The war is over, but peace there is not. On a score of fronts human
slaughter is going on as before; men, women, and children are dying by
the hundred thousands because of the blockade of Russia; the “small
nations” are still under the iron heel of the foreign oppressor;
Ireland, India, Egypt, Persia, Korea, and numerous other peoples, are
being decimated and exploited even more ruthlessly than before the
advent of the Great Prophet of World Democracy; “self-determination” has
become a by-word, nay, a crime, and world-wide imperialism has gotten a
strangle hold upon humanity.
What, then, has the Great War accomplished? To what purpose the
sacrifice of millions of human lives, the unnamable loss in blood and
treasure? What, especially, has happened in these United States?
Fresh in mind are still the wonderful promises made in behalf of the
War. It was to be the _last_ war, a holy crusade of liberty against
tyranny, a war upon all wars that was to sweep the earth clear of
oppression and misery, and make the world safe for true democracy.
As with a sacred fire burned the heart of mankind. What soul so small,
what human so low, not to be inspired by the glorious shibboleth of
liberty and well-being for all! A tornado of social enthusiasm, a
new-born world consciousness, swept the United States. The people were
aflame with a new faith; they would slay the Dragon of Despotism, and
conquer the world for democracy.
True, it was but yesterday their sovereign will registered a mighty
protest against human slaughter and bloodshed. With a magnificent
majority they had voted not to participate in the foreign War, not to
become entangled in the treacherous schemes of European despotisms.
Triumphantly they had elected as President of the United States the man
who “kept them out of the war” that he might still keep them out of it.
Then suddenly, almost over night, came the change. From Wall Street
sounded the bugle ordering the retreat of Humanity. Its echo
reverberated in Washington, and thence throughout the whole country.
There began a campaign of war publicity that roused the tiger in man and
fed his lust for blood and vengeance. The quiet, phlegmatic German was
transformed into the “Vicious Hun,” and made the villain of the wildest
stories of “enemy” atrocities and outrages. The nation-wide propaganda
of hatred, persecution, and intolerance carried its subtle poison into
the hearts of the obscurest hamlet, and the minds of the people were
systematically confused and perverted by rivers of printer’s ink. The
conscience of America, wanting peace, was stifled in the folds of the
national emblem, and its voice drowned by the martial beat of a thousand
war drums.
Here and there a note of protest was heard. Radicals of various
political and social faiths—Anarchists, Socialists, I. W. Ws., some
pacifists, conscientious objectors, and other anti-militarists—sought to
stem the tide of the war hysteria. They pointed out that the people of
the United States had no interest in the European War. That this
country, because of its geographical location and natural advantages,
was beyond all danger of invasion. They showed that the War was the
result of European over-preparedness for war, aggravated by a crisis in
capitalist competition, old monarchical rivalries and ambitions of
super-despotic rulers. The peoples of Europe, the radicals emphasized,
had neither say nor interest in the war: they were the sheep led to
slaughter on the altar of Mammon contending against Baal. America’s
great humanitarian mission, the war protestants insisted, was to keep
out of the war, and use its potent influence and compelling economic and
financial power to terminate the European slaughter and bring peace to
the bleeding nations of the old world.
But these voices of sanity and judgment were lost in the storm of
unloosed war passions. The brave men and women that dared to speak in
behalf of peace and humanity, that had the surpassing integrity of
remaining true to themselves and to their ideals, with the courage of
facing danger and death for conscience sake—these, the truest friends of
Man, had to bear the cross of Golgotha, as did the Nazarene of yore, as
the lovers of humanity have done all through the centuries of human
progress. The jail and lynch law for them; execution and persecution by
their contemporaries. But if it be true that history repeats itself,
surely these political “criminals” of today will be hailed tomorrow as
martyrs and pioneers.
The popular war hysteria was roused and especially successfully
cultivated by the alleged progressive, “intellectual” element in the
United States. Their notoriously overwhelming self-esteem and vanity had
been subtly flattered by their fellow-intellectual, the college
professor become President. This American _intelligentzia_ inclusive of
a good many quite unintelligent suffragettes, was the real “balance of
power” in the re-election of Woodrow Wilson. The silken cord
(occasionally golden in spots) of mutual interest that bound the
President and the intellectual element ultimately proved much stronger
at their end than at his. The feeling of gratitude is always more potent
with the giver than with the recipient. Howbeit the “liberals”, the
“radicals”, were devoted heart and soul to the professor,—they stood
solidly behind the President, to use their own intellectually expressive
phrase.
Shame upon the mighty power of the human mind! It was the “radical
intellectuals” who, as a class, turned traitors to the best interests of
humanity, perverted their calling and traditions, and became the
bloodiest canines of Mars. With a power of sophistry that the Greek
masters of false logic never matched, they cited history, philosophy,
science—aye, they called their very Christ to witness that the killing
of man by man is a most worthy and respectable occupation, indeed a very
Christian institution, and that wholesale human slaughter, if properly
directed and successfully conducted, is a very necessary evolutionary
factor, a great blessing in disguise.
It was this “intellectual” element that by perversion of the human mind
turned a peace-demanding people into a war-mad mob. The popular refusal
to volunteer for Service was hailed by them as a universal demand for
military draft as “the most democratic expression of a free
citizenship.” Forced service became in their interpretation “equality of
contribution for rich and poor alike.” The protest of one’s conscience
against killing was branded by them as high treason, and even mere
disagreement regarding the causes of the war, or the slightest criticism
of the administration, was condemned as disloyalty and pro-Germanism.
Every expression of humanity, of social sympathy, and understanding was
cried down with a Babel of high phrases, in which “patriotism” and
“democracy” competed in volume. Oh, the tragedy of the human mind that
absorbs fine words and empty phrases, and is deaf to motives and blind
to deeds!
Yet there lacked unanimity in the strenuously cultivated war demand.
There was no popular enthusiasm for American participation in the
European holocaust. Mothers protested against their children being torn
from the home hearth; fathers hid their young sons. The spirit of
discontent was abroad. The Government had to resort to drastic methods:
the hand of white terror was lifted in Washington. Again we raised our
voices to warn the people,—we, the revolutionists of various social
views who remained true to our ideal of human brotherhood and
proletarian solidarity. We pointed out that the masses of the world had
nothing to gain and everything to lose by war; that the chief sufferers
of every war were the workers, and that they were being used as mere
pawns in the game of international diplomacy and imperialist capitalism.
We reminded the toilers that they alone possessed the power to wage war
or make peace, and that they—as the creators of the world’s wealth—were
the true arbiters of the fate of humanity. Their mission, we reiterated,
is to secure peace on earth, and the product of labor to the producers.
Emphatically we warned the people of America against the policy of
suppression by the enactment of special legislation. Alleged war
necessity was being used—we asserted—to incorporate in the statute books
new laws and new legal principles that would remain operative _after_
the war, and be effective for the continued prohibition of
governmentally unapproved thoughts and views. The practice of stifling
and choking free speech and press, established and tolerated during the
war, sets a most dangerous precedent for after-war days. The principle
of such outrages upon liberty once introduced, it will require a long
and arduous struggle to win back the liberties lost. “Eternal vigilance
is the price of liberty.” Thus we argued.
Here again the “intellectuals” and radicals of chameleon hue hastened to
the rescue of the forces of reaction. We were scoffed at, our “vain
fears” ridiculed. It was all for the best interests of the country—the
sophists protested—for the greater security and glory of Democracy.