Many youths from Christian homes looked upon this mechanical monster and
themselves became monsters—in their hearts—eager to butcher, “not only
willing, but _anxious_ to fight.”
Human slaughter has become a science. The machines are perfect and
ready, all ready, for the _working_ class to use—on the working class.
SECTION TWO: THE SILENT DESTROYER—DISEASE.
The barking rifle, the snarling Gatling gun, and the booming
cannon—these have also on the battlefield a foul and powerful
confederate, Disease. Disease joins in to poison the blood the guns do
not spill. On this important matter the reader will appreciate the
expert testimony here offered.
“In every great campaign,” says L. L. Seaman,[94] “an army faces two
enemies: First, the armed force of the opposing foe with his various
machines for human destruction, met at intervals in open battles;
and, second, the hidden foe, always lurking in every camp, the
spectre that gathers its victims while the soldier slumbers in the
barracks or bivouacs, the greater silent foe—disease. Of these
enemies, the history of warfare for centuries shows that in extended
campaigns, the first or open enemy kills twenty per cent. of the
total mortality; while the second, or silent, enemy kills eighty per
cent. In other words, out of every hundred men who fall in war,
twenty die from casualties of battle, while eighty perish from
disease.... It is in these conditions that we find the true hell of
war.... Health alone, however, is no guarantee against the insidious
attacks of the silent foe that lingers in every camp and bivouac. It
is this foe, as the records of war for the past two hundred years
have proved, that is responsible for four times as many deaths as
the guns of the enemy, to say nothing of the vast number temporarily
invalided or discharged as unfit for duty.... In the Russo-Turkish
war, the deaths from the battle casualties were 20,000, while those
from disease were 80,000. In our great Civil conflict ... 400,000
were sacrificed to disease to 100,000 from battle casualties. In a
recent campaign of the French in Madagascar 14,000 were sent to the
front, of whom 29 were killed in action, and over 7,000 perished
from preventable diseases. In the Boer War in South Africa the
English losses were ten times greater from disease than from the
bullets of the enemy. In our recent war with Spain fourteen lives
were needlessly sacrificed to ignorance and incompetency for every
man who died on the firing line or from results of wounds.
“In our Spanish Army we had:
170,000 men,
156,000 hospital admissions in three months,
3,976 dead.
“The remainder were mustered out, most of them, in shrunken and
shriveled condition which the reader probably remembers. Our Army of
Invasion numbered 20,000; in 1908 there were 24,000 pensioners; of
these 24,000, over 19,000 are invalids and survivors of the war; and
there are over 18,000 claims pending.”
Here is Theodore Roosevelt’s testimony:[95]
“Our army [in Cuba] included the great majority of the regulars, and
was, therefore, the flower of the American force.... Every officer
other than myself except one was down with sickness at one time or
another.... Very few of the men indeed retained their strength and
energy ... there were less than fifty per cent. who were fit for any
kind of work.”
Disease as a destroyer appears in the data furnished by C. Goltz, a few
lines of which interesting facts run thus:[96]
“It is horrible to see trains packed full with sick soldiers sent
away from the army.... The loss from sickness is almost incredible,
and one example is sufficient to prove that these losses may put all
success at stake. The sanitary conditions of the German army in
France in 1870 was very favorable; there were no dangerous
infectious diseases. Nevertheless, 400,000 men were entered at the
hospitals during the campaign, in addition to those dangerously
wounded.”
Anitchkow thus testifies:[97]
“In such a rich country as France, and in such a splendid climate,
the army lost four times more from disease than from battles.
[Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71.] It is evident that the force of
modern arms ... presents less danger than infectious diseases and
other sicknesses inseparable from the rough life of large
camps.”[98]
An anonymous author, quoted on a preceding page, calls attention[99] to
a matter of great importance in this connection, namely, the decreasing
opportunity to carry the wounded off the battlefield and the consequent
increasing terrors for the men who lie torn, feverish and unattended on
the field lighted at night with searchlights and raked with machine
guns, not only during the day, but also at night, making prompt rescue
and surgical attention impossible. He writes:
“One of the most cruel features in future battles will be the
contrast between the great improvement in medical service, and the
increasing difficulty, despite the Red Cross, of giving aid to the
wounded.... His conclusion [the conclusions of Dr. Bardeleben, who
was Surgeon-General of the Prussian Army during the Franco-Prussian
War] was that the whole system of carrying away the wounded on
litters during the battle must be abandoned as altogether
impracticable. This I believe has proved to be generally true. And
now battles last a week or ten days! Something, of course, can be
done under cover of the night—though the custom of fighting at night
prevails more and more.... It is probable that, in spite of all
improvements in medicine and ambulance, the sufferings of the
wounded in the great battles in Manchuria and at the siege of Port
Arthur have been as great as, if not greater than, those of any war
of recent times.”
_Here it is to be emphasized by the young man who is thinking of joining
the army that in spite of the loud outcry against the poor fellows of
our army in the Cuban war in the way of criminally inefficient medical
service, our great and extremely patriotic statesmen who love the common
soldiers so dearly have in the twelve years since the war made no
adequate preparation to prevent another such outrage._ Let the following
stand as evidence of this statement:[100]
“_Under the existing organization it would be impossible to prevent
a breakdown of the Medical Department_ in case of a war involving
the mobilization of the volunteer forces, nor would it be possible
to spare the necessary Regular medical officers to apply in those
voluntary forces the modern sanitary measures so vital to the health
and efficiency of the troops, without which unnecessary suffering is
produced and disaster is invited.”
Thus also the New York _Times_:[101]
“The admission rate into the hospitals for the American Army is [now
in the time of peace] 1,250 per 1,000 each year. The _British
Annual_ notes that this enormous rate is well above that for the
French, German and Austrian armies, while the hospital lists for the
British Army show a rate of but 324 per thousand.”
However, all this, so far as personal danger is concerned, is of _small
importance to the leading citizens_, because _they_—these leaders—will
never lead or be led to war. They have nothing to fear from hissing
bullet, burning fever, and the death-grip of devouring diseases in war.
The plain, cheap wage-slave, the industrial draft-horses, the common men
forced to keep books for a poor little salary, the fifteen-dollar-a-week
clerks, the blistered miners, the tanned railroad men, the
grease-stained machinists, the soil-stained farm toilers, these, all
these and many others must learn one thing distinctly, and that thing is
this: Modern human butchering machinery has been so highly developed,
and disease in war is so hideous, that “our best citizens,” “our very
_best_ people,” “our most successful men,” politely (and intelligently)
decline all “glorious opportunities” to have their smooth fat bodies
exposed to the steel-belching machines, or have their health ruined on
the battlefield and in the “dead-house” called a military hospital. The
common earth must not drink up their rich aristocratic blood; no rough
army surgeon shall carve and slice and saw the “leading citizens” and
carelessly toss their severed arms and legs into a bloody heap of flesh
as a butcher tosses scraps and trimmings from steaks and chops from his
cutting block. Why, _certainly_ not. It should be remembered that such
people as bankers, big manufacturers, mine-owners, Senators,
Congressmen, great editors and the like, do not have much physical
exercise and at the same time they eat daintier food. They are not
strong in muscle, except for golf, horseback riding, swimming, hunting
trips, mountain climbing. They are softer in flesh than the wage-earner.
They belong to the “very _best_ families,” and hence their flesh is
finer, their “blue” blood is richer and more sacred than the
wage-earner’s cheap red ooze. They are the social thoroughbreds, and the
thoroughbreds believe that the thoroughbreds should be kept well out of
danger, while just the common social draft-horses are rushed to the
front where the modern butchering machinery is ready to mow down men by
the thousands and befouling disease is ready to rot the unspilt blood.
My working class brothers, mark it well: In the gilded, palatial homes
of the industrial masters, in their club houses, in their elegant
business offices, in the legislative halls where “statesmen” meet,—there
the so-called best people, the still-fed, stall-fed snobs and Caesars of
society never for one moment consider the matter of going themselves to
the front, never for an instant plan to go themselves into the cyclones
of lead and steel or into the death-grasp of disease in war.
Never!
To them the idea is so—well, so _unkind_—also ridiculous.
Their minds are made up.
They will not go.
But you, you brothers of the working class, you who toil on and on for
cheap clothing, cheap shelter and cheap food—you whose very lives are
bought and sold on the installment plan, for wages day by day—you who
are forced to become the socially despised human oxen—you—you will be
forced to the front, blinded with flattery and confused with gay-colored
flags and booming drums—you will virtually be forced to cut your own
throats—forced to blow out your own brains and blood with these modern
steel destroyers, and forced to expose your lives to the grim curse,
Disease. You will groan and scream and slowly rot and die in a dingy
hospital tent or shed far from those you love—laughed at (secretly) by
the _prominent_ people who have _already_ made up _their_ minds not to
go to war.
How long, O brothers of the working class, how long can you be seduced
to slay yourselves?
Leading citizens will bring about and brag about the wars.
But you, my brothers, will fight the wars.
Grim Disease waits ready to give you her slimy embrace.
The cold steel machines are ready—ready for heated men.
Keep cool.
Beware of the “war fever.”
NOTICE CAREFULLY:—Your wealthy employers are not enlisting for the
firing line. _They are immune from the fool’s fever._
Wait a little before you enlist. Think it over—till week after next.
YOU ARE SAFE—(JUST THINK OF IT)—ABSOLUTELY SAFE FROM DEATH IN THE NEXT
WAR—IF YOU CAN KEEP OFF THE FIRING LINE TILL THE “PROMINENT GENTLEMEN”
OF YOUR COMMUNITY HAVE BEEN ON THE FIRING-LINE FOR THIRTY DAYS.
Once again, brother, admit this thought to your brain:—The working class
must be the protectors of their own class—always.[102]
SECTION THREE: PEACEFUL SLAUGHTER—IN INDUSTRY.
Surely it is bad enough to have the workingmen slaughtered while on the
battlefield where each is armed and has his heart full of stupid hate
for his fellow workingman of some other country. But it is outrageous
that men, women, and little children should be killed and wounded by the
hundreds of thousands every year in our own country while they are
engaged in the useful, peaceful pursuits of industry. Let us briefly
consider this matter.
The owner of a _chattel_-slave worker is careful to PROTECT the
chattel-slave from accident, from sickness and from death. The
slave-owner buys the slave, buys his _whole_ life, at _one_ purchase;
and he is interested, therefore, in having the slave alive and well and
sound as long as possible in order to get out of the slave as much
labor-power as possible.
But the capitalist employer of the WAGE-slave worker does not buy the
wage-earner _for life_; he buys the wage-earner, the wage-slave, IN
SECTIONS; that is, for a month, or a week or a day at a time—eight or
ten hours’ labor-power per day. Thus there is _no risk_ for the
capitalist if the wage-earner falls sick and dies; he is not responsible
for the wage-earner’s health. If the grinding toil ages or sickens the
wage-earner it is nothing to the employer of the wage-slaves. There are
_plenty more_ wage-slaves eager to sell their labor-power if some get
sick or wounded, or die.
Of course it costs the employer, it is expensive to him, it reduces the
precious surplus,—it cuts down the profits on the labor-power he buys
for wages—to ventilate his factory perfectly, to keep it clean of dust,
foul odors and poisonous gases, to arrange safeguards about dangerous
machinery in order to protect the wage-earners against accident and
sickness. Railway companies, for example, are very slow to provide all
possible safeguards to protect employees—simply because it is expensive,
cuts down profits, reduces the surplus value. Human life, however, is
very cheap under the wage-system. Of course a safety device, a
ventilator, might save a human arm or a human life—of a wage-earner; but
the life-saving arrangement costs quite a bit of money. A new human
_arm_, another human _life_ (another worker) can easily be found to take
the place of the lost arm or the destroyed life—and _without extra
expense to the capitalist employer_. There are plenty of wage-slaves
waiting ’round anxious to be hired, and thus a WAGE-slave limb or life
can be replaced as easily as a wooden plug or a broken wheel in a
machine, and with no such loss as there would be if his workers were
CHATTEL-slaves. Thus the wage-slave plan is cheaper—more
_profitable_—and surely more _convenient_.
You can see that—can’t you?
Of course “it is cruel”—there is no sentiment in such a procedure. But
that does not matter, under capitalism: “Business is _business_”—and
“_there is no sentiment in business_,” we are assured of that by leading
Christian business men.
Hence everywhere there is vicious neglect by the capitalist employers in
the matter of protecting the health, limb and life of the WAGE-workers,
the WAGE-slaves. The wage-system is in this respect far more cruel and
murderous than the chattel-slave system. Of course it seems impossible
that capitalism is more inhumanly scornful of human life than was
chattel slavery. But here following is some evidence to show how the
greed for profits under the wage-system results in the slaughter of men,
women and children—far worse than under the chattel-slave system, even
far heavier slaughter than in actual war, real war in which even
wholesale butchery with sword, rifle and cannon means magnificent
success.
“It is the common consensus of opinion,” says The New York
_Independent_,[103] “among investigators that industrial casualties
in this nation number more than 500,000 yearly. Dr. Josiah Strong
estimates the number at 564,000. As there are 525,600 minutes in a
year, it may readily be seen that _every minute (day and night) our
industrial system sends to the grave-yard or to the hospital a human
being, the victim of some accident inseparable from his toil_. We
cry out against the horrors of war.... But the ravages ... of
Industrial warfare are far greater than those of armed conflict. The
number of killed or mortally wounded (including deaths from
accidents, suicides and murders, but excluding deaths from disease)
in the Philippine War from February 4, 1899, to April 30, 1902, was
1,573. These fatal casualties were spread over a period of three
years and three months. But one coal mine alone in one year
furnished a mortality more than 38 per cent. in excess of this.
“The Japanese war is commonly looked upon as the bloodiest of modern
wars. According to the official statement of the Japanese
Government, 46,180 Japanese were killed, and 10,970 died of wounds.
Our industrial war shows a greater mortality year by year.
“But we are all of us more familiar with the Civil War, and we know
what frightful devastation it caused in households North and South.
It was, however, but a tame conflict compared with that which rages
today, and which we call ‘peace.’ The slaughter of its greatest
battles are thrown in the shade by the slaughter which particular
industries inflict today. Ask any schoolboy to name three of the
bloodiest battles of that war, and he will probably name Gettysburg,
Chancellorsville and Chickamauga. The loss on both sides was:
Killed. Wounded.
“Gettysburg 5,662 27,203
Chancellorsville 3,271 18,843
Chickamauga 3,924 23,362
—————— ——————
Total 12,857 69,408
“But our railroads, state and interstate, and our trolleys in one
year equal this record in the number of killings and double it in
the number of woundings....
“But whose interest is it that the lives of the workers shall be ...
guarded? _The employer class has no material interest_ in the
matter. The worker is ‘free,’ _legally_, to refuse to work under
dangerous conditions. If, _economically_, he must accept work under
these conditions [or starve], that is another matter.”
Another witness[104] sets forth the murderous carelessness of the lives
of the workers in modern industry thus:
“In Allegheny County, Pa., including Pittsburgh, 17,700 persons were
killed or injured last year in the mills and on the railroads or in
some of the workshops of that interesting Inferno. This number has
been recorded and reported, and there were, of course, others whose
deaths or injuries were not reported.... Life and limb are
needlessly sacrificed—hundreds of thousands of lives every decade.
This is one of the penalties that we pay for quick industrial
success.”
“Quick industrial success” is good, a fine phrase indeed—in the mining
industry, for example, in which in the United States from 1889 to 1909
over 30,000 men were killed.[105] If a war were on in the Philippines
and 1500 of our men were being slaughtered every year the generals and
captains in charge of our forces would be regarded as failures. Yet the
captains of industry, in the capitalist administration of the mining
industry alone, in the United States sacrifice more than 1500 brave men
of the great industrial army every year.
That the modern industry, inspired by insane lust for _profits for part
of the people_ rather than by _welfare for all the people_—that this
modern industry is far more deadly than real war on a large scale—this
seems impossible. Yet it is not at all an impossibility; it is reality;
it is experience; it is fact; it is the savagery of capitalist
civilization.
ALL THE PROFIT-MONGERS’ PROUD AND STUPID BOASTING OF THE NOBLE TRIUMPHS
OF CAPITALIST “PHILANTHROPY” CAN NOT HUSH THE LOUD-SHOUTING FACT THAT
THE SICKLE OF DEATH CUTS DOWN THE TOILERS FAR MORE RAPIDLY WHILE
PEACEFULLY ON DUTY IN THE INDUSTRIES THAN IT SLASHES DOWN IN TIME OF WAR
ON THE FIRING-LINE AND IN THE MILITARY HOSPITAL—FAR MORE THAN THE RIFLE,
SWORD, BAYONET, AND DISEASE COMBINED.
This is true, horrible and important. And because it is true, horrible
and important, all doubt concerning the matter should, as far as
possible, be dispelled. And, therefore, still more evidence is here
offered to make the matter clear.
The eminent publicist, Dr. Josiah Strong, testifies:[106]
“We might carry on a half dozen Philippine wars for three-quarters of a
century with no larger number of total casualties than take place yearly
in our peaceful industries.
“TAKING THE LOWEST OF OUR THREE ESTIMATES OF INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS, THE
TOTAL NUMBER OF CASUALTIES SUFFERED BY OUR INDUSTRIAL ARMY IN ONE YEAR
IS EQUAL TO THE AVERAGE ANNUAL CASUALTIES OF OUR CIVIL WAR, PLUS THOSE
OF THE PHILIPPINE WAR, PLUS THOSE OF THE RUSSIAN-JAPANESE WAR.
“Think of carrying on three such wars at the same time, world without
end.”
Losses from sickness in war and from sickness contracted in industry
are, it should be remembered, not included in Dr. Strong’s calculations.
President Roosevelt in his Annual Message of 1907 bluntly stated the
facts as follows:
“INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES NOW EXACTS ... A FAR HEAVIER TOLL OF
DEATH THAN ALL OF OUR WARS PUT TOGETHER.... THE NUMBER OF DEATHS IN
BATTLE IN ALL THE FOREIGN WARS PUT TOGETHER FOR THE LAST CENTURY AND A
QUARTER, AGGREGATE CONSIDERABLY LESS THAN ONE YEAR’S DEATH RECORD FOR
OUR INDUSTRIES.”
It is inevitable that this slaughter of the toilers both in industry and
in war will work rapidly and disastrously against the general
blood-vigor of society. Serious and conservative students of the
blood-letting and blood-weakening tendencies of capitalistic society are
beginning to sound the alarm. The startlingly visible results in British
society serve as excellent illustrative material. For more than two
hundred years vast numbers of the soundest, strongest British workingmen
have been slaughtered or weakened in war; and for more than a hundred
years (the era of intense machine production) the British workingmen,
women, and children have been cruelly overworked, underfed and ill-clad
in the struggle for existence—_in the industrial civil war called
capitalism_. And here are some of the results:
“In Manchester,” says Thomas Burke,[107] “out of 12,000 would-be
recruits [for the South African War], 8,000 were rejected as
virtually invalids, and only 1,200 could be regarded as fit in all
respects.... General Sir Frederick Maurice declared that, according
to the best evidence he could obtain, it was the fact that for many
years out of every five recruits only two were found to be
physically fit after two years’ service.... It was, indeed, a
startling fact that 60 per cent. of the men offering themselves for
active service were physically unfit.”
Thus the well-known preacher and lecturer, Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, of
Brooklyn, New York:[108]
“Many forms of public charity, from a scientific viewpoint, seem a
curse, while wars and many industries seem the enemies of the blood
of the nation.... The national physique has suffered an incalculable
loss. In one factory town [in England] the military commission,
examining young men for the South African War, rejected nineteen out
of twenty, because of some defect in the eyes or lungs or legs.”
It is to be remembered that many thousands of men who report for
examination as candidates for military service are so evidently
defective that no formal examination is necessary for their prompt
rejection. It is also important to consider the fact that there are many
thousands of men who would gladly join the army, but make no
application, knowing well, in advance, that they would be rejected as
unfit. Thus the statistics showing that a large per cent. of those
reporting to the military department as candidates for the service are
“rejected on examination,” even these statistics do not fully reveal the
unfortunate condition of affairs. In ten of the largest cities of
England and Scotland in the year ending September 30, 1907, there were
34,808 applicants for admission to the army. Forty-seven per cent. of
these applicants were rejected as physically unfit.[109] Of course, the
percentage of rejections would have been far heavier if all had applied
who would have been glad to join the army.
The next generation of English working-class people will probably be far
more physically defective than the present generation.
In Westham public school (London) it was recently found:
“... That 87 per cent. of the infants and 70 per cent. of the older
children were below the normal physique. These were all children of
the dockers.
“Neglecting the kindly and assuageable problem of rural poverty, we
seem driven to the conclusion that some seven and a half millions of
people are at the present moment in England living below the poverty
line—a problem which if only definitely realized in its squalid
immensity is surely enough to stagger humanity.”[110]
In England, because of the physical decline of the working class, the
Government has so much difficulty in finding a sufficient number of
sound men to fill the ranks that it has been necessary, since the Battle
of Waterloo, to repeatedly lower the physical requirements for
enlistment.
Thus do our brothers and sisters of the working class decay—driven to
death—in the mills and mines and other industries. And in many parts of
the world the fleshless skulls of the toilers slaughtered on the
battlefield stare and grin at the present generation of workers
decaying, dying in the capitalist industrial warfare. The president of
Stanford University, Dr. David Starr Jordan, writes:[111]
“It is claimed on authority ... that the French soldier of today is
nearly two inches shorter than the soldier of a century ago....
There [in Novara, Italy] the farmers have ploughed up skulls of men
till they have piled up a pyramid ten to twelve feet high.... These
were the skulls of the young men of Savoy, Sardinia, and
Austria,—men of eighteen to thirty-five, without physical blemish so
far as may be.... You know the color that we call magenta, the hue
of the blood that flowed out over the olive trees.... Go over Italy
as you will, there is scarcely a spot not crimsoned with the blood
of France, scarcely a railway station without its pile of French
skulls. You can trace them across to Egypt, to the foot of the
Pyramids. You will find them in Germany, at Jena and Leipzig, at
Lützen and Bautzen and Austerlitz. You will find them in Russia, at
Moskow; in Belgium, at Waterloo. ‘A boy can stop a bullet as well as
a man,’ said Napoleon; and with the rest are the skulls of boys ...
‘born to be food for powder,’ was the grim epigram of the day.”
This vast crime, this phase of hell for the working class, is well
stated by J. H. Rose:[112]
“Amidst the ever deepening misery they [Napoleon’s army] struggled on,
until of the 600,000 who had proudly crossed the Niemen for the conquest
of Russia, only 20,000 famished, frost-bitten, unarmed spectres
staggered [back] across the bridge of Lorno in the middle of
December.... Despite the loss of the most splendid army ever marshalled
by man, Napoleon ... strained every effort to call the youth of the
empire to arms.... THE MIGHTY SWIRL OF THE MOSKOW CAMPAIGN SUCKED IN
150,000 LADS UNDER TWENTY YEARS OF AGE INTO THE VORTEX.... The peasants
gave up their sons as food for cannon.... In less than half a year after
the loss of half a million men a new army nearly as large was
marshalled.... But the majority were young.... Soldiers were wanting,
youths were dragged forth.”
President Jordan, quoting Mr. Otto Seek, said:[113]
“Napoleon in a series of years seized all the youth of high stature
and left them scattered over many battlefields, so that the French
people who followed them are mostly men of smaller stature. More
than once in France since Napoleon’s time has the [physical] limit
been lowered.”
The ancient Romans, a large robust people, spilt so much of the best
blood of the best men in their “glorious” wars that their modern
descendants, the Italians, are conspicuously inferior, physically, to
their ancient ancestors; comparatively they are stunted. The “glorious”
victories of Caesar alone cost more than a million picked men on the
battlefield.[114]
These vast, incalculable wrongs thrust into the lives of the working
class—will they ever be righted?
Day dawns even now.
The lust for blood and profits will yet be cheated of its victories and
victims—in the hastening future.
Our working class brothers in Europe are already rousing and shaking off
the cruel spell of the gilt-braided butchers and silk-hatted capitalist
statesmen and industrial Neros; _the toilers in Europe are learning to
seize the powers of government in self-defense,—quietly and legally, of
course, but_—DEFIANTLY.[115]
We—driven, robbed and despised in the factory; betrayed, buncoed and
slaughtered on the battlefield; voiceless in the control of industry,
voiceless in the capitalist political party conventions, voiceless in
the judiciary, voiceless in state and national legislatures, voiceless
in the state and national executive councils, ridiculed by “high
society,” scorned everywhere—we also must learn to defend ourselves. We
must seize the powers of government and defend our class—everywhere.
Brothers, my American brothers, brothers of all the world,—if you have
minds exercise them—for your own class; if you have pride, show it—for
your class; if you have loyalty, prove it—for your class; if you have
power, use it—use it in self-defense—for your class; if you can climb,
why, climb, united with your class altogether—climb out of hell, the
hell of capitalism.
Divided, your masters despise you.
United, your masters dread you.
Get together, brothers, and get up off your knees.
Refuse to go to hell—the hell of war.
Refuse to stay in hell—the hell of capitalist industry.
Unite! For peace and freedom—unite!
Form, toilers, form!
Organize!
A solid front on the battlefield—of industry.
A solid front on the battlefield—of politics.
A suggestion: Let each one of a hundred thousand men and women patiently
and repeatedly bear light to the brain of one new man or woman each
month for two years, and _teach each new man to become a teacher of
other men and women_. Get some good book, a book that burns, a book that
kindles a passion for freedom and justice; and lend that book to a new
person each month _till the book is worn out_.[116]
Light a lamp in your neighbor’s brain.
Strike a fire in your neighbor’s heart.
Revolutionize him.
Dare.
Today.
Society is, and always will be—as free as the majority have sense enough
and pride enough to make it; or as tyrannical as the majority are meek
enough to permit it to be.
Conditions always express the will or lack of will of the majority.
-----
Footnote 67:
See Index: “Desertion,” also “Suicide, startling increase of, in
American Army.”
Footnote 68:
_Financial History of the United States_, Vol. III., p. 245.
Footnote 69:
_School History of the United States_, p. 423.
Footnote 70:
Quoted in Mead’s _Patriotism and the New Internationalism_, pp. 18–19.
Footnote 71:
See J. Bloch: _The Future of War_, a volume of great value, packed
with information concerning several different phases of war under
present conditions. Published by Ginn and Company, New York.
Footnote 72:
_The Making of America_, Vol. IX., Special Article, “Army and Navy,”
p. 388.
Footnote 73:
Report for 1908, p. 33.
Footnote 74:
See A. Williams: _Romance of Modern Mechanics_, Chapter 27.
Footnote 75:
McLaren: _Put Up Thy Sword_, p. 127.
Footnote 76:
_The Nation’s Navy_, p. 292.
Footnote 77:
Published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston.
Footnote 78:
Published by Moffat, Yard and Company, New York.
Footnote 79:
Published by J. Fisher Unwin, London.
Footnote 80:
Published by The Macmillan Company, New York.
Footnote 81:
Published by Ginn and Company, New York.
Footnote 82:
_Arbeiter in Council_ (Anonymous), pp. 155–56; published by The
Macmillan Company, New York. A valuable book.
Footnote 83:
See Bloch: _The Future of War_; also Morris: _The Nation’s Navy_, p.
289.
Footnote 84:
_The Future of War, Preface_, p. XXV., also pp. 9 and 157.
Footnote 85:
Published by Moffat, Yard and Company, New York. Italics mine. G. R.
K. See pp. 82–83.
Footnote 86:
See _Literary Digest_, Nov. 9, 1907.
Footnote 87:
See Index: “Insanity in American Army.”
Footnote 88:
_The Nation’s Navy_, pp. 289–90.
Footnote 89:
_The Future of War_, pp. 21 and 22. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 90:
Lecture, “The War of the Future,” at Amherst College, Dec. 3, 1909.
Footnote 91:
Quoted in Charles Sumner’s _Addresses on War_, p. 138.
Footnote 92:
See _Scientific American_, Sept. 21, 1907.
Footnote 93:
J. F. Haskins, New York _Globe and Commercial Advertiser_, Feb. 1,
1909.
Footnote 94:
_Appleton’s Magazine_, April, 1908.
Footnote 95:
_The Rough Riders_, pp. 202, 209.
Footnote 96:
_The Nation in Arms_, p. 376.
Footnote 97:
_War and Labor_, p. 54.
Footnote 98:
But see Professor Mayo-Smith’s _Statistics and Sociology_.
Footnote 99:
_Arbeiter in Council_, pp. 150–51.
Footnote 100:
Annual Report of the Secretary of War (William H. Taft), 1907, p. 25.
Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 101:
Editorial, Oct. 7, 1909.
Footnote 102:
See Index: “Another War.”
Footnote 103:
March 14, 1907. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 104:
_World’s Work_, March, 1906.
Footnote 105:
Museum of Safety and Sanitation, Bulletin, issued December, 1909.
Footnote 106:
_North American Review_, Nov., 1906. Emphasis mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 107:
_The Forum_, Jan., 1905.
Footnote 108:
Brooklyn _Daily Eagle_, Feb. 13, 1907.
Footnote 109:
_Labor Leader_, London, July 17, 1908.
Footnote 110:
C. F. G. Masterman: _Contemporary Review_, Jan., 1902.
Footnote 111:
_The Blood of the Nation_, pp. 45–47.
Footnote 112:
_The History of Napoleon._ Emphasis mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 113:
In an address, “The Biology of War,” May 3, 1909, Chicago.
Footnote 114:
Reference for substance and part of phrasing of this paragraph has
been lost.
Footnote 115:
See Index: “Four Historic Events.”
Footnote 116:
See “What to Read,” Chapter Twelve.
CHAPTER SIX.
Tricked to the Trenches—Then Snubbed.
“On the whole, the patriotism of the average citizen rises and falls
inversely with the Income Tax; ...”[117]
Imagine J. P. Morgan, rifle in hand, doing picket duty on a dark,
sleet-drizzling night. Imagine J. Ogden Armour, George Gould and Thomas
F. Ryan with heavy shovels digging trenches, stopping at noon to eat
some salt pork, embalmed beef and stale crackers. Imagine Reggie
Vanderbilt as a freighter hurrying rations to the front and taking care
of six mud-covered horses at night. Imagine the strong younger John D.
Rockefeller on the firing line with his breast exposed to the hellish
rain of lead from a Gatling gun. Yes, indeed,—just imagine a whole
regiment of big bankers and manufacturers dressed in khaki, breakfasting
on beans and bacon, then rushing sword in hand to storm a
cannon-bristled fort belching fire and lead and steel into their smooth,
smug faces—for fifty cents a day.
Brother, when you are ordered to the front just glance around and notice
the noisily patriotic gentlemen who keep to the rear—at home where it is
safe and delightfully quiet. These patriots in the rear will sweetly
say, “See you later!” If you ever get back from the war, they will see
you when they flatteringly give you a “welcome home.” Mark you: When war
breaks out these “best people” do not say, “_Come_ on, boys, come
on—follow us.” Hardly. It is “_Go_ on, boys, go _ahead_, go right on. We
will be with you.” That is, they will be with you as far as the railway
station, and after that these “prominent people” will give the “brave
boys” absent treatment.
The man in the factory and in the mine is the “hand,” the “hired hand,”
of capitalist society; and when he shoulders a rifle for military
service he becomes the steel-toothed jaw of capitalist society. SOLDIERS
ARE TO THE CAPITALIST CLASS WHAT TEETH ARE TO TIGERS AND BEAKS ARE TO
EAGLES. Soldiers are often called the “dogs of war”; and they are,
indeed, the watchdogs of capitalism—with barracks, armories and tents
for kennels. Bankers, manufacturers, mine owners and the like despise
the very thought of living themselves in the military “war-dog” kennels.
Such men can not be tricked to the tents and trenches.
In wheedling young men to join the army and the navy the National
Government is hard put to it; must even make fun of the poverty and
ignorance of the humble toilers in the industries—and openly sneers at
them. Here is a sample of the vile means used by the Government to shame
green young fellows into the army and the navy.[118]
“WANTED—for the United States Marine Corps—Able-bodied men who wish
to see the world....
“Regular pay $12.80
“Post Mechanics, fifty cents per day 13.00
——————
“Total $25.80
“Which is better for a young man _who can never hope to travel on
his own account_: to enlist in the Marine Corps for four years ...
where he will be able to see a great portion of the world and
perform a loyal duty to his country,—or, to _drudge away on the
farm, in the shop and various other places, for from ten to fifteen
hours per day in all kinds of weather_, and at the end of the month
or better still, of four years, not have as much clear cash to show
for all his hard and wearisome labor as he would have, had he
enlisted?... he [the enlisted man] is always _clean_.”
There you have it, young farmer, young mechanic: the Government throws
it right into your teeth—the sneer that as a _wage_-earner in the shop
and mine and on the farm, you are cornered; that with all your toiling
and sweating you will always be a “dirty-faced tender-foot” living
humbly around the old home place, never having opportunity to see the
world you live in; that you can not even hope to travel on your own
account, simply because as a _wage_-earner you don’t _own_ enough of
“your” country—you can not get ahead far enough financially—to enable
you to do so. If you want to see the world you will have to join the
butchers in the service of the rulers. In its effort to tease and trick
you aboard its great warships, into the “armed guard” work, your own
Government makes fun of your humble income and taunts you for always
staying around home like a “sissy boy.” The Government also tells you
that your face is dirty and that a military man’s face “is always
clean.” The Government’s advertisement just quoted is like the sneer at
the soldier’s poverty by that elegant aristocrat, Ralph Waldo
Emerson:[119]
“Where there is no property the people will put on the knapsack for
bread.”
Think of ten million five hundred thousand trained strong men in five
European countries ready to leap into the trenches at the word of
command. ‘In a war between the Dual Alliance and the Triple Alliance
there would be over ten million men under arms, thus:[120]
Germany 2,500,000
Austria 1,300,000
Italy 1,300,000
France 2,500,000
Russia 2,800,000
———————————
Total 10,400,000’
These would not so much be tricked to the trenches as they would be
forced to the trenches. Emperor William of Germany at Potsdam, in
November, 1891, addressed the young men who had just been compelled to
take the military oath. He said:
“You are now my soldiers, you have given yourselves to me body and
soul. There is but one enemy for you, and that is my enemy.... It
may happen that I shall order you to fire on your brothers and
fathers.... But in such case you are bound to obey me without a
murmur.”[121]
Think of ten or fifteen million men ready to be forced or tricked to war
to _do the bidding of rulers_ whom these _big strong men outnumber ten
thousand to one_; ready to do the bidding of a coterie of parasitic
cowards; ready—cheap, weak, humble and contemptible—ready to scramble to
the trenches and obey the murderers’ orders: “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!
Slay! Slaughter! Butcher!”
That millions of strong men should, like whipped dogs, grovel on the
ground before their masters and fight at the word of command—this, of
course, is ridiculous; and naturally these millions of meek, weak,
prideless, grovelling common soldiers—all over Europe—all over the
world—are held socially in supreme contempt by the political and
industrial masters of society. But whether the soldier is conscripted,
“drafted,” or volunteers to serve, the masters’ contempt is complete.
The soldiers during a war, the workers who support a war, and both the
soldiers and the toilers after a war—are held in contempt even by those
who praise them most. It will help somewhat in realizing this to make a
short study of several actual cases as illustrations. The examples
following are, most of them, from English and from American history. In
all the illustrations the mocking insincerity of the profit-lusting,
long-distance patriot is easily seen.
FIRST ILLUSTRATION: THE ENGLISH IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS, AND IN THE BOER
WAR.
Never in modern times did a nation of toilers longer or more loyally
support a war than did the working class of England support the British
Government in the Napoleonic Wars—a fifth of a century of continuous
blood-letting. Never before or since did the working class of a nation
longer or more gladly give up its choicest men to butcher and be
butchered than did the English working class for the Napoleonic Wars.
Never did men serve more loyally or longer or fight more bravely. This
long storm of death closed with the awful Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
After such service we might expect the patriotic capitalists of England
to be most thoughtfully and finely kind to the toilers who supported the
wars and to the veterans who fought the wars.
But what happened?
After the Battle of Waterloo, leaving tens of thousands of their
comrades on the skull-strewn plains of the Continent, the hypnotized
veterans—scarred, ragged and proud—returned home—home from hell—returned
to England with glad hearts ignorantly and gullibly expecting a joyous
“welcome home” by the masters who had flattered, brutalized, ruled, and
used them. Welcome home! The cruel mockery of it! The hideous irony of
the masters’ prompt treatment of them! Promptly these brave and ignorant
men from the battlefields were openly scorned and threatened by the
industrial masters of England. Never were masters more cruel toward
deluded veteran patriots. Never were masters more heartless toward
millions of half-starved toilers—than were the British masters toward
the half-starved ragged British workers whose labor had supported the
army in the field for twenty years.
Promptly at the close of the Napoleonic wars a movement was made in the
British Parliament to relieve the _leisure class_ of one-half the income
tax, but none was made to ease the burdens of the starving working
class. There was biting irony in the fact that
“One of the first parliamentary struggles [following the war] was
the proposal of the government to reduce the income tax from 10 to 5
per cent., and to apply this half [the unremitted half] of it,
producing about $37,500,000, toward the expense of maintaining a
standing army of 150,000 men.”[122]
Of course _the purpose_ of this to-be-increased army was to have an
_armed guard ready to crush the “hobo” heroes home from the war and
unemployed, ready also to hold down the great multitude of poorly paid
or unemployed toilers_—_all_ now loudly complaining against the
increasing misery thrust into their lives.
The landlords at once advanced the land rents and the house rents so
outrageously that many thousands of feeble working class veterans were
forced into trampdom, and were then brutally abused for vagrancy. The
huge and hungry army of the unemployed actually found that in some ways
peace was, at that time, even worse than war—for the working class.
This outrageous treatment, this brutal contempt for the workers from
their pretentiously patriotic rulers may seem to the reader impossible.
The case, however, is so typical as to be worth space for evidence. And
here is some testimony from witnesses not prejudiced, perhaps, in favor
of the workers. Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers writes thus of the
matter:[123]
“In point of fact, the sufferings of the working classes (in
England) during this dismal period [the first twenty years of the
nineteenth century] ... were certainly intensified by the harsh
partiality of the law; but they were due in the main to deeper
causes. Thousands of homes were starved in order to find means to
support the great war, the cost of which was really supported by the
labor of those who toiled on and earned the wealth which was
lavished freely, and at a good rate of interest for the lenders, by
the government. The enormous taxation and the gigantic loans came
from the store of accumulated capital, which the employers wrung
from the poor wages of labor, or the landlords extracted from the
growing grains of their tenants. To outward appearance, the strife
was waged by armies and generals; but in reality the resources on
which the struggle was based were the stint and starvation of labor,
the over-taxed and underfed toils of childhood, the underpaid and
uncertain employment of men. Wages were mulcted in order to provide
the waste of war, and the profits of commerce and manufacture.”
The case is summed up by another authority:[124]
“Distress instead of plenty, misery instead of comfort—these were
the first results of peace.”
The English historian, J. R. Green, is thus frank:[125]
“The war enriched the landowner, the farmer, the merchant, the
manufacturer; but it impoverished the poor. It is indeed from these
fatal years that we must date that war of the classes, that social
severance between employers and employed, which still forms the main
difficulty of English politics.”
S. R. Gardiner furnishes this testimony:[126]
“Towards the end of 1816 riots broke out in many places, which were
put down.... The government ignored the part which physical distress
played in promoting the disturbances.... The Manchester Massacre ...
a vast meeting of at least 50,000 gathered on August 16, 1816, in
St. Peter’s Field, Manchester.... The Hussars charged, and the
weight of disciplined soldiery drove the crowd into a huddled mass
of shrieking fugitives, pressed together by their efforts to escape.
When at last the ground was cleared many victims were piled one upon
another.”
The people who had fed and clothed and armed the soldiers, were now cut
down and trampled down in heaps by mounted soldiers. The historians
Brodrick and Frotheringham summarize the matter as follows:[127]
“Four troops of Hussars then made a dashing charge ... the people
fled in wild confusion before them; some were cut down, more were
trampled down; an eye-witness describes ‘several mounds of human
beings lying where they had fallen.’”
Justin McCarthy’s statement of the case is instructive:[128]
“There was widespread distress [in 1816]. There were riots in the
counties of England arising out of the distress. There were riots in
various parts of London.... The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended....
A large number of working men conceived the idea of walking to
London to lay an account of their distress before the heads of
government [Perfectly reasonable?].... The nickname of Blanketeers
was given to them because of their portable sleeping arrangements.
(Every man carried a blanket.) ... The ‘Massacre of Peterloo’ ...
took place not long after.... It was a vast meeting—some 80,000 men
and women are stated to have been present.... The yeomanry, a
mounted militia force, ... dashed in upon the crowd, spurring their
horses and flourishing their sabres. Eleven persons were killed and
several hundred were wounded. The government brought in ... the
famous Six Acts. These Acts were simply measures to render it more
easy to put down and disperse meetings ... and to suppress any
manner of publication which they chose to call seditious.... It was
the conviction of the ruling class that the poor and the working
classes of England were preparing a revolution.... In 1818, a motion
for annual parliaments and universal suffrage was lost by a majority
of 106 to nobody.”
Says Professor Jesse Macy:[129]
“By a series of repressive measures popular agitation was
arrested.... _Popular agitation was brought to an end by force._ So
complete was the repression that there occurred no great political
consequences until the movement which carried the Reform Bill
[1832].”
“Silence!” is _always_ the order of despotism when the “bruised lips” of
starving slaves speak loud for freedom.
Thus did the proud, “patriotic” masters of England spit in the faces of
the starving working class who supported the war and laugh to scorn the
old working class soldiers who had fought the long and horrible war.
Thus were the battle-scarred heroes—and their families—sabred and
bayoneted. Thus were some of the rights they already had, torn from
their hands. Thus were they denied a voice in the government they
served. Thus were the toilers and veterans outraged—duped, despised,
snubbed—during and after the “glorious” Napoleonic wars.
The shameless Caesars who constituted the English government of the time
heaped wrong upon wrong by sending police spies into the great public
meetings of the ragged veterans of war and industry _to stir them up to
violence, thus furnishing the government excuse for its brutalities and
repressive legislation_.[130]
An anonymous author furnishes interesting fact and comment:[131]
“The world will have to revise its notions of patriotism in the
light of modern commerce.... Look at the strength of the interests.
Where is the Government that would dare prohibit Birmingham firms
from executing [filling] orders for a foreign Government? Even in
our small frontier wars [British] soldiers must expect to be shot at
with British rifles.”
At one time in the Napoleonic wars English manufacturers, “_patriotic_
business men,” of course, filled one order for 16,000 military coats,
37,000 jackets, and 200,000 pairs of shoes to be used, as the commercial
patriots knew, by the French army while slaughtering English
soldiers.[132] That was about a hundred years ago. But the silk-hat
patriot is still the same hypocrite, talking loudly about “honoring the
hero” whom he despises both socially and industrially. British veterans
of the Boer War of recent years—tens of thousands of them—have cursed
the day they enlisted, with the patriotism of ignorance, to serve in
South Africa. The Government broke its promises with them shamelessly
and wholesale; and many of these veterans, on returning from the war,
were scorned at the English factory door, turned down at the shops and
mines, and had to beg on the streets of London and other cities. It is
the old story: duped, tricked, teased to the trenches—then snubbed, as
usual.
When the soldier boys got back to England from the Boer war they were
weak, poor, ragged and very weary, many hundreds of them scarcely able
to walk. But no matter: they were at once driven from the ships like
cattle, forced to fall into line, and march wavering and staggering from
weakness and weariness—forced to march past the Queen’s reviewing stand,
to be smiled at and flattered by a bunch of royal and noble parasites
and thus be “honored” while they starved, “honored” as they staggered
past in their rags, gazed at by shining gluttons and fat-headed lords
who were too shrewd and cowardly to go themselves to South Africa to
slaughter the Boers, steal gold and diamond mines and otherwise defend
their own capitalist interests.
On this cruel reviewing march of many weary miles past the Queen of the
home-coming butchers a great number of the men fainted in their famished
weakness. Many eye-witnesses to this outrage were in tears....
The march ended.
The guns were put away with pride.
The blood of Dutch workingmen was wiped from the English swords—with
British pride.
Blood-stained banners were piously placed in libraries, museums, and
churches—with true Christian pride.
The war was over.
The butchers had come back to “_their_” dear country—and washed their
hands.
Then—then what?
Then these cheap and stupid assassins of their class went to _look for a
job_—teased the lordly parasites of England for whom they had been
fighting—teased them for a job, whined like spaniels at the feet of the
industrial masters of England, begged for a job.
And received insults.
A JOB IS NOT GUARANTEED BY ANY CAPITALIST CONSTITUTION ON ALL THE EARTH,
EVEN THO’ A JOB MAY MEAN SALVATION FROM STARVATION..
A hunting dog, having found the shot-mangled bird in the grass and
briars, brings the game to his master confident of substantial
favors—and gets the favors.
These English human hunting dogs had obediently hunted human game in
South Africa, and they returned to their masters, their faces shining
with the expectancy (and, almost, with the intelligence) of a retriever
with a bleeding bird in his mouth.
And they were slapped in the face at the factory door with “Not wanted!”
Snubbed.
“Honored.” “Reviewed.” Reviewed? Certainly. That is part rule-by-wind
trick.
Flattered—then kicked in the face when they asked for permission to work
and by work save their own lives from the wolves of poverty.
“A nod from a lord is a breakfast—_for a fool_.”
SECOND ILLUSTRATION: THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS REVOLUTIONISTS:
The American working class soldiers a hundred and twenty-five years ago
were also equally despised by the industrial and political masters of
that time. The poor men, the working class men, in Washington’s army
after fighting for years, half starved, always in rags, sleeping in
wind-swept tents at night, oftentimes shoeless, making bloody tracks in
the snow and on the ice as they marched,—these battle-scarred veterans
of the working class, after fighting for years in the “great
Revolutionary War for freedom,”—these were not permitted to vote for
many years after the war. It was not, indeed, till many years after the
adoption of the “great” new Federal Constitution of the “free” people
that these humble working class veterans were permitted to take part as
voters in the government.
This was contempt supreme. Tricked to the “war for freedom”—then, after
“glorious victory,” snubbed, as usual.
Of course, this page of “splendid” Revolutionary War history, this
bright particular page of unqualified contempt of the so-called “great
leaders” for the working class soldiers after the fighting was all
over—this page is shrewdly hidden from the working class children in the
common schools, the grammar schools and high schools of the United
States,—this page is practically suppressed. The working class child in
the public school is wheedled into being a blind devotee of the “great”
Constitution and an ignorant worshipper of the “great men” who so
cordially despised the men of the class to which the child belongs.
There is plenty of evidence, however, that these “prominent” and “very
_best_ people” of American Revolutionary War times had nothing but
political contempt for the working class veterans. President Woodrow
Wilson (Princeton University) writes:[133]
“There were probably not more than 120,000 men who had a right to
vote out of all the 4,000,000 inhabitants enumerated at the first
census [1790].”
The political and social contempt felt for the poor men of the times of
George Washington is made clear by Professor F. N. Thorpe (University of
Pennsylvania) thus:[134]
“An unparalleled political enfranchisement [from 1800 to 1900]
extended the right to vote, which in 1796 reposed in only
one-twentieth of the population, but a century later in one-sixth of
it—the nearest approach to universal suffrage in history.”
This same scorn for the thirteen-dollar-a-month men, who do the actual
fighting, is seen in one form or another in the more recent American
wars. The purse-proud rulers of the present day are so blatant in their
expressions of patriotic admiration for the “brave boys” that the
following illustrations are deemed worthy of the space required for
their presentation—in order that the working class reader may not fail
to recognize the mocking hypocrite in the gold-lust patriotic shouters
who now decorate their palaces on holidays with “Old Glory.”
THIRD ILLUSTRATION: THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR—THE BANKERS AND
“PROMOTERS”—AND THE BOYS IN BLUE:
Thousands of Union veterans have declared: “The American Civil War was a
rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight. We were duped. But we shall never
be duped again.” (See Chapter VII., Sections 14 to 16.)
The volunteer Union soldiers who, at Lincoln’s first call, hurried to
enlist for the war, understood distinctly that the government would pay
them “_in gold or its equivalent_.” But the soldiers were forced to
accept even their puny 43 cents a day in greenbacks containing the
famous “exception clause,” which clause destroyed from 20 to more than
65 per cent. of the purchasing power of the money during the war and for
years following the war. But the silk-hatted patriots, the “leading
citizen” manufacturers, the bankers and the heroic sharks in Congress at
the time, these who issued greenbacks and bought Government bonds,
_these_ noble gentlemen not only _despised the very money they forced
the soldiers to take for fighting_, but, at the same time, arranged,
virtually, for an iron-clad agreement that not only the principal of,
but also the interest on, the Government bonds they “patriotically”
bought, must be paid in gold.[135] Gold for the patriot in business—“rag
money” for the patriots in the trenches. At one time, owing to the
“exception clause” on the paper money forced upon the soldiers, one gold
dollar would buy as much as two dollars and eighty-five cents of paper
money. Of course, the soldiers and the “common people” complained
loudly. Says a high authority:[136]
“Much opposition was caused by the clause inserted by the Senate,
which provided for payment of interest on bonds in coin, which
practically meant discrimination in favor of one class of creditors,
and, as Stevens said, ‘depreciated at once the money which the bill
created.’”
The Wall Street patriots never miss an opportunity to remind us with
great show of pride that they “furnished the money with which to carry
on the Civil War.” They did furnish a good deal of money, and like true
patriotic Shylocks they took blood-sealed, interest-bearing bonds in
exchange for their cash. On every possible occasion the bonds were
_bought at such a sacrifice price as to almost bleed the nation to death
in the presence of its enemies_. Dr. H. C. Adams (University of
Michigan, Department of Finance) says:[137] That, “estimated on the
average price of gold,” the Federal Government, “for the forty-five
months of the Civil War” realized from public obligations of all sorts
less than 67 per cent. That is to say, certain bloodless patriots’ lack
of faith and their desire also to “push a good thing” and take at least
a “full pound of flesh”—resulted in their dear Government’s loss of
blood in its financial transactions to the extent of more than 33 per
cent.
This disastrous shrinkage was due unquestionably in a very large measure
to the bankers’ manipulation of the Government’s financial affairs for
their own private benefit. These glittering Shylocks were beautifully,
even prayerfully, enthusiastic in their hand-clapping for their dear
country’s welfare; and yet they showed almost perfect emotional
self-control. Mr. Lincoln hated their gold-lust “patriotism,” but he was
compelled to bow low before their power. The lovingly patriotic embrace
which our country received from the bond-leech capitalists during the
Civil War clearly revealed their amiable intention to bleed their
country just as nearly to death as possible—and yet not _kill_ it lest
the precious goose should cease to lay such interesting eggs.
Your “patriotic” war-bond buyer is a temperamentally calm person.
Some citizens bleed for their country, others bleed their country.
“Guard against the impostures of patriotism.”—George
Washington.[138]
Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers[139] states as follows the spirit of much
of the argument in the British Parliament, even by many conservatives,
concerning the bond-leech patriots who purchased British Napoleonic War
bonds:
“But we have to endure, in addition to our misfortunes, the sight of
the stock-jobbers and fund-holders, who have _fattened on our
misery_, and are now receiving more than half our taxes. And for
what? We have put down the Corsican usurper, and restored peace to
Europe, legitimacy to its thrones. These people [the bondholders]
not only get under our funding system at par, stock, with a number
of incidental advantages, in exchange for some £50 or less, but they
paid [even] this inadequate quota in notes which were constantly at
a discount of 30 per cent. _It is intolerable, it is unjust, that we
should redeem such stock under the terms of so monstrous and
one-sided a bargain._”
Perhaps, reader, you are one of the old gray men who “fought under
Grant and are proud of it.” I do not criticize you, gray old man. I am
offering you and younger men things to think about. A distinguished
historian assures us that there were at one time during the War one
hundred and fifty bankers in Congress. Inside and outside of Congress
these, and other leading-citizen Mammonites, connived to bleed you and
bleed the nation—utterly without shame. They alarmed President Lincoln
repeatedly. They never let up in their swinish scramble for gold
during the War. And after the War they continued their unholy
manoeuvring—patriotically. For example, at one time following the War,
after you soldiers had elected your General to the Presidency, these
blushless blood-suckers sought to corner the gold market and thus
scoop up a barrel of profits. To accomplish this it was necessary to
have the President out of the way for a short time in order to render
it impossible for him to rush to the rescue with the Federal Treasury.
Read their plan to “turn the trick” in the words of a Wall Streeter
himself, Mr. Henry Clews:[140]
“He [Grant] was prevailed upon to go to a then obscure town in
Pennsylvania, named Little Washington. The thing was so arranged
that his feelings were worked upon to visit that place for the
purpose of seeing an old friend who resided there. The town was cut
off from telegraphic communication, and other means of access were
not very convenient. There the President was ensconced, to remain
for a week or so about the time the Cabal was fully prepared for
action.”
Mr. Henry Clews’ own case is so finely typical of the
banker-buncombe-patriot that a few lines may profitably be given here to
him to illustrate his class.
This glittering patriot, Mr. Clews, was a young man when the Civil War
broke out. His young heart—just as a banker’s heart should be, for
business purposes—was warm with the holy fervor of a patriot. He loved
the flag—tenderly, of course, just as a banker always loves an
“attractive proposition.” The war was an opportunity—a splendid
opportunity—to “_make money_” or to “_fight for the flag_.” After much
patriotic (and no doubt prayerful) meditation he reached the conclusion
(his first fear was confirmed) that if _he_ went to the war he might
unkindly be crowding out some other young fellow who also wanted to
“fight for the flag.” So, just as a banker patriot would naturally do,
he modestly decided to stay at home and humbly take the opportunity to
“make money.” He at once organized a bond-buying, gold-lust syndicate,
and as its organizer he went to Washington to buy bonds—at a _discount_
(as he confesses), _tho’ believing there was to be only a mere flurry_
(as he confesses), and especially to examine _carefully_ (as he
confesses) into the _precise degree_ of risk assumed in buying the
Government’s bonds.
_Patriots in the trenches risk all._ Patriots in the bond-buying
business are not that kind; and they study the risk with great care, and
coolly avoid not only the blood risk, but also the money risk—with
skill, also with patriotism.
Calmly.
It seems that Mr. Clews went to Washington on a night train. He relates
that when he awoke in the morning he raised the car window-shade and
cautiously peeped out.[141] He saw a long line of cars loaded with
cannon. He was _astonished_—he confesses. Naturally, a banker is afraid
of a cannon. “As I went around collecting information,” he says, “the
sight of those cannon that at first had made such an indescribable
impression upon me continued to haunt my vision wherever I went.... I
felt that the contest would be a long and bloody one.... I was convinced
that war to the knife was imminent, and that Government bonds must have
a serious fall in consequence.” He telegraphed his syndicate to “sell
out” and “clear the decks,” “to unload.”[142]
Note that as soon as these far-from-the-firing-line patriots sniffed
danger for their gold they were, as Mr. Clews virtually confesses, ready
to leave the Government in the lurch and let the boys in the trenches
starve till the bonds could be bought at a strangle-hold advantage in
the way of discounts. Mr. Clews relates, with unmanageable pride, that
the Secretary of the Treasury received him with great courtesy and
supplied him with a large amount of useful information—information of
the “inner” “ground-floor” sort so extremely helpful to the organizer of
a bond-buying syndicate; also that the information and suggestions and
encouragements he received from the Secretary were really the beginning
of what he, with blushingly modest confession and a caress for himself,
calls his “brilliant career.”
Early in life Mr. Clews made a profound impression upon himself—a
lasting impression, as his books and speeches always reveal; a not
uncommon experience with “prominent people.”
Thus Mr. Clews chose the humbler and more healthful rôle in patriotism.
Many of Mr. Clews’ old neighbors (hot-headed young men of the War time)
are dead. They have been dead a long time. Cannon balls tore some of
them to pieces. Bayonets were thrust through some of them. Some were
starved to death in prisons. Their once hot blood is mold now. Long ago
their flesh was eaten by the battle-grave worms. Time is busy in their
nameless graves gnawing at their bones. But, now fifty years after the
terrible war began, Mr. Clews is alive and well—he even boasts of his
good health and often gives suggestions on how to keep one’s health till
ripe old age.
And he is still buying bonds.
His special delight is giving advice to—mankind.
Mr. Clews lectures frequently. His favorite themes are “patriotism,”
“the stars and stripes,” “the man behind the gun,”—and “how to succeed.”
He is a sort of chairman of the committee on wind for patriots in the
“greenhorn” stage.
All this space is given to Mr. Clews simply because he is so _perfectly
typical_ of the shrewd and powerful capitalist _class_ who rule—rule by
wind and a pompous manner when possible and by lead and steel when
“necessary.”
His case should be explained carefully to the boys and girls of the
working class. In the South such men are Democrats; in the North,
Republicans. In both regions the working men are neither, if they
understand.
FOURTH ILLUSTRATION: THE SEVEN DAYS’ BATTLE—THE “BRAINY” PROMOTERS AND
THE BOYS IN BLUE:
A nation in tears is the business man’s opportunity.
Any reference by a Thirtieth-of-May orator to the Seven Days’ Battle
makes “big business men” and statesmen throw out their chests, pat their
soft white hands and vociferate with perfectly beautiful patriotism. But
let us look a little at the record.
In Chapter Three of the present volume it was briefly stated that one
reason for the capitalists’ wanting war is that war completely
concentrates a nation’s attention upon one thing and one thing only;
namely, the war; and that while the people are thus “not looking,” the
business man and the politicians have a perfect opportunity to arrange
“good things” for themselves. And here I shall present a sample of
American business men filching “good things” while the public’s
attention is wholly absorbed in war. For shameless, treasonable
corruption this sample can not be surpassed with the foulest page in the
history of the ancient and rotten pagan Roman Empire.
