SOCIALISM THE LONE FOE OF WAR
Ask the first man you meet if he is in favor of war and he will tell you
he is not. Mr. Wilson is opposed to war. The Czar of Russia is opposed
to war. The King of Italy is opposed to war. The Sultan of Turkey is
opposed to war. The King of England and the German Emperor are opposed
to war. Every king and emperor in the world is opposed to war. Mr.
Roosevelt, Mr. Bryan, Mr. Morgan, Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Taft—everybody,
everywhere, is opposed to war.
Yet, Mr. Taft, not so long ago, flung an army in the face of Mexico, and
dispatched powerful warships to the coast of Cuba. The King of Italy,
not so long ago, attacked, by land and sea, the people of Turkey. Mr.
Roosevelt and Mr. Bryan, a little longer ago, enlisted in the war
against Spain. Mr. Morgan, only a few years ago, helped to furnish the
sinews of war with which Japan fought Russia. At this moment, the King
of England and the German Emperor are threatening their respective
nations with bankruptcy in order to augment their enormous machinery for
the slaying of men. And, Mr. Carnegie, having grown rich, in part by the
manufacture of armor-plate for warships, is now using some of his money
to further a peace-movement that brings no peace.
Plainly, here is something mystifying—a world that wants to stop
fighting and cannot. Why cannot it stop fighting? Mr. Wilson cannot tell
you. Mr. Morgan will not tell you. Mr. Roosevelt has not told you. Mr.
Bryan and Mr. Carnegie seem not to know. No one who should know seems to
know. Yet, they must know. Common sense says so. The men who make wars
know why they make them. Wars do not happen—they are made. Somebody
says: “Bring out the guns.” Somebody says: “Begin shooting.” Somebody
knows what the shooting is about.
What is it about? Be careful, now. Don’t answer too quickly. Don’t say
“the flag” has been insulted. Don’t say “the national honor” has been
impugned. These are old reasons, but they may not be true reasons. We
Socialists are willing to stake everything on the statement that they
are not true reasons. If we are right, we are worth listening to. War is
hell. During the 132 years that we have been a nation, we have had war
hell at average intervals of 22 years. We are already preparing for our
next war. We are arming to the teeth. It may not last so long as the
Civil War, but it will be bloodier. We have all of the most improved
machinery for making it bloodier.
On the sea we are armed as Farragut never was armed. Any of our
dreadnoughts could sink all of the ships, for which and against which,
Farragut ever fought. And, on land, we are armed as Grant never was
armed. Grant drummed out his victories with muzzle-loading rifles. No
rifle could be fired rapidly. No bullet could kill more than one man,
nor any man unless that man were near. But the modern rifle can be fired
25 times a minute, and it will kill at four miles. More than that, a
single bullet from a modern rifle will kill every man in its path. It
will shoot through 60 inches of pine. It will string men like a needle
stringing beads. It will literally make a sieve of a soldier. Seventy
bullet holes and more were found in the body of many a man who fell on
the plains of Manchuria.
Toward such a war—or worse—we are speeding. Indeed, it will be hell. But
it will not be hell for the men who make it. It will be hell for the men
who fight it. The men who make it will stay at home. Their blood will
drench no battlefield. Their bones will lie in the mire with no sunken
ship. But the blood of the workers will drench every battlefield, and
their skeletons will march with the tides on the floor of the sea.
Good Christian gentlemen who abhor war hold out no hope that war will
soon cease. Good Christian gentlemen who abhor war pretend not to know
why, in a world that is weary of war, war still persists. Or, if they do
pretend to know, they account for the persistence of war by slandering
the human race. They say the race is bad. Its brain is full of greed.
Its heart is full of murder.
The mind of the race is not, nor ever has been filled with the greed
that kills.
The heart of the race is not, nor ever has been, filled with the black
blood of murder.
