“... Outside in the shed the preparation_War—What For?

the chests were opened and the contents arranged in order.... On

another table were the surgical cases with their blood-curdling

array of glittering instruments, probes, forceps, bistouries,

scalpels, scissors, saws, an arsenal of implements of every

imaginable shape adapted to pierce, cut, dice, rend, crush.... The

wagons kept driving up to the entrance in an unbroken stream.... The

regular ambulance wagons of the medical department, two-wheeled and

four-wheeled, were too few in number to meet the demand ...

provision vans, everything on wheels that could be picked up on the

battlefield, came rolling up with their ghastly loads; and later in

the day carrioles and market-gardeners’ carts were pressed into the

service and harnessed to horses that were found straying along the

roads.... It was a sight to move the most callous to behold the

unloading of those poor wretches, some with the greenish pallor on

their faces, others suffused with the purple hue that denotes

congestion; many were in a state of coma, others uttered piercing

cries of anguish ... the keen knife flashed in the air, there was

the faint rasping of the saw barely audible, the blood spurted in

short sharp jets.... As soon as the subject had been operated on

another was brought in, and they followed one another in such quick

succession that there was barely time to pass the sponge over the

protecting oil-cloth. At the extremity of the grass plot, screened

from sight by a clump of lilac bushes, they had set up a kind of

morgue whither they carried the bodies of the dead, which were

removed from the beds without a moment’s delay in order to make room

for the living, and this receptacle also served to receive the

amputated legs and arms, whatever débris of flesh and bone remained

upon the table.... Rents in tattered, shell-torn uniforms disclosed

gaping wounds, some of which had received a hasty dressing on the

battlefield, while others were still raw and bleeding. There were

feet, still encased in their coarse shoes, crushed into a mass like

jelly; from knees and elbows, that were as if they had been smashed

by a hammer, depended inert limbs. There were broken hands, and

fingers almost severed, ready to drop, retained only by a strip of

skin. Most numerous among the casualties were the fractures; the

poor arms and legs, red and swollen, throbbed intolerably and were

as heavy as lead. But the most dangerous hurts were those in the

abdomen, chest, and head. There were yawning fissures that laid open

the entire flank, the knotted viscera were drawn into great hard

lumps beneath the tight-drawn skin, while as the effect of certain

wounds the patient frothed at the mouth and writhed like an

epileptic.... And finally the head, more than any other portion of

the frame, gave evidence of hard treatment; a broken jaw, the mouth

a pulp of teeth and bleeding tongue, an eye torn from its socket and

exposed upon the cheek, a cloven skull that showed the palpitating

brain beneath.... Although the sponge was kept constantly at work

the tables were always red.... The buckets ... were emptied over a

bed of daisies a few steps away.... Some seemed to have left the

world with a sneer on their faces, their eyes retroverted till

naught was visible but the whites, the grinning lips parted over the

glistening teeth, while in others with faces unspeakably sorrowful,

big tears still stood on the cheeks. One, a mere boy, short and

slight, half whose face had been shot away by a cannon ball, had his

two hands clasped convulsively above his heart, and in them a

woman’s photograph, one of those pale, blurred pictures that are

made in the quarters of the poor, bedabbled with his blood. And at

the feet of the dead had been thrown in a promiscuous pile the

amputated arms and legs, the refuse of the knife and the saw of the

operating table, just as the butcher sweeps into a corner of his

shop the offal, the worthless odds and ends of flesh and bone....

Bourouche, brandishing the long, keen knife, cried: ‘Raise him!’

seized the deltoid with his left hand and with a swift movement of

the right cut through the flesh of the arm and severed the muscle;

then, with a deft rear-ward cut, he disarticulated the joint at a

single stroke, and, presto! the arm fell on the table, taken off in

three motions.... ‘Let him down!’ ... he had done it in thirty

seconds.... Their strength all gone, reduced to skeletons, with

ashen, clayey faces, the miserable wretches suffered the torments of

the damned.... The patients writhed and shrieked in unceasing

delirium, or sat erect in bed with the look of spectres.... There

were others again who maintained a continuous howling.... Often

gangrene kept mounting higher and higher, and the amputation had to

be repeated until the entire limb was gone.”

And that is hell—for which your children are prepared.

This phase of war is shrewdly kept from the children. No child’s mind

could be poisoned, no child’s imagination could be set on fire for war,

no child’s heart could be made to lust for the “glory” of the

battlefield of carnage—if he were shown _this_ side of war.

But the child is an easy victim. Even some cheap jingo jingle called

patriotic poetry renders the working class the easy, fooled tool of

despots. The victimizing of the helpless child is rendered especially

easy when the mother, blindfold with flattery, gullibly lends assistance

in strangling the child’s sociability. (See Chapter Seven, Section 30.)

(=5=) Here is a specimen of the poison craftily used in the public

schools under the control of the capitalist class:

“A soldier is the grandest man

That ever yet was made.

He’s valiant on the battlefield

And handsome on parade.

By strict attention to my drill

It should not take me long

For me to be an officer

When I am big and strong.

Then, when my country needs me,

In case of war’s alarms,

I’d run and get my uniform[247]

And call the boys to arms!

With sword in hand I’d lead the charg

My orders I would yell

Above the noise of cannon’s roar

And storms of shot and shell.

We’d dash upon the foreign foe,

As Teddy did of yore,

Who took the hill while covered with

Dust, victory and gore!

With banners gay, while bugles play,

We’d seek our native land.

Upon a horse I’d ride that day,

The General in Command!”[248]

Will the mothers protect their children’s nature against the unsocial

small souls who are always ignorantly or maliciously ready to thrust

fangs and venom into the generous natures of frank and social children

by having them recite stupid praise of distinguished human butchers and

“famous victories”?