Washington during the American Civil War was a robber’s roost for
eminently respectable thieves, industrial “bunco-steerers,” and
prominent and pious “come-on” financial pirates who were never near the
firing line. The very best hotels in the city of Washington were
constantly crowded with these patriotic citizens, “brainy men,”
distinguished business men—from all parts of the North—a continuous
thieves’ banquet by men who socially despised the humble fellows at the
front. Cunningly during the entire war these gilt-edged, gold-dust
bandits, far from danger of the firing line, plotted deals and steals
and stuffed their pockets with “good things”—while brave men from the
farms, mines and factories bled and died on the battlefield,—while
working class wives and mothers agonized in their desolated humble
homes. President Lincoln hated and dreaded these “hold-up” men, and
sometimes he vented his splendid wrath against them in immortal words of
warning to the people.[143]
Washington is such a pleasant place in the kindly, smiling springtime.
Business men enjoy that town—while Congress is in session.
For many months preceding July, 1862, a certain group of these
broadclothed money-gluttons camped in Washington—alert as hawks, keen as
hungry tigers sniffing warm blood. This precious group of eminently
stealthy Christian business men planned and plotted. Cunningly these
pirate patriots arranged a specially “good thing”—of which I wish to
tell you here.
There was, you remember, one battle in the late Civil War called the
Seven Days’ Battle. Mark the dates very carefully: June 25 to July 1,
1862—seven days—a bloody, horrible week. For several reasons this battle
was regarded as most critical; many thoughtful people, North and South,
believed the Union would stand or fall with this battle. President
Lincoln ordered General McClellan to capture the Confederate capital,
Richmond, or hurry north and protect Washington. As the conflict came
closer and closer capitalists and statesmen grew busier—timing a master
stroke.
June 24, the nation watched Virginia: one of the most prolonged and
savage struggles in the whole history of mankind was imminent.
June 24, therefore, was, for certain men, the last day of special
preparation. The cannon would surely begin next day to roar around
Richmond.
All was ready (in Washington).... The understanding was perfect (in
Washington).
“_Without a single syllable of debate_,” a certain bill (precisely as it
had been handsomely amended by the Senate) was passed by the House by a
vote of 104 to 21. The finishing touch was thus put upon a carefully
constructed trap, a trap set by “leading citizens,” a trap for big game.
Next day—June 25—the cannon did begin to boom around the Confederate
capital.
The first day’s struggle—June 25—was awful. The news flashed through the
land. Millions turned pale.
But the bandits in Washington were cool. The trap was set. They waited.
The second day was a slaughter.
More smiles and confidence in the best Washington hotels.
The third day of the battle was a butchering contest. The whole people
watched, listened. The news flamed north and south. Millions, terrified,
read the dead roll.
But the broadcloth gentlemen wept not. They waited—patriotically.
The fourth day was a storm of blood and iron.
But the eminent business men, bankers, statesmen, promoters and other
patriotic looters, safe in Washington—far from the firing line—waited,
drank fine wine and very confidently waited—waited as lions wait—to
spring to the throats of their victims.
Mr. Lincoln held back his signature from that “certain Bill.” He was
doing his best for the boys in the trenches, and was justly suspicious
of the promoter-banker patriotism in Washington.
The fifth day millions looked toward Virginia—and were sickened with
grief.
But certain prominent gentlemen in Washington cheerfully jested, ate the
best food on earth, lolled in easy chairs, gracefully reclined on
elegantly upholstered sofas, craftily plotted—and waited, in calm
confidence waited.
The sixth day of the battle was “Death’s feast.” The nation, North and
South, was stupefied with the horror of the war.
But certain “highly respected leading citizens,” Christian business
men—flag-waving patriots all of them—quaffed their wine, chatted gaily,
plotted, and, like reptiles, coiled to strike—waited, confident.
The seventh day, the last day, the baptism of blood and fire broke the
nation’s heart. As morning dawned the nation’s one thought was: The
war—the awful battles—the week-long harvest of death in Virginia.
Millions sobbed and eagerly sought more news. The storm of death
completely absorbed the nation’s attention. The Seven Days of slaughter
was the nation’s one heart-gripping thought.
For this day certain patriots, certain “men of energy and push and
enterprise,” certain distinguished business men, had patiently and
craftily waited. The psychological moment! The nation was blinded with
rage, tears and despair. Half insane with an awful joy and a sickening
sorrow, the people, millions of them, wildly screamed, sobbed and
cursed—on July 1.
Intense day.
The Union army in retreat—defeated.
The President in profound alarm, half crazed with the agony of it all,
decided, July 1, to call for 300,000 more soldiers for three years’
service.
Supreme moment—for the business man.
Now!
The people are not looking.
Now!
Strike, viper, strike!
Leap, gold-hungry patriot! Leap! Leap now—leap for your country’s
throat!
Not another hour’s delay.... Place the final pressure on the President.
“Mr. President! Mr. Lincoln! Sign our bill! Please sign our bill
now—right now. Quickly, Mr. President! Don’t delay longer. Now!”
Hundreds of cannon were roaring in Virginia. The President was devouring
the telegraphic news from the firing line.
Business men—Christian business men—including flag-loving Congressmen,
very noble Senators, and many other dollar-mark statesmen, were directly
and indirectly urging that the bill be signed—at once, “for the
country’s welfare,” of course.
The President, urged by these money-hungry patriots, urged by these “men
of high standing,” thus urged, the President, writhing with grief over
the Seven Days’ slaughter of his brave volunteers, almost sweating blood
in his profound fear,—signed the bill, July 1.
What bill?
The bill that legalized a vast and shameless wrong against the wives and
children of brave men on the firing line; the bill that legalized a rape
of the National Domain and the Federal Treasury by gilded cowards, while
from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, hundreds of thousands of
brave men, ill fed, ill clothed, faced hell under the flag on the firing
line; the bill that suddenly made plutocrats of Christian
statesmen,—made millionaires of flag-waving traitors piously
masquerading as patriots; the bill that created the Union Pacific
Railway charter, the astounding terms of which are given presently.
The President was numb and dumb with sadness and a thousand worries.
“The news [of the Seven Days’ Battle],” says Rhodes,[144] “was a
terrible blow to the President. The finely equipped army which had
cost so much exertion and money, had gone forward with high hopes of
conquest, and apparently bore the fate of the Union, had been
defeated, and was now in danger of destruction or surrender. This
calamity the head of the Nation must face.... The elaborate
preparations of the North had come to naught.... Lincoln grew thin
and haggard and his dispatches ... of these days are an avowal of
defeat.”
But the business men and the statesmen who were “in on the deal” winked
wisely, smiled blandly, and made merry as they quaffed their champagne.
They had “turned the trick”—they had made a fine bargain.
“Business is business.”
July 2 came. Certain statesmen and business men in Washington were
happy, so very, very happy—far from the firing line.
July 2 came. And while a cloud of buzzards circled confidently over the
Seven Days’ battlefield eager for a feast on the rotting flesh of the
brave working class soldier boys; while the torn corpses of humble
working class men were hurriedly pitched into the ditches and the dirt
and gravel were shoveled upon them; while the grave-worms began their
feast and revel in the flesh and blood of the men and boys from the
farms, mines and factories; while, July 2, the wounded men and boys
screamed under the surgeons’ knives and saws in the hospitals; while,
July 2, millions mourned;—at such a time, while the Union army was
retreating, defeated—the “big, brainy business men” in Washington
celebrated _their_ victory, the securing of the Union Pacific Railway
charter. For months these distinguished patriotic sneaks had been
preparing, hatching this “good thing,” the Union Pacific charter. After
months of patriotic treason and fox-like watchfulness they had “landed”
their prize.
They won.
They celebrated.
A nation in tears is the business man’s opportunity—for bargains.
This Union Pacific charter was, as shown below, unquestionably one of
the most shameless pieces of corruption in the entire history of the
civilized, unsocialized world, including even pagan Rome in her most
degraded days. The crime was so foul and vast that many of the records
were burned later—which, perhaps, saved some eminent gentlemen from
being lynched.
Mr. Henry Clews relates:[145]
“The investigation of the refunding committee of the Pacific
railroads at Washington brought the most remarkable evidence from
one of the principal witnesses, who stated that the books connected
with the construction of the road had been burned or destroyed as
useless trash involving the superfluous expense of room rent, though
they contained the record of transactions involving hundreds of
millions of dollars, a record which became absolutely necessary to
the fair settlement between the government and its debtors. Also the
fact was put in evidence that a certain party in the interest had
testified before another committee, on a former occasion, that he
was present when $54,000,000 of profits were divided equally among
four partners, himself and three others. None of the books of record
containing this valuable information escaped the flames.”
The charter as originally granted, July 1, 1862, was treasonably
generous; but these far-from-the-firing-line patriots were insatiably
gluttonous, and they teased and bribed till exactly two years later
(July 2, 1864, precisely at a time when the war was terribly intense and
especially critical), the liberality of the terms of the charter was
almost doubled.
Study the terms—the chief features—of the charter as granted and
amended.
Remember the date, June 24 to July 1, 1862,—the week of the Seven Days’
Battle. Also look sharply for the patriotism—in the charter.
The terms, in outline, of the Union Pacific charter:
FIRST: At a time when the nation was straining every nerve to carry on
the war, at a time when the soldiers in the trenches were paid only 43
cents a day, and even that in depreciated paper money, and were given
salt pork and mouldy crackers for rations—at such a time, business men
(cunningly assisted by patriotic Congressmen and noble Senators) dipped
their greedy hands into the National Treasury and took out a government
“loan” to the railway company of $60,000,000 in interest-bearing
government bonds worth more than sufficient to build the road. Professor
W. Z. Ripley (Harvard University) says:[146]
“From the books of the Union Pacific and the Credit Mobilier it
appears that the expenditures by the Union Pacific directly amounted
to $9,746,683.33; and that the actual expenditures under the Hoxie,
Ames and Davis contracts were $50,720,957.94, making the total cost
of the road $60,467,641.27.”
This good-as-cash loan from the government was “assistance” and
“incentive” given to the genteel promoters of the Union Pacific Railway:
$16,000 per mile from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains; $48,000
per mile through the Rocky Mountains; and $32,000 per mile beyond the
Rockies. This was a liberal allowance, surely. Collis P. Huntington,
long time president of the Southern Pacific, claimed afterward that the
road could be built at an average cost of less than $10,000 per mile.
More recently the Union Pacific Railway Company (contending with the
State of Utah over tax burdens) proved before the Board of Equalization
at Salt Lake City, by the sworn testimony of engineers, that the average
cost of the Utah Central line, in a rough country, was only $7,298.20
per mile.
The dear capitalist government was rich enough to stuff the pockets of
the glistening, flag-waving traitors with $60,000,000 in bonds like gold
as “assistance” and “incentive” for self-preservation patriotism. But at
the same time this dear government could give the “boys in blue” only 43
cents a day in cheap rag money as “incentive.” These “enterprising
business men” drank champagne and slept in soft beds; but the “boys in
blue” drank water from muddy horse-tracks and slept on the ground.
SECOND: The Union Pacific Company, it was cunningly arranged, might make
elsewhere a private, cash, mortgage-bonded loan equal to the government
loan, $60,000,000.
THIRD: The noble Christian statesmen in Congress and the noble Christian
business men (patriots all) cunningly agreed that a _first_ mortgage
should be given for the _private_ loan of $60,000,000.
FOURTH: The government (bunco-steerers inside and outside of Congress)
cunningly agreed to take a _second_ mortgage on the road for the
_government_ loan of $60,000,000.
FIFTH: It was cunningly arranged by these business men in politics and
these politicians in business that ninety-five per cent. of the
government second mortgage loan should not bear interest _till thirty
years later_; but that all the private loans should bear interest at
once.
SIXTH: The Railway Company was cunningly given permission to sell
$100,000,000 in railway stocks.
Stocks were sold to Congressmen and very noble Senators.
Stocks were sold to these very noble statesmen below the market price.
Stocks sold to statesmen—it was cunningly arranged—need not be paid for
till after the road was finished and the stocks were paying dividends.
For example, Congressman W. B. Allison, afterward Senator Allison, of
Iowa (so sly and stealthy that he became known as “Pussy-Foot”), bought
some of the stocks “on the quiet,” too, from the infamous Ames; he paid
out nothing for the stocks, but when he had owned the stocks for only a
brief time and while the unfinished road was yet in comparatively poor
condition, his dividends more than paid for his stocks.[147] The Union
Pacific scandal snuffed out numerous lesser lights and sadly bedimmed
the lustre of twenty-two other “great” names, such as Blaine, Logan,
Garfield, Colfax.[148]
This villainy of the nation’s “great” men is worthy of Emerson’s
interesting flattery of eminent prostitutes:
“When I read the list of men of intellect, of refined pursuits,
giants in law, or eminent scholars, or of social distinction, men of
wealth and enterprise in the commercial community, and see what they
have voted for and what they have suffered to be voted for, I think
no community was ever so politely and elegantly betrayed.”—(“Lecture
on Woman.”)
One Congressman was given $500,000 for his assistance in getting the
charter granted.
“Another [expense],” says Professor Ripley (Harvard
University),[149] “of a worse sort concerned a government
commissioner, Cornelius Wendell, appointed to examine the road and
report whether or not it met the requirements of the law, who flatly
demanded $25,000 before he would proceed to perform his duty ... his
demand was paid in the same spirit in which it was made—as so much
blood money.”
Another authority thus:[150]
“Oakes Ames, member of Congress, from Massachusetts, and a promoter
of the Union Pacific and its bills before the national legislature,
distributed Credit Mobilier stock to _influential_ Congressmen on
the understanding that it should be paid for _out of the dividends_,
which dividends depended largely on the passage of the bills giving
grants of land and money to the U. P. The bills were passed. The
dividends of the very first year paid for the stock and left a
balance to the credit of the donees; and the total _construction_
profits were $43,925,328 above all expenses, in which profits the
stock-holding Congressmen who passed the railroad grants had an
important share.”
SEVENTH: The statesmen-business men cunningly agreed that when the
government used the road (which it had furnished more than sufficient
means to construct) one-half the regular rate should be paid in cash and
the other half should apply as credit on the government loan.
EIGHTH: The Union Pacific Railway Company, including the Central Pacific
(same system),[151] was cunningly presented—scot free—one-half of all
the land within twenty miles of the right-of-way, and “all the timber,
iron and coal within six miles” of the right-of-way,—a total of
25,000,000 acres of land. “At $2.50 per acre,” says President E. B.
Andrews (University of Nebraska),[152] “the land values alone would more
than build the road.” The _Northern_ Pacific Company received, just two
years later, 47,000,000 acres of land as a gift which a land expert[153]
estimated to be worth probably $990,000,000 and possibly
$1,320,000,000,—which gives us some idea of the value of the 25,000,000
acre gift to the _Union_ Pacific.
It is worth the space to add: That “the promoters of the Northern
Pacific, through unfair construction contracts and other frauds,
made the capitalization of 600 miles of that line constructed down
to 1874 amount to 143 millions on an actual expenditure of
twenty-two millions.”[154]
NINTH: Again and again the Union Pacific, when it suited its purpose to
do so, refused to comply with the treasonably easy terms of its charter;
but always the patriots in Washington and the distinguished railway
gentlemen cunningly “got together,” made some “gentlemen’s
agreement”—and the charter was not revoked.
As suggested above, this charter, as amended by the Senate and in the
form signed by the President, July 1, 1862,—was, when it was finally
“considered” in the House of Mis-Representatives, voted 104 to 21
“without a single syllable of debate.”[155]
Professor Parsons sums up the case thus:[156]
“The promoters got from Congress more than the cost of the road,
bonded it again to private investors for all it was worth, issued
stock also beyond the cost of construction, sold and gave away a
good deal of it, and still had the road and the control of its
earnings for themselves.”
The magnitude of this statesmen-patriot-thieves’ masterpiece (“for love
of country and home and God”) can not be realized without a further word
concerning the land grants.
Seventy-nine land-grant railroads (twenty-one of them “direct
beneficiaries of Congress”) have been granted 200,000,000 acres of land
(reduced by forfeiture to 158,286,627 acres).
“OVER ONE-HALF OF THIS ACREAGE WAS GRANTED BY ACTS PASSED BETWEEN 1862
AND 1864.”[157]
That is to say, during twenty-four terrible months, just while the
nation was sweating blood from every pore, while the people were not
looking at anything except the war, precisely at that time, patriotic
statesmen gave away to railway promoters who shed no “blood for the
flag,” gave to these “gentlemen of push and enterprise” a sufficient
amount of the people’s lands to provide a hundred and twenty-five-acre
farm for every one of the 800,000 men mustered out of the Union armies
in 1865.
Professor Parsons says “the total _national_ land-grants alone have
aggregated 215,000,000 acres”—(15,000,000 acres higher than the estimate
by Professors Cleveland and Powell).
“It could be said of more than one railroad company as was said by
an English capitalist who inspected ... the properties of the
Illinois Central, ‘This is not a railway company; it is a land
company.’”[158]
It is interesting (and instructive) to note that the charter of the
_Northern_ Pacific Railway with its 47,000,000 acre land gift, with
astoundingly liberal amendments to the U. P. charter, was granted July
2, 1864, _precisely at a time_ when the nation’s attention was again
riveted to two specially terrible campaigns which absorbed the nation
wholly in the war: Grant and Lee, with immense armies, were fighting
bitterly, and Sherman with 98,000 men and Johnston with 45,000 men had
been fighting fiercely and almost continuously from June 10 to July 2,
1864. As stated above, the Northern Pacific got 47,000,000 acres of
land.[159]
The three railways, says Professor Parsons in substance,[160] the Union
Pacific, the Central Pacific and the Northern Pacific, _cost_ somewhat
less than $132,000,000, and were _capitalized_ at more than
$383,000,000—that is to say, about $250,000,000 (_two-thirds_ of the
capitalization) was fictitious,—a fraud, a lie, _commercial patriotism_.
While at wining and dining tables in closely guarded private parlors in
the best hotels in Washington this unmatchable plundering was cunningly
arranged (“to develop the country, of course”) working class men and
boys, half starved and weary, were obediently slaughtering themselves at
the word of command—for 43 cents a day, in depreciated paper money
forced upon them by pirate patriots.
While the nation is blinded with tears and the common men’s blood gushes
from their torn veins, the “business” man, with pious patriotism talking
grandly of the “glorious flag,” cunningly sneaks to the nation’s
store-house, a blushless burglar; he climbs aboard the ship of state, a
conscienceless pirate.[161]
FIFTH ILLUSTRATION: “FREEING CUBA”—“REMEMBERING THE MAINE.”
So you were—or wished to be—in the Spanish-American War?
Well, I wish to explain why the capitalists excited some young
men—carefully excited them—and then sent them to Cuba in 1898.
There were very strong reasons for their doing so.
(1) American capitalists already had investments in Cuban industries,
and they knew that if the United States took charge of Cuba, their
investments would be more secure, would thus increase in value—and thus
yield more profits.
(2) American capitalists wanted Spanish capitalists crowded out in order
to give still more opportunity to American capitalists to extend their
American capitalism in Cuba—and thus make more profits.
(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.”
They fooled us—didn’t they? They shouted: “Remember the Maine!” That
made our blood hot—stampeded us—didn’t it? But we are cooler now—aren’t
we? Let us see: Suppose a great ship should sink in a shallow harbor, as
the Maine did, and suppose it had on board three dozen young men from
the homes of the leading capitalists of America—_millionaires’ sons_.
What think you—would the vessel be raised or not?
Did you ever think of this? If the Spaniards blew up the Maine with a
sunken mine, how can you explain the fact that the Maine’s armor-plate
was bent _outward_ and not _inward_ at the points of fracture? _Why does
not the United States Government push the investigation to the very
limit?_ Why stop the investigation very suddenly just as things get
extremely interesting?—just as it seems likely that information is about
to come out which would astonish the whole world?
Ever think of it? Would it not have been profitable for some American
capitalists to have bribed some scoundrel to blow up the Maine from the
inside? It _was_ profitable for capitalists in the American Civil War to
furnish Union soldiers with rifles so defective that thousands of them
exploded in the hands of the soldier boys. Thousands of the guns _when
sold to the Government and handed on to the soldiers_ bore the mark
“Condemned.” Look this matter up in Gustavus Myers’ _History of Great
American Fortunes_, Vol. II., pp. 127–38. Then when you hear some
“Remember the Maine” music you will not become so violently excited and
eager to enlist.
Of course you were told that the purpose of American interference in
Cuba was to free the poor, suffering, abused Cubans:—the usual dose of
philanthropy, flattery and bombast. Some eloquent speeches were made by
Senators and Congressmen, speeches of unusual power and rare beauty. But
the beauty and the power and the eloquence did not induce any of the
eloquent statesmen to go to the war. Hardly.
If the United States Government had promptly recognized the
revolutionary Cubans’ right to become a sovereign nation possessing
_international rights and privileges_, the Cubans could have freed
themselves. France thus recognized the puny, rebellious American
Revolutionary government in 1778; and that recognition helped us along
wonderfully.
American capitalists in 1897–98 were simply searching the world for an
opportunity to line their pockets. Excitable young men and boys came in
handy as armed hired hands, hired fists; though, of course, these same
hired men were left in the lurch, got disease, broken health—and
contemptuous laughter.
Brothers, you veterans of the Cuban War, crafty men excited you, amused
you, confused you, then used you and despised you so thoroughly that
they gave some of you horse meat while in camp within five miles of
Washington on your way to the war—so some of your number have said—and
gave you on the battlefield embalmed meat canned years before, meat that
even fizzed with a vile odor when the point of a knife-blade was thrust
into the can, meat unfit for a mangy cur or a buzzard.
Excited you?
Yes, that is exactly what happened to you.
A man is pretty thoroughly excited and confused—isn’t he?—when he is
singing “My Country! ’tis of Thee!” at the very time that country is
feeding him meat unfit for a dog. Mr. Roosevelt confesses that a special
effort was made to excite you, and he also tells us some other
things:[165]
“And from the moment when the regiment began to gather, _the higher
officers kept instilling_ into those under them the spirit of
eagerness for action, of stern determination to _grasp at death_
rather than forfeit honor ... fever sickened and weakened them so
that many of them died from it during the few months following their
return.... We found all our dead and all the badly wounded.... One
of our own dead and most of the Spanish dead had been found by the
vultures before we got to them; and their bodies were mangled, their
eyes and wounds being torn.... A very touching incident happened in
the improvised open-air hospital after the fight, where the wounded
were lying.... One of them suddenly began to hum, ‘My Country, ’Tis
of Thee,’ and one by one the others joined in the chorus, which
swelled out through the tropic, where the victors lay in camp beside
their dead.”
How lovely—so perfectly sweet of them. So extremely touching—“_grasping_
at death.”
The buzzards tore out the eyes of some of the brave young fellows and
feasted on them; the grave-worms got some of them; vile diseases
sickened many thousands of them; and many of them came home to “their
_dear_ country”—so poor in purse that they had to beg on the streets of
Philadelphia, New York and elsewhere.
Their dear country.
They had been “grasping at death” for their dear country.
Remember: The buzzards and the battlefield grave-worms did not get the
“prominent people” who actually own this dear country. “Higher officers”
can not instill or fill a banker or a manufacturer so full of the
“spirit of eagerness” that he becomes eager to “grasp at death” and have
his eyeballs ripped out and his shattered body eaten by vultures.
These men were not excited—not in the least.
These men were thinking.
These were not “grasping at death”; they were grasping for Cuba.
Cuba looked good and you looked easy.
These men needed you in their business. And they got you, you Cuban War
veterans.
Some items of interest concerning this matter leaked out and got into
the papers—into obscure columns of a few of the papers. It improves
one’s enthusiasm for “patriotism” to read a few of these “leaks.”
Following are a few of the items, from the New York Tribune:[166]
“According to the statement given out by the Cuban Junta yesterday,
the Republic of Cuba issued $2,000,000 of bonds, payable in gold, at
6 per cent. interest, ten years after the war with Spain had ended.
Of this lot $500,000 were sold at an average of 50 per cent....
Among the purchasers of these bonds were many prominent financiers
of this city; and now the bonds which were originally sold at 50 per
cent. of their face value have increased to 60 per cent....
“The disposition of the bonds of the Cuban Republic has been a
question discussed in certain quarters during the last few days ...
and the graver charge has been made that the bonds have been given
away indiscriminately in the United States to the people of
influence who would therefore become interested in seeing the
Republic of Cuba on such terms with the United States as would make
the bonds valuable pieces of property. Men of business, newspaper
and even public officials have been mentioned as having received
these bonds as a gift....
“Some interesting facts were developed before the Foreign Affairs
Committee of the House today. B. F. Guerra, Deputy-Treasurer of the
Cuban Republic, appeared with his books, and they were inspected by
the Committee. He explained that of the $10,000,000 in bonds
authorized ... the lowest price at which any were sold was 25 cents
on the dollar.... One million of the bonds were locked up in the
safe of Belmont and Company, of New York, to be sold when the price
fixed, 45 cents on the dollar, had been obtained.
“... Mr. Guerra was asked about the Spanish-Cuban bonds issued
against the revenues of the island. He replied that he did not know
their amount, which report placed at $400,000,000....
Deputy-Treasurer Guerra was also before the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations today. He said the Cuban bonds which had been sold
had been disposed of for an average of about 40 cents on the
dollar....
“Some of the Republicans in Congress ... are investigating the
question as to whether the United States under international law, if
it intervened in Cuba and cut off the revenues, could be held
responsible for the Spanish bonds, said to aggregate $400,000,000,
which have been issued against the revenues of the island. Mr.
Bromwell says he is looking into the question, and finds some
warrant in law for such responsibility....
“Congressman ‘Blank’[167] in the House on Monday, said he had
$10,000 worth of Cuban bonds in his pocket ... while H. H. Kohlsaat,
in an editorial in one of the Chicago papers, charges the Junta with
offering a bribe of $2,000,000 of Cuban bonds to a Chicago man [to
one man!] to use his influence with the administration for the
recognition of the provisional government....
“Mr. Guerra made the somewhat startling statement that a man
representing certain individuals at Washington has sought to coerce
the Junta into selling $10,000,000 worth of bonds at 20 cents on the
dollar. ‘This man practically threatened us that unless we let him
have the bonds at the price he quoted, Cuba would never receive
recognition. He said he was prepared to pay on the spot $2,000,000
in American money, for $10,000,000 of Cuban bonds, but his offer was
refused.’”
As the possibility of “good things” increased, the statesmen’s tender
hearts were deeply stirred, naturally, and they set up a melodiously
patriotic howl for intervention. Many powerful newspapers were turned
upon the public to “work” the working class, and soon tens of thousands
of humble fellows of the working class were wild with eagerness to rush
to the front and “help the poor Cubans.”
But a very high authority, Professor McMaster (University of
Pennsylvania), assures us[168] that the outrages committed against the
Cubans by the Spanish Government _had been common for more than fifty
years_. “The Cubans had rebelled _six times in these fifty years_.” But
not until American capitalistic interests were well developed did it
seem “noble” and “grand” and “the will of God” to intervene. But by the
year 1895 “upwards of $50,000,000 of American money were invested in
mines, railroads and plantations there. Our yearly trade with the Cubans
was valued at $96,000,000.”
It was time to weep—profitably.
Hence the tearful orations and powerful editorials for intervention. How
the orators and business men far from the firing line loved “the men
behind the guns.” Here is some more evidence:[169]
“The canned roast meat ... a great majority of the men found it
uneatable. It was coarse, stringy and tasteless and very
disagreeable in appearance, and so unpalatable that the effort [!]
to eat it made some of the men sick. Most of them preferred to be
hungry rather than eat it.... As nine-tenths of the men were more or
less sick, the unattractiveness of the travel-rations was doubly
unfortunate.... In some respects the Spanish rations were preferable
to ours.... We had nothing whatever in the way of proper nourishing
food for our sick and wounded men during most of the time.... On the
day of the big fight, July 1, as far as we could find out there were
but two ambulances with the army in condition to work—neither of
which did we see.... On several occasions I visited the big
hospitals in the rear. Their condition was frightful beyond
description from lack of supplies, lack of medicine, lack of
doctors, nurses, and attendants.... The wounded and the sick who
were sent back [to the hospitals] suffered so much that, whenever
possible, they returned to the front.... The fever began to make
heavy ravages among our men ... not more than half our men could
carry their rolls.... But instead of this the soldiers were issued
horrible stuff called ‘canned fresh beef.’... At best it was stringy
and tasteless, at the worst it was nauseating. Not one-fourth of it
was ever eaten at all even when the men became very hungry.... The
canned beef proved to be practically uneatable.... When we were
mustered out, many of the men had lost their jobs, and were too weak
to go to work at once. Of course there were a few weaklings among
them; and there were others, entirely brave and self-sufficient, who
from wounds or fevers were so reduced that they had to apply for
aid....”
While our government was feeding its soldiers on meat unfit for a dog,
our export trade included millions of pounds of the best meat on
earth—sent to Europe to be eaten by the aristocratic snobs of the
“_better_ class.”
Shakespeare has asked the thoughtful man’s question:
“What would you have me do? Go to the wars, would you? Where a man
may serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not money in
the end to buy a wooden one.”
“Freeing Cuba” was—was what? A change of masters for the Cuban working
class, and a “fool’s errand” for the American working class soldiers, as
many of them have confessed—confessed with curses for the crafty
prominent people who seduced them to the battlefields.
SIXTH ILLUSTRATION: STANDING AT ATTENTION FOR CIVILIZED CANNIBALS:
Consider a moment the recent war between Christian Russia and pagan
Japan, a war for the capitalist control of Manchuria, the working class
of course doing the fighting—as usual.
It is well-known that the economic interests of the pagan Japanese
capitalists in Manchuria inspired the Japanese statesmen to the recent
war with Russia. The Christian Russian capitalists had precisely the
same sort of inspiration for the war. Here are presented some facts to
be considered by the spiritual followers of Christ who presume to scorn
the “sordid materialism of the ‘unsaved’ pagan Japanese”:
(1) For years preceding 1903 the Christian Tsar and the Christian
Empress and many of their Christian friends had opposed the threatening
war in Manchuria.
(2) In 1903 the Royal Timber Company was organized to scoop up many
millions of dollars in profits to be made out of the vast lumber forests
in the Yalu River valley “secured” from the pagan Corean government.
(3) In 1903 the Tsar and the Empress and many of their friends joined
the Royal Timber Company, taking stock to the amount of many millions of
dollars.
(4) Having become involved in Corea _as capitalists_ with _economic_
interests to be protected, the Tsar, the Empress and their friends
immediately and completely reversed their position on the question of
war—vigorously favored the war which now seemed to be necessary to
protect their Yalu River lumber interests. It now, of course, became
perfectly clear that “the kingdom of Christ could be advanced among the
heathen”—on the point of the bayonet.
Hence the two years of butchering of brothers by brothers—who were duly
informed that they were “enemies.”[170]
It seems barely possible that the 47,387 Japanese soldiers who were
killed in that war could have no proper appreciation of the Tsar’s
spiritual motives in promoting the war; but, on the other hand, during
the war 320,000 sick and wounded were sent from Manchurian battlefields
to Japan. These, while nursing their festering wounds and their wasting
health, had some leisure to have explained to them the somewhat
elusively spiritual element of a Christian war inaugurated for “Jesus’
sake” and the protection of a saw-mill enterprise.
This terrible war lasted two years. But it would certainly have closed
in six months because of lack of funds—if Christian business men and
gentle, “cultivated” Christian women of the world had refused to lend
money to the two sleek groups of official brutes in Japan and Russia who
were forcing hundreds of thousands of humble working men into Manchuria
to slaughter one another. Just charge up twenty-four months of that
ferocious blood-spilling—charge it, not only to the Christian barbarians
the Tsar and his friends, and the un-Christian Mikado and his pagan
capitalist friends, but also to the civilized, fur-lined, orthodox
savages of Western Europe and of the United States who were so wolfishly
eager for unearned incomes in interest on war bonds that they were
willing, by lending money to fan the flames of war,—willing to foster
wholesale murder, willing to wet the earth with working class blood and
tears—willing thus to sink their industrial tusks deep into the
quivering flesh of the toilers of Japan and Russia. Always there is a
reason.
At one time in the war Japanese statesmen offered interest-bearing,
Japanese national bonds for sale in San Francisco. There was instantly a
swinish scramble by lily-fingered Christian ladies and gentlemen of that
city to buy those pagan blood-wet bonds; the bonds were thus purchased
immediately—with the unblushing promptness of greed. The offers of cash
vastly exceeded the amount of the bonds offered. And now these “leading
Christian citizens,” having thus stuck out their tongues in scorn at the
Christ of Peace, having thus given the loud laugh of contempt for the
noble sentiment of the brotherhood of man,—these eminently respectable
cannibals by means of their bond purchases having adjusted their
scornful lips to the veins of the far-away working class of Japan—_are
satisfied_; and for a generation they will suck and tug—like beautiful
tigers at the throats of common work horses—will suck the industrial
blood of the working class they despise.
This blood-sucking process will be called “business.”
The blood they suck will be called “interest.”
These gilt-edged cannibals will continue to be called “the very best
people of San Francisco.”
Their occasional contribution to Christian missionary work in Japan will
be called “splendid generosity.”
Their “views” on the “harmony of capital and labor” will be quoted in
many capitalist newspapers as “sound advice.”
And, strangely enough, these smooth murderers—particeps criminis—will
actually go unhung, such is the irony of the present order.
And these distinguished abettors of international assassination
will—with crafty thoughtfulness—occasionally visit the armories and
barracks in San Francisco and carefully flatter the working class
militia and the working class “regulars,” flatter them into the folly of
standing guard for those who despise and betray and bleed the working
class of the whole world.
Brothers, will _you_ be tricked to the trenches, march in the mud,
murder your class and bleed yourselves for such as these? Will you stand
at “attention” for these international leeches? What about loyalty to
your own class?
Concerning these international bond-buying leeches the Reverend Dr.
Walter Walsh writes:[171]
“By the very condition of its existence international capitalism has
no country—save Eldorado; no king—save Mammon; no politics—save
Business.... Mammon worshippers of all nations forswear every
allegiance whensoever and in whatsoever part of the world it clashes
with their allegiance to capital and interest; that heterogeneous
and polyglot crowd of millionaires, exploiters, money-lenders,
gamblers ... or the adoring circle of political women who worship
them—being moved by no other consideration than profit and loss....
By the transference of its investments from native to foreign
countries capitalism ceases to be national ... this bloated order of
capitalism.”
The English philosopher, Frederic Harrison, hands these international
profit-gluttons the following compliment:[172]
“Turn which way we will, it all comes back to this—that we are to go
to war really for the money interests of certain rich men.... All
this is very desirable to the persons themselves. But it is not the
concern of this country to guarantee them these profits, privileges
and places. It would be blood guilt in this country to enforce these
guarantees at the cost of war. The interests of these rich and
adventurous persons are not British interests; but the interests of
certain British subjects. And between their interests and war and
conquest, domination and annexation—how vast is the gulf.”
“War seldom enters but where wealth allures.”—Dryden: “Hind and
Panther.”
“Gold and power the chief causes of war.”—Tacitus: _History_, Book
4.
“A great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle
[patriotism] alone.”—George Washington: In a letter to John
Bannister, April 21, 1778.
“Let the gulled fool the toils of war pursue
Where bleed the many to enrich the few.”
—Shenstone: “Judgment of Hercules.”
“When wars do come, they fall upon the many, the producing class,
who are the sufferers.”[173]
SEVENTH ILLUSTRATION: THE AMERICAN COSSACK.[174]
“The man on horseback” has always typified despotism. He means
“Silence!” to all opposition. He is the assassin of discussion and the
destroyer of democracy. Historically he has usually been the ambitious
general usurping political powers and becoming an autocrat. He has
always been dreaded by all who have worked for the progress of freedom.
“The man on horseback” has ceased to be a myth in America. He has been
recreated by the Neros of American capitalism whom he proudly serves for
rations and flattery, the pet of the “captains of industry.”
The Tsars of Russia have used the Cossack and recommend him to all the
rulers of the world.
The American Cossack has been on duty for several years in some parts of
the United States. He is shameless, dangerous, effective. He will
probably be multiplied by thousands, in numbers, and by infinity, in
insolence,—within the next ten years—in the United States. _He must be
understood—by the working class._ Here is a sample:
In the anthracite coal strike of 1902, 145,000 humble miners whose
average income was $1.29 per day, struggled for a few pennies more for
their toil with which to feed and clothe themselves and their families.
In that strike the following brave deed was done by a mounted
militiaman, an American Cossack, in the service of the tyrants who own
the vast stores of anthracite coal.
A mounted militiaman, armed with a modern rifle and a powerful revolver,
a double row of cartridges and a club in his belt, rode pompously
through the street of a mining village, bravely daring the unarmed
toilers and heroically glaring at the humble women and the helpless
little children at the cabin doors. _Ready_—with him fed, petted, armed,
mounted and brutal—the _capitalists_ were _ready_, ready though the
capitalists themselves were a hundred miles or ten thousand miles away.
That AUTOMATIC TUSK of the capitalist class was on duty. Suddenly he
cried out to an old man, a “mine helper,” on strike, an old veteran of
the Civil War: “Halt!”
Then, pointing down the dusty road, “the man on horseback,” the American
Cossack, said to the hungry old man: “March! Git! Damn you, git! Right
down that road right now—and keep marching—straight ahead of me! Mind
you—I’ll be right behind you, you damned lazy scoundrel! Walk
pretty—damn you! If you make a mis-step or even look side-wise, I’ll put
a bullet through you! Now march!”
The march began at once. Thus this well-dressed, well-mounted,
well-armed young working man, an American Cossack, rode hour after
hour—for half a day—a few steps behind the weary old wage-slave, a
veteran of the Civil War,—on and on in the hot sun for many weary miles,
down the Susquehanna River (in the direction of Gettysburg). Finally,
after the long march, the noble hero on horseback called out to the old
hero on foot, “Halt! Do you see that trail over yon mountain? Yes? Well,
now, you damned old cheap skate, you scratch gravel over that
mountain—quick, too! And let me tell you one thing—if you ever show your
damned skinny old face in the anthracite coal region again, we’ll shoot
you like a dog. Now, you old gray-headed —— —— ——, git up that
mountain—git up that mountain and out of sight or I’ll shoot you. Go!”
Wearily the old Union veteran climbed the mountain. When he finally got
away from his noble tormentor he sat down to rest—and think—to think of
“our free country.”
Long ago that old gray man—when in his excitable youth—had marched
proudly under the “Stars and Stripes” on gory battlefields, risking all,
all, to defend “his country,” and his dear “Old Glory.” Once, he told
me, the flag was reddened with his own blood.... But now “Old Glory”
mocked him. Captains of industry, capitalists, industrial Caesars, had
captured the flag and with devilish craftiness used that same flag to
defend their industrial despotism. Sons and grandsons of veterans of the
Civil War were now shrewdly flattered and bribed into the ignoble rôle
of Russianizing America. Sons and grandsons were becoming Cossacks, and
they cursed his gray hairs for demanding of American capitalists a few
more pennies a day for ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-housed women and children
in the dismal homes of the miners.... A cursing Cossack wearing khaki
and flying the flag virtually spat in the old veteran’s face.
“A cold-blooded organization that [Pennsylvania] State
Constabulary.”[175]
When Decoration Day comes, when the Fourth of July is to be celebrated,
when “patriotic” displays are to be made—at such times—bankers, big
business men, politicians and statesmen—many of these—should put on
black masks, wrap themselves in black flags, and sneak (blushingly, if
possible) down into dark cellars and stay there during the
celebration—with their memories crowded with soldiers, widows and
orphans brutally wronged,—with their memories crowded with congresses
corrupted, treasuries looted, lands stolen, charters, privileges and
“good things” shamelessly raped from the unseeing public while brave but
deluded working men agonized on bloody battlefields.
And on such days the working class should shout less and think more.
“The man on horseback” should have some special thought.
And the working class are thinking today more than ever before. And,
thinking, they begin to see that hand-clapping, fife-playing,
drum-beating and buncombe from a prostituted orator are neither freedom
nor justice, nor even the _sign_ of such; but are, rather, just what
Mark Twain called them[176]—a “bastard patriotism.”
The motive of the young men who voluntarily join the army or the militia
is possibly, in many cases, a good motive. Perhaps they do not see the
tricks of the string-pullers behind the scenes, the powerful motives of
the industrial masters behind the curtains. _It is not always easy for
the young man to realize that he is to be used to punish the
half-nourished, pale-faced working class baby that vainly tugs
weak-lipped at the withered and milkless breasts of the ill-fed,
ill-clothed, discouraged working class mother_. However, the cheap rôle
of the armed protector of industrial parasites is becoming more and more
clearly understood, and consequently more and more disgusting to the
entire working class—including both the militia and the regulars
themselves. LIGHT IS BREAKING IN THE TOILERS’ MIND. THE HIDEOUS BUSINESS
OF STANDING READY TO BAYONET THE MILLIONS OF MEN AND BOYS AND WOMEN AND
GIRLS WHOSE LIVES ARE MADE UP OF MEANLY PAID DRUDGERY—THIS VILE BUSINESS
IS RAPIDLY SINKING BELOW THE LEVEL OF CONTEMPT. STRONG YOUNG FELLOWS IN
THE ARMY AND THE MILITIA AND THE NAVY INCLINE MORE AND MORE TO LINE UP
WITH THEIR OWN CLASS, THE WORKING CLASS, AND REFUSE TO ASSASSINATE THEIR
BROTHERS WHO ARE STRUGGLING FOR A FEW PENNIES ADVANCE IN WAGES.
They see the trick.
Some of the militiamen resigned in the anthracite coal strike of 1902,
resigned when they realized that they were being used simply as
watchdogs for industrial masters who were cheating even the little
ten-year-old boys in the coal-breakers, cheating even these little
fellows whose fingers, worn through the skin, were bleeding on the coal
they sorted with their hands.
That was in Republican Pennsylvania.
Not long ago when the street railway union men were on strike in New
Orleans some of the militiamen, with splendid contempt and defiance,
threw their rifles down on the cobblestones rather than obey orders to
shoot their old neighbors who were struggling for a larger share of
life.
That was in Democratic Louisiana.
Workingmen, both Democrats and Republicans, begin to see the trick.
Thousands of young men desert—and thousands more would like to
desert—the United States army every year. They cannot stand the snubs
and sneers of their “superior officers,” and the contempt now
increasingly felt by the working class for the armed handy man serving
as a fist for the ruling class.
So many young men in America understand the working class soldier’s
disloyalty to his own class that the Department of Murder now has much
difficulty in keeping the ranks full. The Government now has to tease
and coax young men to join the army and the navy. In the autumn of 1907,
the capitalist press began to discuss boldly the necessity of
_conscription_ for filling the ranks of our standing army, the European
plan of forcing young men to assume the rôle of armed flunkies. But just
as the capitalist papers began to discuss and commend compulsory
military service, the panic, the hard times, broke upon the country;
hundreds of thousands were suddenly thrown out of employment. Instantly
the Government and the capitalist papers ceased discussion of
conscription, knowing well that thousands of jobless men could easily be
recruited to save themselves from rags and hunger. At the same time
Congress _advanced the pay of regular soldiers_—while millions of
toilers were out of work, millions were reduced to “part time,” millions
had their wages cut: the destroyers’ wages were advanced, but the
producers’ wages were cut down.
These facts made millions think. Thinking whets the edge of the working
class mind. This sharpened mind cuts through the noisy mockery and the
glittering sham of capitalist patriotism.
The workers wake. They see the trick.
Volunteers?
“The British volunteer army is in reality recruited to the extent of 80
per cent. by the peril of starvation. The yearly average of desertions
from the British Regular Army is 7,000.”[177] The writer of the present
volume has heard of young men volunteering for the American Regular Army
who enlisted in the fall and deserted in the spring, some of them doing
this even three times.[178] The capitalists would not hire them and they
were too proud to beg. They “wintered” in the army. But they despised
the whole thing.
They see the trap.
A WORKINGMAN’S MEDITATIONS: “WE APPRECIATE IT.”
In time of peace the “leading citizens” give us horny-handed working
people the cold gaze—socially. We are not invited to dine with
them—socially, or dance with them—socially, or otherwise visit with
them—socially. They say we are ignorant and coarse-grained—socially; and
they turn us down “cold and hard”—socially, _in time of peace_. But in
time of _war_ these “very best people” don’t neglect us so much—and we
appreciate it. _Then_ the “best people” give us glad, stimulating
glances and speak up kindly—and we appreciate it. They tell us we are
brave and intelligent and patriotic—and we appreciate it. They tell us
that soldier clothes look good (on us)—and we appreciate it. When our
newly enlisted working class company are ready to go away to war the
bankers and the other big business men chip in a quarter apiece to get
the brass band out to give us a “send off”—and we appreciate it. The
bankers and the big business men and the band go down to the railway
station with us: we grin, then they smile—and we appreciate it. As our
train of dirty old second-class coaches pulls away we look out through
the car windows and see the bankers and the other leading citizens
waving their soft white hands and sweetly smiling at us, saying, “You
are the very _thing_”—and we appreciate it. The “best people” know we
are going to feast on embalmed beef and show our patriotism: they wipe
their eyes sympathetically—and we appreciate it. The “best people”
modestly and courteously remain at home in order that we working people
may have all the honor and glory of butchering and being butchered—and
we appreciate it. The “best people,” with beautiful forethought, give us
working people the blessed privilege of leaving our homes lonely,
leaving our wives desolate and widowed, our children orphaned—and we
appreciate it. The “leading citizens” fraternally let us working people
do the fighting and the bleeding and the dying for the country—and we
appreciate it _so_ much. With gracious manner these “prominent people”
show us a “hot time” and tell us to “_go_ to it”—and we appreciate it.
With melting tenderness the “_very best people_” give us working people
the “hot air” and the “frosty lemons”—and we begin to appreciate the
trick.
When the southern slave-driver gave the slave fifteen lashes instead of
sixteen the slave appreciated it.
Reader, in nearly every country in Europe, in America—in all parts of
the civilized world—the workers are having their eyes opened. They begin
to understand the crafty flattery of the dollar-marked patriots who
never get on the firing line.
A SPECIAL WARNING TO THE WORKING CLASS OF THE UNITED STATES:
Open wide your eyes, brothers—and sisters.
The next trick-to-the-trenches is being prepared.
There is _talk_ of peace—but _preparation_ for war.
For more than twenty-five hundred years the great sea wars have been
fought on the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The bottoms of
these oceans are strewn with shattered ships and human bones.
But the vast butcherings at sea in the near future will probably be,
most of them, on the Pacific Ocean.
Like hungry wolves hotly eager in sight of prey, like clouds of vultures
swooping confidently over a field strewn with a vile feast—thus the
capitalist nations are gathering together their drums, their rifles,
cannon, dynamite, lyddite, embalmed beef, hospitals, soldiers, marines,
battleships, and boat-destroyers, preparing to assemble on the Pacific
Ocean for bloody struggles.
There is _talk_ of peace—but _preparation_ for war.
What for?
Simply to secure more opportunity to make more profits for more
money-hungry cowards, who will loll at home—safe—while the “brave boys”
do the fighting.
There is talk of peace—and preparation for war.
What for?
Eastern Asia is the prize.
Working-class boys everywhere who are socially snubbed at home—and even
turned down at the factory—these boys will join the armies and the
navies of the world for these future struggles. Huge guns will roar, big
shells will boom across the waves, splendid ships will shudder, then
plunge to the bottom of the deep, filled with boys enticed from the
homes of the humble. The sharks will send the innocents to the sea.
It will be “great” and “glorious.” Very.
And especially profitable: which is the main thing.
Perhaps your own bones or your son’s bones will bleach at the bottom of
the Pacific Ocean.
The _fundamental_ cause of these future wars on the Pacific Ocean and in
Eastern Asia, the cause, will be ignored or concealed by all
International Peace Conferences and Conventions. And, afraid to admit
the cause, they can not treat the cause of these wars; they will thus be
unable to prevent these wars—these wolfish struggles for Eastern Asia as
a capitalist prize. The leading capitalist citizens of the world have no
confidence in these International Peace Conferences. Therefore they
continue building more cannon, more battleships and more than ever they
are teasing the boys—our own younger brothers of the working
class—teasing them on board these great butchering machines.
Warn your neighbor—right away.
More and more defiantly the purpose is announced. In the year 1908 the
President of the great American “Republic” uttered an imperial fiat—and
lo! 18 battleships, 8 armored cruisers and a flock of torpedo-boat
destroyers, with thousands of cheap and humble young fellows on board,—a
fleet of butchering machines with the butchers aboard—pompously steamed
’round the earth on a forty-five thousand-mile cruise and carouse,
meaning—meaning what? Precisely this:
The capitalists of the United States are prepared with “civilized”
weapons, a shark’s appetite and a tiger’s methods, to conquer a lion’s
share of the vast profits to be wrung from Eastern Asia if they can find
enough gullible jackies to do the fighting.
Be warned—you toilers in the mills and mines and on the farms.
“During the last half century,” writes Dr. Josiah Strong,[179]
“European manufactures have risen from $5,000,000,000 to
$15,000,000,000. This increase of production has led the European
Powers to acquire tropical regions nearly one-half greater than
Europe. But while European manufactures were increasing threefold,
ours increased sixfold, and we, too, must find an outlet.
“All this means that the great manufacturing peoples are about
entering on an industrial conflict which is likely to be much more
than a ‘thirty years’ war,’ and like all war will cause measureless
misery and loss.”
The interocean Panama Canal, costing our country hundreds of millions of
dollars, is simply _one part_ of the American plutocrats’ plan to
dominate the Pacific, bleed Asia, convert the “Republic” into a still
less veiled despotism for conquest, commerce and profits to stuff the
pockets of the modern Caesars who talk of patriotism and always lust for
gold.
Mr. William H. Taft, in an interview, spoke thus threateningly in 1908:
“The foremost issue of the coming campaign will be the question of
expansion and the affairs of our insular possessions.
“The American Chinese trade is sufficiently great to require the
government of the United States to take every legitimate means to
protect it against diminution or injury by any political preference
of any of its competitors.
“_The merchants of the United States are being aroused to the
importance of their Chinese export trade and will view political
obstacles to its expansion with deep concern. This feeling of theirs
would be likely to find its expression in the attitude of the United
States Government._
“The Japanese have no more to do with our policy as a people than
any other nation. If they have or develop a policy that conflicts
with ours, that is another matter....
“I am an advocate of a larger navy.”[180]
There is _talk_ of peace—but _preparation_ for war.
But mark it well, brothers of the working class: Mr. Taft’s sons will
not be butchered as cheap American marines fighting on the Pacific Ocean
for a larger market for American capitalists. No capitalist shark shall
make a sucker of his sons and tease them to the sea. Mr. Roosevelt’s
sons, Mr. Bryan’s sons, and the sons of Senators and of Congressmen, the
sons of bankers, great merchants and manufacturers—the flesh of these
will never rot at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. No, oh, no. Scarcely.
They are too proud and shrewd to do anything of the sort—for fifty cents
a day. The mothers and sisters and sweethearts of these thoroughbred
boys will never weep in homes made desolate by the thoughts of skulls of
loved ones shining and grinning at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Brothers, I warn you.
“Tell them who are so fond of touring around the globe to import—(I
would rather say to inflict)—their civilization on the backward
nations and tribes,” says Mr. Frederic Harrison,[181] “tell them
that you want civilization here at home, if you can get it
genuine.... Tell them that there are fifty burning social questions
at home to solve.... Tell these noisy philanthropists ... whilst
‘civilization’ is making the tour of the world on board iron-clads,
with eighty-ton guns, civilization is terribly wanted ... at
home.... Therefore it is, I say, that peace, international justice,
and quiet relations with all our neighbors, are first of all the
interest of the workingmen ... they lose most heavily by war, both
in what they immediately suffer and in what they have to surrender.
They may leave their bones to wither in distant lands, but they
bring back no fortunes, no honors ... no new honors for their class.
They only can speak out boldly and with the irresistible voice of
conscience, because they only have no interest in injustice, nothing
to gain by conquest, and everything to lose by interference.”
Refuse, brothers, refuse. Be proud. Refuse. Stand by your own class.
Refuse. Bankers refuse. Manufacturers refuse. All the shrewd “prominent
people” refuse. You also should refuse to let your flesh rot and your
bones bleach at the bottom of the ocean in the interest of these
international leeches.
Lift up your meek faces, you tricked toilers of the world. The war
trenches are yawning for your lives—a gulf in which the hopes, the
happiness, the blood and the tears of your class will be swallowed.
Refuse.
When you understand, brothers, you will defend yourselves.
The day is dawning when the working class will not only shrewdly refuse
to be tricked to the trenches, but will also proudly seize all the
powers of government in defense of the working class. The working class
must defend the working class. The state, the school, the press, the
lecture platform, and even part of the church, all these powerful
institutions, are at present used to fasten and hold the burdens of toil
and the curse of war on the backs of the brutalized and despised
working-class producers and the working-class destroyers.
It is our move, brothers. Have we sense enough for self-defense? See
Chapter Ten: “Now What Shall We Do About It?”
-----
Footnote 117:
J. H. Rose: _The Development of the European Nations, 1870–1900_, Vol.
II., p. 328.
Footnote 118:
Copied from a Government advertisement in front of recruiting
headquarters in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, September 7, 1907. Italics
mine. G. R. K. This same form of advertisement has also been used in
many other cities.
Footnote 119:
“Lecture on War.”
Footnote 120:
See Bloch: _Future of War_, Preface XXXII.
Footnote 121:
See Charles Seignobos: _The Political History of Europe Since 1815_,
p. 504.
Footnote 122:
See Brodrick and Frotheringham: _The Political History of England_,
Vol. XI., p. 172, et seq.
Footnote 123:
_Work and Wages_, p. 507.
Footnote 124:
Jephson: _The Platform—Its Rise and Progress_, Vol. I., p. 283.
Footnote 125:
_History of the English People_, Vol. IV., p. 377.
Footnote 126:
_A Student’s History of England_, pp. 877–80.
Footnote 127:
_The Political History of England_, Vol. XI., Ch. 8.
Footnote 128:
_Sir Robert Peel_, Ch. 3.
Footnote 129:
_The English Constitution_, p. 423. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 130:
See, for example, J. F. Bright: _A History of England_, Period III.,
p. 1352.
Footnote 131:
_Arbeiter in Council_, p. 501.
Footnote 132:
_Bourienne’s Memoirs_, Vol. VII., c. 20. Reference in _Arbeiter in
Council_, p. 499. For cases equally monstrous in the American Civil
War history, see Myers’ _History of Great American Fortunes_, Vol.
II., pp. 127–38, 291–301; Chapters 11 and 12; Vol. III., pp. 160–176.
Footnote 133:
_History of the American People_, Vol. III., p. 120.
Footnote 134:
_A History of the American People_, p. 556.
Footnote 135:
“Apart from the phraseology of the statutes it appears during the
early years of the War the possibility of the payment of the bonds in
other than coin was hardly raised. According to the explicit statement
of Garfield in 1868, when the original five-twenty bond bill was
before the House in 1862, all who referred to the subject stated that
the principal of these bonds was payable in gold, and coin payment was
the understanding of every member of the committee of ways and
means.... It thus became practically an unwritten law to pay the
obligations of the United States in coin.”—Dewey: _Financial History
of the United States_, paragraph 148.
Footnote 136:
Hepburn: _The Contest for Sound Money_, p. 188.
Footnote 137:
_Finance_, p. 540, also _Public Debts_, p. 131.
Footnote 138:
Rice: _The Father of His Country—Year Book_.
Footnote 139:
_The Economic Interpretation of History_, p. 454. Italics mine. G. R.
K.
Footnote 140:
_Twenty-Eight Years_ (new edition _Fifty Years_) _of Wall Street_, p.
194.
Footnote 141:
Mr. Clews relates this whole matter in detail in his _Twenty-Eight
Years in Wall Street_ (new edition _Fifty Years_, etc.), in which
noble tome naive conceit and the pleasures of self-contemplation beget
an almost equal degree of incautious loquacity and innocent candor.
Footnote 142:
By “clear the decks,” and “unload,” when financial storms threaten,
bankers mean that any soon-to-shrink stocks and bonds held by them are
to be at once sold to (dumped upon) somebody else, to let somebody
else stand the certain loss—just as a sinful deacon might sell to his
neighboring fellow-worshipper a horse he was sure would die next day,
or as an enterprising grocer might sell a rotten lemon to a blind
child. It is “legitimate.” It is “opportunity.” It is “business.” And
conscience is a nuisance to some people when there is “opportunity” to
do “business.”
Footnote 143:
“It is a well-known fact that the War of the Rebellion was prolonged
as a result of the manipulations of the speculators who invested in
bonds. While the boys in blue were baring their breasts to the enemy
in a heroic struggle to save the Union, for $13 per month, the bond
sharks were speculating upon their necessities and the necessities of
the Government. At one time President Lincoln was so exasperated by
their greedy and unpatriotic actions that he declared they ‘ought to
have their devilish heads shot off.’”—Congressman Vincent, of Kansas,
in the House of Representatives, April 18, 1898.
Footnote 144:
_History of the United States_, Vol. IV., pp. 44–56.
Footnote 145:
_The Wall Street Point of View_, p. 29.
Footnote 146:
_Railway Problems_, p. 95.
Footnote 147:
See Davis: _The Union Pacific Railway_, p. 187.
Footnote 148:
Davis: pp. 89–202.
Footnote 149:
_Railway Problems_, p. 94.
Footnote 150:
Professor Frank Parsons (Boston University): _The Railways, the Trusts
and the People_, p. 64. And see Report of the Wilson Investigating
Committee, pp. III, IV, et seq., and Parsons’ Chapter on “Railroad
Graft.” Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 151:
“Similar franchises and subsidies were at the same time given to the
Central Pacific Railroad Company.”—Parsons: _The Railways, the Trusts
and the People_, p. 128.
Footnote 152:
_The United States in Our Own Time_, p. 103.
Footnote 153:
Wilson, for several years Land Commissioner for the Illinois Central
Railway Company, cited by Andrews.
Footnote 154:
Parsons: _The Railways, the Trusts and the People_, p. 106.