It is only a few whose minds and hearts have been thus poisoned by greed
for gain or lust for power. Probably we should all have been thus
poisoned if we had been similarly circumstanced—if we had been great
capitalists. But most of us, lacking the capitalist’s instinct for
profits, never chanced to see the easy loot and the waiting dagger lying
side by side. The gentlemen who have seen them have made our wars. And
the gentlemen who do see them are making our wars to-day and preparing
others for the future.
We Socialists make this charge flatly. We smear the monstrous crime of
war over the face of the capitalist class. We mince no words. We say to
the capitalist class:
“Your pockets are filled with gold, but your hands are covered with
blood. You kill men to get money. You don’t kill them, yourselves. As a
class, you are too careful of your sleek bodies. You might be killed if
you were less careful. But you cause other men to kill.
“And you do it in the meanest way. You do it by appealing to their
patriotism.
“You say: ‘It is sweet to die for one’s country.’
“You don’t dare say: ‘It is sweet to die for Havemeyer,’ as many
Americans died during the Sugar Trust war to ‘free Cuba.’
“You don’t say: ‘It is sweet to die for Guggenheim or Morgan,’ as many
Americans would have died if Taft’s army had crossed the Rio Grande.
“You don’t say: ‘It is sweet to die for the Tobacco and other trusts,’
as many Americans died during the war with the Philippines.
“You don’t dare say any of these things, because you know, if you did,
you would not get a recruit. You know you would be more likely to get
the boot.”
We Socialists, who make these charges, know they are serious. They are
as serious as we know how to make them. If they lack any of the
seriousness they should have, it is because we lack some of the
vocabulary we should have. The facts upon which the charges are made are
serious enough to justify the full use of any vocabulary ever made. The
facts are the facts of colossal murder for gain. And they are as old as
history.
The small rich class that lives in luxury from the labor of the great
poor class has a reason for clinging to the control of government. That
reason is not far to seek. Without the control of government, the small,
rich class would not be rich. Government, in the hands of the rich, is a
sort of two-handed claw with which golden chestnuts are pulled out of
the fire. One claw is the governmental power to make and enforce laws.
The other claw is the power to grab by force that which cannot be
grabbed by laws.
One nation cannot make laws for another nation. But the capitalists of
one nation may possess property that is wanted by the capitalists of
another nation. Or the capitalists of one nation may see a great
opportunity for personal profit in transferring to their own nation the
sovereignty that another nation holds over a certain territory. That was
why Great Britain made war against the Boers. Certain rich English
gentlemen believed they could make more money if the British flag waved
over the diamond and gold fields of the Transvaal. For no more nearly
valid reason, the capitalist class of Japan made war against the
capitalist class of Russia. Russia had stolen Korea and Japan wanted it.
Korea belonged to the Koreans, but that made no difference. Two thieves
struggled for it and one of them has it.
The moment that the capitalist class of one nation determines to rob the
capitalist class of another nation, the machinery for inflaming the
public mind is set in motion. This machinery consists of tongues and
printing presses. Tongues and printing presses immediately begin to
foment hatred. Every man in each country is made to feel that every man
in the other country is his personal enemy. But that is stating it too
mildly. Every man in each country is made to feel that every man in the
other country is as much worse than a personal enemy as a nation is
greater than an individual. Fervent appeals are made to “patriotism.”
“The flag” is waved. It is not “sweet to die” for Cecil Rhodes, for
Rothschild or any one else—“It is sweet to die for one’s country.” And
thousands of men take the bait.
They bid farewell to their homes. They embark upon transports. They sail
strange seas. They disembark upon strange shores. They see strange men.
Men whom they never saw before. Men against whom they have no possible
sort of grudge. Men who never harmed them. Men whom they never harmed.
Common workingmen, like themselves.
But they shoot these men and are shot by these men. They spill each
other’s blood. They break each other’s bones. They break the hearts of
each other’s families. And, when one army or the other has been crippled
beyond further fighting, there is peace. The peace of the sword! The
peace of death! The peace that leaves the working classes of both
countries poorer and the capitalist class of only one country richer.
Was it not a great victory? Yes.