An American literary man of great eminence, Dr. Edward Everett Hale,

thus rebuked the poisoners of school children:

“But even now, think how much more care you give to the study of the

histories of war than to the histories of peace. There are ten times

as many people who know who commanded at the Battle of New Orleans

as there are who could tell me the name of the great apostle who

made freedom the law for Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin,

Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Michigan. This man died

leaving no memorial.”[249]

(=6=) The working class should speedily get control of public libraries

and throw out and keep out books written especially to exalt war and

puff the brilliant butchers who have guided millions of working men to

death on blood-soaked battlefields,—throw out and burn all books

designed to praise the Christian or pagan cannibalism, or the civilized

savagery called war. LABOR UNIONS AND ALL OTHER WORKING CLASS BODIES

SHOULD MAKE FORMAL AND VIGOROUS PROTEST AGAINST HAVING ANYTHING SAID IN

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN PRAISE OF WAR AND IN PRAISE OF DISTINGUISHED

BUTCHERS. Let them reflect too that military drills, given _as such_,

with martial songs and war tales, cultivate blood lust in the children,

blind them to the true meaning of war, make them an easy prey, later, to

the crafty cowards who will seek to use them in future savage contests,

and are thus an outrage on the children. For a dozen reasons the working

class should get control of local school boards.[250]

(=7=) The following lines from a poem written by an elegant coward, are

often used in the primary grades of the public schools:

“Form! Form! Riflemen, form!

Ready! be ready to meet the storm!

Riflemen! Riflemen! Riflemen, form!”

A SCHOOL TEACHER CAN MAKE A FOOL AND A MURDERER OF A BOY OF EIGHT OR TEN

YEARS WITH SUCH LINES. REMEMBER THAT POETS AND TEACHERS WHO FURNISH THE

WAR-SONG CHLOROFORM FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN USUALLY “SIDE-STEP” WHEN THE

STORM BREAKS—NO RIFLE BUSINESS FOR THEM—THEY LET OTHERS “MEET THE STORM”

WHICH THEIR POETRY AND TEACHING HELPED STIR UP. THE WAR-SONG POET AND

THE WAR-SONG SCHOOL TEACHER, IF YOU PLEASE, ARE TOO “CULTIVATED AND

RESPECTABLE” TO BE PATRIOTICALLY BUTCHERED.

Under no circumstances should a working class father and mother keep

silent while a public school teacher or a Sunday-school teacher thrills

the children’s blood and blasts the glorious sentiments of human

brotherhood with recitals of war-tales and fulsome praise of men whose

“glory” is red with the blood of tens of thousands of working class men.

Such stories and such praise scar and brutalize the social natures of

the children as distinctly as a hot branding iron would disfigure their

tender faces.

(=8=) The little lovers, the children, who are conceived in love, born

in love, and live on love, who hunger for love, long to love, glorify

the home with love and make the sad world hope for—almost mad for—love,

one generation of these sweet little lovers, these prattling sweethearts

of mankind, would, when grown up, fill the world with an international

love, _if they were not bitten by the viper of petty, local patriotism_.

The mother who will think about this matter somewhat will promptly

realize that there is something disastrously wrong with the education

which stings her little lovers with a murderer’s aspiration. There is

something wrong when the gracious neighborliness and charming

sociability of children give way to swaggering insolence and savage

blood-lust.

Let the mother think of it: Even their playthings, their toys, are

craftily used to sting, to debauch the imagination of the children, to

write the hopes of brutes in the hearts of gentle children. Lately there

has been enormous increase in the business of manufacturing toy

soldiers, toy cavalry horses, toy cannon and toy Gatling guns, also

khaki soldier clothing for children. “120,000 bales of scrap tin from

the Puget Sound canneries were sent recently to Hamburg, Germany, to be

made into toy soldiers.”[251] There can be no doubt about the results of

using such garb and playthings. That the child is thus scarred is

revealed when the tiny boy assumes the attitudes and the strut and

swagger of the professional man-slaughterer. His very conversation with

his military toys shows he is marked—_ready_.[252]

William Lloyd Garrison wrote:

“My country is the world, my countrymen are all mankind.”

But the stung child can not learn the meaning of Garrison’s noble words.

(=9=) Boy, kill one human being, and you will be called a

murderer—despised and hanged. But kill a thousand human beings in

war—and you become “great”! Deluded women smile upon you, little

children gape at you, preachers praise you, politicians pet you, orators

glorify you, capitalists grin at you, universities honor you, and the

Government medals and pensions you;—but lonely, war-orphaned children

and war-robbed widows, _these despise you exactly in proportion as they

understand you_.

Remember, boy, the soldier’s sword reaches through the slaughtered

father to others—reaches the hearts of helpless women and helpless

children.

Which would you rather be, boy, a dead and useless slaughterer of men,

or a live and useful man of peace?—a dead butcher or a live brother?

(=10=) Here, of course, the thought of patriotism occurs.

A great American, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote:

“We hesitate to employ a word so much abused as patriotism, whose

true sense is almost the reverse of the popular sense. We have no

sympathy with that boyish egotism, hoarse with cheering for one

side, for one state, for one town; the right patriotism consists in

the delight which springs from contributing our peculiar legitimate

advantages to the benefit of humanity.”

And thus James Russell Lowell:[253]

“There is a patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves us from our

other and terrene fealty.... When, therefore, one would have us

throw up our caps and shout with the multitude, ‘Our country,

however bounded!’ he demands of us that we sacrifice the larger to

the less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield to the

imaginary claims of a few acres of soil our duty and privilege as

liegemen of Truth. Our true country is bounded on the north and the

south, on the east and the west, by justice.... Veiling our faces,

we must take silently the hand of Duty to follow her.”