Footnote 155:
Davis: _The Union Pacific Railway_.
Footnote 156:
_The Railroads, the Trusts and the People_, p. 128.
Footnote 157:
Professors Cleveland and Powell (University of Pennsylvania):
_Railroad Promotion and Capitalization_, p. 250. Emphasis mine. G. R.
K.
Footnote 158:
See Professors Cleveland and Powell: _Railroad Promotion and
Capitalization_, pp. 250, 255.
Footnote 159:
See Lalor’s _Cyclopedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and
United States History_, Vol. III., p. 514.
Footnote 160:
_The Railways, the Trusts and the People_, p. 107.
Footnote 161:
The Fourth Illustration was prepared before the appearance of Mr.
Gustavus Myers’ _History of Great American Fortunes_, in which the
reader can find much concerning the land steals. Myers’ three volumes
are brimful of bombshells for the “noble record” of the glistening
barnacles that have clung to the body politic ever since George
Washington was under indictment for swearing off his taxes. Mr. Myers
has sadly bedimmed the glory of the illustrious “solid men of
business.” The work serves as a great contribution to the literature
on _social parasitism_ concerning which the wage-earner should make
all haste to get all possible information.
Footnote 162:
See discussions in Congressional Record of the period.
Footnote 163:
See Congressional Records.
Footnote 164:
D. R. Dewey: _The Financial History of the United States_, p. 467.
Footnote 165:
_The Rough Riders_, passim. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 166:
April 1, 6, 9, and 20, 1898.
Footnote 167:
See _Tribune_ for real name in full.
Footnote 168:
_School History of the United States_, p. 476.
Footnote 169:
Roosevelt: _The Rough Riders_, passim.
Footnote 170:
See _McClure’s Magazine_, Sept., 1908.
Footnote 171:
_The Moral Damage of War_, pp. 332–33.
Footnote 172:
_National and Social Problems_, pp. 211–12.
Footnote 173:
Gen. U. S. Grant. Compare also Grant’s comment on the cause of the
Mexican War: _Memoirs_, Vol. I.
Footnote 174:
See Chapters Seven, Section 7–12.
Footnote 175:
_New York Evening Sun_, Editorial, Feb. 24, 1910.
Footnote 176:
In an address, New York, May 25, 1908.
Footnote 177:
British authority for this statement; but exact citation unfortunately
lost.
Footnote 178:
But see Index: “Desertion.”
Footnote 179:
_Expansion_, pp. 101–2.
Footnote 180:
Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 181:
_National and Social Problems_, pp. 186–88.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
For Father and the Boys.
Following are “Topics for Discussion,” commended especially to working
men as themes for conversations by fathers (and mothers) and sons,
daughters also. It is hoped, too, that many of these themes may be
brought up for discussion by labor union bodies.
The reader will kindly refer to the footnote on page 13.
The divisions—or “sections”—of the present chapter and of the succeeding
chapter are not always materially related, and for the author’s purpose
it is not necessary that they should be. The section numbering is for
convenience in cross reference and for indexing.
(=1=) The Tsar of Russia and Germany’s famous general Von Moltke
positively refused to permit the young soldiers to see Verestchagin’s
pictures of war. Why? Because the pictures are true: they look like
hell. Hell is not alluring.
“If my soldiers should think carefully, not one of them would
remain, in the ranks.”—Frederick II.
Did you ever notice the attractive pictures of well-dressed, well-fed
soldiers and marines displayed as our government’s advertisements for
army and navy recruits? The pictures are lovely. They are intended to
make war look good to the young and hungry wage-earners, especially to
those out of a job. But let me tell you: Recently when a crowded
transport reached San Francisco back from the Philippines, some of the
soldiers, on seeing again the advertising pictures displayed as decoys
in San Francisco, shook their fists at the pictures and loudly and
bitterly cursed them as part of the bait used to lure them to the hell
of war. They had been thinking it all over. A good time to think it over
is _before_ you enlist—before you agree to go to hell.
(=2=) Comment on war:
German proverb: “When war comes the devil makes hell larger.”
The Rev. Doctor Albert Barnes: “War resembles hell.”
Bishop Warburton: “The blackest mischief ever breathed from hell.”
Lord Clarendon: “War ... an emblem of hell.”
William Shakespeare: “O, War, thou son of hell.”
General W. T. Sherman: “War is hell.”
Well, really, it does seem as if the workingmen should at least be sharp
enough to stay out of hell.
Now, since “war is hell” and the business men want hell and the
politicians declare hell—why not let these gentlemen go to hell?
(=3=) Suppose we should have two laws passed and suppose we were in
political position to rigidly enforce these two laws:—
FIRST LAW,—Requiring that when Congressmen and Senators are elected
there shall be elected at the same time an alternate for each and every
one of the Congressmen and Senators elected—to fill easily and promptly
any vacancies that may occur from any cause.
SECOND LAW,—Requiring that all Senators and Congressmen who vote for war
and thus “declare war” shall be forced, according to this law, to
instantly resign their offices, and, by special draft provided for in
this law, be forced to join the army immediately, infantry department,
and, with the common instruments of war (rifles, swords, etc.), fight on
the firing line, as privates, without promotion, till the war is
finished or till they themselves are slaughtered.
It is significant that:
“Universal military service, adopted by all the great states on the
Continent, in imitation of Germany [following the Franco-Prussian
War], has, by making the young men of wealthy families join the
army, personally interested the members of the governments and
parliaments in avoiding war.”[182]
When, in 1909, the Spanish War in Africa became intense and dangerous,
the Spanish government renewed an old “exemption” law permitting wealthy
and “noble” and elegant Spanish gentlemen to send substitutes to the war
and thus avoid the hell of the firing line themselves.[183]
Our “Dick” Military Law, passed by Congress in 1903, exempts
Congressmen, Senators, judges, etc.,—also (by agreement with the State
laws) preachers and priests—exempts all these from the clutches of the
War Department, though that same law _sweeps millions of other men_—all
able-bodied, male citizens over eighteen and under forty-five years of
age—_sweeps millions more than before_ into the absolute control of the
Department of Slaughter. (See Section 11, below.)
Does it not seem that if war is good enough to vote for or pray for it
is good enough to go to rifle in hand? If not, why not?
Those who vote for or pray for blood-stained victories should be forced
to go after them. (See Chapter Eight, Section 14.)
(=4=) Mr. Workingman, would you for any reason permit any statesman or
other leading citizen to compel you personally and individually to go
out into a neighboring pasture-field and open fire with a Winchester
upon your neighbor who had done you no injury, against whom you felt no
enmity? Scorn the thought!
Well, suppose you are multiplied by 500,000 and your neighbor is also
multiplied by 500,000, and instead of a neighboring pasture-field you
have a neighboring territory on the other side of some national boundary
line, and no quarrel, no enmity, no injury to be righted between the two
groups of 500,000 workingmen—what then? Can’t you see the point—till you
have a bayonet thrust into you?
Suppose the Congress of the United States and the Diet of Japan should
declare war against each other. Why not have all the fighting and the
bleeding and the dying done by the Mikado and the national legislature
of Japan and our President and our national legislature? Simply have
these two small groups of glistening strutters forced to face each other
with rifles, swords and Gatling guns out on some nice level county
fair-ground or big cornfield—forced to furnish the blood, cripples,
corpses and funerals. This plan would be far more fun and less worry and
less work—for the working class; it would require so much less time and
money and blood and tears.
Take the last great war between Germany and France, in 1870–71. The King
of Prussia and the Emperor of France had a personal quarrel about who
should be or who should not be the new King of Spain—which was none of
their business. They got “real mad.” War was declared. The “honor” of
this precious pair of handsome parasites was at stake. Nothing but blood
would wash out the stain upon their “honor.” Of course, royal blood was
too precious for this laundering process. “Noble blood” was, of course,
not available—for such purposes. The blood of common working class men
would do very well for these two brutes to do their washing in. They
were too cowardly to take each a sword and a Winchester and go out
behind the barn or into the woodshed and “settle it,” risking their own
putrid blood.... No—oh, no! The red ooze of kings and nobles is not to
be wasted as long as a lot of cheap wage-slaves are standing around
willing to be butchered—with pride,—for the experience and honor of it.
“To the front! To the front! A million men to the front!”
Instantly a multitude of the strong men of the working class blindly
rushed to the front—as ordered, and _asking no more questions_ about the
_justice_ of the war than the cavalry horses asked.[184]
Did the working people of France and Germany have any grudge against one
another? Not the slightest. But they butchered one another by the tens
of thousands.
It is true that the King of Prussia and the Emperor of France were
actually in this war, “at the front” (somewhat—or “as it were”). But the
working class reader should not be deceived by that fact. The King and
the Emperor were rarely in any danger whatever—up _very_ close. They
“_enjoyed_” the battles from the high ground overlooking the
slaughter—watching bravely through telescopes.
“How, then, did the Germans capture the Emperor at the Battle of Sedan?”
His troops were overwhelmed by the Germans. His soldiers swept
back—crowded into Sedan. Five hundred German cannon pounding the town
made the Emperor long for home. He did his grandest deeds of heroism—in
trying to escape. He hadn’t time to get out of the way. Bravely he
dressed _in women’s clothes_ in order not to be recognized, hoping by a
perfectly ladylike manner to get back to his throne on which his heroism
would be more apparent and his martial spirit more assertive.
(=5=) Well-paid federal injunction judges, well-paid generals and naval
officers (and their widows) are provided with liberal old-age government
pensions—to make sure that _their_ last years may be _absolutely
secured_ against toil and worry and the humiliation and social damnation
of poverty. Now if these well-paid men, receiving salaries of from
$2,000 to $12,500 a year for many years,—if these and those they love
should be carefully protected against want and worry in their gray old
age, then why should not useful industrial workers who serve long and
well in the mills and mines and on the farms and railroads for a meagre
living where their lives are full of risk—why should not these also be
made absolutely secure when the sunset of their lives draws near? Why
not?
The present annual cost of our two Departments of Murder—the Army and
the Navy—(including interest on war bonds and the loss of the “regular”
soldiers’ labor-power, but _not_ including the military pensions) would
furnish an annual old-age industrial pension of more than $290 each for
one million four hundred and fifty thousand people. You old men and old
women of the working class, wouldn’t it give you a feeling of peace and
confidence if you were absolutely certain that, after a life of useful
labor in the grand army of industry, you, every pair of you, would
receive yearly, not as charity, but as a right provided for all, over
$580? The lives of many working class men and women are today filled
with fear of hunger and rags and shelterless, helpless days when they
pass the capitalists’ deadline, the employers’ “age-limit.”
Says the New York _World_:[185]
“The unemployed of New York ask that on Decoration Day there be a
service in the honor of the workingmen who have lost their lives at
the post of duty. Not much attention has been paid to the
suggestion.... These are the legacies which a people devoted to
industry have received from an ancestry devoted to war. The heroes
most honored in all ages have been warriors, and yet every
generation has produced countless examples of devotion and sacrifice
remote from the field of carnage.
“More than any other great nation this republic might be expected to
glorify the martyrs of industry, whose lives have been as truly for
progress as any of those sacrificed in the ranks of armies. There
are many dangerous callings in which the risks are as great as those
of war. _There are hundreds of thousands of working men and women
fighting fiercer battles daily than many a soldier ever knew._ On
the _industrial_ firing line, _where no quarter is given to the
invalid or the incompetent_, courage is not sustained by excitement
and passion, and there are no illusions of fame to strengthen the
faltering toiler when he comes face to face with defeat and death.
“It is well that we should remember the fine patriotism of our
citizen soldiers, but even they were workers before they were
warriors. _If we would celebrate heroism it is to be found all about
us in the humble stations among the men and women—even the
children—who toil._”
Think about this matter, carefully, you men and women of the working
class. Discuss it with your children and your neighbors.
(=6=) The owner of a factory, protected by law, by the constitution, by
the flag, by the politicians and the soldiers and militia, can “turn
down” a skilful, effective wage-earner because his hair is gray, because
he is “too old,” is “past the age limit”—even though his old wife starve
for support. The “glorious flag” protects even such vile industrial
tyranny. The flag that the old man has worshipped, the constitution he
defended, and the politicians he voted for—all these are no protection
for him. Thus our old industrial soldiers are helpless even though the
industrial tyrant spit on their gray beard.
(=7=) The patriotic militiamen and the “regulars” often say: “We believe
in protecting property in time of strikes.”
How much property have you? And what kind of property is it? Is your
property in danger? Indeed, was your property even remotely threatened?
Do those who own the property you protect actually help you in
protecting their property—help you in actual struggles where the lead
flies?
American capitalists often refer to the “splendid service” of the
militia and the regular troops in Chicago in 1894 in “protecting railway
property from being burned by the strikers.” But let us see:
Certain railway companies in 1894 knew that the government of Chicago
could be forced or “persuaded” to pay for all the cars destroyed within
the city limits during the strike by claiming insufficient protection of
property had been furnished. If, then, hundreds of old worn-out cars
worth “old-iron” prices could be destroyed by fire within the city
limits during the strike, and if the railway companies could by trickery
collect from the city, say, $500 for each such car burnt, it would be
“good business” to have such cars set on fire by paid incendiaries. The
burning of this precious property would also create powerful sentiment
against the strikers when “played up” luridly by the capitalist
newspapers. Thus there was powerful motive for having the precious
property burnt. It would be both awful and profitable. Employees of some
of the railways entering Chicago have told the writer that old worn-out
cars from railway shop towns far out in Iowa were actually hauled to
Chicago and burnt within the city limits in 1894.
Did you know that in 1895 in court the railway union men were charged
with burning the cars during the strike; and did you know that when the
union men brought into court the proof that detectives were caught in
the act of setting fire to cars, _court adjourned_, and the case has
never been called since, though there has been a standing challenge to
the courts to do so? Thousands of such facts as these are suppressed.
“It is in evidence and uncontradicted,” says Carroll D. Wright,[186]
“that no violence or destruction of property by strikers or
sympathizers took place in Pullman [Illinois], and that until July
3d [when the federal troops came upon the scene] no extraordinary
protection was had from the police or military against even
anticipated disorder.”
(=8=) In 1907 there was a bitter strike at the iron mines in northern
Minnesota. In all the “strike” mining towns, _except one_, armed men,
“special guards,” were officially placed on duty at once—ready to “keep
order,” ready to “quell the riots,” etc. In Sparta, an iron-mining town,
there were over three hundred men on strike, hotly eager to win the
strike. But the strikers and the town officials united in an urgent
request that no special armed guards be sent to Sparta. The strikers and
the town officials agreed that “the guards only stir up trouble,” and
without the guards they could and would keep order themselves.
Guards were sent to all the “strike” towns but Sparta.
Turmoil and bitterness promptly broke out and continued for weeks in
every “strike” town except Sparta.
There was no trouble whatever in Sparta during the entire strike. The
only man arrested in Sparta for disorder during the entire strike was a
special guard that sneaked into the town and got viciously drunk. He was
promptly thrust into jail by the police, with the glad sanction of the
strikers, and on the following morning he was escorted to the town
limits and forced to get away and stay away. Another day during the
strike several special guards came to the borders of the town, plainly
seeking trouble. They were promptly forced to leave.
Well-fed, well-paid, well-armed men in a strike town ready to bayonet
poor fellows struggling for crusts against a brutal corporation—simply
stir up trouble. And the capitalist employers know this well.
Surely you have noticed that during troublous times of strike the chief
use made of police, militia, cossacks and “regulars” is to protect the
haughty employer who blurts out: “Nothing to arbitrate!” He would
promptly come to terms—there would instantly be “something to
arbitrate”—if he did not feel sure that the toilers would be promptly
jailed or shot if they became maddened in their fear and hunger and
humiliation.
(=9=) You must have noticed that in turbulent strike times in your
community hungry, humiliated, angry men never for a moment think of
doing the least damage to the publicly-owned school houses, the
publicly-owned libraries and the publicly-owned art galleries and the
State University and the publicly-owned park. You see, the workers are
in a more _social relation_ to this _social property_. And if the mills,
mines, factories, and railways and the like were socially owned and
socially controlled, the workers would also be in a far more social
relation toward this _socialized industrial property_. Then there would
be no _class_ war raging around the mines and shops. Then this property
would need no protection from cheated, hungry, humiliated, maddened
working people nor from detective crooks in the service of capitalists
as incendiaries. Then the workers could not be haughtily turned down
with the brutal “Nothing to arbitrate!” Then indeed there would be no
industrial kings and emperors to demand: “Bring out the Gatling guns and
the cossacks! This is _our_ business!”
Notice:
Political justice is impossible under a political despotism.
Political democracy is the _only_ known cure for political despotism.
Industrial justice is impossible under an industrial despotism.
Industrial democracy is the only cure for industrial despotism.
Industrial democracy would end the civil war in industry.
“The right to rule the political state is _mine_!”—says the king.
“You are wrong!” answer the most enlightened people.
The king steps down. He must.
The people step—up—to power. They must.
This is progress.
“The right to rule in industry is _ours_!” say the capitalist industrial
masters, the industrial kings.
“You are wrong!” is the increasing answer of the increasing multitude of
the increasingly intelligent members of the working class.
The kings of capitalism will come down. They must.
The working class will go up—to industrial democracy. They must.
This will be progress.
IF DESPOTISM IS ALL WRONG IN POLITICS, IT CAN NOT BE ALL RIGHT IN
INDUSTRY.
INCREASING DEMOCRACY IS ON THE INCREASING PROGRAM OF MANKIND.
The master of ceremonies is the _political party_ of the working _class_
to secure, to inaugurate, to “render the next number on the
program,”—industrial democracy.
This is the “road to power.”
Forward! Forward! On!—to the last great battle in the civil war in
industry.
“Evolution makes hope scientific.”
Evolution leads to revolution.
That is a law of nature.
Laws of nature cannot be ignored, suspended, amended or repealed.
Learn the road to power, great splendid multitude of toilers.
The world is ours just as soon as we learn the road to power.
Prepare for the revolution—and Life.[187]
(=10=) That there is civil war in industry under capitalism has concrete
illustration in the facts of strikes and lockouts. Here are some of them
for a short term of years—in our own country:—
From 1881 to 1901 there were in the United States 22,793 strikes, which
involved 117,509 establishments, threw 6,105,694 persons out of
employment for an average of 21 and 8/10
[Illustration:
THE WAR
IS THE
CLASS WAR
]
days, lost these workers in wages $257,863,478, consumed $16,174,793 in
assistance from labor organizations, and lost to the employers over
$122,731,121. Of these strikes less than 51 per cent. succeeded,
slightly more than 13 per cent. partly succeeded, and over 36 per cent.
failed altogether. During these same years there were 1,005 lockouts
which involved 9,933 establishments, threw 504,307 persons out of
employment for an average of 97 days, lost $48,819,745 in wages, cost
$3,451,745 in assistance from labor organizations, lost for the
employers $19,927,983. About 51 per cent. of these lockouts succeeded,
less than 7 per cent. partly succeeded, and about 43 per cent.
failed.[188]
“In legalizing labor wars,” says Waldo F. Cook,[189] “the state
virtually recognizes industrial classes as belligerents; and enough
time has now elapsed to enable one to say that the long series of
these wars and their highly probable continuance for an indefinite
period under present conditions, establishes the presumption that
the wage-system is a failure and must sometime be replaced by
another, which will not produce industrial classes with hostile
interests and exacerbate society by their class antagonisms and
hates. For the labor war, no less than the war between nations,
cultivates prejudice, bitterness and hatred—only these feelings
affect classes within a nation rather than the nations themselves in
their relations with each other.... Law makes violence by nations
right; law makes violence by strikes wrong.”
“War is a collision of interests.”—General Von der Goltz. (Quoted by
Mr. Cook, above.)
(=11=) THE DICK MILITIA LAW: A QUIET REVOLUTION. Everywhere our
capitalist government prepares to serve the capitalist interests in the
“collision of interests,”—in the civil war in industry.
The highest literary honor that can come to an officer of the United
States Army is the Gold Medal of the Military Service Institution. This
honor was won in the year 1908 by Captain Bjornstad of the Twenty-Eighth
Infantry—with an essay urging a standing army of 250,000 men and a
reserve army of 750,000 men.
Would not the following be a fruitful subject for discussion in the
labor union halls: What is the connection between the threatening
increase in the insulted, starving army of the unemployed and the
threatening increase of the bribed standing army?
Study and discuss this matter till our class realize that strong men of
the working class are bribed with bread to slay those who earn bread.
All working men should read the Annual Report made by Mr. Elihu Root,
Secretary of War, in 1902–3. Mr. Root, shrewd, shameless and powerful
lackey of the capitalist class, forcibly set forth in his Report the
great advantages that would result (to the capitalist class) from
certain almost revolutionary changes that could be easily made by vastly
increasing the “State” militia forces and at the same time constituting
these “State” forces as an organic, instantly commandable part of the
national army—to be used precisely like “regular” troops for any purpose
desired by the capitalists in control of the national government. Mr.
Root’s Report attracted instant wide and favorable attention. The
capitalists were delighted. The workers were deluded. Immediately the
Report became the basis of the “Dick Militia Law” which was passed in
1903.
The author of _War—What For?_ has urged capitalist editors all over the
United States to publish this law. He has offered to pay for space at
liberal advertising rates in which to print from ten to one hundred
lines of this law. He has not succeeded in finding a capitalist editor
who would thus reveal the treachery of his class lurking in this law.
This law is a rough-ground sword against the rousing, rising working
class in the United States, a law more important to the working class
than any other law passed since the middle of the nineteenth century.
This law is loaded with death for the workers when in future years the
army of the unemployed or the ill-paid toilers gather around the mines
and factories and roar for work or bread. Instead of work they will get
sneers. Instead of bread they will get lead and steel—provided for by
this Dick Militia Law.
The capitalists do not dare permit the working class to read and study
this “Dick” law in the newspapers. Note some of the features of this
law:
The purpose: “An Act to promote the efficiency of the militia and _for
other purposes_.”
What is meant by “other purposes” will become clearer as the army of the
unemployed grows larger. “Other purposes”—exactly: food for reflection
when out of work and hungry.
SECTION 1,—“The militia shall consist of every able-bodied male citizen
of the respective States, Territories, and the District of Columbia ...
who is more than eighteen and less than forty-five years of age.”
The males of military age, all from eighteen to forty-five
inclusive, in 1890 numbered 13,230,168.[190]
SECTION 4,—“... It shall be lawful for the President to call forth for a
period not exceeding nine months such number of the militia as _he_ may
deem necessary ... and to issue his orders ... as he may think proper.”
The law was amended with an iron hand during the winter and spring of
the hard times of 1907–8, when millions were thrown out of employment
and into the muttering, angry army of the unemployed. For example, the
nine-months limit was struck out of Section 4, which is more food for
reflection—for any one who has brains enough to reflect with.
SECTION 7,—“Any officer or enlisted man of the militia who shall refuse
or neglect to present himself to such mustering officer upon being
called forth ... shall be subject to trial by court martial, and shall
be punished as such court martial may direct.”
The law creates a vast reserve army now rapidly being perfected. The
law, especially as amended recently, gives the President power greater
than is possessed by some of the most dangerous and hated tyrants on
earth today. Issuing a general order by telegraph and post, the
President could suddenly place under orders from five to ten millions of
the strongest men in the land—including the strikers themselves; and to
neglect or refuse to obey such orders would mean a “court-martial” trial
with rigorous punishment. A court-martial jury is not noted for
gentleness; famously different from a jury of one’s “old neighbors.”
SECTION 9,—“The militia, when called into actual service of the United
States, shall be subject to the same rules and articles of war as the
regular troops.” That is to say, for the time they are “on call,” they
are virtually federal soldiers.
The law as amended by Congress in May, 1908, provides “that every
officer and enlisted man of the militia who shall be called forth in the
manner hereinbefore prescribed shall be mustered for service _without
further enlistment_.” [Italics in Report.]
“The call of the President will, therefore, of itself accomplish the
transfer of the organized militia which is called forth by him from its
state relations to its federal relations. It becomes part of the Army of
the United States and the President becomes its commander-in-chief.
“The _President_ is the _exclusive judge_ of the existence of an
emergency which would justify the calling forth of the Organized
Militia.”[191]
This law contains twenty-six sections, every one of which should be
studied carefully by the working class of the United States. The Union
labor bodies should urge local newspapers to publish parts of the law
selected by the unions. The more the law is examined the more food for
reflection will be found in it.[192]
The English capitalist government has also recently enacted a new
military law, a species of “Dick” law, called the Territorial Force Act.
This law transforms a “voluntary citizen soldier” into a “regular”
soldier. Says _Justice_:[193]
“Under the new act the Volunteer must ‘enlist’ and serve under
‘military law.’ He will be as much a regular soldier as a Life Guard
or a Lancer, and can be called out to shoot down strikers in labor
disputes as was actually done at Featherstone ... and at Belfast
only a few months ago.”
“The Volunteer,” says the _Morning Post_, “will no longer be a
citizen soldier, he will be a soldier without the blur of
citizenship.... He may be mechanic; many of the best Volunteers are
mechanics. If there is a strike in his works, ordered by the trade
union to which he subscribes, and if the Mayor is afraid of the
Strikers, and wants soldiers to shoot them, in case of need, the
Volunteer, renamed ‘man of the Territorial Force,’ is just the man
he wants; and the bill empowers the Mayor to call him out for the
purpose.”
The “Dick” law was passed by capitalist “friends of labor,” of course,
both Republicans and Democrats; and the “Territorial Force Act” was
similarly passed by capitalist “friends of labor,” both Liberals and
Conservatives. As the unarmed army of the unemployed grows threateningly
larger and the armed army of bribed butchers grows larger—ready to
murder those who starve—it is in order, in “Old England,” in “New
America,” everywhere in order, for the working class to give more
careful attention to the “good men” who are so tearfully and fearfully
“friendly to labor.”
(=12=) Why should the working class give the capitalist governments a
free hand in the murder of the workers? Why not rigorously restrict the
power to call millions of men to arms?
What would happen if the working class should refuse to fight?
“That ‘the government can not put the whole population in prison,
and if it could, it would still be without material for an army, and
without money for its support,’ is an almost irrefutable argument.
We see here [‘in passive resistance, not simply in theory, but in
practice’] at least the beginnings of a sentiment that shall, if
sufficiently developed, make war impossible to an entire
people....”[194]
Five points to be emphasized here:
(1) Require all the school teachers to teach all the children to despise
and hate war.
(2) Arm everybody or nobody.
(3) Train everybody or nobody.
(4) “The right of the people to bear arms shall not be
infringed.”—_Constitution of the United States: Third Amendment._
(5) The working class should diligently study the folly of requiring one
regiment of the working class to fight the united and class-loyal
capitalist class in strikes.
These five propositions suggest a plan that would, even under
capitalism, render the working class far less helpless and hopeless than
they are at present in their class struggle against the capitalist class
of masters who may legally order the working class soldiers to fire on
the working class.
However, the triumphantly effective work can be accomplished in this
matter when—and not until—the working class have seized the powers of
government. (See Chapter Ten, which is wholly devoted to the
fundamentals of “What to do.”)
It is significant that the first Secretary of War, Henry Knox, appointed
by President Washington, made a Report January 18, 1790, on the proper
basis for the military defense of the United States. His plan was “to
reject a standing army, as possessing too fierce an aspect and being
hostile to the principles of liberty.”
A scholar of world-renown, Francis Lieber, German-American soldier,
historian, economist and publicist, has this to say of standing
armies:[195]
“Standing armies are not only dangerous to civil liberty because
depending upon the executive. They have the additional evil effect
that they infuse into the whole nation ... a spirit directly opposed
to that which ought to be the general spirit of a free people
devoted to self-government. Habits of disobedience and contempt for
the citizens are produced, and a view of government is induced which
is contrary to liberty, self-reliance, self-government.... Where the
people worship the army, an opinion is engendered as if courage in
battle were really the highest phase of humanity; and the army, in
turn, more than aught else, leads to the worship of one man—so
detrimental.”
(=13=) “For the French and Italians and especially the German and
Russian adolescent of the lower classes ... the army is called ... the
poor man’s university.”[196]
“The poor man’s university!”—in which he is drilled and kicked into
spineless subserviency and is taught the noble art of killing himself,
his class, scientifically. The degraded, docile, and despised millions
of the working class men of the standing armies of the world are indeed
educated when they are willing to wade in their own blood in defense of
the parasitic capitalist class who rule, ride and ruin the toilers of
all the world.
A standing army is a joke and a yoke on the working class. A standing
army is a compound human machine educated to spank the working class
when it cries for milk—and bread and meat. A soldier, a militiaman, is
an educated boot with which the employers kick the working class.
(=14=) Do not rich men’s sons sometimes voluntarily join the militia?
Yes, sometimes—but very, very rarely. One of the bluest-blooded
Vanderbilts of New York was recently a captain in a specially handsome
Regiment. But, mark you—in ninety-nine cases in a hundred, well-armed,
well-trained militiamen fight unarmed, untrained workingmen (and women),
which is not so very, very dangerous—for the militiamen. To an
intelligent rich man an unarmed wage-earner on strike for an extra
nickel to buy bread, as “the enemy,” and an armed trained soldier whose
business is murder, as “the enemy,”—these look different, you know.
For years New York millionaires and all the other “best people”
“pointed with pride” to the famous Seventh Regiment of the National
Guard, the “rich men’s regiment,” the “gilt-edged regiment” of
lovely young millionaires, many of whom rode to the armory for drill
in their automobiles. This regiment of the American nobility of
lard-and-tallow-steel-coal-and-railway millionaires, ready at any
moment to defend and save the dear country from “the enemy,”—this
regiment was, indeed, the pride of the village called New York.
These glistening patricians taught the common people patriotism. “So
they did.”
Until the Spanish War broke out.
Then these fakir patriots—what did they do—then?
Resigned.
Or they did what amounted to the same thing—_voted_ not to go to the
war.
Certainly they did. Promptly, too—and intelligently.
Why not?
Surely you do not expect a lot of _intelligent_ men to leave their happy
homes, go to hell and make themselves ridiculous, do you? Why, the cost
of a rubber tire for one wheel of an automobile would pay the war wages
of a cheap man of the “lower classes” for six months.
(=15=) “Didn’t one millionaire go to the war in Cuba?”
Yes. Out of our six thousand patriotic, flag-waving millionaires, one,
just one, a young green one, went to the war in Cuba—“for a little
excitement and a lark,” he said. He found large quantities of excitement
“all right,” and some cold lead. He was killed. As a millionaire
“patriotically” going to war his case is an exception, clearly an
exception, a conspicuously lonely, vain and stupid exception; and that
exception will never be imitated. Too much intelligence—among the
millionaires. Even his millionaire friends laughed at him for going to
war. But he wanted a “hot time.” He got the “hot time”—and the cold
lead.
There were several thousand other millionaire flag-wavers instructively
conspicuous in that war—by their intelligent patriotic absence.
IT IS INSTRUCTIVELY SIGNIFICANT THAT THE CAPITALIST NEWSPAPERS GAVE MORE
THAN A HUNDRED TIMES AS MUCH SPACE TO THE DEATH OF THE ONE MILLIONAIRE
SOLDIER IN THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR AS THEY GAVE TO THE DEATH OF ANY
HUNDRED HUMBLE WORKING CLASS SOLDIERS WHO WERE SLAUGHTERED IN THE SAME
WAR.
(=16=) Were not some of the rich men of today soldiers at one
time—“years ago”?
Yes. Some of the rich men of today were soldiers at one time—years ago;
but they are not soldiers now when they are rich, and they were not rich
when, years ago, they were soldiers.
(=17=) If politicians do not go to war, what about Mr. Bryan’s case?
Didn’t Mr. Bryan patriotically go to the war in Cuba?
No. Mr. Bryan did not go _to_ the war in Cuba. He simply went _toward_
the war.
Mr. Bryan was, of course, patriotic, fervently, noisily so; but, like
the intelligent people of his class, he always had his enthusiasm under
perfect control. Mr. Bryan at no time showed an unmanageable desire to
get _up close in front, on the firing line_. And his class was true to
him, respected his strong preference for war five hundred miles from the
flaming, snarling Gatling gun; and, accordingly, his class—in power at
Washington—kept him well out of danger. At one time he got the
impression he was in danger of being sent to the front. At once he cried
out, “It’s politics!” and promptly resigned his noble command, double
quick, patriotically. Mr. Bryan, mounted on a splendid horse, with
uplifted sword in hand, grandly vowing to “defend the flag against the
enemy” as he headed his noble braves, assembled for review, and
admiration, before the _Omaha Bee_ building, ready to start _toward_ the
front—at that sublime moment Colonel William Jennings Bryan was, well,
simply beautiful, not to say pretty. As the golden tones of this
Nebraskan Achilles, this Alexander from the Platte Valley, rolled forth
in his heroic vow to bleed (if necessary) for his flag, the nation was
comforted—felt saved already.
Patriotism _is_, after all, _worth all it costs_—that is, worth all it
costs Mr. Bryan. Mr. Bryan, like Mr. Hearst and many others, is
patriotic, even intemperately so—with his mouth.
But the reader may ask, “Was not Mr. Roosevelt in the Cuban War a case
of a politician actually on the firing line?”
Clearly an exception. Name a few other “great statesmen” or
international noises who went to the Cuban War—to the actual firing
line.
Mr. Roosevelt loves excitement and danger. And what indescribable
dangers there were for the Americans in the Cuban War! The mightiest
“republic” on earth was pitted against the most toothless, decadent old
political grandma in Europe. The dangers?—equal to those that threaten
an armed, athletic hunter alone and face to face with a sucking fawn.
Mr. Roosevelt himself has heroically—and carefully—recounted and printed
his own brave deeds in that war. With Christian love and humility, with
charming modesty and delicacy, with the diffident ingenuousness of a
blushing schoolgirl, characteristic of him, Mr. Roosevelt tenderly
recites one of his noble deeds as follows:[197]
“Lieutenant Davis’s First Sergeant, Clarence Gould, killed a
Spaniard with his revolver.... At about the same time I also shot
one.... Two Spaniards leaped from the trenches ... not ten yards
away. As they turned to run I closed in and fired twice, missing the
first and killing the second [Oh, joy!].... At the same time I did
not know of Gould’s exploit, and I supposed my feat to be unique.”
Surely it requires courage, rare and noble courage, for a wealthy
graduate of Harvard University to boast in print that he shot a poor,
ignorant fleeing Spanish soldier—very probably a humble working man
drafted to war, torn from his weeping wife and children—that he shot
such a man, _in the back_. Oh, bliss—elation—ecstasy divine! “I _got_
him! with my _revolver_ too! in the _back_!” Manly pastime of an
American gentleman, a mongrel mixture of patrician and brute. Yes,
reader, Mr. Roosevelt, politician, was in the Cuban War—with a purpose;
and secured a military title and a “war record” worth at least 75,000
votes in his campaign for the governorship of New York which immediately
followed the war. For details consult _The Rough Rider_. With shrewd
patriotism, political foresight, rare courage—and girlish
bashfulness—Mr. Roosevelt’s picture is repeatedly presented in the book,
the poses expressing his usual audible modesty and ferocious gentleness.
Emerson finely says: “Every hero becomes a bore at last.”
(=18=) The noble Professor Paulsen (Berlin University) wrote:[198]
“Hate impels men to seek quarrels, and pride turns their heads....
Nay, arrogance and hatred are really always the signs of an
irritable, diseased self-consciousness.... [That] selfish, arrogant,
vain and narrow-minded self-conceit, which the flatterers of the
popular passion call patriotism.”
The distinguished Italian historian, G. Ferrero, has written:[199]
“Thus in destroying or creating, man can procure for himself strong
emotions, and persuade himself of his own superiority.... Two
passions have divided the human heart throughout the annals of human
history: the divine passion for creation, and the diabolical passion
for destruction.... Nineteenth-century man may seek after violent
and inebriating emotions that permit him to assert his superiority
over his fellows....”
Robert G. Ingersoll understood the hero-brute mongrel:
“Courage without conscience is a wild beast. Patriotism without
principle is the prejudice of birth, the animal attachment to
place.”
Thus Victor Hugo:[200]
“To be, materially, a great man, to be pompously violent, to reign
by virtue of the sword-knot and cockade ... to possess a genius for
brutality—this is to be great, if you will, but it is a coarse way
of being great.”
The cannon’s roar, the bayonet’s thrust, the crush of flesh, the splash
of blood,—such things in battle make men gentle, tender, gallant, even
heroic, fit subjects for the adoration of women.[201] For example: When
the Christian heroes captured Magdeburg:
“Now began a scene of massacre and outrage which history has no
language, and poetry no pencil, to portray. Neither the innocence of
childhood nor the helplessness of old age, neither youth nor sex,
neither rank nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the conquerors.
Wives were dishonored in the very arms of their husbands, daughters
at the feet of their parents, and the defenseless sex exposed to the
double loss of virtue and life.... Fifty-three women were found in
one church with their heads cut off. The Croats amused themselves by
throwing children into the flames, and Pappenheim’s Walloons with
stabbing infants at their mothers’ breasts.”[202]
But it may be said that those things were done far back in the
seventeenth century. Consider, then, the fact that in the French civil
war of 1871 the government’s noble heroes, having conquered the
revolutionists, took thousands of unarmed prisoners—men, women, and
children—to an open space at the city limits of Paris and shot them,
children and all; in many cases the brave, armed ruffians stood up rows
of helpless prisoners one behind the other and amused themselves by
testing their rifles on living human flesh, noting how many men, women
and children could be butchered with one bullet. Many of the “better
class,” “refined ladies and gentlemen,” “leading citizens,” conspicuous
by their elegance of manners and dress, were present _watching the fun_,
smiling encouragement and making helpful suggestions to the “civilized”
butchers.
And still more recently:
A British hero thus describes a “funny” incident in the South African
war: “Really, sir, I never saw anything quite so funny in all my life.
Just fancy, I saw a Kaffir woman pick up the headless body of her baby
and strap it on her back. Funny, oh, Lord! It makes me laugh when I
think of it now.” The same authority (the _Westminster Review_, quoted
by Walter Walsh) also gives the following case of Christian military
heroism: “A contingent of German scouts [in South Africa] took five
native women prisoners ... an officer ordered ten men to fix bayonets.
Five stood in front and five behind the women, and stabbed the women to
death.” _Ten armed, Christian heroes_ with bayonets ripping the breasts
of _five unarmed women_. Great! Isn’t it? At least it is war. One
scarcely knows which to despise the more—the soldiers or the lazy
parasites for whom they committed a thousand crimes of basest cruelty
and cowardice. Dr. Walter Walsh[203] lets the soldiers tell in their own
heroic language of their manly deeds—thus:
“‘Our progress was like the old-time forays in Scotland two
centuries ago.... We moved on from valley to valley ... burning,
looting and turning out the women and children to sit and cry beside
the ruins of their once beautiful farmsteads ... my men fetched
bundles of straw. The women cried, and the children stood holding to
them and looking with large frightened eyes at the burning house....
The people had thought we had come for refreshments, and one of them
went to get milk.... We then set the whole place on fire. They
dropped on their knees and prayed and sang, weeping bitterly the
while. One of the poor women went raving mad. When the flames burst
from the doomed place the poor woman threw herself on her knees,
tore open her bodice, and bared her breasts, screaming, “Shoot me,
shoot me, I’ve nothing to live for, now that my husband is gone, and
our farm is burnt, and our cattle taken!”’”
These foul deeds are samples of thousands.
“War, is it?” says Dr. Walsh. “Be it war: then an army is a manufactory
for cowards and a school for cowards.”
“A war hero,” says the distinguished Roman Catholic Bishop John
Spaulding,[204] “supposes a barbarous condition of the race; and
when all shall be civilized, they who know and love the most shall
be held to be the greatest and the best.”
And Robert Ingersoll thus:
“Every good man, every good woman, should try to do away with war,
to stop the appeal to savage force. Man in a savage state relies
upon his strength, and decides for himself what is right and what is
wrong.”[205]
“Nothing is plainer,” says Emerson, “than that sympathy with war is a
juvenile and temporary state.”[206]
Dr. John Fiske, historian and philosopher, makes the following
observations on the slow grand march from brutality to brotherhood.[207]
“For thousands of generations, and until very recent times, one of
the chief occupations of men has been to plunder, bruise and kill
one another. The ... ugly passions ... have had but little
opportunity to grow weak from disuse. The tender and unselfish
feelings, which are a later product of evolution, have too seldom
been allowed to grow strong from exercise ... the whims and
prejudices of militant barbarism are slow in dying out.... The
coarser forms of cruelty are disappearing and the butchery of men
has greatly diminished ... in the more barbarous times the hero was
he who had slain his thousands.... And thus we see what human
progress means. It means throwing off the brute inheritance,
gradually throwing it off through ages of struggle that are by and
by to make struggles needless. Man is slowly passing from a
primitive social state ... toward an ultimate social state in which
his character shall have become so transformed that nothing of the
brute can be detected in it. The ape and the tiger in human nature
will be extinct.”
How encouraging! We can confidently look forward to a time when not even
a pervert candidate for the presidency of a great Christian “republic”
will be either tiger enough to butcher a human being or peacock and
monkey enough to brag of doing so.
“Who loves war for war’s own sake
Is fool, or crazed, or worse.”—Tennyson.
“One of the commonest popular mistakes is to confound aggressiveness
and belligerency with genius. These qualities are almost in inverse
proportion.... But usually great energy and determination, and
especially combative qualities are associated with rather meagre
abilities.”[208]
There is really too much bull-dog greatness.
“No blood-stained victory, in story bright,
Can give the philosophical mind delight;
No triumph please, while rage and death destroy:
Reflection sickens at the monstrous joy.”[209]
“Cursed is the man, and void of law and right;
Unworthy property, unworthy light,
Unfit for public rule, or private care,—
That wretch, that monster, who delights in war.”[210]
Imagine a Sioux Indian chief, pagan Alexander, pagan Caesar, Christian
Napoleon, also the Christian bullies Emperor William and Theodore
Roosevelt, also the quiet Christ—imagine these seven “not only willing,
but anxious to fight,” mounted on foam-stained horses galloping across a
bloody battlefield strewn with wounded and slaughtered men and boys,
imagine these seven galloping, bravely and boisterously galloping,
waving red-stained swords, yelling, squawking, yawping, hurrahing for
war, “glorious” war—the iron-shod hoofs of their rushing horses crushing
into the breasts and faces of dead and dying young men and boys.
The savage Sioux, the immortal pagan brutes Alexander and Caesar, the
renowned Christian bullies Napoleon, William and Theodore—these six
“geniuses,” these coarse-grained, blood-stained egotists fit that
picture perfectly, as a shark fits the ocean, as a wolf fits the forest,
as a tiger fits the jungle, as a savage fits a cannibal feast,—as the
Devil fits Hell.
But Christ, Christ in whose breast lurked no tiger and no savage,—Christ
with a long sword, a hero’s butcher-knife in hand, plunging it into the
breast of his brothers, screaming like the “dee-lighted” brute, calling
it “great,” “splendid,” “bully!”—
Impossible!
But why impossible for Christ and “dee-lightful” for the other six?
Because, simply because, these six blood-lusting heroes are savage or at
best only civilized; but Christ was socialized.
Socialization opposes assassination—both wholesale and retail.
Christ is immortal—by his wide love and brotherhood.
The “great general” is promoted and immortalized for his narrow hates
and brilliant brutalities.
(=19=) Has not war been natural and necessary in the life of the human
race, and has not war been a potent factor in the intellectual
development of mankind?
Professor Ferrero has this to say:[211]
“Thus the duty of every well-meaning man today is to diffuse
knowledge of the fact that war no longer serves the purpose it once
served in the struggle for civilization.
“War necessary to civilization?”
Well, for a long time in the life of the human race nature was so ill
understood, man had such insufficient knowledge and control of nature,
that it was extremely difficult to get a living for all. Our ancestors
naturally quarreled; perhaps it was necessary for some of them to kill
others in order that some of them might live—ignorant as the people were
in those times of how to make nature yield bountifully and easily for
all. And no doubt the struggle developed the race—the part that did not
get killed. In those struggles were developed, at first, strong muscles,
skin-ripping claws or knife-like finger-nails, tusks in the mouth, and
thick skins; and, later, clubs, spears, cross-bows, bows-and-arrows; and
still later, rifles, cannon, battleships and lignite shells, and also
the methods and tactics of struggle;—all these were developed. Always,
too, cunning, deception, malignance, egoism, egotism, coarse-grained
dispositions, cheap ambitions, swaggering manners, fierce eyes, and the
soft, bull-like military voices and hero worship—all these were
developed.
The muscles and the mentality thus developed are still extremely useful.
Indeed, the mentality, developed in war (but neither wholly nor chiefly
in war), is worth all it cost, whatever it did cost, because with this
godlike mentality, and only with this mentality, we can now have the
higher and finer forms and phases of life, the pleasures that
distinguish man from the brutes; that is, with this mentality we can
have these more glorious forms of life: _Provided_, that the low
cunning, deception, malignance, egoism, egotism and the coarse-grained
strain of the ancient brute are not even yet too strong in our veins and
characters. In spite of one’s intelligence he may be “not only willing,
but anxious to fight.” Such a person may no longer have the skin-ripping
finger-claws, but he has the skin-ripping disposition that was developed
when the skin-ripping finger-claws were developed, and developed in the
same way.
Now, of course, we still need the muscle and the intelligence, every one
of us. But we do not any longer need the skin-rippers, or the tusks, or
the club, the “big stick,” the spear, the bow and arrow, the rifle and
the battleship; nor do we any longer need the arrogant egotism, the
cheap cunning, the prize-fighter ambitions or the tiger’s readiness to
take blood. Nor should we any longer need the ancient method of
struggle, every-fellow-for-himself, in the industrial process of life—in
a _rationally_ organized society, with our _present_ control of nature.
And we should no longer enjoy any of these brute means and methods if we
were civilized in the noblest sense, that is, if we were decently
socialized.
“Are you ready for the question?” This is the question:
Can you use, do you prefer to use—your developed mentality like a brute,
like a savage, or like a truth-seeking, socialized man? Are you “not
only willing, but anxious to fight,” or are the business and the methods
of the brute disgusting to you? What o’clock is it in your personal
evolution? Do you prefer a library to an armory, books rather than
bayonets? Is a fight natural, or necessary, or helpful in your personal
development? If a fight, actual part in a fight rifle-in-hand, is not
necessary to the preacher, the senator, the professor, the banker or the
manufacturer, why should it seem necessary in your case—and why should
you permit these “better class” citizens to have you ordered and led
around like a prize-winning bull-dog to fight in the international
prize-ring called the struggle for the world market? War as a developer
and a civilizer is a flat failure _in your case_ if the capitalist class
can seduce you for fifty cents a day to fight for a foreign market for
American porter-house steak while you and your father and mother are fed
on third-rate meat, beans, cheap syrup and mock-coffee without cream.
Brother, you may indeed be a “brave boy,” and a “good shot,” and you may
have heroically stained your hands in other men’s blood; but, really,
the “upper class” have marked you as an easy victim, a useable cheap
“guy” of the “lower class.”
(=20=) John Ruskin keenly appreciated the capitalist’s craftiness and
the workingman’s buffoonery in “a war for civilization.” He wrote:[212]
“Capitalists, when they do not know what to do with their money,
persuade the peasants that the said peasants want guns to shoot each
other with. The peasants accordingly borrow guns, out of the
manufacture of which the capitalists get a percentage, and men of
science much amusement and credit. Then the peasants shoot a certain
number of each other until they get tired, and burn each other’s
houses down in various places. Then they put the guns back into
towns, arsenals, etc., in ornamental patterns, and the victorious
party put also some ragged flags in churches. And then the
capitalists tax both annually, ever afterwards, to pay interest on
the loan of the guns and powder.”
The Italian historian Ferrero sees the swinish snout of the ruling class
greed in the wars of three thousand years of “civilization.” He
writes:[213]
“During those thirty centuries from which dates our historical
knowledge, war has been more a social system than a cruel pastime
for kings—the first most violent and brutal means adopted by ruling
minorities to acquire wealth.”
(=21=) Is it said that wars always have been and always will be?
That wars always have been is an unproved proposition.[214]
That “wars always will be” depends upon the working class. The clouds of
confusion are clearing from the mind of the working class. A revolution
is ripening in the toilers’ thought on war.[215]
(=22=) Is it said by the leading citizens that wars are necessary in
order to kill off the surplus population?
If wars are necessary for such purpose, why not have Mr. Leading Citizen
and his friends classified as a part of the surplus population on the
ground that they are criminally unsocial, and have them taken out to the
battlefield and forced to shoot one another? The theory of having the
surplus population killed off would thus quickly lose its popularity
with the “upper classes.”
(=23=) It may be said that the Napoleonic wars removed more than
7,500,000 men from competition in the labor market;[216] and it might be
argued by the working man that since war reduces the competition among
the workers, the working class should on this account welcome war.
Let us see: If four men are competing for two jobs, should two of them
be satisfied, and even glad, to have the competition for the jobs
reduced by having the other two climb upon their backs and cease to bid
for the jobs? It should be kept distinctly in mind that the workers who
do not go to war support those who do go to war—always, everywhere,
absolutely no exceptions.
(=24=) There is a somewhat popular, and simian, assumption that in
war—even in beautiful Christian war—the results are “the survival of the
fittest,” meaning, in the case of modern wars, the survival of “the more
highly civilized,” also the biologically “best.”
Of course a “bullet carefully selects its victim.”
And do not statesmen tell us on the Fourth of July all about the
“splendid intelligence” and the “noble spirit” and the “superiority” of
the “brave boys who _died_ in battle”?
Does not the recruiting officer try to get the _soundest_ men for
slaughter?
Let the orthodox worshippers answer: Is pagan Japan more fit for
survival than Christian Russia?
What show for survival would Belgium have in a contest with Turkey,
Spain or Russia?[217]
(=25=) A kindred and stupid assumption in all wars is this: _Might makes
right._
But if might makes right between two warring nations, then why does not
might make right when a strong man by force compels a weaker man to hand
over his pocket-book?
(=26=) A Scotch philosopher on the “brave boys”:[218]
“Omitting much, let us impart what follows: Horrible enough! A whole
march-field strewed with shell-splinters, cannon-shots, ruined
tumbrils and dead men and horses; stragglers remaining not so much
as buried. And those red mound-heaps: aye, there lie the Shells of
Men, out of which the life and virtue have been blown; and now they
are swept together and crammed down out of sight, like blown
Eggshells!... How has thy breast, fair plain, been defaced and
defiled! The green sward is torn up, hedge-rows and pleasant
dwellings blown away with gunpowder, and the kind seed-field lies a
desolate Place of Skulls. Nevertheless, Nature is at work ... all
that gore and carnage will be shrouded in, absorbed into manure....
“What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net purport and
upshot of the war? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and
toil, in the British village of Dumrudge, usually some five hundred
souls. From these, by certain ‘natural enemies’ of the French, there
are successively selected, during the French war, say thirty
able-bodied men: Dumrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and
nursed them; she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up
to manhood, and even trained them up to crafts, so that one can
weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand
under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and
swearing, they are selected; all dressed in red and shipped away, at
the public charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the
south of Spain, and fed there till wanted. And now to that same spot
in the south of Spain, are thirty similar French artisans—in like
manner wending their ways; till at length, after infinite effort,
the two parties come into actual juxtaposition, and thirty stand
facing thirty, each with his gun in hand. Straightway the word
‘Fire!’ is given, and they blow the souls out of one another; and in
the place of sixty brisk, useful craftsmen, the world has sixty dead
carcasses, which it must bury, and anew shed tears for.
“Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the Devil is, not the smallest!
They lived far enough apart; were the entirest strangers; nay, in so
wide a universe, there was even, unconsciously, by commerce, some
mutual helpfulness between them.
“How then?
“Simpleton! Their governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting
one another, had these poor blockheads shoot.”
(=27=) In that part of biology treating of parasitic life the technical
terms “host” and “guest” are used. The host is the living thing that
furnishes a living not only for itself, but also for the life-filching
intruder which fastens itself upon the body of the “host.” The intruder,
the robber residing upon the body of the “host,” is the “guest,” that
is, the parasite.
Now one of the strangest things in the entire live world is this: When
in some life-forms a certain stage of parasitism is reached, when the
guest has permanently fastened itself upon the body of the host and the
host has become thoroughly accustomed to and adjusted to the parasitic
arrangement, the host stupidly inclines to _defend the parasitic guest_.
It is remarkable (and discouraging) that this law of nature, this
tendency, is found in operation in the social life of man. For thousands
of years multitudes of men, women and children have been held in the
grip of this law, mentally strangled in their effort to think Justice
and Freedom; the vast majority of the working class are always quickly
and easily rendered “peaceful,” “law-abiding,” and “satisfied,” and
“patriotic.” Millions of chattel slaves have “loyally” defended their
parasitic masters. Millions of serfs have “loyally” defended their
landlords-and-masters. And today tens of millions of wage-earners
strongly incline to “loyally” defend their parasitic employer masters.
Moreover, the employer, by craftily praising the wage-earner, can induce
the wage-earner to ignorantly, blindly, stupidly praise and defend not
only the employer, but also the whole wage-system of robbery and social
parasitism. Not only that, the employers, by controlling certain
institutions such as the school, the library, the press, and the lecture
platform, can have the wage-earning hosts taught to teach their own
children to defend and praise the parasitic employer guests and the
parasitic social system under which their lives are belittled by being
sucked up as rent, interest and profits and fed to the parasitic
capitalist class.
What the employer calls a contented and loyal working man is simply a
stupidly acquiescent “host,” biologically considered. And a working
class man with a rifle in his hand defending the class that, as social
parasites, rob the working class—such a workingman is the best possible
illustration of the fact that the great laws of nature are careless of
the so-called “dignity of man,” totally careless of the ridiculous
spectacle of a human being reverting to the behavior of creatures far,
far down below even the simian cousins of the human race. Nature does
not care whether a man behaves like a crab or a sucker, a tiger or a
monkey, a sycophantic slave or a defiantly self-respecting man.[219]
(=28=) Toward the prideless working class as a social “host” defending
the ruling class, the defended ruling class take nature’s contemptuous
attitude. And the working-class soldier as professional defender of the
parasitic capitalist class, tho’ much flattered, is cordially despised.
What the United States government thinks of the soldier may be seen, for
example, in the fact that a Civil Service employee, in the Weather
Department, travelling about on duty on long trips, is allowed one
dollar, and even more than a dollar per meal in his expense account;
while the “brave boys” in khaki who agree to stand ready to butcher
their brothers for a living are lucky if they get a thirty-cent meal at
any time. In this connection the following from Mr. Taft’s Report as
Secretary of War for 1907 (p. 92–93) is of interest. Under the head of
“Rations” we find:
“The present ration, while _liberal and suitable_, falls
considerably short of the Navy ration in variety. Butter, milk and
molasses, or _syrup, at least_, should be _added_ to the garrison
ration. These are articles _almost_ necessary in the preparation of
desserts.... They are part of the ration in Alaska and they should
be everywhere.”[220]
The present ration “liberal and suitable,” yet lacking butter, milk and
molasses and even syrup. Such things are “_almost_ necessary!”
The reckless epicureanism thus proposed by “the great secretary” in
offering some _cheap syrup_ as an _addition_ to the _dessert_ gives us
an illuminating suggestion as to the War Department’s estimate of the
cheapness of the hungry greenhorn who can be lured into the rulers’
“service” with cheap syrup. An _ordinary_ house fly can be coaxed into a
trap with syrup—good syrup.
The United States soldier’s meals are estimated by the War Department to
be worth six and two-thirds cents apiece, as will appear from the
following passage taken from the Report of the War Department for 1907,
page 85: “The pay of the private, at present, is 43 and one-third cents
a day. Adding the [daily] cost of his ration as 20 cents, clothing
allowance and right to quarters each at 15 cents, and his remaining
privileges at, say, six and two-thirds cents, his present pay still
falls 25 cents short of the average laborer throughout the United
States.” This is the War Department’s estimate of the soldier’s average
total daily income in cash and allowances, made by the Department in
order to compare the soldier’s incentive with that of the _farm hand and
general day laborer_. On page 84 of the same Report is the Government’s
estimate of the average daily income of the “farm and the general
laborer”: For 1902 the average for these two classes was (according to
the Report) $1.20 a day; and “allowing for the increase in wages since
1902” _the government’s estimate for the “farm and general laborer” in
1907 was $1.25 per day_. This, the Report says, is $7.50 per month
better than the soldier’s incentive in 1907.
It is matter of common knowledge that the United States soldiers and
marines are forced to spend a considerable portion of their cash incomes
for food that the Government is too stingy to furnish. That is, the
ruling class have such contempt for their human “watch dogs” that they
furnish them a meaner living than is received by the most meanly paid
group of the working class over whom they stand guard and stand ready to
murder if they strike and struggle for more.
In the same Report, under the heading “Quarters,” is this:
“The fact that he is living in a $40,000 building impresses the
soldier less if he finds in it only iron bunks, cheap chairs, and
unpainted tables—the absolute necessities for his use and nothing
for his comfort. The barrack is the home of the soldier while he
remains in the service. It is possible that he might think oftener
of continuing there if it presented more the appearance of a home.
So far as the squad rooms are concerned, mere room adornment is
neither necessary nor advisable [!] ... The squad rooms are sleeping
rooms only. There is space only for bunks, lockers and a few chairs;
but these last might in part be something more than the present
cheap and uncomfortable article. But it is the reading and amusement
rooms that are meant particularly. There is no reason why they
should not be made habitable. [Indeed! Really, Mr. Taft! How daring
of you!] A few barrack chairs and rough tables, with possibly a
billiard table, ordinarily constitute their furniture now. There is
little to tempt a man to stay there. [“Tempt” is good.] ... These
rooms might be made comfortable and pleasant. A rug on the floor, a
few prints on the walls, substantial chairs, a few writing tables
and writing materials could all be supplied at no serious expense to
the United States.... There is nothing degenerating in such
furnishings; there is much that is homelike.” [Like _whose_ home?]