It was a great victory for the capitalists of the world who lent money
to both belligerents. (But it was not a great victory for the workingmen
of both countries, who, through weary, weary years, will be shorn of
part of their earnings to pay the interest upon the war bonds.)
It was a great victory for the capitalist group who plunged for plunder
and got it. (But it was not a great victory for the capitalist group
that lost its plunder.)
It was a great victory for the generals, who, from a safe distance,
directed the fighting. (But it was not a great victory for the
workingmen who, at close quarters, fell before the guns and were buried
where they fell.)
It was no sort of a victory for the working class of either country. At
least, any victory that came to the working class of either country was
merely incidental. Great Britain whipped the Boers, but the British
people did not get the gold mines and the diamond mines. The Japanese
whipped the Russians, but the Japanese workingmen did not get any of the
plunder for which the war was fought. The Japanese capitalists got all
of the plunder. The common people of Japan were so poor, after they had
fought a “successful” war against Russia, that, within six months of the
termination of the war, the Mikado urged the sternest self-denial upon
them as the only means of saving the country from bankruptcy. And,
notwithstanding the victory of the British over the Boers, the common
people of England were never before so poor as they are to-day.
What is the use of blinking these facts? They are facts. Nobody can
disprove them. They stand. They stand even in the face of the further
fact that some wars have helped the working class. The American
Revolution helped the working class of America. But the American working
class would not have been in need of help if the English land-owning
class who ruled the British government had not been using the government
to plunder and oppress the people of America.
But that is only one side of the story. Let us look at the American
side. The common people of America gained something from the war. They
slipped from the clutches of the English grafters. But they did not get
what they were promised. Read the Declaration of Independence and see
what they were promised. Read the Constitution of the United States and
see what they were given. Between the Declaration of Independence and
the Constitution of the United States there is all the difference that
exists between blazing sunlight and pale moonlight. No finer spirit was
ever breathed into words than that which appears in the Declaration of
Independence. Jefferson wrote it, and he wrote splendidly, though the
Declaration, as it stands, is not as he first wrote it. Jefferson was so
afire with the idea of liberty that his associates upon the committee
that drafted the Declaration shrank from the light. They compelled him
to tone down his words. But the Declaration as it stands spells Liberty
with a big “L.” And, Liberty with a big “L” can be nothing but a
republic in which the people, through their representatives, absolutely
rule.
The people, through their representatives, have never ruled this country
and do not rule it to-day. The Constitution of the United States will
not let them. It will not let them vote directly for President. In the
beginning, the people did not even choose the electors who elected the
President. State Legislatures chose them. No man except a legislator
ever voted for the electors who chose Washington, Adams, Jefferson,
Madison and some others. To this day the Constitution denies the right
of the people to choose United States Senators and Justices of the
United States Supreme Court. In the few states where the people
practically choose United States Senators they do so only by “going
around the end” of the Constitution. They exact a promise from
legislative candidates to elect the senators for whom the people have
expressed a preference. But this is wholly extra-constitutional. If the
legislators were to break their promises, the United States Supreme
Court would be compelled to sustain them in their constitutional right
to do so.
Now, here is the point. Granted that the American Revolution was of
value to the American working class. Granted that the ills that followed
from American rule were not so grievous as the ills inflicted by the
ruling class of England. Grant all this and more. Still, is it not true
that if it had not been for the ruling class of England, there would
have been no occasion for a war? Is it not true that the English people,
if they had been in control of their own government, never would have
harmed the people of America? When did the English people, or any other
people, ever harm anybody? When did a thievish, murderous ruling class
neglect to harm any people whose plunder seemed possible and profitable?
The idea that the people of one country, if left to themselves, would
ever become embittered against the people of another country, is absurd.
Test this statement by your own feelings. Are you so angry at some
Japanese peasant who is now patiently toiling upon his little hillside
in Japan, that you would like to go to Japan and kill him? Is there any
person in Germany whom you never saw that you want to kill?