The fallacy of false patriotism is exploded in the following quotation

by James Mackaye:[254]

“There is a school of patriotism more or less popular which teaches

that a man owes to his country a duty which he owes to no other

aggregate of the human race, and that he should render service to

the constituted authorities thereof, whatever policies they may

choose to pursue. The motto of this school is ‘My country, right or

wrong.’ Had this been the motto of Washington and his compatriots

the United States would still be a part of the British Empire. The

particular aggregate of men which constitutes a nation is a matter

of the merest accident.... Indeed the patriotism whose dictum is ‘My

country, right or wrong’ is but one degree of egotism, for if my

country right or wrong, why not my state right or wrong; if my state

right or wrong, why not my town ... my neighborhood ... my

family ... my great uncle ... or why not myself right or wrong?”

George Washington was disloyal to his own government, the greatest

national government in the world in his day, simply because that

government did not do things to suit _him_. Washington _took up arms

against his own government_ because it did not suit him. Washington was

_unpatriotic_ toward his great national government because it did not

please him. Washington _even trampled upon the flag_ of his own national

government because that government’s policy did not suit him.

But Washington was loyal to his own interests. He was patriotic toward

the new _revolutionary_ government that did suit him. He _transferred

his allegiance_ to a _new_ flag and a _new_ constitution and a _new_

government and thus _protected his economic interests_.

And all these things are true, strictly true, of almost every _great_

American in the times of Washington. Nearly every “leading citizen” in

England at that time thought the behavior of the great Americans was

“simply awful,” “outlandishly anarchistic.”

The “patriotic” great men in England were protecting their _economic_

interests and _used their government_ to protect those interests.

The “unpatriotic” Americans were protecting their economic interests,

and they despised the government that would not protect their interests,

and they straightway constructed a government which they _could_ use in

protecting their interests. Then they became patriotic toward the new

government which they were using to protect their interests.

Always those in possession of the powers of government use the

Government to protect themselves—that is, to protect their interests;

and they never fail to shrewdly shout, “Patriotism!” and teach

“patriotism”; nor do they ever fail to shout, “Unpatriotic!” at any

group or class who seek to reorganize government in self-defense.

“Patriotism!” “Love of our country!” Yes, indeed! But, doesn’t the

average American working class man look ridiculous shouting, “Hurrah for

our country—our land of the free”? He has no voice in the control of the

factory where he works; has no voice as to the use of the militia and

the soldiers; has _no right to demand a job and thus defend his life_;

he could not have the service of one petty village marshal, to open up a

“shut-down” factory, even though the opening of the factory would save

him and five thousand other men and their twenty-five thousand women and

children from starvation; in the mill and mine and factory he has no

voice as to who shall be his foreman or superintendent any more than

black chattel slaves in Georgia cotton fields in 1850.

Our country! Land of the free! Where the president of the American

Federation of Labor could be clapped into jail if he should use the

“freedom of the press” to publish even a short list of boycotted

industrial tyrants; where the officers of the Western Federation of

Miners were kidnapped and the kidnapping was declared to be

constitutional by the highest court in the land, and the untried

prisoners (constitutionally entitled to all the presumptions of

innocence) were declared guilty by the cheap President of the political

mockery called a “free republic.”

(=11=) Mothers and fathers are not permitted to learn of many of the

foul things happening at barracks or far away whither their sons have

been “flimflammed” for bullet-stoppers.

For President William H. Taft’s official testimony on the sexual

degradation of the soldier sons of loving mothers, see Chapter Four,

Section One, of the present volume.

“On the 17th of July, 1899, the staff correspondents of American

newspapers stationed in Manila stated unitedly in public protest:

“‘The [Press] censorship has compelled us to participate in this

misrepresentation by excising or altering uncontroverted statements

of fact, on the plea, as General Otis said, that “they would alarm

the people at home,” or “have the people of the United States by the

ears.”’”[255]

Some things, you know, must be concealed. President D. S. Jordan (Leland

Stanford University) writes:[256]

“Does the _Outlook_ [editor] know what Manila is becoming under

military rule? We hear of four hundred saloons on the Escolta, where

two were before; that twenty-one per cent. of our soldiers are

attacked with venereal disease, that according to the belief of the

soldiers, ‘even the pigs and dogs have the syphilis.’”

Following the Spanish war, venereal diseases as cause of ineffectiveness

and cause for discharge from the army increased two and a half fold;

that is, _two hundred and fifty per cent_.[257] The statement by the

Secretary of War, Mr. Dickinson (Report for 1909, p. 17) is sufficient

to disgust and anger every woman in the land with the entire filthy

business of militarism. For the startling statement see Chapter Four,

Section One, of present volume.

In this connection read the words of an officer in the Department of

War, Col. John Van Rensselaer:[258]

“I have but one word to say. I am an officer of the Medical Corps of

the Army, and will speak on this important subject from that

standpoint.

“Every soldier excused from duty on account of sickness of any kind

has a record made of his case. By reason of this fact, I believe I

may safely say that military vital statistics, including venereal

diseases, are the most complete extant.

“The authorities observing that there has been in recent years a

progressive increase of these diseases in the Army, until the

non-efficiency from them with us now exceeds that of any other army,

and despairing of help from the civil control of prostitution, have

instituted a plan within the service by which they hope to reduce

the excessive non-efficiency from venereal. Medical officers are

required to instruct the men in the nature and dangers of these

diseases, the non-necessity of exposure to them....

“Such instruction is valuable to a certain extent, but only to a

certain extent.... We cannot, therefore, expect all of our men, so

many of whom are at the age of highest virility, to avoid exposure

by reason of any moral suasion we may bring to bear. Some certainly

will not, so we say to them, ‘Be continent, but if you cannot, then

protect yourself!’ _And we tell them how to do it._”

[Illustration:

PREPARING BOY-SCOUT HIRED HANDS.

(See sample of “finished product” of a Boy Scout, pages 51, 53 and,

especially, opposite page 207.)