“A few prints”—not many of course, and cheap ones, let us say about ten
cents each; and “a rug”—a dull, unexciting mat of rags—simply these and
nothing more, lest the degenerating influences of fine art should soften
the syrup-baited lads’ blood-lusting temper too much for the more
glorious art of butchering. As Mr. Taft profoundly remarks, “There is
little to tempt a man to _stay_ there” at present; but, as he
sagaciously suggests, about 98 cents expended in baiting the bunk-room
trap with a few original Italian, or, say, Dutch, masterpieces, and a
few imported Persian fascinations of emotional red—this 98 cents for the
seductions of fine art added to a nickel’s worth of skimmed milk and
molasses _would_ be an effective allurement for the khaki heroes to
re-enlist and “stay there.”
Recently Congressmen and Senators advanced their own salaries from
$5,000 up to $7,500 per year. This is one sign of self-respect. This
advance of $2,500 per year will of course be sufficient to provide a
fair quality of syrup and skimmed milk for the statesmen’s dessert.
Does it seem probable that cheap molasses added to the dessert of the
soldier’s ration and a few ten-cent prints hung on the walls of the
soldiers’ living rooms will attract Taft’s sons or Roosevelt’s sons or
the sons of Senators and Congressmen and the sons of the “better class
leading citizens” to the dreary, barren barracks provided for men who
stand ready to slaughter for less than 50 cents a day and cheap “keep”?
Says Major-General J. F. Bell, Chief of Staff:[221]
“That men enlist believing they will love the life is likely, but
their mental picture is oftentimes so different from the reality
that disappointment is the almost inevitable consequence.”
Fifty-eight per cent. of all the desertions from the military service in
the year 1906 were desertions of men in their first year of service, and
considerably more than half of these desertions were during the first
six months of service.[222]
_Twenty-six times as many_ enlisted men in our army committed suicide in
1908 as in 1907, and _thirty-nine times_ as many of the “tempted” and
trapped young men in our army committed suicide in 1909 as in 1907. No
suicides are reported for the years 1901 to 1906 inclusive. The record
for the three years 1907, ’08, ’09 is 1, 26, 39, respectively.[223]
It would seem likely that a young fellow whose loathing for the army
life had become unendurable would desert rather than commit suicide to
escape the hideous business. But no doubt the following line from the
Report of the Secretary of War, Mr. Wright, in 1908, will help explain
somewhat the increase of suicide in the army. Mr. Wright says (page 19):
“An elaborate system ... now almost perfected is well calculated to
secure _swift and certain apprehension and punishment of deserters_ and
will ... have a marked effect in reducing the crime to a minimum.”[224]
An illustrative feature of this “highly perfected system” is to furnish
the run-away soldiers’ pictures to the police of a city to which the
lads can be traced, and offer the police $50 a head cash for the arrest
of the soldiers. The $50 results in a human “bloodhound” search. This
“highly perfected system” makes a young man’s enlistment a good deal
like swallowing a barbed fish-hook. A great number of the boys go
insane. In 1908 _insanity ranked third_ in the long list of causes of
discharge from the army for disability.[225]
Army service, even in time of peace, is not exactly a picnic dream. On
this point General Frederick Funston offers some helpful information,
thus:[226]
“There is too much of the everlasting grind of drill and practice
marches, and at some of the posts too much ‘fatigue’ in the way of
keeping the reservations in apple-pie order. It is pretty much of a
shock to many of the men who have entered the army service to taste
the delights of military life to find that, from the standpoint of
the post-commanders, the most important part of their training
consists in cutting brush and weeds.”
In his Report of 1907, page 14, Mr. Taft said:
“A noteworthy feature in the recruitment of the Army under present
conditions is the increasing number of men who fail to re-enlist and
of those who leave the Army before the expiration of their term of
service by purchasing their discharge.... The fact cannot be
disregarded nor explained away that for some reason or other the
life of the soldier as at present constituted is not one to attract
the best and most desirable class of men.”
In the excerpt just quoted Mr. Taft makes it pretty clear that in his
judgment the present enlisted men in the “regular” army are “undesirable
citizens.” Hence the “great secretary’s” recommendation of
milk-and-syrup additions to the soldier’s dessert, a few cheap prints on
the walls, and a coat of paint on the tables used by the soldiers—in
order to catch a better and more desirable class of men; that is, a
better and more desirable class of workingmen; for be it remembered the
Government does not expect to get any well-fed capitalist class men into
the army by means of cheap syrup and cheap milk and cheap ‘print’
pictures and the like. “The soldier in peace,” says the Report just
quoted, “is better fed and better clothed than the average man of _his
class_ in civil life.”[227] How interesting and instructive!
In 1905 almost 73 per cent., and in 1906 almost 74 per cent. of the
applicants for examination for enlistment in our army “were rejected as
lacking either mental, moral or physical qualifications.”[228]
President Roosevelt, in his Message of December, 1907, virtually
ridiculed the patriotism of the men in the army and those who may
contemplate entering the army. He wrote:
“The prime need of our present Army and Navy is to secure and retain
competent non-commissioned officers. The difficulty rests
fundamentally on the question of pay.”
“_Fundamentally on the question of pay._” How suggestively patriotic!
Did Colonel Roosevelt join the army for the cash there was in it? “Oh,
certainly not.” But why should he insultingly say that, for other men,
joining the army is fundamentally a question of cold cash?
The War Department, with Mr. Taft at the head, in 1907, joined Mr.
Roosevelt in his sneering contempt for the soldier’s motive in joining
the army. The Report runs:[229]
“Under a voluntary system men enlist either to aid their country or
to promote their own ends; that is, through self-sacrifice or
self-interest.... Self-sacrifice of this sort is patriotism, an
emotion necessary to arouse.... To keep it through long periods of
peace at a pitch high enough to maintain an army would be
impossible.... _Self-interest_ is, therefore, the _only_ cause of
enlistment necessary to consider; ...”[227]
It thus appears that, in the judgment of the “great secretary,” now
President, patriotism is not at all a matter of brains, of reason
steadily sustained by logic, but is, on the contrary, a matter of
emotion, passion, “brain-storm,” induced with fife and drum and
sustained with godlike sky-climbing aspiration to have one’s stomach
filled with “butter, milk and molasses, or syrup, at least”—as
“dessert.” The two Presidents, the anti-labor injunction judge and the
lion-hunting monkey murderer,[230] agree that what _looks_ like
patriotism in the long-service “regular” is after all simply a matter of
getting less than fifty cents a day and “keep.” Of course, such things
as this are not mentioned on the Fourth of July nor in campaign speeches
when the “great secretary” or his chattering predecessor is courting the
‘brave boys’ for their votes.
(=29=) When a young man joins the army or the navy he virtually agrees
to pocket his pride and submit to a series of insults from his
“superior” officers for a term of years. The recruiting officer is to
some degree, at least temporarily, a man of pleasant manners, and the
callow patriot taking the bait in the recruiting office is treated
alluringly. But when the youth signs his name in the books and becomes a
soldier patriot, matters take a change. It is a case of being “stuck” or
“stung.” For following the hour of his enlistment, humble, prideless
submission to strutting, swaggering bosses is the soldier’s portion.
From “superior” officers he must meekly accept insults for which, in
private life, he would promptly knock a man down. In the service he must
bend his neck and take the yoke for years. Here is a sample of the
spirit of the haughty airs assumed by the “superiors.”
Mr. Taft, speaking as Secretary of War, February 14, 1908, to the young
men at West Point Military School, said:
“The plainest of your duties is to keep your mouths shut and obey
orders. As a soldier you must forego the privilege of free
speech.... You will meet with injustices, others will get all to
which they seem entitled. Your wives will have heart-burnings. Your
children will have heart-burnings. In spite of all that you must do
your duty, honestly and devotedly.”
Here is a soldier’s letter:[231]
“... We are supposed to work eight hours a day, but we get dismissed
when the officers see fit to let us go—all for fifty-two cents a
day. The negroes working at Panama get more money and are better
treated than the enlisted men out here. Our ‘little brown brothers’
are treated better over here. And to cap the climax, over comes a
high statesman [Mr. Taft?] and makes a speech to a mob of our
‘little brown brothers’ and tells them not to judge the Americans by
the enlisted men, as the enlisted men are composed of the roughest
elements in the States....”
President David Starr Jordan (Leland Stanford University) writes of the
contemptuous treatment of the men in the ranks by the “superior”
officers:[232]
“One soldier [in the Philippines] says, ‘If the United States were
on fire from end to end, I would never raise my hand to put it out.’
Another would ‘toss in a blanket the officials at Washington, as we
toss a cheating corporal.’ Another says in print, referring to the
abuse of the soldiers by their superiors in pay: ‘Yes, I knew that
war would be hell before I got into it. But I did not know that war
would be hell deliberately and fanatically inflicted. I expected to
sleep in mud puddles with my head on a stone for a pillow, and go
hungry for days on forced marches and away from a base of supplies.
But I never dreamed that I would have to sleep in a leaky and
exposed shed when there was plenty of good shelter elsewhere, and
when thirty officers had fine apartments in which there was room for
five hundred men; neither did I expect to be fed on coffee-grounds
and foul canned meat for weeks when we were right next to a base of
supplies, and when our officers lived on the choice of the
commissary’s department.’”
But the question naturally occurs to one: Why shouldn’t the working
class soldiers be treated thus? Surely it is to be expected that the
great majority class will _get what they permit_ from their “superiors.”
Note how the soldier boys are snubbed and bull-dozed in the German army.
Says Dr. Walsh:[233]
“In a trial reported Dec. 17, 1903, a lieutenant of the infantry has
been convicted of 618 cases of maltreatment and 57 cases of improper
treatment of soldiers under him, and a sergeant in another regiment
has been convicted of 1,520 cases of maltreatment and 100 cases of
improper treatment.... The men deposed were so afraid, that nobody
ventured to complain.”
There is a yearly average of 7,000 desertions from the English regular
army. Quite naturally. Frozen, starved and despised, the thirty-cent
patriots make a break for bread and freedom from the “noble” snobbery of
the aristocratic pets in control.
The record of desertions from the American Army is, for the years 1907,
1908, and 1909, respectively, 4,534, 4,525, 5,023.
(=30=) How is it possible to interest young men in the brutal business
of war?
There are some paragraphs on this matter in the chapter following, “For
Mother and the Boys.” Here the matter of military parades is suggested
for consideration by “father and the boys.”
Sometimes the boys’ interest in war begins in so simple a thing as a
parade. A military parade is a trap—for the working class. A writer in
the New York _Tribune_, April 22, 1908, makes several artful suggestions
as to the value of military parades in snaring young toilers into the
army. He suggests:
That “parades, so far as circumstances permit, be through or
near ... sections [of the city] ... where they may encourage
enlistment among a ... class of prospective recruits ... instead of
on Riverside Drive [where the ‘better classes’ live], to which the
public has access with difficulty and which is not frequented by the
class of young men to whom the National Guard appeals.... These
suggestions reflect the views of many citizens ... with whom the
writer has conferred.”
The writer also points out that bright-colored uniforms for the paraders
have excellent effect on the imagination of the prospective recruits.
There can be no doubt that the masters are well aware of the hypnotizing
influence of marching loud, gay-colored bands, festively uniformed
infantry, and fascinating cavalrymen through the streets where they may
be seen and admired by the working class, admired by many thousands of
ill-fed, ill-clothed, meanly sheltered young men and women whose lives
are dull and sad, consumed with the killing monotony and hurry of the
factory. A cavalry captain in the United States Army, a part of whose
business is to wheedle the gullibles into the dreary army life, has this
to say of parades:
“The good influence in popularizing the army by having it stationed
in large cities is exemplified in London. The various guards and
other bodies of troops marching through the streets, preceded by
their gorgeously dressed bands, all the uniforms recalling
traditions of brave, gallant deeds, gain friends every time.”
The best known butcher of modern times (Napoleon) also understood this
matter.
“You call these toys? Well, you manage men with toys!” said that
red-stained egoist, speaking of the ribbons and crosses and other
gewgaws of his Legion of Honor.[234]
When at the street-side a boy of seven, watching a military parade,
shouts in gleeful admiration and claps his small hands in happy hurrahs,
Mars, the bloody god of war, begins to fasten his clutches on the little
fellow, the child’s imagination takes fire with visions and hopes, his
soul begins to thrill with the kill-lust, then and there he is being
prepared to enlist—when he “gets big.” How different it would be for the
small boys if, when soldiers were marched through a city, these armed
slayers of their kind should march at night with all lights out and with
the rumble of drums and the frequent boom of cannon in the darkness
making the air tremble. The working class mother might well consider
this matter. She has all to lose.[235]
In the average parade-and-review the workingman is made ridiculous. Did
you ever see prominent bankers or other “better class” business men in
large numbers trudging along afoot in the middle of the dusty or muddy
street, marching and sweating miles and miles past a gay-colored
reviewing-stand to be “reviewed” and grinned at by a bunch of
sugar-coated crooks in the “reviewers’ stand”? No! And you never will.
The trudging and the sweating, as usual, are handed over to the “common
people,” chiefly the wage-slaves. When the “very _best_ people” do take
part in the parading before the “grand-stand,” they ride, up front, in
carriages or on horseback. They laugh and chat and gaily enjoy the
stupid gullibility of the working men as the humble fellows are thus
“bell-weathered” through the dirt and heat. On the occasion of a recent
great parade in New York City a well-known capitalist gliding along in a
handsome automobile swaggeringly called out, “We’ve got the ships, we’ve
got the men, and we’ve got the money too!” A seedy, hungry-looking young
man proudly answered back, “You bet we have!” On the same occasion
thousands of ten-dollar-a-week clerks and factory workers were charmed
into hand-clapping as the gaudily dressed soldiers marched by carrying
the very rifles they were ready to use to crush the admiring toilers if
they should strike and struggle for justice.
The usual “review” is a pompous occasion on which hundreds or thousands
of meek, ill-fed, cotton-lined, callous-palmed working men “hoof it” for
an hour or so past a “reviewing-stand” occupied by some grinning,
well-fed, silk-lined, lily-fingered, decorated “great” men who scorn
even the thought of the working class having a political party of their
own for their own self-defense.
(=31=) A great many fathers and sons are thinking a good deal about an
“era of peace” to be ushered in mainly through the good offices of peace
societies. The Hague Peace Conference is, in the judgment of many
people, “the hope of the world.”[236]
The first meeting of the Hague Conference was called—in Jesus’ name, of
course—by the most infamous blood-stained butcher of feeble old men and
women and thoughtful, aspiring young men and women, in all the
world,—that is, by the Tsar of Russia. The sincerity of this crowned
murderer may in some measure be realized by a brief study of his gross
inconsistency in the year 1903 and in the years immediately preceding.
(See Chapter Six, and Sixth Illustration.)
The second meeting of the Society was held in 1907, and another is
scheduled for the year 1915.
The serene confidence the world’s rulers have in the Society is easily
seen in their frantic efforts to increase their armies and navies. They
are bleeding their people white with taxes to make the enormously
expensive preparations for what is likely to be the most vast and
terrible butchering of the working class by the working class that has
ever horrified mankind. Secretly the crowned and uncrowned ruling
butchers of the world have nothing but contempt for the Conference at
The Hague. Very naturally, however, they are all shrewd enough to make a
large and beautiful profession of faith and desire for peace through the
Conference, while at the same time they all “want for soldiers young men
who are not only willing, but anxious to fight.” The man who inaugurated
the Conference promptly scorned the Conference when he believed his
interests would be served by a war with Japan. The famous French
anti-militarist G. Hervé shrewdly pointed out the hopelessly weak place
in the “authority” of the capitalist Hague Peace Court:[237]
“Governments so far are unanimous in _withdrawing from The Hague
Tribunal all questions affecting ‘the honor and vital interests of the
country,’_ a convenient formula permitting them to _refuse_ arbitration
when they please.”
And here is a frank admission:
“The Hague Tribunal has nothing compulsory about it; all its members
are left in perfect freedom as to whether they submit questions to
it or not.... In all treaties hitherto the Great Powers have
retained power to withhold submission of questions affecting ‘their
honor or vital interest.’”[238]
“Honor and vital interests,”—convenient phrase—a matter of business—cash
and commerce, “plain dollars and cents,”—under capitalism.
It is of interest to note that another peace society, The Peace Society,
founded in London in 1816, has been busy for almost a hundred years
trying to mop up the blood, so to speak, never daring, or not knowing
how, to uncover the fundamental cause of war.
In at least some respects a “Conference” of The Hague Peace Society is,
itself, hopelessly ridiculous and, in appearance, wickedly insincere.
For example, at the “Conference” of 1907 the delegates learnedly and
laughably discussed the “Humanizing of War,”[239] and, after much
brain-fagging effort, the delegates to the fakirs’ feast duly and
heavily concluded as follows:
“It is especially prohibited to employ poison or poisoned arms.”
WELL BE IT KNOWN:—
THAT KLEPTOMANIACS’ PERIODICAL LUNCHEON, OR “THIEVES’ SUPPER,” CALLED
THE HAGUE CONFERENCE, WOULD HAVE NO MORE WORK TO DO FOR THE NEXT
THOUSAND YEARS, WOULD NEVER AGAIN HAVE ANYTHING WHATEVER TO MEET FOR, IF
ALL BULLETS AND ALL SWORDS AND ALL BAYONETS USED IN ALL THE ARMIES WERE
DIPPED IN A DEADLY POISON; FOR, IN THAT CASE, THE WORKING CLASS OF THE
WHOLE WORLD WOULD FLATLY REFUSE TO VOLUNTEER OR BE DRAFTED TO SERVE IN
ANY WAR ANYWHERE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. AND, OF COURSE, THE
SOFT-VOICED, WELL-FED “HUMANIZERS OF WAR” WOULD NOT GO TO WAR—POISON OR
NO POISON. THE UNIVERSAL USE OF POISONED BULLETS, SWORDS AND BAYONETS
WOULD MAKE WAR ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE, BECAUSE THE INAUGURATION OF SUCH A
POLICY WOULD MAKE THE WORKING CLASS THINK.
A thinking slave is the terror of the plunder-bloated rulers of the
world—always.
When the workers once think about war they will promptly do two things:
_First_, They will refuse to go to war;
_Second_, They will find the cause of war, and will remove it.
Of course, it requires the deep and prayerful investigation of “great”
and “prominent Christian” gentlemen in peace conference assembled to
discover that it _is_ wrong for men to butcher men with swords and
bullets dipped in poison, but that it is _not_ wrong for men to destroy
men with clean lead and clean steel, their souls charged with hate as an
adder’s fang jetting venom into its victim’s flesh; to discover that it
_is_ wrong to have soldiers thrust poison-dipped bayonets into one
another’s stomachs, but that it is _not_ wrong for a “Christian business
men’s” government to feed its soldiers on poisoned canned beef. The poor
dupes who butcher one another at the word of command are, of course, too
“common” and ignorant to understand the logical legerdemain of these
prayerfully discovered distinctions; but the learned and prominent
gentlemen in peace conference assembled, far, far from the battle line,
smoking 50–cent cigars, quaffing the world’s costliest champagne—these
noble braves, these bottle-scarred heroes, can tell us all about it.
Certainly.
With thoughtful tenderness many Christian governments, influenced by
peace societies, have made an international agreement that, in case of
war, no bullet used weighing 14 ounces or less shall be an explosive
bullet,—that is, a bullet that easily expands, flattens and shatters
_when it strikes flesh_. However, these same “more refined and
civilized” nations are all at perfect liberty to use a cannon bullet, or
shell, weighing hundreds of pounds, charged with explosives,
flesh-tearing materials and deadly gases, arranged with time-fuses in
order to explode over the heads of, or among, a great body of men on the
field, or in the midst of men when it has pierced the armor of a war
vessel.
It is not definitely known how these wise Christian statesmen and
scholars discovered that a three-hundred pound explosive bullet might
properly and lovingly be used by gently sensitive Christian butchers,
but that a thirteen-ounce explosive bullet might not with propriety be
used by these loving followers of the gentle Jesus. Possibly the
discovery was made by some deep-seeing pot-house statesmen and scholars
after a prayerful study of the Sermon on the Mount,—with champagne on
the side.
War is “human” or “inhuman” according to the orations, discussions,
confusions, delusions, conclusions, decisions and provisions of these
perfumed, patent-leathered fighters after a long fast—on terrapin,
porter-house and “Mumm’s Extra Dry.”
The eloquence of the Hague Peace Conference literature concerning its
long list of extremely “glorious achievements” would lead the
uninstructed to suppose that till this organization came on the field
there had never been a dispute settled without war. It modestly claims
everything in view.
Note here the fact that:
_“There is no period known to history in which instances are not found
of arbitration as a substitute for force, and we can only wonder when we
consider the historical antiquity of the former that the latter should
have maintained its hold so long, so constantly and so fiercely.”_[240]
“Where are thy portents, Peace?
What sign on land or sea
Of thy great coming, of thy rule to be?
The fighting and the drumming do not cease;
Gun-thunder smites the air,
And shakes the earth beneath.
Bait we not the war-dogs in their lair,
And toil at harvesting of dragon’s teeth?...
Must it forever be a poet’s dream—
The land secure, the mind at rest,
The cut-throat tamed and laboring at an oar,
The braggart silent and ashamed,
The toiler as a monarch seem,
The woman with her baby at her breast,
Aglow with joy that war shall be no more?...”
—J. I. C. Clarke, in New York _Times_.
Prominent people—prominent chiefly because they are elevated upon the
shoulders of the working class—have been _talking_ about peace for a
long time. But peace born of _justice_, peace founded upon
_fairness_,—that is neither thought of nor talked of, by the ruling
class, in the pompous and pretentious peace conferences; it is not on
the program.
Father and the boys of the working class will themselves have to place
peace on the program of mankind. And one of the first things to do is to
bring up the subject of war and peace in every working class
organization in the world—_for discussion_. (See pages 272, 283–289.
Index: “Carnegie.”)
=A Special Notice to the Hague Peace Society:=
As to “limited armaments”—whether the swords are long or short, the
working class more and more clearly see that you intend that the
working class shall continue to do all the fighting in case of war.
=A Special Challenge to the Hague Peace Society:=
That all delegates to the Conferences shall discuss, not the
problems of “disarmament,” but (1) the problem of striking the bands
from the wrists of the wage-slaves; (2) the artificial arbitrary
restriction placed upon the consuming power of the wage-earners, out
of which fact grows the imminent world-struggle for the
“world-market.”
=A Second Special Challenge to the Hague Peace Society:=
That the Society shall frankly announce in all its Conferences, in
all its Reports, in all its leaflets, in all its lectures and
sermons, that the Socialist Party’s method of preventing war is to
frankly and loudly WARN THE VICTIMS OF WAR, the working class, just
what war always means to the working class; and that this method has
succeeded in preventing two wars in recent years in cases where the
Hague Peace Society was powerless.
=A Third Special Challenge to the Hague Peace Society:=
That the Society shall explain why the Capitalist masters of the
Hague Peace Society will not _permit_ their vassals in the
Conferences to accept the Second Challenge.
[Illustration: THE BENEFICIARIES OF HELL, FLIRTING WITH “HEAVEN”]
The author of WAR—WHAT FOR?, in the summer of 1910, attended a
National Peace Conference in New York City. The Conference was
attended by some of the most distinguished peace-wishers in the
United States, including capitalists, orators and college
professors. The author was given the floor to address the
Convention. Everything went well until the author began to urge that
all who want peace should make every possible effort to WARN THE
VICTIMS of war, the working class, of what war means to the working
class. Instantly there was manifest discomfort all through the
audience, and very soon the chairman left his seat, came close to
the speaker and urged that the speech be concluded at once. No other
speaker was thus interrupted.
[Illustration]
-----
Footnote 182:
Charles Seignobos: _Political History of Europe Since 1815_, p. 819.
Footnote 183:
Similar practice was common in our Civil War.
Footnote 184:
But see Index: “Four Historic Events.”
Footnote 185:
May 21, 1909. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 186:
Report of the United States Pullman Strike Commission: Carroll D.
Wright, Chairman.
Footnote 187:
See Chapter Ten on “What Shall We Do About It?”
Footnote 188:
See article by Labor Commissioner C. D. Wright: _North American
Review_, June, 1902; also R. T. Ely: _Outlines of Economics_, Edition
of 1908, pp. 397–98.
Footnote 189:
_International Journal of Ethics_, April, 1908.
Footnote 190:
C. D. Wright: _Practical Sociology_, p. 38.
Footnote 191:
See Report of Secretary of War, 1908, p. 155. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 192:
An excellent edition of the law with notes, analysis, history, and
suggestions by Mr. Ernest Untermann, can be had for 5 cents, of any
Socialist literature agent.
Footnote 193:
London, March 21, 1908.
Footnote 194:
Miss Jane Addams: _Newer Ideals of Peace_, p. 232.
Footnote 195:
_Civil Liberty_, pp. 116–117.
Footnote 196:
G. Stanley Hall: _Adolescence_, Vol. I., pp. 222–23.
Footnote 197:
_The Rough Riders_, p. 139. Found in Edition of 1899, published by
Charles Scribner’s Sons; page 152, as published by G. P. Putnam’s
Sons.
Footnote 198:
_System of Ethics_, p. 660.
Footnote 199:
_Militarism_, pp. 60–61.
Footnote 200:
_William Shakespeare_, Pt. 3, Bk. 3, Ch. I.
Footnote 201:
See Chapter Eight, Section 11,—of special interest to women who
incline to be “perfectly delighted” with soldiers.
Footnote 202:
Quoted by Thomas E. Will, _Arena_, Dec., 1894.
Footnote 203:
_Moral Damage of War_, pp. 146–47.
Footnote 204:
_Education and the Higher Life_, p. 171.
Footnote 205:
_Works_, Vol. IV., Dresden Edition, p. 124.
Footnote 206:
“Lecture on War.”
Footnote 207:
_The Destiny of Man_, pp. 100–103.
Footnote 208:
Lester F. Ward: _Applied Sociology_, p. 264.
Footnote 209:
Bloomfield: “Farmer’s Boy.”
Footnote 210:
Pope’s Homer’s “Iliad.”
Footnote 211:
_Militarism_, p. 316.
Footnote 212:
Quoted by John A. Hobson: _John Ruskin: Social Reformer_, p. 346.
Footnote 213:
_Militarism_, p. 317.
Footnote 214:
See Chapter Eleven.
Footnote 215:
See Chapter Ten, also Index: “Revolution of Opinion.”
Footnote 216:
See McCabe and Darien: _Can We Disarm?_ p. 56.
Footnote 217:
See Index: “What War Decides”; also “Blood Cost of War.”
Footnote 218:
Thomas Carlyle: _Sartor Resartus_, Book II., Chapter 8.
Footnote 219:
See Index: “Parasites.”
Footnote 220:
Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 221:
_Report_, 1907, p. 73.
Footnote 222:
See Report of Department of War, 1906.
Footnote 223:
See Annual Reports of the Secretaries of War for the years named; also
Preface of the present volume.
Footnote 224:
Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 225:
See _Report of the War Department_, 1908, p. 21; see also Index:
“Insanity.”
Footnote 226:
_The World’s Work_, May, 1907.
Footnote 227:
Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 228:
See Reports of the Department of War for the respective years.
Footnote 229:
_Report of the Secretary of War_, 1907, p. 72.
Footnote 230:
Mr. Roosevelt’s kill-for-pleasure hunting trip in Africa in 1909–10
included, according to the press reports, “a splendid time,” “a
corking time,” shooting monkies—murdering his ancestral cousins, so to
speak—“a careful count being kept of the exact number” of the jolly,
playful little creatures butchered for the brave and noble gentleman’s
amusement on his “old home” trip.
Footnote 231:
A private, writing from the Philippines, in _Everybody’s Magazine_,
April, 1908.
Footnote 232:
_Imperial Democracy_, p. 272.
Footnote 233:
_The Moral Damage of War_, pp. 150–51.
Footnote 234:
Quoted by Professor E. A. Ross, in his _Social Control_, p. 89.
Footnote 235:
See Chapter Eight: “For Mother and the Boys,” Section 1.
Footnote 236:
See Index: “Bankruptcy, Danger of.”
Footnote 237:
_The International_, July, 1908. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 238:
_Documents of the American Association for International
Conciliation_, 1907–08, p. 22.
Footnote 239:
See _The Peace Conference at The Hague_, pp. 93–120, and 151.
Footnote 240:
_Harper’s Magazine_, Vol. 87. See International Conciliation—Documents
of the American Association for International Conciliation, 1907–08:
Third Paper—“A League of Peace.”
CHAPTER EIGHT.
For Mother and the Boys and Girls.
Topics for consideration, especially by the mothers in the working
class.[241]
(=1=) “Will there be, indeed, more wars?”
Yes, undoubtedly.[242]
“What shall be done about it?”
There are two things to be done, by the mother, right away: Think about
war and talk about war with other mothers and the boys—also with the
girls.
Let us see:
In the next war whose sons shall be shot?
The aristocrat’s wife is not worrying about whose children are to be
destroyed in the next war. She knows already that her sons will not be
destroyed in battle; her sons will not stand before Gatling guns; her
sons will not be torn and lie bleeding, groaning, screaming and cursing
on the steel-swept battlefield by day or through the long night; her
sons will not fester and sicken and die in dismal battlefield hospitals;
she knows that her sons will not be pitched into nameless
trenches—buried like dogs; her flesh and blood, her slain sons, will not
be brought home to mock her aching heart.
That is settled—positively.
She belongs to the _ruling_ class.
The ruling class protect her and the men and boys she loves—loyally.
But the working class mother—the humble mother of wage-slaves—she feels
no such security. Herod and Mars invade her home to steal the men and
boys she loves. The rude fist of war is ever ready to crush her. This
humble woman is wholly unprotected against war by the ruling class. She
is also unprotected against war by the voting men of her own class.
This woman must protect herself—for the present.
Let it be remembered that in the gentle heart of a humble mother whose
loving sons have been butchered in battle, it is always winter. The
cheap rhetoric and hypocritical compliments of the coarse-grained
political orator, the honeyed words of any man in any profession—sacred
or secular—craftily exempted from the war which slew her loved ones,
these can not charm the wintry desolation of her life into rare June
weather. Nor can the wound in her mother heart be healed with a stingy
quarterly allowance of filthy money called a pension. When her loved
ones were slaughtered her joys were slain.
This woman must indeed protect herself; and she can protect herself,
somewhat,—if she will.
She can do this: She can teach her child to hate—to hate war.[243]
(=2=) Mother, is your five-year-old son strong, healthy and handsome?
Yes? Well, that is fine. But think of him at the age of twenty in
slaughtering clothes, being transformed into a swaggering armed bully.
Mother, if he should be tricked into the army and butchered and his torn
corpse should be brought home to you, you would then know what _other_
mothers feel when their boys, whom your son butchers, are brought home
to them. Then, perhaps, war would seem quite different—far less “great”
and “glorious” to you. You see, mother, in a war _some_ mothers’ boys
must be butchered. Perhaps a false patriotism has been taught to
you—just as a false patriotism is taught your sons. Both the mother and
her sons are confused. To get the working class boy ready for war the
capitalist must first confuse and trick the mother.
Kings, emperors, presidents, tsars, and capitalists of all lands are
lovingly interested in the problem of “race suicide,” the problem of
small families,—interested in the “food-for-powder” crop, the
“bullet-stopper” crop,—EAGER THAT EVERY WORKING CLASS MOTHER SHOULD
BECOME A BREEDER. After Napoleon Bonaparte had had multitudes of the men
and boys of France butchered, making it difficult to find soldiers, he
impatiently exclaimed, “What France needs is mothers!” What he meant was
that France needed more human breeders flattered into bearing and
rearing more butchers for Napoleon. Of course Napoleon was shrewd enough
to confuse the humble mothers with plenty of cheap flattery concerning
their “patriotism.”[244] Capitalists today want larger working class
families for more soldiers, also for a larger army of unemployed—in
order that the capitalists may, in the industrial civil war, more
tyrannically dictate the wage terms to the workers and also more easily
secure substitutes in case of a war.
And to this end the capitalists are willing to pay the price; that is,
willing to pay for the social chloroform, for the false teachings,
necessary to beget a slave’s blind enthusiasm for the master that
betrays him—called patriotism.
(=3=) Thomas Carlyle called working class soldiers simpletons. A person
of good mind, however, _if caught young_, can be confused till he will
actually volunteer to butcher his fellowman. This can be done in many
ways; for example, take Fitchburg, Massachusetts, May 29–30, 1908. The
very small children, also ten-year-olds, and those still older, were
assembled, according to age, in halls, churches, the Young Men’s
Christian auditorium, and elsewhere, May 29; and for long weary hours
gory stories of “bravery” in war were recited to them, horrible pictures
were displayed before them, blood-curdling suggestions were urged upon
them, cheap lusts for cheap glory were inspired in the helpless
youngsters,—just as a savage might teach his little sons to rip the
scalp from a screaming victim’s skull. And humble mothers of the working
class were tricked into co-operating in this anti-social “patriotism.”
Such abominable performances stunt the children. Their social
development is arrested. They become jingoists, ignorant little
bigots—utterly incapable of sincere international love. Their political
philosophy is a shallow and silly “Hurrah!” Their “patriotism” becomes a
belittling conceit and a readiness for cruel deeds.
Everybody, of course, loves a frank, finely social child. International
and national murder is a coarse and unsocial thought; and when parents,
teachers, preachers, or lecturers, speak enthusiastically of wholesale
murder or of famous national and international murderers in the presence
of a child, the child’s social development is checked, stunted; when a
few suggestions of international jealousy and malice have been
ignorantly (or cunningly) thrust into a child’s mind it becomes simply
impossible for the child to develop into an “international man,” a
finely social person sincerely loving his fellowmen. This would be a
charming world if all men and women were social—socialized, unblasted,
unstung by shriveling national jealousy and malice; but everywhere the
vile business of blasting the social nature of the rising generation is
being extended. The school, even, is invaded. The Rev. Dr. Walter Walsh
warns parents thus:[245]
“The school has become not only the training ground, but actually a
recruiting ground for the army. The British War Office issues a
circular pressing secondary schools to teach boys over twelve the
use of the rifle; issues Morris tube carbines to schools having
suitable ranges; and supplies ammunition at cost price. The
inevitable next step is the formation of cadet corps in the schools,
with inspection by military chiefs.... The capture of the schools by
the militarists is one of the most ominous signs of the times. The
militarist has long looked with wistful eye at this happy hunting
grounds.... Parliaments have already been strongly urged to make
military drill compulsory in all public schools.... The scholar is
rapidly transformed into the conscript.”
The shameless audacity of using a socializing institution, the school,
to cultivate national malice in the helpless children!
(=4=) If only the children could get one good look at the hell behind
the curtain it would be more difficult to beguile and betray them.
Let the wonderful Zola tell what the boys in the public schools are
_not_ taught and are _not permitted to realize_ till later when they are
grown up and are seduced to the battlefield with the crafty cry, “Follow
the flag!”
Here following are some paragraphs on the battlefield hospital. A
military hospital, it may be said, is an institution in which sick and
shell-torn men are hastily repaired in order that they may go again to
the battle line—perchance to faint or be ripped to pieces again. Thus
Zola:[246]
“... Outside in the shed the preparations were of another nature:
the chests were opened and the contents arranged in order.... On
another table were the surgical cases with their blood-curdling
array of glittering instruments, probes, forceps, bistouries,
scalpels, scissors, saws, an arsenal of implements of every
imaginable shape adapted to pierce, cut, dice, rend, crush.... The
wagons kept driving up to the entrance in an unbroken stream.... The
regular ambulance wagons of the medical department, two-wheeled and
four-wheeled, were too few in number to meet the demand ...
provision vans, everything on wheels that could be picked up on the
battlefield, came rolling up with their ghastly loads; and later in
the day carrioles and market-gardeners’ carts were pressed into the
service and harnessed to horses that were found straying along the
roads.... It was a sight to move the most callous to behold the
unloading of those poor wretches, some with the greenish pallor on
their faces, others suffused with the purple hue that denotes
congestion; many were in a state of coma, others uttered piercing
cries of anguish ... the keen knife flashed in the air, there was
the faint rasping of the saw barely audible, the blood spurted in
short sharp jets.... As soon as the subject had been operated on
another was brought in, and they followed one another in such quick
succession that there was barely time to pass the sponge over the
protecting oil-cloth. At the extremity of the grass plot, screened
from sight by a clump of lilac bushes, they had set up a kind of
morgue whither they carried the bodies of the dead, which were
removed from the beds without a moment’s delay in order to make room
for the living, and this receptacle also served to receive the
amputated legs and arms, whatever débris of flesh and bone remained
upon the table.... Rents in tattered, shell-torn uniforms disclosed
gaping wounds, some of which had received a hasty dressing on the
battlefield, while others were still raw and bleeding. There were
feet, still encased in their coarse shoes, crushed into a mass like
jelly; from knees and elbows, that were as if they had been smashed
by a hammer, depended inert limbs. There were broken hands, and
fingers almost severed, ready to drop, retained only by a strip of
skin. Most numerous among the casualties were the fractures; the
poor arms and legs, red and swollen, throbbed intolerably and were
as heavy as lead. But the most dangerous hurts were those in the
abdomen, chest, and head. There were yawning fissures that laid open
the entire flank, the knotted viscera were drawn into great hard
lumps beneath the tight-drawn skin, while as the effect of certain
wounds the patient frothed at the mouth and writhed like an
epileptic.... And finally the head, more than any other portion of
the frame, gave evidence of hard treatment; a broken jaw, the mouth
a pulp of teeth and bleeding tongue, an eye torn from its socket and
exposed upon the cheek, a cloven skull that showed the palpitating
brain beneath.... Although the sponge was kept constantly at work
the tables were always red.... The buckets ... were emptied over a
bed of daisies a few steps away.... Some seemed to have left the
world with a sneer on their faces, their eyes retroverted till
naught was visible but the whites, the grinning lips parted over the
glistening teeth, while in others with faces unspeakably sorrowful,
big tears still stood on the cheeks. One, a mere boy, short and
slight, half whose face had been shot away by a cannon ball, had his
two hands clasped convulsively above his heart, and in them a
woman’s photograph, one of those pale, blurred pictures that are
made in the quarters of the poor, bedabbled with his blood. And at
the feet of the dead had been thrown in a promiscuous pile the
amputated arms and legs, the refuse of the knife and the saw of the
operating table, just as the butcher sweeps into a corner of his
shop the offal, the worthless odds and ends of flesh and bone....
Bourouche, brandishing the long, keen knife, cried: ‘Raise him!’
seized the deltoid with his left hand and with a swift movement of
the right cut through the flesh of the arm and severed the muscle;
then, with a deft rear-ward cut, he disarticulated the joint at a
single stroke, and, presto! the arm fell on the table, taken off in
three motions.... ‘Let him down!’ ... he had done it in thirty
seconds.... Their strength all gone, reduced to skeletons, with
ashen, clayey faces, the miserable wretches suffered the torments of
the damned.... The patients writhed and shrieked in unceasing
delirium, or sat erect in bed with the look of spectres.... There
were others again who maintained a continuous howling.... Often
gangrene kept mounting higher and higher, and the amputation had to
be repeated until the entire limb was gone.”
And that is hell—for which your children are prepared.
This phase of war is shrewdly kept from the children. No child’s mind
could be poisoned, no child’s imagination could be set on fire for war,
no child’s heart could be made to lust for the “glory” of the
battlefield of carnage—if he were shown _this_ side of war.
But the child is an easy victim. Even some cheap jingo jingle called
patriotic poetry renders the working class the easy, fooled tool of
despots. The victimizing of the helpless child is rendered especially
easy when the mother, blindfold with flattery, gullibly lends assistance
in strangling the child’s sociability. (See Chapter Seven, Section 30.)
(=5=) Here is a specimen of the poison craftily used in the public
schools under the control of the capitalist class:
“A soldier is the grandest man
That ever yet was made.
He’s valiant on the battlefield
And handsome on parade.
By strict attention to my drill
It should not take me long
For me to be an officer
When I am big and strong.
Then, when my country needs me,
In case of war’s alarms,
I’d run and get my uniform[247]
And call the boys to arms!
With sword in hand I’d lead the charg
My orders I would yell
Above the noise of cannon’s roar
And storms of shot and shell.
We’d dash upon the foreign foe,
As Teddy did of yore,
Who took the hill while covered with
Dust, victory and gore!
With banners gay, while bugles play,
We’d seek our native land.
Upon a horse I’d ride that day,
The General in Command!”[248]
Will the mothers protect their children’s nature against the unsocial
small souls who are always ignorantly or maliciously ready to thrust
fangs and venom into the generous natures of frank and social children
by having them recite stupid praise of distinguished human butchers and
“famous victories”?
An American literary man of great eminence, Dr. Edward Everett Hale,
thus rebuked the poisoners of school children:
“But even now, think how much more care you give to the study of the
histories of war than to the histories of peace. There are ten times
as many people who know who commanded at the Battle of New Orleans
as there are who could tell me the name of the great apostle who
made freedom the law for Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin,
Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Michigan. This man died
leaving no memorial.”[249]
(=6=) The working class should speedily get control of public libraries
and throw out and keep out books written especially to exalt war and
puff the brilliant butchers who have guided millions of working men to
death on blood-soaked battlefields,—throw out and burn all books
designed to praise the Christian or pagan cannibalism, or the civilized
savagery called war. LABOR UNIONS AND ALL OTHER WORKING CLASS BODIES
SHOULD MAKE FORMAL AND VIGOROUS PROTEST AGAINST HAVING ANYTHING SAID IN
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN PRAISE OF WAR AND IN PRAISE OF DISTINGUISHED
BUTCHERS. Let them reflect too that military drills, given _as such_,
with martial songs and war tales, cultivate blood lust in the children,
blind them to the true meaning of war, make them an easy prey, later, to
the crafty cowards who will seek to use them in future savage contests,
and are thus an outrage on the children. For a dozen reasons the working
class should get control of local school boards.[250]
(=7=) The following lines from a poem written by an elegant coward, are
often used in the primary grades of the public schools:
“Form! Form! Riflemen, form!
Ready! be ready to meet the storm!
Riflemen! Riflemen! Riflemen, form!”
A SCHOOL TEACHER CAN MAKE A FOOL AND A MURDERER OF A BOY OF EIGHT OR TEN
YEARS WITH SUCH LINES. REMEMBER THAT POETS AND TEACHERS WHO FURNISH THE
WAR-SONG CHLOROFORM FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN USUALLY “SIDE-STEP” WHEN THE
STORM BREAKS—NO RIFLE BUSINESS FOR THEM—THEY LET OTHERS “MEET THE STORM”
WHICH THEIR POETRY AND TEACHING HELPED STIR UP. THE WAR-SONG POET AND
THE WAR-SONG SCHOOL TEACHER, IF YOU PLEASE, ARE TOO “CULTIVATED AND
RESPECTABLE” TO BE PATRIOTICALLY BUTCHERED.
Under no circumstances should a working class father and mother keep
silent while a public school teacher or a Sunday-school teacher thrills
the children’s blood and blasts the glorious sentiments of human
brotherhood with recitals of war-tales and fulsome praise of men whose
“glory” is red with the blood of tens of thousands of working class men.
Such stories and such praise scar and brutalize the social natures of
the children as distinctly as a hot branding iron would disfigure their
tender faces.
(=8=) The little lovers, the children, who are conceived in love, born
in love, and live on love, who hunger for love, long to love, glorify
the home with love and make the sad world hope for—almost mad for—love,
one generation of these sweet little lovers, these prattling sweethearts
of mankind, would, when grown up, fill the world with an international
love, _if they were not bitten by the viper of petty, local patriotism_.
The mother who will think about this matter somewhat will promptly
realize that there is something disastrously wrong with the education
which stings her little lovers with a murderer’s aspiration. There is
something wrong when the gracious neighborliness and charming
sociability of children give way to swaggering insolence and savage
blood-lust.
Let the mother think of it: Even their playthings, their toys, are
craftily used to sting, to debauch the imagination of the children, to
write the hopes of brutes in the hearts of gentle children. Lately there
has been enormous increase in the business of manufacturing toy
soldiers, toy cavalry horses, toy cannon and toy Gatling guns, also
khaki soldier clothing for children. “120,000 bales of scrap tin from
the Puget Sound canneries were sent recently to Hamburg, Germany, to be
made into toy soldiers.”[251] There can be no doubt about the results of
using such garb and playthings. That the child is thus scarred is
revealed when the tiny boy assumes the attitudes and the strut and
swagger of the professional man-slaughterer. His very conversation with
his military toys shows he is marked—_ready_.[252]
William Lloyd Garrison wrote:
“My country is the world, my countrymen are all mankind.”
But the stung child can not learn the meaning of Garrison’s noble words.
(=9=) Boy, kill one human being, and you will be called a
murderer—despised and hanged. But kill a thousand human beings in
war—and you become “great”! Deluded women smile upon you, little
children gape at you, preachers praise you, politicians pet you, orators
glorify you, capitalists grin at you, universities honor you, and the
Government medals and pensions you;—but lonely, war-orphaned children
and war-robbed widows, _these despise you exactly in proportion as they
understand you_.
Remember, boy, the soldier’s sword reaches through the slaughtered
father to others—reaches the hearts of helpless women and helpless
children.
Which would you rather be, boy, a dead and useless slaughterer of men,
or a live and useful man of peace?—a dead butcher or a live brother?
(=10=) Here, of course, the thought of patriotism occurs.
A great American, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote:
“We hesitate to employ a word so much abused as patriotism, whose
true sense is almost the reverse of the popular sense. We have no
sympathy with that boyish egotism, hoarse with cheering for one
side, for one state, for one town; the right patriotism consists in
the delight which springs from contributing our peculiar legitimate
advantages to the benefit of humanity.”
And thus James Russell Lowell:[253]
“There is a patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves us from our
other and terrene fealty.... When, therefore, one would have us
throw up our caps and shout with the multitude, ‘Our country,
however bounded!’ he demands of us that we sacrifice the larger to
the less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield to the
imaginary claims of a few acres of soil our duty and privilege as
liegemen of Truth. Our true country is bounded on the north and the
south, on the east and the west, by justice.... Veiling our faces,
we must take silently the hand of Duty to follow her.”
The fallacy of false patriotism is exploded in the following quotation
by James Mackaye:[254]
“There is a school of patriotism more or less popular which teaches
that a man owes to his country a duty which he owes to no other
aggregate of the human race, and that he should render service to
the constituted authorities thereof, whatever policies they may
choose to pursue. The motto of this school is ‘My country, right or
wrong.’ Had this been the motto of Washington and his compatriots
the United States would still be a part of the British Empire. The
particular aggregate of men which constitutes a nation is a matter
of the merest accident.... Indeed the patriotism whose dictum is ‘My
country, right or wrong’ is but one degree of egotism, for if my
country right or wrong, why not my state right or wrong; if my state
right or wrong, why not my town ... my neighborhood ... my
family ... my great uncle ... or why not myself right or wrong?”
George Washington was disloyal to his own government, the greatest
national government in the world in his day, simply because that
government did not do things to suit _him_. Washington _took up arms
against his own government_ because it did not suit him. Washington was
_unpatriotic_ toward his great national government because it did not
please him. Washington _even trampled upon the flag_ of his own national
government because that government’s policy did not suit him.
But Washington was loyal to his own interests. He was patriotic toward
the new _revolutionary_ government that did suit him. He _transferred
his allegiance_ to a _new_ flag and a _new_ constitution and a _new_
government and thus _protected his economic interests_.
And all these things are true, strictly true, of almost every _great_
American in the times of Washington. Nearly every “leading citizen” in
England at that time thought the behavior of the great Americans was
“simply awful,” “outlandishly anarchistic.”
The “patriotic” great men in England were protecting their _economic_
interests and _used their government_ to protect those interests.
The “unpatriotic” Americans were protecting their economic interests,
and they despised the government that would not protect their interests,
and they straightway constructed a government which they _could_ use in
protecting their interests. Then they became patriotic toward the new
government which they were using to protect their interests.
Always those in possession of the powers of government use the
Government to protect themselves—that is, to protect their interests;
and they never fail to shrewdly shout, “Patriotism!” and teach
“patriotism”; nor do they ever fail to shout, “Unpatriotic!” at any
group or class who seek to reorganize government in self-defense.
“Patriotism!” “Love of our country!” Yes, indeed! But, doesn’t the
average American working class man look ridiculous shouting, “Hurrah for
our country—our land of the free”? He has no voice in the control of the
factory where he works; has no voice as to the use of the militia and
the soldiers; has _no right to demand a job and thus defend his life_;
he could not have the service of one petty village marshal, to open up a
“shut-down” factory, even though the opening of the factory would save
him and five thousand other men and their twenty-five thousand women and
children from starvation; in the mill and mine and factory he has no
voice as to who shall be his foreman or superintendent any more than
black chattel slaves in Georgia cotton fields in 1850.
Our country! Land of the free! Where the president of the American
Federation of Labor could be clapped into jail if he should use the
“freedom of the press” to publish even a short list of boycotted
industrial tyrants; where the officers of the Western Federation of
Miners were kidnapped and the kidnapping was declared to be
constitutional by the highest court in the land, and the untried
prisoners (constitutionally entitled to all the presumptions of
innocence) were declared guilty by the cheap President of the political
mockery called a “free republic.”
(=11=) Mothers and fathers are not permitted to learn of many of the
foul things happening at barracks or far away whither their sons have
been “flimflammed” for bullet-stoppers.
For President William H. Taft’s official testimony on the sexual
degradation of the soldier sons of loving mothers, see Chapter Four,
Section One, of the present volume.
“On the 17th of July, 1899, the staff correspondents of American
newspapers stationed in Manila stated unitedly in public protest:
“‘The [Press] censorship has compelled us to participate in this
misrepresentation by excising or altering uncontroverted statements
of fact, on the plea, as General Otis said, that “they would alarm
the people at home,” or “have the people of the United States by the
ears.”’”[255]
Some things, you know, must be concealed. President D. S. Jordan (Leland
Stanford University) writes:[256]
“Does the _Outlook_ [editor] know what Manila is becoming under
military rule? We hear of four hundred saloons on the Escolta, where
two were before; that twenty-one per cent. of our soldiers are
attacked with venereal disease, that according to the belief of the
soldiers, ‘even the pigs and dogs have the syphilis.’”
Following the Spanish war, venereal diseases as cause of ineffectiveness
and cause for discharge from the army increased two and a half fold;
that is, _two hundred and fifty per cent_.[257] The statement by the
Secretary of War, Mr. Dickinson (Report for 1909, p. 17) is sufficient
to disgust and anger every woman in the land with the entire filthy
business of militarism. For the startling statement see Chapter Four,
Section One, of present volume.
In this connection read the words of an officer in the Department of
War, Col. John Van Rensselaer:[258]
“I have but one word to say. I am an officer of the Medical Corps of
the Army, and will speak on this important subject from that
standpoint.
“Every soldier excused from duty on account of sickness of any kind
has a record made of his case. By reason of this fact, I believe I
may safely say that military vital statistics, including venereal
diseases, are the most complete extant.
“The authorities observing that there has been in recent years a
progressive increase of these diseases in the Army, until the
non-efficiency from them with us now exceeds that of any other army,
and despairing of help from the civil control of prostitution, have
instituted a plan within the service by which they hope to reduce
the excessive non-efficiency from venereal. Medical officers are
required to instruct the men in the nature and dangers of these
diseases, the non-necessity of exposure to them....
“Such instruction is valuable to a certain extent, but only to a
certain extent.... We cannot, therefore, expect all of our men, so
many of whom are at the age of highest virility, to avoid exposure
by reason of any moral suasion we may bring to bear. Some certainly
will not, so we say to them, ‘Be continent, but if you cannot, then
protect yourself!’ _And we tell them how to do it._”
[Illustration:
PREPARING BOY-SCOUT HIRED HANDS.
(See sample of “finished product” of a Boy Scout, pages 51, 53 and,
especially, opposite page 207.)
]
How splendid, how grandly noble, it must have been to see a regular army
physician, wearing the official professional uniform marked “U. S.,”
going, officially, at stated intervals, to the officially “segregated”
houses of prostitution in Manila to officially examine the condition of
professional prostitutes, and, having examined them, officially report
them “unfit” (for whom?)—or “fit” (for whom?). How sublime! How
patriotic! How lovingly Christian! Great flag-waving, constitutional
government, performing a noble function nobly and, of course,
constitutionally! All in the name of Christ, of course—for “This is a
Christian nation”—officially.
Life on board a war vessel is unnatural. So far as social and sex
relations are concerned the men are virtually kept in solitary
confinement for weeks, even months, at a time. _Under such profoundly
unnatural conditions human beings behave unnaturally._ Many strong
characters and all the weak ones collapse, utterly collapse; and the
wild, ugly, worse than brute monster, _Perverted_ Sex Appetite, has a
vile festival weeks at a time, enticing, embracing, befouling, devouring
many of the finest youths in the land.
It is said to be common knowledge with many who know and with many it is
a source of horrible jest—that under such unnatural conditions on board
a battleship men _sexually_ associate _with men_ in ways worse (if
possible) than the most degrading ways mentioned (and cursed) in the Old
Testament. And when, after weeks or months at sea, the warship touches
at a port for a few days or weeks, there is a wild rush of unfortunate
boys for unfortunate women whose diseased condition is an unspeakable
abomination. And this should be known too: Certain Christian and
un-Christian governments’ officials _provide the boys with certain
preventive chemicals_ (_as they leave the ship for a “lark” on shore_),
knowing that the boys, many of them, are _sure to be the victims of
victims reeking with disease_.
And then if the reader could witness the “round-up” the night before the
ship sets out to sea again,—could see scores of fine young marines,
pride of loving mothers,—if the reader could see them taken on board
dead drunk and horribly befouled, taken on board in wheel barrows and
dumped like big lumps of diseased, drunken, snoring and slobbering
flesh, to be sobered up and “treated” when the ship gets out to sea,—if
the reader could see all this and very much more, for example in New
York harbor, he would then better understand why very few of “our very
_best_ people” of the “upper class” are not easily wheedled into giving
up their own sons to defend our great and glorious country on board a
big steel fighting machine called a battleship—to cruise and carouse
around the world. Just in proportion as the working class mother thinks
about this matter her sons will be safer from the wheedling seductions
of the recruiting officer.
Mothers, what is the blind sentiment that makes you clap your hands in
admiration of the “great statesmen” or the “great government” that has
prostitutes examined for the sons you bore and carefully reared and
tenderly love?
“LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION,” SAID JESUS CHRIST. YET A “CIVILIZED”
CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENT RECENTLY NOT ONLY EXAMINED, BUT PROVIDED
PROSTITUTES FOR THE SOLDIER BOYS. THE GREAT BRITISH GOVERNMENT WITHIN
RECENT YEARS PROVIDED PROSTITUTES FOR HER SOLDIERS IN INDIA. Circular
memoranda were sent to all the cantonments of India by Quarter-Master
General Chapman, in the name of the commander-in-chief of the army of
India (Lord Roberts). Here are three excerpts from those documents and
from official reports:[259]
“In regimental bazaars it is _necessary_ to have a _sufficient
number_ of women; to take care that they are SUFFICIENTLY
ATTRACTIVE; to _provide_ them with proper houses, and above all to
insist upon means of ablution being always available [to prevent
venereal diseases].... If _young_ soldiers are _carefully advised_
in regard to the _advantages_ of ablution, and recognize that
_convenient arrangements exist in the regimental bazaar_ (that is,
in the chacla, or brothel), they may be expected to avoid the risks
involved in association with women who are not recognized [that is,
not examined and licensed] by the regimental authorities.”
Another commanding officer writes in his report:
“PLEASE SEND YOUNG AND ATTRACTIVE WOMEN AS LAID DOWN IN THE
QUARTER-MASTER GENERAL’S CIRCULAR, NO. 21A.... THERE ARE NOT WOMEN
ENOUGH; THEY ARE NOT ATTRACTIVE ENOUGH. MORE AND YOUNGER WOMEN ARE
REQUIRED.... I HAVE ORDERED THE NUMBER OF PROSTITUTES TO BE
INCREASED ... AND HAVE GIVEN SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS AS TO ADDITIONAL
WOMEN BEING YOUNG AND OF ATTRACTIVE APPEARANCE.”
And this: “The total number of admissions to hospital of cases of
venereal diseases amongst troops in India rose in 1895 to 522 per
1,000.”
And this from another authority:[260]
“In 1902, in India, the enormous number of 12,686 men were admitted
into hospitals suffering from sexual diseases alone; more than 1,000
military victims were always in the hospital—and the report from
which these figures are taken deals with the healthiest year for 20
years past. In the Home Army ... in a single period of twelve
months, of 154,000 troops, there were 24,176 sexual complaint
cases—or one in every six. In the author’s judgment, 80 per cent. of
the entire British Army in India, and a proportion slightly smaller
for the Home Army, have been at some time affected.”
“The worst of war and war service is that the soldier is a ruined
man.”[261]
General Sherman has spoken on the refining influences of war:
“Long after the Civil War, General Sherman, defending the conduct of
his troops in South Carolina, said to Carl Schurz: ‘Before we got
out of that state the men had so accustomed themselves to destroying
everything along the line of march that sometimes, when I had my
headquarters in a house, that house began to burn before I was
fairly out of it. The truth is—human nature is human nature. You
take the best lot of young men—all church members if you please—and
put them into an army and let them invade an enemy’s country and let
them live upon it for any length, and they will gradually lose all
principle[262] and self-restraint to a degree beyond the control of
discipline. It has always been so and always will be so.’”[263]
(=12=) An anonymous author writes thus:[264]
“Real war is a very different thing from the painted image that you
see at a parade or review. But it is the painted image that makes it
popular. The waving plumes, the gay uniforms, the flashing swords,
the disciplined march of innumerable feet, the clear-voiced trumpet,
the intoxicating strains of martial music, the pomp, the sound, and
the spectacle—these are the incitements to war and to the profession
of the soldier. They are not what they are. But they still form a
popular prelude to a woeful pandemonium. And when war bursts out it
is at first, as a rule, but a small minority even of the peoples
engaged that really sees and feels its horrors. The populace is fed
by excitements; the defeats are covered up; in most countries the
lists of killed and wounded are suppressed or postponed; victories
are magnified; successful generals are acclaimed, and the military
hero becomes the idol of the people. The over-fed, seedy malingerers
of a small society join with the starving loiterers about the gin
palace in applauding the execution of ruin. If their heroes are
successful, what are their trophies?—prisons crowded with captives,
hospitals filled with sick and wounded, towns sacked, farms burnt,
fields laid waste, taxes raised, plenty converted to scarcity or
famine, and vast debts accumulated for posterity. Then when these
[military] heroes have done their work, the heroes of peace ...
appear, and by long and patient labor amid scenes of universal
lamentation seek to mitigate the suffering of their repentant
fellow-countrymen.”