Of course not. But if you are a “patriotic” American citizen, you may
some day cross a sea to kill somebody. If you believe in “following the
flag,” the flag may some day lead you into the hell of war. If you
believe “it is sweet to die for one’s country,” you may some day be shot
to pieces. But if so, you will not die for your country. Your country
wants you to live. You will die for the ruling class of your country. If
you should expire from gunshot wounds in Mexico, you might die for Mr.
Guggenheim, or some other noble citizen who will be far from the firing
line. Wherever you may die from war-wounds, you will die to put more
money into somebody else’s pockets.
It has always been so. Why did we go to war against England in 1812?
Because the English people had wronged us? The English people, left to
themselves, never wronged anybody. We went to war with England in 1812
because the ruling class of England, then deep in the Napoleonic wars,
were holding up American ships upon the high seas to take off alleged
British subjects and jam them into the British Navy.
Such action, of course, was harmful to American pride, but really it did
not deeply concern the American working class. Most of the workers lived
and died without ever having seen a ship. Nevertheless, the American
working class was summoned to the slaughter. My paternal
great-grandfather, a humble farmer in the Hudson River Valley, was
drafted into the ranks, and to this day I honor him because he would not
go without being drafted. And, when the war was ended, the working class
of America was worse off than it was before.
So was the working class of England. Some were dead. Some were shattered
in health. The living lived less well because they had to pay the cost
of hell. The impressment of alleged British subjects upon the high seas
ceased only because Great Britain chose to end it. The treaty of peace
contained no stipulation that she should end it. Thus ceased this
criminally stupid war, which never would have begun if the people of
England, instead of a small ruling class, had ruled their own country.
The war with Mexico was so monstrous that General Grant, who fought in
it, denounced it in the strongest language at his command. In the second
chapter of the first volume of his “Memoirs,” after characterizing the
Mexican War as “unholy,” he says:
“The occupation, separation and annexation” (of Texas) “were, from the
inception of the movement to its final consummation, a conspiracy to
acquire territory out of which slave states might be formed for the
American Union. Even if the annexation itself could be justified, the
manner in which the subsequent war was forced upon Mexico cannot....
The Southern Rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican War.”
Do you get that? Two wars caused by slavery. Seven hundred thousand men
killed. Twenty billion dollars’ worth of wealth either destroyed
outright, or consumed for interest upon the public debt, or paid for
subsequent pensions.
And for what?
To settle the question of slavery.
To settle the question of slavery that the men who framed the national
Constitution, most of whom were slaveholders, permitted to exist.
To settle the question of slavery, which, never for one moment, during
all of those intervening years, was anything but a curse even to the
white working class.
And, what is chattel slavery? Merely a method of appropriating the
products of the labor of others. Who were interested in maintaining it?
Certainly not the working class, no member of which ever owned a slave.
The capitalist class of the South was interested in it, because its
holdings were agricultural, and slave labor was well adapted to
agricultural undertakings. The capitalist class of the North was not
interested in maintaining chattel slavery, because the investments of
Northern capitalists were chiefly in industrial undertakings, for which
black slave labor was not well suited. Yet, the North never seriously
objected to slavery, as such. Men like Wendell Phillips, who did object
to slavery, as such, were mobbed in the North. If the North, like the
South, had been, so far as the great capitalists were concerned, an
agricultural country, there is no reason whatever to suppose that the
North would not have been in favor of chattel slavery. What the North
most objected to was the effort of the South to extend slavery into new
states, as they were admitted. The Southern aristocracy, in this manner,
sought to prevent the loss of its hold upon the government. The Northern
capitalists also desired to gain control of the government. When the
addition of new free states stripped the South of its political
supremacy, the South went to war. The North resisted the attack to save
the Union.