]

How splendid, how grandly noble, it must have been to see a regular army

physician, wearing the official professional uniform marked “U. S.,”

going, officially, at stated intervals, to the officially “segregated”

houses of prostitution in Manila to officially examine the condition of

professional prostitutes, and, having examined them, officially report

them “unfit” (for whom?)—or “fit” (for whom?). How sublime! How

patriotic! How lovingly Christian! Great flag-waving, constitutional

government, performing a noble function nobly and, of course,

constitutionally! All in the name of Christ, of course—for “This is a

Christian nation”—officially.

Life on board a war vessel is unnatural. So far as social and sex

relations are concerned the men are virtually kept in solitary

confinement for weeks, even months, at a time. _Under such profoundly

unnatural conditions human beings behave unnaturally._ Many strong

characters and all the weak ones collapse, utterly collapse; and the

wild, ugly, worse than brute monster, _Perverted_ Sex Appetite, has a

vile festival weeks at a time, enticing, embracing, befouling, devouring

many of the finest youths in the land.

It is said to be common knowledge with many who know and with many it is

a source of horrible jest—that under such unnatural conditions on board

a battleship men _sexually_ associate _with men_ in ways worse (if

possible) than the most degrading ways mentioned (and cursed) in the Old

Testament. And when, after weeks or months at sea, the warship touches

at a port for a few days or weeks, there is a wild rush of unfortunate

boys for unfortunate women whose diseased condition is an unspeakable

abomination. And this should be known too: Certain Christian and

un-Christian governments’ officials _provide the boys with certain

preventive chemicals_ (_as they leave the ship for a “lark” on shore_),

knowing that the boys, many of them, are _sure to be the victims of

victims reeking with disease_.

And then if the reader could witness the “round-up” the night before the

ship sets out to sea again,—could see scores of fine young marines,

pride of loving mothers,—if the reader could see them taken on board

dead drunk and horribly befouled, taken on board in wheel barrows and

dumped like big lumps of diseased, drunken, snoring and slobbering

flesh, to be sobered up and “treated” when the ship gets out to sea,—if

the reader could see all this and very much more, for example in New

York harbor, he would then better understand why very few of “our very

_best_ people” of the “upper class” are not easily wheedled into giving

up their own sons to defend our great and glorious country on board a

big steel fighting machine called a battleship—to cruise and carouse

around the world. Just in proportion as the working class mother thinks

about this matter her sons will be safer from the wheedling seductions

of the recruiting officer.

Mothers, what is the blind sentiment that makes you clap your hands in

admiration of the “great statesmen” or the “great government” that has

prostitutes examined for the sons you bore and carefully reared and

tenderly love?

“LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION,” SAID JESUS CHRIST. YET A “CIVILIZED”

CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENT RECENTLY NOT ONLY EXAMINED, BUT PROVIDED

PROSTITUTES FOR THE SOLDIER BOYS. THE GREAT BRITISH GOVERNMENT WITHIN

RECENT YEARS PROVIDED PROSTITUTES FOR HER SOLDIERS IN INDIA. Circular

memoranda were sent to all the cantonments of India by Quarter-Master

General Chapman, in the name of the commander-in-chief of the army of

India (Lord Roberts). Here are three excerpts from those documents and

from official reports:[259]

“In regimental bazaars it is _necessary_ to have a _sufficient

number_ of women; to take care that they are SUFFICIENTLY

ATTRACTIVE; to _provide_ them with proper houses, and above all to

insist upon means of ablution being always available [to prevent

venereal diseases].... If _young_ soldiers are _carefully advised_

in regard to the _advantages_ of ablution, and recognize that

_convenient arrangements exist in the regimental bazaar_ (that is,

in the chacla, or brothel), they may be expected to avoid the risks

involved in association with women who are not recognized [that is,

not examined and licensed] by the regimental authorities.”

Another commanding officer writes in his report:

“PLEASE SEND YOUNG AND ATTRACTIVE WOMEN AS LAID DOWN IN THE

QUARTER-MASTER GENERAL’S CIRCULAR, NO. 21A.... THERE ARE NOT WOMEN

ENOUGH; THEY ARE NOT ATTRACTIVE ENOUGH. MORE AND YOUNGER WOMEN ARE

REQUIRED.... I HAVE ORDERED THE NUMBER OF PROSTITUTES TO BE

INCREASED ... AND HAVE GIVEN SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS AS TO ADDITIONAL

WOMEN BEING YOUNG AND OF ATTRACTIVE APPEARANCE.”

And this: “The total number of admissions to hospital of cases of

venereal diseases amongst troops in India rose in 1895 to 522 per

1,000.”

And this from another authority:[260]

“In 1902, in India, the enormous number of 12,686 men were admitted

into hospitals suffering from sexual diseases alone; more than 1,000

military victims were always in the hospital—and the report from

which these figures are taken deals with the healthiest year for 20

years past. In the Home Army ... in a single period of twelve

months, of 154,000 troops, there were 24,176 sexual complaint

cases—or one in every six. In the author’s judgment, 80 per cent. of

the entire British Army in India, and a proportion slightly smaller

for the Home Army, have been at some time affected.”