The poet Byron was in a war and described war thus:
“All the mind would shrink from of excesses;
All the body perpetrates of bad;
All that we read, hear, dream, of man’s distresses;
All that the devil would do if run stark mad;
All that defies the worst which pen expresses;
All that by which hell is peopled, or is sad
As hell—mere mortals who their power abuse—
Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose....
War’s a brain-spattering art.”[265]
(=13=) In connection with the foregoing section 12 examine Chapter
Seven, Section 18.
“War! War! War!... God send the women sleep in the long, long night,
when the breasts on whose strength they leaned heave no more.”[266]
Wives and mothers of the working class, as soon as the government has
had your choicest sons slaughtered, the government is _through with
you_—except to send you a miserable, blood-stained, silver sop, a sort
of cash bribe, once a quarter. Then as you receive the vile cash, you
can, in imagination, hear the shrieks of your dead loved ones. The
government seeks to win your approval and to silence your hearts’
protests against human butchery with the cheap jingle of some filthy
dollars—as if you had sold your sons and husbands for a price. Such a
pension is a form of hush money.
“If the stroke of war fell certain on the guilty heads, none
else ... but alas!
That undistinguishing and deathful storm
Beats heaviest on the exposed and innocent;
And they that stir its fury, while it raves
Safe at a distance send their mandates forth.”—Crowe.
Robert G. Ingersoll wrote:[267]
“Nations sustain the relations of savages to each other....
“No man has imagination enough to paint the agonies, the horrors, the
cruelties, of war. Think of sending shot and shell crashing through the
bodies of men! Think of the widows and orphans! Think of the maimed, the
mutilated, the mangled!...”
Let the working class mothers beware of crafty and cowardly politicians
and business men seeking to excite them with the shallow cry: “The flag!
Our country! Our homes!” For the mothers’ sake it is worth the space to
restate the fact here: _That more than half of all the mothers in the
United States have no homes of their own and must live in rented homes,
and more than one-eighth of them live in mortgaged homes_.[268] And vast
numbers of the mothers in the United States live in mean, small houses
with scarcely a single modern convenience.
Mothers, keep your eyes on the bankers and the manufacturers and the
other “leading citizens”: they and their sons and sons-in-law are not
shedding a large quantity of their “blue” blood for “our” country and
“our” homes and “our” flag; _and they can not be wheedled into doing
so_. Watch them closely, mothers, both before a war and during a war.
Don’t get excited. Remember Christ’s “Put up thy sword.”
St. Paul said, “Follow peace with all men.”
You have heard of this doctrine: “Thou shalt not kill.”
“War has no pity,” said Schiller.
“God is forgotten in war, and every principle of Christianity is
trampled under foot,” said Sidney Smith.
“To be tender-minded
Does not become a sword.”—Shakespeare.
“War is one of the greatest plagues that can afflict humanity; it
destroys religion ... it destroys families. Any scourge, in fact, is
preferable to it.... Cannon and fire-arms are cruel and damnable
machines.”—Martin Luther.
The gentle and charming lover of little children, Eugene Field, wrote:
“I hate wars, armies, soldiers, guns, and fireworks.”[269]
“And he shall judge among the nations, and he shall rebuke many
people. And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their
spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”[270]
James Russell Lowell:[271]
“The laborin’ man and laborin’ woman
Have one glory and one shame;
Ev’y thin’ thet’s done inhuman
Ingers all on ’em the same.”
And Tolstoi thus:[272]
“Every war—even the briefest—with its accompaniment of ruinous
expenses, destruction of harvests, thefts, plunder, murders, and
unchecked debauchery, with the false justifications of its necessity
and justice, the glorification and praise of military exploits, of
patriotism and devotion to the flag, with the pretense of care for
the wounded, etc.,—will, in one year, demoralize men incomparably
more than thousands of thefts, arsons and murders committed in the
course of centuries by individual men under the influence of
passion.”
Let the women’s literary clubs and circles, many of them devotees of
John Ruskin, consider the following lines from his pen:[273]
“But Occult Theft—Theft which hides itself even from itself, and is
legal, respectable, and cowardly,—corrupts the body and soul of man,
and to the last fibre of them. _And the guilty thieves of Europe,
the real sources of all deadly war in it, are the Capitalists_,—that
is to say, those who live by percentages on the labor of others.—The
_Real_ war in Europe—is between these thieves and the workman, _such
as these thieves have made him_. They have kept him poor, ignorant,
and sinful, that they might without his knowledge gather for
themselves the produce of his toil. At last a dim insight into the
fact of this begins to dawn upon him.”
As to thieves: Think of stealing several years of a man’s life when he
is in the prime of young manhood, by tearing him from his own friends
and loved ones, forcing a rifle into his hands, and compelling him for
years to learn the vile science and art of human butchery. Thus are the
best years of millions of the choicest young men in Europe stolen—stolen
by a class,—a class of prominent kidnappers, industrial and political
thieves, “leading citizens” hypocritically wearing a mask called
“Patriotism.” Think of many millions thus stolen—stolen from their
parents, stolen from their brothers and sisters, stolen from their wives
and children.
When the working class think about war and see the vast theft of their
lives they will astound the world with their protest.
And the mothers will take part in this protest.
(=14=) Didn’t Christ say in substance: “I came not to send peace, but a
sword?”
Yes. At least that is what some of the gentle Christ’s followers are
said to have reported that they heard he had been reported to have been
heard to say. And it is true, too, that tyrants, hypocritically mumbling
_interpolated_ malignance _ascribed_ to Christ, draw the sword to combat
the brotherhood of man—as, doubtless, Christ expected they would do. But
it is worse than blasphemous nonsense to teach children—young or
old—that Christ, the Great Lover of Mankind, was a cheap jingoist,
recommended the sword and counseled wholesale butchery of brothers by
brothers. The distinguished intellectual prostitutes who argue Christ
into the same butchers’ list with Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon and the
Tough Rider, are pridelessly down on their faces in the dust cringing
before their industrial masters; they are simply betraying Christ again
for “thirty pieces” of blood-stained silver called salaries.[274]
Christ, according to the reports, also said: “Blessed are the
peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” Also: “Ye
have heard it hath been said: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth’; but I say unto you: ‘That ye resist not evil.’” And this: “They
that take up the sword, shall by the sword perish.”
And this on authority: “Thou shalt not steal.”
One of the most eminent bishops in the United States went, in the winter
of 1907–8, before a Congressional Committee and argued eloquently for a
large cash donation from Congress for a certain “boys’ academy” managed
by his church. His chief argument was that the little fellows “are
carefully trained _in the use of arms_ and would be _ready for use in
case of trouble_.”
Many schools thus prepare boys to murder hungry working men who are out
on strike for a few pennies a day to feed their families—which is a
“case of trouble.” Now imagine Christ training tender boys for human
butchery and teasing the brutal government of his time for cash with
which to buy spears and swords for the children!
“There is a powerful section of the Christian church which teaches its
entire membership that the Church has a right to exempt them—the
clergy—from the usual duties of citizenship, and especially from
military duty.”[275]
Now, it does not matter what church we may or may not be members of, all
the men and all the women of the _working_ class—_in all the churches
and out of the churches_—should band together in a _world-wide
fellowship and effort_ of the _working_ class to drive war from the
world and thus protect the helpless women and children. Remember,
mothers, it is not fair that your husbands and sons should be torn from
your homes, have cruel rifles thrust into their hands, and be forced
into a war where they may be destroyed,—and you be thus widowed and your
younger children be left fatherless; and, at the same time, the minister
who by prayer and public speech exerted powerful influence to bring
about the war,—that _he_ should be exempted from the horrors of the
battlefield, the horrors _up close_, where human blood and brains are
pounded into the mud by cannon balls and the hoofs of horses. Remember,
too, that tens of thousands of ministers have no wives and no children
to be desolated. Does it not seem rather that these wifeless, childless
men who want war should themselves go to the war instead of having your
lovers go?
It should be repeated:
NO MATTER WHAT DENOMINATION THEY BELONG TO, THOSE MEN WHO PRAY FOR WAR
OR PRAY FOR VICTORIES IN WAR, OR HELP TRAIN BOYS FOR WAR—THOSE MEN
SHOULD GO AND FIGHT THE WAR.
IF A WAR IS GOOD ENOUGH TO PRAY FOR IT IS GOOD ENOUGH TO GO TO. THOSE
WHO WANT “GREAT VICTORIES” SHOULD BE FORCED TO GO AFTER THEM, RIGHT UP
TO THE FRONT TOO, WHERE CANNON SHELLS BURST STRIKING HUNDREDS WITH
DEATH—UP TO THE FRONT, INTO “HELL’S HURRICANES.”
How does this matter seem to you, mother? Won’t you think it over and
bring up the subject for friendly and earnest _discussion in your
community_? Why not urge all women everywhere to take up this
subject—and thus _chain the attention of society to this subject of the
degradation and slaughter of the men you love_?
(=15=) In _The Westminster Review_ of July, 1907, is the following
suggestion of a topic suitable for discussion in women’s societies and
newspapers:
“There is another insidious form of Militarism that is very
widespread and popular. I refer to the Lads’ Brigades [in England]
which are attached to so many churches of different denominations.
Under pretext of giving them physical training, boys are taught the
spirit of submission to another’s will, and to love the trappings of
Militarism.... This coupling together of military training with
religion has been well described by the Rev. Dr. Aked of Liverpool
[now of New York], as ‘preaching heaven and practicing hell.’”
The American mother can not solace herself with the thought that what
Dr. Aked referred to was a practice in far-away England and does not
much concern her. For this new crucifixion of Jesus and the degradation
of the little boys, a strong society exists in the United States. The
United Boys’ Brigade is an organization for training the trigger-fingers
and the blood-lusts of boys nine years and upward in the basement rooms
of Christian churches. “The object of the organization,” as announced in
the monthly magazine of the organization, _The American Brigadier_, is
“to ... promote reverence and discipline ... to create in them a love
for their country ... and while the boys are _thoroughly drilled in
military discipline and tactics_, it only serves to make them true
Christian _soldiers_.”[276] _The American Brigadier_ announces
officially that “there is nothing equal to it in drawing them into the
Sabbath School.” Thus the church is to be made like a prize-fighting
ring in order to make it look good to the little boys. _The American
Brigadier_, of December, 1907, gives away its secret in a lengthy
account, headed, “Securing a New Recruit,” as follows:
(One boy says to another): “We go to Bible drill every Saturday
night and have setting-up exercises and Bible drill, and sometimes
we visit other companies. Gee! but our company can show them how to
drill. And we go camping in summer, and we have a bully time....
Bible drill?... Gee! but there are some bully stories in the
Bible.... We read about Samson, the strong man that beat Sandow all
hollow, and King David, the siege of Jericho, and last week we read
about a shepherd boy killing a giant with a sling-shot....”
In _The Brigadier_ of November, 1907, is an article, “What it Means to
be a Soldier,” in which is the following:
“There is but one word that covers all, and that is obedience:
obedience to orders and strict discipline. The foundation of all
military organizations rests upon this one basis.”
Precisely: _obedience_.
That is to say, an innocent little fellow who has been drilled thus for
several years to forget that _he_ has a brain and a will of _his own_,
drilled to obey _all_ orders _instantly_—such a boy at the age of twenty
will, of course, _automatically_ and stupidly obey _any_ order—_no
matter how vile_—even the order: “Fire! Charge!”—though “the enemy,” the
target, be little silk-mill wage-slave girls ten or twelve years old who
must toil a whole week for $1.60, and are out on strike for a dime more
per week, and while out on strike are _starved_ into being “riotous.”
Armed rowdies—with riot guns—for starving, “rioting” children!
_The American Brigadier_ is primarily a religious magazine, so they say;
but it offers a breech-loading Springfield rifle as a premium to the boy
who will send in the most subscribers. Imagine Christ making his cause
popular with little boys by offering them a weapon with which to murder!
_The Brigadier_ wins the boys to Jesus by seductively baiting the savage
that still lurks in the “civilized” breast; the magazine gives pictures
of armories, battle monuments, gun drills, military parades, camp life,
gay military uniforms, little boys with guns, swords, tents, banners,
cannon, pictures also of pompous-looking, gilt-braided “big men,” famous
professional human butchers. The magazine prints alluring stories of
army-and-navy life; and makes a specialty of advertising military arms,
military clothing, West Point story books, and so forth.
This organization works in and through the church. It is strong and is
gaining ground. It boasts of having branches in many states. In the
“City of Churches,” Brooklyn, N. Y., the society is specially strong.
Much of the military drill work is done openly in the streets, when the
weather permits. Many pastors, “in the name of Jesus,” of course, are
energetically—and patriotically—hustling for the movement, some of them
proudly (and craftily) having their pictures taken with the training
companies. The pastors’ poses in these pictures make the pastors look
like valuable assets to the capitalists of their churches, but the poses
somehow do not suggest the quiet and gentle Jesus. “Put up thy sword” is
out of date with these kerosened procurers political.[277]
There are many thousands of innocent little church boys thus in
training. October 5, 1907, twenty-five hundred of these little fellows
marched on Fifth Avenue, New York City, carrying guns and swords, four
of the betrayed children dragging a light cannon.
The Federal Government at Washington, by a “judicious mingling” of winks
and smiles, is heartily encouraging this “Christian soldier” enterprise.
Says the Commander-in-Chief, H. B. Pope, in his Report:[278]
“In general ... it can be said that in the quarters where we have
desired to obtain recognition, our influence is greater, and the
respect tendered to us is much more cordial than ever before. Our
own Government has paid special attention in several directions to
the work of this organization ... and our development [is] carefully
followed by those highest in authority, who appreciate the
possibilities of the splendid soldiery which the organization is
making, should the necessity ever arise when this body might be
needed [in a strike for example].... Drill should never be allowed
to take the place of religious exercises. At the same time a
judicious mingling of both constitutes means through which we can
obtain highest results.”
And the following is from a report on a meeting of the organization held
in Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church, New York City, May 13, 1907:
“There were also present a number of Army Officers, National Guard
officers and veterans of the Civil War.... The Church was
beautifully decorated with flags.... General Campbell presided and
presented messages of good will and good wishes from the President
of the United States, from Colonel Fred Grant ... and from many
other influential men.”
How interestingly consistent—“Good will and good wishes” from the
presidential chairman of the executive committee of the capitalist class
in America; that is, the National Government,—“good will and good
wishes” to the seducers of small boys to serve as fist and tusk for the
ruling class.
The “Boy Scout” movement is the latest manifestation of this christened
and kerosened cunning to seduce the innocent small boys for the
blood-and-iron embrace of Mars and Mammon. Mothers, take notice. Be
warned. _Defend yourselves._
President Roosevelt (international mentor) also furnished bewildering
flattery to the boys themselves who show skill in the use of the deadly
rifle. The Philadelphia _Public Ledger_, and many other newspapers about
the same date, July 16, 1907, printed the following cunning letter
written by President Roosevelt to a Brooklyn school boy. The news item
with the letter runs thus:
“Oyster Bay, July 17. President Roosevelt has put his hearty
approval on public school rifle practice. In a letter of
congratulation to Ambrose Scharfenberg, of Brooklyn, winner of the
shooting trophy of the Public School Athletic League, he takes
occasion to encourage the system of rifle practice inaugurated by
General George B. Wingate, retired.
“That the letter to young Scharfenberg may have as far-reaching
influence as possible, it was made public at the President’s
direction today. It is as follows:
“‘My Dear Young Friend:—I heartily congratulate you upon being
declared by the Public School Athletic League to stand first in
rifle shooting among all the boys of the High Schools of New York
City who have tried during the last year. Many a grown man who
regards himself as a crack rifle shot would be proud of such a
score. Your skill is a credit to you, and also to your principal,
your teachers, and to all connected with the manual training school
which you attend, and I know them all. [The usual diffident
confession of omniscience.]
“‘Practice in rifle shooting is of value in developing not only
muscles, but nerves.... It is a prime necessity that the volunteer
should already know how to shoot.... The graduates from our schools
and colleges should be thus trained so as to be good shots with the
military rifle. When so trained they constitute a great addition to
our national strength and great assurance for the peace of the
country.’”
That is to say: Tho’ the capitalists should refuse to employ 5,000,000
men and virtually spit in their faces and order these willing-to-work
men out of the factories and mines to shiver and starve in rags, and
thus infinitely humiliate millions of working class wives and daughters
with the terrors of poverty—no matter, the rifle-practiced graduates of
high schools, colleges and universities will be “ready for use,” ready
to crush the unemployed if they loudly protest, ready to help the master
class thrust all the injustices of a _class_-labor system into the lives
of the working class, ready to thrust bayonets into the out-of-work
wage-slaves who cry aloud for work, for bread, for justice in the
industrial civil war of capitalism.
Bright and early every school day, in New York City, about 600,000
children are _compelled_ to salute the flag and recite some mocking lies
about the “glorious freedom they have” and the “bounteous blessings they
enjoy”—under the “friendly folds of the Stars and Stripes”—tho’ a whole
half million of the children _have no homes of their own and in a
hundred ways are stung with the lash of poverty_.
(=17=) Many additional instructors in military tactics have in recent
years been appointed to service in high schools, colleges and
universities. United States Army officers are now in ninety-three
universities, colleges and schools, drilling 22,910 students in
“military departments.”
Improved rifles, riot cartridges, and killing equipment are being
distributed among the State militia forces; local armories are being
improved and made attractive,—all made “ready for use” when needed to
pacify the out-of-work wage-earners. Recently in one State, Colorado,
military training was being systematically taught in the high schools of
six of the largest cities. The Secretary of War in 1909 reported
forty-four schoolboy rifle clubs. In the newspapers and magazines, in
the sermons and speeches and especially in the public school,—by all
such means—the size and perfection of rifles, cannon, battleships and
the like, are held up to the children for their admiration and as
evidences of our superiority and of our “splendid civilization.” The
children are taught to clap their hands for our readiness to engage in
some great international butchering contest. But the children are _not_
taught what arsenals, armories, cannon, rifles, soldiers, militia, riot
guns and riot cartridges—what all these things mean and what war means
for the _working_ class. Never!
(=18=) Let a philosopher speak to the mother and her children in plain
language:
“Europe is still in arms: each nation watching every other with
suspicion, jealousy, or menace.... And what is the result? Russia
overwhelmed with a military cancer, a prey to social confusion such
as has not been seen in this century. Germany, with her intelligence
and industry, bound in the fetters of military service, governed as
if she were a camp, as if the sole object of peace were to prepare
for war. France staggering.... Italy weighted with a useless army,
uneasy, intriguing, restless.... Spain weak from the drain of a
series of wars.... England uncertain, divided in action, continually
distracted and dishonored by an endless succession of miserable wars
in every quarter of the globe.
“Such is the picture of Europe after a generation of imperialism and
aggressive war.
“Who is the gainer? Is the poor Russian moujic, torn from his home
to die in Central Asia or on the passes of the Balkans, doomed to a
government of ever deepening corruption and tyranny? Is the workman
of Berlin the better, crushed by military oppression and industrial
recklessness? Who is the gainer—the ruler or the ruled? Is the
French peasant the gainer now that Alsace and Lorraine are gone, and
nothing exists of the empire but its debt, its conspirators, and its
legacy of confusions?
“... Who is the gainer by this career of bloodshed and ambition?...
We hear the groans of the millions—the working, suffering
millions—who are yearning to replace this cruel system, none of
their making, none of their choice, by which they gain nothing, from
which they hope nothing.”[279]
Who indeed is the gainer? The workers lose; and the mothers lose most of
all—their children. Yet everywhere complete contempt for the working
class mothers of the whole world, absolute scorn for the blood of men
and the tears of women—of the _working_ class.
What magnificent protest will roll round this world when the working
class is roused to think of these things!
(=19=) In the dollar-hunting spirit of the age it may be inquired:
Doesn’t war make business brisk, and thus furnish work for the
wage-earners?
Yes, certainly. But so also would a lunatic in the streets armed with a
repeating shotgun shooting down the children at play: he would make
business brisk for the coffin trust, the undertakers and their
employees—and the grave-digger.
(=20=) Following are several special suggestions for the mothers and
fathers of the working class:
(1) Teach the children anti-war recitations and declamations.
Faithfully and patiently help the boys and girls master a half dozen or
more passages of the strongest prose and poetry to be found against war;
help them in this work till they understand—till their eyes kindle, till
their hearts burn, till their imagination is aflame with disgust and
detestation for war and for the foul rôle of the armed guard of the
ruling class. (See page 350, _last two lines_.)
(2) Teach the children the pledge on the first page of Chapter One of
the present volume. Teach them to teach that pledge, or some similar
pledge, to other children.
(3) Teach the boys and girls the _historical origin_ of the working
class. (See Chapter Eleven.)
(4) Explain to the boys and girls, page by page, all of Chapter Ten, and
_urge them to explain the matter to other children_.
(5) Patiently and clearly explain the meaning and the purpose of the
local militia and the army.
(6) Interest the children in a circulating anti-war library, and
_co-operate with them in promoting the enterprise_.
(7) A Ten-Dollar Cash Prize for the best definition of a militiaman who
is willing to shoot the fathers and brothers of the little working class
children of his neighborhood when those fathers and brothers are on
strike struggling to better the condition of the mothers and the
children—such a prize contest would induce a great amount of helpful
thoughtfulness and discussion.
(8) Further suggestions will be found at the opening of Chapter Twelve.
See also Index: “Suggestions.”
(=21=) Following are several passages suitable for children as
declamations. Also see Index, “Declamations.”
(=A=) The Soldier’s Creed:[280]
“Captain, what do you think,” I asked,
“Of the part your soldiers play?”
But the captain answered, “I do not think;
I do not think, I obey!”
“Do you think you should shoot a patriot down,
Or help a tyrant slay?”
But the captain answered, “I do not think;
I do not think, I obey!”
“Do you think your conscience was made to die,
And your brain to rot away?”
But the captain answered, “I do not think;
I do not think, I obey!”
“Then if this is your soldier’s creed,” I cried,
“You’re a mean unmanly crew;
And for all your feathers and gilt and braid,
I am more of a man than you!
“For whatever my place in life may be,
And whether I swim or sink,
I can say with pride, ‘I do not obey;
I do not obey, I _think_!’”
(=B=) ROBERT G. INGERSOLL’S MUSINGS AT THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON:[281]
“A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—a
magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a deity dead—and gazed
upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the
ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought
about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.
“I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. I
saw him at Toulon—I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of
Paris—I saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him crossing the
bridge of Lodi with the tricolor in his hand—I saw him in Egypt in the
shadows of the pyramids—I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles
of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo—at Ulm and
Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the
cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter’s withered
leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a million
bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. I
saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw
him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined
to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena,
with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn
sea.
“I thought of the orphans and widows he had made—of the tears that had
been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who had ever loved him,
pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said, I would
rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather
have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes
growing purple in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather
have been that poor peasant, with my loving wife by my side, knitting as
the day died out of the sky—with my children upon my knee and their arms
about me—I would rather have been that man, and gone down to the
tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that
imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as Napoleon the
Great.”
(=C=) VICTOR HUGO’S REFLECTIONS ON WAR:[282]
“The antique violence of the few against all, called right divine,
is nearing its end.... A stammering, which tomorrow will be speech,
and the day after tomorrow a gospel, proceeds from the bruised lips
of the serf, of the vassal, of the laboring man, of the pariah. The
gag is breaking between the teeth of the human race. The patient
human race has had enough of the path of sorrow, and refuses to go
farther.... Glory advertised by drumbeats is met with a shrug of the
shoulder. These sonorous heroes have, up to the present day,
deafened human reason, which begins to be fatigued by this majestic
uproar. Reason stops eyes and ears before those authorized
butcheries called battles. The sublime cut-throats have had their
day.... Humanity, having grown older, asks to be relieved of them.
The cannon’s prey has begun to think, and, thinking twice, loses its
admiration for being made a target.”
* * * * *
“Whoever says today, ‘might makes right,’ performs an act of the
Middle Ages, and speaks to men a hundred years behind their times.
Gentlemen, the nineteenth century glorifies the eighteenth century.
The eighteenth proposed, the nineteenth concludes. And my last word
shall be a declaration, tranquil but inflexible, of progress.
“The time has come. Right has found its formula:—human federation.
“Today force is called violence, and begins to be judged; war is
arraigned. Civilization, upon the complaint of the human race,
orders the trial, and draws up the great criminal indictment of
conquerors and captains. The Witness, History, is summoned. The
reality appears. The fictitious brilliancy is dissipated. In many
cases, the hero is a species of assassin. The people begin to
comprehend that increasing the magnitude of a crime can not be its
diminution; that, if to kill is a crime, to kill much can not be an
extenuating circumstance; that if to steal is a shame, to invade can
not be a glory; that Te Deums do not count for much in this matter;
that homicide is homicide; that bloodshed is bloodshed; that it
serves nothing to call one’s self Caesar or Napoleon; and that in
the eyes of the eternal God, the figure of a murderer is not changed
because, instead of a gallow’s cap, there is placed upon the head an
Emperor’s crown.
“Ah! let us proclaim absolute truths. Let us dishonor war. No;
glorious war does not exist. No; it is not good, and it is not
useful, to make corpses. No; it can not be that life travails for
death. No; O, mothers who surround me, it can not be that war, the
robber, should continue to take from you your children. No; it can
not be that women should bear children in pain, that men should be
born, that people should plow and sow, that the farmer should
fertilize the fields, and the workmen enrich the city, that industry
should produce marvels, that genius should produce prodigies, that
the vast human activity should, in the presence of the starry sky,
multiply efforts and creations, all to result in that frightful
international exposition called war.”
(=D=) INGERSOLL’S VISION OF WAR:[283]
“The past rises before me like a dream.... We hear the sound of
preparation, the music of boisterous drums—the silver voices of
heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals
of orators. We see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces
of men, and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we
have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more.... We see
them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time
in quiet, woody places, with maidens they adore. We hear the
whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly
part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing the babes
that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some
are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their
hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and
kisses—the divine mingling of agony and love! And some are talking
with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old
tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part.
We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her
arms—standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a
hand waves—and she answers by holding high in her loving arms the
child. He is gone,—and forever....
[Illustration: FOUR VICTIMS OF CHEAP PATRIOTISM]
“We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory
fields—in all the hospitals of pain—on all the weary marches. We
stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars.
We are with them in ravines running with blood—in the furrows of old
fields.... We see them pierced by balls and torn with shell, in the
trenches, by the forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge....
“We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the
maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head
of the old man bowed with the last grief....
“They sleep ... under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the
tearful willow and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the
shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in
the windowless Palace of Rest....”
(=E=) INGERSOLL’S VISION OF THE FUTURE.[284]
“A vision of the future rises: ... I see a world where thrones have
crumbled and where kings are dust. The aristocracy of idleness has
perished from the earth.
“I see a world without a slave. Man at last is free. Nature’s forces
have by science been enslaved. Lightning and light, wind and wave,
frost and flame, and all the secret subtle powers of the earth and
air are the tireless toilers for the human race.
“I see a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with
music’s myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of
love and truth; a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner mourns;
a world on which the gibbet’s shadow does not fall; a world where
labor reaps its full reward, where work and worth go hand in hand,
where the poor girl, trying to win bread with a needle—the needle
that has been called ‘the asp for the breast of the poor,’—is not
driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, of suicide or
shame.
“I see a world without the beggar’s outstretched palm, the miser’s
heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips of
lies, the cruel eyes of scorn.
“I see a race without disease of flesh or brain—shapely and fair,
married harmony of form and function, and, as I look, life
lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth; and over all in the
great dome, shines the eternal star of human hope.”
These golden words, these words of immortal beauty, are, “like love,
wine for the heart and brain.” They fire the soul, especially the
mother’s soul, with a glorious joy, a splendid vision of unstained,
untroubled pleasure: Mankind at Peace—Socialized. The children safe. The
future vast and beautiful and kind for her and for those that call her
Mother.
But again and yet again the cannon’s roar will banish the vision. The
future holds agony for the mother, especially for the humble mother in
the working class. Her husband and her older sons will go to war. They
will even thoughtlessly sink to the level of joining the local militia
for local war—for strike service. The men she loves have been
poisoned—poisoned with the base teaching that brutality is bravery, that
the drawn sword marks the patriot. They are ready, ready now, at the
word of command from a cheap commander to murder the men of their own
class, and break the hearts and mock the tears of the wage-slave mothers
of the world.
These mothers must defend themselves—for the present.
These mothers can defend themselves only through their younger sons and
daughters—by teaching them a class loyalty which is a new patriotism
that will close the local armory, shame the assassin back to the
factory, to the farm, to the mine, and silence all the cannon on all the
earth.
-----
Footnote 241:
See footnote on page 13; and also introductory paragraph, Chapter
Seven, preceding Section 1.
Footnote 242:
See Index: “Another War.”
Footnote 243:
See Chapter Seven, Section 30.
Footnote 244:
See Index: “Napoleon.”
Footnote 245:
_The Moral Damage of War_, pp. 97–99.
Footnote 246:
See _The Downfall_, passim, Part II., also p. 446. This powerful story
(published by the Macmillan Company, New York) is here again heartily
commended to all readers of _War—What For?_ Again the author thanks
the publishers for reprint privileges.
Footnote 247:
Precisely! Never stopping to inquire: Who declared this war? or what
for?
Footnote 248:
Quoted by George Allan England, in _New York Daily Call_, Dec. 2,
1909.
Footnote 249:
See Lucia A. Mead’s _Patriotism and the New Internationalism_, p. 22.
Footnote 250:
Read Walter Walsh’s _Moral Damage of War_, Chapter Three on the “Moral
Damage of War to the Children.” The chapter is of startling
importance.
Footnote 251:
New York _World_, editorial, May 6, 1910.
Footnote 252:
See New York _Times_, October 31, 1908, long article on the increasing
manufacture of such toys.
Footnote 253:
Quoted by Walter Walsh: _Moral Damage of War_, p. 380.
Footnote 254:
_The Economy of Happiness_, pp. 519–20.
Footnote 255:
Walter Walsh: _Moral Damage of War_, p. 376.
Footnote 256:
_Imperial Democracy_, p. 270.
Footnote 257:
See Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1908, p. 22.
Footnote 258:
See _Social Diseases_, p. 24, March, 1910; Contents—A Symposium
concerning a phase of venereal diseases, being addresses and
discussions at a meeting of the American Society of Sanitary and Moral
Prophylaxis, held at the New York Academy of Medicine, December 9th,
1909. Address: Social Diseases, 9 East 42d Street, New York. Italics
mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 259:
See Walter Walsh: _Moral Damage of War_, pp. 151–52. Emphasis mine. G.
R. K.
Footnote 260:
Edmondson: _John Bull’s Army from Within_.
Footnote 261:
Elbert Hubbard: _Health and Wealth_, quoted in the _New Age_, August
5, 1909. See Index: “Venereal Diseases.”
Footnote 262:
See Chapter Seven, Section 18.
Footnote 263:
_International Journal of Ethics_, April, 1908.
Footnote 264:
_Arbeiter in Council_, pp. 38–39.
Footnote 265:
_Don Juan_, VIII., IX.
Footnote 266:
E. C. Stedman: “Alice of Monmouth.”
Footnote 267:
_Works_, passim.
Footnote 268:
See Census Report, 1900, Vol. 2, p. CXCII.
Footnote 269:
_Autobiographical Note._
Footnote 270:
Isaiah: Chapter II., par. 4.
Footnote 271:
“Biglow Papers.”
Footnote 272:
The Kingdom of God.
Footnote 273:
Quoted by John A. Hobson: _John Ruskin—Social Reformer_, p. 346.
Italics mine except for “The _Real_ War.” G. R. K.
Footnote 274:
See Index: “Christ.”
Footnote 275:
See _The World To-Day_, p. 956, Sept., 1905.
Footnote 276:
Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 277:
See Chapters Nine and Eleven.
Footnote 278:
_American Brigadier_, November, 1907.
Footnote 279:
Frederic Harrison: _National and Social Problems_, pp. 237–40. Written
in 1880.
Footnote 280:
Ernest Crosby: _Swords and Ploughshares_. Published by Funk and
Wagnalls, New York.
Footnote 281:
See _Prose-Poems and Selections from the Writings and Sayings of
Robert G. Ingersoll_. Published by C. P. Farrell, New York.
Footnote 282:
See _William Shakespeare_, Part Third, Book III; M. B. Anderson’s
Translation. Published by A. C. McClurg and Company, Chicago; and _An
Oration on Voltaire_, delivered in Paris, May 30, 1878. It is worthy
of remark that the orator was repeatedly applauded while delivering
the oration, and at the close the entire audience rose and wildly
cheered. In the declamation, as here arranged in two parts (to be
given together, if desired), the excerpt from the oration begins,
“Whoever says today.”
Footnote 283:
Slightly abbreviated excerpt from an Oration at the Soldiers and
Sailors’ Reunion, Indianapolis, September 21, 1876. Reprinted from
_Prose-Poems and Selections from Writings and Sayings of Robert G.
Ingersoll_. Published by C. P. Farrell, New York.
Footnote 284:
Very slightly abbreviated excerpt from a Decoration Day Oration,
delivered at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, May 30,
1888. Reprinted from Vol. IX., p. 453, Dresden Edition of _Ingersoll’s
Complete Works_. Published by C. P. Farrell, New York.
CHAPTER NINE.
The Cross, the Cannon, and the Cash-Register.
“Never land long lease of empire won whose sons sat silent while
base deeds were done.”—James Russell Lowell.
Speak! Speak!—you leaders of the toil-stained multitude whom the Great
Christ of Peace so boldly defended.
Speak!
Rebuke the brutes who betray Christ’s humble followers!
Speak! There is no excuse for silence—on your part.
Speak defiantly—and _clearly_.
You have for nearly two thousand years held the brain of vast portions
of the human race in your hands. Have you taught peace—_effectively_?
Look—see that gaping war-stab in the breast of the working class.
THE CASH COST OF MILITARISM IN THE WORLD FOR FORTY-EIGHT HOURS WOULD BE
SUFFICIENT TO PROVIDE A 150–PAGE BOOK AGAINST WAR FOR EVERY PERSON ON
EARTH WHO CAN READ.[285] THREE SERMONS PER YEAR AGAINST WAR IN EVERY ONE
OF 160,000 CHURCHES OF THE UNITED STATES COULD BE PAID FOR, AT THE RATE
OF $50 PER SERMON, WITH LESS THAN THE COST OF TWO FIRST-CLASS
BATTLESHIPS.
“Nothing can be clearer than that the leaders of Christianity
immediately succeeding Christ, from whom authentic expressions of
doctrines have come down to us, were well assured that their Master
had forbidden the Christians the killing of men in war or enlisting
in the legions. One of the chief differences which separated Roman
non-Christians and Christians was the refusal of the latter to
enlist in the legions and be thus bound to kill their fellows as
directed.”[286]
[Illustration: IN MY NAME! AFTER NINETEEN HUNDRED YEARS!]
Eagerly we search the world for relief from the hell’s horror of war.
There! There is the Church—the Church with her vast influence!—and she
breathes, “Peace, good will to all men.”
The Church?
Will the Church save us from war?
We shall see.
Reader, let us always open wide our souls to every man and to every
influence great enough to make us socially wholesomer.
Sincerely, I admire every great Priest, every great Rabbi, and every
great Preacher of our time who is too fine, too proud, too nobly social
and international to rent his eloquent voice to the captains of industry
for the blood-spilling business of conquering the markets of the world
with sword and cannon and for the equally brutal business of
benevolently stealing large sections of the earth to be swinishly
exploited by money-greedy capitalists.
These men are masculine—unafraid. Let us salute them: “Good cheer, noble
friends!”
Boldly these greater Priests refuse to toady to industrial and political
masters and thus refuse to scream for war.
Defiantly these greater Rabbis refuse to inflame the tiger lurking in
every human breast and thus refuse to prepare men for war.
Nobly these greater Preachers refuse Caesar and Shylock, and thus they
stand by the Man of Peace and abhor war.
But, unfortunately, these grand bold souls are in helpless minority—at
present.
And thus again we find the following question burning for an answer:
Which way shall the working class turn for deliverance from the curse of
war?
Who will rescue the working class from these cyclones of lead and steel?
The Church? The Clergy?
Let us study this matter.
Long ago when the deluded soldiers of an “established” church
“patriotically” murdered the Great Carpenter, the “established” church
of his locality hypocritically stood by the pagan Roman government,
lending assistance to the pagan government and urging the pagan soldiers
to slay Jesus Christ. And today the Christian church flatters the
soldiers, “stands by the government,”—any and all “Christian”
governments,—in any and all wars, and thus refuses to protect the
working class from the sword and cannon; refuses to draw the bayonet
from the breast of the humble working man; refuses to defend the working
class woman from the blood and tears of war; refuses to shield the faces
of the little children of the working class from the steel-shod hoofs of
the galloping war horse.
This Chapter is a discussion of one of mankind’s _misfortunes_, to show
the despotism of the dollar,—TO SHOW THE TYRANNY OF THE ECONOMIC ELEMENT
OF HUMAN LIFE; and let me here give most sincere assurance that this
Chapter is written with not even the slightest degree of malice toward
the Church. However, the Church taught me: “_Speak the truth_.”
Well, here is a truth, a truth to be stripped naked and expressed
because it is so vitally important to hundreds of millions who toil:—
The three mighty hosts of the Peace-Preaching Christ, the Greek Catholic
Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church, these,
bitterly at war with one another and defending the industrial despotism
called capitalism,—refuse, flatly refuse, to _unite_ their powerful
voices in a defiant and _effective_ declaration against war; refuse thus
to help lift the huge burden and curse of war from the toil-bent
shoulders of the working class; refuse to remove the thorn-crown of war
from the brow of labor. The working class, millions of them loving
Christ sincerely as I do, must learn and face the fact that the Church
of the Great Carpenter Christ refuses to save the working class from the
periodic baptisms of blood and fire called war.
“Put up thy sword,” said Christ.
“Business is business! There is no sentiment in business! We must
conquer the markets of the world,” say the capitalists.
And there is the parting of the ways for toads and men, for the
time-server and the prophet, for the emasculate and the masculine.
In 1898 a certain man lived in a small western “city”—and took notes. A
local company of working class volunteers was organized to go to Cuba to
slaughter the working men in the Spanish army and thus secure greater
opportunity for American capitalists. On the day of departure of the
volunteer company the people, thousands of them, assembled on a wide
public square, surrounding the local volunteers. Suddenly, when interest
was intense, a high table was rushed to the center of the square, a
banker thoughtfully assisting. Hastily a meek and lowly follower of the
Peaceful Jesus—a preacher—took his place upon this table, his eyes
flashing hate and his chest bulging heroically. All hats were off. All
heads, but two, were bowed in prayer. With head erect and eyes open the
preacher, in prayer, addressed—the audience. With his eyes to the sky,
the preacher, praying, used the name of God and the ears of the people.
There was no “praying in secret” about that “eloquent effort.” The
prayer was “powerful.” That prayer was an assault—an assault upon the
finest sentiments that bloom in the human heart, the sentiments of the
brotherhood of man.
But what of that? “Business is business.”
That eloquent prayer electrified the vast audience. The preacher became
an incendiary—he committed arson. His ferocious rhetoric set on fire the
gullible souls of young men, humble women, innocent small boys and
tender little girls. With crafty eloquence he petted the working class
volunteers till they stood more erect in manly pride and licked their
lips for the blood of almost equally ignorant Spanish working men; with
flattering phrases he seductively praised the plain women who bore these
“brave boys” now ready to butcher, praised them till these gentle,
humble mothers were warm with an elation known only to mothers of strong
men, praised them till they were keen with a savage gladness that they
had borne these men now burning to slaughter humble toilers from the
working class homes in Spain. With artful power of phrase and voice the
preacher praised the small boys present, praying for “more brave boys in
future years to stand by the flag”—caressed them thus till the poor
little fellows longed to be men in order that they too might rend the
flesh of humble working-class men in war—somewhere, anywhere, somehow,
sometime. And then with cunning suggestiveness and with vulgar boldness
this handsome panderer to capitalist masters rudely invaded the holy of
holies, the innocent imagination of tender little girls present,
brutally outraged the sacred instincts of kindness natural to these
dainty little maids till these young doll-lovers were half excited with
a dim but horrible hope, till their faces flushed in anticipation of the
patriotic part they too in future years might have in sending their
assassin sons to the front.
The prayer ended. The preacher rolled his fine dark eyes and fervently
bellowed, “Amen!”
He had done _his_ work. He had played _his_ part. Souls had been
branded. Human brotherhood had been suffocated in the hearts of gullible
working men—strangled with elegant (and pious) eloquence.
Then the thousands of humble working class people moved off, “hoofing
it,” marching behind the soldiers to the railway station. A half dozen
bankers, a dozen lawyers, and many other “leading business men”
lingered, left their carriages, surrounded the preacher and
congratulated him on his “splendid effort”;—and that was part of his pay
for his eloquent ferocity. Well-dressed women of the “best families in
the city” gave the preacher their gloved right hands and practically
embraced him with the virtuous and caressing fondness in their eyes;—and
that was part of his pay for scarring the souls of men, women, and
little children with the branding-iron of Old Testament ferocity. That
savage prayer made him more popular in the city;—and that was part of
his pay for his noble ferocity. He was now more secure in his job;—and
that was part of his pay for his ecclesiastical buncombe and
flap-doodle,—for his jungle growl of civilized ferocity. The collections
were for some time larger in his church;—and that, yea, that also, was
part of his pay for serving the cash-register and thus playing the rôle
of betrayer of the Prince of Peace.
The handsome preacher had performed a miracle. He had so fixedly riveted
the attention of the “brave boys” upon the Spaniards that the gullible
volunteers noticed nothing strange in the fact that strong, healthy
bankers, lawyers, merchants and preachers (patriots all of them of
course)—with the stealthy quiet of a cat on a carpet—remained at home
just at the very time when “great deeds of glory and patriotism” and
manly heroism were to be done.
Doubtless many a shot-torn boy soldier wallowing in his own blood, his
chest half crushed with the hoofs of galloping cavalry horses, his
splintered bones grinding together at every move, the roar of cannon and
the din of curses, prayers, yells, sobs and groans of dying comrades
crowding into his ears—thinks of his well-fed, soft-voiced pastor at
home far away (and safe), the _good_ man, the _nice_ man, who fired his
and his fellow-fighters’ hearts with “lust of death and vulgar
slaughter,” who helped betray him and his fellows to the human
butchering field. No doubt many working class people fondly hope that
the ministers of the Christ of Peace will presently _combine_ and use
their vast influence against war—to drive the red demon from the earth
that it may no longer desolate the homes of the humble.
Vain hope.
Long ago the cynical, shrewd (and carefully baptized) Napoleon Bonaparte
remarked, with biting irony, “God is always on the side of the heaviest
battalions.”
Today it is easy to see that not Christ,[287] but the Church of Christ,
is on the side of the business man and the politician concerning war.
And thus the bayonet still sticks in the breast of the working class.
Thus the Cross dips to the cannon.
Really, will not the followers of the gentle Christ of Peace presently
sweep war from the world?
They most certainly will do nothing of the kind—as long as war is
profitable for the “leading citizens.”
“Leading citizens” actually lead. They are the capitalists. Industrially
and politically the capitalists have the world by the throat. They force
their ambitions, their purposes, and their policies upon both the
preacher and the wage-earner. Their purpose is: profits, more profits
and still more profits. Their policy is: more markets and more
territory—for more profits, at all hazard, in absolute defiance of
Confucius, in defiance of Buddha, in defiance of Christ, in shameless
defiance of the sacredness of human blood. They will, if need be,—that
is, if business, commercial exigencies, require it—they will order the
high-salaried generals to wash the earth with the blood of the socially
despised working class, while safe in their palatial homes these
“leading citizens” will masquerade as patriots, and on the “holy Sabbath
day” they will virtually force their salaried pastors to pray and shout
for blood-dripping victory.
This is the industrial rulers’ history.
This is the industrial rulers’ present politics.
This is the industrial rulers’ future program.
And the preacher must therefore salute the cash-register and baptize the
cannon—_or lose his job just like any other hired man_ who fails to
please his _economic_ master.
“Business is business,”—_that_ is “the law and the gospel” of
capitalism.
Let us study the matter a little further.
When a war is on the world’s stage the bright lights are so confusing
that it is difficult to see the “leading citizens” in the background,
“in the wings,” so to speak. For example:
The American people are still clapping their hands and hurrahing for
“our noble Christian President” for his part in bringing about peace
between Russia and Japan. But why—just why—did not the “noble Christian
President” nobly interfere many months before he did interfere? The
blood of tens of thousands of humble working-class soldiers in both
armies was running down the hillsides in Manchuria in streams—months
before. But no interference by the “noble Christian President” (recently
so boisterously boastful of “his” own noble slaughtering on San Juan
Hill).
Let us understand.
For many months it seemed that Christian Russia would surely win the war
and still be able to pay interest and principal of _American investments
in Russia_. Later the Russian Government and Russian credit became very
unsteady. Immediately the capitalist actors in the background, with
money invested in Russian enterprises, put on the pressure, applied
“influence,” to our government, and then, and not till then, did
President Roosevelt rush to the footlights of the world’s stage and
whine and scream for peace.
For many months, while the blood of Japanese and Russian working class
men was gushing from a million wounds, while the humble wives and
children of these “common” men were wild with grief—all the while “our
noble Christian President,” _like all other Christian rulers_, was as
silent as a fish; but when principal and interest of American parasites
got in danger, our “noble Christian President” promptly became nobly
noisy and craftily pious and peaceful.
And that is a fair sample of a “Christian government’s” influence for
peace.
At no time did the Church urge or demand peace, and at no time did the
Church throw its powerful influence upon our President or upon the head
of any other government to bring about peace.[288]
Our gentle Christian President, Mr. Roosevelt, head of the greatest
Christian republic on earth, said recently to a hand-clapping Christian
audience, “I want for soldiers young men not only willing but _anxious_
to fight”; that is, anxious to murder. That foul sentiment should have
been drowned with hisses. The ferocious Christian Tsars of Russia, the
blood-thirsting Caesars of the ancient pagan Roman Empire, the chiefs of
savage tribes and modern republics,—all the ancient and modern, savage
and civilized hero rulers who have sat on thrones and stood on the necks
of nations—all these bullies have always been eager to have for soldiers
“young men not only willing but anxious to fight”—that is, willing and
anxious to cut the throats of their fellowmen in an intertribal or
international festival of blood called a patriotic war.
And always, since society was first organized on a _class_-labor plan,
the organized “spiritual guides” of society have “stood by the
government,” leagued with the hero ruler for the ruling class.
Mr. Roosevelt, for the moral improvement and spiritual guidance of small
boys who may read his heroic record as a patriotic warrior, sets it down
with evident pride that he shot a Spanish soldier (probably a humble
workingman) in the back as the poor, ignorant, frightened fellow fled
from the bloody field.[289] Mr. Roosevelt, as related in Chapter Eight,
Section 16, urged in an Annual Message that rifle-practice ranges be
provided in the public schools for young school boys—presumably that the
little fellows may become “not only willing but anxious to fight.” And
the Church of the Peaceful Christ did not dare rebuke the “great
Christian President” for urging such a barbarous outrage upon the
schoolboys’ dawning social consciousness and their finer sentiments of
the brotherhood of man.
Recently a school teacher in the city of Washington, where this
swaggering-bull-pup patriotism has been most effectively suggested,
asked her school children: “What is patriotism?” She got the answer:
“Killing Spaniards!” Thus have the little people been outraged with
befouling suggestions that cheap race-hatred is patriotism. But the
Church does not dare cry out, in defense of “these little ones”: “Stop
that! You noisy betrayer! Cease pouring venom into the hearts of these
helpless little children!”
“With a hero at head and a nation
Well gagged and well-drilled and well cowed,
And a gospel of war and damnation,
Has not an empire a right to be proud?”[290]
Quite naturally no protest is made.
The working man wonders why,
The working woman wonders why,
The children wonder why—
Why do not the Christian emperors, and Christian kings, the Christian
tsars and Christian presidents, the Christian Parliaments, congresses,
diets and cabinets of the whole Christian world promptly call a world
convention of the Christian rulers of the Christian world, and in this
convention declare at once that never, never again, _under any
circumstances_, shall there be a war between Christian nations?
Yes, indeed, why not?[291]
For this reason:—The Christian nations are capitalist nations managed
for the capitalist class. Each great Christian nation knows that it must
find a foreign market for the EMBARRASSINGLY LARGE SURPLUS of goods
which its capitalists do not consume or invest and its working class is,
by the wage-system, not permitted to consume. Each and all these nations
know that this FOREIGN MARKET MUST BE FOUND OPENED AND PROTECTED—with
Christian sword and cannon if need be—in order that the capitalists of
these countries may make more profits. Indeed, when markets must thus be
had, Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Confucians—with lust for
profits—trample down all things fine, sand-bag everything noble, spit in
the face of every man of peace, and shout, “Stand back! Stand back!
Bring on the cannon! Business is business! There is no sentiment in
business! To hell with the mollycoddles! We are in business for
_profits_!”
With noble exceptions, at such times Christian preachers, priests, and
bishops of the warring nations, with the swagger and pomp of cheap
“fighting parsons,” step briskly to the front of the stage, consecrate
the cannon, “bless” the sword, baptize the butcher, and, on both sides,
with pious savagery scream to the “God of battles,” also to the “God of
peace,” for victory “in this _righteous_ war,” for victory in this
“armed _crusade for Christ_,” for victory in this “glorious effort to
_advance His kingdom_,”—always, always, of course, some lofty name, some
swelling phrase, to veil the huge and pious murder.
Sacred wholesale assassinations—for the Peaceful Jesus’ sake!
Even every massacre of the peaceful Jews in Russia is sanctioned by the
Greek Christian Church,—and the Roman and the Protestant churches and
the Christian governments of the world do _not_ unite and demand peace
for the peaceful Jews.
“God moves in a _mysterious_ way his wonders to perform,” we are piously
taught.
Mysterious. Very.
But it is _not_ mysterious why pro-war preachers, priests, and bishops
are not slaughtered on the battleline and then eaten by buzzards when
the cannon’s feast is finished. These men are too intelligent—too
cunning—for the buzzards’ banquet.
Every distinguished professional butcher in modern times has been a
“member in good standing” in his denomination and his blood-stenched
fame is recited with pride.
That mysterious?
All soldiers are blessed as they march away to “Death’s feast.”
The preacher consecrates the cut-throat.
The bayonet is prepared—with prayer—to be thrust into the bowels of the
toilers.
All wars are somehow pronounced “mysteriously the will of God”; and the
cannoneers who hurl shot and shell into a city or village and cannonade
helpless women and children—these are “the servants of the
Lord”—mysteriously.
And thus to the appalling music of the cannon’s roar the Cross is
dragged down into the bloody mire where men die cursing the preachers
safe at home who helped trick them to the hell called war. And thus,
too, the spirit of the great fraternal Christ is banished from the lives
of the betrayers and the betrayed—and Christ is crucified anew.
Because it is profitable.
Thus in all Christian nations the Cross dips obsequiously to the
red-throated cannon—and to the cash-register.
Business is business; the rulers rule; and gold is God.
That is, under capitalism.
Reader, name one “civil” war or one international war of modern times
powerfully, effectively hindered by the Church of the Man of Peace.[292]
Just one.
But no matter! Since long before the slaughter of the Carpenter our
brothers of the working class have furnished the blood and tears—cheap
blood, cheap tears,—about forty cents a day for American “regulars” in
the “year of our Lord” 1910.
Learn this, you toilers: The capitalists have the preacher cornered and
shackled. The working class must be their own saviors from the horrors
of war. In Chapter Ten I shall explain how this can be done and even now
begins to be done by the working class.
But the workers should learn from history and keep distinctly in mind
this great lesson: With noble individual exceptions the ministry, the
religious leaders, have in times past _defended chattel slavery_ with
its unspeakable horrors for the _working_ class; and have _defended
serfdom_ with its hell for the _working_ class; and have ignobly
defended all Christian national and international wars of modern
capitalism praying on both sides to the “God of battles” for “glorious
victory” regardless of the blood spurting from a million wounds in the
torn breast of the _working_ class.
The path of human progress in modern times is steep and slippery with
the carcasses and blood of the socially despised working men—and the
Church has not _defied_ the cash-register idolater and _demanded_ peace.
Unrebuked, right proudly the cash-register devotee, the business man,
blurts out: “_There is no sentiment in business_.”
That proposition, “No sentiment,” is enough to make a cannibal blush.
Yet that doctrine is at the heart of capitalism.
_If there is no sentiment in business, then there is no brotherhood in
business, for brotherhood is a sublime and beautiful sentiment._
_And if there is no brotherhood in business there can not be Christian
fellowship in business._
Thus business banishes Christ and the Cross retreats before the
onslaughts of the cash-register.
But it is actually and sadly _true_ that business, competitive business,
is too little and belittling, too wolfishly fierce, for deep and loyal
brotherhood. This is also true of the great _class_ competition, the
_class struggle_, the embittering clash of _industrial class interests_.
And where there is no deep and loyal brotherhood, no great _socializing
unity of interest_ stretching from the centre to the rim of society,
including all, _peace is impossible_.
Thus it is that in the great competitive business world, like
quarrelsome dogs, every business man’s hand is against every other
business man’s hand competing in the “same line,” to “put him out of
business” and thus “get more business.”
Thus local neighbors are at war in a Christless scramble for business.
Thus nations also, fiercely struggling for markets and territory, are at
war—commercial war—sometimes needing sword and cannon. (See pp. 40–41.)
Now, notice: Christian business men in this brotherless, Christless
scramble called business _must have the scramble made “respectable.”_
For this purpose the minister is most serviceable. The business men need
the minister—“need him in their business”—to consecrate and sanctify the
ways and means, even the sword, the cannon and the vast human
slaughterings called war.
“Put up thy sword,” said Christ.
“Business is business! Bless the butcher! Grind sharp the sword,”
commands the business man.
But “no man can serve two masters.”
Here the minister, just like the “common working man,” is face to face
with the MOST DOMINEERING FACT AND FORCE IN HUMAN LIFE; namely, ECONOMIC
NECESSITY. The preacher and the plumber, the rabbi and the sweat-shop
tailor, the priest and the hod-carrier—these must _live_; they must
“_get a living_.” But the capitalist controls the opportunities to “get
a living.” The “common working man” is embarrassed. The minister is also
embarrassed—_tho’ he may be—and very often is—one of the noblest men in
the world, he is embarrassed_. This ECONOMIC force grips them both like
a vise. They must live. To live they must kneel before the king—the
kings in industry.
OBEY OR STARVE.
The inevitable follows:
The plain common working man and the haughty and cultivated
minister—both of them—bow their heads and submit their necks to the
cruel yoke, the yoke of capitalism.
The rulers rule.
Capitalism, internationally, is—for capitalists—a struggle for a
strangle hold among jealously competing, unneighborly neighbors, a
struggle for business.
Capitalism thus becomes a stupid snarl of “foreigners”—to each nation
all other nations are “foreigners.”
And thus the world is petty, unsocial, “foreign,”—a war always possible
and threatening between “foreigners,”—the unfortunate ministers, most of
them, not to the contrary.
BUT, READER, THERE ARE NO “FOREIGNERS”—FOR ME AND MY INTERNATIONAL
FRIEND CHRIST AND MY INTERNATIONAL COMRADES.
Then why should a group of Christless, plutocratic political crooks and
flunky-champagne-guzzlers in Paris or Tokio, in Berlin or London, in
Madrid or Washington—why should any such group of political
bunco-steerers by a pompous declaration of assassination officially
decide for you and me and our brothers of some so-called “foreign
nation”—that we working class brothers are “enemies” and that we must
lay down the instruments of production and take up the weapons of
destruction and butcher ourselves by the tens of thousands?
Why should we permit a band of cheap “statesmen” to order us to tear one
another’s throats like dogs?
Why should _we_ fight?
_We_ have no quarrels.
The thing is ridiculous—utterly ridiculous, is it not?
And an equally important question is:—Why should we working class
brothers of all the world ever permit any ecclesiastical savages to fan
the flames of international hatred in our souls by means of pious
prayers and sermons in favor of war?
Even more ridiculous, isn’t it?
Let us refuse to murder. The blood-spilling business is too small for
brothers, too savage for socialized men, no matter what their religious
faith may be.
Perhaps, brother, you and I do not agree on Christ. But we can be good
friends any way, can’t we?
Now, I will tell you frankly, the Peaceful Christ seems to me to be so
much grander than a war-preaching preacher, so much nobler than a flunky
“fighting parson,” that he gains my sincere admiration. Such a great
brave brother he was.
Christ was the most defiant preacher that ever walked the earth or
flashed as a character conception in the human brain.