Remember, that is why the North went to war—to save the Union, which had
been attacked. It was not to free the slaves and end slavery. We have
this upon the authority of no less a man than Lincoln. Lincoln once sent
word to the South that if it would permit him to put one word into a
peace-treaty, he would let the South put in all the others. The one word
that Lincoln said he wanted to put in was “union.” Lincoln was opposed
to slavery, but he was not so much opposed to it that he wanted to fight
about it. It was only after the South had fought Lincoln almost to a
standstill that he rose above the Constitution and destroyed an
institution that was not even mentioned in the Constitution—much less
prohibited by it.
That is what the Civil War was about—chattel slavery.
Something that would not have existed if men had not first existed who
wished to ride upon the backs of others.
Something that would not have existed if the representatives of the
ruling class who drafted the Constitution had not been eager that it
should persist.
Something that never for a moment benefited the working class.
Yet, the working class fought the war—on one side to preserve slavery
for the benefit of others; on the other side to maintain a union under
which white men and black men alike are always upon the brink of
poverty.
Seven hundred thousand men followed the Stars and Stripes and the Stars
and Bars—to bloody graves. Not one of them would have been killed in war
if the common people of each section had ruled each section. The common
people never owned slaves. They did well if they owned themselves.
And now we come to the Spanish-American War. We believe it was fought to
“free Cuba.” We believe it was fought to “avenge the _Maine_.” Don’t
take too much for granted. Even Senator Nelson, of Minnesota, declared
in the United States Senate in 1912 his belief that the war with Spain
was fomented by Americans who held large interests in Cuba. He also
declared his belief that the Sugar Trust was trying to foment another
revolution for the purpose of bringing about annexation and thus ridding
itself of the 80 percent. tariff that is now levied upon American sugar.
But there is more to the story. To this day, there is no proof that the
_Maine_ was destroyed by Spaniards, Cubans, or anyone outside of her.
For fourteen years the government of the United States did not seem to
want to know. The _Maine_, with the bones of 200 or 300 workingmen
aboard her, was permitted to lie in the mud of Havana harbor where she
sank. And, when the wreck was tardily raised, nobody was able to say
that the ship was not destroyed by the explosion of her own magazines.
Now, the hull of the old ship is down far in the ocean, with no hope
that the facts will be known.
But the interests that wanted war had no doubt of the facts in 1898.
Their newspapers thundered their theory every day. The _Maine_ had been
destroyed by Spaniards! We must “Remember the _Maine_.” We did remember
the _Maine_, but we forgot ourselves. We forgot to be sure we were
right. And, even if we were right, we forgot that the killing of a few
thousands of Spanish workingmen would be no fit punishment for the crime
of the Spanish ruling class that wrecked the _Maine_.
We also forgot to watch what Wall Street was doing at the time. Read
some paragraphs from the New York _Tribune_ of April 1, 6, 9 and 20,
1898:
“Mr. Guerra, of the Cuban Junta, was asked about the Spanish-Cuban
bonds against the revenues of the island. He replied that he did not
know their amount, which report fixed at $400,000,000....”
“These bonds are payable in gold, at 6 per cent. interest, ten years
after the war with Spain had ended....”
“The disposition of the bonds of the Cuban Republic has been a
question discussed in certain quarters during the last few days, and
the grave charge has been made that the bonds have been given away
indiscriminately in the United States to 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.” (Kindly note that the bonds would be worth nothing
unless Spain were driven out of Cuba.) “Men of business, newspaper,
and even public officials, have been mentioned as having received
these bonds as a gift....”
“A congressman said in the house on Monday that 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 use his influence with
the administration for the recognition of the Cuban 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 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.’”
You probably do not remember these items. Perhaps, at that time, like
many other citizens, you were too busy “remembering the _Maine_.” If so,
what do you think of these items now? Do they mean anything to you? Do
they offer any explanation as to why this government, after having paid
little or no attention to six rebellions in Cuba during a 50–year
period, suddenly determined to “free Cuba”?
In any event, remember that whatever Spain did to Cuba was done by the
ruling class and not by the people of Spain. The ruling class was bent
upon the robbery of the Cubans. The people of Spain did not profit from
the robbery. Nor was the working class of the United States helped by
the expulsion of Spain from Cuba. The Sugar Trust and some other great
American interests were helped, but the American working class was not.
The working class had only the pleasure of doing the fighting, the dying
and the bill-paying.
The American working class profited no more from the war with the
Philippines, which was fought solely to provide a new field for the
dollar-activities of American capitalists. There is no American
workingman who now finds it easier to make a living because of the
generally improved conditions brought about by the war with the
Philippines. General conditions have not been improved. They have been
made worse to the extent that the cost of the war is a burden upon
industry. If working-class interests had been consulted, the war never
would have been waged. No working class interest was involved. The
workers had everything to lose, including life, by going to the front,
and nothing to gain. But they “followed the flag”—and some of them never
came back. They stayed—six feet under ground—that the Tobacco Trust, the
Timber Trust, and many other great capitalist interests might stay on
the islands above the ground.
Look wherever you will, you cannot find a working class interest that
should or could cause workingmen to slaughter each other. Nor is this
situation new. It is as old as war itself. It is a fact that men of
sense and honesty have always recognized. Tacitus said:
“Gold and power are the chief causes of war.”
Dryden, the poet, said: “War seldom enters but where wealth allures.”
And Carlyle, in this striking fashion, showed the utter absence of
working-class interest in 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 some thirty stone,
avoirdupois.
“Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected, all
dressed in red and shipped away, at public expense, some two thousand
miles, or, say, only to the south of Spain, and fed there till wanted.
“And now, to the same spot in the South of Spain, are sent 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 a gun in his
hand. Straightway the order ‘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.”
That is the cause of war between nations—“the governors fall out.” And
who are the governors? Nobody but the representatives of the ruling
class, who clash in their race for plunder and deceive workingmen into
doing their fighting for them.
Now, let us go back a bit. You may recall that I said that the ruling
capitalist class uses government as a two-handed claw with which to pull
golden chestnuts out of the fire. One hand of this claw is the power to
make and enforce laws. The other hand—the power to wage war—is used to
grab what cannot be grabbed with laws. Wars between nations illustrate
one form of effort to get what laws cannot give. Here is another:
The United States is dotted with forts, arsenals and armories. Far in
the interior, where, by the widest stretch of the imagination, no
foreign army could come, we see these grim reminders and prognosticators
of war. Under the Dick Military Law, the President of the United States,
without further legislation, can compel every man in the United States,
between the ages of 18 and 45 years, to enlist in the militia of his
state and serve under the orders of the President of the United States.
The President, therefore, has it in his power at any time to raise an
army of about 12,000,000 men and place them in the field.
What for? To fight a foreign foe? Not much. The Constitution of the
United States forbids the President to make war against a foreign nation
without the explicit authorization of Congress. But the Dick Law
authorizes the President to raise this enormous army and to command it.
Here is the question. At whom is this enormous potential army aimed? Why
is the land strewn with arsenals and armories that could be of little or
no service in a foreign war?
To quote a word from Carlyle, “Simpleton,” do you not know that all of
these arrangements are made to shoot you if the capitalist class should
ever decide that you should be shot? Nor, have you never noticed against
whom the state militia is invariably used?
If you have noticed none of these things, perhaps it would be well for
you to wake up. The militia of the states is practically never used
except to beat down workingmen who have revolted against the outrageous
wrongs heaped upon them by their employers. American workingmen do not
readily revolt. Nowhere are they any too prosperous. Millions believe
from the bottoms of their hearts that they are being robbed. Yet, they
keep on. Only when they are ground into the dust, as they were by the
Woolen Trust at Lawrence, or by the Coal Trust in Pennsylvania, do they
rebel.
Please, therefore, note this monstrous situation:
Under the laws of the land, the capitalists have a right to grind their
employees as deeply into the dust as they can grind them.
While this process is going on the national and state troops are quite
still. But when human nature, unable to bear up longer, explodes and a
few window panes are broken, the troops come scurrying to the scene.