“The worst of war and war service is that the soldier is a ruined

man.”[261]

General Sherman has spoken on the refining influences of war:

“Long after the Civil War, General Sherman, defending the conduct of

his troops in South Carolina, said to Carl Schurz: ‘Before we got

out of that state the men had so accustomed themselves to destroying

everything along the line of march that sometimes, when I had my

headquarters in a house, that house began to burn before I was

fairly out of it. The truth is—human nature is human nature. You

take the best lot of young men—all church members if you please—and

put them into an army and let them invade an enemy’s country and let

them live upon it for any length, and they will gradually lose all

principle[262] and self-restraint to a degree beyond the control of

discipline. It has always been so and always will be so.’”[263]

(=12=) An anonymous author writes thus:[264]

“Real war is a very different thing from the painted image that you

see at a parade or review. But it is the painted image that makes it

popular. The waving plumes, the gay uniforms, the flashing swords,

the disciplined march of innumerable feet, the clear-voiced trumpet,

the intoxicating strains of martial music, the pomp, the sound, and

the spectacle—these are the incitements to war and to the profession

of the soldier. They are not what they are. But they still form a

popular prelude to a woeful pandemonium. And when war bursts out it

is at first, as a rule, but a small minority even of the peoples

engaged that really sees and feels its horrors. The populace is fed

by excitements; the defeats are covered up; in most countries the

lists of killed and wounded are suppressed or postponed; victories

are magnified; successful generals are acclaimed, and the military

hero becomes the idol of the people. The over-fed, seedy malingerers

of a small society join with the starving loiterers about the gin

palace in applauding the execution of ruin. If their heroes are

successful, what are their trophies?—prisons crowded with captives,

hospitals filled with sick and wounded, towns sacked, farms burnt,

fields laid waste, taxes raised, plenty converted to scarcity or

famine, and vast debts accumulated for posterity. Then when these

[military] heroes have done their work, the heroes of peace ...

appear, and by long and patient labor amid scenes of universal

lamentation seek to mitigate the suffering of their repentant

fellow-countrymen.”

The poet Byron was in a war and described war thus:

“All the mind would shrink from of excesses;

All the body perpetrates of bad;

All that we read, hear, dream, of man’s distresses;

All that the devil would do if run stark mad;

All that defies the worst which pen expresses;

All that by which hell is peopled, or is sad

As hell—mere mortals who their power abuse—

Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose....

War’s a brain-spattering art.”[265]

(=13=) In connection with the foregoing section 12 examine Chapter

Seven, Section 18.

“War! War! War!... God send the women sleep in the long, long night,

when the breasts on whose strength they leaned heave no more.”[266]

Wives and mothers of the working class, as soon as the government has

had your choicest sons slaughtered, the government is _through with

you_—except to send you a miserable, blood-stained, silver sop, a sort

of cash bribe, once a quarter. Then as you receive the vile cash, you

can, in imagination, hear the shrieks of your dead loved ones. The

government seeks to win your approval and to silence your hearts’

protests against human butchery with the cheap jingle of some filthy

dollars—as if you had sold your sons and husbands for a price. Such a

pension is a form of hush money.

“If the stroke of war fell certain on the guilty heads, none

else ... but alas!

That undistinguishing and deathful storm

Beats heaviest on the exposed and innocent;

And they that stir its fury, while it raves

Safe at a distance send their mandates forth.”—Crowe.

Robert G. Ingersoll wrote:[267]

“Nations sustain the relations of savages to each other....

“No man has imagination enough to paint the agonies, the horrors, the

cruelties, of war. Think of sending shot and shell crashing through the

bodies of men! Think of the widows and orphans! Think of the maimed, the

mutilated, the mangled!...”

Let the working class mothers beware of crafty and cowardly politicians

and business men seeking to excite them with the shallow cry: “The flag!

Our country! Our homes!” For the mothers’ sake it is worth the space to

restate the fact here: _That more than half of all the mothers in the

United States have no homes of their own and must live in rented homes,

and more than one-eighth of them live in mortgaged homes_.[268] And vast

numbers of the mothers in the United States live in mean, small houses

with scarcely a single modern convenience.

Mothers, keep your eyes on the bankers and the manufacturers and the

other “leading citizens”: they and their sons and sons-in-law are not

shedding a large quantity of their “blue” blood for “our” country and

“our” homes and “our” flag; _and they can not be wheedled into doing

so_. Watch them closely, mothers, both before a war and during a war.

Don’t get excited. Remember Christ’s “Put up thy sword.”

St. Paul said, “Follow peace with all men.”

You have heard of this doctrine: “Thou shalt not kill.”

“War has no pity,” said Schiller.

“God is forgotten in war, and every principle of Christianity is

trampled under foot,” said Sidney Smith.

“To be tender-minded

Does not become a sword.”—Shakespeare.

“War is one of the greatest plagues that can afflict humanity; it

destroys religion ... it destroys families. Any scourge, in fact, is

preferable to it.... Cannon and fire-arms are cruel and damnable

machines.”—Martin Luther.

The gentle and charming lover of little children, Eugene Field, wrote:

“I hate wars, armies, soldiers, guns, and fireworks.”[269]

“And he shall judge among the nations, and he shall rebuke many

people. And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their

spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift sword against

nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”[270]

James Russell Lowell:[271]

“The laborin’ man and laborin’ woman

Have one glory and one shame;

Ev’y thin’ thet’s done inhuman

Ingers all on ’em the same.”

And Tolstoi thus:[272]

“Every war—even the briefest—with its accompaniment of ruinous

expenses, destruction of harvests, thefts, plunder, murders, and

unchecked debauchery, with the false justifications of its necessity

and justice, the glorification and praise of military exploits, of

patriotism and devotion to the flag, with the pretense of care for

the wounded, etc.,—will, in one year, demoralize men incomparably

more than thousands of thefts, arsons and murders committed in the

course of centuries by individual men under the influence of

passion.”

Let the women’s literary clubs and circles, many of them devotees of

John Ruskin, consider the following lines from his pen:[273]

“But Occult Theft—Theft which hides itself even from itself, and is

legal, respectable, and cowardly,—corrupts the body and soul of man,

and to the last fibre of them. _And the guilty thieves of Europe,

the real sources of all deadly war in it, are the Capitalists_,—that

is to say, those who live by percentages on the labor of others.—The

_Real_ war in Europe—is between these thieves and the workman, _such

as these thieves have made him_. They have kept him poor, ignorant,

and sinful, that they might without his knowledge gather for

themselves the produce of his toil. At last a dim insight into the

fact of this begins to dawn upon him.”