Christ, the historical revolutionary Christ, or Christ, splendid
creation of imagination, or Christ divine—whichever or whatever he
was—he wins and compels my gratitude:
Because he was neither an automaton nor a tool;
Because official ruffians even before his mockery of a trial viciously
pronounced him an “undesirable citizen”;
Because “leading citizens” could not use him, could not rent his
influence;
Because he scorned the opportunity to become “successful in life” in the
contemptible rôle of intellectual prostitute;
Because he despised the lusting devotees of Mammon;
Because he forgave the “duly convicted” crucified thieves and whipped
the unconvicted bankers from the temple;
Because with stinging words he lashed the whited sepulchres called “the
very _best_ people”;
Because he was so fine and great he promptly became extremely unpopular
with coarse and savage little “prominent people”;
Because he was so gentle and terrible that the noisy and cruel
“law-abiding leading citizens” in their swaggering ignorance and
malignance decided he was an anarchist and proceeded to shut off his
free speech;
Because he was neither narrow enough to be national nor ignorant enough
to be orthodox;
Because on the last morning of his life be so proudly despised the
official political bull-pups who teased him and insulted him—and could
not understand him;
Because, on the same morning, he so finely scorned the bigoted little
orthodox holy bullies who hindered him and wolfishly screamed for the
Carpenter’s blood;
Because children charmed him;
Because the humble “common people” swarmed around him and loved him—in
spite of their pious and orthodox “spiritual advisers”;
Because he scorned the “dignity” of some men and saw the Dignity of Man;
Because he came from the bottom up and never forgot—_never hesitated to
defend_—“even the least of these,” including his sad, shamed, outlawed
sister;
Because he did not whimper and cringe when certain religiously eminent
small souls spat in the face of the World Soul;
Because the great wholesome brother was a true Social Soul, loving all
mankind;
Because, especially because, he so finely forgave the thoughtless
working class soldiers who mocked him, forced a thorn crown upon his
head, drove nails through his flesh, sneered at his agonies, and thrust
a spear into their working class Brother Carpenter;
Because he said, “Put up thy sword,” regarded no man as “foreigner,” and
died for International Fraternalism.
A Social Man.
A Sample.
I love him.
Let us, too, brother, be social and international.
Let us bury the hatchet, break the rifle, spike the cannon, despise the
sword, accept the Sermon on the Mount for its spirit of peace, and scorn
any sermon that urges us to war against our own class brothers. Let us
detest any sermon that stirs and fosters the tiger within us and arrests
our social development.
Social development.
“Social development,” did I say? Yes, reader, that is what we need,
social development.
Man on his long march upward—up from the jungle—has been impeded by a
heavy burden—in his blood. He has carried the menagerie—in his veins.
Here permit me to use a very homely metaphor, a figure of speech neither
to your taste nor to mine, yet needed and defensible:
In its social development the world is hindered by too much bull-pup.
A bull-pup is at a disadvantage—socially. His social development is
stunted. The malignant wrinkles of his prize-fighter face obstruct his
vision. His outlook is restricted. Thus his notion of the world is
small. Hence the bull-pup is narrow, local and unsocial. Being socially
local and mean—and therefore petty and pugnacious—he enjoys a fight. In
the world of dogs he is a tough, a “rough-rider” and a “war-lord.” All
other dogs are “foreigners,” “guilty,” and “undesirable citizens.”
Peace is too large and fine for the bull-pup. War is “dee-lightful,”
“just bully”—for the bull-pup.
Thus even the humble dog world is worried and hindered by the socially
narrow and pugnaciously strenuous bull-pups—“great” and “successful,” in
their estimation.
Thus littleness and localism hinder even brutes in their social
development.
And it is thus in the human world also.
Confucius was a great man.
But Confucius is hindered—hindered by littleness—little Confucians.
Christ? Christ is great, fascinatingly, commandingly great.
But Christ is hindered—hindered by the pettiness of pugnacity, hindered
by littleness, little Christians.
Let us be brothers? Let us have peace?
Not yet. We can’t. We must wait. Strange, but true, we must wait for the
most reasonable thing in the world—peace.
Peace is on the program—next number.
From the warring tribes of the long, long ago, up, up, upward to the
federated races of the world,—that is the first number on the program—a
long steep climb for the human mind, up, up through the hundreds of
centuries, a half million years consumed in expanding the human heart,
in refining the human affections, in strengthening the social vision to
see all the way ’round the world, in widening the diameter of Society,
in creating, revising, and re-creating a definition of “Brother,”—the
race generating the Social Man, the World Patriot, the International
Citizen.
The arithmetic of history—Given: Life. To find, or produce, or deduce,
the god, the god of aspiring intelligence, the god of a socialized race.
A puzzling problem—how to subtract the brute, add the brother and
multiply the brains; how to proceed to the next number on the
program—Peace; how to move our bruised lips to say: “Put up thy sword.
We are of one blood.”
We are hindered.
Brotherhood and peace—divinely high thought!
But, alas! the thought is too high for low-browed strenuosity of the
tough-rider type; the thought is too large and fine for the poor brain
of a bull-dog or a human bully or a socially blunted holy man or any
other breed of stunted runts.
The strutting, thin-brained rooster in the farmyard crows, “Hurrah for
this our very own dunghill, the finest filth pile on earth.” Thus this
spurred and feathered patriot virtuously cultivates his vanity by
boisterously challenging “the enemy” in the neighboring farmyards.
“Hurrah for our tribe,” screams the savage—patriotically.
“Hurrah for our village of Squeedunk,” yells the local human shrimp.
More patriotism.
“Hurrah for our great city!” squeals the boastfully “metropolitan” small
man sweltering in unspeakable corruptions.
“Hurrah for the nation—right or wrong!” yelps the patriotic national
mongrel.
And thus these socially puny creatures, these social runts, stand ready,
as it were, to “patriotically” throw carbolic acid at their national and
international neighbors.
“Hurrah for Mankind, hurrah for Life!” finely calls the socially
developed man, the Increasing International Man.
Really, reader, the narrow-visioned provincial, the local sniveling, the
social shrimp, the pugnacious nationalist, the racial bigot, and the
stunted, sacerdotal manlet—really, these unsocial people are, as yet,
too local and little and narrow for a federated world, for an
internationally social Christ. Really, these unsocial human runts can
not sincerely and effectively carry “to all the world” any magnificent
social gospel of “peace on earth, good will toward all men,” and “make
of one blood all nations”—even tho’ they be baptized.
Now please do not misunderstand me. I do not belittle the rite of
baptism.
But baptism has no effect on a declaration of war by an extremely narrow
local bull-dog, whether he be a humble canine wearing a brass collar, or
a strutting puny human being wearing a “Prince Albert,” or a
lard-and-tallow millionaire worshipping a cash-register. None of these
is emotionally and socially fine. As usual, the world is embarrassed
when trying to make a silk purse of a sow’s ear.
A Christian assassin mounted on the throne of Russia remains an
assassin—in spite of his baptism.
A Christian bully elevated to the throne of the German Empire or to
American presidential distinctions, remains a pugnacious ruffian,
spoiling for trouble, always “not only willing but anxious to fight.”
Sacerdotal ceremonies have no effect on a leopard’s spots, a tiger’s
stripes, a bull-pup disposition, or a cash-register ambition.
War among brothers is civil war.
All men are brothers.
Therefore all war is civil war.
But peace is hindered by local littleness—especially by the belittling,
localizing effects of the sacred cash-register and its smaller unsocial
time-servers.
The Confucian capitalist, the Christian capitalist, and all other kinds
of capitalists of the whole world stand behind their blessed and
belittling cash-registers, plot in their Wall Street dens, cheating,
cheating, cheating—and snarling at one another. And this unsocial
snarling is called business, and this Christless business is morally
legitimated, “made respectable,” by too many unsocialized “spiritual
advisers.” Some of the holy men are finely social, nobly large,
splendidly fearless; and these great social souls refuse, proudly
refuse, to “sic” or urge the “dogs of war.” But unfortunately these
truly greater holy men are too few and they are threatened and bullied
by the over-fed, fat-pursed industrial Caesars in the best pews of the
house of God; and, moreover, these greater holy men are abused and
outvoted in the church conventions by their less developed brethren, if
they oppose a war—especially if there is a “national crisis.”
And there is always a “national crisis” imminent when greater markets
must be had and new territory is to be scrambled for by the capitalists
of the world.
Whenever there is a “crisis on,” whenever the cash-register captains,
the politicians and unsocial “spiritual leaders” believe, or announce,
that there is a “crisis upon us,”—at such times Christ, the peaceful,
nobly social Christ, is thrust to the rear of the stage and forced to be
silent, while the “fighting parsons” and the politicians and the
money-mongers and some glory-hunting buccaneers rush to the front of the
stage and scream for war—a “patriotic war.”
_And more and more the actual necessity for a larger foreign market
produces a “crisis.”_
It is coming—another war.[293]
Then for brotherhood—a sneer.
Then for the man of peace—a scornful “Mollycoddle!”
Then for Christ—coarse jeers.
Then for markets, for profits—blood and tears.
Then will the malignant manikins patriotically and profitably shout for
“national honor.”
Then Christ must wait.
Peace must wait.
Brotherhood must wait.
International federation, social grandeur, the human race, must wait.
All these must wait for the poor little fellows to get the emotions of
the prize-fighter and the savage heat and hate of the bull-pup out of
their veins; all these must wait, too, while the cash-register devotee
and his man Friday get the money—and “divide up.”
Possibly, reader, some of these paragraphs seem unfair.
Very well; perhaps it will seem fair to let a _clergyman_ speak with
frankness on this matter. Here following are some paragraphs from a
powerful book, _The Moral Damage of War_, by the fearless Dr. Walter
Walsh, a distinguished and eloquent clergyman of Dundee, Scotland.[294]
In the chapter, “The Moral Damage of War to the Preacher,” Dr. Walsh
speaks to his clerical brethren with the courage and directness of the
ancient Jewish prophets. Here are some illustrative paragraphs
(reprinted with kind permission of publishers):
“The belief that Christianity is incompatible with war, was designed
to abolish war ... was held by all the Christians of the first three
centuries.... Christianity is the religion of peace. How then is
Christendom still at war? We naturally turn to the professional
teachers of religion for an answer.
“The paid teachers of Christendom are numbered by hundreds of
thousands: Priests, bishops, ministers, catechists and so on,—while
their lay helpers—deacons, church-wardens, elders, Sunday-school
teachers, missioners, lay preachers—may be counted by the million
and _it is incomprehensible that war should continue to exist in
Christendom unless by first demoralizing these formers of religious
opinion_. The fact also that all Christian countries alike compete
in the equipment and spoils of war can be understood only as a proof
of a corrupt or undeveloped conscience. The reason why Christendom
is today in such straits and that so many countries wallow in debt,
waste, ignorance, covetousness, poverty and misery unspeakable, is
chiefly that the paid teachers of Christianity with their hosts of
unpaid assistants have capitulated to the war god.... War is never
pure, but is hell; and it can never be permissible to inaugurate
heaven by the help of hell.... Here and there a smaller Elijah
refuses to bow the knee to the military Baal, a faithful Micaiah,
tho’ smitten on the mouth, continues to bear his testimony to the
true significance of the gospel.... ‘For centuries the church met
the hostility of a pagan and unscrupulous world and never
flinched.... No revenge or bitterness marred the security of her
soul.’... The appalling nature of the preacher’s defection is seen
by the contrast with the magnificent opportunity war time affords
him, than which prophet or apostle never had a greater.... _A trial
of strength between conflicting nations is also a trial of the
preacher’s moral character_; the height of noble opportunity to
which it lifts him has its counterpart in the base opportunism to
which he may descend. He may temporize like a politician.... He may
accept the carnal policies of the parliament as limitations of his
gospel and hang his head like a dumb dog when statesmen fling
Christianity incontinently out of the house of legislation. He may
soothe his conscience with the lie that war is a matter of politics,
having nothing to do with the preaching of the gospel, and slide
gently down into the dastard, blind equally to _the humor and the
atheism of his position_. Between the churches which cry, “No
politics in the gospel!” and parliaments which cry, “No gospel in
politics!” the Son of Man is hard put to it to maintain a footing in
modern affairs.... Few invocations to the Prince of Peace are heard
[in time of war], but many to the God of battles.... The conscience
[of ecclesiasticism] lies limp and voiceless before the uplifted
sword, bribed by gold, paralyzed by fear ... shielding itself....
The federated tribes of Israel slink to their tents, murmuring some
safe platitudes about peace and prayer meetings whilst the world
triumphs, the flesh riots and the devil grins with infinite
content.... It were hard to say which is worse,—the silence of the
pulpit or the timidity or wickedness of its speech when it does find
tongue.... A dumb dog is bad, but a bloodhound baying upon the trail
is worse.... What is to be said of a preacher, who, when the war
spirit and the peace spirit are trembling in the balance, either can
not speak or speaks only to blaspheme his own gospel?... _It can not
be doubted that the church, exerting herself in accordance with her
principles, could make all bloodshed impossible, and could have
averted every war of recent times_; yet on many such occasions the
multitude of ministers stir no finger, preach no sermon, sign no
petition, sound no note that the government, willing enough to know
the temper of a nation, can interpret as hostile to their
project.... The appalling truth has to be faced: that the church,
contrary to every expectation that might be formed from her
principles and the character of the Being she worships, is always,
as a whole, for the war of the day. It is true that when peace is
the popular cry, the preachers are also for peace. If there is a
peace crusade on hand which excites the shallow enthusiasms of the
fashionables, the preachers will also catch the excitements of the
hour; but when the white banner yields to the red, the pastors beat
the drums for the fighters as furiously as they had previously
denounced the savagery of armed conflict.... Organized Christianity
divests herself of her robe of righteousness and her garments of
meek humility to clothe herself in khaki.... A thousand pulpits are
manned by Bible bullies who cite every obsolete and bloody precedent
of the wars of the Jews and show themselves destitute of the
elementary humanities and of the faculties necessary to discriminate
between Judaism two thousand years before Christ and Christianity
two thousand years after him.... What can mankind do with a church
that peels itself like a pugilist and reveals the murdering pagan
instead of the martyred Christian; which for carnal reasons cancels
the Sermon [on the Mount], contradicts the Beatitudes, flatly denies
the gospel, repudiates every specific Christly ideal, and unseats
Jesus in order to elevate Mars to the throne of conscience?... At
frequent intervals the cross with its suffering victim recedes and
out of the blood-red mist emerges the foul idol of war erect on his
crimson chariot.... The sanctification of revenge is, indeed, the
vilest function performed by a war-poisoned, blood-stained
church.... It is thus that the masses are kept from seeing the
degenerate nature of the thing.... Their pastors lead them into the
blood-red fields of Jahveh when the politicians give the word, and
into the green pastures of the Nazarene only when there is no
national scheme of murder and robbery afoot.... The churches as they
are today can not prevent war. Their palsied lips can not echo,
however feebly, the words of the master, ‘Put up again thy sword
into its place!’ There is not spiritual power left in organized
Christianity to insure the substitution of reason for brute
force.... Alas! it has hitherto been impossible to get Christianity
to obey Christ.”[295]
That is the language of a brave Christian preacher. In connection with
the reverend Doctor Walsh’s chastisement of the church in the morning of
the twentieth century it is interesting to read on the same subject the
words of a philosopher of the eighteenth century, Voltaire.[296]
“This universal rage which devours the world.... The most wonderful
part of this infernal enterprise [war] is, that each chief of
murderers causes his colors to be blest, and solemnly invokes God
before he goes to exterminate his neighbors.... A certain number of
orators are everywhere paid to celebrate these murderous days....
All of them speak for a long time, and quote that which was done of
old in Palestine.... The rest of the year these people declaim
against vices.... All the united vices of all ages and places will
never equal the evils produced by a single campaign. Miserable
physicians of souls! you exclaim for five quarters of an hour on
some pricks of a pin, and say nothing on the malady which tears us
into a thousand pieces.... Can there be anything more horrible
throughout nature?”
And now let us get at this matter from the point of view of a political
economist, a really great economist, John A. Hobson—who puts the case
thus:[297]
“When has a Christian nation ever entered on a war which has not
been regarded by the official priesthood as a sacred war? In England
the State Church has never permitted the spirit of the Prince of
Peace to interfere when statesmen and soldiers appealed to the
passions of race-lust, conquest and revenge. Wars, the most insane
in origin, the most barbarous in execution, the most fruitless in
results have never failed to get the sanction of the Christian
Churches.... _There is no record of the clergy of any Church having
failed to bless a popular war, to find reasons for representing it
as a crusade._”
The following lines from a British philosopher, Frederic Harrison,[298]
are to the point for the workingman’s instruction:
“The official priests of the old faiths accept without questioning
the authorized judgment of the political government. They are
engaged ... in calling upon their God of Battles (can it be, their
God of Mercy?) to keep the British soldiers—the invaders, the
burners of villages, the hangmen of [native] priests—in his good and
holy keeping.... A system of slavery prepares the slave-holding
caste for any inhumanity that may seem to defend it.... If it
hardens our politicians, it degrades our churches. The thirst for
rule, the greed of the market, and the saving of souls, all work
together in accord. The Churches approve and bless whilst the
warriors and the merchants are adding new provinces to empire; they
have delivered the heathen to the secular arm.... Christianity in
practice, as we know it now, for all the Sermon on the Mount, is the
religion of aggression, domination, combat. It waits upon the
pushing trader and the lawless conqueror; and with obsequious
thanksgiving it blesses his enterprise.”
Who, indeed, shall deliver us from war?
Our pastors?
Hardly.
The pastors’ economic masters will not permit them to do so.
Tho’ the machine guns mow down a million of the world’s choicest working
men, pile up windrows of human carcasses and desolate the huts, flats,
hovels and “homes” of the poor; tho’ ten million pairs of calloused
hands of agonizing working class women be stretched toward well-fed,
comfortable pastors, begging for a _united, effective declaration_
against war; tho’ these ten million humble working class mothers, their
eyes streaming with tears, on their knees beseech the “holy men of God”
to unitedly cry aloud against the accursed “Death’s feast” where their
dear ones are devoured; tho’ multitudes of little working class children
in mute despair dread the roar of the belching cannon that slay their
fathers and brothers; still the pastors (most of them) will “stand by
the administration” in any and all wars, as usual.
“The administration,” “the government,” under capitalism, is simply the
_executive committee of the capitalist class_.
The capitalist class are internationally struggling for the world
market.
In these international struggles the capitalists need the support of
public opinion.
Public opinion can be created and controlled by the pastor.
The pastor must therefore be controlled by the capitalist.
The campaign begins—to capture the market and the minister.
The soldier goes to war and the capitalist goes to church.
The soldier takes a gun, the capitalist takes gold.
The soldier slays.
The capitalist prays—by proxy.
Being “the will of God” it is, of course, “mysterious.”
The capitalist occupies the very best pew in the house of God—and lays
beautiful bank-bills in the collection plate.
The minister is embarrassed—and impressed.
The pastor and his master divide up.
The war? Isn’t _war hell_?
It beats hell.
But it is “all for the best”—mysteriously.
With conscience “seared as with a hot iron” the preacher joins the
politician; and the precious pair unite their rented voices in patriotic
melody in support of the capitalist class.
Brother,—you of the working class,—Jew, Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic,
Protestant, peaceful Buddhist or peaceful Confucian, or what
else,—wherever you are, whatever you are in religion, worshipping,
searching, groping through the universe for God, worship as you prefer,
worship whom you prefer: I do not seek to break your church allegiance.
But, sir, to save your life, to save your own wife’s tears, to defend
your own children, to protect your own working class, I do wish to have
you realize _distinctly_ that:—
_The working class must draw the bayonet from its own breast._ So far as
_war_ is concerned the working class must band together and stand
together against war. The working class must themselves protect the
working class against the industrial system through which they are
_robbed and betrayed_.
The workers of the world need a political party of their own class—and
as wide as the world, International, and committed to _justice and
therefore to peace._
Listen to the confession of the editor of a very powerful capitalist
newspaper:
“It is significant that the Socialists of different races, and
speaking different tongues, strangers in blood and customs, in
Germany, France, Great Britain, Austria, and Italy, constitute the
_one great peace party of the world_.”[299]
Listen again—to the best-known and the best loved Christian woman in the
United States, Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago:[300]
“The Socialists are making almost the sole attempt to preach a
morality _sufficiently all-embracing and international_ to keep pace
with even the material internationalism which has standardized
[even] the threads of screws and the size of bolts, so that machines
become interchangeable from one country to another.... Existing
commerce has long ago reached its international stage, but it has
been the result of business aggression and constantly appeals for
military defense and for the forcing of new markets.”
You, you who are to be tricked and shot at the factory door and on the
battlefield, go to your public library and get _Christianity and the
Social Order_, and read there the words of a preacher great enough for
the City Temple of London, great enough to be the worthy successor of
the world-known Joseph Parker, read the Reverend Dr. R. J. Campbell’s
splendid tribute to the Socialist Party as the only political party in
the world today scorning the belittling jealousies of capitalist
statesmen and working effectively for international brotherhood.
Reader, you working class reader, a special word here:
Perhaps your working class neighbor’s son is at this moment falling into
a patriotic trance, gullibly planning to join the local militia or the
standing army or the navy, meditating on butcheries. Go to him. With a
firm grasp on his mind (if he has one) wake him, rouse him, from that
race-cursing dream, rouse him from the spell that for thousands of years
has damned his class. Be kind. Be patient. But—wake him. Wake him for
the _world_ movement for the _working_ class. _Wake him for the war_—the
war without a sword, the war without a cannon; the war with a printing
press, the war with a book. _Teach him that salvation is through
information._ Teach him that the “truth will make him free.” In his
brain kindle a fire, a divine unrest, a desire that can not die, the
desire for peace born of justice.
Otherwise, beware lest your neighbor’s son be wheedled at any moment
into the militia or the standing army or the navy—_ready_ to be
consecrated, sanctified, blessed,—for wholesale assassination, _ready_
as a militiaman, as a Cossack, as a soldier, to stain his consecrated
sword with the blood of his neighbors and brutally—patriotically—laugh
at the tears of women and children.
Read to your neighbor the next Chapter: “Now, What Shall We Do About
It?”
-----
Footnote 285:
See Chapter Four, Section Two, “The Cost of War in Cash.”
Footnote 286:
“Documents of the American Association for International
Conciliation,” 1907–08.
Footnote 287:
See Chapter Eight, Section 13 and 14.
Footnote 288:
It is mildly encouraging to reflect that very heavy and very general
international investments in national and industrial bonds would have
at least some tendency to dampen the bond-buying capitalists’
enthusiasm for war; because, in some cases, a disastrous war might
result in the repudiation of bonds and, in most cases, might easily
result in a great temporary reduction of dividends from industrial
investments. Another thing to be noted here is that sometimes the
investors in the bonds of an unstable nation about to go to war, may
regret the threatening war and urge against it and even decline to buy
war bonds, _before the war is declared_, in order to protect their
investments already made. But after the war is once entered upon these
same regretful investors feel almost compelled to purchase the new
issue of war-bonds in order to make victory more certain for the
nation whose bonds they already hold, and thus protect the market
value of their original investments. French investors in Russian bonds
and enterprises to the extent of more than a billion dollars found
themselves in this predicament in the case of the recent
Russian-Japanese war. See Index: “Bankruptcy, Danger of.”
Footnote 289:
See Chapter Seven, Section 17.
Footnote 290:
Swinburne: “A Word for the Country.”
Footnote 291:
See Index: “The Hague Peace Conference.”
Footnote 292:
See Chapter Four, Section One.
Footnote 293:
See Index: “Another War.”
Footnote 294:
Published by Ginn and Company, New York.
Footnote 295:
Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 296:
_Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary._
Footnote 297:
_The Psychology of Jingoism_, pp. 41, 133.
Footnote 298:
_National and Social Problems_, pp. 252–53.
Footnote 299:
The New York _World_, editorial, August 15, 1907. Italics mine. G. R.
K.
Footnote 300:
_Newer Ideals of Peace_, pp. 114–15. Italics mine. G. R. K.
CHAPTER TEN.
Now What Shall We Do About It?
“No people will toil and sweat to keep a class in idleness unless
_cajoled_ or _compelled_ to do so.... There are various devices by
means of which a body of persons may sink their fangs into their
fellows and subsist upon them. Slavery ... is the primary form of
the parasitic relation. By modifying this into serfdom the parasitic
class, without the least abating its power of securing its
nourishment from others, places itself in a position more convenient
to it and less irritating to the exploited.... Finally, the
institution of property is so shaped as to permit a slanting
exploitation under which a class is able to live in idleness. The
parasitic class is always a ruling class, and utilizes as many as it
can of the means of control.”—Professor Edward A. Ross, Department
of Sociology, University of Wisconsin.[301]
“The various institutions, political, ecclesiastical, professional,
industrial, etc., including the government, are devices, means,
gradually brought into existence, to serve interests that develop
within the State.”—Professor Albion W. Small, Head of Department of
Sociology, University of Chicago.[302]
“The non-industrial or _parasitic_ classes are often the most
active.... They are wonderfully successful in _creating the belief_
that they are the most important of all the social elements.”—Dr.
Lester F. Ward, Department of Sociology, Brown University.[303]
The preceding chapters have, it is hoped, been of some assistance to the
reader in realizing in what unqualified contempt the working class are
held in our boasted civilized society,—how utterly the working class are
tricked and betrayed, brutalized and bled, degraded and despised,
robbed, starved and stung,—their flesh torn, their blood spilt, their
bodies tossed to the buzzards and grave-worms, and even the widows and
orphans insulted with thirty dirty pieces of silver in payment for the
life and love and joy lost in war. Having tried to make this, and more,
clear, now let me explain “what to do about it.”
What, indeed, shall the working class do to rid themselves of the curse
called war?
We can do nothing, absolutely nothing, with sweeping effectiveness, till
we understand the industrial structure and purpose of the present order
of society, and, as a class, also understand the art of
self-defense—political and industrial class-defense.
Repeatedly in preceding chapters I have written of two classes.
Are there indeed two classes?
_Get distinctly in mind the three following propositions stating the
three largest facts of all concerning the present order of society_:
=First Proposition=: In the present capitalist form society is divided
into two classes, two industrial classes: the capitalist class and the
working class.
=Second Proposition=: Industrially, society is organized and managed for
the _special_ benefit of _part_ of society—for one class, the capitalist
class.
=Third Proposition=: Each of these two classes has industrial interests
_as a class_; these class interests conflict; and there is, therefore,
as a part of and because of the _class_ form of society, a constant
class conflict, a _class struggle_.
Let me try to make these three propositions clear. Please note carefully
the exact wording of the propositions to be explained.
The explanation,—first proposition:
Of course you wish to live and be comfortable. To live and be
comfortable you must consume useful things. But before you can consume
useful things they must be produced. And since this is true of all the
members of society it is readily seen that the first task of society,
the primary social function, is production.
_Production, industry, is the foundation of society._
Now, in performing this industrial work, in doing this first thing, we
use raw materials, mines, forests, fields, mills, factories, tools,
machinery, railways, etc., etc.; and these things are called the MEANS
OF PRODUCTION. We make use of these things, these means of production,
in _applying our labor-power_—that is, in producing the things society
wishes to consume.
But:—
One class privately own the coal mines and iron mines and buy
labor-power;
The other class work in the coal mines and iron mines and sell
labor-power.
One class privately own lumber forests and marble quarries, and buy
labor-power;
The other class work in the lumber forests and marble quarries, and sell
labor-power.
One class privately own cotton mills, steel mills, and flour mills,
etc., and buy labor-power.
The other class work in cotton mills, steel mills, and flour mills,
etc., and sell labor-power.
One class privately own railroads and buy labor-power;
The other class work on railroads and sell labor-power.
Or, to say it briefly,
One class, the _capitalist_ class, privately OWN the chief material
means of production—and BUY labor-power.
The other class, the _working_ class, USE the chief material means of
production—and SELL labor power.
Surely you can see that there are two _industrial classes_.
There are, under capitalism, not only two industrial classes, but
also two social classes. Industrial classes become social classes.
Johan Kaspar Bluntschli, one of Germany’s most eminent writers on
political science, has this to say:
“Classes have very often been founded on the basis of property. In
these constitutions ... property becomes the determining political
force, and citizens are valued by amount of their income.... The
Proletariate ... consists mainly of the waste of other classes, of
those fractions of the population who, by their isolation and their
poverty, have no place in the established order of society.” [That
is, they are in no _commanding relation_ to the industrially vital
property.][304]
“Conversely, social rank depends on economic conditions; the state
is made ... conservative ... by the economic interests at its
foundation....
“Perhaps its [property’s] most important social effect has come to
be the fact that the possession of property is so generally the
basis of social differentiation. In earlier times, physical force,
later, institutions of caste, were the basis of differentiation in
society; wealth is the most universally recognized source of power,
so that social rank is often determined by the possession of
wealth.”—Professor Fairbanks, Yale University.[305]
And now the _second_ proposition: Are these industries and the other
industries really operated for the _special benefit_ of _part_ of
society? The answer is clear in the following illustration:
If the profits on all these industries should, during the next twelve
months, _rise two billion dollars higher than usual_, would the _wages_
of the workers engaged in these industries be _increased_ in _that
proportion_? Most certainly they would not. You know very well they
would not. But why not? Simply because these industries, like all other
industries, are, under capitalism, operated for the special benefit of
those, the capitalist class, who privately own these industries and buy
labor-power, and, by this arrangement, live on profits,—on surplus
value.[306]
And, finally, the third proposition: Do the industrial interests of
these two industrial classes fundamentally _conflict_? Perhaps the
answer will be clear in the following homely illustration:
If you are selling a horse, you wish to sell him for—say $300. But the
buyer of the horse wishes to buy the horse for, say, $150.
Clearly there is a conflict of interests between the buyer of the
_horse_ and the seller of the _horse_.
A wage-earner selling labor-power wishes to sell, say, eight hours
labor-power for $6.
The capitalist employer buying labor-power wishes to buy, say, nine
hours labor-power for $2.50—in order to get the surplus value—that
fascinating _surplus_.
Thus there is a fundamental conflict between the industrial interests of
this buyer of labor power and the industrial interests of this seller of
labor-power.
And it is just so with the two industrial classes.
There is a fundamental conflict of industrial interests between the
employer class buying labor-power and the working class selling
labor-power.
Between these two industrial classes there is a struggle, a class
struggle—to defend their conflicting industrial interests.
This class struggle takes on many different forms—but it is _always_ the
same thing down at the bottom—a class struggle _in industry_.
* * * * *
The three propositions explained above are most important. A clear
understanding of these three propositions always—always—revolutionizes
the _political_ thinking of the working class man, or woman, who has
not, before, understood them. These three truths destroy old political
prejudices and customs, cut the reins by which the political tricksters
misguide the workers, clear the air of “hot air,” reveal the blind
alleys of old party politics, point the road to power and freedom for
the working class, and make a rock-bottom foundation for a working class
political philosophy and policy and tactics.
_The capitalist class (who rule and ruin the toilers) regard these three
truths as more dangerous than any other, or all other, teachings that
ever reach the working class mind._ It is to the capitalists’ interest
that the workers should not learn these three truths. But it is to the
interest of the working class that the working class should learn these
three truths.
With these three primary facts of present society clearly in mind let us
proceed.
In addition to their powerful position as capitalist OWNERS OF THE MEANS
OF PRODUCTION, the capitalist class have three _special advantages_ over
the working class in this class struggle:
(=1=) The capitalist class are more _class conscious_ than the working
class are—at present. That is, the capitalists more _distinctly realize_
that, as capitalists, they _constitute a class_—with _class interests_
to defend.
(=2=) The capitalists, because they are more class conscious, are,
naturally, more _class loyal_ than the working class are—at present. In
obedience to the _biological law of self-preservation_, a _class_, as
well as an individual, will defend themselves, as a class—that is, will
be class loyal—in proportion as they are class conscious, or in
proportion as they are aware of and understand the interests of their
class. Tho’ the capitalists understand that they are a class with class
interests, they are always cooing softly to all workers who are ignorant
enough to listen, cooing sweetly about “no classes,” “all in the same
boat,” “harmony of interests,” “Capital and Labor are brothers,” etc.
(=3=) The capitalists _study_ tactics of class warfare—tactics of
industrial struggle, far more than the working class do—at present.
Being more class conscious and therefore more class loyal and
consequently more eager, as a class, for self-defense, the capitalist
class naturally study more patiently the ways and means for their own
class defense. And _because they do study more they really know more_—at
present—about politics, about the game called the class struggle, about
the art of self-defense, _class defense in industry_.[307]
In all the modern forms of this unhappy class struggle, one phase of
which is called war, the capitalist class are awake and watchful, united
and victorious—seated in the saddle of power at the head of the
procession; and the working class are drowsy and confused, divided and
defeated—limping afoot and ridiculous at the tail end of the grand march
of the world’s affairs.
All great military leaders in all wars—in all struggles—in all time have
always used the two following tactics:
FIRST: Divide the enemy, if possible, and have them crush one another;
or,
SECOND: If circumstances hinder the first tactics, then divide the enemy
and crush them one part at a time.
And the captains of industry, the capitalists, right now employ these
tactics with success. They themselves band together, but they divide and
rule the working class. More class conscious, more class loyal and more
studious of the ways and means of struggle than the working class are,
the capitalist class proceed as follows:
=(A) On the Economic Field= the capitalists divide the working class and
have them fight one another; and thus the capitalist class are easily
able to defeat and fleece the workers all the time, everywhere. The
workers, having no part in the ownership of the means of production and
being thus divorced from a commanding relation to the economic
foundations of society, craftily fooled with false teaching of
“capital-and-labor-harmony-of-interests,” sore and humble with
disappointment, whipped with the lash of hunger, stung to desperation,
confused and traduced by bribed pets, spies and traitors,—the workers
angrily, blindly, split up into jealous groups, shamefully turn against
one another, fight one another, under-bid one another, “scab” on one
another, desert one another,—defeat one another. Moreover one part of
the working class is flattered and cheaply bribed into volunteering to
organize and arm themselves and proudly stand guard over their brothers
and against their brothers; and thus the workers spy and inform on one
another, arrest one another, jail one another, “bull pen” one another,
bayonet one another and shoot one another—under the capitalist
system—the present class-labor system.
The working class, of course, are thus easily defeated and robbed
industrially.
The busy human bees sting themselves—and lose the honey of their own
industry.
And all this is entirely satisfactory to the industrial masters—great
and small. (See page 175, [5].)
The rulers rule.
=(B) On the Political Field= the capitalist class divide the working
class into two or more groups and have them politically antagonize
themselves, have all the workers all the time politically sting and
defeat one another—that is,—have them cancel the political _class_-power
of the working class.
One part of the working class vote one capitalist class party ticket,
another part of the working class vote another capitalist class party
ticket, another another, and so on. Thus millions of the confused
working class politically defeat the working class and politically
support their industrial masters by politically supporting _political
parties_ (variously and craftily labeled) _which unanimously stand for
the capitalist system_.
Thus the confused working class are easily defeated _politically_—which
makes it far easier to rob them _industrially_.
By electing to political power _any_ political party standing for _any_
form of the capitalist _class_-labor system the working class give the
_capitalist class complete control_ not only of all the political
institutions, but also of all other institutions useable by a class in
self-defense; because _the control of political institutions carries
with it the legal right to control all other institutions_. In this
political confusion, division and eclipse, the working class are as
helpless as sheep, and, like sheep, are shorn by their political and
industrial shepherds.
And this also is entirely satisfactory to the masters of industry—both
great and small.
The rulers rule.
We must learn this: Everywhere, always and under all circumstances the
working class must _stand together_ in the use of _all_ forms of power
we have in defense of our _class_.
Having distinctly in mind, then, these important preliminaries,—and
especially the fact that whatever we do in self-defense we must do _as a
class banded together_, let us consider still further the source—the
fountain-head—of the trouble called the class struggle, one form of
which is commonly called war.
_Society has many functions to perform. In order to perform these
functions society must be organized._
_Always, it is most important to note, society is organized primarily
with respect to the function of wealth production, because the
production of things to live on comes before every other social
function._
_For the performance of this function of wealth production society,
developed beyond tribal communism, can be organized in two ways and only
two ways_:
=First Possible Form of Social Organization=: On the =Plan of
Mutualism=—under which the INDUSTRIAL FOUNDATIONS of society are PUBLIC
PROPERTY.
Society can be organized for the performance of this great industrial
function of production on the plan of mutualism—_all_ of the people
having Joint-ownership and joint-control of the _chief material means of
production_, all of the people of proper age and condition of health
performing useful, necessary social service,—there being no industrial
master class and no industrial dependent class,—the industrial
independence of all the members of society being due to the fact that
each is an owner, a joint owner, of the chief material means of
production. Every one is thus _commandingly related_ to the absolutely
necessary _means of life_. With equality in ownership and equality in
control of _the things used in getting a living_ the people become
_equals in opportunity_ to get a living,—that is, industrially free. The
dominant institution would be the institution of public property in the
dominant means used in performing the dominant social function. This
would render impossible the domination of society by a _group_ or
_class_ within society—ALL the members of society _would have their feet
firmly planted upon the foundations of life_, the means of life, the
means of production; and _could not be crowded off the foundations_ and
robbed by private owners of these foundations.
This form of society may properly be called an industrial democracy.
The _purpose_ of this form of society is the _welfare of all_ the
members of society.
Under this form of society there would be no industrial classes; and
therefore, class robbery would _not_ be and could _not_ be organized,
legalized and easy.
=Second Possible Form of Social Organization=: On the =Plan of
Antagonism=—that is, with a _Class_-Labor System—under which the
INDUSTRIAL FOUNDATIONS of society are PRIVATE PROPERTY,—privately owned
by one class and productively used by the other class.
Society can, indeed, be organized for the performance of this great
industrial function of production on the plan of a class-labor
system—one part of society being in the strategic position of industrial
masters, a ruling class, their mastery being due to the fact that they
own as private property the _chief material means of production_;—the
other part of society being in the helpless position of industrial
dependents, a working class,—their industrial dependence being due to
the fact that they have no effective share in the ownership and control
of the chief material means of production.
This form of society we may properly call an industrial despotism.
The _purpose_ of this form of society is the _special welfare of part_
of the members of society.
Under this class-labor form of society, class robbery is _organized,
legalized, and easy_.
The _foundation institution of all despotism_ is the institution of
private property in the economic foundations of society—that is, in the
means of production. This is the rock-bottom of organized, legalized and
easy robbery of the workers by the shirkers.
Historically society has been organized in a class-labor form in three
different ways,—as follows:
(=1=) CHATTEL SLAVERY, instituted thousands of years ago, was a
_class_-labor system,—an organized, legalized opportunity for wholesale
class robbery; and under that form of class-labor system, with class
robbery legally _arranged_ for, class robbery was, of course,
respectable, profitable and easy—and therefore inevitable.
Peace was impossible.
The _purpose_ of this form of society was _unsocial_.
Under this form of society the masters were in legal possession of the
means of production and also of the forts, courts, and legislatures
(such as existed); and were thus _in perfect position_ to defend and
extend their industrial robbery.
The chattel slave owners were thus parasites, aggressive social
parasites.
That is admitted.[308]
(=2=) SERFDOM, common in Europe only a hundred years ago, was also a
class-labor system—an organized, legalized opportunity for wholesale
class robbery; and under that form of class-labor system, with class
robbery legally arranged for, class robbery was, of course respectable,
profitable and easy—and therefore inevitable.
Peace was impossible.
The _purpose_ of this form of society was _unsocial_.
Under this form the masters were still in legal possession of the means
of production and also of the forts, courts and legislatures, and were
thus _in perfect position_ to defend and extend their industrial
robbery.
The landlords-and-masters of the ancient serfs were thus also parasites,
aggressive social parasites.
That is admitted.
(=3=) CAPITALISM, the present system, is also a class-labor system, an
organized, legalized opportunity for wholesale class robbery; and under
this form of class-labor system, with class robbery legally arranged
for, class robbery is, today, of course, altogether respectable,
abundantly profitable and temptingly easy—and therefore, naturally,
inevitable.
The purpose of the present capitalist form of society is the special
welfare of only a part of society, the capitalist class, and is,
therefore, an unsocial purpose.
Peace is impossible—while capitalism lasts.
Under this form of society the masters, the capitalist class, are in
possession of the means of production; that is, in legal possession of
the industrial foundations of society, and also in legal control of the
arsenals, cannon, soldiers, forts, courts and legislatures, and are thus
_in perfect position_ to defend and extend their industrial robbery.
The capitalists (_so far as they receive social incomes without
rendering equivalent social service_) are thus parasites, aggressive
social parasites. (See footnote, pages 298–99.)
That is admitted. That is admitted, explained and condemned even by the
President of the American Sociological Society, Dr. Lester F. Ward,
Professor of Sociology in Brown University.[309]
_This parasitism of capitalism is easily seen in this way_:
_Wealth equivalent to three hundred and sixty-nine tons of gold
($200,000,000) was given by inheritance to William H. Vanderbilt’s eight
children._[310]
_If the daughter of John D. Rockefeller, senior, should by inheritance
receive one-half of the present six-hundred-million-dollar fortune, she
would receive, without rendering any service whatever, wealth equivalent
to five hundred and fifty-three tons of gold._
Billions of dollars’ worth of mines, railways, factories, forests and
other means of production, will, _by inheritance, without
function_,—that is, without service—legally fall into the hands of the
children of the present capitalist class, whether those children are
intelligent, virtuous and industrious, or stupid, vicious and lazy. And
thus, like the children of kings and nobles, they will be _in position
to win the race of life without running_, in position to _prey upon
others_ in the struggle for existence, in legal position to procure
_substance without service_.
This whole vast scheme of robbery—social parasitism—is “correct” and
“proper,”—that is, the process is ELABORATELY LEGALIZED.
_Parasitism is robbery._
_Parasitism does not cease to be parasitism, nor does robbery cease to
be robbery, when, like chattel slavery, it shrewdly gets itself
organized, baptized and legalized as an “eminently respectable” and
profitable righteous institution for committing perpetual grand
larceny._[311]
Thus at present, as in the past under slavery, as in the past under
serfdom, the ruling class, as intelligent parasites, prepare for class
aggression, prepare for class robbery. They as a class create and secure
their opportunity for legally robbing the producing class by arranging
to _control the industrial structure_ of society and thus control the
_performance_ of the _industrial function_—that is, the fundamental
function, the _first_ function, of society.
The ruled and robbed working class must get it in mind distinctly and
unforgettably that the foundation of all class-labor forms of society,
that which gives to _part_ of society the _control of society_, the
foundation upon which industrial parasitism rests, the substructure of
all despotism—is the _institution of private_ property in the _chief
material means of production_. This institution SPLITS SOCIETY INTO TWO
CLASSES, namely, the producers and the parasites. Political parties do
not create classes. Political parties are a _consequence_ of industrial
classes and are intended to _defend_ industrial classes. Sometimes, to
make sure of victory, the capitalist class have several political
parties in the field—under shrewdly _confusing names_.
A class-labor system, any class-labor system, all class-labor
systems—_provide, by means of institutions_, the LEGAL conditions and
opportunities at the industrial foundations of society for part of
society, a class, to act directly or indirectly as parasites; and it is
_entirely natural_ that that part of society, in pursuing their own
interests, should use their opportunity to act like parasites. And it is
_entirely natural_ also that there should be resistance by the
producers, and therefore class struggle, class war. Indeed all
class-labor forms of society are industrially so _brutally unjust and
therefore so irritating_ that the _largest_ fact in such societies is an
eternal, internal, infernal conflict of industrial class interests—an
endless civil war in industry, a class war, a class struggle, _around
and around the industrial foundations of society._ (See pages 167–70.)
_Antagonism_ is thus in the _Structure_ of _class_-form society.
This helps to an understanding of past and present conflicts.
It becomes evident that the source of war is to be found at the
industrial foundations of society.
War—war broadly considered—the class struggle, throughout the history of
civilized society is no more and no less than the natural aggressive
robbery by a part of society provided with an opportunity to rob and the
natural resistance of the class that is robbed.
WAR, THE WAR, IS AGGRESSION AND RESISTANCE—ROBBERY AND
RESISTANCE—PLUNDER AND PROTEST:—
(1) The aggressive industrial robbery by one class, and
(2) The resistance to industrial robbery by the other class.
Not only in the history of civilized peoples everywhere for thousands of
years, but also in our own present-day capitalist society everywhere, we
see this natural aggression and natural resistance.
The result today—as in the past—is struggle, war, class war—between the
parasites and the producers.
_The_ war is the _class_ war.
Modern “foreign” wars are simply contests between different groups of
capitalists (the workers of course doing the fighting and bleeding) _to
extend the area of opportunity for industrial class robbery_, and are
thus simply _phases_ and _extensions_ of the class war.
War, then, begins with aggression, continues with aggression; and is at
present extended by aggressive foreign wars of industrial or commercial
conquest.
_To summarize._
(_a_) _War, conflict, class aggression and class resistance, are
inherent in all class-labor forms of society._
(_b_) _Capitalism is a class-labor form of society._
(_c_) _Therefore, under capitalism there will be, there must be as long
as capitalism lasts—class aggression and class resistance, class
conflict—class war._
THE CONCLUSION CANNOT BE DODGED: PEACE IS IMPOSSIBLE—UNDER CAPITALISM.
A million sermons and a million peace talk-fests cannot heal the
smarting wounds in the robbed toiler’s breast; cannot pull the fangs of
the capitalists from the flesh of the toilers, _as long as capitalism
lasts_. Organized eloquence can not stop a cannon ball or persuade the
rulers to resign.
Under capitalism, as under slavery and serfdom, the employers are in a
position _down at the industrial foundations of society_ to legally
filch their livings from the working class—thus:—the capitalists
privately own and privately control the means of production—the things
the workers must use in getting a living. Like leeches the capitalist
class are thus fastened to the very foundations of society. Here at the
industrial foundations of society the industrial blood of society,
wealth, is produced. And here are the leeches; and here they are in
absolute control of the industrial blood of society. And it is natural,
entirely natural, that here, in such position with such opportunity,
they should, like leeches, suck this industrial blood, that is, behave
like parasites.
The capitalists—with society arranged in this manner—are indeed in
position to rob the world wholesale, in position to hold up all the
weary producers on all the earth.
This organized, legalized hold-up and the resistance to this
hold-up—this is war, _the_ war.
The policeman, the militiaman, the cossack and the soldier are all
always ready to rush upon the world’s stage to serve.
To serve whom?
In all the conflicts due to class-labor forms of society, the ruling
class, as already indicated, have always a heavy social fist, a social
weapon—an _armed guard_, such as militia, heavy police forces, and
standing armies to extend the robbery and to protect the industrial
ruling class in their unjust, unsocial position of legalized robbers of
the working class. All talk, all hope, all prayer, for peace and quiet
and harmony are idle as long as society is unjustly organized—that is,
unsocially organized, down at its very foundations, one part of society
being in the position of industrial masters, the other part of society
being in the position of industrial dependents. The _yawning chasm_ in
society thus created between the two warring classes—_can never be
bridged with wishes, hopes and prayers, nor by peace conferences
dominated by profit-stuffed masters and their well-fed intellectual
serfs who dare not admit the fundamental cause of war_.[312]
THUS IT BECOMES CLEAR WHAT THE FUTURE HAS FOR THE WORKING CLASS—WHILE
CAPITALISM LASTS:
In spite of all the sincere and insincere hopes and prayers for peace
there will always be, under capitalism, legalized wholesale plundering
of the workers by the capitalist employers—a form of aggressive social
parasitism by the employers and _vigorous resistance by the workers in
proportion to their realization of the robbery_;—and consequently there
will be wage struggles, wage reductions, compulsory under-consumption,
“over-production,” unemployment, bread lines, soup kitchens, rent riots,
evictions, “demand-work” marches, strikes, picketing, “scabbing,”
boycotting, lockouts, injunctions, “bull-pens,” blacklisting, interstate
kidnapping; and also anti-picket thugs,—policemen, Pinkertons, deputy
sheriffs, constabulary, cossacks, militiamen and the “regulars” shooting
down underpaid, underfed workers; everywhere the belittled lives and the
spilt blood of the working class.[313]
And there will be increasing opposition to free assemblage, opposition
to free speech, opposition to free press—in order to silence discussion
and stop the spread of knowledge of what is fundamentally wrong.
Also there will continue to be, from time to time, naturally, under
capitalism, wars of conquest to widen the field of exploitation—to
enlarge the opportunity for aggressive social parasitism,—wars to open
up foreign markets, wars to protect foreign markets for products which
the producers’ wages will not permit them to consume and the employers
are not able to consume;—and everywhere the world will be stormy with
the stirring trumpet call, “To arms! To arms!”—stormy with the crafty
and confusing cry, “To the front! To the front! The flag!”—stormy with
the shrilling fife, the roll of drums, the rattle of musketry, the flash
of swords, the booming roar of cannon, burning cities, sinking warships
and the thundering tread of galloping cavalry horses,—the class struggle
in a thousand visible bitter forms,—and everywhere windrows and
ditchfuls of dead men, dead working men, everywhere the torn flesh, the
slit veins, the streaming blood and tears of the working class: hell
everywhere except in the homes of our “very _best_ people” who in times
of trouble as in times of peace are always calmly feeding (like leeches
ever feeding) on the surplus legally filched from the working class.
Thus capitalist society is everywhere cursed with a festering social
sore, an unhealable sore, poisoning, withering the best things in
society, blasting the finer forms and feelings of brotherhood and peace.
Everywhere the lives of the toilers are vulgarized and brutalized and
wasted. And all these things will always be natural and unescapable
facts and parts of any class-labor form of society, an unsocially
organized society, with injustice organized, legalized and easy, down
deep in the industrial foundations of society,—ever an endless civil war
in industry between the two, the only two, industrial classes.
Now what shall we do about it?
It is as plain as “a, b, c.”
War and all the forms of the class struggle are excessive social
inflammation.[314]
* * * * *
(a) Injustice violently inflames society.
(b) Social parasitism is monstrously unjust.
(c) Social parasitism therefore inflames society—and should be
destroyed.
* * * * *
(a) Any form of society that produces and protects a class of social
parasites will always inflame society, and should therefore be
destroyed.
(b) Capitalism produces and protects a class of social parasites, and
thus inflames society.
(c) Capitalism must therefore be destroyed.
* * * * *
Justice soothes society.
Society must be organized with justice _in its structure_.
We must search for justice—for a new _social structure_.
We must construct a form of society that will “make it easier to do
right and more difficult to do wrong.”[315]
Shall we be non-resistant?
No, emphatically, no.
Non-resistance is not natural (especially for the class conscious
workers)—for workers who _understand their interests as a class_; and
non-resistance is not reasonable, is not safe, and is not possible.
Non-resistance would mean defeat and degradation for the working
class—forever.[316]
Then is peace a childish dream and is war to be an endless wrangle and
blood-spilling nightmare—for the working class?
No—not necessarily.
We must resist.
But we should not resist first and only by physical force.
The working class must THINK—or they will have to struggle and bleed and
weep and wait forever,—wait and whimper like babies in the woods for
“some one” or some “good people” to come and “save” them.
The workers must _think till they find a form of social organization_ in
which the fundamental cause of war, that is, _class_ robbery, will have
_no opportunity_, and will therefore cease to exist.
What Dr. Ward calls the “spirit of aggression” will fade and finally
expire when the _condition_ (the parasitic opportunity) which
_cultivates_ the “spirit of aggression” is _destroyed_.
_The founders of the American republic resisted fearlessly, by force
too. But the working class in the United States at present should not,
and cannot now, with advantage, resist by force and force alone, and
that for very good reasons_:
FIRST:—We of the working class in the United States have now for our own
class defense another, and better, form of power, a form of power less
dangerous, less expensive, quieter and more legal and therefore more
strategic,—_a form of power that makes the capitalist class dread the
awakening of the working class_; namely, our political power—our united
ballots.
SECOND:—Until we are intelligent enough to strategically defend our
class with our united ballots we shall be too dull, even if it should be
necessary, to use force of arms successfully in defense of our class. It
seems unwise to counsel the use of the ruder methods of armed force
until, having developed the necessary intelligence, we have by trial
_fairly tested our peace powers_, our political powers—our united
ballots. (See special paragraph, page 303.)
THIRD:—We are not politically prepared,—that is, we are not legally in
possession of the powers of government, and therefore we are not in
strong position to protect our class with all our forms of power
legally. And until we are prepared we shall be used and abused.
Thus it is evident we can not, with advantage, use physical force.
What must we do?
We must destroy capitalism and close the class struggle.
In all the variations of the struggles or wars of capitalism the working
class are hired, flattered, fooled, or forced to do all the actual
fighting.
This must cease—as soon as possible—as a preliminary.
This will cease—when the conscious workers successfully _explain
capitalism and war_ to the confused and deluded workers. War will cease
when we have explained the national and international conspiracy of the
capitalist class.
War will cease when we rouse the workers of the world _by explaining_.
By explaining we inform.
By informing we increase intelligence.
By increasing intelligence we increase self-respect and the passion for
a greater life and for the freedom necessary for a greater life.
Therefore,
_Explain_—inside and outside the ranks—everywhere—in shop, mill, mine
and on the farm.
_Explain_ till emperors and presidents _dread their own conscripted and
“volunteer” armies_.
_Explain_ till murder for board and clothes and $16 a month looks vile.
_Explain_ till young working-class men inside and outside the ranks see
the light.
_Explain_ till an advertisement for human butchers and military fists
becomes utterly disgusting to the working class.
_Explain_ till our class becomes class conscious—till it sees itself,
sees its class interest and its class power.
_Explain_ till our class can not be fooled, hired, flattered or forced
to butcher or be butchered.
_Explain_ till our class, like the capitalist class, understand the
political method of class defense.
_Explain_ till millions of the roused workers of all political parties
clasp hands at the ballot box in a political party of their own class
for the defiant self-defense of their own class.
_Explain_ till our class clearly sees and proudly declares that we must
destroy the capitalist class-labor form of society and _reconstruct
society on a plan of rational mutualism_.[317]
All such explanations, all such teachings tend powerfully to rouse the
working class to a consciousness of themselves, make them eager to
defend themselves, both on the _industrial_ field and on the _political_
field—with _all their forms of power_.
Chattel slavery has been destroyed. Certainly. Why not?
Serfdom has been destroyed. Of course. Why not?
Capitalism must be destroyed. Of course——
What! Shall we destroy the rich men, the capitalists?
No, of course not.
That would not be fair. Capitalists are capitalists _legally_—permitted
by the working class.
By politically created laws and institutions capitalists are legally in
position to rule and rob the working class.
And by politically created laws and institutions the ruling class shall
cease to be in that position.
The _personal_ destruction of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of
capitalists would not in the least degree mend matters. The children of
chattel slave owners became slave owners by the politically created laws
of inheritance. Just so the children of capitalists become capitalists
through neither virtue nor vice of theirs—they become capitalists
through politically created laws of inheritance.
The legal right to own privately the industrial foundations of society
must be destroyed, legally. _If the capitalists should become anarchists
and illegally resist legal methods they could not reasonably object to
having their own laws against anarchists applied to themselves
vigorously._
Of course it is true that the capitalists fleece the workers of surplus
value all the time, and many of the capitalists are malignant and cruel
toward the workers and by a thousand persecutions invite their own
personal destruction. Some of the capitalists have destroyed themselves,
have committed suicide, to escape the disgrace of their crimes. Some
capitalists are now in the penitentiary; many more capitalists should be
in the penitentiary—as many of their own class confess; a far larger
number of capitalists, if the laws were enforced, would promptly leave
the country to keep out of the penitentiary—some have done so; and a
large number of capitalists are also bribing juries and prosecuting
attorneys in order to avoid the penitentiary; many prominent business
men, trust magnates, have had the anti-trust law changed to enable them
to more easily avoid the penitentiary—so President Taft said in
Columbus, Ohio, August 19, 1907.[318]
And the capitalist class outrage the working class in a thousand ways.
This is all true. The multitude of capitalist outrages are sufficient to
provoke revenge. But we do not seek revenge. Revenge is not fine.
Revenge is not noble. Moreover we cannot escape war by means of revenge,
and, still more important, rich men and women are not a _form_ of
society. They are _members_ of society and they behave _naturally—under
the circumstances_; that is, being a ruling class in a _class-form_
society, they behave as masters.
Capitalism as a form of society must be destroyed.
Is it meant that we shall destroy the means of production—the mills,
mines, forests, railroads and such things?
Certainly not. The means of production are material, mechanical things.
They are not a form of society.
What then? Are we to “destroy society”? Are we to turn society upside
down, inside out and “other end to,”—suddenly—“some dark night,” so to
speak?
Not at all.
Here is what we must do:—Rapidly, just as rapidly as possible we must
destroy the present class-labor form of society called capitalism,—and
to do this we must _strike at and strike out_ the foundation of the
capitalist _form_ of society.
But what is the foundation of this capitalist _class_-labor form of
society?
As already pointed out, the foundation of capitalism is the institution
of _private_ property _in the means of production_.
The capitalists, the employers, the ruling class, stand legally between
the means of production and the users of the means of production; thus a
_legal obstruction_ is raised between the workers and the things they
work with in getting a living.
The capitalist class legally _control the conditions under which the
workers may use the means of production_.
The capitalist class are in a legalized _parasitic relation_ or
connection _to the means of production_.
This _relation_ is the key-stone in the arch of capitalism; this
relation is the prime element in the present form of society.
This parasitic relation enables the capitalists to rule, rob and ruin
the working class all the time everywhere.
This relation must be destroyed; this despotic, parasitic relation must
be cut.
The capitalist class must be legally pared off, legally pushed off,
legally shorn from, the chief material means of production—as PRIVATE
owners.
Yes, this robbery, this organized, legalized robbery called
capitalism—must be destroyed.
“The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast combinations
of capital, which have marked the development of our industrial
system, create _new conditions and necessitate a change_ from the
old attitude of the state and nation _toward property_.”[319]
The case, the circumstances, require _unflinching social surgery_.
You believe in surgery, don’t you. Of course you do. Surgery is
recognized the world over as a rational and necessary means of saving
life, the life of the individual.
