SECTION 1,—“The militia shall consist of every able-bodied male citizen

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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]