Soldiers fill the streets, citizens are ordered this way and that, guns
are fired recklessly, perhaps a man or two or a woman or two are killed;
the soldiers deny the killing and charge it to the strikers themselves,
and eventually the strike is broken.
Can you recall when the militia of a state was recently used for
anything else?
Now, we Socialists do not believe in violence, even by strikers. We are
supposed to be greedy for blood, but we are not. We do believe, however,
the best way to end violence caused by robbery is to end the robbery. We
believe it is contemptible for a government to be blind to robbery so
long as it proceeds without an outcry from the victim. We believe it is
criminal for the government to shoot the victim simply because, in his
distress, he breaks a pane of glass in the factory or mill in which he
was robbed. We can understand why such crimes are committed, because we
know that the same capitalist interests that control industry also
control government. But, understanding the offense does not make us
approve it. We are against the great crime of war, whether it be
practiced upon a huge scale abroad, or upon a small scale at home.
But the President is also opposed to war, the Czar of Russia is also
opposed to war, and the German Emperor is also opposed to war. No
Socialist can outdo any of these gentlemen in deploring war. The
smallest Socialist, however, outdoes any of these gentlemen in making
good upon his declaration. Socialists will not go to war. They will not
join the army, the militia, or the navy. All over the world this is
true. They preach against war in season and out of season. They preach
against anything that tends toward war. They preach against dressing
little boys as soldiers and calling them “scouts.” And wherever
Socialists hold seats in national legislative bodies, their attitude is
“No men; no money.” They will vote for no bill that seeks to draw
another man or another dollar into the horrible game of war.
Those who do not understand us, or who do not want us to be understood,
charge us with lack of patriotism. If blood-letting for dollars be the
test of patriotism, we certainly are not patriotic. We refuse to kill
men for money, either for ourselves or for any one else. Nor do we
believe that Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans or any others are less our
brothers than are Americans. We regard all nationalities and races as
members of the great human family. We want this family to live in peace.
We preach peace. We live peace.
But how can there be peace when great groups of capitalists are
contending for profits? How can there be peace when great groups of
capitalists controlling their respective governments, build great fleets
and muster great armies to struggle for trade and profits? How can there
be peace when these same capitalists, through their control of
government, teach even school children that the warrior’s trade is
glorious and that the citizen’s duty is to “stand by the flag”? Our flag
has often stood where it had no moral right to stand. It has stood for
the wrongs of capitalism when it should have stood for the rights of the
people. Our flag will always stand for the wrongs of capitalism, so long
as capitalism controls the government.
In such circumstances, there can be no assured peace. Peace tribunals,
like that of The Hague, may be established until their sponsors are
black in the face, but still there will be no peace. There can be no
peace. Profits prevent. The gentlemen who attach themselves to these
tribunals want peace—if. Peace if it can be maintained without hurting
profits. Peace if it can be maintained without restraining capitalistic
brigands who wish to descend upon the property of others. Peace if it
can be had without price.
So war continues in a world that is weary of war. Heavier and heavier
becomes the burden of armaments. The workingman staggers under the
weight of the fourteen-inch gun. The workingman may go hungry. The gun
must be fed.
“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.”[2]
Footnote 2:
P. F. McCarthy, in the New York _World_.
Only one machine can smash this gun, and that is the printing press. The
greatest gun can shoot only twenty miles or so. The Socialist press can
shoot and is shooting around the world. When the working class controls
its printing presses, war will end.
Do you really want war to end, or is a string attached to your wish? If
you mean business, you can help end it. But if you want the privilege of
aiding in this great work for humanity, you will have to vote the
Socialist ticket. It is the only ticket that always and everywhere is
sternly against war, as the Socialist party is the only party opposed to
the profit system that makes wars.
I cannot close this chapter without calling the attention of readers to
a book entitled “War—What For?” by Mr. George R. Kirkpatrick. It is
published by the author at West Lafayette, Ohio. Between darkness and
daylight, one night, I read it all. I can never forget it. If all the
world had read it, there would be no more war.