Well, _extend the application of the principle and practice of surgery
to society_—to the _social_ body.[320]
Parasites never voluntarily let go their grasp on the source of their
lives, never voluntarily let go the living things from which they suck
their livings. And the parasitic capitalist class will stick to the
means of production, as private owners, till they are legally
dislodged—shorn from the means of production. What is here written
concerning social parasites should not be misunderstood as malicious
reflection on the ancient slave owner or the ancient feudal landlord or
the modern capitalist. In the course of human evolution the appearance
and activity of social parasites has been—and is now—as natural as the
appearance and activity of parasites in the lower animal world and in
the vegetable world. And the effort to dislodge human parasites from
society should be, as far as is humanly possible, _free from personal
malice_.[321]
However, on the farm, in the care of plants and animals no matter how
small or helpless or innocent or beautiful parasites may be which
interfere with the wheat crop or the flock of sheep, the parasites must
be dislodged—rigorously and promptly. And, in society, no matter how
handsome, polite, pious, learned, philanthropic, or ancestrally
distinguished and blue-blooded a human parasite may be who lives on the
labor of the workers, that parasite, old or young, male or female, must
dismount promptly, must be forced from the shoulders of the working
class. Those who, at the time of social reconstruction, endeavor to
defend themselves by polishing their family coat-of-arms and climbing
their ancestral trees in search of credentials, will simply be making
monkeys of themselves. They will be even more ridiculous than the
Royalists in the American Revolution. Those of “gentle breeding” will
have to learn the gentle art of getting a living by _producing_ a
living; that awful saying, “If he will not work, neither shall he eat,”
will mean more and more.
The working class must, then, legally, do whatever is necessary to
protect themselves from the strangling clutches of the capitalist class.
And here is what is necessary:
The working class must themselves become _organized political
authority_, must seize the powers of government—and thus secure legal
control of sovereign political power which carries with it the _legal
right_[322] to control, or revise, or abolish, or reorganize industrial
institutions; must thus secure the legal right (and power) to construct
and inaugurate that industrial form of society which will destroy
capitalism with its organized, legalized opportunity for class robbery,
and which will, at the same time, substitute organized, legalized
opportunity for every member of society to make a living without being
robbed, opportunity to live without wasting and vulgarizing his life in
a struggle against his fellow men. _And this destruction of unsocial
capitalism and the construction, at the same time, in place of
capitalism, the necessary social substitute, can be accomplished by the
industrial reorganization of society on the following plan_—
The Plan of Rational Mutualism:
(=1=) The SOCIAL ownership of _the means of production_.
(=2=) The SOCIAL control of _the means of production_.
(=3=) Equality of OPPORTUNITY TO USE _the means of production_, under
regulations made _by the workers themselves_.
(=4=) The production of goods primarily for SOCIAL SERVICE OF
ALL,—instead of primarily for PROFITS FOR A PART OF SOCIETY.
(=5=) The SELF-EMPLOYMENT of all who are willing to do useful work,—by
virtue of the fact of their joint ownership and joint control of the
things the workers must collectively use in production, the reward of
each to be undiminished by rent, interest or profits.
(=6=) THE POSSESSION AND CONTROL OF THE POWERS OF GOVERNMENT BY AND IN
BEHALF OF THOSE WHO SEEK THE FREEDOM OF THE WORKING CLASS, BY THOSE WHO
SEEK TO DESTROY THE TYRANNICAL CAPITALIST WAGE-SYSTEM AND THUS SECURE
INDUSTRIAL LIBERTY.
This plan connects every life with the source of life.
This plan plants firmly the feet of all members of society upon the
industrial foundations of society.
Safe.
Unafraid.
Free.
This mutualism in industry will not interfere with such private affairs
as religious life, family life and social life,—any more than the mutual
ownership of the public library now interferes with such private
affairs.
Thus we must, in short, SOCIALIZE SOCIETY,—by socializing the
_ownership_, socializing the _control_, socializing the _management_,
and socializing the _purpose_ of the industrial foundations of society.
This would be the destruction of that class-labor system called
capitalism which now rests on the institution of private property in the
means of production; and this would, _at the same time_, also constitute
a rational substitute—social in its nature.
MUTUALISM would thus be in the STRUCTURE of society.
The purpose of this form of society would be a fundamentally social
purpose, namely, the welfare of all the willing-to-be-industrious
members of society.
The capitalist class, as such, would cease to exist.
The working class, as such, would cease to exist.
All—all the people would be in full, vital, unhindered, unrobbed
connection with the industrial foundations of society, the chief
material means of production. All people of proper age and condition of
health would become workers. Industrial class lines would disappear.
Industrial mastery would disappear. Industrial dependence would
disappear.
This would be the foundation of industrial democracy.
This would be reorganization.
This would be revolution.
A revolution is a rapid, fundamental change in a _fundamental_
institution.
The rapid _reorganization_ of industry into the form called the _trust_
is a revolution—now in process.
The trust magnates are revolutionists—_so far as it suits their economic
interests_.
Revolutions are neither noisy nor bloody, _unless there is violent
effort to prevent the growth of society_.
As to the matter of being afraid of revolutions: Why should we clap our
hands in praise of the American Revolutionists (who employed sword,
rifle, bayonet and cannon in their revolution) and then harshly condemn
the peaceful Socialists who stand for peace in all parts of the world
and always urge the orderly methods of procedure in accomplishing the
revolution (the fundamental change) they seek to effect.
Don’t be afraid.
_Fortunately millions of American school boys and girls are required to
commit to memory the following words of splendid defiance and
self-respect_:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: ... That governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed; that whenever _any form_ of government becomes destructive of
these ends (the inalienable rights ... life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness) _it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it_, and
to _institute_ a NEW government, laying its foundation on such
principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to _them_ shall
seem MOST LIKELY to effect their safety and happiness.... _When a long
train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object,
evinces a design to reduce them under an absolute despotism, it is
their_ RIGHT, _it is their_ DUTY, _to_ THROW OFF SUCH GOVERNMENT _and to
provide_ NEW _guards for their future security_.”—American Declaration
of Independence.
Don’t be afraid.
“The State must from time to time readjust the relation of
government to liberty.... As the people of the State advance in
civilization, the domain of liberty must be widened.”—Professor John
W. Burgess, Head of Department of Political Science, Columbia
University.[323]
Don’t be afraid.
The time has come for the workers to use their _political_ liberty to
secure _industrial_ liberty—to “widen the domain of liberty,” to secure
a fair race, to secure equality of opportunity.
Equality? Yes,—equality of opportunity. Certainly. Why not?
“A race that is fair requires an equal start.... The state must aim
at perpetual renewal of the opportunities of life in every man and
class of men.”—Dr. John Bascom, Ex-President of the University of
Wisconsin.[324]
Don’t be afraid.
There will be no noise, no bloodshed; all will be orderly, legal and
sociable—unless the capitalists anarchistically refuse to obey the law.
In that case, of course, the roused, proud and powerful working class
will do _whatever is made necessary_ by the anarchistic capitalists.
BE IT REMEMBERED—DISTINCTLY:
THE ROUSED WORKING CLASS, ROUSED TO SELF-RESPECT, ROUSED TO CLEARNESS OF
VISION BY THE STUDY OF THE FACTS, ROUSED TO REALIZE THE WRONGS THRUST
INTO THE LIVES OF THE WORKERS PAST AND PRESENT, ROUSED TO SEE THEIR
RIGHTS AND REALIZE THEIR POWER AS A CLASS,—SUCH A WORKING CLASS WILL BE
A WHOLLY DIFFERENT CLASS FROM THE PRESENT MEEK, WEAK, CHEATED GRATEFUL
SLAVES.
Don’t be afraid.
We are weary of Antagonism.
We seek Mutualism.
The American Revolutionists said plainly in their Declaration that it is
a DUTY to reorganize society, under certain circumstances.
We recognize our duty.
We make no cheap and noisy boast of insulting defiance.
We see our goal—Peace and Freedom.
We shall build Peace and Freedom into the Structure of Society.
We scorn any wheedler who would betray us from the correct, direct path
to our goal.
We accept any challenge from those who would by force defeat us.
_Social reconstruction_—that is our plain duty.
Thus we of the working class must, to this extent, unify,—that is,
mutualize, socialize,—society.
The class aggression of the capitalist class would cease with the
disappearance of the capitalist class in the reconstructed society. And
the class resistance by the working class would cease with the
disappearance of the robbing of the workers in the reconstructed
society.
Thus would disappear the unsocial clashing of class interests—the class
struggle. And thus also would disappear the dominant motives for
“foreign” wars and “civil” wars.
Thus the working class could remove war—both from the shop and from the
battlefield.
Thus we would inaugurate peace simply by removing the cause of war.
_Is a political party of the working class necessary for this political
work of the working class?_
To accomplish the work of industrial reconstruction we must first secure
the political powers of government and thus secure the right, the legal
right, and legal power to do this work.
A POLITICAL PARTY IS SIMPLY A LEGITIMATED ORGANIZATION WITH WHICH TO
SEIZE AND USE SOVEREIGN POWER—TO BECOME AUTHORITY. (See page 280.)
The political power and privilege necessary to accomplish this
industrial reconstruction of society—this political power and
privilege—can be secured only by means of a political party; and that
party must, of course, be a party _wholly committed_ to this industrial
_reconstruction_ of society.[325]
Only a political party _of the working class_ can be SINCERELY committed
to this work of industrial reconstruction _for the working class_.
INDEED, NO POLITICAL PARTY STANDING FOR ANY FORM OF CAPITALISM WILL
PERMIT ITSELF TO BE SINCERELY COMMITTED TO THIS PROMPT, THOROUGH
INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION.
Therefore, banded together in a political party of the working class the
workers
must seize the political powers to make laws,
must seize the political powers to interpret laws,
must seize the political powers to enforce laws.
Then and then only shall we _be in position by legally possessing the
power_ to defend ourselves, our class.
Then and then only shall we be _in position_ to destroy the parasitic
class aggression, the class robbery, out of which grows the class
struggle—the civil war in the shop, and the war, the civil war, of the
toil-stained brothers of the working class on the battlefield.
Then, and then only, shall we be in best position to declare war against
war.
Then we shall cease forever to foolishly wet the earth with our blood
and tears and cease to be robbed in the shop and factory; and then we
shall claim our own, a greater life.
The only safety therefore for the working people in all lands is to
organize themselves into a political party, an international political
party, of the working class, _and patiently build their party big
enough_ for each national group of workers to seize the political powers
of government in their own country—always, everywhere, loudly declaring
war against war.
There is but one working class political party on all the earth. That
party sincerely proclaims: “Freedom for the working class! No more war!”
And loudly and patiently that party sounds an immortal call of
brotherhood to all the workers on all the blood-stained
earth:—“Workingmen of all countries, unite. You have nothing to lose but
your chains; you have a world to gain.”
That working-class party is the Socialist Party.
Already this working class party, loudly calling, “Freedom in the shop
and freedom from the battlefield”—already this party is beginning to
save the blood and tears and homes and joys of the working class.
Every working man and woman should learn—and teach the children to
recite at school—the following page of history, four historic events:
FIRST EVENT: In 1847 two men, geniuses, wrote a very small, but powerful
book.[326] The book was published in 1848. Kings, emperors, tsars and
presidents have turned pale when their common people began to understand
that small book. The first proposition in that astonishing book is: “The
[recorded] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of
class struggles.” That is a great fact. Pack it into your mind. That
sentence has opened wide the mental windows of millions of working
men—and women. The last sentence of that book of social lightning is
this:—“Workingmen of all countries, unite. You have nothing to lose but
your chains, you have a world to gain!” That is a sublime call. That
call has thrilled millions of weary working-class people. Every year it
thrills millions more. _Some day that call will enter your soul._ Then
you will know the meaning of this next event.
SECOND EVENT: In 1870 two distinguished crowned assassins sent hundreds
of thousands of working men to the boundary between France and Germany
to butcher and be butchered.[327] Even then—forty years ago—the
_shrewdest_ workers in Germany, France and other European countries
realized what war meant for the _working_ class. These men were banded
together in the International Working-Men’s Association. These keen,
studious toilers warned the working class against the war. In 1870 they
sent out this general announcement: “They (the members of the
International Working-Men’s Association) feel deeply convinced that
whatever turn the impending horrid war may take, the alliance of the
working classes of all countries will ultimately kill war.” The Paris
branch of the International issued an address saying: “French, German,
Spanish working men! Let our voices unite in a cry of reprobation
against war.... Working men of all countries! Whatever may be the result
of our common efforts, we members of the International Association of
Working-Men, who know no frontiers, we send you, as a pledge of
indissoluble solidarity, the good wishes and the salutation of the
workingmen of France.” The Berlin section of the International finely
responded: “We join with you heart and hand in protestation.... Solemnly
we promise you that neither the noise of drums nor the thunder of
cannon, neither victory nor defeat, shall turn us aside from our work
for the union of the workingmen of all countries.” German delegates at
Chemnitz, Saxony, representing fifty thousand workingmen also made noble
reply: “We are happy to grasp the fraternal hand stretched out to us by
the workingmen of France.... We shall never forget that the workingmen
of all countries are our friends, and the despots of all countries our
enemies.”
The grand old International has become the Socialist Party of our day.
The Socialist Party is indeed the political party of the working class.
In recent years election returns show in one country, the best educated
country in Europe, this political party of the working class, the
Socialist Party, with over three million four hundred thousand serious,
loyal workingmen banded together voting solidly together. Every year a
larger and larger number of them _take their seats in the world’s
leading legislatures_. In ten countries in Europe this party has from
one to eighty members of the working class in the national legislatures
in legal position to defend the working class. And right vigorously
these brave working-class comrades have defended the working class in
every possible way they could. With the increasing election victories of
this working-class party, the working class have increasing power to
defend themselves. And everywhere this party is down on war. The
influence of this party has already been effectively exerted against
war. The vast influence of this party against war is admitted by the
most bitter and powerful enemies of the working class.
THIRD EVENT: In 1905–6 the Norwegian and the Swedish armies (working
men, of course) were ordered to the front to butcher one another. They
were assembled at the national boundary. Tens of thousands of homes were
desolate. Fear was an agony in the hearts of a multitude of women and
children. Reporters were present from all parts of the world to flash
the news of the butchery around the earth. The capitalist coffin trust
was exceedingly glad, business was about to pick up. Gilt-braided
buccaneer commanders were about to shout: “Form! Fire! Charge!
Slaughter!”
“Everything was ready”—it seemed.
Then something happened—something sublime and new in the sad and “somber
march of mankind.”
No sword was drawn.
No cannon roared.
No Gatling gun mowed down thousands.
No wild cavalry charged.
No hospital became a hell of cursing, groaning, screaming, mangled men.
Yet “everything was ready”—ready to defend the sacred honor of “royal”
and “noble” coward parasites.
Everything was ready _except one thing_—the consent of the working
class.
The conscripted _Socialist_ soldiers in both armies and the _Socialists_
everywhere throughout both countries had _passed the sign of
working-class brotherhood_ all through _both armies_ and through _both
countries_: “We working class men are brothers. Let us not slit the
veins of our own class simply to satisfy the vicious pride of snobbish
masters. Let us save our own blood and tears.”
This international brothers’ cry was like a splendid flash of lightning
at midnight. Brothers saw brothers, working-class brothers, in the
night, the midnight of capitalism. The soul of the working class in both
these countries flashed response: “Brothers! Brothers! We understand!”
The human race seemed to smile. The Swedish and the Norwegian soldiers
mingled. These armed workers fraternized. Armed men embraced armed men.
They shouted and wept—for joy.
They sneered at the frowns of their commanders. Proudly and promptly
they refused to butcher and be butchered.[328]
That settled it. There was no war.
There can not be war unless the working class agree to it.
No working men were butchered, and the international misunderstanding
had to be settled without opening the blood vessels of the toilers. For
of course you know, reader, that the broadclothed capitalist snobs of
these countries were too cowardly to fight the war themselves.
And now there are many more happy homes, happy wives, happy mothers and
happy children in Norway and Sweden than there would have been if the
humble working people of these two countries had permitted a precious
lot of gilt-edged cowards to excite them and confuse them and then “sic”
them at one another’s throats.
FOURTH EVENT: Very recently, in 1906–7, the Socialist Party in Germany
and France prevented war between Germany and France over the “Morocco
affair.” This is admitted even by distinguished European enemies of the
Socialist Party. This threatened war might easily have cost five hundred
thousand lives—working-class lives—and five billions of treasure and
desolated hundreds of thousands of homes and darkened both countries
with an international hatred lasting half a century.
But the Socialists blocked the game.
Again and again in their International Congresses the Socialists have
protested against war and militarism as being, for the working class,
nothing but a burden and a curse.[329]
Political masters and industrial masters on all the earth—_these_
recognize the Socialist Party as the Working-Class Political Party.[330]
You, my brother, should also recognize the Socialist Party as your own
Working-Class Political Party.
Reread propositions numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, p. 300.
The outline of industrial reconstruction there given in the six
propositions is the outline of the constructive platform and program of
the working-class political party, the Socialist Party, everywhere.[331]
Because the Socialist Party recognizes and points out the clash of class
interests in the present class-labor system;
Because the Socialist Party proposes industrial freedom for the working
class;
Because the Socialist Party proposes the destruction of the class-labor
system called capitalism;
Because the Socialist Party proposes that every person who renders
useful social service shall have the value of his service—undiminished
by the modern legalized forms of filching, namely, rent, interest and
profits;
Because the Socialist Party proposes that the working class band
together and save themselves;
For such reasons the Socialist Party is the Political Party of the
Working Class.
The Socialists urge:
That no longer shall the workers whimper for the protecting wings of
that strange political bird, that large male angel, called a “good man”;
That no longer shall the workers childishly accept the treacherous
advice from political stalking horses, called “political reformers,” and
“political saviors”;
That no longer shall the workers rest in dull dependence upon the advice
of eager-to-be-elevated capitalist “leaders of the people”;
That no longer shall the workers go gullibly chasing after still-fed
“statesmen” on election day;
That no longer shall the workers in stupid expectation meekly linger at
the back door of legislative halls, teasing smooth, stall-fed capitalist
“statesmen” for labor legislation;
That the workers band together and emancipate themselves from war, from
the wholesale robbery, tyranny and blood-letting of Capitalism.
With heads and hearts and hopes together the working class should read
together, study together, reason together, band together, struggle
together, and altogether in a political party of the working class stand
together and vote together and capture the power of government for the
freedom and protection of the working class.
Let us respect our own working class.
Let us have faith in our own working class.
Let us protect ourselves.
“Let us get up off our knees—and our masters won’t seem so tall.”
Down with industrial despotism and its wars!
Up with industrial democracy and its peace!
* * * * *
(Before reading the following paragraphs examine last four Pages of
Chapter Six, paragraph headed: “A Special Warning to the Working Class
of the United States.”)
One more word here:
Brothers, beware!
With pride and defiance hold up your heads—and think.
Prepare to say: “WE REFUSE.”
Beware. Another war is brewing.
“Another war is necessary!”—your betrayers will presently tell you.
True! From the capitalist’s point of view another war will, indeed,
presently be necessary; another war becomes more and more imperatively
necessary—and for a new and increasing reason.
The much plundered working people are beginning to think. Thought is
revolutionary. A thought is a file, a keen saw, with which a soul may
escape from the gloomy dungeon of prejudice. Thought is intellectual
nitroglycerine for blasting the flinty mountains of prejudice. Thought
utterly destroys mental rubbish. Thought kills what ought to die.
Thinking slaves promptly become defiant and dare to do for freedom.
Thought kills—kills slavery.
Thought, however, can still be prevented. Even the splendid thought of
peace and freedom can still be strangled in a wild delirium called
“patriotic” war. Hence every purchasable educated human thing with
influence must play its prostitute part in resurrecting and perpetuating
the ferocious thirst for war.
For capitalist purposes another war is necessary.
Therefore strangle brotherliness.
Therefore stifle man’s grand sweet dream of peace.
A fat living of domineering idleness for industrial pirates and their
pampered pets and shameless hangers-on is not much longer possible,
unless the masters as usual can set the working people clutching at one
another’s throats, draining one another’s sweat and blood in a hateful
spasm of international epilepsy called “patriotic” war.
Therefore drug the working people.
Therefore read again to the weary multitude the goriest pages of
history, and declare to them that an act must be soaked in a brother’s
blood before it is magnificent. The people must lust again for another
savage storm of stupid wrath called war.
Therefore we see the war-flag of capitalism shrewdly waved before the
bulging, easily inflamed eyes of the multitude: “Good fighters—war”;
“young men not only willing, but anxious to fight—war”; “heroes,
heroes—war”; “glory, military glory—war”; “noble, noble soldiers—war”;
“ours the most improved arms in the world—war”; “greatest navy on
earth—war”; “splendid victories—war”; “better militia—larger army—war”;
“our national honor—war”; “we never surrender—war”; “America in the
Orient—war”; “we must defend our foreign markets—war”; “see the brave
boys behind the guns—war”; “send the fleets around the earth and dare
the world to war”; “we are all ready for war, war, war”;—over and over
this oratorical flag, this Christless vocabulary of blood-spilling
cruelty, on and on, year after year—till these disgusting phrases steam
in memory with the spurting blood of the long-mourned slain.
Another war is necessary.
Therefore fill the trenches with the carcasses of citizens and with
fixed bayonets march on—on—on to noisy glory, on to the red madness of
the brutal battlefield. This is the pagan text of literary and
oratorical hirelings before a nation of Christians and peaceful Jews;
this is the loveless refrain bellowed before blushing school girls; this
is the Alexandrian slogan before excitable, impressible boys; this is
the gore-stained banner to be gallantly flaunted on holidays before the
tear-wet eyes of the sad old widows and the hobbling cripples of the
Civil War; this is the race-cursing call to ninety millions of people
sick of stupidly disputing with sword and cannon, longing to embrace one
another in caressing fraternalism. Hideous echoes of the cruel voice of
Caesar, savage whoop from the tomb of Napoleon, the assassin of France,
barbarous yell from the war-cursed plains of the long, long
ago—this—yes, this is the sublime height reached by the average orthodox
teacher and preacher of patriotism.
And from all parts of this thinly veiled despotism of foxy, industrial
tsars, _comes enthusiastic approval of all such teaching_;—approval from
the profit-stuffed leeches whose pouting lips suck and tug at the veins
of the toiling multitude; approval from the supercilious snobs at Palm
Beach, Newport and Monte Carlo; approval from the editorial intellectual
prostitutes of a subsidized press; approval from the “leading citizens”
that roll contemptuously along carefully smoothed streets in
rubber-tired carriages and from those who sneer through the palace car
windows at the common “hired hands” who man the trains and keep the
track in repair; approval from the masters who own the mills and mines
and stick out their tongues in scorn at the hundreds of thousands out of
work or on strike for a few cents more a day; approval from the “great
business men” who search the earth for markets for goods produced by the
sweating wage-slaves shrewdly kept too poor to buy what their own weary
minds and their puffed and blistered hands create; and, saddest of all,
approval from the millions of shame-faced wage-earners viciously seduced
with ironically empty “prosperity” phrases, chloroformed with pompous
military rhetoric, stupefied with the proud strut and cheap swagger of
“prominent” and “cultivated” vulgarians—yes, approval also from these
modest modern slaves through whose veins seems to slip the inherited
taint of long, low-bowing servitude.
Another war is “necessary.”
Therefore from Mississippi to Minnesota and from Florida to Oregon there
is a wide-grinning chuckle of lip-smacking satisfaction in the palaces
and club-houses of America’s industrial masters when the easily deceived
multitude clap their calloused palms in thoughtless approval as the
bribed orator makes fierce visaged War stalk with hypnotic fascination
across the stage before the plain deludable people. The people’s delight
in arms is thus artfully deepened;—and thus and therefore both the walls
of prejudice and the defiant fortresses of glittering steel—behind which
the gorged masters of the multitude have for ages fattened and
threatened in security—these fortresses of prejudice and force are with
increasing diligence made stronger with every possible opportunity, made
stronger by every possible means.
Another war?
Expect it and prepare for it by resolving not to go to the next war till
the bankers and statesmen have been bleeding on the firing line for at
least six weeks.
Yes—yes, it is true that the employers’ fortress of riot-guns is still
strong, defiantly strong. No doubt the rent-interest-and-profit game,
the game of gouge and grab and keep, will be played securely yet a while
by the plunder-bloated masters of our great and glorious country.
Undoubtedly millions of our thoughtless young working class men are
still ready for plutocratic Senators and Congressmen and uncrowned
cruelty in the White House to craftily yell: “Sic ’em, boys, sic ’em.”
But light breaks.
Everywhere, every day the toilers of the world listen—listen more
respectfully, listen more intelligently, listen more gratefully to the
glad new gospel of justice and peace.
The change comes and come it must. That cruel spell wrought over the
mind of the multitude by the bribed orator, by the purchased writer, by
the blood-lusting “man on horseback,” and by the far-looking masters of
industry—that spell will be, must be, broken. The iron shackles on the
wrists and ankles of the toilers have already been broken. The
wage-slaves’ shackles also must be rended, not only the industrial, but
the mental slavery of the modern workers must be destroyed.
And comes now swiftly forward that soft-toned, but all-conquering gospel
of peace and freedom—freedom for the dumb, voiceless multitude, now
deadened with the deafening roar of machinery, deadened with the
stifling dust and withering heat of the mills, deadened with the
poisonous gases in the mines, freedom for the multitude soon to be glad,
happy, loving, laughing in the commonwealth of cooperation, of
mutualism, of fraternalism—of Socialism.
Courage, courage. Put the strong shoulders of your twelve million
ballots to the “stalled world’s wheel” and push. Strike. March.
Dawn-ward toward peace.
Know this, you toil-tormented horde: That shrewd juggler’s word war—word
with which the swinishly selfish masters have for ages seduced the
gullible multitude into the ditches across which those same masters have
then rolled on sneering, snickering and safe, that spell-working word
reeking with the blood-rotting stench of centuries, that word war and
all that that word war now stands for must be stricken from the language
of brothers, struck from the affairs of mankind,—forgotten
forever—forever replaced by the sweetening peace and the sane abiding
power of warless Socialism.
Brothers of the working class, wherever you are on all the earth, let us
all say, altogether:
Peace is patriotism to mankind.
_We do not want other people’s blood and we refuse to waste our own._
For thousands of years the ruling class have bled us pale. All cannon
have always been aimed at us—by us.
We did not see. Our eyes were blinded with our own blood; our minds were
paralyzed with lies.
But now we see. Now we understand. And therefore now we stand erect in
self-respect. Now in sincere fellowship we extend the right hand of
brotherhood to all the working men—and to all the women and to all the
children—of the whole world; and to all these we promise:
We will not fight.
We refuse to plunge bayonets into one another’s breasts.
We refuse to slay the fathers of tender children.
We refuse to murder the brothers and lovers of women.
We refuse to butcher the husbands of devoted wives.
We refuse to “Hurrah” over victories that break the heart and blind the
world with tears.
We refuse the cheap rôle of Armed Guard—as the salaried assassins in the
service of the plunder-bloated coward ruling class.
If the masters want blood let them cut their own throats.
-----
Footnote 301:
_Social Control_, pp. 376–79. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 302:
_General Sociology_, p. 233.
Footnote 303:
_Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., p. 582. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 304:
See _The Theory of the State_, Bk II., Chs. 17, 18.
Footnote 305:
_Introduction to Sociology_, pp. 132–36.
Footnote 306:
See Chapter Three, The Explanation.
Footnote 307:
“Classes differ in readiness to twist social control to their own
advantage.... In general, the more distinct, knit together, and
self-conscious the influential minority, the more likely is social
control to be colored with class selfishness.”—Professor E. A. Ross,
Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, _Social Control_, p.
86.
Footnote 308:
See Chapter Eleven for suggestions on the origin of large-scale
parasitic aggression; and on the origin and history of the working
class and of the class-labor form of society.
Footnote 309:
See _Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., pp. 581–97; _Psychic Factors in
Civilization_, Chapter 24.
Note carefully the quotation on methods of social parasites at the
head of the present chapter from Dr. Ross’s _Social Control_.
Professor Ross is generally recognized as one of the most profound and
brilliant writers on Sociology.
It is important to consider, too, that, as a Socialist, Dr. Franklin
H. Giddings, Head of Department of Sociology in Columbia University,
recognizes the capitalist class’s parasitic relation to society. Dr.
Giddings is recognized in all the universities of the world as having
few equals as a sociologist.
The social parasites of the world will never forgive the learned
Socialist, Dr. Thorstein Veblen, recently of the University of
Chicago, for writing his bold and astonishing book, _The Theory of the
Leisure Class_. The screaming mockeries and glittering pretensions of
the “princely-fortune” parasites of capitalism are mercilessly
explained by him.
It is noteworthy too that the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal
of Sociology, and Head of the Department of Sociology in the
University of Chicago, Dr. Albion W. Small, has for many years been
calling attention, in lectures, to the parasitic nature of _one_ of
the forms of capitalist income, thus: “There is no moral justification
for the taking of interest incomes.” In his _General Sociology_, pp.
268–69, Dr. Small says: “In the first place, capital produces nothing.
It earns nothing.” See also his suggestions on social parasites on
page 266, where he is clearly in considerable degree in agreement with
Dr. Ward.
Gustavus Myers’ _History of Great American Fortunes_ is here again
commended as an extraordinary record of remarkable social parasitism
in American history.
Footnote 310:
See _Twenty-Eight Years in Wall Street_, p. 388; by Henry Clews, a
very well known banker of Wall Street.
Footnote 311:
See Chapter Three, “Explanation”—Surplus.
Footnote 312:
Andrew Carnegie is a sample of a profit-stuffed tyrant whose parasitic
industrial income is tens of millions per year without rendering
industrial service, whose legally parasitic heirs, rendering no
industrial service, will, like leeches, suck up many millions per
year. The audacity of his hypocrisy is typical of his class. In recent
international peace congresses Carnegie has been steadily grinning and
chattering in the spot light. But study this man for a moment:
(1) In the Homestead industrial civil war, in 1892, Pinkertons
received $5 per day and expenses for murdering Carnegie steel workers.
(2) The Carnegie Company furnished the Russian Government steel armor
for warships at about one-half the price the same company
_patriotically_ charged Carnegie’s own dear, dear country.
(3) “Our records show that the companies governed by Mr. Carnegie
received more rebates [_in anarchistic defiance of his country’s
laws_] during the time when rebates were given by our road, than any
other shipper in any line of business.”—First Vice-President Green of
the Pennsylvania Railway Company. Quoted in the New York
_Independent_.
(4) This same crafty gentleman recently provided enormous old-age
pension funds for college and university professors. This will perhaps
tightly seal the lips of thousands of teachers on the raging civil war
in industry in which war Carnegie is already a blood-stained tzar.
Fearing to lose their old age pensions, teachers may find it easier
and more “respectable” to desert the working class in its struggle
against the capitalist class—Carnegie’s class. (See Index: “Hague
Peace Conference”; also Chapter Two, pages 24–25.)
Footnote 313:
“If, however, there occurs some general industrial disturbance of a
serious sort, such as a condition of over-production, ... it is likely
to turn out that these _vocational_ groupings will be weakened or even
destroyed. In their place the _economic classes_ will enter the
_political_ arena, and carry on the conflict with great energy.... It
may be that the standard of life of an industrial class may be so
seriously threatened that this class struggle will reach the extreme
of absolute hostility.”—Professor Albion W. Small, Head of Department
of Sociology, University of Chicago: _General Sociology_, p. 264.
Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 314:
Reread first page of Preface.
Footnote 315:
William E. Gladstone.
Footnote 316:
“... Non-resistance would be fatal.... If ever war is done away, it
will be when the spirit of aggression, not of protection, shall have
been quenched.”—Lester F. Ward: _Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., p. 684.
Footnote 317:
See Chapter Seven, Section 12.
Footnote 318:
William Howard Taft: _Present-Day Problems_, pp. 162–63:—
“... It is also true that had the Elkins bill never been passed, the
same acts could and doubtless would have been prosecuted ... under the
Interstate Commerce Act of 1889 which the Elkins law supplanted....
Under the 1889 amendment, however, the individuals convicted could
have been sent to the penitentiary, whereas under the Elkins Act the
punishment by imprisonment was taken away.... The chief effect of the
Elkins law had on these particular prosecutions ... was ... to save
the guilty individual perpetrators from imprisonment.
“It was well understood that the Elkins bill was passed without
opposition by, and with the full consent of, the railroads, and the
chief reason was the elimination of the penitentiary penalty for
unjust discriminations.... The imprisonment of two or three prominent
officers of a railway company, or a trust ... would have greater
deterrent effect for the future than millions in a fine.”
Theodore Roosevelt knows a good deal about the capitalist class. He
wrote on pages 5, 6, 9, 10 of his book, _American Ideals_, as follows:
“The people that do harm in the end are not the wrong-doer whom _all_
execrate.... The career of Benedict Arnold has done us no harm as a
nation.... The foes of order harm quite as much by example as by what
they actually accomplish. So it is with the _equally dangerous
criminals of the wealthy classes_. The conscienceless stock speculator
who acquires wealth by swindling his fellows, by debauching judges,
and corrupting legislatures, and who ends his days with the reputation
of being among the richest men in America, exerts over the minds of
the rising generation an influence _worse than that of the average
murderer or bandit_, because his career is even more dazzling in its
success, and even more dangerous in its effects upon the community.
Any one who reads the essays of Charles Francis Adams and Henry Adams,
entitled _A Chapter of Erie_, and the _Gold Conspiracy in New York_,
will read about the doings of men whose influence for evil upon the
community is more potent than that of any band of anarchists or train
robbers.... Too much cannot be said against men who sacrifice
everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble
character than the mere money getting American, insensible to every
duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a
fortune ... whether ... to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads
himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive
idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high
social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. _Such a man is
only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like
founding a college or endowing a church_ which makes those good
people, who are also foolish, forget his real iniquity.” Italics mine.
G. R. K.
Footnote 319:
Theodore Roosevelt: in a speech at the State Fair, Minneapolis,
Minnesota, September 3, 1901.
Footnote 320:
“If the public economy of a people be an organism, we must expect to
find that the perturbations, which affect it, present some analogies
to the diseases of the body physical. We may, therefore, hope to learn
much that may be of use in practice, from the tried methods of
medicine.” Roscher: _Political Economy_, Vol. I., pp. 85–86.
Footnote 321:
It must be added for the sake of clearness (and fairness):
(1) That _some_ members of the capitalist class detest the capitalist
system; that these regret their unsocial relation to the social body;
and that while they are living under the capitalist system they are in
somewhat the same difficulty that a democrat is in Russia. One can
_believe_ in democracy in Russia, but he can not _practice_ democracy
under the autocratic form of Russian government. So under Capitalism:
one may believe in industrial democracy, but he cannot practice it
under an industrial despotism.
(2) That some members of present society belong partly to the
capitalist class and partly to the working class.
(_The Theory of the Leisure Class_, a brilliant book by Dr. Thorstein
Veblen, helpful in understanding social parasites, is urged upon the
reader’s attention. Also W. J. Ghent’s _Mass and Class_.)
Footnote 322:
“The government which has the right to do an act and has imposed upon
it the duty of performing the act, must, according to the dictates of
reason, be permitted to select the means.”—Supreme Court of the United
States, March 7, 1819. See Supreme Court Reports, Vol. 17, pp. 409,
430.
Footnote 323:
_Political Science and Constitutional Law_, Vol. I., p. 87.
Footnote 324:
_Sociology_, pp. 45, 47.
Footnote 325:
“It is the peculiarity of the social struggle that it must be
conducted by a collective whole ... EVERY SOCIETY [OR CLASS] MUST
SECURE SOME SUITABLE ORGAN FOR CONDUCTING THE SOCIAL STRUGGLE.
“Thus the ruling classes, through their parliaments, exercise the
legislative power and are able, by legal institutions, to further
their interests at the cost of others.... Thus the rulers
themselves forge the weapons with which the ruled and powerless
classes successfully attack them and complete the natural
process.”—Gumplowitz: _Outlines of Sociology_, pp. 145–146.
Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 326:
_The Communist Manifesto._
Footnote 327:
Reread Chapter Seven, Section 4.
Footnote 328:
Fearing that the powerful suggestion might reach and rouse the
slumbering working class the _capitalist_ press of the world kept
silent as an oyster on the behavior of the clear-visioned soldiers of
Norway and Sweden. Only the _working_-class press properly reported
the sublime event. (See Challenge, page 206 et seq.)
Footnote 329:
For an excellent and convenient discussion of the Socialist Party’s
opposition to war and militarism, see Werner Sombart’s _Socialism and
the Socialist Movement_, pp. 193–211; Morris Hillquit’s _Socialism in
Theory and Practice_, pp. 296–302.
Footnote 330:
“It is no easy task to detect and follow the tiny paths of progress
which the unencumbered proletarian with nothing but his life and
capacity for labor is pointing out for us. These paths lead to a type
of government founded upon peace and fellowship as contrasted with
restraint and defence.... From the nature of the case, he who would
walk these paths must walk with the poor and oppressed, and can only
approach them through affection and understanding. The ideals of
militarism would forever shut him out from this new fellowship.”—Miss
Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago: _Newer Ideals of Peace_, p. 30.
Footnote 331:
The class who despise you so thoroughly that they would be willing to
have you murdered on the battlefield—_would these hesitate to tell you
a lie?_ Certainly not. And they have lied to you about “different
kinds of Socialism,” “Socialists don’t seem to know what they want,”
etc., etc. But secretly the capitalists are worrying because they know
that the Socialists of all the world _do_ know what they want and also
know how to organize the necessary power to get what they want.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
A Short Lesson in the History of the Working Class.
(A very careful distinction should always be made between those who
abuse and those who nobly use great offices and powers.)
“We have repeatedly pointed out that every social institution weaves
a protecting integument of glossy idealization about itself like a
colony of caterpillars in an apple-tree. For instance, wherever
militarism rules, war is idealized by monuments and paintings,
poetry and song. The stench of the hospitals and the maggots of the
battlefield are passed in silence, and the imagination of the people
is filled with waving plumes and the shout of charging
columns.”—Professor Walter Rauschenbusch, Rochester Theological
Seminary.[332]
KNOWLEDGE OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORKING CLASS, WHICH INCLUDES THE
HISTORY OF WAR, WILL CEMENT THE WORKERS INSEPARABLY TOGETHER—SOCIALLY,
INDUSTRIALLY AND POLITICALLY, AND WILL THUS MANY TIMES MULTIPLY THEIR
POWER FOR SELF-DEFENSE.
When the working class understand the history of the working class, a
bronze monument erected in honor of a great general will look to the
workers like a vote of thanks to the Superintendent of Hell, and an
ornamental cannon in a public park will look like a viper on a banquet
table spread for a feast of brothers.
In the public schools of the world the history of the working class is
almost wholly neglected. No text-book gives the facts, and no teacher is
permitted to tell the truth—clearly—about the martyrdom of labor since
the dawn of class-form, “civilized” society. The union labor men and
women of the world could with great advantage to the working class
devote a few thousand dollars for the expense of a five-hundred-page
book summarizing: The History of Labor—The Tragedy of Toil.
(At this point please reread first two pages of the preface of the
present volume.)
The following pages are offered as suggestions for a half-hour lesson
chiefly on the origin of the working class. It is suggested to the
working class reader that he teach this lesson to the children of his
family and of his neighborhood.
Now, no living thing can be understood without a study of its history,
and the study of the history of a living thing requires special
attention to the origin of the thing studied. The working class are a
living reality, and in order to understand themselves the working class
must study their class history—with the very special attention to their
origin as a class.
Long, long ago—thousands of years ago—our ancestors lived in tribes.
These tribes grew, expanded till finally the pressure of population
forced the tribes to enlarge their territories; and thus the tribes
trespassed—aggressed upon one another’s territory.
This caused wars—intertribal wars.
This was the origin of war.
This led to the opening of hell—for the workers.
After a while a working class arose—and began to fall into hell. Here is
the way it came about:
For a long time in these intertribal wars it was the practice to take no
prisoners (except the younger women), but to kill, kill, kill, because
the conquerors had no use for the captive men. When, however, society
had developed industrially to a stage enabling the victors to make use
of live men as work animals, _that new industrial condition produced a
new idea_—one of the greatest and most revolutionary ideas that ever
flashed in the human brain; and that idea was simply this:—A live man is
worth more than a dead one, if you can make use of him _as a work
animal_. When industrially it became practicable for the conquerors to
make use of live men captured in war, it rapidly became the custom to
take prisoners, save them alive, beat them into submission—tame them—and
thus have them for work animals, human work animals.
Here the human ox, yoked to the burdens of the world, started through
the centuries, centuries sad with tears and red with blood and fire.
Thus originated a class of workers, the _working class_.
Thus also originated the _ruling_ class. Thus originated the “leading
citizens.”
Thus, originally, in war, the workers fell into the bottomless gulf of
misery. It was thus that war opened wide the devouring jaws of hell for
the workers.
Thus was human society long ago divided into industrial classes,—into
_two_ industrial classes.
Of course the interests of these two classes were in fundamental
conflict, and thus originated the class struggle.
Of course the ruling class were in complete possession and control of
all the powers of government—and of course they had _sense enough to use
the powers of government to defend their own class interests_.
Of course the ruling class made all the laws and controlled all
institutions in the interest of the ruling class—naturally.
Of course the ruling class socially despised the slaves—that is,
despised the working class; this “upper” class felt contempt for the
“lower” class—naturally; and thus originated the social degradation, the
social stigma that still sticks to the working class, so clearly clings
to the workers that, for example, the banker’s daughter does not marry
the wage-earning carpenter; the mine-owner’s son does not marry the
wage-earning house-maid; the rank and file of union labor are not
welcome in the palatial parlors and ball-rooms where the “very best
people” are sipping the best champagne and are rhythmically hugging
themselves in the dance; the servants, both white and black, in a
high-grade (high class, “upper” class) hotel are not even permitted to
take a drink of water at the guests’ water fountain tho’ the guest-list
may include scores of blasé old reprobates, scores of polygamous
parasites, scores of the most infamous, dollar-lusting, law-breaking
disreputables in the world. The working class are indeed even yet openly
or secretly despised socially by their “betters.”
It was thus and there and then that, long ago, _in war_, originated the
first class-labor form of society, the institution called slavery.[333]
A class of despised human work animals and a class of domineering
masters thus appeared; and these two classes developed, this METHOD OF
PRODUCTION developed, to such vast proportions that this CLASS-labor
system became the FUNDAMENTAL THING IN THE INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE OF
SOCIETY. It was in this manner that, long ago, one part of society
climbed upon the shoulders of the other part of society and became
parasites, social parasites, and as a class sunk their parasitic beaks
into the industrial flesh of those who had become a working class.
(Reread carefully the three quotations at the head of Chapter Ten. They
are specially important.)
Of course the industrial blood of the workers tasted good to the
masters—that is to say, the more work the slaves did the less work the
masters had to do,—and that was lovely, for the masters, for the
“leading citizens.” The “leading citizens” knew they had a bright
idea—just like a “leading citizen’s” idea of course. The new idea became
popular, extremely so—of course. The “leading citizens” were _so_
pleased—with themselves and their “brainy” idea. They were “superior”
people—their idea proved that, of course. At that point in human history
a ruling class began to flatter themselves and talk in a loud and
handsome manner about “the _best_ people,” “the _right to ride inferior
people_,” “the progressive, enterprising part of society,” and so forth.
The “leading citizens” knew very well that they had a “good thing”—for
the “leading citizens,” for the upper class who thus became _so very
pleasantly located as an upper class_—that is, upon the industrial
shoulders of the “lower class,” the working class. (Note carefully the
quotation from Dr. Ward at Head of Chapter Ten.)
Very naturally the ruling class at once busied themselves _promoting and
protecting_ their new class-work plan, their new idea. The idea was
_their_ idea and it was such a splendid idea. Indeed slavery was such a
perfectly delightful idea—for the rulers—that, being “gentlemen of push
and enterprise,” they _eagerly studied the problem of developing ways
and means of extending their new advantage_. They thought. They
planned—to manage the new human mule.
Their first idea was—force.
Kick the mule—and rule.
An institution, an _armed_ guard, was, therefore, promptly organized for
holding down the slaves, the “lower class,” by force,—to hold the
toilers, as it were, by the wrists. But an armed guard was expensive,
and it was expensive simply because _one_ armed guard could not hold
_many_ slaves to their tasks—by force. Now, the ancient slave-holding
ruling class, like the modern capitalist ruling class, were, of course,
eager to “reduce expenses and increase efficiency.” Thus the rulers had
another idea, a big bright idea. Mark well the masters.
Their second idea was—fraud.
Fool the mule—and rule.
The brilliant idea of using _fraud_ in ruling slaves, that is, in ruling
the working class, was simply this: to have an _unarmed_ guard _teach_
the human horse to “stand hitched,” as it were, or, rather, to work like
a trained horse without requiring an armed driver to whip him, to force
him to his tasks. This unarmed guard was to hold the workers to their
tasks by getting a grip on their minds, on their brains, rather than on
their wrists.
This was more “refined.”
This was also much cheaper. _This method has always been cheaper._ It is
cheaper for this reason: One _unarmed_ deceiver acting as a guard by
holding the mind, the _brain_, of the workers, can hold to their tasks
_hundreds of times as many_ as one _armed_ guard can hold by force. This
was a most happy idea—for the ruling class.
A new era opened.
The ruler smiled at the deceiver. The deceiver smiled at the ruler. They
understood—each other, and agreed upon “_the best interests of
society_.”
Precisely so.[334]
Here originated the vile rôle of the intellectual prostitute, the cheap
part of the chloroformer of the working class, the contemptible business
of the professional palaverer. Here, right at this point in human
history, the perfumed intellectual prostitute joined the blood-stained
soldier,—in the ruler’s service of _holding down the robbed and ruined
working class_. The palaverer taught the toil-cursed workers to be
obedient and grateful and humble and meek and lowly and contented, to
“forget it” that they have poverty here and keep in mind that “it will
be all right over there”—“up above” (over in behind beyond the stars)
where they will be “richly rewarded, in the sweet bye and bye, for all
their sufferings in this world”; taught them that they should not be
“resentful,” but “in patience bear all sufferings,”—bear even the agony
of having their daughters raped by rulers, and their sons run through
with spears.
Thus the toiler was kept in his “proper place” (at work) by the soldier
and the palaverer, compelling and cajoling the domesticated human work
animal.
They held him fast.
One seized his wrists, the other seized his reason; one used force, the
other used fraud; one used a lash, the other used a lure; one used a
club, the other used chloroform; one frowned threateningly, the other
smiled seductively. With curses and cunning these two have taught the
toiler LAW AND ORDER—THE LAW AND THE ORDER MADE BY THE MASTERS FOR THE
MASTERS.
Both guards were “necessary”—in the business of robbing the working
class. Both have served the ruling class long and well. Through the long
sad centuries these three, the ruler and his two “standbys,” the soldier
and the palaverer, have ridden the human beast of burden, the working
class. The mailed fist of the hired assassin and the soft voice of the
bribed palaverer have held the worker utterly helpless while the ruler
robbed him.
Both guards have been rewarded—with provender and flattery, with pelf
and popularity. The whipper and the wheedler of the toiler, the slayer
and the seducer of the working class, have been the specially petted
patriots whose ignoble rôle has been to help defend the class-labor
system.
The workers have been kicked and tricked for ten thousand years, but
chiefly tricked, _betrayed into helpless consent and stupid approval_.
The more fraud the less force.
_Undoubtedly far more important than the physical conquest over the
working class was the conquest over the mind of the working class.
Undoubtedly the idea of teaching the slave to be a slave and to be
satisfied with slavery and thus make the slave, the serf, the
wage-earner, an_ AUTOMATIC _human ox to bear and draw the burdens of the
world in brainless obedience and dull humility—undoubtedly that idea has
done more solid service in the successes of injustice than any other
idea ever born in the brain of tyrants_.
The ruling class have always carefully secured the services of many of
the world’s ablest men to play Judas to the carpenters—to the working
class. Profound men, gifted men, trained men, eloquent men, enjoying the
world’s choicest food, blissfully happy with the world’s finest wine,
living in homes of comfort and splendor, dressed in softest raiment,
many of these have traduced the slave, the serf and the wage-earner
without shame. Tho’ the splendid Christ said: “The _truth_ shall make
_you free_,” these Judases have taught the working class that learning
is a useless or an evil thing for the _working_ people;[335] that the
toilers’ poverty is the will of God, that unrewarded toil in this world
would reap a “_specially_ rich reward beyond the grave.” These paid and
powerful human things, palavering about the “dignity of honest toil,”
palavering about the “joy of the hope of good things beyond” (always
_beyond_)—these themselves have been practical and careful to take
cash-down-good-things for their collect-on-delivery services, careful to
take a rich and prompt reward _here_ and _now_ in _this_ world, while at
the very same time they were advising and urging the slave, the serf,
and the wage-earner to accept unsigned cheques payable in heaven.
Always this for the worker: “_Your_ turn will come _next_”—that is, in
the next world.
Following this vanishing lure, hundreds of millions of toilers have, as
it were, walked barefoot on broken glass and lain down in their beds of
misery _mentally paralyzed on the subject of justice_. Hundreds of
millions of toilers have not only accepted these teachings; but, saddest
of all, have been tricked into teaching these same things to their
children.
Thus it was that almost the entire working class were tamed and trained
for many centuries into spineless meekness, into the docility of
humility—helpless—policed by prejudice and fear founded on _shrewdly
perpetuated ignorance_.
“Slaves, obey your masters,” has been taught in a thousand ways for ten
thousand years by the stuffed prophets for the profit-stuffed rulers of
the robbed and ruined workers of the world.
This perhaps will make it somewhat easier to understand the _present
intellectual condition of the working class_. It thus becomes easier to
understand why the workers were taught (and are taught now) to be
“satisfied with their lot,” taught the “identity and harmony of
interests of capital and labor.” This explains the meekness of the
multitude, the docility of the majority, and their _political modesty_.
Sheepish meekness, self-contempt and prideless obedience long ago took
the place of defiant and splendid rebellious self-respect—in the
_character_ and the _thinking_ of the working class.
In every possible way the shackles have been riveted to the wrists and
brains of the working class—what for?—_in order to perpetuate the
class-labor system_. Under slavery, under serfdom and under capitalism,
laws, constitutions, customs, religious teachings, secular teachings,
and all the social institutions have been _shrewdly conformed or
adjusted to_ THE PREVAILING METHOD OF PRODUCTION for the PROTECTION of
that method of production _in order thus to_ SUPPORT THE CLASS _who, in
the struggle for existence, have had_ GROSSLY UNFAIR ADVANTAGE BY MEANS
OF THAT METHOD OF PRODUCTION.[336]
Ferocious _wrongs_ were studiously developed into vast _institutions_.
For example, man-stealing and slave-breeding became the chief business
of the mightiest of the ancient pagan societies, the Roman Empire, and
was also a flourishing enterprise under the most highly developed modern
Christian societies, the British Empire and the American Republic.
Christian Queen Anne, of England, unrebuked by her “spiritual adviser,”
was a pious stockholder in a slave-hunting corporation composed of
prominent and pious Christian ladies and gentlemen.[337] The Christian
churches, colleges, newspapers, of the United States not long ago, North
and South, were almost unanimous in their eloquent and pious defense of
human slavery.[338] The business was eminently respectable, the business
of legally (and piously) sucking the industrial blood out of one’s
fellowmen—living like a parasite,—the business of producing nothing and
living upon the results of the worker’s labor-power.
Thus keep in mind:[339]
(1) The origin of the working class,
(2) The origin of the first class-labor system,
(3) The origin of the class struggle,
(4) The origin of the social degradation, the socially “down-and-out”
condition, the loss of social standing—of the working class people,
(5) The origin and growth of the humility of the working class, of the
sheepish meekness of the working class, the meekness which today shows
itself in the politics of most working men—always suspecting and
despising their own working-class political party, always in our day
tagging along after some smooth, well-dressed crook candidates on
capitalist class party tickets.
(6) The perpetuation of ignorance—in the working class.
(7) The origin of the intellectual prostitute, the moral emasculate.
Now, help your satisfied fellow worker, help _him_ understand _why he is
satisfied_.
Without malice, without anti-culture prejudice, without anti-religious
hatred, without anti-church spite, but _with knowledge of the
naturalness of human behavior domineered by economic necessity_, with
knowledge of the great _historical process_, with your vision clear,
your heart kind, your courage high, and your purpose fraternal—explain,
explain this matter of meekness to your humble, contented wage-slave
neighbor. Explain: That long ago the working man was forced and taught
to be docile and meek. Under slavery, later under serfdom and still
later under capitalism—for thousands of years—he industrially, socially,
and politically _surrendered_. He was compelled to do so. He was taught
to do so.
He got the habit.
He had the manhood and the courage beaten out of him, kicked out of
him—and coaxed out of him.
He lost heart.
He humbly took his place—as a chattel-slave class, as a serf-slave
class, as a wage-slave class.
He has produced wealth.
He has reproduced slaves.
_The wings of his aspiration have been clipped._ He can hope no higher
than a job—for himself. He hopes no higher than a job—for his children.
The top of the plans of his life is—toil.
And therefore even now as a wage-slave he teaches his own children to
“respect their betters”—their employer masters.
He forgets.
He is so cringingly grateful for a job that he forgets he should have
not only the right to breathe the air, the right to look at the sun, the
right to read in the library, the right to walk on the highway, and the
right to sit in the park,—but also the _right to work_, _the right to
work unrobbed_, _the right to work under dignifying conditions_, and
thus maintain himself on this earth at the _upmost levels of life_,
enjoying the full result of his applied labor power,—and _without
whining for permission to do so_.
He forgets.
He is still so very humble.
He is, under the wage-system, forced to obey orders all his life in the
factory, the shop and the mine. He is thus habitually so obedient that
he will obey any order. He prides himself on his obedience. Under orders
he will even plunge a bayonet into the breast of his fellow workers—in
the interest of the capitalist class. He forgets the thousand wrongs
thrust into his weary life and into the life of his class.
He does indeed forget.
He is still in a dull, dumb slumber.
But he is _beginning to rouse_ from the slumber of meekness—from the
social damnation of brainless obedience.
_He is beginning to study the history of his own working class; and
therefore he is rousing, waking, rising._
Following are some additional short paragraphs on the history of the
working class from books by distinguished writers and teachers. It is
hoped that these quoted paragraphs will induce further working class
study of working class history. These passages confirm the main points
of this lesson. (See Chapter Twelve, Suggestion 4.)
Professor Lester F. Ward (Brown University):[340]
“Still, the world has never reached a stage where the physical and
temporal interests have not been largely in the ascendant, and it is
these upon which the economists have established their science.
_Self-preservation has always been the first law of nature_ and that
which best insures this is the greatest gain.... _All considerations
of pride or self-respect will give way to the imperious law of the
greatest gain for the least effort._ All notions of justice which
would prompt the giving of an equivalent _vanish_ before it....”
Thus wrote Sir Henry Maine:[341]
“The simple wish to use the bodily powers of another person, as a
means of ministering to one’s own ease or pleasure, is doubtless the
foundation of slavery.”
And thus Professor W. G. Sumner (Yale University):[342]
“The desire to get ease or other good by the labor of another and
the incidental gratification to vanity seem to be the fundamental
principles of slavery, when philosophically regarded, after the rule
of one man over others has become established.... It appears that
slavery began historically with the war captive, if he or she was
not put to death, as he was liable to be by the laws of war.... It
seems to be established that it [slavery] began where the economic
system was such that there was gain in making a slave of a war
captive, instead of killing him.... The defeated [in war] were
forced to it [slavery] and _learned to submit to it_.... It seemed
to be good fun, as well as wise policy, to make the members of a
rival out-group do these tasks, after defeating them in war....
Inasmuch as slavery springs from greed and vanity, it appeals to
primary motives and is at once entwined with selfishness and other
fundamental vices.... _It rises to an interest which overrules
everything else_.... The motive of slavery is base and cruel from
the beginning.... The _interests_ normally control life.... Slavery
is an instinct which is sure to break over all restraints and
correctives.... It is a kind of _pitfall for civilization_.”
Here are a few lines from Professors Ely and Wicker (University of
Wisconsin, Department of Economics):[343]
“It follows from the need of larger territories [in the hunting
stage] that war becomes an economic necessity wherever there is not
an abundance of unoccupied land. This same condition of things gives
us one of the causes of cannibalism. The pressure of increasing
numbers bringing people continually to the verge of starvation, they
fall, little by little, into the custom of eating enemies, taken in
war.... Captives later came to be recognized as of use in serving
their captors, and thus slavery succeeds cannibalism....
“The Origin of a Working Class. Perhaps the most important result of
the change which produced the agricultural stage was the growth of
slavery as an institution. As we have said, slavery had its
beginnings in the preceding periods [hunting and pastoral], but it
is only in the agricultural stage that it becomes an important,
almost a fundamental, economic institution. Tending the herds did
not call for persistent labor, but the prose of tilling the soil is
undisguised work, and primitive men were not fond of work.... It is
not strange then that they should have saved the lives of men
conquered in battle with the design of putting upon them the tasks
of tilling the soil.”
On the origin of slavery the eminent French sociologist, Gabriel Tarde,
writes:[344]
“What do all our modern inventions amount to in comparison with this
capital invention of domestication. This was the first decisive
victory over animality. Now, of all historic events the greatest and
most surprising is, unquestionably, the one which alone made history
possible, the triumph of man over surrounding fauna [animals of the
region].... To us the trained horse that is docile under the bit is
merely a certain muscular force under our control.... The idea of
reducing men to slavery, instead of killing and eating them, must
have arisen after the idea of training animals instead of feeding on
them, for the same reason that war against wild beasts must have
preceded that against alien tribes. When man enslaved and
domesticated his own kind, he substituted the idea of human beasts
of burden for that of human prey.”
And this from Wallis:[345]
“But whatever its merits, the consideration of slavery introduces a
much larger subject—the place of class relations in social
development as a whole. In its material aspect, property in men is
an institution by means of which one class of people appropriates
the labor product of another class without economic repayment. _This
relation is brought about [also] by other institutions than
slavery._ For instance, if a class engross the land of a country and
force the remainder of the population to pay rent, either in kind or
in money, for the use of the soil, such a procedure issues, like
slavery, in the absorption of labor products by an upper class
without economic repayment.
“We have observed the origin of the social cleavage into upper and
lower strata on this general basis at the inception of social
development. If we scrutinize the field carefully, it is evident
that one of the greatest and far reaching facts of ancient
civilization, as it emerges from the darkness of prehistoric times,
as well as one of the most considerable facts of subsequent history
is just _this cleavage into two principal classes_.”
Herbert Spencer has written:[346]
“The sequence of slavery upon war in ancient times is shown us in
the chronicle of all races....
“Ready obedience to a terrestrial ruler is naturally accompanied by
ready obedience to a supposed celestial ruler; ... Examination
discloses a relation between ecclesiastical and political
governments ... and in societies which have developed a highly
coercive secular rule there habitually exists a high coercive
religious rule....
“The Clergy were not the men who urged the abolition of slavery, nor
the men who condemned regulations which raised the price of bread to
maintain rents. Ministers of religion do not _as a body_ denounce
the unjust aggression we continually commit on weaker societies.”
Dr. Ward writes:[347]
“Passing over robbery and theft, which, though prevalent everywhere,
are not recognized by society, let us consider war for a moment as a
non-industrial mode of acquisition. In modern times, most wars have
some pretext besides that of aggrandizing the victorious parties
engaged in them, although in nearly all cases this latter is the
real casus belli [justification of war]. This shows that the world
is so far advanced as to be ashamed of its motives for its conduct,
but not enough so to affect that conduct materially. In olden times
no secret was made of the object of military expeditions as the
acquisition of the wealth of the conquered people.... We may regard
war, then, strictly considered, as a mode of acquisition.... War,
then, when waged for conquest, is simply robbery on so large a scale
that in the crude conceptions of men it arouses the sentiments of
honor.”
In Dealy and Ward’s _Text Book of Sociology_, pp. 86–88, is this
luminous passage:
“The stage of race antagonism is reached and the era of war begins.
The chase for animal food is converted into a chase for human flesh,
and anthropophagous [cannibal] races arise, spreading terror in all
directions.... The use of the bodies of the weaker races for food
was, of course, the simplest form of exploitation to suggest itself.
But this stage was succeeded by that social assimilation through
conquest and subjugation. The profound inequality produced by
subjugation was turned to account through other forms of
exploitation. The women and the warriors were enslaved, and the
system of caste that arose converted the conquered race into a
virtually servile class, while this service and the exemptions it
entailed converted the leaders of the conquering race into a leisure
class.
“Such was the origin of slavery, an economic institution which is
found in the earlier stages of all the historical races.”
The next selected paragraph is from Professor Simon Patten (University
of Pennsylvania), Ex-President of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science:[348]
“The human hordes turned upon each other, and their prowlings about
the precarious supplies of food evolved in the course of time the
‘wars of civilization.’ There was little peace where nature was most
productive, and the conquering populations of the better lands,
governing and protecting by conquest, built up whole states on the
traditions and practice of fighting.... _Statesmen and philosophers
set forth the necessity and beneficence of destruction. It was in
such a world, where a man’s death was his neighbor’s gain, that_ OUR
_social institutions were grounded_.... Predatory habits, which
originated in the hunting of game, developed a zest for hunting men
as soon as conquests and the possession of slaves made the
agricultural resources of the valleys more desirable than those of
the mountain or upland plain.... The contests evolved social
institutions, which do perpetuate and conserve, and which do not
improve, man’s adjustment to nature. Here arises the distinction
between the _social_ institutions ... and the _economic_
institutions.... The former establish status and the rights of
possession and exploitation; the other increase nobility of men and
goods, promote industry, and give each generation renewed power to
establish itself in closer relations with nature.
“The result of these conditions is two kinds of obstacles that
hinder advance. On the one hand are the obstacles economic,
maladjustments between man and _nature_, which forced men in the
past to submit to a poverty they did not know how to escape; and on
the other hand are the obstacles _social_ which do not originate in
nature, but in those _past [social] conditions retaining present
potency_ that have aligned men into antagonistic classes at home and
into hostile races abroad. The _economic_ obstacles are being slowly
weakened by the application of knowledge, science and skill; but the
_social_ obstacles will never be overcome until an intellectual
revolution shall have freed men’s minds from the stultifying social
traditions that hand down hatreds, and shall have given to thought
the freedom that now makes industrial activity. _The extension of
civilization downward does not depend at present so much upon
gaining fresh victories over nature, as it does upon the
demolishment of social obstacles which divide men into classes and
prevent the universal democracy that unimpeded economic forces would
bring about._ The _social_ status, properly determined by a man’s
working capacity, has now _intervened between him and his relations
with nature_ until OPPORTUNITY, which should be impersonal and
self-renewed at the birth of a man, has dwindled and become
partisan.”[349]
Thus Professor Patten, tho’ a conservative and a nonsocialist, frankly
points out the necessity of such social reorganization as will destroy
the _artificial_ barriers to equality of opportunity for each to secure
an abundance. And it is certainly true, as Dr. Patten suggests, that we
have arrived at that stage in our knowledge of nature and in our
industrial evolution, which renders industrial reconstruction of society
logically necessary—both to avoid war and to secure industrial justice
and freedom for the working class.
Anent this matter one of America’s noblest and most scholarly women,
Miss Jane Addams, writes as follows:[350]
“Existing commerce has long ago reached its international stage, but
it has been the result of business aggression, and constantly
appeals for military defense and for the forcing of new markets....
It has logically lent itself to warfare, and is indeed the modern
representative of conquest. As its prototype rested upon slavery and
vassalage, so this commerce is founded upon a contempt for the
worker, and believes that he can live on low wages. It assumes that
his legitimate wants are the animal ones, comprising merely food and
shelter and the cost of its replacement.”
Frederic Harrison thus:[351]
“Within our social system there rages the struggle of classes,
interests, and ambitions; the passion for wealth, the restlessness
of want. The future of industry, the cause of education, social
justice, the very life of the poor, all tremble in the balance in
our own country, as in other countries; this way or that way will
decide the well-being of generations to come.”
The wars of long ago originated because it was extremely _difficult_ to
get a living out of nature’s store-house of supplies—when men were
ignorant of nature’s resources and ignorant of how to make nature yield
abundantly. Those wars were due chiefly to ignorance of physical nature,
due to our _inability to get into right relations_ WITH PHYSICAL NATURE.
But the wars of the present are carried on, and the wars of the future
will be carried on, chiefly because of the following _combination_ of
circumstances:
(a) We have so much knowledge of nature’s forces and resources that it
is easy, now, to get livings from nature’s store-house, easy to produce
abundantly; and
(b) Under the _wage_-system the worker’s power to produce abundantly is
so much greater than his permitted consuming power that the surplus
product becomes so large as to make a foreign market, a world-market,
necessary; and,
(c) Since many nations have reached and more nations are rapidly
approaching this stage of development in production, yet still remain
under the wage-and-profit plan of distribution, THE WORLD MARKET IS
INSUFFICIENT FOR ALL OF THEM.
Hence there will be wars, if the working class permit them.
The future wars will be due chiefly to ignorance of social nature, due
to our _inability to get into right relations_ WITH ONE ANOTHER
_industrially_.
War produced slavery, chattel slavery. Chattel slavery evolved into
serf-slavery. Serf-slavery evolved into wage-slavery. And wage-slaves
produce so much and are permitted to consume so small a proportion of
what they produce, that the capitalists must order the wage-slaves to
fight for a foreign market for what the wage-slaves produce and the
capitalist employers do not consume or invest and the wage-slaves are
not permitted to consume. War thus originated slavery and now slavery
[wage-slavery] ends in war.
_War, conflict, struggle, Antagonism is in the social structure wherever
there is slavery._
Slavery is fundamentally unsocial—anti-social.
Now, the capitalist employer insists that the wage-earner and the
employer are in _proper_ relation to each other. The capitalist is
satisfied to have had the first two class-labor forms of society
(slavery and serfdom) pass away. But he accepts the _present_
class-labor form of society (the wage-system) as _correct_; it is
satisfactory—to him. And he craftily has it taught in the high schools,
colleges and universities that the employer and the wage-earner are at
present in proper relation to each other.
The capitalist enjoys his own freedom _at the expense of the worker’s
freedom_.
He is eager to have the wage-earner _believe_ that he too is free; and
that, being free, he should be satisfied AND KEEP QUIET.
The capitalists explain that the wage-earners are free because the
wage-earners have the _privilege of making a contract_, a contract to
_work for wages_; that the wage-earners being thus at last free to make
a contract, they have reached their final status, an ideal status; and
that thus (Blessed be the Lord!) _evolution has finally finished its
great work_—the work is done and _well_ done.
_Capitalists and the intellectual flunkies of the capitalist class do
all possible to have the world believe the following proposition_:
THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RELATIONS IS FINISHED—PERFECT—IN INDUSTRY; AND,
THEREFORE, THE WAGE-EARNERS ARE FOOLISH AND UNGRATEFUL TO BE
DISCONTENTED, AFTER HAVING DEVELOPED TO THEIR PRESENT STAGE OF
INDUSTRIAL FREEDOM.
Following is a sample of the familiar soothing congratulation on our
having reached the present noble form of industrial freedom and
civilization. Professor Fairbanks (Yale University) writes thus:[352]
“When captives taken in war could be utilized for work instead of
being destroyed or eaten, a genuine means of production was
secured.... Feudalism marked a decided advance on slavery.... The
serf had certain interests of his own, not wholly identical with his
lord’s.... Then masters gradually learned that hired labor [the
wage-system] was more profitable than forced labor, and the
principle of serfdom, like that of slavery before it, had to give
way to a higher form of organization for production [the
wage-system]....
“The laborer [at present under the wage-system] is bound to his
master by no tie except such as he voluntarily assumes.”
How frankly profits are admitted to have been the motive inspiring the
origin of the wage-system.
And how entertainingly ridiculous is the last proposition quoted above.
What cheap palavering about freedom. What clownish antics pleasing to
the kings—the industrial kings. It certainly pleases the industrial
Caesars to have the Professor turn intellectual somersaults to induce
the wage-slave to smile sweetly and admire the slave-bands on his own
wrists. Are not those bands plainly marked “_Free_”?
Notice that Professor Fairbanks uses the words “master” and “bound”
in referring to the relation between the employer and the
“free-contracting” wage-earner.
A _free_ man does not _voluntarily_ BIND himself to a _master_.
With the lash of hunger cutting him and the wolf of want at the throats
of his wife and children, the “free-contracting” hired laborer, the
wage-earner, promptly and voluntarily seeks an employer—“master,” and
“voluntarily” “contracts” to produce a dollar’s worth of value for
twenty or forty cents in wages and thus “voluntarily” degrades himself
and thus “voluntarily” submits to have his wife and little children
robbed of the abundant livings he wishes to provide for them. This is
the freedom, the free contract, of the wage-system, the present (the
third) form of _class_-labor system. This _glorious_ freedom of the
modern wage-slave is _easily_ seen in the picture _opposite the
title-page of this book_.
The “freedom” of the wage-earner in thus making a contract, with
starvation behind him, vagrancy laws reaching for him, police, militia,
soldiers, jails and bull-pens ready for him, this freedom is about as
complete as that of a citizen facing an armed and threatening highwayman
who commands, “Hands up!” The wage earner and the held-up citizen are
free to comply, free to surrender and free to be robbed, and _also_ free
to decline _and take the consequences_—all “voluntarily” of course.
NO ONE IS FREE INDEED TILL HE IS FREE IN THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL ACTIVITY
OF LIFE, THE ACTIVITY OF GETTING A LIVING.
In the evolution of mankind the worker has, in some parts of the world,
secured:
Freedom to investigate,
Freedom of thought,
Freedom of assemblage,
Freedom of speech,
Freedom of the press,
Freedom of suffrage—for male workers,
Freedom of political party organization and association.
This indicates the stage at which we have arrived in the development of
freedom for the working class. These _preliminary_ forms of freedom are
_the means with which, if we have pride enough, we shall secure freedom
indeed—freedom in getting a living_, freedom from capitalist employers
who, with soldiers and the lash of starvation, force us into wage
contracts, freedom from the blue-blood social parasites who despise our
common blood in social relations, suck our blood in industrial
relations, and waste our blood in war.[353]
In the evolution of mankind the ancient free barbarian, taken prisoner
in war, loudly and grandly protesting, became a chattel slave without
any kind of freedom; the chattel slave became a serf without industrial
freedom or any other kind in reality and completeness; the serf became a
wage-earner, a wage-slave, without industrial freedom—that is, without
the _fundamental_ freedom, freedom in getting a living. However, in very
recent times the wage-earner has come into the possession of several of
those extremely _important forms of freedom with which he can defend
himself_ as soon as he has sufficient self-respect to do so.
Thus and therefore the QUESTION OF OUR DAY is this:
ARE THE WORKING CLASS PROUD AND KEEN ENOUGH TO USE THE FREEDOM THEY
HAVE, TO SECURE THE FREEDOM THEY NEED MOST—NAMELY, FREEDOM IN INDUSTRY,
FREEDOM IN GETTING A LIVING IN A SOCIALIZED SOCIETY, A SOCIETY WITH
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL, ALL OF US WITH OUR FEET FIRMLY PLANTED
ON THE COLLECTIVELY OWNED INDUSTRIAL FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY, A SOCIETY
OF RATIONAL MUTUALISM, WITH JUSTICE, PLENTY AND PEACE?
Reader, if you are with us in our peaceful struggle to win the world for
the workers, start a fire—in your neighbor’s mind (if he has one)—hand
him a torch, a torch of truth. Let us shake hands and fight—the
enemy—with light.
With the truth we shall halt the galloping cavalry, silence the cannon,
“ground arms,” and close the class struggle—in a co-operative
commonwealth.
With a dollar’s worth of literature you can reach a hundred brains.
It is your move.
-----
Footnote 332:
_Christianity and the Social Crisis_, p. 350.
Footnote 333:
It is true that even before this time woman occupied a servile
position and virtually constituted an industrial class. See August
Bebel’s _Woman—Past, Present and Future_.
Footnote 334:
Professor E. A. Ross (Department of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin) gently hints thus (_Social Control_, p. 86):
“Under the ascendency of the rich and leisured, property becomes more
sacred than persons, moral standards vary with the pecuniary status,
and it is felt that ‘God will think twice before He damns a person of
quality.’”
Footnote 335:
Even great literatures, regarded as divinely inspired and boasted to
be The Truth, have been kept from the _free_ access of the people—the
“plain people,” too plain to _understand_ the literature said to have
_life_ in it. Such literature has been hidden from the people for many
hundreds of years—or “rightly divided” and diluted.
Footnote 336:
The inauguration of human slavery was a profound change in human
relations—the greatest possible “change in circumstances”—down at the
very foundations of society. Vast _fundamental_ changes
resulted—inevitably—in changed, and even _new_, institutions.
“Institutions must change with changing circumstances, since they are
of the nature of an habitual method of responding to stimuli which
these changing circumstances afford.... The institutions are, in
substance, prevalent habits of thought with respect to particular
relations and particular functions of the individual and of the
community....”—Thorstein Veblen: _The Theory of the Leisure Class_, p.
190. See quotation from Dr. Small at the head of Chapter Ten. Also
consult Ross’s _Social Control_.
Footnote 337:
See Thomas’s _History of the United States_, p. 68.
Footnote 338:
See Hyndman: _The Economics of Socialism_, Lecture 1, Methods of
Production.
Footnote 339:
And get these things into the minds of the children. If the teacher at
your nearest school does not know these things, have the children
teach the teacher.
Footnote 340:
_Pure Sociology_, p. 61. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 341:
_Ancient Law_, p. 164.
Footnote 342:
_Folkways_, pp. 262–3 and 307. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 343:
_Elementary Economics_, pp. 27–33.
Footnote 344:
_Laws of Imitation_, Parson’s translation, pp. 277–79.
Footnote 345:
_American Journal of Sociology_, May, 1902, pp. 764–65. Italics mine.
G. R. K.
Footnote 346:
_Principles of Sociology_, Vol. III., pp. 84, 92, 148, 448; Appleton’s
Edition, 1899. See also Lester F. Ward: _Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I.,
pp. 287–90. (Italics mine. G. R. K.)
Footnote 347:
_Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., pp. 583–85.
Footnote 348:
_The New Basis of Civilization_, pp. 67, 69. Italics mine. G. R. K.
Footnote 349:
See discussion of parasites in Chapter Ten.
Footnote 350:
_Newer Ideals of Peace_, pp. 115–16.
Footnote 351:
_National and Social Problems_, p. 255.
Footnote 352:
_Introduction to Sociology_, pp. 136–39.
Footnote 353:
For a powerful argument showing the intellectual equality of the
working class and the ruling class see Professor Lester F. Ward’s
_Applied Sociology_. The political foolishness of the working class is
not due to lack of brains, but to lack of books—books that tell the
truth, the truth that clears the vision and rouses the passion for
freedom and points the way.—Suggestions, next chapter.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
More Suggestions and What to Read.
(1) Invite your pastor to preach against war, urge him to do so, and
render him any assistance you can in the way of literature on war. Help
get out an audience to hear the sermon. Urge others to do likewise.
(2) Inform your own children and other children concerning the class
struggle and war, and urge them to talk about the class struggle and
against war, at school. Teach them the cause of war. See also Chapter
Eight, Section 20, and Index, “Recitations.” _Rouse the children._
(3) Wherever possible—in colleges, high schools, labor unions, fraternal
organizations, women’s clubs, churches, Sunday schools, at picnics, and
so forth—have debates, declamations and essays on war. Help the
debaters, writers and speakers, find literature on war, and, if
possible, get the subject presented from a working-class point of view,
showing especially the fundamental cause of war and what war always
means for the working class. (See page 350, _last two lines_.)
(4) Have as many persons as possible call at your public library for
books on war, and suggest books on war to be called for. Suggest books
for purchase by your public library management. If the books you urge
for the library are not purchased, _discuss_ the reason. All the
sociological works quoted in Chapter Eleven should be in your public
library.
(5) Get articles and letters on war into your local newspapers and labor
union journals.
(6) On the 30th of May, the 4th of July and other “great” days, when the
blood-steaming praise of human butchery is poured forth by the noisy
“patriotic” orators, pass around all possible literature helpful in
counteracting the befouling suggestions commonly thrust into the minds
of the people at such times. Chapter Two and other selections from
_War—What For?_ making an inexpensive sixteen-page booklet, may be had,
printed separately, for such purpose.
It is possible to compel an entire community to think about the vast
outrages against the working class. As long as the workers have the
privilege of spreading the printed page, one of their highest pleasures
and powers will be found in _forcing society to consider the case of the
working class_. The first thing on the program in every community is to
take the community by the shoulders, so to speak, and _compel it to
consider the most vital subject of the hour_.
(7) A Ten-Dollar Cash Prize for the best essay or debate, or declamation
on _war as a phase of the class struggle_ by local school-children under
eighteen years of age would create much interest in the vicious
slaughter of men of the working class and in the new working class
politics, if the proper literature were brought to the young people’s
attention. See Chapter Eight, Section 20, Suggestion (7).
(8) It would be easy to make here a pretentious parade of a
discouragingly long list of books on war. But _War—What For?_ is
primarily for the class of readers who are usually too busy in the
present warlike struggle for existence to find time to read a roomful of
books on war. However, it is hoped that the present volume may also have
readers with opportunity to make extensive studies of the subject. Such
readers will find abundant bibliographies already prepared. Excellent
book lists for the student of war are as follows:
(a) _The Political Science Quarterly_, December, 1900: over 200 titles,
at the close of an elaborate article of great worth, “War and Economics
in History and in Theory,” by Edward Van Dyke Robinson.
(b) A pamphlet, _International Peace, a list of Books with References to
Periodicals_: 600 titles with comment on contents, published by the
Brooklyn Public Library, 1908.
(c) A well selected list of readings in _The Arena_, December, 1894.
Following is a list of pamphlets, magazine articles and books, directly
or indirectly on the subject of social conflict, of which war is a
phase. The list is short, tho’ sufficient, it is hoped, to make a
helpful beginning, a short reading course, for any one who would
understand the subject of social conflicts, that is, would understand,
not the science of war, but the cause, the meaning and results of class
struggles and war.
There is a vast amount of worthless, or worse than worthless, literature
on war: worthless because of the writers’ neglect of the heart of the
problem, namely, the _industrial structure_ of all class-labor forms of
society, with their _unsocial purpose and method of production_,
resulting in the class struggle.
Whoever would understand war must give special attention: (1) to the
_economic interpretation of history_; (2) to the _class struggle_,
considered historically and currently; and (3) to _surplus value_,
produced by the workers, but legally escaping from their control to the
capitalist class—as a result of the institution of private ownership and
private control of the collectively used means of production. The fact,
the method, the purpose, and the result of the _legal confiscation_ of
that part of the world’s wealth which the workers produce and are not
permitted to enjoy—must have careful study. In the light of such
studies, national and international policies, politics and war can be
understood. And as war is thus understood we can make rapid headway
against war. Pretty little speeches and essays on the beauties of peace,
with “please-be-good” perorations,—such efforts, however carefully
prepared, tearfully punctuated, elegantly printed and prayerfully
delivered, will result in—nothing. That is to say, occasional literary
and oratorical snowballs ignorantly, gracefully and grammatically tossed
in the direction of hell will have no effect on the general temperature
of that warlike region. (See Index: “Another War,” “The Hague Peace
Conference,” and “The Explanation.”)
A Reading Course.
In the following list of readings those indicated by parenthesis thus ()
would serve as a shorter course.
(1) Kautsky: _The Capitalist Class_; _The Working Class_; _The Class
Struggle_; _Ethics and the Materialistic Conception of History_; and
_The Road to Power_, Chapters 8 and 9.
(2) Simons: _The Man Under the Machine_, and _Class Struggles in
America_.
(3) Marx: _Wage-Labor and Capital_; Marx and Engels: _The Communist
Manifesto_.
(4) Massart and Vandervelde: _Parasitism—Social and Organic_.
(5) Myers: _History of Great American Fortunes_, entire work is an
account of social parasitism in America; special references: Vol.
II., pp. 127–38, 291–301; Chapters 11 and 12; Vol. III., pp.
160–176.
(6) Veblen: _The Theory of the Leisure Class_.
(7) Ross: _Social Control; The Foundations of Sociology_, pp.
219–23, 272–76; _Social Psychology_, Chapters on Suggestibility, The
Crowd, and Mob Mind.
(8) L. F. Ward: _Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., pp. 565–597; _Psychic
Factors in Civilization_, Chapters 33 and 38; _Applied Sociology_,
pp. 224–295, 300–302, 307–313, 319–326; _Pure Sociology_, pp.
266–72; “Social Classes in the Light of Modern Sociological Theory,”
_American Journal of Sociology_, March, 1908; _Education and
Progress_, Address delivered before the “Plebs” League, Oxford,
England, August 2, 1909.
9 W. G. Sumner: _Folkways_, Chapter 6.
(10) Morgan: _Ancient Society_, pp. V.-VIII.; Pt. I. Chs. 1–3; and
all of Pt. IV.
(11) J. O. Ward: _Ancient Lowly_, Chapter—“Spartacus.”
12 Shoaf: _The Story of the Mollie McGuires_.
13 Hanford: _The Labor War in Colorado_.
14 ——: “Secret Army Guards New York Against a Traffic Strike,” New
York _Herald_, Mag. Section, March 20, 1910.
(15) Debs: _Class Conflict in Colorado_.
(16) Wright, U. S. Commissioner of Labor: _A Government Report on
the Great Strike in Colorado_.
17 Darrow: _Speech to the Jury in the Haywood Case_.
(18) Untermann: _The Dick Militia Law_ (U. S., 1903).
19 Commons: “Is Class Conflict in America Growing and Is It
Inevitable?” * * * Carver: “The Basis of Social Conflict”; * * *
Keasby: “Competition.” _American Journal of Sociology_, March, 1908.
See also Papers and Proceedings of the American Sociological
Society, Vol. II., Special Topic: “Social Conflicts.”
20 Small: _General Sociology_, Chapters 26 and 27.
(21) Shaler: “The Natural History of War,” _International
Quarterly_, Sept., 1903; also _The Neighbor_.
22 Ridpath: “Plutocracy and War,” _Arena_, Jan., 1898.
(23) Jordan: “The Biology of War,” an Address, Chicago, 1909,
reported in _Unity_, June 10, 1909; _Imperial Democracy_, Chapters
1, 2, 3, and 7; _The Human Harvest_; _The Blood of the Nation_.
24 Chatterton-Hill: _Heredity and Selection in Sociology_, pp.
316–24. Thompson: _Heredity_, pp. 532–34.
(25) Jefferson: “The Peace-at-any-Price Men,” _The Independent_,
Feb. 4, 1909; “The Delusions of the Militarist,” _Atlantic Monthly_,
March, 1909.
(26) Charles Edward Russell: _Why I Am a Socialist_.
27 Tolstoi: _Bethink Yourselves; Patriotism and Christianity_, and
_Thou Shalt Not Kill_.
(28) Robinson: “War and Economics in History and in Theory,”
_Political Science Quarterly_, Dec., 1900.
(29) Ghent: _Mass and Class_.
(30) London: _The War of the Classes_; _Revolution_, Chapter, “The
Yellow Peril”; also, “Revolution,” _Contemporary Review_, Jan.,
1908.
(31) W. T. Mills: _The Struggle for Existence_, Chapters 4–23.
(32) Hillquit: _Socialism in Theory and Practice_, pp. 36–65,
153–167, 296–302.
(33) Spargo: _Socialism_, Chapters 4, 5, 6, and _Common Sense of
Socialism_, Chapters 2–7.
(34) Ferri: _Socialism and Modern Science_, Chapter 7.
35 Seligman: _The Economic Interpretation of History_.
36 Boudin: _The Theoretical System of Karl Marx_, Chapters 1–5,
8–10.
37 Patten: “The Economic Causes of Moral Progress,” _Annals of Amer.
Soc. Pol. and Soc. Sci._, Sept., 1892.
(38) Engels: _The Origin of the Family, Property and the State_,
special attention to Chapters 8, 9; and _Socialism—Utopian and
Scientific_.
(39) Hobson: _The Evolution of Modern Capitalism_; _Imperialism_,
special attention to first six chapters; _The Psychology of
Jingoism_; _The War in South Africa_, Part II.; and _John
Ruskin—Social Reformer_, Chapters 3–8 inclusive, and Appendix 1.
40 Ferrero: _Militarism_.
41 Liebknecht: _Militarismus und Anti-Militarismus_.
42 Büchner: _Industrial Evolution_ (Wickett’s translation), Chapters
4–5.
(43) Robinson and Beard: _The Development of Modern Europe_, Vol.
II., Chapters 18, 30–31.
(44) Weale: _The Coming Struggle in Asia_, special attention to
Parts II. and III.
45 ——: “Peace on Earth,” _Public Opinion_, Dec. 4, 1908, p. 635.
46 Schierbrand: _America, Asia and the Pacific_.
47 Harrison: _National and Social Problems_, Part I., Chapters 1,
6–11.
(48) Strong: _Expansion_, Chapters 2, 3, 4.
49 Bolce: _The New Internationalism_, Chapters 1–6 inclusive, and
15.
50 Fisk: _International Commercial Policies_, Chapters 13–16.
51 Reinsch: _World Politics_.
52 Asakawa: _The Russo-Japanese Conflict_.
53 Kennan: “The Military and Political Memoirs of General
Kuropatkin,” _McClure’s Magazine_, Sept. 1908.
54 Smith: _The Spirit of American Government_, Chapters 4, 11, 12.
55 McCabe and Darien: _Can We Disarm?_
56 Carver: _Sociology and Social Progress_, pp. 132–73.
57 Jaurès: “Socialism and International Arbitration,” _North
American Review_, Aug. 1908.
58 Broda: “The Federation of the World,” _The International_, July,
1908.
(59) Hervé: “Anti-Militarism,” _The International_, July, 1908;
_Anti-Patriotism_; _My Country—Right or Wrong_.
60 Edmondson: _John Bull’s Army from Within_.
61 Mead: _Patriotism and the New Internationalism_.
62 Kampffmeyer: _Changes in the Theory and Tactics of the (German)
Social Democracy_ (Gaylord’s Translation), Chapter 3.
(63) Sombart: _Socialism and the Socialist Movement_ (Epstein’s
Translation), Sixth Enlarged Edition, pp. 175–223.
(64) Stoddard: _The New Socialism_, Chapters 14, 15.
(65) Campbell: _Christianity and the Social Order_, pp. 176–230.
66 Warner: _The Ethics of Force_.
67 Wallace: _The Wonderful Century_, Chapters 19, 20.
68 (Anonymous:) _Arbeiter in Council_.
(69) Walsh: _The Moral Damage of War_.
70 McLaren: _Put Up Thy Sword_.
(71) Bloch: _The Future of War_.
72 Molinari: _The Society of Tomorrow_.
73 Brooks: _The Social Unrest_, Chapter 6.
(74) Kim: _Mind and Hand_, Chapters 2, 17, 21, 22, 24.
(75) Seidel: _Industrial Instruction_.
(76) Eastman: _Work-Accidents and the Law_; Oliver: _Dangerous
Trades_.
77 Addams: _The Newer Ideals of Peace_.
78 Anitchkow: _War and Labor_.
79 Cooley: _Human Nature and the Social Order_, Chapters 1, 3, 4, 7,
12.
80 Lloyd: _Man the Social Creator_, Chapters 1, 6, 11.
81 Kropotkin: _Mutual Aid_.
82 Bellamy: _Equality_, Chapters 22–27 and first half of 33.
83 Henry George: _Progress and Poverty_, Book 10, Chapter 3.
84 Amos: _Political and Legal Remedies for War_, Chapters 1, 2.
85 Charles Sumner: _Addresses on War_.
86 Fiske: _The Destiny of Man_.
87 Kelly: _Government and Human Evolution_, Vol. II.
(88) Barry: _Siege of Port Arthur—A Monster Heroism_.
(89) Sakurai: _Human Bullets_.
(90) Von Suttner: _Lay Down Your Arms_.
(91) Andreief: _The Red Laugh_.
(92) Zola: _The Downfall_.
(93) Wells: _The War in the Air_.
94 Channing: _Lectures on War_.
(95) Hugo: _Les Misérables_—the Battle of Waterloo; also _William
Shakespeare_, Anderson’s translation, pp. 294–312, 341–48, 384–95.
96 Sienkiewicz: _With Fire and Sword_.
(97) Crosby: _Captain Jinks—Hero_, and _Swords and Ploughshares_.
98 Mr. Dooley: _In Peace and War_.
99 Kipling: _Barrack-Room Ballads_—“Tommy.”
100 Mrs. Browning: _Mother and Poet_.
The various “peace societies” have published considerable literature on
war and peace—in most cases with good intentions, no doubt. However,
there could be no peace between a chattel slave and a chattel slave’s
master; nor can there be peace between a wage-slave and a wage-slave’s
employer—if the wage-slave be awake; nor between the wage-slave class
and the capitalist class. Until “peace societies” cry out against
capitalism,—the heart of which is the wage-system,—until then their
literature will be discouragingly ineffective.
Reread first page of Chapter Nine, paragraph beginning “The cash cost of
militarism.”
The one war sublime is: Light against Darkness.
The printing press is the machine-gun for the slaves against slavery.
It is a high privilege to make a human brain ferment—with facts.
THE END.
INDEX.
Abuse of Soldiers, 191–199, 219–223
Advertisements for Soldiers, 108, 199–201, 293
Aggression and Robbery, Social, 273–337
Airships, Dirigible, 90
“All War, Civil War,” 264
“American Brigadier, The,” Church Militarism, 230 et seq.
American Civil War, 139
American Civil War, Cash Cost of, 55–58
American Revolutionists, Resistance by Force, 292
American Revolutionary War, Betrayal of Working-Class Soldiers in,
117–118
Anarchists, Capitalists as, 295–296, 303
Andreief, Leonid,—“The Red Laugh”, 18–19, 83
Another War, 30–43, 97, 154–158, 207, 217, 265, 284, 287, 289–290,
312–316, 333–334,
Antagonism in Present Social Structure, 273–337
Antagonism—Mutualism—in the Social Structure, 281 et seq.
Antagonism—Second Possible Plan of Social Organization, 282
Antagonism, Social, Basis of, 282
Anti-patriotism of George Washington, 217–218
Arbitration, 202–206, 308–309
Arbitration, “Nothing to Arbitrate,” 166–167
Aristocrats, Roman, Avoiding Infantry, 22
Armed Guard, Rapidly Increasing, Necessity of, New Danger, 42, 164–174
“Arm Everybody or Nobody,” 175
Arms, Defective, Provided Union Soldiers, 139
Arms, Modern, Improved, 77–97
Arms, Rapid Improvement of, 26
Arms, Right to Bear, 175
Army, Composed of Working-Class, General Army Staff Quoted, 10
“Army, the Poor Man’s University,” 176
Bankruptcy, 64–73
Barry, Richard, 82–83, 88
Battles in Industry Compared With Battle in War, 164
Bayonet, a Stinger, 12
Births Prevented by Life in Military Service, 48
Block, J., 49, 56, 75, 80, 85, 89, 109
Blood Cost of War, in General, 47–54;
in Manchuria, 145
Blood Lust, Fostering of, in Children, 213 et seq.
Boer War, 32, 67, 93, 181 et seq.
Bond Leech, International, 146–148
“Boys in Blue,” The, 118 et seq.
“Boy Scout” Movement, The, 228–233
British Government, Its Betrayal of Soldiers in Napoleonic Wars and in
the Boer War, 110–118
Brutality of Soldiers, 180 et seq.
Bryan, W. J., 21
In Cuban War, 178–179
Sons of, 157
Bullets, Dumdum, 204–205
Business and Government in Impending War, 156–157
“Business Is Business,” 244–272
Caesar’s Victories, 105
Capitalism, 30–46, 283 et seq.
Capitalism, Destruction of, 291 et seq.
Capitalism, Peace Impossible Under, 286–289
“Capital Produces Nothing,” 284–285
Canned Beef for Soldiers, 137–144
Cannibals, “Civilized,” 144–148
Carlyle, Thomas, on the “Brave Boys,” 189–190
Carnegie, Andrew, 289
Carnegie Steel Company, Patriotism of, 289
Cause of War, Chap. Three, Six, Ten, Eleven
Challenge to Hague Peace Society, 206 et seq.
Chattel Slave, Protection of, 97–99
Chattel Slavery, 282 et seq.
Children, 207–243, 338–339
Chinese Export Trade, 156–157
Christ, 21, 52, 144 et seq., 184, 226–278, 244, 259–260
Characterization of, 260–261
Christian Governments in the Rôle of Procurers, 220–223
“Christianized” War, 52
Church, The, and War, 244–272
Defense of Chattel Slavery, Serfdom and Capitalism, 256 et seq.
Training Children for Strikes and War, 228–232
“Civil War, All War Is,” 264
Civil War, American, 54–58, 100–101, 118–124
Civil War—in Industry, 37–46, 168–174
Origin and Perpetuation of, 318–37
See also Chapter Ten
Classes—Industrial, 274 et seq.
Classes—Industrial, Property as Basis of, Professors Bluntschli and
Fairbanks, 275–276
Classes, Social—What Creates, 286
See Civil War in Industry.
Class Interests—Clash of, 29–46, 273–337
Class War, Raging Around Unsocialized Industrial Property, 167 et seq.
See Civil War in Industry.
Clergy and War, The, 228–234, 244–272
Clews, Henry, 121–124, 285
Commander-in-Chief, Insult From, 10
“Come On! or Go Ahead!”, 107
Commerce Develops into Militarism, 29–46, 137–158
Competition and War, 40
Laborers Relieved of, by War, 188
Conciliation, See Arbitration.
Conscription, in Caesar’s Time, 22, 77, 152
For Napoleon’s Armies, 104–05
Conservatives, Liberals, 173–174
Constabulary, The State, 148–153, 170–175
Corruption of Soldier Youths, Taft, Dickinson, Jordan, Col. Van
Rensselaer, General Sherman and others, 219–227
Cossack, The American, See Constabulary.
Cost of War, in Blood 100 years following 1789, total, 50
Cost in Cash, of War, 54 et seq.
In Manchuria, 145
Cost of War in Cash, 54–76
Credit Mobilier, 124–137
Crosby, Ernest, 237
“Cross, Cannon, and Cash Register,” 244–272
Cruelty of Soldiers, 180 et seq.
Cuban War, 32, 94, 137–144
Cyclone of Dynamite, etc., on Battlefield, 89–90
Debts, War, 47, 54–76
Decadence, Physical, 45–54, 92–106
Declamations for Children, 237 et seq.
Declaration of Independence, American, 302
Democracy, Increasing, 70, 167–168, 273–316, 335–337
Deserters, System for Catching, 7, 77, 153, 193, 199
Despotism, Foundation, and Historical Forms, of, 282 et seq.
Also Chapter Eleven.
“Dick” Militia Law, The, 161, 170 et seq.
Disappointment of Young Soldiers, 194 et seq.
Disarmament, 206 et seq.
Disease in War, 48, 92–97, 220–223
“Dreadnoughts,” 60–65
Dumdum Bullets, 204–205
Economic Determinism—Applications and Illustrations of, Chapters Six,
Nine, Ten, Eleven
Education and Militarism, 24–25, 59–76
$8,000,000,000, 69–74
Elkins Law, 295–296
Employer Class, Interest of, Josiah Strong, 100
Enlistment, 77–86, 97, 102–103, 107–109
Expansion of Capitalism, 34
Exemptions, Substitutes, 160–161, 228–230
“Explain!”, 293–294
Explosives, Modern, 77–92
Father and the Boys, 159 et seq.
Ferrero, G., on Roosevelt Type of Greatness, 180, 187
On War as a Promoter of Civilization, 185
“Fighting Parsons”, 244–273
Firing Line, the Industrial, 164
Fiske, John, on Evolution of Social Man, 183
Fittest, Survival of, in War, 47–54, 188–91
Force, Resistance By, 291–293
“Foreigners”, 257–264
Foundation of Democracy, 281 et seq.
Foundations of Society, Privately Owned, 39;
See Chapter Ten
Foreign Markets, 30–46, 155–157, 254–255, 333–334
Four Great Events, 306 et seq.
Franchise, Right of, in America, 117–118
Franco-Prussian War, 26, 93, 160–163, 210
Freedom, Evolution of, 334–337
Foundation of, 273–316
“Freeing Cuba”, 137–144
French Wars of the Revolution, 49
Functions, Social—Organization Necessary for, 281
Future Wars, See “Another War.”
Garrison, William Lloyd, on Patriotism, 216
“Governments Destroy Nations”, 70
Government’s, the Federal, Sneer at the Poverty of the Working Class,
108–109
Government, Use of, in Defense of Interests, by Washington and Others,
217–219;
Discussion and Suggestion of, Frequent.
Habit, Force of in Working Class, 326 et seq.
Hague Peace Conference, 201–205, 214, 289–290
Hale, Edward Everett, Rebukes Teachers of Blood Lust, 214
Harvard University, “Fashionable Cavalry”, 23
Hearst (Newspapers), 32
Hearst, Mr., Patriotic, 178
Hell, 77–106
Heroes, 180–184
_History of Great American Fortunes_, Gustavus Myers, 137, 139
Humanizing War, 203–204
Illinois Central Railway Company, Lands Secured by, 135–136
Impending War, See “Another War.”
Income-Tax and Patriotism, 107
Industrial Function—Society Always Organized Primarily with Reference
to, 281 et seq.
Industrial Despotism, Historic Forms and Foundation of, 282 et seq.
Ingersoll, R. G., 180, 182, 225, 235, 237–238–241
Insanity Among Soldiers, 6–7, 88, 195
Institutions, Origin of, Illustrations, 317–337
International Citizens, 262–264
Japanese-Russian War, 99, 144
Jingoism, The Beginning of, 209–210
Jordan, President D. S., 104–105, 198
Kidnapping and Militarism, 227
Labor Market, See Labor-power.
Labor-power, Buying and Selling of, 29–47, 97–99, 106, 274–275, 333–337
Lad’s Brigade, The, 230 et seq.
“Land-Grant” Railroads, Land Gifts, etc., 124, 137
Law and Order, 6, 321–322
Liberals, Conservatives, 173–174
Limitation of Armaments, 69–70;
See Hague Peace Society, The.
Lincoln, President, and the Wall Street Patriots, 118–137
Lockouts, Strikes, Statistics of, 168–169
“Love of Country”, 217–219
“Man on Horseback, The”, 148 et seq.
Marines, 108, 154–158, 221–222
Markets, See Foreign Markets, and Labor-power.
Medical Service, U. S. Government’s Criminal Neglect of, Utterly
Inadequate, 94–95, 143–144
Meditations of a Workingman, 153 et seq.
Mexican War, 148
“Might Makes Right”, 21–28, 185–190
Militarism, 29–106;
In Public Schools, Chapter Eight.
Militarism and Education, 59–76
Militarism and Kidnapping, 227
Militarism in Churches, 228–233
Military Tactics, Applied in Politics, 278–280
Militia and Army—Rich Men’s Sons in, 160, 176–177
Militiamen and Soldiers, 25, 40, 45, 46, 148, 151–152
Millionaires in Cuban War, 176–178
Ministers and War, 6, 20, 22, 24, 27, 28, 41, 44, 78, 244–272
Modern Machinery, Knowledge, Methods, Specially Import Result, 42
Moral Decline of Youth in Army, 180–187, 219–227
Morocco-affair, The, 309
Moskow Campaign, 104–105
Mother—and the Boys and Girls, 207–243
Mothers, Special Suggestions for, 236 et seq.
Murdering Machinery, Modern, 77–92
Mutualism—Antagonism in the Social Structure, 281 et seq.
“My Country is the World, My Countrymen All Mankind”, 216
Napoleon, 104–105, 110–115, 124, 200, 208–209, 237
Naturalness of Social Parasites’ Behavior, 286 et seq.
Naval Life, Unnaturalness of and Disastrous Moral Results, 221–222
Navy, 58–59, 69, 108, 191
Next War, The—How to Avoid Being Wounded in, 97
Non-Combatants, Destruction of, in Time of War, 48–50
Non-Resistance, 291 et seq.
Northern Pacific Railway Company, Land Gifts to, 134–136
Norwegian-Swedish War, See “Four Great Events.”
“No Sentiment in Business”, 244–272
Notice, Special, to Hague Peace Society, 206 et seq.
“Obey or Starve”, 257–258, 334–337
“Off for the Front”, 30
“Old Glory,” Abuse of, 150
Old Veteran and Young Cossack,, 148 et seq.
One Christian Century of War, 52–53
Opportunity, Equal Basis of, 281
“Our Country!”, 218–219, 225–226
Over-production, 37–42, 333–335
Panic of 1907—Regular Soldiers’ Pay Advanced in by Congress, 152–153
Parades, Military, Purpose and Results, 199 et seq.
Parasites, 7, 17, 137, 190–191, 273–337
Parents, Suggestions to, 207–243
Patriotism, 227, 196–197
Patriotism a Matter of Cash. W. H. Taft and T. Roosevelt, 196–197
Patriotism, Capitalist, Specimens of, 107–158
Patriotism, Fallacy of False, Exploded by James Mackaye, 217
Patriotism, False, Taught to Children, 208 et seq.
“Patriotism is Killing Spaniards,”, 252–253
Patriotism of Buyers of War Bonds, 118–124
Patriotism—of George Washington, 217–218
Patriotism—Lowell, J. R., on, 217
Patriotism, Petty, Interferes With Social Evolution of Child, 213, 215
et seq.
Patriotism, Professor Paulsen on, 180
Patriotism, R. G. Ingersoll on, 180
Patriotism, R. W. Emerson on, 217
Patriots, Some Petty, 262–264
Peaceful Slaughter—in Industry, 97–106
Peace Impossible Without Socializing Unity of Interest, 257 et seq.,
282 et seq.
Peace on the Program, 262–263
Peace Societies, 201–205
Peace, Talk of, but Preparation for War, 154 et seq.
Peace, The Hague Conference, 201–205
Penitentiary for the Rich, 295–296
Pensions, 55–59
Industrial Pensions and Military Service Pensions, 163–165
Perverted Sex-Appetite in Life at Sea, 221–222
Philippines, A Soldier’s Letter from the, 198
Philippine War, 99–101
Pledge to Working Class, 11
Poetry that Poisons, 213, 214
Poisoned Arms, A Revolution Produced by, 203–204
Political Logic, Elementary, 167 et seq.
Political Parties—Do Not Create Classes, 286
Political Party, Definition of, 304
Political Resistance, 293 et seq.
Politics, Elementary, Chap. Ten.
Politics, Military Tactics Applied in, 278–280
Poverty of Soldiers Following War, 110–117, 137–144
Power, the Road to, 167–168
Powers of Government, Necessity of Capturing, 25, 41–42, 75–76,
105–106, 159–206, 273–316
Preachers on the Firing Line, 228–230
“Preaching Heaven, Practising Hell”, 230
Preparation for War, 34, 54–76
Talk of Peace and Preparation for War, 154–155
Press, The, 24, 32, 177–178, 336–337, 338–344
Prevention of War, 24–25, 105–106, 158, 160, 174–176, 201–206, 235–243,
Chapters Nine, Ten;
“Four Great Events,” pp. 306 et seq.
Prize-Fighter Statesmanship, 58–76
Procurers, Christian Governments as, 220–223
Progress Promoted by War, 184 et seq.
Property Basis of Social Classes—Professors Bluntschli and Fairbanks,
275–276
Property Rights, “Sacred”, 39, 322–325
Property, Socialized, 167–168
Prostitutes Furnished by Christian Governments to Their Soldiers,
219–223
Quarters, Soldiers’, 192 et seq.
Race Suicide, 207–209
Rag-Money for “Boys in Blue,”, 119–120
Rations—For Soldiers, 191 et seq.
“_Real_ War, The,” Ruskin, J., 227
Rebellion, 69–70
See Washington.
Recitations, Declamations, Selections from Chapters One, Two, Four,
Five, Six, Eight, Nine, Ten. See Suggestions Chapter Twelve.
Recruiting, 42, 43
Recruiting—Devices, 108
Red Cross Society, 88
“Remembering the Maine,” See “Freeing Cuba.”
Resistance by all Forms of Power, 292–294
Revolution, 300–303
Revolutionary War, American, 57
Revolutionists, American, 217–218, 292, 302–303
Revolution of Opinion, 152–153, 187
Revolution, Prepare For, 167–168
Revolution, Produced by Poisoned Arms, 203–204
Rifle Practice Clubs in Public Schools, 233 et seq.
Rifle Ranges in Public Schools, 210 et seq.
“Righteous War”, Chapter Nine
Risks in War—At the Front and in Wall Street. See “Clews.”
See also, 163–164
Road to Power, The, 167–168
Robbery, Institutional, 282 et seq.
Romans, Decadence of, 105
Roosevelt, T., 21, 47, 93, 102, 141–143, 157, 179–180, 197, 233,
251–253
Rough Riders, The, 140
Royal Timber Company, The, 144 et seq.
Russian-Japanese War, 18–19, 68–69, 86–88, 101, 144 et seq.
School Children, Deception of, 56
Schools, Public, Abuse of, by Militarists, Chapter Eight
Schools, Use of, to Betray and Poison Children, 213 et seq.
Sedan, Battle of, 84, 85, 163
Senate, U. S., Dignity and Nobility of, 124–137
“Sentiment in Business”, 244–272
Seven Days’ Battle, 124 et seq.
Seventh Regiment (N. Y.), The, 176–177
“Silence!” The Command of Despotism, 113–114, 148
Silent Destroyer, Disease, The, 92–97
Slavery as a Revolution, 318
Slavery, Serfdom, Capitalism, Purpose of, 38
Socialist Party and War, 68, 270–272, Chapter Ten, 336–337
Social Organization—Mutualism, Antagonism, Two Possible Social Forms,
281 et seq.
South-African War, 103
Spanish-American War, 93, 176–177
Special Warning, A, 154 et seq.
Standing Army, A, 109–110, 170–176
Statesmen, Politicians, in War, 30
Temptations of, 44
Strikes, 17
Militiaman’s Cheap Rôle in, 45–46, 1894, 165–166
At Iron Mines in Minnesota, 1907, 166 et seq.
“Great Coal Strike”, 148 et seq.
Strikes, Lockouts, Statistics of, 168–169
Schoolboys Prepared for Strikes, 233–235
Substitutes, Exemptions, 160–161
Suggestions, 25, 54, 56, 58, 68, 74–76, 97, 105–106, 174–175, 184,
210–214, 236 et seq., 293–294; Chapters Eleven, Twelve
Suicide, 6–7, 77, 194 et seq.
Surgery Applied to Society, 298–299
Surplus, 37–43
Surplus Products, Embarrassingly large, 254, 255
Swedish-Norwegian War, See “Four Great Events”, 306 et seq.
Taft, W. H., 10, 48, 154–157, 191 et seq., 195 et seq., 219, 295–296
Teachers, School, Their Power to Blast or Develop Social Nature of
Child, 209–216
Teaching Youths How to Avoid Venereal Disease in Associating With Women
(U. S. Government and British Government), 219–223
Temptations Frankly Offered by Federal Government, 192 et seq.
Territorial Force Act (English), “Dick” Law, 173–174
The Hague Peace Society, 202 et seq.
“_The_ War is the Class War”, 37–46, 286
“To Arms! To Arms!”, 13–17, 289–291
“Topics for Discussion”, 159–243
Toys, Military, 216
“Train Everybody or Nobody”, 175
“Trade Follows the Flag”, 36
Trust Laws, 295–296
Tsar of Russia, and The Hague Peace Conference, 201–202
Tyranny Protected by the Flag, Chapter Six, Seventh Illustration, and
148–153, 164–165
“Undesirable Citizens,” Soldiers as, W. H. Taft, 195 et seq., 260–262
Unemployed, The, 42, 152–153
Union Pacific Railway Charter, 124–137
Universal Military Service, Chapter Seven (3), (11), (12)
Venereal Diseases, 48, 49, 219–223
“Vision of the Future,” Ingersoll’s, 242
“Vision of War,” Ingersoll’s, 240–241
Volunteers, 77
Wage-System, See Labor-power, Buying and Selling of.
Wall Street Patriots, 118–124
Walsh, Dr. Walter, 147, 182, 199, 210, 222–223, 266 et seq.
“War a Collision of Interests,” General Von der Goltz, 170
War and Industry, Comparative Destruction of Life in, 77–92
War, and the Survival of the Fittest, 188
War and Women, 207–243
War as Hell, Chap. Five, 160, 289–291
War as a Relief to Competition Among Laborers, 188
War as a System of Exploitation, Ferrero, 187
War, Comment on, 160
War, Definition of, 21
Ward, Lester F., 38, 183, 284, 292, 328
War, Explanation of, Motives and Occasions of, Chaps. Three, Six, Ten,
Eleven
“War is Hell”, 159–160
War Necessary to Progress, 184 et seq.
War, Origin of, 317–337
Warning, Special, 14, 17, 154–158, 288–290, 311–316
“War” Statesmen, Popularity of, 44
War—The Class Struggle, 286 et seq.;
See Classes
War, The Next, See “Another War.”
War, What is Determined By, 21–28, 185–188
War—What to Do About It, 159–243, 273–316; passim
War, Who Want, Who Declare, Who Fight, 29 et seq.
Washington, Anti-Patriot, 217–218
Letter to John Bannister on Patriotism, 148
Waterloo, Battle of, 110–111
“Welcome Home!”, 107–158
“Wintering” in the Army, 153
Women and War, 18, 26, 207–243
Working Class, Self-Defense of, 1–344
Wounded, the Difficulties in Attending to in Modern War, 94
“Young Men Not Only Willing but Anxious to Fight,” Origin of Saying, 47
Youth, Conscription of, for Napoleon’s Armies, 104–105
Zeppelin’s, Count, Airship, 90
Zola, Emile, _The Downfall_, 26, 83, 211–212
[Illustration: ‘Isaac]
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Salvation comes and can come only through information. Information is
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=War—What For? was written, in part, to discuss what the Government dare
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The author has been informed from several sources that the suppression
of this book has been seriously considered.
This book has been excluded from several public libraries. This book has
been excluded from Fort Myer, Virginia (near Washington). A dozen copies
circulated in Fort Snelling (near Minneapolis, Minn.) produced
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=The power of this book has been admitted. (See following pages.) You
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A large, handsome, two-color circular with _full information relative to
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TWO LETTERS
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“Publisher of WAR—WHAT FOR? West La Fayette, Ohio.
“DEAR SIR: Enclosed find $8.40 for which send me 12 copies of
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“Yours for no more war,
(Signed) “MRS. HELEN ROEDER.”
=Why should a boy enlist, when even the Commander-in-Chief publically
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of this book.)=
“Smith Building, Auburn, New York, May 25, 1911.
“DEAR MR. KIRKPATRICK:
“I know you will be more than gratified to hear that your invaluable
book, WAR—WHAT FOR? is fulfilling its mission among the farmers in
this section.
“Over four months ago a farmer called and asked me if I had anything
to place in the hands of a boy which would ‘take the Army Bug out of
his head.’ The boy was about to join the Regular Army. His mother
and father had appealed to him—had tried to talk the idea out of the
boy’s mind.
“On my table was a copy of WAR—WHAT FOR? I said, ‘Here is a book
that will sterilize the love for murder instinct.’ A week later he
called and informed me that the boy had read the book and now it is
‘_No Army for me!_’
“Both parents also read the book. It has been going the rounds among
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extend the loan of your book. He says that some farmers stay up all
night reading its contents. Parents are thanking Marquis, with tears
in their eyes, for placing the book in their hands.
“So far as I can learn, no farmer boy in this section has joined the
Army since WAR—WHAT FOR? found its way into the farm houses.... I
hear the work is never laid aside, but having been read by someone,
in a few days it is in the hands of a new reader....
(Signed) “Fraternally, E. H. GOHL.”
COMMENT
=The Springfield, Mass., Republican= (over half column review): “...
Brimful of indictment of war ... a valuable book.... Much startling
information which ought to be widely disseminated. Peace advocates might
well have Mr. Kirkpatrick’s book in their knapsacks. The book is crowded
with facts and figures, official reports and other authoritative
documents being freely quoted....”
=The Chicago Evening Post= =(two-thirds column review):—“But it
[War—What For?] is, in fact, exquisitely designed to capture the
interest and win the belief; it is as well calculated to impress its
readers as Paine’s ‘Rights of Man.’”=
=The Louisville, Kentucky, Herald= also frankly ranks WAR—WHAT FOR?
equal to Paine’s _Rights of Man_ in its power to impress its readers.
=Charles Edward Russell=, well known to a million readers of
_Everybody’s Magazine_: “... The most powerful blow ever dealt against
the insanity of militarism. A remarkable book. No one can escape the
logic of its massed-up facts.”
=New York American= (review by Mr. Edwin Markham, poet): “... He tatters
all the shibboleths that influence men to go to war. He masses his facts
in a cumulative horror.... His style is telegraphic ... breathless; and
he certainly makes a black case against militarism....”
=The Progressive Journal of Education=: “Here is a book certainly worth
while. It is unique—something that stands wholly in a class by
itself.... The array of facts ... concerning war, here gathered
together, is something more than remarkable....”
=The Trenton, New Jersey, Sunday Advertiser=: “... A remarkable book on
the futility, the brutality and the criminality of war....”
=The St. Louis Post-Despatch= (editorial on WAR—WHAT FOR?): “... the
forces now working for universal peace—to mention but one, there is
George R. Kirkpatrick, an American, who has written a book entitled
WAR—WHAT FOR? which appears to be making a genuine sensation.... It is
well illustrated, is stuffed full of facts and figures.... The jingos of
the world will have to get busy and meet thought with thought, and fact
with fact.”
=The New York Independent=: “... The volume shows evidence of much study
and research, and certainly makes interesting reading....”
=The Religious Telescope=: “WAR—WHAT FOR? is a remarkable book no matter
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reflection; trenchant discussion of the war question, ... burning vigor,
biting sarcasm, ... gruesome illustrations and hideous word
pictures—simply command attention and get it. The author ... intensifies
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=The Platform, Chicago= (full column editorial review): “... If at this
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=Rev. Peter Molyneaux, Pastor of First Unitarian Church, Wheeling, W.
Va.=: “Let me thank you for writing WAR—WHAT FOR?... The spirit of a
toiling, suffering, upward struggling humanity speaks from its pages.”
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=Timothy Walsh, Assistant Financial Editor of the New York World=: “A
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=Appeal to Reason=: “... It is the most scathing indictment of war, and
the most terrible impeachment of the powers and personalities
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=St. Louis Labor=: “A powerful indictment of war....”
=International Socialist Review=: “This book is a denunciation, an
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=Rev. J. Alexander Cairns, D.D., Newark, N. J.=: “... A masterpiece....
This book is worthy the struggle and toil of a lifetime....”
Circulars free to names and addresses furnished.
IT IS UP TO THE GOVERNMENT!
=Karl Liebknecht was recently imprisoned for eighteen months by the
German government as punishment for writing his book against the
brutalities, stupidities, and villainies of war and militarism.=
=Gustave Hervé is now serving a four-year sentence in a French prison
for writing his book on the same subject.=
Just what there is in store, in this line, for the author of WAR—WHAT
FOR? he does not know. He has at least had plenty of hints, suggestions,
warnings and veiled threats of dire things, but just as long as there is
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mentioned on page 350 of this book, and as long also as =working
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they do, that in =their= judgment this book is manifestly written in
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The author of WAR—WHAT FOR? is neither inviting, nor avoiding, nor
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NOTICE TO AGENTS!
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=Send for Agents’ Rates, Circulars and Suggestions—not only for
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Address: The Publisher of WAR—WHAT FOR?
West La Fayette, Ohio. Care of J. M. K.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P. 173, Added “Footnote 197: _The Rough Riders_, p. 139. Found in
Edition of 1899, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons; page 152,
as published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons.” [Footnote from 4th and 6th
editions to correct a typo in the 5th edition.]
2. Silently corrected typographical errors and also variations in
spelling.
3. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as
printed.
4. Added (e.g. "example,..." changed to "example, ...") and removed
spaces (e.g., "example ," to "example,") but otherwise retained
non-standard punctuation as printed. Many paragraphs do not end
with terminal punctuation.
5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
6. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.
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