As to thieves: Think of stealing several years of a man’s life when he

is in the prime of young manhood, by tearing him from his own friends

and loved ones, forcing a rifle into his hands, and compelling him for

years to learn the vile science and art of human butchery. Thus are the

best years of millions of the choicest young men in Europe stolen—stolen

by a class,—a class of prominent kidnappers, industrial and political

thieves, “leading citizens” hypocritically wearing a mask called

“Patriotism.” Think of many millions thus stolen—stolen from their

parents, stolen from their brothers and sisters, stolen from their wives

and children.

When the working class think about war and see the vast theft of their

lives they will astound the world with their protest.

And the mothers will take part in this protest.

(=14=) Didn’t Christ say in substance: “I came not to send peace, but a

sword?”

Yes. At least that is what some of the gentle Christ’s followers are

said to have reported that they heard he had been reported to have been

heard to say. And it is true, too, that tyrants, hypocritically mumbling

_interpolated_ malignance _ascribed_ to Christ, draw the sword to combat

the brotherhood of man—as, doubtless, Christ expected they would do. But

it is worse than blasphemous nonsense to teach children—young or

old—that Christ, the Great Lover of Mankind, was a cheap jingoist,

recommended the sword and counseled wholesale butchery of brothers by

brothers. The distinguished intellectual prostitutes who argue Christ

into the same butchers’ list with Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon and the

Tough Rider, are pridelessly down on their faces in the dust cringing

before their industrial masters; they are simply betraying Christ again

for “thirty pieces” of blood-stained silver called salaries.[274]

Christ, according to the reports, also said: “Blessed are the

peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” Also: “Ye

have heard it hath been said: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a

tooth’; but I say unto you: ‘That ye resist not evil.’” And this: “They

that take up the sword, shall by the sword perish.”

And this on authority: “Thou shalt not steal.”

One of the most eminent bishops in the United States went, in the winter

of 1907–8, before a Congressional Committee and argued eloquently for a

large cash donation from Congress for a certain “boys’ academy” managed

by his church. His chief argument was that the little fellows “are

carefully trained _in the use of arms_ and would be _ready for use in

case of trouble_.”

Many schools thus prepare boys to murder hungry working men who are out

on strike for a few pennies a day to feed their families—which is a

“case of trouble.” Now imagine Christ training tender boys for human

butchery and teasing the brutal government of his time for cash with

which to buy spears and swords for the children!

“There is a powerful section of the Christian church which teaches its

entire membership that the Church has a right to exempt them—the

clergy—from the usual duties of citizenship, and especially from

military duty.”[275]

Now, it does not matter what church we may or may not be members of, all

the men and all the women of the _working_ class—_in all the churches

and out of the churches_—should band together in a _world-wide

fellowship and effort_ of the _working_ class to drive war from the

world and thus protect the helpless women and children. Remember,

mothers, it is not fair that your husbands and sons should be torn from

your homes, have cruel rifles thrust into their hands, and be forced

into a war where they may be destroyed,—and you be thus widowed and your

younger children be left fatherless; and, at the same time, the minister

who by prayer and public speech exerted powerful influence to bring

about the war,—that _he_ should be exempted from the horrors of the

battlefield, the horrors _up close_, where human blood and brains are

pounded into the mud by cannon balls and the hoofs of horses. Remember,

too, that tens of thousands of ministers have no wives and no children

to be desolated. Does it not seem rather that these wifeless, childless

men who want war should themselves go to the war instead of having your

lovers go?

It should be repeated:

NO MATTER WHAT DENOMINATION THEY BELONG TO, THOSE MEN WHO PRAY FOR WAR

OR PRAY FOR VICTORIES IN WAR, OR HELP TRAIN BOYS FOR WAR—THOSE MEN

SHOULD GO AND FIGHT THE WAR.

IF A WAR IS GOOD ENOUGH TO PRAY FOR IT IS GOOD ENOUGH TO GO TO. THOSE

WHO WANT “GREAT VICTORIES” SHOULD BE FORCED TO GO AFTER THEM, RIGHT UP

TO THE FRONT TOO, WHERE CANNON SHELLS BURST STRIKING HUNDREDS WITH

DEATH—UP TO THE FRONT, INTO “HELL’S HURRICANES.”

How does this matter seem to you, mother? Won’t you think it over and

bring up the subject for friendly and earnest _discussion in your

community_? Why not urge all women everywhere to take up this

subject—and thus _chain the attention of society to this subject of the

degradation and slaughter of the men you love_?

(=15=) In _The Westminster Review_ of July, 1907, is the following

suggestion of a topic suitable for discussion in women’s societies and

newspapers:

“There is another insidious form of Militarism that is very

widespread and popular. I refer to the Lads’ Brigades [in England]

which are attached to so many churches of different denominations.

Under pretext of giving them physical training, boys are taught the

spirit of submission to another’s will, and to love the trappings of

Militarism.... This coupling together of military training with

religion has been well described by the Rev. Dr. Aked of Liverpool

[now of New York], as ‘preaching heaven and practicing hell.’”

The American mother can not solace herself with the thought that what

Dr. Aked referred to was a practice in far-away England and does not

much concern her. For this new crucifixion of Jesus and the degradation

of the little boys, a strong society exists in the United States. The

United Boys’ Brigade is an organization for training the trigger-fingers

and the blood-lusts of boys nine years and upward in the basement rooms

of Christian churches. “The object of the organization,” as announced in

the monthly magazine of the organization, _The American Brigadier_, is

“to ... promote reverence and discipline ... to create in them a love

for their country ... and while the boys are _thoroughly drilled in

military discipline and tactics_, it only serves to make them true

Christian _soldiers_.”[276] _The American Brigadier_ announces

officially that “there is nothing equal to it in drawing them into the

Sabbath School.” Thus the church is to be made like a prize-fighting

ring in order to make it look good to the little boys. _The American

Brigadier_, of December, 1907, gives away its secret in a lengthy

account, headed, “Securing a New Recruit,” as follows:

(One boy says to another): “We go to Bible drill every Saturday

night and have setting-up exercises and Bible drill, and sometimes

we visit other companies. Gee! but our company can show them how to

drill. And we go camping in summer, and we have a bully time....

Bible drill?... Gee! but there are some bully stories in the

Bible.... We read about Samson, the strong man that beat Sandow all

hollow, and King David, the siege of Jericho, and last week we read

about a shepherd boy killing a giant with a sling-shot....”

In _The Brigadier_ of November, 1907, is an article, “What it Means to

be a Soldier,” in which is the following:

“There is but one word that covers all, and that is obedience:

obedience to orders and strict discipline. The foundation of all

military organizations rests upon this one basis.”

Precisely: _obedience_.

That is to say, an innocent little fellow who has been drilled thus for

several years to forget that _he_ has a brain and a will of _his own_,

drilled to obey _all_ orders _instantly_—such a boy at the age of twenty

will, of course, _automatically_ and stupidly obey _any_ order—_no

matter how vile_—even the order: “Fire! Charge!”—though “the enemy,” the

target, be little silk-mill wage-slave girls ten or twelve years old who

must toil a whole week for $1.60, and are out on strike for a dime more

per week, and while out on strike are _starved_ into being “riotous.”

Armed rowdies—with riot guns—for starving, “rioting” children!

_The American Brigadier_ is primarily a religious magazine, so they say;

but it offers a breech-loading Springfield rifle as a premium to the boy

who will send in the most subscribers. Imagine Christ making his cause

popular with little boys by offering them a weapon with which to murder!

_The Brigadier_ wins the boys to Jesus by seductively baiting the savage

that still lurks in the “civilized” breast; the magazine gives pictures

of armories, battle monuments, gun drills, military parades, camp life,

gay military uniforms, little boys with guns, swords, tents, banners,

cannon, pictures also of pompous-looking, gilt-braided “big men,” famous

professional human butchers. The magazine prints alluring stories of

army-and-navy life; and makes a specialty of advertising military arms,

military clothing, West Point story books, and so forth.

This organization works in and through the church. It is strong and is

gaining ground. It boasts of having branches in many states. In the

“City of Churches,” Brooklyn, N. Y., the society is specially strong.

Much of the military drill work is done openly in the streets, when the

weather permits. Many pastors, “in the name of Jesus,” of course, are

energetically—and patriotically—hustling for the movement, some of them

proudly (and craftily) having their pictures taken with the training

companies. The pastors’ poses in these pictures make the pastors look

like valuable assets to the capitalists of their churches, but the poses

somehow do not suggest the quiet and gentle Jesus. “Put up thy sword” is

out of date with these kerosened procurers political.[277]

There are many thousands of innocent little church boys thus in

training. October 5, 1907, twenty-five hundred of these little fellows

marched on Fifth Avenue, New York City, carrying guns and swords, four

of the betrayed children dragging a light cannon.

The Federal Government at Washington, by a “judicious mingling” of winks

and smiles, is heartily encouraging this “Christian soldier” enterprise.

Says the Commander-in-Chief, H. B. Pope, in his Report:[278]

“In general ... it can be said that in the quarters where we have

desired to obtain recognition, our influence is greater, and the

respect tendered to us is much more cordial than ever before. Our

own Government has paid special attention in several directions to

the work of this organization ... and our development [is] carefully

followed by those highest in authority, who appreciate the

possibilities of the splendid soldiery which the organization is

making, should the necessity ever arise when this body might be

needed [in a strike for example].... Drill should never be allowed

to take the place of religious exercises. At the same time a

judicious mingling of both constitutes means through which we can

obtain highest results.”

And the following is from a report on a meeting of the organization held

in Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church, New York City, May 13, 1907:

“There were also present a number of Army Officers, National Guard

officers and veterans of the Civil War.... The Church was

beautifully decorated with flags.... General Campbell presided and

presented messages of good will and good wishes from the President

of the United States, from Colonel Fred Grant ... and from many

other influential men.”

How interestingly consistent—“Good will and good wishes” from the

presidential chairman of the executive committee of the capitalist class

in America; that is, the National Government,—“good will and good

wishes” to the seducers of small boys to serve as fist and tusk for the

ruling class.

The “Boy Scout” movement is the latest manifestation of this christened

and kerosened cunning to seduce the innocent small boys for the

blood-and-iron embrace of Mars and Mammon. Mothers, take notice. Be

warned. _Defend yourselves._

President Roosevelt (international mentor) also furnished bewildering

flattery to the boys themselves who show skill in the use of the deadly

rifle. The Philadelphia _Public Ledger_, and many other newspapers about

the same date, July 16, 1907, printed the following cunning letter

written by President Roosevelt to a Brooklyn school boy. The news item

with the letter runs thus:

“Oyster Bay, July 17. President Roosevelt has put his hearty

approval on public school rifle practice. In a letter of

congratulation to Ambrose Scharfenberg, of Brooklyn, winner of the

shooting trophy of the Public School Athletic League, he takes

occasion to encourage the system of rifle practice inaugurated by

General George B. Wingate, retired.

“That the letter to young Scharfenberg may have as far-reaching

influence as possible, it was made public at the President’s

direction today. It is as follows:

“‘My Dear Young Friend:—I heartily congratulate you upon being

declared by the Public School Athletic League to stand first in

rifle shooting among all the boys of the High Schools of New York

City who have tried during the last year. Many a grown man who

regards himself as a crack rifle shot would be proud of such a

score. Your skill is a credit to you, and also to your principal,

your teachers, and to all connected with the manual training school

which you attend, and I know them all. [The usual diffident

confession of omniscience.]

“‘Practice in rifle shooting is of value in developing not only

muscles, but nerves.... It is a prime necessity that the volunteer

should already know how to shoot.... The graduates from our schools

and colleges should be thus trained so as to be good shots with the

military rifle. When so trained they constitute a great addition to

our national strength and great assurance for the peace of the

country.’”

That is to say: Tho’ the capitalists should refuse to employ 5,000,000

men and virtually spit in their faces and order these willing-to-work

men out of the factories and mines to shiver and starve in rags, and

thus infinitely humiliate millions of working class wives and daughters

with the terrors of poverty—no matter, the rifle-practiced graduates of

high schools, colleges and universities will be “ready for use,” ready

to crush the unemployed if they loudly protest, ready to help the master

class thrust all the injustices of a _class_-labor system into the lives

of the working class, ready to thrust bayonets into the out-of-work

wage-slaves who cry aloud for work, for bread, for justice in the

industrial civil war of capitalism.

Bright and early every school day, in New York City, about 600,000

children are _compelled_ to salute the flag and recite some mocking lies

about the “glorious freedom they have” and the “bounteous blessings they

enjoy”—under the “friendly folds of the Stars and Stripes”—tho’ a whole

half million of the children _have no homes of their own and in a

hundred ways are stung with the lash of poverty_.

(=17=) Many additional instructors in military tactics have in recent

years been appointed to service in high schools, colleges and

universities. United States Army officers are now in ninety-three

universities, colleges and schools, drilling 22,910 students in

“military departments.”

Improved rifles, riot cartridges, and killing equipment are being

distributed among the State militia forces; local armories are being

improved and made attractive,—all made “ready for use” when needed to

pacify the out-of-work wage-earners. Recently in one State, Colorado,

military training was being systematically taught in the high schools of

six of the largest cities. The Secretary of War in 1909 reported

forty-four schoolboy rifle clubs. In the newspapers and magazines, in

the sermons and speeches and especially in the public school,—by all

such means—the size and perfection of rifles, cannon, battleships and

the like, are held up to the children for their admiration and as

evidences of our superiority and of our “splendid civilization.” The

children are taught to clap their hands for our readiness to engage in

some great international butchering contest. But the children are _not_

taught what arsenals, armories, cannon, rifles, soldiers, militia, riot

guns and riot cartridges—what all these things mean and what war means

for the _working_ class. Never!

(=18=) Let a philosopher speak to the mother and her children in plain

language:

“Europe is still in arms: each nation watching every other with

suspicion, jealousy, or menace.... And what is the result? Russia

overwhelmed with a military cancer, a prey to social confusion such

as has not been seen in this century. Germany, with her intelligence

and industry, bound in the fetters of military service, governed as

if she were a camp, as if the sole object of peace were to prepare

for war. France staggering.... Italy weighted with a useless army,

uneasy, intriguing, restless.... Spain weak from the drain of a

series of wars.... England uncertain, divided in action, continually

distracted and dishonored by an endless succession of miserable wars

in every quarter of the globe.

“Such is the picture of Europe after a generation of imperialism and

aggressive war.

“Who is the gainer? Is the poor Russian moujic, torn from his home

to die in Central Asia or on the passes of the Balkans, doomed to a

government of ever deepening corruption and tyranny? Is the workman

of Berlin the better, crushed by military oppression and industrial

recklessness? Who is the gainer—the ruler or the ruled? Is the

French peasant the gainer now that Alsace and Lorraine are gone, and

nothing exists of the empire but its debt, its conspirators, and its

legacy of confusions?

“... Who is the gainer by this career of bloodshed and ambition?...

We hear the groans of the millions—the working, suffering

millions—who are yearning to replace this cruel system, none of

their making, none of their choice, by which they gain nothing, from

which they hope nothing.”[279]

Who indeed is the gainer? The workers lose; and the mothers lose most of

all—their children. Yet everywhere complete contempt for the working

class mothers of the whole world, absolute scorn for the blood of men

and the tears of women—of the _working_ class.

What magnificent protest will roll round this world when the working

class is roused to think of these things!

(=19=) In the dollar-hunting spirit of the age it may be inquired:

Doesn’t war make business brisk, and thus furnish work for the

wage-earners?

Yes, certainly. But so also would a lunatic in the streets armed with a

repeating shotgun shooting down the children at play: he would make

business brisk for the coffin trust, the undertakers and their

employees—and the grave-digger.

(=20=) Following are several special suggestions for the mothers and

fathers of the working class:

(1) Teach the children anti-war recitations and declamations.

Faithfully and patiently help the boys and girls master a half dozen or

more passages of the strongest prose and poetry to be found against war;

help them in this work till they understand—till their eyes kindle, till

their hearts burn, till their imagination is aflame with disgust and

detestation for war and for the foul rôle of the armed guard of the

ruling class. (See page 350, _last two lines_.)

(2) Teach the children the pledge on the first page of Chapter One of

the present volume. Teach them to teach that pledge, or some similar

pledge, to other children.

(3) Teach the boys and girls the _historical origin_ of the working

class. (See Chapter Eleven.)

(4) Explain to the boys and girls, page by page, all of Chapter Ten, and

_urge them to explain the matter to other children_.

(5) Patiently and clearly explain the meaning and the purpose of the

local militia and the army.

(6) Interest the children in a circulating anti-war library, and

_co-operate with them in promoting the enterprise_.

(7) A Ten-Dollar Cash Prize for the best definition of a militiaman who

is willing to shoot the fathers and brothers of the little working class

children of his neighborhood when those fathers and brothers are on

strike struggling to better the condition of the mothers and the

children—such a prize contest would induce a great amount of helpful

thoughtfulness and discussion.

(8) Further suggestions will be found at the opening of Chapter Twelve.

“... Outside in the shed the preparations were of another nature: