War--what for?

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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

GIFT OF

Mrs. Charlotte Steiner

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

GIFT OF

Wsm Charlotte Steiner

INDUSTRIAL DESPOTISM, SHREWDLY CALLED FREEDOM.
( Tllustrntiiio- tlic 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 tarp-et." — Tictor 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, Fourteenth Thousand, December, 1910.

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR,

WEST LA FAYETTE, OHIO

COPYHICHTED. 1910.
BY

GEORGE R. KIRKPATRICK.

All rights reserved,
Including that of translation into foreign languages

ANNOUNCEMENT ON PAGE 350.

WAR — WHAT FOR?

SINGLE COPY. $1.20

Liberal discounts in clubs of 3, 10 and 25 or more.
Chapter Two, with two pictures and other selections, printed sepa-
rately in 16-page pamphlet form.

By the same author:

THINK — OR SURRENDER

About 100 pages of elementary economics, politics and organiza-
tion— for the propaganda of Socialism. (Nearly ready.)

'-^ r\

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.

8S7897

CONTENTS

PAGE

Preface 5

Ready 9

An Insult from the Commander-in-Chief 10

Chapter One: A Confidential Word with the Man of the Work-
ing 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 R61e 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 con-
flict.

Injustice prevents brotherhood.

Injustice is unsocial — anti-social — and is thus a social sore.

Injustice, organized injustice, is the soul of all cZoss-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 pur-
chasable human things, social chameleons, moral eunuchs,
political flunkies — intellectual prostitutes — ready :

ready to make laws in the interest of the ruling class,

6 PREFACE.

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 con-
tentment— to the working class,

ready to cunningly teach servility and obedience — to
the working class,

ready with grand words to cunningly dupe and chloro-
form— the working class,

ready to bellow about "Law and Order" when the un-
employed 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 congratula-
tions 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 dis-
missed from the service. (Eeport of the Department of
War, 1908, p. 21.) A whole car-load 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

I

PREFACE. 7

suicide in 1908 as in 1907; and thirty-nine times as many
of them committed suicide in 1909 as in 1907.*

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 Depart-
ment more and more prepares to hold them like rats in a trap
— just as the Secretary of War boasted in his Keport 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 th
are roused — roused because they understands

Therefore, I "rise to a point of order": The most 11.-
portant thing on the program in the politics of the world.

* 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,
^ee. Index : "Desertions."

8 PREFACE.

to-day 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.

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 Xew York. The author is genu-
in^^ly grateful for their kind cooperation.

Ready.

The Eoman 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 black-
snake 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 work-
ing 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 com-
pany with six rapid-fire guns of the Maxim or some similar
type should be added to each of the thirty regiments of in-
fantry 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-earninig 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 de-
fended by a wage-earning police, by the side of which tlie [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 Comniander=in=ChJef:

*'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 [militar}'] 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 Keport 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 Eeport 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?

CHAPTER ONE.

A Confidential Word With the Man of the Working

Class.

Brother !

Whoever you are, wherever vou 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 sweet-
heart'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.

12 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Eeally, 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 work-
ing 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-lausrh ; — 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 '■Reading citizens" shall never have opportunit}' to
laugh at me for doing drill "stunts" they would not do them-
selves and for going to a war they could not be induced to
go to themselves. Moreover, no member of the working class

A CONFIDENTIAL WORD. 13

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* — 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 happi-
ness 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 al-
most patriotically stupid word, "Boowah ! Boowah ! Woowah !
Woowah !" And. indeed, down on the old home farm in Ohio

* 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 pur-
pose. Readers in search of conventionally elaborated theses on war
are referred, for suggestions, to Chapter Twelve, Sections 8 and 9.

14 WAR— WHAT FOR?

we often "brainstormed" our swarming bees by just such sim-
ple 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 care-
fully and then beating a drum near them and cunningly call-
ing 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,

A CONFIDENTIAL WORD. 15

iDewildered — 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.*

Governments — to-day under capitalism — are composed of
"leading citizens."

These "leading-citizen" governments quarrel over business
— markets and territory.

Being proud, these "leading-citizen" governments pom-
pously decide to "protect their honor" — their alleged honor —
"at any cost."

Lacking sufficient brains, they can not settle their quarrel
with brains.

Eeverting 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 hrain of the toiler —
to teach the working class:

To follow the flag — automatically — that is, patriotically

* "An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.

Fool, fool, fool of a soldier." — Rudyard Kipling: "The Young
British. Soldier," in Ballads.

16 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 — nc matter where it goes, no
matter how unjust the war may he

To follow the flag — blindly — tho' the working class fight-
ers 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 follow-
ing 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 fiag, 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 disas-
trously.

Patriotically we have worn the yoke throughout the cen-
turies— 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 5'ears — 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

A CONFIDENTIAL WORD. 17

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
Ihe women and the little children, blindly on horseback we
ride down and club one another, blindly we bayonet one an-
other 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 — cheapty we lend and rent ourselves for
our own ruin.

Ah, my friend, there is a political earthquake coming
Avhich will swallow up the political prostitutes and the indus-
trial parasites and Caesars of socif'ty — when our class open
wide their eyes and see the great red crime — not onl)^ on the
battlefield, but around the factory and before the miner's
cabin door. Not blindly but proudly and defiantly the work-
ers 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 in-
tended 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 flim-
flammed 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.

0, my brothers of the working class, no matter what lan-
guage you speak, no matter what God you worship, no mat-
ter how bitterly you would curse those who would teach you
and rouse you — wherever you are, in the barracks or in the

18 WAR—^YHAT FOR?

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 ns 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 an-
other; and they do not understand one another because they

HAVE NEVEE TALKED THIS MATTER OVER AMOXG 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 compli-
mentary to anybody. Remember, too, that a flattering friend
is a dangerous friend. Therefore I refuse to flatter you.

Stamp this into your brain : The worJcing class must
defend the worhing class. In national and international fel-
lowship 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 "WTiat Is War?" examine
the photograph of hell here following:

'TTiev sav there are a grreat manv mad men in our armv 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 tiniforms 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

A CONFIDENTIAL WORD. 19

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 himg 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 cauglit 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, luitil
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 ter-
ribly. 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." *

* Andreief : The Red Laugh, passim. (Russian- Japanese War
literature. Published by J. Fisher Unwin, London.)

30 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 im-
possible.

And there is good reason.

Let me explain.

I

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 polit-
ical purposes.

For Christ — contempt.

For "Put up thy sword" — a sneer.

23 WAR— WHAT FOR?

For preachers, on both sides, — ferocious prayers for vic-
tory,

For Sunday-school teachers — blood-steaming stories for
tender children and helplessly impressible boys.

For bankers — bonds, interest (and working class substi-
tutes),

For big manufacturers — business, profits (and ■workiiig
class substitutes).

For big business men of all sorts — "good times" (and
working-class substitutes).

For leading business men, for leading politicians, for lead-
ing 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 woekixg class.*

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. Eoss:t

"Service in the Roman cavalry, originally obligatory on all who
could furniah 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

* See Chapter Seven ("For Father and the Boys"), Sections 14,
15, 16 — "Were not some of the rich men of to-day soldiers at one
time?"

f The Fsundations of Sociology, pp. 220-221.

WHAT IS WAR? 23

cavalry now merely vegetated as a sort of mounted noble guard,
whose perfumed cavaliers and exquisite high-bred horses or.ly 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 fash-
ionable troop of cavalry."* 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 "fashion-
able troop of cavalry." The labor unionists on strike, un-
armed 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.

* See New York World, Nov. 21, 1909. Also Chapter Eight, Sec-
tion 16.

24 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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.

x4.nd 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

I to the fiend's stupid mood of savage hate. First come the

'powerful editorials," the "great speeches," the "eloqiient

I sermons," and ferocious prayers for the war; then the fife

I 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

land the blood; then the tears and taxes.

It is, of course, true — grandly true — and is here gladly,
gratefully acknowledged — that some educated influential peo-
ple 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 role
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

WHAT IS WAR? 25

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 posses-
sion 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 every-
where— inside and outside the ranks — are roused to a clear
consciousness of the meaning of a Gatling gun with a work-
ing-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
drain of our brothers: — The working class must themselves
protect the working class.

26 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 caress-
ingly 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 mili-
tary 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 terri-
ble but accurate realism of some of their descriptions of war
makes one hate the word war. Emile Zola's story, The Down-
fall* 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 :t

"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

* Excellent English translation published by The !Macmillan Com-
pany, New York. Excerpt printed with kind permission of pub-
lishers.

fin Chapter Five, "Hell," Section 1, "Modern Murdering Ma-
chinery," is plenty of proof that since the war of 1870-71 the slaugh-
tering equipment has been improved horribly — ^more than a hundred-
fold. See Index: "Franco-Prussian War."

WHAT IS WAR9 27

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 in-
tolerable 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 hiunan 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:

KOWHEBE ON ALL THAT BATTLEFIELD AMONG THE SHAT-
TERED RIFLES AND WRECKED CANNON, AMONG THE BROKEN
AMBULANCES AND SPLINTERED AMMUNITION WAGONS, NO-

28 WAR— WHAT FOR?

WHERE 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, POLITI-
CIANS, "brainy capitalists'' AND OTHER ELEGANT AND EMI-
NENT "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?

Note carefully bottom of page 2

OHAPTEE THEEE.
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 him-
self 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 funda-
mentally; 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.

Wlio 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 Citi-
zens" : —

"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 fi/ig. 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."

30 WAB~WHAT FOR?

Statesmen — Politicians — "Leading Citizens" : —

"We declare war.

"Mr. Wage-Earner, don't you ask any impertinent ques-
tions about why we statesmen declare war. That's our busi-
ness. 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 fre-
quently, '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.*

(A) — Capitalists want war — because —
War sends up prices — of most things.

* On the historical origin of war and of the working class, see
Chapter Eleven.

32 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 them-
selves 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 thinks 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 ex-
ample, the Hearst papers for the Cuban war and the English
jingo papers in the Boer war.*

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

* "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, sports-
men, 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 influ-
ences, and sometimes makes, half the Governments of Europe." —
Frederic Harrison: National and Social Problems, p. 208. See also
John Bascom: Social Theories, pp. 10n-]i6; and W. J. Ghent: Our
Benevolent Feudalism,, Chapter 7.

w

in

O

to

N

M

H

o

o

!2;

34 WAR— WHAT FOR?

no homes of their own and live in rented houses, and more
than one-eighth of all the people live in mortgaged homes,*
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 pa-
triotic 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 under-
taker, 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 :t

"Every progressive nation in Europe today is seeking new lands
to colonize and governments to administer."

* Census Report, 1900. Vol. II., p. cxcii.
fThe Meaning of the Times, p. 131.

36 WAR— WHAT FORf

J. H. Kose:*

"In short, the crystallization of national existence at home has
necessitated the eager exploitation of new lands which forms so note-
worthy a feature of the life of today."

Thus John Jayif

"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."

Alexandre Hamilton sneers thus at the windy blood-for-

proiit statesmen 4

"Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the
objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enter-
prising a passion as that of power or glory? Have not there been
as many wars foimded 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 com-
merce, in many instances, administered new incentives to the appe-
tite, both for the one and for the other?"

Professor Simon N. Patten (University of Pennsylvania)
states the case bluntly :§

"Most nations have been formed by conquest, and have there-
fore 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: II

"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

* The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1900, Vol. II.,
p. 333.

t The Federalist, Number 4. ( The numbering of The Federalist
papers varies slightly in diflferent editions.)

t The Federalist, Number 6.

§ The Theory of Prosperity, p. 4.

11 Editorial, Oct. 13, 1909.

THE SITUATION— EXPLANATION. 37

Frencli-and-Indian-War, the American Revolutionarj^ 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 :*

"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 tighiens 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 at-
tention 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 legisla-
tures 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 arhi-
trarily 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 slaver3\ of
course, the slave's life was arbitrarily restricted by his mas-
ter. 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 arbitr^irily 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 wa.^e -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.

* May 5, 1909, Chicago, Illinois, at banquet given by the Chicago
Association of Commerce; Press reports.

38 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 thinJc)

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."*

Not alone chattel slaves and serfs, but wa^e-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 pro-
duce a surplus.

* Lester F. Ward, Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., p. 582.

TEE SITUATION— EXPLANATION. 39

Besides producing the equivalent of his wages and all
other necessary expenses of production the worker is com-
pelled 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 para-
sitic 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 in-
dustrial FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY.

Surplus — stolen life — by means of the wage-system le-
gally 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 con-
sume personally;

Second — Part of this surplus the capitalists invest profit-
ably;

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

40 WAR— WHAT FOR?

— 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 de-
fended.

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 profit-
ably;

Third: To defend the foreign markets for this part
of the surplus.

Professor T. N. Carver (Department of Political Econ-
omy, Harvard University) states the case perfectly:*

"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.

* Sociology and Social Progress, p. 170. Emphasis mine. —
G. R, K.

THE SITUATION— EXPLANATION. 41

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 lec-
turers, orators and editors, keep busy. Keep right on talking
to the working people. Tell the working class .o 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
liave police, we capitalists have the cossacks, we capitalists
iiave 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, con-
tented with only part of the product of his labor. . . . But
whatever happens — we business men control the powers of gov-
ernment— 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

42 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 Tciclced — 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, dis-
gusted, 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 cant dispose of it all promptly either in
home marl:ets or foreign markets; and thus cannot — dare not
— employ all the workers all the time all the workers are will-
ing 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 WORK-
ING 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.

THE SITUATION— EXPLANATION. 43

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."*

Capitalists want working class militiamen and soldiers,
in order also to keep them so flattered and excited about "pro-
tecting 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 vsdth 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

«

• See Index : "Recruiting."

44 WAR— WHAT FOR?

capitalists pay the campaign expenses of their political flun-
kies, and, of course, whenever the capitalists want war their
political flunkey prostitutes declare war.* After the war, on
great public occasions, the politicians serve up some orator-
ically 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.
Eight 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 tlie combative passion can be aroused and
how much popularity can be gained from a successful war."-f

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

* For excellent example, see Chapter VI: "Tricked to the
Trenches — Then Snubbed," Fifth Illustration.

fW. E. Lecky: The Map of Life, pp. 153-54.

THE SITUATION— EXPLANATION 45

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 per-
fume. 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 flimfiammed, bamboozled luorbing 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 lie 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 loorTcing class to
Jceep 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

46 WAR— WHAT 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 com-
pany 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 capi-
talist 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.

Eead 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 Stu-
dents, 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.

Soldiers, cossacks and militiamen are to the capitalist class
what beaks are to eagles and tusks are to tigers.

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.*
"The hero is a species of assassin." — Victor Hugo.|

Human blood, human life, under the present industrial
form of society, is so cheap that even a sweet child's life, as
a wa^e-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,"$ 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 bo
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

* Biglow Papers.

f Lecture on Voltaire.

t "I want for soldiers young men not only willing but anxious
to fight," — that foul and savage saying is one of the choice mouth-
ings of Theodore Roosevelt, in a public address in which that cheap,
distinguished and much flattered Noise disgraced the office of Presi-
dent of the American "Republic."

48 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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.*

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 exist-
ence for the relatively weaker blooded to multiply in dis-
proportionate degree.

War, it is estimated,! prevents, on the average, the birth
of one child per soldier slaughtered on the battlefield, or serv-
ing three years or more in peace or war.

War weakens the blood of the nation by worse than wast-
ing 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 imme-
diately following war. President William H. Taft, as Secre-
tary of War, has said :$

"Venereal diseases were again by far the most important diseases
affecting the efficiency of the Army during the year. There were

* See Chapter Five, Section Two; Chapter Eight, Section 11;
also Index: "Disease in the Army."

f Chatterton-Hill: Heredity and Selection in Sociology, pp.
320-22.

t Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1907, p. 17.

TEE COST OF WAR. 49

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. Dick-
inson, reports thus on the befouling of the blood of soldiers :*

"The diseases causing the greatest non-effective rate are
in the order of importance: venereal diseases, tuberculosis,
malaria^, rheumatism, tonsilitis, dysentery, diarrhea, bron-
chitis, 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."-*-

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 mat-
ter following is, chiefly, Chatterton-Hill's Heredity and Selec-
tion in Sociology; G. de Lapouge's Les Selections Sociales;
and J. Bloch's The Future of War. %

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

* Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1909, p. 17. Em-
phasis mine. G. R. K.

t Quoted by Elbert Hubbard in Health and Wealth. See Neio
Age, Aug. 5, 1909.

tSee also President D. S. Jordan's brilliant sociological studies
of war, references in Chapter XII. of present volume. Of some in-
terest are Victor Hugo's estimates in William Shakespeare, Part
Third, Book III., Chapter I.

60 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 *

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 enor-
mous 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 conse-
quence of the wars, nor the immense number of non-com-
batants 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 teen 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.

This gives us a "grand" total of forty millions (40,000,-
000) men, women, and children actually slaughtered or other-
wise destroyed as a result of one hundred years of "splendid"

• Chatterton-Hill in Heredity and Selection in Sociology makes
the total 21,000,000.

WORN-OUT BOXING GLOVES OF THE BULING CLASS

52 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 work-
ing class.

One Christian century — M?rs 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, un-
wearied, 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" ;*
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.

See Galey: Classic Myths of English Literature, pp. 57-8.

THE HISTORY OF IGNOBANCE OBETINQ OBDEB3

54 WAR— WHAT FOR?

"Base distrust, the red-eyed hound of hate,
Rules in a -vvorld by phantom foes alarmed."

Ever^-where we see the crowned and consecrated cut-
throats preparing for war. Soon again the booming roar of
"gun thunder" will terrif}' the world. Even now in Turkey,
in liussia, in Spain and in Africa the blood of humble work-
ing class brothers is being splashed in the face of mankind.

Rouse, brothers, rouse!

Eefuse! Eefuse 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 In-
dustrial blasters 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 u-arking class must defend the working class.

SECTION II : THE COST IX CASH.

Eemember — 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, destruc-
tion of property, loss of producing power, etc.
Expenses after the war: — pensions, interest on bonds,
etc.

THE COST OF ^VAR. 55

"In determining the cost of a war/' says one writer,*
"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) Comxpensation 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 (-ib) and (5) are somewhat
over-estimated; item (6) is greatly underestimated. It is to
be noted also that the following on the Civil ^Var 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 pen-
sions from 1906 to 1910. However, if the omissions are care-
fully 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

*Restelle: Arena, October, 1906.

56 WAR— WHAT FOR?

(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-jDower :

One million selected men,
slaughtered in battle or de-
stroyed during the war by
disease ; * 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 weak-
ened, 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. f

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

* "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."

t See quotation from Preface of Bloch's Future of War near
close of present chapter.

I

THE COST OF WAR. 57

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 ag-
ricultural colleges and ninety teachers' colleges, each of these
one hundred and seventy institutions provided with four mil-
lion dollars' worth of land, buildings and equipment, each in-
stitution also provided with four million dollars as endow-
ment 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 thou-
sand school teachers at $625 per year from the birth of Christ
to the year 1909, and leave sufficient to establish fifty univer-
sities, each institution provided with ten million dollars' worth
of buildings and equipment and each institution provided
also wdth 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 Eevolutionary War of more than
one hundred years ago. Professor Bolles also says of the
Civil War:*

"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.

* Financial History of the United States, Vol. IIJ., p. 241.

58 WAR— WHAT FORf

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. Eidpath wrote thus of the
war bond-leech:*

"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 prompt-
ly 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 pea ce-born-of- justice
might well be distributed on such occasions.

The cash cost of war is easily made evident by an examina-
tion of our annual current national bill for militarism. In-
deed, 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

* Arena, Jan., 1897.

TE^ COST OF WAR. 59

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 under-estimated, the
grand total of four hundred and fifty millions must be re-
garded as an extremely conservative estimate of the annual
cost (in times of peace) of keeping the national fist ready for
a fight.*

But four hundred and fifty million dollars means noth-
ing sufficiently definite to the human mind until it is con-
sidered 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, m^ould pay the annual college expenses op
1,800,000 young men and women; that is, of nearly
twelve times as many as there were in the year end-
ing june 30, 1908, in the five hundred and seventy-

* I

The appropriations for the Navy alone in 1910 are $134,000,-
000, — ^which amount is just ten times as gi-eat as in 1886. The
New York World's estimate (editorial. March, 1910) is $500,000,000
aa the annual cost of militarism in the United States.

60 WAR— WHAT FOR?

THREE COLLEGES, UNTYEESITIES 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,* "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."-}-

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.

* The Contemporary Review, August, 1909.
tNew York World, March 1, 1910. See also The World, Feb-
ruary 1, 1910.

THE COST OF \YAE. 61

One new-type "dreadnought" of the sort now being
constructed for the british navy ( which is to be prac-
TICALLY 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 CHI-
CAGO 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.*

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 ceni. interest on the cost of one "Dreadnought"
would pay the combined salaries of 1,500 country school teach-
ers at $500 per year; or, the combined salaries of 750 country
preachers at $1,000 per year. (The average salary of a minis-
ter in Massachusetts is less than $800.)

One PER CENT. INTEREST ON ONE "dREADNOUGHt" WOULD
PAY THE COMBINED SALARIES OP 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 devel-
opment 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 pleas-
ure and achievement — education, which is "to the human soul
what sculpture is to a block of marble," — education, in its
glorious influences, is immortal.

• See Report of Commissioner of Education, 1908, Vol. II.,
617,

62 WAR— WHAT FOB?

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 tliis 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.*

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 endow-
ments, all the investments and all "productive funds"
of all kinds belonging to all our 464 higher institu-
tions op learning.

There are in the United States 464 colleges, universitiee
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 Commis-
sioner 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 modem mur-
dering machine, one "Dreadnought."

One 14-inch cannon and equipment costs $170,000. One

* See Report of Commissioner of Education for 1908, Vol. II.,
pp. 616-17. These 464 admit men only, or both men and women.

THE COST OF WAR. 63

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."*

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 im-
provements, 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.f

"For the fiscal year 1908-9 the ordinary income of the United
States was $604,000,000. Of that sum ... 70 per cent, was spent
for past wars and preparations for war. . . ."$

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 coun-
tries in Europe is being spent on what are, after all, preparations
to kill each other." — Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary, T>,ritish
Cabinet.!

G. de Molinari sums up thus : ||

"Two-thirds of their [European nations'] combined budgets are
devoted to the service of this debt [war debt], and to the main-
tenance of their armed forces by sea and land."

* P. F. McCarthy in the New York World.

f Address delivered at the Peace Banquet, Chicago, May 4, 1909 ;
quoted in Unity, June 3, 1909.

tNew York World, April 4, 1910. See also New York Times
editorial, February 19, 1910.

§ In the House of Commons, March 29, 1909.

II The Society of To-Morrow, p. 30.

64 WAR— WHAT FOR?

The New York World speaks boldly thus :*

"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 [to-day, 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, tor-
jiedo boats, etc., the additions to the present naval outfit to
(«ost 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
exppT>"e 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 Eussia now staggers under a four-and-a-half

• Editorial, May 4, 1909.

THJE COST OF WAR. 65

billion dollar national debt, and in 1908 was forced to bor-
row $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 Eussian statesmen and naval experts
are "planning a billion-dollar navy.*

"Certain facts will surely, some day, burn themselves into the
consciousness of thinking men. . . . The extravagance of the militar-
ists 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 tor-
pedo destroyers, all these are worthless without colliers, ammunition
boats, hospital boats, repair boats; and these all together are worth-
less 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 gov-
ernments led on, step by step, into a treacherous morass, in which
they are at first entangled, and finally overwhelmed."!

J. H. Eose, 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 tlie 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

* Eeference for most of the phrasing of this paragraph has been
lost.

f C. E. Jefferson, in the Atlantic Monthly, quoted in Public
Opinion (address?), March 26, 1909.

66 WAR— WHAT FOR?

of Finance) sounded the alarm and stated the case strik-

ingly :*

"The civilized governments o^ 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 terri'
tory 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, com-
puted at five per cent., would demand the continuous labor of three
million men. . . . Previous to the present [nineteenth] century, Eng-
land and Holland were the only nations that had learned by ex-
perience 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 Pro-
fessor Ridpath (De Pauw University ) ,f "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, philanthro-
pists, 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 pro-

* Public Debts, pp. 3, 4, 6.
f Arena, January, 1898.

1

THE COST OF WAR. 67

digious 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 genera-
tions 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 dur-
ing 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."*

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 :t

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

* 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.

fSee Bloch's Future of War, pp. 137-39; recent Statesman's
Year-Boohs, "national expense" tables; also Lff-hor Leader (London),
Nov. 1, 1907,

68 WAR— WHAT FOR?

savagery to be seen in these worse than wasted treasures of
the people :*

"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 oivns them and the other pays the interest
on them. This relation comprehends the future generations in per-
petuity. Every child born in Europe inherits either an estate in
these debts or an obligation to pay interest upon them. Thus
tlie 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 dis-
banded, and the revenue at present expended for their support
diverted to the support of schools, and so applied for half a century,
thei'e 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 rf ;

"Of all the German political parties one, viz., the Social Demo-
cratic [the Socialist] Party, has always been a consistent opponent
of militarism. It looks upon militarism as the strongest support
of the capitalistic regime, and therefore attacks it theoretically and
actually with equal vigor. Its watchword is: 'No men and no
money.' "|

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 un-
warned 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 esti-
mate of General Blume, published by the German General Staff, as
to the probable cost of a modern European war. Putting the num^

*Kim: Mind and Hand, pp. 290-92. Italics mine. G. R. K.

t The International, July, 1908.

J See Index: "Socialist Partv and War."

THE COST OF WAR. 69

ber 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 ap-
proximately 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 tohich 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 impover-
ishment, nor do they recall to attention the appalling waste of Rus-
sia'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,"*

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 neglect-
ing the fact that the total annual cost of militarism for nine-
teen 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.f

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 butcher-
ings, the working class blinded with blood and sweat and
tears. Greater armies, greater navies, — then still greater

* Italics mine. G. R. K.

I "The export trade of all nations combined amounts to less than
$12,000,000,000 per annum." Harold Bolce: The New International-
ism, p. 87.

70 WAR— WHAT FOR?

armies and still greater navies, — and then still more powerful
armies and navies : then impossible taxation, intolerable bur-
dens: then bankruptcy: — then wrath, rebellion and revolu-
tion,— 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 CAPI-
TALIST 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 limita-
tion 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 Eogers, says :*

"Many parts of the earth were once occupied by rich and indus-
irious peoples wliich 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 rum 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

* Economic Interpretation of History, pp. 393-94. Italics mine.
G. R. K.

THE COST OF WAR. 71

latter motive which influences it, when every one sees it is the former.
Whether their subjects or citizens see it or not, governments gen-
erally, 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 to-day.

$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, mili-
tarism 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 tloese twenty-one countries
were engaged in producing wealth with modern tools, modern
machinery, and modem 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, deyoi^rer, fire. .

73 WAR— WHAT FOR?

$8,000,000,000— Eight Billion Dollars.

This sum, this exj^ense 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 con-
tinuous 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 mem-
bers— 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 furni-
ture. Seven such homes would contain forty-two members.

Now imagine an unbroken stream of people — men, women,
and little children, frightened, jaale, 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-

THE COST OF WAR. 73

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, 0, 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: "Eally 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 prepara-
tions for war — and yet not a single silh-hatted snob sleeps in
the dingy harraclts, or eats the cheap "griib" fed to the pri-
vates, or submits to humiliating insults from "superior"

74 WAR— WHAT FOR?

officers, or spills his hlood on the firing line — not one any-
where in all the world.

$8,000,000,000 — the annual cost of lust — war lust.

The annual cost of jungle statesmanship.

The cost the WOEKING class pay for being meek,

DOCILE, obedient READY TO SLAUGHTER THEMSELVES, READY

TO BUTCHER THEIR BROTHERS OF THE WOEKING 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 nx)rhing 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 condi-
tion 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
suhtraoied from tjte lives of the producing class, the working
class — sucked from the veins of the hunible 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 indigna-
tion, 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 tJie fads franJcly
before the working class. Everywhere it is: "Hush! Hush!..
The working class must not study the burdens of wa,r.''

THE COST OF WAR. 75

The workers? "They must not thinl: They must not
think. They must obey."

That is the word for the working class :

Obey.

A very eminent authority on war* says :

"Only once in recent history do I remember any attempt on the
part of a European government to calculate the economic conse-
quences of war under modern conditions. It was when M. Burdeau
was in the French Ministry. He appointed a committee of econo-
mists 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 objectioii iras 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:!

"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,
liive 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."$

"Workers of the world, unite!" Eouse. 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.

*Bloch: The Future of War, Preface, p. XLVIII. Italics
mine. G. R. K.

■\ Addresses on War, p. 292.

t Henry W. Longfellow: "The Arsenal at Springfield."

76 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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.

CHAPTER FIVE.
Hell.

SECTION one: modern murdering machinery.

Ah, so you are on your way to the recruiting station, arc
you? Well, there will be jDlenty of time to enlist to-morrow,
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.*

Go back to the 60's and read three or four lines of Ameri-
can Civil War history before you enlist. Here they are in the
words of a distinguished authority, A, S. Bolles:t

"With the swift cooling of the war fever bounties became nec-
essary 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 v/ar really meant — for them.

And Professor John B. McMaster (University of Pennsyl-
vania) 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 4

"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. . . ."

* See Index: "Desertion," also "Suicide, startling increase of, in
American Army."

■f Financial History of the United States, Vol. III., p. 245.
t School History of the United States, p. 423.

78 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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."*

It is especially important that before you enlist you should
get a distinct idea of the horrible deadliness of modern butch-
ering machinery. Since Gene?'al Sherman made the com-
ment just quoted on the American Civil War the killing ma-
chinery has been improved astonishingly.

In the recent Russian- Japanese war individual
soldiers, as sh0v7n 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 sec-
tions 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

* Quoted in Mead's Patriotism and the New Internationalism, pp.
18-19.

nELL. 'J'9

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 follow-
ing 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 rifie will fly
straight across the field for hundreds of yards with no elevu
tion, even half a mile and more with but little . elevation,

80 WAR— WHAT FOR?

sweeping the whole width of the field between the gun and
the target.*

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 hun-
dred sharpshooters 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,-|- "has a range of five
miles, the bullet having a velocity of 2,300 feet per second leaving
the weapon, or sufiieient to drive it through four and a half feet
of white pine."

The "attractiveness" of war increases, of eouise, with the
likelihood that the improving markmanship 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 ::{:

"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 stop-
per purposes very, very cheap, as a substitute. That is a much
better arrangement, the big business man thinks, and, of

* 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.

t The Making of America, Vol. IX., Special Article, "Army and
Navy," p. 388.

$ Report for 1908, p. 33.

HELL. 81

course, the working men agree with the business men on this
matter Just as they do on nearly everything else.

The Danish "Eexer" rifle is another instrument ready for
use in war and in pacifying hungry people on strike. The
"Eexer" 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 horse-
back, 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 unem-
ployed 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.*

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 Clatling gun
equipped with an electric motor will discharge 1,800 death-
dealing bullets per minute.f

"The Gatling gun," says Morris,$ ". . . . 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.

* See A. Williams : Romance of Modern Mechanics, Chapter 27.
I McLaren: Put up Thy Sword, p. 127.
t The Nation's Navy, p. 292.

82 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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
inodern 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 PEE MIN-
UTE INTO AN EXPOSED REGIMENT, THE ONLY OBSERVABLE RE-
SULT 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 worhing class to go to war with the present
fire-arms is like ordering a working man to maJce 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 machin-
ery 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 impres-
sions 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;* Port Arthur: A Monster Heroism, by Eichard

Published by Houghton, Mifl3in and Company, Boston.

EELL. 83

Barry;* The Red Laugh, by Leonid Andreief ;t The Downfall,
by Emile Zola ;$ The Future of War, by Jean Bloch.§

Here following are some paragraphs from a vigorous book
of this type, Human Bullets, just noted^ passim, which treats
of the Eussian- 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
saAv the dead at Nanshan, we could not help covering our eyes in
liorror 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 dam-
aged 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 dis-
covered 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 A^'ounds
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

*Published by Moffat, Yard and Company, New York.
•{■ Published by J. Fisher Unwin, London.
$ Published by The Macmillan Comoanv, New York.
§ Published by Ginn al^»

84 WAR— WHAT FOB?

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 "imqualified 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 :*

"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 oflT, hips smaslied, 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

^ Arheiter in Council (Anonymeus),^ pp. 155-56; published by
The Macmillan Company, New Yort ■ valuable book.

HELL. 85

into the human targets promptly. This instrument weighs
about sixty pounds and is being rapidly improved.* 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 :t

"In 1870 an ordinary shell when it burst broke into from 19
to 30 pieces. To-day it bursts into 240 pieces. vShrapnel 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 2:)ieces, each of which is hurled with much greater
velocity than the larger lumps which were scattered by a gun-
powder explosion. It is estimated that such a bomb would destroy
all life within a range of 200 metres [about 200 yards] of
tlie point of the explosion. . . . With the increase in the number
of bullets and fragments, and in the forces which disperse them, in-
creases 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 frag-
ments of shells [at night too, with a search-light equipment], there
is little place for such hope."

Surely 3^ou 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

*See Bloch: The Future of War; also Morris: The Nation's
Navy, p. 289.

■fThe Future of War, Preface, p. XXV., also pp. 9 and 157.

86 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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. Eiehard Barry, thus describes
a modern war-storm in his book, descriptive of the Japanese-
Eussian War, Port Arthur, A Monster Heroism, passim:*

"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. . . . Spott-
sylvania 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 co7-pses 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

* Published by Mofl'at, Yard and Company, New York. Italics
mine. G. R. K. See pp. '82-83.

EELL. 87

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 G40.
. . . 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 tico-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 wliolesome 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

88 WAR— WHAT FOB?

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 search-
light, 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 ! ' "

Eead all of Mr. Barry's thrilling book and thus learn
why the haughty "very best people," who despise the work-
ingmen, 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. Awto-
kratow :

"As might be anticipated, in the acute insanities, particularly in
neurasthenic and confusional cases, the infiuence 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."*

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."t

The soldiers of the American Civil War did not use — had
not even heard of — the terrible explosives of our day. Mel-
inite, dynamite, cordite, indurite, motorite, ecrasite, peroxilene
and other explosive compounds vastly increase the effective-
ness of modern arms and in other ways also multiply the dan-
gers of the modern battlefield.

Mr. Charles Morris describes a dynamite gun as follows :$

* See Literary Digest, Nov. 9, 1907.

•f See Index : "Insanity in American Army,

t The Nation's Navy, pp. 289-90.

HELL. 89

"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. Ti.e 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 attafned. 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 havo
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 hattle. He says :*

"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 possi-
ble 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 dan-

* The Future of War, pp. 21 and 22. Italics mine. G. R. K-

90 WAR— WHAT FOB?

ger that thousands may he destroyed with their own ammuni-
tion. 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 ammuni-
tion 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. Tue 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 annihi-
lated with their own ammunition.

What a place this would be (up close) for "prominent
citizens" — bankers, priests, preachers, bishops, senators, law-
yers and "captains of industry" ! A storm of blood and steel !
No, brother, oh, no. No dynamite cyclone for these pul-
monary 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 practica-
ble 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-

BELL. 01

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 :*

"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 mis-
siles 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 IIugo,-f- "when a cannon will
be exhibited in the public museums, just as an instrument of tor-
ture 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.$ 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 broad-
side from 14-inch guns would raise that building sixteen feet in a
single second."§

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.

* Lecture, "The War of the Future," at Amherst College, Dec.
3, 1909.

•j- Quoted in Charles Sumner's Addresses on War, p. 138.

t See Scientific American, Sept. 21, 1907.

§J. F. Haskins, New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser,
Feb. 1, 1909.

92 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 2?>y2 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 helFs 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 worhing class to use —
on the working class.

Section two: The silent destroyek — disease.

The barking rifle, the snarling Catling gun, and the boom-
ing 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,* "an army faces
two enemies: First, the armed force of tlie 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 ex
tended campaigns, the first or open enemy kills twenty per cent, oi
tlie 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 in-

* Appleton's Magazine, April, 1908.

HELL. 93

sidious 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 Eusso-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 Mada-
gascar 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 nvunbered 20,000; in 1908 there were 24,000 pen-
sioners; 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 Eoosevelt's testimony:*

"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 :t

"It is horrible to see trains packed full with sick soldiers sent
away from the army. . . . The loss from sickness is almost incred-
ible, 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 danger-
ous infectious diseases. Nevertheless, 400,000 men were entered at
the hospitals during the campaign, in addition to those dangerously
wounded."

* The Rough Riders, pp. 202, 209.
t The 'Nation in Arms, p. 376.

94 WAR— ]y HAT FOR?

Anitchkow thus testifies :*

"In such a rich country as France, and in such a splendid cli-
mate, 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."-}-

An anonymous author^ quoted on a preceding page, calls
attention^ to a matter of great importance in this connection,
namel}^ 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 alto-
gether 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 he emphasized hy the young man who is
thiiiJcing 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 ade-

* War and Labor, p. 54.

f But see Professor Mayo-Smith's Statistics and Sociology.

t-^rbeiter in Council, pp. 150-51.

HELL. 95

qiiate 'preparation to prevent another such outrage. Let the
following stand as evidence of this statement :*

"Under the existing organization it would he impossible to pre-
vent a breakdown of the Medical Department in case of a war in-
volving 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 suf-
fering is produced and disaster is invited."

Thus also the Xew York Times ij

"The admission rate into the hospitals for the American Army
is [now in the time of peace] 1,250 per 1,000 ea«h 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 dis-
tinctly, 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

•Annual Report of the Secretary of War (William H. Taft),
1907, p. 25. Italics mine. G. R. K.
I Editorial, Oct. 7, 1909.

96 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 thorough-
breds, 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 ofiices, 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 mo-
ment 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

HELL. 97

blood with these modern steel destroyers, and forced to ex-
pose 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, 0 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 en-
listing 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 VS^AR — 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.*

Section three : Peaceful slaughter — in industry.

Surely it is bad enough to have the workingmen slaugh-
tered 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

♦ See Index : "Another War."

98 WAR— WHAT FOR?

engaged in the useful, peaceful pursuits of industry. Let
us briefly consider this matter.

The owner of a chattel-slaYe 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 rish 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 per-
fectly, 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.
Eailway 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

HELL. 99

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 husiness" — and "there is no sentiment in busi-
ness " 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 capi-
talism 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 * "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 in-
dustrial 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 nimiber of killed or mortally wounded (including deaths from
accidents, suicides and murders, but excluding deaths from dis-
ease) in the Philippine War from February 4, 1809, 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

* March 14, 1907. Italics mine. G. R. K.

100 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 dan-
gerous conditions. If, economically, he must accept work under
these conditions [or starve], that is another matter."

Another witness* sets forth the murderous carelessness of
the lives of the workers in modern industry thus :

"In Allegheny County, Pa., including Pittsburgh, 17,700 per-
sons were killed or injured last year in the mills and on the rail-
roads 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 de-
cade. 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.f
If a war were on in the Philippines and 1500 of our men

1909

World's Work, March, 1906.
t Museum of Safety and Sanitation, Bulletin, issued December,

HELL. 101

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 op capitalist "philanthropy"
can not hush the loud-shouting fact that the sickle
of death cuts down the toilers far more rapidly v?hile
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:*

"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 in-
dustrial ACCIDENTS, THE TOTAL NUMBER OF CASUALTIES SUF-
FERED 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 RUS-

sian-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

* 'North American Review, Nov., 1906. Emphasis mine. G. R. K.

10^ WAE—WHAT FOR?

in industry are, it should be remembered, not included in
Dr. Strong's calculations.

President Koosevelt in liis Annual Message of 1907 bluntly
stated the facts as follows :

"Industry in the United States now exacts . . .
a fak 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 exist-
ence— in the industrial civil war called capitalism. And here
are some of the results :

"In Manchester," say*? Thomas Burke,* "out of 12,000 would-be
recruits [for the South African War], 8,000 were rejected as vir-
tually invalids, and only 1,200 could be regarded as fit in all re-
spects. • . . 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 ofi'ering themselves for active service
were physically unfit."

Thus the well-known preacher and lecturer. Dr. Newell
Dwight Hillis, of Brooklyn, New Yorkrf

"Many forms of public charity, from a scientific viewpoint,

* The Forum, Jan., 1905.

t Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb. 13, 1907.

HELL. 103

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, re-
jected nineteen out of twenty, because of some defect in the eyes
or lungs or legs."

It is to be remembered tbat many thousands of , men who
report for examination as candidates for military service are
so evidently defective that no formal examination is neces-
sary for their prompt rejection. It is also important to con-
sider the fact that there are many thousands of men who
would gladly join the army, but make no application, know-
ing 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 end-
ing September 30, 1907, there were 34,808 applicants for
admission to the army. Forty-seven per cent, of these appli-
cants were rejected as physically unfit.* Of course, the per-
centage 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 pov-
erty, 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 lumianity."|

In England, because of the physical decline of the work-
ing class, the Government has so much difficulty in finding a

* Labor Leader, London, July 17, 1908.

fC. F. G. Masterman: Contemporary Review, Jan., 1902.

104 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 in-
dustries. 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 capi-
talist industrial warfare. The president of Stanford Univer-
sity, Dr. David Starr Jordan, writes :*

"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, Sar-
dinia, 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 crim-
soned with the blood of France, scarcely a railway station without
its pile of French tkulls. You can trace them across to Egypt, to
the foot of the Pyra nids. Y^'ou will find them in Germany, at Jena
and Leipzig, at Liitzen and Bautzen and Austerlitz. You will find
them in Russia, at ^Moscow; 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 :t

"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 Eussia, 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 sv^'irl of the

MOSKOW CAMPAIGN SUCKED IN 150.000 LADS UNDER TWENTY

* The Blood of the Nation, pp. 45-47.

t The History of l:iapoleon. Emphasis mine. G. R. K.

HELL. 105

YEARS OP 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:*

"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 Eomans, 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 in-
ferior, 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.f

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 gov-
ernment in self-defense, — quietly and legally, of course, hut —

DEFIANTLY.t

We — driven, rob])ed 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 execu-
tive councils, ridiculed by "high society," scorned everywhere

* In an address, "The Biology of War," May 3, 1909, Chicago.
I Reference for substance and part of phrasing of this para-
graph has been lost.

J See Index: "Four Historic Events."

106 WAR— WHAT FOR?

— 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, shov/ 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.

Eefuse 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
womerii. 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*

Light a lamp in your neighbor's brain.

Strike a fire in your neighbor's heart.

Revolutionize him.

Dare.

To-day.

Society is, and always will be — as free as the majority
have sense enough and pride enough to make it ; or as tyran-
nical as the majority are meek enough to permit it to be.

Conditions always express the will or lack of will of the
majority.

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; . . ."*

Imagine J. P. Morgan, rifle in liand, doing picket duty
on a dark, sleet-drizzling night. Imagine J. Ogden Armour,
George Gould and Thomas F. Eyan with heavy shovels dig-
ging trenches, stopping at noon to eat some salt pork, em-
balmed 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 'Tjest people" do not say, "Come
on, boys, come on — follow us." Hardly. It is "Go on, boys,
go aliead, 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

* J. H. Rose: The Development of the European Nations, 1870-
1900, Vol. II., p. 328.

108 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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.*

"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 aicay 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 wa^re-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

* Copied from a Government advertisement in front of re-
cruiting 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.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 109

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 wa^e-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 Govern-
ment's advertisement just quoted is like the sneer at the
soldier's poverty by that elegant aristocrat, Kalph Waldo
Emerson :*

"Where there is no property the people will put on the knap-
sack 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 if

Germany 2,500,000

Austria 1,300,000

Italy 1,300,000

France 2,500,000

Eussia 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

* "Lecture on War."

t See Blocb : Future of War, Preface XXXII.

110 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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."*

Think of ten or fifteen million men ready to be forced or
tricked to war to do the bidding of rulers whom these hig
strong men outnumber ten thousand to one; ready to do the
Ijidding 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 natural-
ly these millions of meek, weak, prideless, grovelling com-
mon 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

* See Charles Seignobos: The Political History of Europe
Since 1815, p. 504.

TJRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. Ill

more gladly give up its choicest men to butcher and be
butchered than did the English working class for the Napole-
onic 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 capital-
ists 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 — re-
turned home — home from hell — returned to England with
glad hearts ignorantly and gullibly expecting a joyous "wel-
come 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 indus-
trial 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."*

* See Brodrick and Frotheringham : The Political History of
England, Vol. XI., p. 172, et seq.

112 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Of course the purpose of this to-be-increased army was to
have an armed guard ready to crush the "hoho" 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 work-
ing 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 work-
ers. Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers writes thus of the mat-
ter:*

"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 par-
tiality 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 govern-
ment. 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 grow-
ing 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 under-fed toils of childhood, the under-
paid and uncertain employment of men. Wages were mulcted in
order to provide the waste of war, and the profits of commerce and
manufacture."

Worl: and Wages, p. 507.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 113

The case is summed up by another authority :*

"Distress instead of plenty, misery instead of comfort — ^these
were the first results of peace."

The English historian, J. R. Green, is thus frank rf

"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: J

"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 Hus-
sars charged, and the weight of disciplined soldiery drove the crowd
into a huddled mass of shrieking fugitives, pressed together by their
eflForts to escape. When at last the ground was cleared many vic-
tims 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 Frothering^
ham summarize the matter as follows :§

"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 : ||

"There was wide-spread 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

* Jephson : The Platform — Its Rise and Progress, Vol. I., p. 283-

t History of the English People, Vol. IV., p. 377.

t A Student's History of England, pp. 877-80.

§ The Political History of England, Vol. XI., Ch. 8.

II Sir Robert Peel, Ch. 3.

114 WAR— WHAT FOR?

of walking to London to lay an account of their distress before
the lieads of government [Perfectly reasonable?]. . . . The nickname
of Blanketeers was given to them because of their portable sleep-
ing arrangements. (Every man carried a blanket.) . . . The 'Mas-
sacre of Peterloo' . . . took place not long after. ... It was a vast
meeting — some 80,000 men and women are stated to have been pres-
ent. . . . 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 Maey:*

"By a series of repressive measures popular agitation was ar-
rested. . . . 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" Napole-
onic wars.

The shameless Caesars who constituted the English gov-
ernment of the time heaped wrong upon wrong by sending
police spies into the great public meetings of the ragged vet-
erans of war and industry to stir them up to violence, thus

The English Constitution, p. 423. Italics mine. G. R. K.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 115

furnishing the government excuse for Us brutalities and
repressive legislation*

An anonymous author furnishes interesting fact and com-
ment rf

"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 manufactur-
ers, '^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.^ 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. Brit-
ish veterans of the Boer War of recent years — tens of thou-
sands of them — have cursed the day they enlisted, with the
patriotism of ignorance, to serve in South Africa. The Gov-
ernment broke its promises with them shamelessly and whole-
sale; 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 hun-
dreds of them scarcely able to walk. But no matter: they

* See, for example, J. F. Bright: A History of England, Period
III., p. 1352.

■f Arbeiter in Council, p. 501.

t Bourienne's Memoirs, Vol. VII., c. 20. Reference in Arheiter
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.

116 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 l)imch 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-wit-
nesses 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 'Hlieir" dear country — and
washed their hands.

Then— then what?

Then these cheap and stupid assassins of their class went
to looh 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 CONSTITU-
TION 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

I

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 117

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." "Eeviewed." Eeviewed ? 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— /or a fool."

li ,

Second Illustration : The Americsan Working Class
Eevolutionists :

The American working class soldiers a hundred and
twenty-five years ago were also equally despised by the indus-
trial 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 per-
mitted 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

118 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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, how-
ever, that these "prominent" and "very best people" of Ameri-
can Eevolutionary War times had nothing but political con-
tempt for the working class veterans. President Woodrow
Wilson (Princeton University) writes:*

"There were probably not more than 120,000 men who had a
right to vote out of all the 4,000,00U 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 Profes-
sor F. N. Thorpe (University of Pennsylvania) thusrf

"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 suifrage 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 illustra-
tions are deemed worthy of the space required for their presen-
tation— ^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 Ameri-
can Civil War was a rich man's war and a poor man*s fight.

* History of the American People, Vol. III., p. 120.
■f A History of the American People, p. 556.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 119

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 "m gold or its equivcUent." 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 taJce
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.* 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 if

"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.' "

* "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 ex-
plicit statement of Garfield in 1868, when the original five-twenty
bond bill was before the House in 1862, all who referred to the sub-
ject 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.

I Hepburn: The Contest for Sound Money, p. 188.

120 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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) aays :* That, "estimat-
ed 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 Gov-
ernment'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 lov-
ingly 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 hill 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 Wash-
ington.f

* Finance, p. 540, also Public Dehts, p. 131.
■j-Rice: The Father of His Country — Year Book.

i

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 121

Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers* states as follows the
spirit of much of the argument in the British Parliament,
even by many conservatives, concerning the bond-leech pa-
triots 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 bond-
holders] 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 toe 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 — patriot-
ically. 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 :t

* The Economic Interpretation of History, p. 454. Italics mine.
G. R. K.

f Twenty-Eight Years ( new edition Fifty Years ) of Wall Street,
p. 194.

123 WAE—WHAT FOR?

"He [Grant] was prevailed upon to go to a then obscure town in
Pennsylvania, named Little Washington. The thing was so ar-
ranged 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 pre-
pared 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 — ten-
derly, of course, just as a banker always loves an "attractive
proposition." The war was an opportunity — a splendid op-
portunity— 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 de-
cided 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 ivas to he 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 rish 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

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 123

raised the car window-shade and cautiously peeped out.* He
saw a long line of cars loaded with cannon. He was aston-
ished— he confesses. Naturally, a banker is afraid of a can-
non. "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 syn-
dicate to "sell out" and "clear the decks," "to unload,"t

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 Secre-
tary 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 re-
ceived from the Secretary were really the beginning of what
he, with blushingly modest confession and a caress for him-
self, calls his "brilliant career."

* 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-contempla-
tion beget an almost equal degree of incautious loquacity and in-
Eocent candor.

f 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 "op-
portunity." It is "business." And conscience is a nuisance to some
people when there is "opportunity" to do "business."

124 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Early in life Mr. Clews made a profound impression upon
himself — a lasting impression, as his books and speeches al-
ways reveal; a not uncommon experience with "prominent
people."

Thus Mr. Clews chose the humbler and more healthful
role 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 sugges-
tions 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 Demo-
crats; in the North, Eepublieans. In both regions the work-
ing 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

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 125

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 pol-
iticians have a perfect opportunity to arrange "good things"
for themselves. And here I shall present a sample of Amer-
ican business men filching "good things" while the public's
attention is wholly absorbed in war. For shameless, treason-
able corruption this sample can not be surpassed with the
foulest page in the history of the ancient and rotten pagan
Eoman Empire.

Washington during the American Civil War was a rob-
ber's roost for eminently respectable thieves, industrial
"bunco-steerers," and prominent and pious "come-on" finan-
cial 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.*

* "It is a well-known fact that the War of the Rebellion was pro-
longed as a result of the manipulations of the speculators who in-
vested 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

126 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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^ 1863, a certain group
of these broad-clothed money-gluttons camped in Washing-
ton— 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 capital-
ists 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 man-
kind 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 delate," a certain bill (pre-
cisely 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.

declared they 'ought to have their devilish heads shot off.'" — Con-
gressman Vincent, of Kansas, iii tUe House of Representatives, April

18, 1898.

TRICKED TO TEE TRENCHES. 127

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 fqurth day was a storm of blood and iron.

But the eminent business men, bankers, statesmen, pro-
moters and other patriotic looters, safe in Washington — far
from the firing line — waited, drank fine wine and very con-
fidently 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 cheer-
fully 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 'Tiighly 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 na-
tion's one thought was: The war — the awful battles — the
"week-long harvest of death in Virginia. Millions sobbed and

128 WAR— WHAT FOR?

eagerly sought more news. The storm of death completely
absorbed the nation's attention. The Seven Days of slaugh-
ter 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 Pres-
ident 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

I

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 129

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 Eocky Mountains, hundreds of thousands of
brave men, ill fed, ill clothed, faced hell imder 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,* "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 sur-
render. 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 con-
fidently 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

• History of the United States, Vol. IV., pp. 44-56.

130 WAR— WHAT FOR?

pitched into the ditches and the dirt and gravel were shoveled
upon them; while the grave- worms began their feast and
revel in the iiesh 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 pre-
paring, 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, unques-
tionably one of the most shameless pieces of corruption in
the entire history of the civilized, unsocialized world, in-
cluding 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 gentle-
men from being lynched.

Mr. Henry Clews relates :*

"The investigation of the refunding committee of the Pa-
cific railroads at Washington brought the most remarkable evidence
from one of the principal vritnesses, who stated that the books con-
nected 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 Wall Street Point of Vieic, p. 29.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 131

The charter as originally granted, July 1, 1862, was
treasonably generous; but these far-from-the-firing-line pa-
triots 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 criti-
cal), the liberality of the terms of the charter was almost
doubled.

Study the terms — the chief features — of the charter as
granted and amended.

Eemember the date, June 24 to July 1, 1862, — the week
of the Seven Days' Battle. Also look sharply for the patriot-
ism— 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 suf-
ficient to build the road. Professor W. Z. Ripley (Harvard
University) says :*

"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 '^assist-
ance" 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

* Railioay Problems, p. 95,

132 WAR— WHAT FOR?

that the road could be built at an average cost of less than
$10,000 per mile. More recently the Union Pacific Eailway
Company (contending with the State of Utah over tax bur-
dens) 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 "enterpris-
ing 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 out-
side of Congress) cunningly agreed to take a second mort-
gage 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 Eailway Company was cunningly given per-
mission 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

TRICKED TO TEE TEENCHES. 133

stocks were paying flividends. For Gxample, Congressman
W. B. Allison, afterM'ard 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.* 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.f

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 be-
trayed."— ("Lecture on Woman.")

One Congressman was given $500,000 for his assistance in
getting the charter granted.

"Another [expense]," says Professor Kipley (Harvard Uni-
versity ) ,t "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 de-
manded $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 :§

"Oakes Ames, member of Congress, from Massachusetts and a
promoter of tlie Union Pacific and its bills before the national legis-
lature, distributed Credit Mobilier stock to influential Congressmen
on the understanding that it should be paid for out of the dividends,

* See Davis: The Union Pacific Railway, p. 187o

f Davis: pp. 89-202.

t Railway Problems, p. 94.

§ Professor Frank Parsons (Boston University): The Railways,
the Trusts and the People, p. 64. And see Report of the Wilson
Investigating Committee, pp. Ill, IV, et seq., and Parsons' Chapter
on "Railroad Graft." Italics mine. G. R. K.

134 WAR— WHAT FOR?

wliich 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 fur-
nished 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),* 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),! "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^ 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."§

Ninth : Again and again the Union Pacific, when it
suited its purpose to do so, refused to comply with the treason-

* "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.

j- The United States in Our Own Time, p. 103.

% Wilson, for several years Land Commissioner for the Illinois
Central Railway Company, cited by Andrews.

§ Parsons: The Railways, the Trusts and the People, p. 106.

.1

TRICKED TO THE TBENCUES. 135

ably easy terms of its charter; but always the patriots in
Washington and the distinguished railway gentlemen cunning-
ly "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, 18(52, — was,
when it was finally "considered" in the House of Mis-Repre-
sentatives, voted 104 to 21 "without a single syllable of
debate."*

Professor Parsons sums up the case thusif

"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 liad the road and the control of
its earnings for themselves."

The magnitude of this statesmen-patriot-thieves' master-
piece ("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."$

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, pre-
cisely 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

* Davis : The Union Pacific Railway.

•j- The Railroads, the Trusts and the People, p. 128.

$ Professors Cleveland and Powell (University of Pennsylvania) :
Railroad Promotion and Capitalization, p. 250. Emphasis mine.
G. R. K.

136 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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.' "*

It is interesting (and instructive) to note that the charter
of the Northern Pacific Eailway 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.f

The three railways, says Professor Parsons in substance,:|:
the Union Pacific, the Central Pacific and the Northern
Pacific, cost somewhat less than $132,000,000, and were capi-
talized 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 un-
matchable 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,"

* See Professors Cleveland and Powell: Railroad Promotion and
Capitalization, pp. 250, 255.

f See Lalor's Cyclopedia of Political Science, Political Economy,
and United States History, Vol. III., p. 514.

J The Railways, the Trusts and the People, p. 107.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 137

cnnningly sneaks to the nation's storehouse, a blushless bur-
glar ; he climbs aboard the ship of state, a conscienceless
pirate.*

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 Cu-
ban 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 Ameri-
can capitalists to extend their American capitalism in Cuba
— and thus make more profits.

(3) Some American capitalists and craftily noble states-
men also secured some Cuban Eevolutionary bonds at ex-
tremely 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 dis-
cussed by prominent statesmen in Washington) that Spanish-

* 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" ot
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.

138 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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.*
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. 10,100t
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, be-
sides 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
$1,400,000,000. . . . Within a few months the original holdings passed
into the possession of a comparatively few persons and corpora-
tions,"$

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 ivere offered and thus in tender "love of coun-
try," 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.

* See discussions in Congressional Record of the period.
■f See Congressional Records.

$ D. R. Dewey: The Financial History of the United States,
p. 467.

TRICKED TO THE TllENCIIES. 139

(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 Gov-
ernment push the investigation to the very limit ? Wliy 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 capi-
talists 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
io the Government and handed on to the soldiers bore the mark
"Condemned." Look this matter up in Gustavus Myers' His-
tory of Great American Fortunes, Vol. IL, pp. 127-38. Then
when you hear some "Eemember 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 bom-
bast. Some eloquent speeches were made by Senators and
Congressmen, speeches of unusual power and rare beauty. But

140 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 mter7iational rights and pi'lvileges, the Cubans
could have freed themselves. France thus recognized the
puny, rebellious American Eevolutionary 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 de-
spised 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. Eoosevelt confesses that a special effort was made to
excite you, and he also tells us some other things :*

"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

The Rough Riders, passim. Italics mine. G. R. K.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 141

found by the vultures before we got to them; and their bodies were
mangled, their eyes iind 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 battle-field 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 ripp3d
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:*

"According to the statement given out by the Cuban Junta
yesterday, the Republic of Cuba issued $2,000,000 of bonds, payable

April 1, 6, 9, and 20, 1898.

142 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 Re-
public 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 Af-
fairs Committee of the House today. B. F. Guerra, Deputy-Treasurer
of the Cuban Republic, appeared with his books, and they were in-
spected 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 war-
rant in law for such responsibility. . . .

"Congressman 'Blank'* in the House on Monday, said he had
$10,000 worth of Cuban bonds in his pocket . . . while H. H. Kohl-
saat, in an editorial in one of the Chicago papers, charges, the Jimta
with oflFering 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. . . .

See Tribune for real name in full.

TRICKED TO TEE TRENCHES. 143

"Mr. Guerra made the somewhat startling statement tliat a
man representing certain individuals at Wasliington 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 states-
men'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 fel-
lows 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 (Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania), assures us* that the outrages committed
against the Cubans by the Spanish Government had been com-
mon for more than fifty years. "The Cubans had rebelled six
times m these fifty years." But not until American capital-
istic 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 in-
vested 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 in-
tervention. How the orators and business men far from the
firing line loved "the men behind the guns." Here is some
more evidence:!

"The canned roast meat ... a great majority of the men found
it uneatable. It was coarse, stringy and tasteless and very dis-
agreeable 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

* School History of the United States, p. 476.
•}• Roosevelt : The Rough Riders, passim.

144 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 medi-
cine, 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 stufl' 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 uneat-
able. . . . 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 Amer-
ican 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 civil-
ized CANNIBALS :

Consider a moment the recent war between Christian
Eussia 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

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 145

Japanese capitalists in Manchuria inspired the Japanese
statesmen to the recent war with Russia. The Christian Rus-
sian 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 "se-
cured" 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 posi-
tion 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."*

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

• See McClure's Magazine, Sept., 1908.

146 WAR— WHAT FOR?

have closed in six months because of lack of funds — if Chris-
tian business men and gentle, "cultivated" Christian women of
the world had refused to lend money to the two sleek groups
of oflficial brutes in Japan and Russia who were forcing hun-
dreds 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 un-
earned 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 work-
ing 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 Chris-
tian 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 canni-
bals 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."

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 147

Their occasional contribution to Cliristian 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 assassina-
tion 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
Eeverend Dr. Walter Walsh writes :*

"By the very condition of its existence international capital-
ism 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:!

"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,

* The Moral Damage of War, pp. 332-33.
■^National and Social Problems, pp. 211-12.

148 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 prin-
ciple [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 suflferers."*

Seventh illustration: The American CossACK.f

"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 "cap-
tains 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, danger-
ous, 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 worTcing class. Here is a sample :

* Gen. U. S. Grant. Compare also Grant's comment on the
cause of the Mexican War: Memoirs, Vol. I.
■f See Chapters Seven, Section 7-12.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 149

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 fol-
lowing 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 horse-
back," 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 Cos-
sack, rode hour after hour — for half a day — a few steps be-
hind 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

150 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 role of Russian-
izing 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 vir-
tually spat in the old veteran's face.

"A cold-blooded organization that [Pennsylvania] State Con-
stabulary."*

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 or-
phans brutally wronged, — with their memories crowded with
congresses corrupted, treasuries looted, lands stolen, charters,
privileges and "good things" shamelessly raped from the un-
seeing public while brave but deluded working men agonized
on bloody battlefields.

And on such days the working class should shout less

New York Evening Sun, Editorial, Feb. 24, 1910.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 151

and think more. "The man on horseback" should have some
special thought.

And the working class are thinking to-day 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* —
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 be-
hind the curtains. It is not always easy for the young man to
realize that he is to he 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, dis-
couraged working class mother. However, the cheap role 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 mi-
litia and the regulars themselves. Light is breaking in the

TOILEES' mind. ThE HIDEOUS BUSINESS OF STANDING READY
TO BAYONET THE MILLIONS OP MEN AND BOYS AND WOMEN
AND GIRLS WHOSE LIVES ARE MADE UP OF MEANLY PAID DRUDG-
ERY 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 STRUG-
GLING FOE 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

la sua address, New York, May 25, 1908..

152 WARr-WHAT FOR?

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 cobble-
stones 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 Eepublicans, begin to
see the trick.

Thousands of young men desert — and thousands more
would like to desert — the United States army every yjar.
They cannot stand the snubs and sneers of their "superior
officers," and the contempt now increasingly felt by the work-
ing 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 role 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

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 153

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."*
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.f 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. Wlien our newly en-
listed 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

• British authority for this statement; but exact citation un-
fortunately lost.

•f But see Index : "Desertion;"

154 WAR^WHAT FOR?

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, say-
ing, "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 deso-
late 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 coun-
try— and we appreciate it so much. With gracious manner
these "prominent people" show us a "hot time" and tell us to
"^0 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.

Eeader, 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 Medi-
terranean 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.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 155

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-de-
stroyers, preparing to assemble on the Pacific Ocean for bloody
struggles.

There is talh 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 con-
cealed by all International Peace Conferences and Conven-
tions. 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 con-
fidence 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.

156 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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,*
"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 hun-
dreds 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, com-
merce 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 threaten-
ingly in 1908 :

"The foremost issue of the coming campaign will be the ques-
tion 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

Expansion, pp. 101-2.

TRICKED TO THE TRENCHES. 157

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 con-
flicts with ours, that is another matter. . . .

"I am an advocate of a larger navy."*

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 fight-
ing 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,f "tell
them that you want civilization here at home, if you can get it genu-
ine. . . . 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

* Italics mine. G. R. K.

fNafioval and Social Problems, pp. 186-88,

158 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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."

Eefuse, brothers, refuse. Be proud. Eefuse. Stand by
your own class. Refuse. Bankers refuse. Manufacturers re-
fuse. 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.

Eefuse.

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

itr

CHAPTER SEVE!T.
For Father and the Boys.

Following are "Topics for Discussion/* commended espe-
cially 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 refer-
ence 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.

160 WAR^WHAT FOR?

(2) Comment on war :

German proverb: "When war comes the devil makes hell
larger."

The Eev, Doctor Albert Barnes : "War resembles hell."

Bishop Warburton: "The blackest mischief ever breathed
from hell,"

Lord Clarendon: "War ... an emblem of hell."

William Shakespeare: "0, 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 sup-
pose we were in political position to rigidly enforce these two
laws : —

First Law, — Kequiring 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, — Eequiring that all Senators and Congress-
men who vote for war and thus "declare war" shall be forced,
according to this law, to instantly resign their ofRces, and, by
special draft provided for in this law, be forced to join the
army immediately, infantry department, and, with the com-
mon 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 govern-
ments and parliaments in avoiding war."*

•Charles Seignobos: Political History of Europe Since 1815,
p. 819.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 161

When, in 1909, the Spanish War in Africa became intense
and dangerous, the Spanish government renewed an old "ex-
emption" 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.*

Our "Dick" Military Law, passed by Congress in 1903, ex-
empts Congressmen, Senators, judges, etc., — also (by agree-
ment 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 per-
sonally 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 ])y 500,000, and instead of a neigh-
boring 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

Similar practice was common in our Civil War.

162 WAR— WHAT FOR?

two small grotrps 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 busi-
ness. 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 avail-
able— 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 ashing no
more questions about the justice of the war than the cavalry
horses asked.*

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

But see Index: "Four Historic Events."

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 163

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 Sedaji?"

His troops were overwhelmed by the Germans. His sol-
diers 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 gen-
erals 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 Mur-
der— 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 an-
nual 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

164 WAR— WHAT FOB?

charity, but as a right provided for all, over $580 ? The lives
of many working class men and women are to-day 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 :*

"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 sacri-
fice remote from the field of carnage.

"More than any other great nation this republic might be ex-
pected 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 work-
ing 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 excite-
ment 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 con-
stitution, by the flag, by the politicians and the soldiers and
militia, can "turn down" a skilful, effective wage-earner be-
cause 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

May 21, 1909. Italics mine. G. R. K.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 165

protection for him. Thus our old industrial soldiers arc help-
less even though the industrial tyrant spit on their gray beard.

(7) The patriotic militiamen and the "regulars" often
■ay : "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 strik-
ers." But let us see :

Certain railway companies in 1894 knew that the govern-
ment 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 fur-
nished. 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 trick-
ery 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.

166 WAR— WHAT FOR?

"It is in evidence and uncontradicted," says Carroll D. Wright,*
"that no violence or destruction of property by strikers or sym-
pathizers took place in Pullman [Illinois], and that until
July 3d [when the federal troops came upon the scene] no ex-
traordinary 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, ex-
cept 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 em-
ployers know this well.

Surely you have noticed that during troublous times of
strike the chief use made of police, militia, cossacks and "regu-
lars" is to protect the haughty employer who blurts out:

* Report of the United States Pullman Strike Commission :
Carroll D. Wright, Chairman.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 167

"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 hu-
miliation.

(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 indiistrial 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 incen-
diaries. 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 despo-
tism.

Industrial democracy is the only cure for industrial des-
potism.

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.

168 WAR— WHAT FOR?

"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 increas-
ing 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.*

(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

See Chapter Ten on "What Shall We Do About It?'

170 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 in-
volved 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 organiza-
tions, lost for the employers $19,927,983. About 51 per cent,
of these lockouts succeeded, less than 7 per cent, partly suc-
ceeded, and about 43 per cent, failed.*

"In legalizing labor wars," says Waldo F. Cook,f "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 in-
terests and exacerbate society by their class antagonisms and hates.
For the labor war, no less than the war between nations, culti-
vates 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 Groltz.
(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

* See article by Labor Commissioner C. D. Wright: North
American Review, June, 1902; also R. T. Ely: Outlines of Eco-
nomics, Edition of 1908. pp. 397-98.

■f International Journal of Ethics, April, 1908.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 171

an essay urging a standing army of 250,000 men and a re-
serve army of 750,000 men.

Would not the following be a fruitful subject for discus-
sion 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 stand-
ing 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 Eoot, 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 capital-
ists 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 unem-
ployed or the ill-paid toilers gather around the mines and
factories and roar for work or bread. Instead of work they

173 WAR— WHAT FOR?

will get sneers. Instead of bread they will get lead and steel
— provided for by this Dick Militia I4W.

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 pur-
poses"— 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 in-
clusive, in 1890 numbered 13,230,168.*

Section 4, — ". . . It shall be lawful for the President
to call forth for a period not exceeding nine months such
number of the militia as Tie may deem necessary . . . and
to issue his orders ... as he may think proper."

The law was amended with an iron hand during the win-
ter and spring of the hard times of 1907-8, when millions
were thrown out of employment and into the muttering,
angry army of the unemployed. For example, the nine-
months limit was struck out of Section 4, which is more food
for reflection — for any one who has brains enough to reflect
with.

Section 7, — "Any officer or enlisted man of the militia
who shall refuse or neglect to present himself to such muster-
ing officer upon being called forth . . . shall be subject to
trial by court martial, and shall be punished as such court
martial may direct."

The law creates a vast reserve army now rapidly being
perfected. The law, especially as amended recently, gives the
President power greater than is possessed by some of the

C. D. Wright: Practical Sociology, p. 38.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 173

most dangerous and hated tyrants on earth to-day. Issuing a
general order by telegraph and post, the President could sud-
denly place under orders from five to ten millions of the
strongest men in the land — including the strikers themselves ;
and to neglect or refuse to obey such orders would mean a
"court-martial" trial with rigorous punishment. A court-
martial jury is not noted for gentleness; famously different
from a jury of one's "old neighbors."

Section 9, — "The militia, when called into actual service
of the United States, shall be subject to the same rules and
articles of war as the regular troops." That is to say, for
the time they are "on call," they are virtually federal soldiers.

The law as amended by Congress in May, 1908, provides
"that every officer and enlisted man of the militia who shall
be called forth in the manner hereinbefore prescribed shall be
mustered for service without further enlistment." [Italics in
Eeport.]

"The call of the President will, therefore, of itself accom-
plish the transfer of the organized militia which is called
forth by him from its state relations to its federal relations.
It becomes part of the Army of the United States and the
President becomes its commander-in-chief.

"The President is the exclusive judge of the existence of
an emergency which would justify the calling forth of the
Organized Militia."*

This law contains twenty-six sections, every one of which
should be studied carefully by the working class of the United
States. The Union labor bodies should urge local newspapers
to publish parts of the law selected by the unions. The more
the law is examined the more food for reflection will be found
in it.f

The English capitalist government has also recently
enacted a new military law, a species of "Dick" law, called the

* See Report of Secretary of War, 1908, p. 155. Italics mine.
G. R. K.

I An excellent edition of the law with notes, analysis, history,
and suggestions by Mr. Ernest Untermann, can be had for 5 cents,
of any Socialist literature agent.

174 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Territorial Force Act. This law transforms a "voluntary
citizen soldier" into a "regular" soldier. Says Justice:*

"Under the new act the Volunteer must 'enlist' and serve under
'military law.' He will be as much a regular soldier as a Life
Guard or a Lancer, and can be called out to shoot down strikers
in labor disputes as was actually done at Featherstone . . . and at
Belfast only a few months ago."

"The Volunteer," says the Morning Post, "will no longer be a
citizen soldier, he will be a soldier without the blur of citizenship.
. . . He may be mechanic; many of the best Volunteers are me-
chanics. If there is a strike in his works, ordered by the trade
imion to which he subscribes, and if the Mayor is afraid of the
Strikers, and wants soldiers to shoot them, in case of need, the
Volunteer, renamed 'man of the Territorial Force,' is just the man
he wants; and the bill empowers the Mayor to call him out for
the purpose."

The "Dick" law was passed by capitalist "friends of labor,"
of course, both Eepublicans and Democrats ; and the "Terri-
torial Force Act" was similarly passed by capitalist "friends
of labor," both Liberals and Conservatives. As the unarmed
army of the unemployed grows threateningly larger and the
armed army of bribed butchers grows larger — ready to mur-
der those who starve — it is in order, in "Old England," in
"New America," everywhere in order, for the working class
to give more careful attention to the "good men" who are so
tearfully and fearfully "friendly to labor."

(12) Why should the working class give the capitalist
governments a free hand in the murder of the workers?
Why not rigorously restrict the power to call millions of men
to arms?

What would happen if the working class should refuse to
fight?

"That 'the government can not put the whole population in
prison, and if it could, it would still be without material for an
army, and without money for its support,' is an almost irrefutable
argument. We see here ['in passive resistance, not simply in theory,
but in practice'] at least the beginnings of a sentiment that shall,
if sufficiently developed, make war impossible to an entire people.
. . ."t

•London, March 21, 1008.

f Miss Jane Addams: Neicer Ideals of Peace, p. 232.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 175

Four points to be emphasized here :

(1) Eequire all the school teachers to teach all the chil-
dren to despise and hate war.

(2) Arm everybody or nobody.

(3) Train everybody or nobody.

(4) "The right of the people to bear arms shall not be
infringed." — Constitution of the United States: Third
Amendment.

(5) The working class should diligently study the folly
of requiring one regiment of the working class to fight the
united and class-loyal capitalist class in strikes.

These four propositions suggest a plan that would, even
under capitalism, render the working class far less helpless
and hopeless than they are at present in their class struggle
against the capitalist class of masters who may legally order
the working class soldiers to fire on the working class.

However, the triumphantly effective work can be accom-
plished in this matter when — and not until — the working class
have seized the powers of government. (See Chapter Ten,
which is wholly devoted to the fundamentals of "What to
do.")

It is significant that the first Secretary of War, Henry
Knox, appointed by President Washington, made a Report
January 18, 1790, on the proper basis for the military defense
of the United States. His plan was "to reject a standing
army, as possessing too fierce an aspect and being hostile to
the principles of liberty."

A scholar of world-renown, Francis Lieber, German-
American soldier, historian, economist and publicist, has this
to say of standing armies :*

"Standing armies are not only dangerous to civil liberty be-
cause depending upon the executive. They have the additional evil
effect that they infuse into the whole nation ... a spirit directly
opposed to that which ought to be the general spirit of a free peo-
ple devoted to self-government. Habits of disobedience and contempt
for the citizens are produced, and a view of government is induced
which is contrary to liberty, self-reliance, self-government. . . .

Civil Liberty, pp. 116-117.

176 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Where the people worship the army, an opinion is engendered as
if courage in battle were really the highest phase of humanity; and
the army, in turn, more than aught else, leads to the worship of
one man — so detrimental."

(13) "For the French and Italians and especially the
German and Russian adolescent of the lower classes . . . the
army is called . . . the poor man's university."*

"The poor man's university !" — in which he is drilled and
kicked into spineless subserviency and is taught the noble art
of killing himself, his class, scientifically. The degraded,
docile, and despised millions of the working class men of the
standing armies of the world are indeed educated when they
are willing to wade in their own blood in defense of the para-
sitic capitalist class who rule, ride and ruin the toilers of
all the world.

A standing army is a joke and a yoke on the working
class. A standing army is a compound human machine edu-
cated to spank the working class when it cries for milk — and
bread and meat, A soldier, a militiaman, is an educated
boot with which the employers kick the working class.

(14) Do not rich men's sons sometimes voluntarily join
the militia?

Yes, sometimes — but very, very rarely. One of the bluest-
blooded Vanderbilts of New York was recently a captain in
a specially handsome Regiment. But, mark you — in ninety-
nine cases in a hundred, well-armed, well-trained militiamen
fight unarmed, untrained workingmen (and women), which
is not so very, very dangerous — for the militiamen. To an
intelligent rich man an unarmed wage-earner on strike for an
extra nickel to buy bread, as "the enemy," and an armed
trained soldier whose business is murder, as "the enemy," —
these look different, you know.

For years New York millionaires and all the other "best
people" "pointed with pride" to the famous Seventh Regiment
of the National Guard, the "rich men's regiment," the "gilt-
edged regiment" of lovely young millionaires, many of whom
rode to the armory for drill in their automobiles. This regi-

*G. Stanley Hall: Adolescence, Vol. I., pp. 222-23.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 177

ment of the American nobility of lard-and-tallow-steel-coal-
and-railway millionaires, ready at any moment to defend and
save the dear country from "the enemy," — this regiment was,
indeed, the pride of the village called New York. These
glistening patricians taught the common people patriotism.
"So they did."

Until the Spanish War broke out.

Then these fakir patriots — what did they do — then?

Resigned.

Or they did what amounted to the same thing — voted not
to go to the war.

Certainly they did. Promptly, too — and intelligently.

Why not?

Surely you do not expect a lot of intelligent men to leave
their happy homes, go to hell and make themselves ridiculous,
do you? Why, the cost of a rubber tire for one wheel of an
automobile would pay the war wages of a cheap man of the
"lower classes" for six months.

(15) "Didn't one millionaire go to the war in Cuba?"

Yes. Out of our six thousand patriotic, flag-waving mil-
lionaires, one, just one, a young green one, went to the war
in Cuba — "for a little excitement and a lark," he said. He
found large quantities of excitement "all right," and some
cold lead. He was killed. As a millionaire "patriotically''
going to war his case is an exception, clearly an exception, a
conspicuously lonely, vain and stupid exception; and that
exception will never be imitated. Too much intelligence
— among the millionaires. Even his millionaire friends
laughed at him for going to war. But he wanted a "hot
time." He got the "hot time" — and the cold lead.

There were several thousand other millionaire flag-wavers
instructively conspicuous in that war — by their intelligent
patriotic absence.

It is instructively significant that the capitalist
newspapers gave more than a hundred times as much
space to the death of the one millionaire soldier in
THE Spanish-American war as they gave to the death

178 WAR— WHAT FOR?

OF ANY HUNDRED HUMBLE WORKING CLASS SOLDIERS WHO
WERE SLAUGHTERED IN THE SAME WAR.

(16) Were not some of the rich men of to-day soldiers
at one time — "years ago"?

Yes. Some of the rich men of to-day were soldiers at
one time — years ago ; but they are not soldiers now when they
are rich, and they were not rich when, years ago, they were
soldiers.

(17) If politicians do not go to war, what about Mr.
Bryan's case? Didn't Mr. Bryan patriotically go to the war
in Cuba?

No. Mr. Bryan did not go to the war in Cuba. He sim-
ply went toward the war.

Mr. Bryan was, of course, patriotic, fervently, noisily so;
but, like the intelligent people of his class, he always had his
enthusiasm under perfect control. Mr. Bryan at no time
showed an unmanageable desire to get up close in front, on
the firing line. And his class was true to him, respected
his strong preference for war five hundred miles from the
flaming, snarling Catling gun; and, accordingly, his class —
in power at Washington — kept him well out of danger. At
one time he got the impression he was in danger of being sent
to the front. At once he cried out, "It's politics !" and
promptly resigned his noble command, double quick, patri-
otically. Mr. Bryan, mounted on a splendid horse, with up-
lifted sword in hand, grandly vowing to "defend the flag
against the enemy" as he headed his noble braves, assembled
for review, and admiration, before the Omaha Bee building,
ready to start toivard the front — at that sublime moment
Colonel William Jennings Bryan was, well, simply beautiful,
not to say pretty. As the golden tones of this Nebraskan
Achilles, this Alexander from the Platte Valley, rolled forth
in his heroic vow to bleed (if necessary) for his flag, the
nation was comforted — felt saved already.

Patriotism is, after all, wortli all it costs — that is, worth
all it costs Mr. Bryan. Mr. Bryan, like Mr. Hearst and
many others, is patriotic, even intemperately so — with his
mouth.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 179

But the reader may ask, "Was not Mr. Eoosevelt in the
Cuban War a case of a politician actually on the firing line ?"

Clearly an exception. Name a few other "great states-
men" or international noises who went to the Cuban War — to
the actual firing line.

Mr. Eoosevelt loves excitement and danger. And what
indescribable dangers there were for the Americans in the
Cuban War! The mightiest "republic" on earth was pitted
against the most toothless, decadent old political grandma
in Europe. The dangers? — equal to those that threaten an
armed, athletic hunter alone and face to face with a sucking
fawn. Mr. Eoosevelt himself has heroically — and carefully —
recounted and printed his own brave deeds in that war.
With Christian love and humility, with charming modesty
and delicacy, with the diffident ingenuousness of a blushing
schoolgirl, characteristic of him, Mr. Eoosevelt tenderly re-
cites one of his noble deeds as follows :*

"Lieutenant Davis's First Sergeant, Clarence Gould, killed a
Spaniard with his revolver, ... At about the same time I also shot
one. • . . Two Spaniards leaped from the trenches . . . not ten yards
away. As they turned to run I closed in and fired twice, missing
the first and killing the second [Oh, joy!]. . . . At the same time
I did not know of Gould's exploit, and I supposed my feat to be
unique."

Surely it requires courage, rare and noble courage, for a
wealthy graduate of Harvard University to boast in print
that he shot a poor, ignorant fleeing Spanish soldier — very
probably a humble working man drafted to war, torn from
his weeping wife and children — that he shot such a man, in
the bach. Oh, bliss — elation — ecstasy divine! "I got him!
with my revolver too! in the hack!" Manly pastime of an
American gentleman, a mongrel mixture of patrician and
brute. Yes, reader, Mr. Eoosevelt, politician, was in the
Cuban War — with a purpose ; and secured a military title and
a "war record" worth at least 75,000 votes in his campaign
for the governorship of Xew York which immediately fol-
lowed the war. For details consult The Bough Eider.

*" The Rough Riders, p. 139. Found in Edition of 1899, pub-
lished by Charles Scribner's Sons; page 152, as published by G. P.
Putnam's Soti.-;.

180 WAR— WHAT FOR?

With shrewd patriotism, political foresight, rare courage —
and girlish bashfulness — Mr. Eoosevelt's picture is repeatedly
presented in the book, the poses expressing his usual audible
modesty and ferocious gentleness.

Emerson finely says : "Every hero becomes a bore at last.'*
(18) The noble Professor Paulsen (Berlin University)
wrote :*

"Hate impels men to seek quarrels, and pride turns their heads.
. . . Nay, arrogance and hatred are really always the signs of an
irritable, diseased self-consciousness. . . . [That] selfish, arrogant,
vain and narrow-minded self-conceit, which the flatterers of the
popular passion call patriotism."

The distinguished Italian historian, G. Ferrero, has

written :t

"Thus in destroying or creating, man can procure for himself
strong emotions, and persuade himself of his own superiority. . . .
Two passions have divided the human heart throughout the annals
of human history: the divine passion for creation, and the diabolical
passion for destruction. . . . Nineteenth-century man may seek after
violent and inebriating emotions that permit him to assert his su-
periority over his fellows. . . ."

Robert G. Ingersoll understood the hero-brute mongrel:

"Courage without conscience is a wild beast. Patriotism with-
out principle is the prejudice of birth, the animal attachment to
place."

Thus Victor Hugo^

"To be, materially, a great man, to be pompously violent, to
reign by virtue of the sword-knot and cockade ... to possess a
genius for brutality — this is to be great, if you will, but it is a
coarse way of being great."

The cannon's roar, the bayonet's thrust, the crush of flesh,
the splash of blood, — such things in battle make men gentle,
tender, gallant, even heroic, fit subjects for the adoration of
women. § For example : When the Christian heroes captured
Magdeburg :

* System of Ethics, p. 660.
■f Militarism, pp. 60-61.
t William Shakespeare, Pt. 3, Bk. 3, Ch. I.

§See Chapter Eight, Section 11, — of special interest to women
who incline to be "perfectly delighted" with soldiers.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 181

"Now began a scene of massacre and outrage which history has
no language, and poetry no pencil, to portray. Neither the innocence
of childhood nor the helplessness of old age, neither youth nor sex,
neither rank nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the conquerors.
Wives were dishonored in the very arms of their husbands, daughters
at the feet of their parents, and the defenseless sex exposed to the
double loss of virtue and life. . . , Fifty-three women were found
in one church with their heads cut off. The Croats amused them-
selves by throwing children into the flames, and Pappenheim's Wal-
loons with stabbing infants at their mothers' breasts."*

But it may be said that those things were done far back
in the seventeenth century. Consider, then, the fact that in
the French civil war of 1871 the government's noble heroes,
having conquered the revolutionists, took thousands of un-
armed prisoners — men, women, and children — to an open
space at the city limits of Paris and shot them, children and
all ; in many cases the brave, armed ruffians stood up rows of
helpless prisoners one behind the other and amused them-
selves by testing their rifles on living human flesh, noting
how many men, women and children could be butchered with
one bullet. Many of the ^'better class," "refined ladies and
gentlemen," "leading citizens," conspicuous by their elegance
of manners and dress, were present watching the fun, smiling
encouragement and making helpful suggestions to the "civil-
ized" butchers.

And still more recently:

A British hero thus describes a "funny" incident in the
South African war: "Eeally, sir, I never saw anything quite
so funny in all my life, oust fancy, I saw a Kaffir woman
pick up the headless body of her baby and strap it on her
back. Funny, oh. Lord ! It makes me laugh when I think
of it now." The same authority (the Westminster Review,
quoted by Walter Walsh) also gives the following case of
Christian military heroism : "A contingent of German scouts
[in South Africa] took five native women prisoners ... an
officer ordered ten men to fix bayonets. Five stood in front
and five behind the women, and stabbed the women to death."

Quoted by Thomas E. Will, Arena, Dec, 1894.

182 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Ten armed, Christian heroes with bayonets ripping the breasts
of five unarmed women. Great ! Isn't it ? At least it is war.
One scarcely knows which to despise the more — the soldiers
or the lazy parasites for whom they committed a thousand
crimes of basest cruelty and cowardice. Dr. Walter Walsh*
lets the soldiers tell in their own heroic language of their
manly deeds — thus:

" 'Our progress was like the old-time forays in Scotland two
centuries ago. . . . We moved on from valley to valley . . . burning,
looting and turning out the women and children to sit and cry
beside the ruins of their once beautiful farmsteads . . . my men
fetched bundles of straw. The women cried, and the children stood
holding to them and looking with large frightened eyes at the burn-
ing house. . . . The people had thought we had come for refresh-
ments, and one of them went to get milk. . . . We then set the
whole place on fire. They dropped on their knees and prayed and
sang, weeping bitterly the while. One of the poor women went
raving mad. When the flames burst from the doomed place the
poor woman threw herself on her knees, tore open her bodice, and
bared her breasts, screaming, "Shoot me, shoot me, I've nothing to
live for, now that my husband is gone, and our farm is burnt, and
our cattle taken!'""

These foul deeds are samples of thousands.
"War, is it?" says Dr. Walsh. "Be it war: then an army
is a manufactory for cowards and a school for cowards."

"A war hero," says the distinguished Roman Catholic Bishop
John Spaulding,f "supposes a barbarous condition of the race; and
when all shall be civilized, they who know and love the most shall
be held to be the greatest and the best."

And Robert Ingersoll thus:

"Every good man, every good woman, should try to do away
with war, to stop the appeal to savage force. Man in a savage
state relies upon his strength, and decides for himself what is right
and what is wrong."t

"Nothing is plainer," says Emerson, "than that sympathy
with war is a juvenile and temporary state."§

* Moral Damage of War, pp. 146-47.
■\ Education and the Higher Life, p. 171.
t Works, Vol. IV., Dresden Edition, p. 124.
§ "Lecture on War."

FATHER AND TEE BOYS. 183

Dr. John Fiske, historian and philosopher, makes the fol-
lowing observations on the slow grand march from brutality
to brotherhood.*

"For thousands of generations, and until very recent times, one
of the chief occupations of men has been to plunder, bruise and
kill one another. The . . . ugly passions . . . have had but little
opportunity to grow weak from disuse. The tender and unselfish
feelings, which are a later product of evolution, have too seldom
been allowed to grow strong from exercise . . . the whims and prej-
udices of militant barbarism are slow in dying out. . . . The coarser
forms of cruelty are disappearing and the butchery of men has
greatly diminished ... in the more barbarous times the hero was
he who had slain his thousands. . . . And thus we see what human
progress means. It means throwing off the brute inheritance,
gradually throwing it off through ages of struggle that are by and
by to make struggles needless. Man is slowly passing from a
primitive social state . . . toward an ultimate social state in
which his character shall have become so transformed that nothing
of the brute can be detected in it. The ape and the tiger in human
nature will be extinct."

How encouraging! We can confidently look forward to a
time when not even a pervert candidate for the presidency of
a great Christian "republic" will be either tiger enough to
butcher a human being or peacock and monkey enough to
brag of doing so.

"Who loves war for war's own sake
Is fool, or crazed, or worse." — ^Tennyson.

"One of the commonest popular mistakes is to confound ag-
gressiveness and belligerency with genius. These qualities are al-
most in inverse proportion. . . . But usually great energy and de-
termination, and especially combative qualities are associated with
rather meagre abilities."|

There is really too much bull-dog greatness.

"No blood-stained victory, in story bright,

Can give the philosophical mind delight;

No triumph please, while rage and death destroy:

Reflection sickens at the monstrous joy. "J

* The Destiny of Man, pp. 100-103.

f Lester F. Ward: Applied Sociology, p. 264.

JBloomfield: "Farmer's Boy."

184 WAR— WHAT FOR?

"Cursed is the man, and void of law and right;

Unworthy property, unworthy light.

Unfit for public rule, or private care, —

That wretch, that monster, who delights in war."*

Imagine a Sioux Indian chief, pagan Alexander, pagan
Caesar, Christian Napoleon, also the Christian bullies Em-
peror William and Theodore Roosevelt, also the quiet Christ —
imagine these seven "not only willing, but anxious to fight,"
mounted on foam-stained horses galloping across a bloody
battlefield strewn with wounded and slaughtered men and
boys, imagine these seven galloping, bravely and boisterously
galloping, waving red-stained swords, yelling, squawking,
yawping, hurrahing for war, "glorious" war — the iron-shod
hoofs of their rushing horses crushing into the breasts and
faces of dead and dying young men and boys.

The savage Sioux, the immortal pagan brutes Alexander
and Caesar, the renowned Christian bullies Napoleon, William
and Theodore — these six "geniuses," these coarse-grained,
blood-stained egotists fit that picture perfectly, as a shark
fits the ocean, as a wolf fits the forest, as a tiger fits the jungle,
as a savage fits a cannibal feast, — as the Devil fits Hell.

But Christ, Christ in whose breast lurked no tiger and
no savage, — Christ with a long sword, a hero's butcher-knife
in hand, plunging it into the breast of his brothers, screaming
like the "dee-lighted" brute, calling it "great," "splendid,"
"bully !"—

Impossible !

But why impossible for Christ and "dee-lightful" for the
other six?

Because, simply because, these six blood-lusting heroes are
savage or at best only civilized; but Christ was socialized.

Socialization opposes assassination — ^both wholesale and
retail.

Christ is immortal — by his wide love and brotherhood.

The "great general" is promoted and immortalized for
his narrow hates and brilliant brutalities.

(19) Has not war been natural and necessary in the

* Pope's Homer's "Iliad."

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 185

life of the human race, and has not war been a potent factor
in the intellectual development of mankind?
Professor Ferrero has this to say :*

"Thus the duty of every well-meaning man to-day is to diffuse
knowledge of the fact that war no longer serves the purpose it once
served in the struggle for civilization.

"War necessary to civilization?"

Well, for a long time in the life of the human race nature
was so ill understood, man had such insufficient knowledge
and control of nature, that it was extremely difficult to get a
living for all. Our ancestors naturally quarreled; perhaps
it was necessary for some of them to kill others in order that
some of them might live — ignorant as the people were in
those times of how to make nature yield bountifully and
easily for all. And no doubt the struggle developed the
race — the part that did not get killed. In those struggles
were developed, at first, strong muscles, skin-ripping claws
or knife-like finger-nails, tusks in the mouth, and thick skins ;
and, later, clubs, spears, cross-bows, bows-and-arrows ; and
still later, rifles, cannon, battleships and lignite shells, and
also the methods and tactics of struggle; — all these were
developed. Always, too, cunning, deception, malignance,
egoism, egotism, coarse-grained dispositions, cheap ambitions,
swaggering manners, fierce eyes, and the soft, bull-like mili-
tary voices and hero worship — all these were developed.

The muscles and the mentality thus developed are still
extremely useful. Indeed, the mentality, developed in war
(but neither wholly nor chiefly in war), is worth all it cost,
whatever it did cost, because with this godlike mentality, and
only with this mentality, we can now have the higher and finer
forms and phases of life, the pleasures that distinguish man
from the brutes; that is, with this mentality we can have
these more glorious forms of life: Provided, that the low
cunning, deception, malignance, egoism, egotism and the
coarse-grained strain of the ancient brute are not even yet
too strong in our veins and characters. In spite of one's in-

Militarism, p. 316.

186 WAR— WHAT FOR?

telligence he may be "not only willing, but anxious to fight."
Such a person may no longer have the skin-ripping finger-
claws, but he has the skin-ripping disposition that was de-
veloped when the skin-ripping finger-claws were developed,
and developed in the same way.

Now, of course, we still need the muscle and the intel-
ligence, every one of us. But we do not any longer need the
skin-rippers, or the tusks, or the club, the "big stick," the
spear, the bow and arrow, the rifle and the battleship ; nor do
we any longer need the arrogant egotism, the cheap cunning,
the prize-fighter ambitions or the tiger's readiness to take
blood. Nor should we any longer need the ancient method
of struggle, every-fellow-for-himself, in the industrial process
of life — in a rationally organized society, with our present
control of nature. And we should no longer enjoy any of
these brute means and methods if we were civilized in the
noblest sense, that is, if we were decently socialized.

"Are you ready for the question ?" This is the question :
Can you use, do you prefer to use — your developed men-
tality like a brute, like a savage, or like a truth-seeking, so-
cialized man? Are you "not only willing, but anxious to
fight," or are the business and the methods of the brute dis-
gusting to you? What o'clock is it in your personal evolu-
tion? Do you prefer a library to an armory, books rather
than bayonets? Is a fight natural, or necessary, or helpful
in your personal development? If a fight, actual part in a
fight rifle-in-hand, is not necessary to the preacher, the sena-
tor, the professor, the banker or the manufacturer, why should
it seem necessary in your case — and why should you permit
these "better class" citizens to have you ordered and led
around like a prize-winning bull-dog to flght in the interna-
tional prize-ring called the struggle for the world market?
War as a developer and a civilizer is a flat failure in your
case if the capitalist class can seduce you for fifty cents a
day to fight for a foreign market for American porterhouse
steak while you and your father and mother are fed on
third-rate meat, beans, cheap syrup and mock-coffee without
cream. Brother, you may indeed be a "brave boy," and a

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 187

"good shot," and you may have heroically stained your hands
in other men's blood; but, really, the "upper class" have
marked you as an easy victim, a useable cheap "guy" of the
"lower class."

(20) John Ruskin keenly appreciated the capitalist's
craftiness and the workingman's buffoonery in "a war for
civilization." He wrote:*

"Capitalists, when they do not know what to do with their
money, persuade the peasants that the said peasants want guns to
shoot each other with. The peasants accordingly borrow guns, out of
the manufacture of which the capitalists get a percentage, and men
of science much amusement and credit. Then the peasants shoot
a certain number of each other until they get tired, and burn each
other's houses down in various places. Then they put the guns back
into towns, arsenals, etc., in ornamental patterns, and the victori-
ous party put also some ragged flags in churches. And then the
capitalists tax both annually, ever afterwards, to pay interest on
the loan of the guns and powder."

The Italian historian Ferrero sees the swinish snout of
the ruling class greed in the wars of three thousand years of
"civilization." He writes:!

"During those thirty centuries from which dates our historical
knowledge, war has been more a social system than a cruel pastime
for kings — the first most violent and brutal means adopted by ruling
minorities to acquire wealth."

(21) Is it said that wars always have been and always
will be?

That wars always have been is an unproved proposition.^

That "wars always will be" depends upon the working

class. The clouds of confusion are clearing from the mind

of the working class. A revolution is ripening in the toilers'

thought on war,§

(22) Is it said by the leading citizens that wars are
necessary in order to kill off the surplus population?

* Quoted by John A. Hobson: John Ruskin: Social Reformer,
p. 346.

■f Militarism, p. 317.

t See Chapter Eleven.

§ See Chapter Ten, also Index : "Revolution of Opinion."

188 WAE—WHAT FOR?

If wars are necessary for siicli purpose, why not have Mr.
Leading Citizen and his friends classified as a part of the
surplus population on the ground that they are criminally
unsocial, and have them taken out to the battlefield and
forced to shoot one another? The theory of having the sur-
plus population killed off would thus quickly lose its popu-
larity with the "upper classes."

(23) It may be said that the Napoleonic wars removed
more than 7,500,000 men from competition in the labor
market;* and it might be argued by the working man that
since war reduces the competition among the workers, the
working class should on this account welcome war.

Let us see: If four men are competing for two jobs,
should two of them be satisfied, and even glad, to have the
competition for the jobs reduced by having the other two
climb upon their backs and cease to bid for the jobs? It
should be kept distinctly in mind that the workers who do
not go to war support those who do go to war — always, every-
where, absolutely no exceptions.

(24) There is a somewhat popular, and simian, assump-
tion that in war — even in beautiful Christian war — ^the re-
sults are "the survival of the fittest," meaning, in the case of
modern wars, the survival of "the more highly civilized," also
the biologically "best."

Of course a bullet carefully selects its victim."

And do not statesmen tell us on the Fourth of July aU
about the "splendid intelligence" and the "noble spirit^' and
the "superiority" of the "brave boys who died in battle"?

Does not the recruiting officer try to get the soundest men
for slaughter?

Let the orthodox worshippers answer: Is pagan Japan
more fit for survival than Christian Kussia ?

What show for survival would Belgium have in a contest
with Turkey, Spain or Russia ?t

•See McCabe and Darien: Can We Disarm* p. 56.

fSee Index: "What War Decides"; also "Blood Cost of War."

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 189

(25) A kindred and stupid assumption in all wars is
this : Might makes right.

But if might makes right between two warring nations,
then why does not might make right when a strong man by
force compels a weaker man to hand over his pocket-book?

(26) A Scotch philosopher on the "brave boys":*

"Omitting much, let us impart what follows: Horrible enough!
A whole marchfield strewed with shell-eplinters, cannon-shots, ruined
tumbrils and dead men and horses; stragglers remaining not so
much as buried. And those red mound-heaps: aye, there lie the
Shells of Men, out of which the life and virtue have been blown;
and now they are swept together and crammed down out of sight,
like blown Eggshells! . . . How has thy breast, fair plain, been
defaced and defiled! The green sward is torn up, hedge-rows and
pleasant dwellings blown away with gunpowder, and the kind seed-
field lies a desolate Place of Skulls. Nevertheless, Nature is at
work ... all that gore and carnage will be shrouded in, absorbed
into manure. . . .

"What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net purport
and upshot of the war? To my own knowledge, for example, there
dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumrudge, usually some
five hundred souls. From these, by certain 'natural enemies' of the
French, there are successively selected, during the French war, say
thirty able-bodied men: Dumrudge, at her own expense, has suckled
and nursed them; she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed
them up to manhood, and even trained them up to crafts, so that
one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest
can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much
weeping and swearing, they are selected; all dressed in red and
shipped away, at the public charges, some two thousand miles, or
say only to the south of Spain, and fed there till wanted. And
now to that same spot in the south of Spain, are thirty similar
French artisans — in like manner wending their ways; till at length,
after infinite efi'ort, the two parties come into actual juxtaposition,
and thirty stand facing thirty, each with his gun in hand. Straight-
way the word 'Fire!' is given, and they blow the souls out of one
another; and in the place of sixty brisk, useful craftsmen, the
world has sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anew shed
tears for.

"Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the Devil is, not the
smallest! They lived far enough apart; were the entirest strangers;

* Thomas Carlyle : Sartor Resartus, Book II., Chapter 8.

190 WAR— WHAT FOR?

nay, in so wide a universe, there was even, unconsciously, by com-
merce, some mutual helpfulness between them.

"How then?

"Simpleton! Their governors had fallen out; and instead of
shooting one another, had these poor blockheads shoot."

(27) In that part of biology treating o-f parasitic life
the technical terms "Tiost'^ and "guest" are used. The host
is the living thing that furnishes a living not only for itself,
but also for the life-filching intruder which fastens itself
upon the body of the "host." The intruder, the robber resid-
ing upon the body of the 'Tiost," is the "guest," that is, the
parasite.

Now one of the strangest things in the entire live world
is this: When in some life-forms a certain stage of para-
sitism is reached, when the guest has permanently fastened
itself upon the body of the host and the host has become
thoroughly accustomed to and adjusted to the parasitic
arrangement, the host stupidly inclines to defend the para-
sitic guest. It is remarkable (and discouraging) that this
law of nature, this tendency, is found in operation in the
social life of man. For thousands of years multitudes of
men, women and children have been held in the grip of this
law, mentally strangled in their effort to think Justice and
Freedom; the vast majority of the working class are always
quickly and easily rendered "peaceful," "law-abiding," and
"satisfied," and "patriotic." Millions of chattel slaves have
"loyally" defended their parasitic masters. Millions of serfs
have "loyally" defended their landlords-and-masters. And
to-day tens of millions of wage-earners strongly incline to
"loyally" defend their parasitic employer masters. Moreover,
the employer, by craftily praising the wage-earner, can induce
the wage-earner to ignorantly, blindly, stupidly praise and
defend not only the employer, but also the whole wage-system
of robbery and social parasitism. Not only that, the em-
ployers, by controlling certain institutions such as the school,
the library, the press, and the lecture platform, can have the
wage-earning hosts taught to teach their own children to de-
fend and praise the parasitic employer guests and the para-

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 191

sitic social system under which their lives are belittled by
being sucked up as rent, interest and profits and fed to the
parasitic capitalist class.

What the employer calls a contented and loyal working
man is simply a stupidly acquiescent "host," biologically con-
sidered. And a working class man with a rifle in his hand
defending the class that, as social parasites, rob the working
class — such a workingman is the best possible illustration of
the fact that the great laws of nature are careless of the
so-called "dignity of man," totally careless of the ridiculous
spectacle of a human being reverting to the behavior of
creatures far, far down below even the simian cousins of the
human race. Nature does not care whether a man behaves
like a crab or a sucker, a tiger or a monkey, a sycophantic
slave or a defiantly self-respecting man.*

(28) Toward the prideless working class as a social
*Tiost" defending the ruling class, the defended ruling class
take nature's contemptuous attitude. And the working-class
soldier as professional defender of the parasitic capitalist
class, tho' much flattered, is cordially despised.

What the United States government thinks of the soldier
may be seen, for example, in the fact that a Civil Service em-
ployee, in the Weather Department, travelling about on duty
on long trips, is allowed one dollar, and even more than a dol-
lar per meal in his expense account ; while the "brave boys" in
khaki who agree to stand ready to butcher their brothers for
a living are lucky if they get a thirty-cent meal at any time.
In this connection the following from Mr. Taft's Eeport as
Secretary of War for 1907 (p. 93-93) is of interest. Under
the head of "Rations" we find:

"The present ration, while liberal and suitahle, falls consider-
ably short of the Navy ration in variety. Butter, milk and mo-
lasses, or syrup, at least, should be added to the garrison ration.
These are articles almost necessary in the preparation of desserts.
. . . They are part of the ration in Alaska and they should be
everywhere. "I

* See Index: "Parasites."
f Italics mine. G. R. K.

192 WAR— WHAT FOE?

The present ration "liberal and suitable," yet lacking but-
ter, milk and molasses and even syrup. Such things are
"almost necessary !"

The reckless epicureanism thus proposed by "the great
secretary" in offering some cheap syrup as an addition to the
dessert gives us an illuminating suggestion as to the War
Department's estimate of the cheapness of the hungry green-
horn who can be lured into the rulers' "service" with cheap
syrup. An ordinary house fly can be coaxed into a trap with
syrup — good syrup.

The United States soldier's meals are estimated by the
War Department to be worth six and two-thirds cents apiece,
as will appear from the following passage taken from the
Eeport of the War Department for 1907, page 85 : "The pay
of the private, at present, is 43 and one-third cents a day.
Adding the [daily] cost of his ration as 20 cents, clothing
allowance and right to quarters each at 15 cents, and his re-
maining privileges at, say, six and two-thirds cents, his pres-
ent pay still falls 25 cents short of the average laborer
throughout the United States." This is the War Depart-
ment's estimate of the soldier's average total daily income in
cash and allowances, made by the Department in order to
compare the soldier's incentive with that of the farm hand
and general day laborer. On page 84 of the same Eeport is
the Government's estimate of the average daily income of the
"farm and the general laborer": For 1902 the average for
these two classes was (according to the Eeport) $1.20 a day;
and "allowing for the increase in wages since 1902" the gov-
ernment's estimate for the "farm and general laborer" in
1907 was $1.25 per day. This, the Eeport says, is $7.50 per
month better than the soldier's incentive in 1907.

It is matter of common knowledge that the United States
soldiers and marines are forced to spend a considerable por-
tion of their cash incomes for food that the Government is
too stingy to furnish. That is, the ruling class have such
contempt for their human "watch dogs" that they furnish
them a meaner living than is received by the most meanly
paid group of the working class over whom they stand guard

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 193

and stand ready to murder if they strike and struggle for
more.

In the same Report, under the heading "Quarters," is
this:

"The fact that he is living in a $40,000 building impresses the
soldier less if he finds in it only iron bunks, cheap chairs, and un-
painted tables — the absolute necessities for his use and nothing for
his comfort. The barrack is the home of the soldier while he re-
mains in the service. It is possible that he might think oftener
of continuing there if it presented more the appearance of a home.
So far as the squad rooms are concerned, mere room adornment is
neither necessary nor advisable [!]. . . . The squad rooms are sleep-
ing rooms only. There is space only for bunks, lockers and a few
chairs; but these last might in part be something more than the
present cheap and uncomfortable article. But it is the reading and
amusement rooms that are meant particularly. There is no reason
why they should not be made habitable. [Indeed! Really, Mr.
Taft! How daring of you!] A few barrack chairs and rough
tables, with possibly a billiard table, ordinarily constitute their
furniture now. There is little to tempt a man to stay there.
["Tempt" is good.] . . . These rooms might be made comfortable
and pleasant. A rug on the floor, a few prints on the walls, sub-
stantial chairs, a few writing tables and writing materials could
all be supplied at no serious expense to the United States. . . .
There is nothing degenerating in such furnishings; there is much
that is homelike." [Like ivhose home?]

"A few prints" — not many of course, and cheap ones, let
us say about ten cents each ; and "a rug" — a dull, unexciting
mat of rags — simply these and nothing more, lest the degen-
erating influences of fine art should soften the syrup-baited
lads' blood-lusting temper too much for the more glorious
art of butchering. As Mr. Taft profoundly remarks, "There
is little to tempt a man to stay there" at present; but, as he
sagaciously suggests, about 98 cents expended in baiting the
bunk-room trap with a few original Italian, or, say, Dutch,
masterpieces, and a few imported Persian fascinations of emo-
tional red — this 98 cents for the seductions of fine art added to
a nickel's worth of skimmed milk and molasses would be an
effective allurement for the khaki heroes to re-enlist and "stay
there."

Recently Congressmen and Senators advanced their own

194 WAR— WHAT FOB?

salaries from $5,000 up to $7,500 per year. This is one sign
of self-respect. This advance of $2,500 per year will of course
be sufficient to provide a fair quality of syrup and skimmed
milk for the statesmen's dessert.

Does it seem probable that cheap molasses added to the
dessert of the soldier's ration and a few ten-cent prints hung
on the walls of the soldiers' living rooms will attract Taft's
sons or Koosevelt's sons or the sons of Senators and Con-
gressmen and the sons of the "better class leading citizens"
to the dreary, barren barracks provided for men who stand
ready to slaughter for less than 50 cents a day and cheap
"keep" ?

Says Major-General J. F. Bell, Chief of Staff:*

"That men enlist believing they will love the life is likely,
but their mental picture is oftentimes so different from the reality
that disappointment is the almost inevitable consequence."

Fifty-eight per cent, of all the desertions from the military
service in the year 1906 were desertions of men in their first
year of service, and considerably more than half of these
desertions were during the first six months of service.f

Twenty-six times as many enlisted men in our army com-
mitted suicide in 1908 as in 1907, and thirty-nine times as
many of the "tempted" and trapped young men in our army
committed suicide in 1909 as in 1907. No suicides are re-
ported for the years 1901 to 1906 inclusive. The record for
the three years 1907, '08, '09 is 1, 26, 39, respectively.^

It would seem likely that a young fellow whose loathing
for the army life had become unendurable would desert rather
than commit suicide to escape the hideous business. But no
doubt the following line from the Eeport of the Secretary of
War, Mr. Wright, in 1908, will help explain somewhat the
increase of suicide in the army. Mr. Wright says (page 19) :
"An elaborate system . . . now almost perfected is well
calculated to secure swift and certain apprehension and pun~

* Report, 1907, p. 73.

■j- See Report of Department of War, 1906.

t See Annual Eeports of the Secretaries of War for the years
named; also Preface of the present volume.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 195

ishment of deserters and will . . . have a marked effect in
reducing the crime to a minimum."* An illustrative feature
of this "highly perfected system" is to furnish the run-away
soldiers' pictures to the police of a city to which the lads can
be traced, and offer the police $50 a head cash for the arrest
of the soldiers. The $50 results in a human "blood-hound"
search. This "highly perfected system" makes a young man's
enlistment a good deal like swallowing a barbed fish-hook. A
great number of the boys go insane. In 1908 insanity ranked
third in the long list of causes of discharge from the army for
disability.!

Army service, even in time of peace, is not exactly a
picnic dream. On this point General Frederick Funston
offers some helpful information, thus:$

"There is too much of the everlasting grind of drill and prac-
tice marches, and at some of the posts too much 'fatigue' in the
way of keeping the reservations in apple-pie order. It is pretty
much of a shock to many of the men who have entered the army
service to taste the delights of military life to find that, from the
stand-point of the post-commanders, the most important part of
their training consists in cutting brush and weeds."

In his Eeport of 1907, page 14, Mr. Taft said :

"A noteworthy feature in the recruitment of the Army under
present conditions is the increasing number of men who fail to re-
enlist and of those who leave the Army before the expiration of
their term of service by purchasing their discharge. . . . The fact
cannot be disregarded nor explained away that for some reason or
other the life of the soldier as at present constituted is not one
to attract the best and most desirable class of men."

In the excerpt Just quoted Mr. Taft makes it pretty clear
that in his judgment the present enlisted men in the "regu-
lar" army are "undesirable citizens." Hence the "great sec-
retary's" recommendation of milk-and-syrup additions to the
soldier's dessert, a few cheap prints on the walls, and a coat of
paint on the tables used by the soldiers — in order to catch a

* Italics mine. G. R. K.

t See Report of the War Department, 1908, p. 21; see also
Index: "Insanity."

%The World's Work, May, 1907.

196 WAR— WHAT FOR?

better and more desirable class of men; that is, a better and
more desirable class of workingmen; for be it remembered
the Government does not expect to get any well-fed capitalist
class men into the army by means of cheap syrup and cheap
milk and cheap 'print' pictures and the like." "The soldier
in peace," says the Eeport just quoted, "is better fed and bet-
ter clothed than the average man of his class in civil life."*
How interesting and instructive!

In 1905 almost 73 per cent., and in 1906 almost 74 per
cent, of the applicants for examination for enlistment in our
army "were rejected as lacking either mental, moral or phys-
ical qualifications."!

President Roosevelt, in his Message of December, 1907,
virtually ridiculed the patriotism of the men in the army
and those who may contemplate entering the army. He
wrote :

"The prime need of our present Army and Navy is to secure
and retain competent non-commissioned officers. The difficulty
rests fundamentally on the question of pay."

"Fundamentally on the question of pay." How suggest-
ively patriotic ! Did Colonel Eoosevelt join the army for
the cash there was in it? "Oh, certainly not." But why
should he insultingly say that, for other men, joining the
army is fundamentally a question of cold cash?

The War Department, with Mr. Taft at the head, in 1907,
joined Mr. Eoosevelt in his sneering contempt for the soldier's
motive in joining the army. The Eeport runs4

"Under a voluntary system men enlist either to aid their coun-
try or to promote their own ends; that is, through self-sacrifice
or self-interest. . . . Self-sacrifice of this sort is patriotism, an
emotion necessary to arouse. ... To keep it through long periods
of peace at a pitch high enough to maintain an army would be
impossible. . . . Self-interest is, therefore, the only cause of enlist-
ment necessary to consider; . . ."*

It thus appears that, in the judgment of the "great secre-

• Italics mine. G. R. K.

fSee Reports of the Department of War for the respective
years.

t Report of the Secretary of War, 1907, p. 72.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 197

tary," now President, patriotism is not at all a matter of
brains, of reason steadily sustained by logic, but is, on the
contrary, a matter of emotion, passion, "brainstorm," induced
with fife and drum and sustained with godlike sky-climbing
aspiration to have one's stomach filled with "butter, milk and
molasses, or syrup, at least" — as "dessert." The two Presi-
dents, the anti-labor injunction judge and the lion-hunting
monkey murderer,* agree that what looks like patriotism in
the long-service "regular" is after all simply a matter of
getting less than fifty cents a day and "keep." Of course, such
things as this are not mentioned on the Fourth of July nor
in campaign speeches when the "great secretary" or his chat-
tering predecessor is courting the 'brave boys' for their votes.

(29) When a young man joins the army or the navy
he virtually agrees to pocket his pride and submit to a series
of insults from his "superior" officers for a term of years.
The recruiting officer is to some degree, at least temporarily,
a man of pleasant manners, and the callow patriot taking the
bait in the recruiting office is treated alluringly. But when
the youth signs his name in the books and becomes a soldier
patriot, matters take a change. It is a case of being "stuck"
or "stung." For following the hour of his enlistment, hum-
ble, prideless submission to strutting, swaggering bosses is the
soldier's portion. From "superior" officers he must meekly
accept insults for which, in private life, he would promptly
knock a man down. In the service he must bend his neck
and take the yoke for years. Here is a sample of the spirit of
the haughty airs assumed by the "superiors."

Mr. Taft, speaking as Secretary of War, February 14,
1908, to the young men at West Point Military School, said :

"The plainest of your duties is to keep your mouths shut and
obey orders. As a soldier you must forego the privilege of free

* Mr. Roosevelt's kill-for-pleasure hunting trip in Africa in
1909-10 included, according to the press reports, "a splendid time,"
"a corking time," shooting monkies — murdering his ancestral
cousins, so to speak — "a careful count being kept of the exact num-
ber" of the jolly, playful little creatures butchered for the brave
and noble gentleman's amusement on his "old home" trip.

198 WAE—WHAT FOR?

speech. . . . You will meet with injustices, others will get all to
which they seem entitled. Your wives will have heart-burnings.
Your children will have heart-burnings. In spite of all that you
must do your duty, honestly and devotedly." «

Here is a soldier's letter :*

". . . We are supposed to work eight hours a day, but we get
dismissed when the oflBcers see fit to let us go — all for fifty-two
cents a day. The negroes working at Panama get more money and
are better treated than the enlisted men out here. Our 'little brown
brothers' are treated better over here. And to cap the climax,
over comes a high statesman [Mr. Taft?] and makes a speech to a
mob of our 'little brown brothers' and tells them not to judge
the Americans by the enlisted men, as the enlisted men are com-
posed of the roughest elements in the States. . . ,"

President David Starr Jordan (Leland Stanford Uni-
versity) writes of the contemptuous treatment of the men in
the ranks by the "superior" officers :t

"One soldier [in the Philippines] says, 'If the United States
were on fire from end to end, I would never raise my hand to put
it out.' Another would 'toss in a blanket the officials at Wash-
ington, as we toss a cheating corporal.' Another says in print, re-
ferring to the abuse of the soldiers by their superiors in pay: 'Yes,
I knew that war would be hell before I got into it. But I did
not know that war would be hell deliberately and fanatically in-'
flicted. I expected to sleep in mud puddles with my head on a
stone for a pillow, and go hungry for days on forced marches and
away from a base of supplies. But I never dreamed that I would
have to sleep in a leaky and exposed shed when there was plenty
of good shelter elsewhere, and when thirty officers had fine apart-
ments in which there was room for five hundred men; neither did
I expect to be fed on coff"ee-grounds and foul canned meat for
weeks when we were right next to a base of supplies, and when our
officers lived on the choice of the commissary's department.' "

But the question naturally occurs to one: Why shouldn't
the working class soldiers be treated thus ? Surely it is to be
expected that the great majority class will get what they
permit from their "superiors.

7J

* A private, writing from the Philippines, in Everybody's
Magazine, April, 1908.

■\ Imperial Democracy, p. 272.

*

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 199

Note how the soldier boys are snubbed and bull-dozed in
the German army. Says Dr. Walsh:*

"In a trial reported Dec. 17, 1003, a lieutenant of the infantry
has been convicted of 618 cases of maltreatment and 57 cases of
improper treatment of soldiers under him, and a sergeant in another
regiment has been convicted of 1,520 cases of maltreatment and 100
cases of improper treatment. . . . The men deposed were so afraid,
that nobody ventured to complain."

There is a yearly average of 7,000 desertions from the
English regular army. Quite naturally. Frozen, starved
and despised, the thirty-cent patriots make a break for bread
and freedom from the "noble" snohbery of the aristocratic
pets in control.

The record of desertions from the American Army is, for
the years 1907, 1908, and 1909, respectively, 4,534, 4,525,
5,023.

(30) How is it possible to interest young men in the
brutal business of war?

There are some paragraphs on this matter in the chapter
following, "For Mother and the Boys." Here the matter of
military parades is suggested for consideration by "father
and the boys."

Sometimes the boys' interest in war begins in so simple

a thing as a parade. A military parade is a trap — for the

working class. A writer in the New York Tribune, April 22,

1908, makes several artful suggestions as to the value of

military parades in snaring young toilers into the army. He

suggests :

That "parades, so far as circumstances permit, be through or
near . . . sections [of the city] . . . where they may encourage en-
listment among a . . . class of prospective recruits . . . instead
of on Riverside Drive [where the 'better classes' live], to which
the public has access with difficulty and which is not frequented
by the class of young men to whom the National Guard appeals.
. . . These suggestions reflect the views of many citizens . . . with
whom the writer has conferred."

The writer also points out that bright-colored uniforms

The Moral Damage of War, pp. 150-51

200 WAR— WHAT FOR?

for the paraders have excellent effect on the imagination of
the prospective recruits.

There can be no doubt that the masters are well aware of
the hypnotizing influence of marching loud, gay-colored
bands, festively uniformed infantry, and fascinating cavalry-
men through the streets where they may be seen and ad-
mired by the working class, admired by many thousands of
ill-fed, ill-clothed, meanly sheltered young men and women
whose lives are dull and sad, consumed with the killing
monotony and hurry of the factory. A cavalry captain in
the United States Arm}^, a part of whose business is to
wheedle the gullibles into the dreary army life, has this to say
of parades :

"The good influence in popularizing the army by having it
stationed in large cities is exemplified in London. The various
guards and other bodies of troops marching through the streets,
preceded by their gorgeously dressed bands, all the uniforms re-
calling traditions of brave, gallant deeds, gain friends every time."

The best known butcher of modern times (Napoleon)
also understood this matter.

"You call these toys ? Well, you manage men with toys !"
said that red-stained egoist, speaking of the ribbons and
crosses and other gewgaws of his Legion of Honor.*

When at the street-side a boy of seven, watching a mili-
tary parade, shouts in gleeful admiration and claps his small
hands in happy hurrahs. Mars, the bloody god of war, begins
to fasten his clutches on the little fellow, the child's imagina-
tion takes fire with visions and hopes, his soul begins to thrill
with the kill-lust, then and there he is being prepared to enlist
— when he "gets big." How different it would be for the
small boys if, when soldiers were marched through a city,
these armed slayers of their kind should march at night with
all lights out and with the rumble of drums and the frequent
boom of cannon in the darkness making the air tremble. The
working class mother might well consider this matter. She
has all to lose.f

* Quoted by Professor E. A. Ross, in his Social Control, p. 89.
fSee Chapter Eight: "For Mother and the Boys," Section 1.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 201

In the average parade-and-review the workingman is made
ridiculous. Did you ever see prominent banliers or other
"better class" business men in large numbers trudging along
a-foot in the middle of the dusty or muddy street, marching
and sweating miles and miles past a gay-colored reviewing-
stand to be "reviewed" and grinned at by a bunch of sugar-
coated crooks in the "reviewers' stand" ? No ! And you
never will. The trudging and the sweating, as usual, are
handed over to the "common people," chiefly the wage-slaves.
When the "very best people" do take part in the parading
before the "grand-stand," they ride, up front, in carriages or
on horse-back. They laugh and chat and gaily enjoy the
stupid gullibility of the working men as the humble fellows
are thus "bell-weathered" through the dirt and heat. On
the occasion of a recent great parade in New York City a
well-known capitalist gliding along in a handsome automo-
bile SM^aggeringly called out, "We've got the ships, we've got
the men, and we've got the money too!" A seedy, hungry-
looking young man proudly answered back, "You bet we
have !" On the same occasion thousands of ten-dollar-a-week
clerks and factory workers were charmed into hand-clapping
as the gaudily dressed soldiers marched by carrying the very
rifles they were ready to use to crush the admiring toilers if
they should strike and struggle for justice.

The usual "review" is a pompous occasion on which hun-
dreds or thousands of meek, ill-fed, cotton-lined, callous-
palmed working men "hoof it" for an hour or so past a "re-
viewing-stand" occupied by some grinning, well-fed, silk-
lined, lily-fingered, decorated "great" men who scorn even the
thought of the working class having a political party of their
own for their own self-defense.

(31) A great many fathers and sons are thinking a good
deal about an "era of peace" to be ushered in mainly through
the good offices of peace societies. The Hague Peace Con-
ference is, in the judgment of many people, "the hope of the
world."*

See Index : "Bankruptcy, Danger of."

202 WAR— WHAT FOR?

The first meeting of the Hague Conference was called —
in Jesus' name, of course — by the most infamous blood-
stained butcher of feeble old men and women and thoughtful,
aspiring young men and women, in all the world, — that is, by
the Tsar of Kussia. The sincerity of this crowned murderer
may in some measure be realized by a brief study of his gross
inconsistency in the year 1903 and in the years immediately
preceding. (See Chapter Six, and Sixth Illustration.)

The second meeting of the Society was held in 1907, and
another is scheduled for the year 1915.

The serene confidence the world's rulers have in the
Society is easily seen in their frantic efforts to increase their
armies and navies. They are bleeding their people white with
taxes to make the enormously expensive preparations for what
is likely to be the most vast and terrible butchering of the
working class by the working class that has ever horrified
mankind. Secretly the crowned and uncrowned ruling
butchers of the world have nothing but contempt for the
Conference at The Hague. Very naturally, however, they are
all shrewd enough to make a large and beautiful profession
of faith and desire for peace through the Conference, while
at the same time they all "want for soldiers young men who
are not only willing, but anxious to fight." The man who
inaugurated the Conference promptly scorned the Conference
when he believed his interests would be served by a war
with Japan. The famous French anti-militarist G. Herve
shrewdly pointed out the hopelessly weak place in the "au-
thority" of the capitalist Hague Peace Court :*

"Governments so far are unanimous in withdrawing from
The Hague Trihmuil all questions affecting 'the honor and
vital interests of the coumtry' a convenient formula permit-
ting them to refuse arbitration when they please."

And here is a frank admission:

"The Hague Tribunal has nothing compulsory about it; all
its members are left in perfect freedom as to whether they submit
questions to it or not. ... In all treaties hitherto the Great

The International, July, 1908. Italics mine. G. R. K.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 203

Powers have retained power to withhold submissicn of questions
affecting 'their honor or vital interest.' "*

"Honor and vital interests/' — convenient phrase — a mat-
ter of business — cash and commerce, "plain dollars and cents,"
— under capitalism.

It is of interest to note that another peace society. The
Peace Society, founded in London in 1816, has been busy
for almost a hundred years trying to mop up the blood, so to
speak, never daring, or not knowing how, to uncover the
fundamental cause of war.

In at least some respects a "Conference" of The Hague
Peace Society is, itself, hopelessly ridiculous and, in ap-
pearance, wickedly insincere. For example, at the "Confer-
ence" of 1907 the delegates learnedly and laughably discussed
the "Humanizing of War,"t and, after much brain-fagging
effort, the delegates to the fakirs' feast duly and heavily con-
cluded as follows :

"It is especially prohibited to employ poison or poisoned arms."

Well be it known : —

That kleptomaniacs' periodical luncheon, or
''thieves' supper/' called The Hague Conference,
would have no more work to do for the next
thousand years, would never again have anything
whatever to meet for, if all bullets and all swords
and all bayonets used in all the armies were
dipped in a deadly poison; for, in that case, the work-
ing class of the whole world would flatly refuse to
volunteer or be drafted to serve in any war anywhere

UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. AnD, OF COURSE, THE SOFT-
VOICED, WELL-FED "HUMANIZERS OF WAR" WOULD NOT GO TO
AVAR — POISON OR NO POISON. ThE UNIVERSAL USE OF POI-
SONED BULLETS, SWORDS AND BAYONETS WOULD MAKE WAR
ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE, BECAUSE THE INAUGURATION OF
SUCH A POLICY AVOULD MAKE THE WORKING CLASS THINK.

* Documents of the American Association for International
Conciliation, 1907-08, p. 22.

I See The Peace Conference at The Hague, pp. 93-120, and 151.

204 WAR— WHAT FOR?

A thinking slave is the terror of the plunder-bloated rulers
of the world — always.

When the workers once think about war they will promptly
do two things :

Fir.H, They will refuse to go to war ;

Second^ They will find the cause of war, and will remove
it.

Of course, it requires the deep and prayerful investigation
of "great" and "prominent Christian" gentlemen in peace
conference assembled to discover that it is wrong for men to
butcher men with swords and bullets dipped in poison, but
that it is not wrong for men to destroy men with clean lead
and clean steel, their souls charged with hate as an adder's
fang Jetting venom into its victim's flesh; to discover that it
is wrong to have soldiers thrust poison-dipped bayonets into
one another's stomachs, but that it is not wrong for a "Chris-
tian business men's" government to feed its soldiers on
poisoned canned beef. The poor dupes who butcher one another
at the word of command are, of course, too "common" and
ignorant to understand the logical legerdemain of these
prayerfully discovered distinctions; but the learned and
prominent gentlemen in peace conference assembled, far, far
from the battle line, smoking 50-cent cigars, quaffing the
world's costliest champagne — these noble braves, these bottle-
scarred heroes, can tell us all about it.

Certainly.

With thoughtful tenderness many Christian governments,
influenced by peace societies, have made an international
agreement that, in case of war, no bullet used weighing 14
ounces or less shall be an explosive bullet, — that is, a bullet
that easily expands, flattens and shatters when it strikes flesh.
However, these same "more refined and civilized" nations are
all at perfect liberty to use a cannon bullet, or shell, weigh-
ing hundreds of pounds, charged with explosives, flesh-tearing
materials and deadly gases, arranged with time-fuses in order
to explode over the heads of, or among, a great body of men
on the field, or in the midst of men when it has pierced the
armor of a war vessel.

FATHER AND THE BOYS. 205

It is not definitely known how these wise Christian states-
men and scholars discovered that a three-hundred pound ex-
plosive bullet might properly and lovingly be used by gently
sensitive Christian butchers, but that a thirteen-ounce explo-
sive bullet might not with propriety be used by these loving
followers of the gentle Jesus. Possibly the discovery was
made by some deep-seeing pot-house statesmen and scholars
after a prayerful study of the Sermon on the Mount, — with
champagne on the side.

War is "human" or "inhuman" according to the orations,
discussions, confusions, delusions, conclusions, decisions and
provisions of these perfumed, patent-leathered fighters after a
long fast — on terrapin, porter-house and "Mumm's Extra
Dry."

The eloquence of the Hague Peace Conference literature
concerning its long list of extremely "glorious achievements"
would lead the uninstructed to suppose that till this organ-
ization came on the field there had never been a dispute set-
tled without war. It modestly claims everything in view.

Note here the fact that :

"There is no period known to history in which instances
are not found of arhitratioru as a substitute for force, and we
can only wonder when we consider the historical antiquity of
the former that the latter should have maintained its hold so
long, so constantly and so fiercely." *

"Where are thy portents, Peace?

What sign on land or sea

Of thy great coming, of thy rule to be?
The fighting and the drumming do not cease;
Gun-thunder smites the air.

And shakes the earth beneath.
Bait we not the war-dogs in their lair,

And toil at harvesting of dragon's teeth? . . .

Must it forever be a poet's dream —
The land secure, the mind at rest.

* Harper's Magazine, Vol. 87. See International Conciliation
— Documents of the American Association for Interuational CJon-
ciliation, 1907-08: Third Paper— "A League of Peace."

206 WAR— WHAT FOR?

The cut-throat tamed and laboring at an oar.

The braggart silent and ashamed.

The toiler as a monarch seem,

The woman with her baby at her breast,

Aglow with joy that war shall be no more? . . ."

— J. I. C. Clarke, in New York Times.

Prominent people — prominent chiefly because they are
elevated upon the shoulders of the working class — ^liave been
talking about peace for a long time. But peace born of jus-
tice, peace founded upon fairness, — that is neither thought of
nor talked of, by the ruling class, in the pompous and pre-
tentious peace conferences ; it is not on the program.

Father and the boys of the A7orking class will themselves
have to place peace on the program of mankind. And one of
the first things to do is to bring up the subject of war and
peace in every working class organization in the world — for
discussion. (See pages 272, 283-289. Index: "Carnegie.")

A Special Notice to the Hague Peace Society:

As to "limited armaments" — whether the swords are long or
short, the working class more and more clearly see that you intend
that the working class shall continue to do all the fighting in case
of war.

A Special Challenge to the Hague Peace Society:

That all delegates to the Conferences shall discuss, not the
problems of "disarmament," but ( 1 ) the problem of striking the
bands from the wrists of the wage-slaves ; ( 2 ) the artificial arbitrary
restriction placed upon the consuming power of the wage-earners,
out of which fact grows the imminent world-struggle for the "wor4d-
market."

A Second Special Challenge to the Hague Peace Society:

That the Society shall frankly announce in all its Conferences,
in all its Reports, in all its leaflets, in all its lectures and sermons,
that the Socialist Party's method of preventing war is to frankly
and loudly warn the victims of war, the working class, just what
war always means to the working class; and that this method has
succeeded in preventing two wars in recent years in cases where the
Hague Peace Society was powerless.

A Third Special Challenge to the Hague Peace Society:

That the Society shall explain why the Capitalist masters of
the Hague Peace Society will not permit their vassals in the Con-
ferences to accept the Second Challenge.

The author of WAR— WHAT FOR?, in the summer of 1910,
attended a National Peace Conference in New York City. The Con-
ference was attended by some of tlie most distinguished peace-
wishers in the United States, including capitalists, orators and col-
lege professors. The author was given the floor to address the
Convention. Everything went well until the author began to urge
that all who want peace should make every possible effort to
WARN THE VICTIMS of war, the working class, of what war
means to the working class. Instantly there was manifest discom-
fort all through the audience, and very soon the chairman left his
seat, came close to tlie speaker and urged that the speech be con-
eluded at oace. Xo other speaker waa thus interrupted.

THE NOBLE ROLE OF COSSACKS AND MILITIAMEN

(Respectfully submitted to the Hague Peace Society, to Andrew Carnegie
and to the Trustees of his Ten-Million-Dolla; Peace- Fund — as a helpful
suggestion in their cheerfully prayerful and premeditatedly tearful
^'search for the causes of ivar")

CHAPTER EIGHT.
For Mother and the Boys and Girls.

Topics for consideration, especially by the mothers in the
working class.*

(1) "Will there be, indeed, more wars?"

Yes, undoubtedly.!

"What shall be done about it?"

There are two things to be done, by the mother, right
away : Think about war and talk about war with other mothers
and the boys — also with the girls.

Let us see :

In the next war whose sons shall be shot?

The aristocrat's wife is not worrying about whose children
are to be destroyed in the next war. She knows already that
her sons will not be destroyed in battle; her sons will not
stand before Gatling guns; her sons will not be torn and lie
bleeding, groaning, screaming and cursing on the steel-swept
battlefield by day or through the long night; her sons will
not fester and sicken and die in dismal battlefield hospitals;
she knows that her sons will not be pitched into nameless
trenches — ^buried like dogs; her flesh and blood, her slain
sons, will not be brought home to mock her aching heart.

That is settled — positively.

She belongs to the ruling class.

The ruling class protect her and the men and boys she
loves — loyally.

But the working class mother — the humble mother of
wage-slaves — she feels no such security. Herod and Mars in-
vade her home to steal the men and boys she loves. The rude
fist of war is ever ready to crush her. This humble woman

* See foot-note on page 13; and also introductory paragraph,
Chapter Seven, preceding Section 1.
•j-See Index: "Another War."

208 WAR— WHAT FOR?

is ■wholly unprotected against war by the ruling class. She
is also unprotected against war by the voting men of her
own class.

This woman must protect herself — for the present.

Let it be remembered that in the gentle heart of a humble
mother whose loving sons have been butchered in battle, it
is always winter. The cheap rhetoric and hypocritical com-
pliments of the coarse-grained political orator, the honeyed
words of any man in any profession — sacred or secular — craft-
ily exempted from the war which slew her loved ones, these
can not charm the wintry desolation of her life into rare June
weather. Nor can the wound in her mother heart be healed
with a stingy quarterly allowance of filthy money called a
pension. When her loved ones were slaughtered her joys were
slain.

This woman must indeed protect herself; and she can
protect herself, somewhat, — if she will.

She can do this : She can teach her child to hate — to hate
war.*

(2) Mother, is your five-year-old son strong, healthy and
handsome ? Yes ? Well, that is fine. But think of him at the
age of twenty in slaughtering clothes, being transformed into
a swaggering armed bully. Mother, if he should be tricked
into the army and butchered and his torn corpse should be
brought home to you, you would then know what other
mothers feel when their boys, whom your son butchers, are
brought home to them. Then, perhaps, war would seem
quite different — far less "great" and "glorious" to you. You
see, mother, in a war soine mothers' boys must be butchered.
Perhaps a false patriotism has been taught to you — just as a
false patriotism is taught your sons. Both the mother and
her sons are confused. To get the working class boy ready
for war the capitalist must first confuse and trick the mother.

Kings, emperors, presidents, tsars, and capitalists of all
lands are lovingly interested in the problem of "race suicide,"
the problem of small families, — interested in the "food-for-

See Chapter Seven, Section 30.

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 209

powder" crop, the 'bullet-stopper" crop, — eager that every

WORKING CLASS MOTHER SHOULD BECOME A BREEDER. After

Napoleon Bonaparte had had multitudes of the men and
boys of France butchered, making it difficult to find soldiers,
he impatiently exclaimed, "What France needs is mothers !"
What he meant was that France needed more human breeders
flattered into bearing and rearing more butchers for Napo-
leon. Of course Napoleon was shrewd enough to confuse the
humble mothers with plenty of cheap flattery concerning their
"patriotism." * Capitalists to-day want larger working class
families for more soldiers, also for a larger army of unem-
ployed— in order that the capitalists may, in the industrial
civil war, more tyrannically dictate the wage terms to the
workers and also more easily secure substitutes in case of a
war.

And to this end the capitalists are willing to pay the
price; that is, willing to pay for the social chloroform, for
the false teachings, necessary to beget a slave's blind enthusi-
asm for the master that betrays him — called patriotism.

(3) Thomas Carlyle called working class soldiers simple-
tons. A person of good mind, however, if caught young, can
be confused till he will actually volunteer to butcher his fel-
lowman. This can be done in many ways; for example, take
Fitchburg, Massachusetts, May 29-30, 1908. The very small
children, also ten-year-olds, and those still older, were assem-
bled, according to age, in halls, churches, the Young Men's
Christian auditorium, and elsewhere. May 29; and for long
weary hours gory stories of "bravery" in war were recited to
them, horrible pictures were displayed before them, blood-
curdling suggestions were urged upon them, cheap lusts for
cheap glory were inspired in the helpless youngsters, — just
as a savage might teach his little sons to rip the scalp from
a screaming victim's skull And humble mothers of the
working class were tricked into co-operating in this anti-social
"patriotism."

Such abominable performances stunt the children. Their

* See Index : "Napoleon.'

210 WAR— WHAT FOR?

social development is arrested. They become jingoists, igno-
rant little bigots — utterly incapable of sincere international
love. Their political philosophy is a shallow and silly "Hur-
rah !" Their "patriotism" becomes a belittling conceit and a
readiness for cruel deeds.

Everybody, of course, loves a frank, finely social child.
International and national murder is a coarse and unsocial
thought; and when parents, teachers, preachers, or lecturers,
speak enthusiastically of wholesale murder or of famous na-
tional and international murderers in the presence of a child,
the child's social development is checked, stunted; when a
few suggestions of international jealousy and malice have
been ignorantly (or cunningly) thrust into a child's mind it
becomes simply impossible for the child to develop into an
"international man," a finely social person sincerely loving
his fellowmen. This would be a charming world if all men
and women were social — socialized, unblasted, unstung by
shriveling national jealousy and malice; but everywhere the
vile business of blasting the social nature of the rising gen-
eration is being extended. The school, even, is invaded. The
Rev. Dr. Walter Walsh warns parents thus:*

"The school has become not only the training ground, but actu-
ally a recruiting ground for the army. The British War Ofl&ce
issues a circular pressing secondary schools to teach boys over
twelve the use of the rifle; issues Morris tube carbines to schools
having suitable ranges; and supplies ammunition at cost price.
The inevitable next step is the formation of cadet corps in the
schools, with inspection by military chiefs. . . . The capture of the
schools by the militarists is one of the most ominous signs of the
times. The militarist has long looked with wistful eye at this
happy hunting grounds. . . . Parliaments have already been strongly
urged to make military drill compulsory in all public schools. . • .
The scholar is rapidly transformed into the conscript."

The shameless audacity of using a socializing institution,
the school, to cultivate national malice in the helpless children !

(4) If only th© children could get one good look at the
hell behind the curtain it would be more diflScult to begtdle
and betray them.

The Moral Damage of War, pp. OT-OG.

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 211

Let the wonderful Zola tell what the boys in the public
schools are tiot taught and are not permitted to realize till
later when they are grown up and are seduced to the battle-
field with the crafty cry, "Follow the flag !"

Here following are some paragraphs on the battlefield hos-
pital. A military hospital, it may be said, is an institution
in which sick and shell-torn men are hastily repaired in order
that they may go again to the battle line — perchance to faint
or be ripped to pieces again. Thus Zola : *

". . . Outside in the shed the preparations were of another
nature: the chests were opened and the contents arranged in order.
. . . On another table were the surgical cases with their blood-cur-
dling 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 con-
gestion; 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 liv-
ing, and this receptacle also served to receive the amputated legs
and arms, whatever dSbris of flesh and bone remained upon the
table. . . . Rents in tattered, shell-torn uniforms disclosed gaping
wounds, some of which had received a hastv dressing: on the battle-

* See The Downfall, passim, Part II., also p. 446. This power-
ful story (published by the Macmillan Company, New York) is here
again heartily commended to all readers of War — What For? Again
the author thanks the publishers for reprint privileges.

212 WAR— WHAT FOR?

field, 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 con-
stantly 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 un-
speakably 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 dis-
articulated 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, re-
duced 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 con-
tinuous howling. . . . Often gangrene kept mounting higher and
higher, and the amputation had to be repeated until the entire limb
was gone."

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 213

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*

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 !"f

•Precisely! Never stopping to inquire: Who declared this
war? or what for?

f Quoted by George Allan England, in New York Daily Call,
Dec. 2, 1909.

214 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Will the mothers protect their children's nature against
the unsocial small souls who are always ignorantly or mali-
ciously ready to thrust fangs and venom into the generous
natures of frank and social children by havinf 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."*

(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 PR^ilSE OF DISTINGUISHED BUTCHERS. Let

them reflect too that military drills, given as such, with mar-
tial 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 chil-
dren. For a dozen reasons the working class should get con-
trol of local school boards.f

(7) The following lines from a poem written by an ele-

* See Lucia A. Mead's Patriotism and the New International-
ism, p. 22.

■j- Read Walter Walsh's Moral Damage of War, Chapter Three
on the "Moral Damage of War to the Children." The chapter is of
startling importance.

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 215

gant 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 MTJRDEKER
OF A BOY OF EIGHT OR TEN YEARS WITH SUCH LINES. EeMEM-
BER 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 BB 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 dis-
figure 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.

216 WAE—WHAT FOR?

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."* 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 atti-
tudes and the strut and swagger of the professional man-
slaughterer. His very conversation with his military toys
shows he is marked — ready.f

William Lloyd Garrison wrote :

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

But the stung child can not learn the meaning of Garri-
son'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.

Eemember, 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?

*New York World, editorial, May 6, 1910.

•fSee New York Times, October 31, 1908, long article on the
increasing manufacture of such toys.

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 217

(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 ab patriotism,
whose true sense ia almost the reverse of the popular senae. We
have no sympathy with that boyish egotism, hoarse with cheering
for one side, for one state, for one town; the right patriotism con-
sists in the delight which springs from contributing our peculiar
legitimate advantages to the benefit of humanity."

And thus James Russell Lowell :*

"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 sacri-
fice 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 priv-
ilege 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 fol-
low her."

The fallacy of false patriotism is exploded in the follow-
ing quotation by James Mackayeif

"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.

* Quoted by Walter Walsh : Moral Damage of War, p. 380.
•\The Economy of Happiness, pp. 519-20.

218 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 be-
havior of the great Americans was "simply awful," "outland-
ishly 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 eco-
nomic 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 inter-
ests. 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, "Pa-
triotism !" and teach "patriotism" ; nor do they ever fail to
shout, "Unpatriotic !" at any group or class who seek to re-
organize 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 mar-
shal, to open up a "shut-dowTi" factory, even though the

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 219

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-stop-
pers.

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 staif 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." ' "*

Some things, you know, must be concealed. President
D. S. Jordan (Leland Stanford University) writes rf

"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 c«nt. of our
soldiers are attacked with venereal disease, that according to the
belief of the soldiers, 'even the pigs and dogs have the syphilis.' "

FoUtwing the Spanish war, venereal diseases as cause of

* Walter Walsh: Moral Damage of War, p. 376.
•^Imperial Democracy, p. 270.

220 WAR— WHAT FOR?

ineffectiveness and cause for discharge from the army in-
creased two and a half fold; that is, two hundred and fifty
per cent* The statement by the Secretary of War, Mr. Dick-
inson (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 :t

"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 cer-
tainly will not, so we say to them, 'Be continent, but if you cannot,
then protect yourself!' And we tell them how to do it."

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

* See Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1908, p. 22.

I See Social Diseases, p. 24, March, 1910; Contents — A Sym-
posium concerning a phase of venereal diseases, being addresses and
discussions at a meeting of the American Society of Sanitary and
Moral Prophylaxis, held at the New York Academy of Medicine,
December 9th, 1909. Address: Social Diseases, 9 East 42d Street,
New York. Italics mine. G. R. K.

PREPARIXG BOY-SCOIT HIRED HANDS.
(See sample of -finished product" of a Boy Scout, pages" nl. ;)3 and.
especially, opposite page 207.)

I

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 221

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, con-
stitutional 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 Testa-
ment. And when, after weeks or months at sea, the war-
ship 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 hoys with certain preventive
chemicals (as they leave the ship for a "larh" on shore),
knowing that the boys, many of them, are sure to be the vic-
tims of victims reehing 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 be-
fouled, 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

222 WAR— WHAT FOR?

example in New York harbor, he would then better under-
stand 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
lighting 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 SOL-
DIER 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 Cxeneral Chapman, in the name
of the commander-in-chief of the army of India (Lord Rob-
erts). Here are three excerpts from those documents and
from official reports:*

"In regimental bazaars it is necessary to have a sufficient num-
ber 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 dis-
eases]. ... 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 [tliat 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 Quaeter-Masteb Genebal's cikculak. No. 21a. . . . There are

NOT WOMEN ENOUGH ; THEY ABE NOT ATTRACTIVE ENOUGH. MORE
AND YOUNGER WOMEN ARE REQUIRED. ... I HAVE ORDERED THE NUM-

* See Walter Walsh: Moral Damage of War, pp. 151-52. Em-
phasis mine. G. R. K.

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 223

BEE OF PROSTITUTES TO BE INCREASED . . . AND HAVE GIVEN SPECIAL
INSTRUCTIONS AS TO ADDITIONAL WOMEN BEING YOUNG AND OF AT-
TRACTIVE 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 :*

"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 com-
plaint 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."t

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^ and self-restraint to a degree
beyond the control of discipline. It has always been so and always
will be so.' "§

(12) An anonymous author writes thus:||

"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

* Edmondson : John Bull's Army from Within.
I Elbert Hubbard: Health and Wealth, quoted in the New Age,
August 5, 1909. See Index: "Venereal Ehseases."
t See Chapter Seven, Section 18.
% International Journal of Ethics, April, 1908.
Ij Arbeiter in Council, pp. 38-39.

224 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 pande-
monium. 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 gen-
erals 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 exe-
cution 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 suflFering 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."*

(13) In connection with the foregoing section 12 ex-
amine 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."|

Wives and mothers of the working class, as soon as the
government has had your choicest sons slaughtered, the gov-

* Don Juan, VIII., IX.

fE. C. Stedman: "Alice of Monmouth."

MOTHER, BOYS AND QIBLS. 225

ernment 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.

Eobert G. Ingersoll wrote:*

"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.j 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 manu-
facturers and the other "leading citizens": they and their
sons and sons-in-law are not shedding a large quantity of

* Works, passim.

fSee Census Report, 1900, Vol. 2, p. CXCII.

226 WAR— WHAT FOR?

their '*l)lue" 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. Eemember 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 Chris-
tianity is trampled under foot," said Sidney Smith.
"To be tender-minded
Does not become a ?word." — Shakespeare.

"War is one of the greatest plagues that can afflict hu-
manity; 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 fire-
works."*

"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."f

James Russell Lowell :$

"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:§

"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 ne-
cessity and justice, the glorification and praise of military exploits,
of patriotism and devotion to the flag, with the pretense of care

* Autobiographical Note.

t Isaiah : Chapter II., par. 4.

t"Biglow Papers."

§ The Kingdom of God.

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 227

for the wounded, etc., — will, in one year, demoralize men incom-
parably more than thousands of thefts, arsons and murders com-
mitted in the course of centuries by individual men under the in-
fluence of passion."

Let the women's literary clubs and circles, many of them
devotees of John Ruskin, consider the following lines from
his pen:*

"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 knowl-
edge 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 wear-
ing 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,

"Quoted by John A. Hobson: John Ruskin — Social Reformer,
p. 346. Italics mine except for "The Real War." G. R. K.

228 WAR— WHAT FOR?

that tyrants, hypocritically mumbling interpolated malig-
nance 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 betrajdng Christ again for "thirty pieces" of blood-
stained silver called salaries.*

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 Com-
mittee 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 work-
ing 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

See Index: "Christ."

MOTHER. BOYS AND GIRLS. 229

right to exempt them — the clergy — from the usual duties of
citizenship, and especially from military duty."*

Now, it does not matter what church we may or may not
be members of, all the men and all the women of the work-
ing 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. Eemember, 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 father-
less; 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 atten-

See The World To-Day, p. 956, Sept., 1905.

230 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Hon of society to this subject of the degradation and slaugh-
ter 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 Liver-
pool [now of New York], as 'prea<;hing 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 . . . pro-
mote 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* 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 Amencan 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 Satur-
day night and have setting-up exercises and Bible drill, and some-
times we visit other companies. Gee! but our company can show
them how to drill. And we go camping in summer, and we have a

Italics mine. G. R. K.

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 231

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, automatiadly 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 maga-
zine, so they say; but it offers a breech-loading Springfield
rifle as a premium to the boy who will send in the most sub-
scribers. Imagine Christ making his cause popular with
little boys by offering them a weapon Avith which to murder!
The Brigadier wins the boys to Jesus by seductively baiting
the savage that still lurks in the "civilized" breast; the maga-
zine 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 mili-
tary arms, military clothing, West Point story books, and
so forth.

232 WAR— WHAT FOR?

This organization works in and tlirough 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 per-
mits. 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.*

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 Eeport rf

"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 mak-
ing, 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 :

* See Chapters Nine and Eleven.

■f American Brigadier, November, 1907.

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 233

"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 com-
mittee 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 your-
selves.

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 Presi-
dent 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 congratula-
tion 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-reach-
ing influence as possible, it was made public at the President's di-
rection 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

234 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 humil-
iate 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-lahoT 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 liomes 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

MOTHER, BOYS AND OIRLS. 286

forty-four schoolboy rifle clubs. In the newspapers and maga-
zines, 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 superi-
ority 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 chil-
dren 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 worTcing 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 con-
fusion 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 un-
certain, 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 imperial-
ism and aggressive war.

"Who is the gainer? Is the poor Ruesian 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 op-
pression 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 ambi-
tion? . . . We hear the groans of the millions — the working, suf-
fering 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."*

•Frederic Harrison: National and Social Problems, pp. 237-40.
Written in 1880.

236 WAR— WHAT FOR?

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 decla-
mations.

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 role 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 li-
brary, and co-operate with them in promoting the enterprise.

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

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 237

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 thought-
fulness and discussion.

(8) Further suggestions will be found at the opening
of Chapter Twelve. See also Index: "Suggestions."

(21) Following are several passages suitable for chil-
dren as declamations. Also see Index, "Declamations."

(A) The Soldier's Creed:*

"Captain, what do you think," I asked,

"Of the part your soldiers play?"
But the captain answered, "I do not think;

"I do not think, I obey!"

"Do you think you should shoot a patriot down,

"Or help a tyrant slay?"
But the captain answered, "I do not think;

"I do not think, I obey!"

"Do you think your conscience was made to die,

"And your brain to rot away?"
But the captain answered, "I do not think;

"I do not think, I obey!"

"Then if this is your soldier's creed," I cried,

"You're a mean uiunanly crew;
"And for all your feathers and gilt and braid,

"I am more of a man than you!

"For whatever my place in life may be,

"And whether I swim or sink,
"I can say with pride, 'I do not obey;

"'I do not obey, I think F"

(B) Robert G. Ingersoll's Musings at the Tomb of
Napoleon :t

"A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Na-

* Ernest Crosby : Stcords and Ploughshares. Published by
Funk and Wagnalls, New York.

■}■ See Prose-Poems and Selections from the Writings and Say-
ings of Robert G. Ingersoll. Published by C. P. Farrell, New York.

238 WAR— WHAT FOR?

poleon — a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for
a deity dead — and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and
nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless
man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the
career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.

"I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, con-
templating suicide. I saw him at Toulon — I saw him putting
down the mob in the streets of Paris — I saw him at the head
of the army of Italy — I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi
with the tricolor in his hand — I saw him in Egypt in the
shadows of the pyramids — I saw him conquer the Alps and
mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I
saw him at Marengo — at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in
Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the
wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves.
I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster — driven by a
million bayonets back upon Paris — clutched like a wild beast
— banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire
by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful
field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck
the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St.
Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon
the sad and solemn sea.

"I thought of the orphans and widows he had made — of
the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only
woman who had ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the
cold hand of ambition. And I said, I would rather have been
a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather
have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and
the grapes growing purple in the amorous kisses of the
autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant,
with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out
of the sky — with my children upon my knee and their arms
about me — I would rather have been that man, and gone
down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than
to have been that imperial impersonation of force and mur-
der, known as Napoleon the Great."

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 239

(C) Victor Hugo's Reflections on War:*

"The antique violence of the few against all, called right
divine, is nearing its end. ... A stammering, which tomorrow
will be speech, and the day after tomorrow a gospel, proceeds from
the bruised lips of the serf, of the vassal, of the laboring man,
of the pariah. The gag is breaking between the teeth of the
human race. The patient human race has had enough of the path
of sorrow, and refuses to go farther. . . . Glory advertised by drum-
beats is met with a shrug of the shoulder. These sonorous lieroes
have, up to the present day, deafened human reason, which be-
gins to be fatigued by this majestic uproar. Reason stops eyes
and ears before those authorized butcheries called battles. The
sublime cut-throats have had their day. . . . Humanity, having
grown older, asks to be relieved of them. The cannon's prey has
begun to think, and, thinking twice, loses its admiration for being
made a target."

"Whoever says today, 'might makes right,' performs an act
of the Middle Ages, and speaks to men a hundred years behind their
times. Gentlemen, the nineteenth century glorifies the eighteenth
century. The eighteenth proposed, the nineteenth concludes. And
my last word shall be a declaration, tranquil but inflexible, of
progress.

"The time has come. Right has found its formula: — human
federation.

"Today force is called violence, and begins to be judged; war
is arraigned. Civilization, upon the complaint of the human race,
orders the trial, and draws up the great criminal indictment of
conquerors and captains. The Witness, History, is summoned. The
reality appears. The fictitious brilliancy is dissipated. In many
cases, the hero is a species of assassin. The people begin to com-
prehend that increasing the magnitude of a crime can not be its
diminution; that, if to kill is a crime, to kill much can not be an
extenuating circumstance; that if to steal is a shame, to invade
can not be a glory; that Te Deums do not count for much in this
matter; that homicide is homicide; that blood-shed is blood-shed;

*See William Shakespeare, Part Third, Book III; M. B.
Anderson's Translation. Published by A. C. McClurg and Company,
Chicago; and An Oration on Voltaire, delivered in Paris, May 30,
1878. It is worthy of remark that the orator was repeatedly ap-
plauded while delivering the oration, and at the close the entire
audience rose and wildly cheered. In the declamation, as here
arranged in two parts (to be given together, if desired), the ex-
cerpt from the oration begins, "Whoever says today."

240 WAR— WHAT FOR?

that it serves nothing to call one's self Caesar or Napoleon; and
that in the eyes of the eternal God, the figure of a murderer is
not clianged because, instead of a gallow's cap, there is placed upon
the head an Emperor's crown.

"Ah! let us proclaim absolute truths. Let us dishonor war.
No; glorious war does not exist. No; it is not good, and it ia
not useful, to make corpses. No; it can not be that life travails
for death. No; O, mothers who surround me, it can not be that
war, the robber, should continue to take from you your children.
No; it can not be that women should bear children in pain, that
men should be born, that people should plow and sow, that the
farmer should fertilize the fields, and the workmen enrich the city,
that industry should produce marvels, that genius should produce
prodigies, that the vast human activity should, in the presence
of the starry sky, multiply efforts and creations, all to result in
that frightful international exposition called war."

(D) Ingersoll's Vision of War :*

"The past rises before me like a dream. . . . We hear the sound
of preparation, the music of boisterous drums — the silver voices of
heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the ap-
peals of orators. We see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed
faces of men, and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose
dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more.
. . • We see them part with those they love. Some are walking
for the last time in quiet, woody places, with maidens they adore.
We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they
lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing
the babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old
men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press
them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses
and tears, tears and kisses — the divine mingling of agony and love!
And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave
words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the
awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the
door with the babe in her arms — standing in the sunlight sobbing.
At the turn of the road a hand waves — and she answers by holding
high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, — and forever. . . .

"We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all
the gory fields — in all the hospitals of pain — on all the weary
marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under

* Slightly abbreviated excerpt from an Oration at the Soldiers
and Sailors' Reunion, Indianapolis, September 21, 1876. Reprinted
from Prose-Poems and Selections from Writings and Sayings of
Robert G. Ingersoll. Published by C. P. Farrell, New York.

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242 WAR— WHAT FOR?

the quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood
— in the furrows of old fields. . . . We see them pierced by balls
and torn with shell, in the trenches, by the forts, and in the
whirlwind of the charge. . . .

"We are at home when the news comes that they are dead.
We see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the
silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. . . .

"They sleep . . . under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the
tearful willow and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the
shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in
the windowless Palace of Rest. . . ."

(E) Ixgersoll's Vision of the Future.*

"A vision of the future rises: ... I see a world where thrones
have crumbled and where kings are dust. The aristocracy of idle-
ness has perished from the earth.

"I see a world without a slave. Man at last is free. Nature's
forces have by science been enslaved. Lightning and light, wind
and wave, frost and flame, and all the secret subtle powers of the
earth and air are the tireless toilers for the human race.

"I see a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with
music's myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of
love and truth; a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner
mourns; a world on which the gibbet's shadow does not fall; a
world where labor reaps its full reward, where work and worth go
hand in hand, where the poor girl, trying to win bread with a needle
— the needle that has been called 'the asp for the breast of the poor,'
—is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, of sui-
cide or shame.

"I see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the
miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid
lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn.

"I see a race without disease of flesh or brain — shapely and
fair, married harmony of form and function, and, as I look, life
lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth; and over all in
the great dome, shines the eternal star of human hope."

These golden words, these words of immortal beauty, are,
"like love, wine for the heart and brain." They fire the soul,
especially the mother's soul, with a glorious joy, a splendid

* Very slightly abbreviated excerpt from a Decoration Day
Oration, delivered at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York
City, May 30, 1888. Reprinted from Vol. IX., p. 453, Dresden
Edition of Ingersoll's Complete Works. Published by C. P. Farrell,
New York.

MOTHER, BOYS AND GIRLS. 243

vision of unstained, untroubled pleasure: Mankind at Peace
— Socialized. The children safe. The future vast and beau-
tiful and kind for her and for those that call her Mother.

But again and yet again the cannon's roar will banish the
vision. The future holds agony for the mother, especially for
the humble mother in the working class. Her husband and
her older sons will go to war. They will even thoughtlessly
sink to the level of joining the local militia for local war —
for strike service. The men she loves have been poisoned —
poisoned with the base teaching that brutality is bravery, that
the drawn sword marks the patriot. They are ready, ready
now, at the word of command from a cheap commander to
murder the men of their own class, and break the hearts and
mock the tears of the wage-slave mothers of the world.

These mothers must defend themselves — for the present.

These mothers can defend themselves only through their
younger sons and daughters — by teaching them a class loyalty
which is a new patriotism that will close the local armory,
shame the assassin back to the factory, to the farm, to the
mine, and silence all the cannon on all the earth.

CHAPTER NINE.
The Cross, the Cannon, and the Cash-Register.

"Never land long lease of empire won whose sons sat silent
while base deeds were done." — James Russell Lowell.

Speak ! Speak ! — 3'ou leaders of the toil-stained multitude
whom the Great Christ of Peace so boldly defended.

Speak !

Eebuke the brutes who betray Christ's humble followers!

Speak ! There is no excuse for silence — on your part.

Speak defiantly — and clearly.

You have for nearly two thousand years held the brain
of vast portions of the human race in your hands. Have you
taught peace — effectively f

Look — see that gaping war-stab in the breast of the work-
ing class.

The cash cost of militarism in the world for forty-
eight HOURS WOULD BE SUFFICIENT TO PROVIDE A 150-PAGE
BOOK AGAINST WAR FOR EVERT PERSON ON EARTH WHO CAN

READ.* Three sermons per year against wak in every
ONE OF 160,000 churches of the United States could be

paid FOR;, AT the RATE OF $50 PER SERMON, WITH LESS THAN
THE COST OF TWO FIRST-CLASS BATTLESHIPS.

"Nothing can be clearer than that the leaders of Christianity
immediately succeeding Christ, from whom authentic expressions of
doctrines have come down to us, were well assured that their Master
had forbidden the Christians the killing of men in war or en-
listing in the legions. One of the chief differences which separated
Roman non-Christians and Christians was the refusal of the latter
to enlist in the legiona and be thus bound to kill their fellows as
directed."!

* See Chapter Four, Section Two, "The Cost of War in Cash."
f "Documents of the American Association for International
Conciliation," 1907-08.

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246 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Eagerly we search the world for relief from the hell's
horror of war.

There ! There is the Church — the Church with her vast
influence ! — and she breathes, "Peace, good will to all men."

The Church?

Will the Church save us from war ?

We shall see. •

Reader, let us always open wide our souls to every man
and to every influence great enough to make us socially
wholesomer.

Sincerely, I admire every great Priest, every great Rabbi,
and every great Preacher of our time who is too fine, too
proud, too nobly social and international to rent his eloquent
voice to the captains of industry for the blood-spilling busi-
ness of conquering the markets of the world with sword and
cannon and for the equally brutal business of benevolently
stealing large sections of the earth to be swinishly exploited by
money-greedy capitalists.

These men ire masculine — unafraid. Let us salute them :
"Good cheer, noble friends !"

Boldly these greater Priests refuse to toady to industrial
and political masters and thus refuse to scream for war.

Defiantly these greater Rabbis refuse to inflame the tiger
lurking in every human breast and thus refuse to prepare
men for war.

Nobly these greater Preachers refuse Caesar and Shy-
lock, and thus they stand by the Man of Peace and abhor war.

But, unfortunately, these grand bold souls are in help-
less minorit}' — at present.

And thus again we find the following question burning for
an answer:

Which way shall the working class turn for deliverance
from the curse of war?

Who will rescue the working class from these cyclones
of lead and steel?

The Church? The Clergy?

Let us study this matter.

Long ago when the deluded soldiers of an "established"

CROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 247

church "patriotically" murdered the Great Carpenter, the "es-
tablished" church of his locality hypocritically stood by the pa-
gan Koman government, lending assistance to the pagan gov-
ernment and urging the pagan soldiers to slay Jesus Christ.
And today the Christian church flatters the soldiers, "stands by
the government," — any and all "Christian" governments, — in
any and all wars, and thus refuses to protect the working
class from the sword and cannon ; refuses to draw the bayonet
from the breast of the humble working man ; refuses to defend
the working class woman from the blood and tears of war ; re-
fuses to shield the faces of the little children of the working
class from the steel-shod hoofs of the galloping war horse.

This Chapter is a discussion of one of mankind's mis-
fortunes, to show the despotism of the dollar, — to shovs^ the

TYRANNY OF THE ECONOMIC ELEMENT OF HUMAN LIFE; and

let me here give most sincere assurance that this Chapter is
written with not even the slightest degree of malice toward
the Church. However, the Church taught me: "Speak the
truth."

Well, here is a truth, a truth to be stripped naked and
expressed because it is so vitally important to hundreds of
millions who toil : —

The three mighty hosts of the Peace-Preaching Christ,
the Greek Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church and
the Protestant Church, these, bitterly at war with one another
and defending the industrial despotism called capitalism, —
refuse, flatly refuse, to unite their powerful voices in a de-
fiant and effective declaration against war; refuse thus to
help lift the huge burden and curse of war from the toil-
bent shoulders of the working class; refuse to remove the
thorn-crown of war from the brow of labor. The working
class, millions of them loving Christ sincerely as I do, must
learn and face the fact that the Church of the Great Car-
penter Christ refuses to save the working class from the
periodic baptisms of blood and fire called war.

"Put up thy sword," said Christ.

"Business is business! There is no sentiment in busi-

248 WAR— WHAT FOR?

ness ! We must conquer the markets of the world," say the
capitalists.

And there is the parting of the ways for toads and men,
for the time-server and the prophet, for the emasculate and
the masculine.

In 1898 a certain man lived in a small western "city" —
and took notes. A local company of working class volunteers
was organized to go to Cuba to slaughter the working men in
the Spanish army and thus secure greater opportunity for
American capitalists. On the day of departure of the volun-
teer company the people, thousands of them, assembled on
a wide public square, surrounding the local volunteers.
Suddenly, when interest was intense, a high table was rushed
to the center of the square, a banker thoughtfully assisting.
Hastily a meek and lowly follower of the Peaceful Jesus —
a preacher — took his place upon this table, his eyes flashing
hate and his chest bulging heroically. All hats were off. All
heads, but two, were bowed in prayer. With head erect and
eyes open the preacher, in prayer, addressed — the audience.
With his eyes to the sky, the preacher, praying, used the name
of God and the ears of the people. There was no "praying in
secret" about that "eloquent effort." The prayer was "power-
ful." That prayer was an assault — an assault upon the finest
sentiments that bloom in the human heart, the sentiments of
the brotherhood of man.

But what of that? "Business is business."

That eloquent prayer electrified the vast audience. The
preacher became an incendiary — he committed arson. His
ferocious rhetoric set on fire the gullible souls of young men,
humble women, innocent small boys and tender little girls.
With crafty eloquence he petted the working class volunteers
till they stood more erect in manly pride and licked their lips
for the blood of almost equally ignorant Spanish working
men ; vnth. flattering phrases he seductively praised the plain
women who bore these "brave boys" now ready to butcher,
praised them till these gentle, humble mothers were warm
with an elation known only to mothers of strong men, praised
them till they were keen with a savage gladness that they had

CROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 249

borne these men now burning to slaughter humble toilers
from the working class homes in Spain. With artful power
of phrase and voice the preacher praised the small boys
present, praying for "more brave boys in future years to stand
by the flag" — caressed them thus till the poor little fellows
longed to be men in order that they too might rend the flesh
of humble working-class men in war — somewhere, anywhere,
somehow, sometime. And then with cunning suggestiveness
and with vulgar boldness this handsome panderer to capitalist
masters rudely invaded the holy of holies, the innocent imag-
ination of tender little girls present, brutally outraged the
sacred instincts of kindness natural to these dainty little
maids till these young doll-lovers were half excited with a
dim but horrible hope, till their faces flushed in anticipation
of the patriotic part they too in future years might have in
sending their assassin sons to the front.

The prayer ended. The preacher rolled his fine dark eyes
and fervently bellowed, "Amen !"

He had done his work. He had played his part. Souls
had been branded. Human brotherhood had been suffocated
in the hearts of gullible working men — strangled with elegant
(and pious) eloquence.

Then the thousands of humble working class people moved
off, "hoofing it," marching behind the soldiers to the rail-
way station. A half dozen bankers, a dozen lawyers, and
many other "leading business men" lingered, left their car-
riages, surrounded the preacher and congratulated him on his
"splendid effort"; — and that was part of his pay for his
eloquent ferocity. Well-dressed women of the 'Haest families
in the city" gave the preacher their gloved right hands and
practically embraced him with the virtuous and caressing
fondness in their eyes; — and that was part of his pay for
scarring the souls of men, women, and little children with
the branding-iron of Old Testament ferocity. That savage
prayer made him more popular in the city; — and that was
part of his pay for his noble ferocity. He was now more
secure in his job; — and that was part of his pay for his
ecclesiastical buncombe and flap-doodle. — for his jungle growl

250 WAR— WHAT FOR?

of civilized ferocity. The collections were for some time
larger in his church; — and that, yea, that also, was part of
his pay for serving the cash-register and thus playing the
role of betrayer of the Prince of Peace.

The handsome preacher had performed a miracle. He
had so fixedly riveted the attention of the '^rave boys" upon
the Spaniards that the g-ullible volunteers noticed nothing
strange in the fact that strong, healthy bankers, lawyers, mer-
chants and preachers (patriots all of them of course) — with
the stealthy quiet of a cat on a carpet — remained at home
just at the very time when "great deeds of glory and patriot-
ism" and manly heroism were to be done.

Doubtless many a shot-torn boy soldier wallowing in his own
blood, his chest half crushed with the hoofs of galloping
cavalry horses, his splintered bones grinding together at every
move, the roar of cannon and the din of curses, prayers,
yells, sobs and groans of dying comrades crowding into his
ears — thinks of his well-fed, soft-voiced pastor at home far
away (and safe), the good man, the nice man, who fired
his and his fellow-fighters' hearts with "lust of death and
vulgar slaughter," who helped betray him and his fellows to
the human butchering field. No doubt many working class
people fondly hope that the ministers of the Christ of Peace
will presently combine and use their vast influence against
war — to drive the red demon from the earth that it may no
longer desolate the homes of the humble.

Vain hope.

Long ago the cynical, shrewd (and carefully baptized)
Napoleon Bonaparte remarked, with biting irony, "God is
always on the side of the heaviest battalions."

Today it is easy to see that not Christ,* but the Church
of Christ, is on the side of the business man and the poli-
tician concerning war.

And thus the hayonet still sticks in the breast of the
working class.

Thus the Cross dips to the cannon.

'S«€ Chapter Eight. Section 13 and 14.

CROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 251

Really, will not the followers of the gentle Christ of Peace
presently sweep war from the world?

They most certainly will do nothing of the kind — as
long as war is profitable for the "leading citizens."

"Leading citizens" actually lead. They are the capitalists.
Industrially and politically the capitalists have the world
by the throat. They force their ambitions, their purposes,
and their policies upon both the preacher and the wage-earner.
Their purpose is : profits, more profits and still more profits.
Their policy is: more markets and more territory — for more
profits, at all hazard, in absolute defiance of Confucius, in
defiance of Buddha, in defiance of Christ, in shameless de-
fiance of the sacredness of human blood. They will, if
need be, — that is, if business, commercial exigencies, require
it — they will order the high-salaried generals to wash the
earth with the blood of the socially despised work-
ing class, while safe in their palatial homes these "leading
citizens" will masquerade as patriots, and on the "holy Sab-
bath day" they will virtually force their salaried pastors to
pray and shout for blood-dripping victory.

This is the industrial rulers' history.

This is the industrial rulers' present politics.

This is the industrial rulers' future program.

And the preacher must therefore salute the cash-register
and baptize the cannon — or lose his job just like any other
hired man who fails to please his economic master.

"Business is business," — that is "the law and the gospel"
of capitalism.

Let us study the matter a little further.

When a war is on the world's stage the bright lights are
so confusing that it is difficult to see the "leading citizens"
in the background, "in the wings," so to speak. For example :

The American people are still clapping their hands and
hurrahing for "our noble Christian President" for his part in
bringing about peace between Russia and Japan. But why
— just why — did not the "noble Christian President" nobly
interfere many months before he did interfere? The blood
of tens of thousands of humble working-class soldiers in both

252 WAR— WHAT FOR?

armies was running down the hillsides in Manchuria m
streams — months before. But no interference by the "noble
Christian President" (recently so boisterously boastful of
'Tiis" own noble slaughtering on San Juan Hill).

Let us understand.

For many months it seemed that Christian Eussia would
surely win the war and still be able to pay, interest and
principal of American investments in Russia. Later the Rus-
sian Government and Russian credit became very unsteady. Im-
mediately the capitalist actors in the background, with money
invested in Russian enterprises, put on the pressure, applied
"influence," to our government, and then, and not till then,
did President Roosevelt rush to the footlights of the world's
stage and whine and scream for peace.

For many months, while the blood of Japanese and Rus-
sian working class men was gushing from a million wounds,
while the humble wives and children of these "common" men
were wild with grief — all the while "our noble Christian
President," like all other Christian rulers, was as silent as a
fish; but when principal and interest of American parasites
got in danger, our "noble Christian President" promptly be-
came nobly noisy and craftily pious and peaceful.

And that is a fair sample of a "Christian government's"
influence for peace.

At no time did the Church urge or demand peace,
and at no time did the Church throw its powerful influence
upon our President or upon the head of any other govern-
ment to bring about peace.*

* It is mildl}' encouragiug to reflect that very heavy and very
general international investments in national and industrial bonds
would have at least some tendency to dampen the bond-buying capi-
talists' enthusiasm for war: because, in some cases, a disastrous war
might result in the repudiation of bonds and, in most cases, might
easily result in a great temporary reduction of dividends from indus-
trial investments. Another thing to be noted here is that sometimes
the investors in the bonds of an unstable nation about to go to
war, may regret the threatening war and urge against it and even
decline to buy war bonds, before the war is declared, in order to pro-
tect their investments alreadv made. But after the war ia once

CROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 253

Our gentle Christian President, Mr. Eoosevelt, head of the
greatest Christian republic on earth, said recently to a hand-
clapping Christian audience, "I want for soldiers young men
not only willing but anxious to fight"; that is, anxious to
murder. That foul sentiment should have been drowned with
hisses. The ferocious Christian Tsars of Eussia, the blood-
thirsting Caesars of the ancient pagan Roman Empire, the
chiefs of savage tribes and modern republics, — all the ancient
and modern, savage and civilized hero rulers who have sat on
thrones and stood on the necks of nations — all these bullies
have always been eager to have for soldiers "young men not
only willing but anxious to fight" — that is, willing and anxious
to cut the throats of their fellowmen in an intertribal or
international festival of blood called a patriotic war.

And always, since society was first organized on a class-
labor plan, the organized "spiritual guides" of society have
"stood by the government," leagued with the hero ruler for
the ruling class.

Mr. Roosevelt, for the moral improvement and spiritual
guidance of small boys who may read his heroic record as
a patriotic warrior, sets it down with evident pride that he
shot a Spanish soldier (probably a humble workingman) in
the back as the poor, ignorant, frightened fellow fled from
the bloody field.* Mr. Roosevelt, as related in Chapter Eight,
Section 16, urged in an Annual Message that rifle-practice
ranges be provided in the public schools for young school boys
— presumably that the little fellows may become "not only
willing but anxious to fight." And the Church of the Peace-
ful Christ did not dare rebuke the "great Christian President"

entered upon these same regretful investors feel almost compelled
to purchase the new issue of war-bonds in order to make victory
more certain for the nation whose bonds they already hold, and
thus protect the market value of their original investments.
French investors in Russian bonds and enterprises to the extent of
more than a billion dollars found themselves in this predicament in
the case of the recent Russian- Japanese war. See Index: "Bank-
ruptcy, Danger of."

* See Chapter Seven, Section 17.

254 WAR— WHAT FOR?

for urging such a barbarous outrage upon the schoolboys'
dawning social consciousness and their finer sentiments of the
brotherhood of man.

Eecently a school teacher in the city of Washington, where
this swaggering-bull-pup patriotism has been most effectively
suggested, asked her school children: "What is patriotism?"
She got the answer : "Killing Spaniards !" Thus have the
little people been outraged with befouling suggestions that
cheap race-hatred is patriotism. But the Church does not
dare cry out, in defense of "these little ones" : "Stop that !
You noisy betrayer ! Cease pouring venom into the hearts
of these helpless little children !"

"With a hero at head and a nation

Well gagged and well-drilled and well cowed,

And a gospel of war and damnation,

Has not an empire a right to be proud?"*

Quite naturally no protest is made.

The working man wonders why.

The working woman wonders why,

The children wonder why —

Why do not the Christian emperors, and Christian kings,
the Christian tsars and Christian presidents, the Christian
Parliaments, congresses, diets and cabinets of the whole Chris-
tian world promptly call a world convention of the Christian
rulers of the Christian world, and in this convention de-
clare at once that never, never again, under any circumstances,
shall there be a war between Christian nations?

Yes, indeed, why not?t

For this reason: — The Christian nations are capitalist
nations managed for the capitalist class. Each great Chris-
tian nation knows that it must find a foreign market for the
EMBARRASSINGLY LARGE SURPLUS of goods which its Capital-
ists do not consume or invest and its working class is, by the
wage-system, not permitted to consume. Each and all these
nations know that this foreigx market must be found
OPENED AND PROTECTED — with Christian sword and cannon

* Swinburne : "A Word for the Country."
fSee Index: "The Hague Peace Conference."

CROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 255

if need be — in order that the capitalists of these countries
may make more profits. Indeed, when markets must thus be
had. Christians , Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Confu-
cians— with lust for profits — trample down all things fine,
sand-bag everything noble, spit in the face of every man of
peace, and shout, "Stand back ! Stand back ! Bring on the
cannon ! Business is business ! There is no sentiment in
business ! To hell with the mollycoddles ! We are in business
for profits!"

With noble exceptions, at such times Christian preachers,
priests, and bishops of the warring nations, with the swagger
and pomp of cheap "fighting parsons," step briskly to the
front of the stage, consecrate the cannon, "bless" the sword,
baptize the butcher, and, on both sides, with pious savagery
scream to the "God of battles," also to the "God of peace,"
for victory "in this righteous war," for victory in this "armed
crusade for Christ/' for victory in this "glorious effort to
advance His Icingdom," — always, always, of course, some lofty
name, some swelling phrase, to veil the huge and pious
murder.

Sacred wholesale assassinations — for the Peaceful Jesus'
sake !

Even every massacre of the peaceful Jews in Eussia
is sanctioned by the Greek Christian Church, — and the Roman
and the Protestant churches and the Christian governments of
the world do not unite and demand peace for the peaceful
Jews.

"God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform,"
we are piously taught.

Mysterious. Very.

But it is not mysterious why pro-war preachers, priests,
and bishops are not slaughtered on the battleline and then
eaten by buzzards when the cannon's feast is finished. These
men are too intelligent — too cunning — for the buzzards'
banquet.

Every distinguished professional butcher in modern times
has been a "member in good standing" in his denomination
and his blood-stenched fame is recited with pride.

256 WAR— WHAT FOR?

That mysterious?

All soldiers are blessed as they march away to "Death's
feast."

The preacher consecrates the cut-throat.

The bayonet is prepared — with prayer — to be thrust into
the bowels of the toilers.

All wars are somehow pronounced "mysteriously the will
of God"; and the cannoneers who hurl shot and shell into a
city or village and cannonade helpless women and children
— these are "the servants of the Lord" — mysteriously.

And thus to the appalling music of the cannon's roar the
Cross is dragged down into the bloody mire where men die
cursing the preachers safe at home who helped trick them
to the hell called war. And thus, too, the spirit of the
great fraternal Christ is banished from the lives of the be-
trayers and the betrayed — and Christ is crucified anew.

Because it is profitable.

Thus in all Christian nations the Cross dips obsequiously to
the red-throated cannon — and to the cash-register.

Business is business; the rulers rule; and gold is God.

That is, under capitalism.

Eeader, name one "civil" war or one international war of
modern times powerfully, effectively hindered by the Church
of the Man of Peace.*

Just one.

But no matter! Since long before the slaughter of the
Carpenter our brothers of the working class have furnished
the blood and tears — cheap blood, cheap tears, — about forty
cents a day for American "regulars" in the "year of our
Lord" 1910.

Learn this, you toilers : The capitalists have the preacher
cornered and shackled. The working class must be their own
saviors from the horrors of war. In Chapter Ten I shall
explain how this can be done and even now begins to be
done by the working class.

See Chapter Four, Section One.

CROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 257

But the workers should learn from history and keep dis-
tinctly in mind this great lesson : With noble individual ex-
ceptions the ministry, the religious leaders, have in times
past defended chattel slavery with its unspeakable horrors
for the working class; and have defended serfdom with its hell
for the working class; and have ignobly defended all Christian
national and international wars of modern capitalism praying
on both sides to the "God of battles" for "glorious victory"
regardless of the blood spurting from a million wounds in
the torn breast of the working class.

The path of human progress in modern times is steep
and slippery with the carcasses and blood of the socially
despised working men — and the Church has not defied the
cash-register idolater and demanded peace.

Unrebuked, right proudly the cash-register devotee, the
business man, blurts out: "There is no sentiment in busi-
ness."

That proposition, "No sentiment," is enough to make a
cannibal blush. Yet that doctrine is at the heart of capitalism.

If there is no sentiment in htisiness, then there is no
brotherhood in business, for brotherhood is a sublime and
beautiful sentiment.

And if there is no brotherhood in business there can not
be Christian fellowship in business.

Thus business banishes Christ and the Cross retreats be-
fore the onslaughts of the cash-register.

But it is actually and sadly true that business, competitive
business, is too little and belittling, too wolfishly fierce, for
deep and loyal brotherhood. This is also true of the great
class competition, the class struggle, the embittering clash of
industrial class interests.

And where there is no deep and loyal brotherhood, no
great socializing unity of interest stretching from the centre
to the rim of society, including all, peace is impossible.

Thus it is that in the great competitive business world,
like quarrelsome dogs, every business man's hand is against
every other business man's hand competing in the "same line,"
to "put him out of business" and thus '^get more business."

258 WAB—WHAT FOR?

Thus local neighbors are at war in a Christless scramble
for business.

Thus nations also, fiercely struggling for markets and
territory, are at war — commercial war — sometimes needing
sword and cannon. (See pp. 40-41.)

Now, notice: Christian business men in this brotherless,
Christless scramble called business must have the scramble
made "respectable." For this purpose the minister is most
serviceable. The business men need the minister — "need him
in their business" — to consecrate and sanctify the ways and
means, even the sword, the cannon and the vast human
slaughterings called war.

"Put up thy sword," said Christ.

"Business is business ! Bless the butcher ! Grind sharp
the sword," commands the business man.

But "no man can serve two masters."

Here the minister, just like the "common working man,"
is face to face with the most domineering fact and force
IN HUMAN life; namely, economic necessity. The
preacher and the plumber, the rabbi and the sweat-shop
tailor, the priest and the hod-carrier — these must live; they
must "get a living." But the capitalist controls the oppor-
tunities to "get a living." The "common working man" is
embarrassed. The minister is also embarrassed — tho he may
he — and very often is — one of the noblest men in the world,
he is embarrassed. This economic force grips them both like
a vise. They must live. To live they must kneel before the
king — the kings in industry.

Obey or starve.

The inevitable follows:

The plain common working man and the haughty and
cultivated minister — both of them — bow their heads and sub-
mit their necks to the cruel yoke, the yoke of capitalism. .\;

The rulers rule.

Capitalism, internationally, is — for capitalists — a struggle
for a strangle hold among jealously competing, unneighborly
neighbors, a struggle for business.

CnOSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 259

Capitalism thus becomes a stupid snarl of "foreigners" —
to each nation all other nations are "foreigners."

And thus the world is petty, unsocial, "foreign," — a war
always possible and threatening between "foreigners," — the
unfortunate ministers, most of them, not to the contrary.

But, reader, there are no "foreigners'^ — for me and
MY International Friend Christ and my Inter-
national Comrades.

Then why should a group of Christless, plutocratic po-
litical crooks and flunky-champagne-guzzlers in Paris or
Tokio, in Berlin or London, in Madrid or Washington — why
should any such group of political bunco-steerers by a pomp-
ous declaration of assassination officially decide for you and
me and our brothers of some so-called "foreign nation" — that
we working class brothers are "enemies" and that we must
lay down the instruments of production and take up the
weapons of destruction and butcher ourselves by the tens of
thousands ?

Why should we permit a band of cheap "statesmen" to
order us to tear one another's throats like dogs?

Why should we fight?

We have no quarrels.

The thing is ridiculous — utterly ridiculous, is it not?

And an equally important question is: — Why should we
working class brothers of all the world ever permit any eccle-
siastical savages to fan the flames of international hatred
in our souls by means of pious prayers and sermons in favor
of war ?

Even more ridiculous, isn't it?

Let us refuse to murder. The blood-spilling business is
too small for brothers, too savage for socialized men, no
matter what their religious faith may be.

Perhaps, brother, you and I do not agree on Christ. But
we can be good friends any way, can't we ?

Now, I will tell you frankly, the Peaceful Christ seems
to me to be so much grander than a war-preaching preacher,
so much nobler than a flunky "fighting parson/' that he

260 WAR— WHAT FOR?

gains my sincere admiration. Such a great brave brother
he was.

Christ was the most defiant preacher that ever walked the
earth or flashed as a character conception in the human brain.

Christ, the historical revolutionary Christ, or Christ,
splendid creation of imagination, or Christ divine — whichever
or whatever he was — he wins and compels my gratitude:

Because he was neither an automaton nor a tool;

Because official ruffians even before his mockery of a trial
viciously pronounced him an "undesirable citizen";

Because "leading citizens" could not use him, could not
rent his influence;

Because he scorned the opportunity to become "successful
in life" in the contemptible role of intellectual prostitute;

Because he despised the lusting devotees of Mammon;

Because he forgave the "duly convicted" crucified thieves
and whipped the unconvicted bankers from the temple;

Because with stinging words he lashed the whited sepul-
chres called "the very best people";

Because he was so fine and great he promptly became
extremely unpopular with coarse and savage little "prominent
people" ;

Because he was so gentle and terrible that the noisy and
cruel "law-abiding leading citizens" in their swaggering
ignorance and malignance decided he was an anarchist and
proceeded to shut off his free speech ;

Because he was neither narrow enough to be national nor
ignorant enough to be orthodox ;

Because on the last morning of his life he so proudly
despised the official political bull-pups who teased him and
insulted him — and could not understand him;

Because, on the same morning, he so finely scorned the
bigoted little orthodox holy bullies who hindered him and
wolfishly screamed for the Carpenter's blood;

Because children charmed him;

Because the humble "common people" swarmed around
him and loved him — in spite of their pious and orthodox
"spiritual advisers" ;

■ CR088, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 261

Because he scorned the "dignity" of some men and saw the
Dignity of Man ;

Because he came from the bottom up and never forgot —
never hesitated to defend — "even the least of these," includ-
ing his sad, shamed, outlawed sister;

Because he did not whimper and cringe when certain
religiously eminent small souls spat in the face of the World
Soul;

Because the great wholesome brother was a true Social
Soul, loving all mankind;

Because, especially because, he so finely forgave the
thoughtless working class soldiers who mocked him, forced a
thorn crown upon his head, drove nails through his flesh,
sneered at his agonies, and thrust a spear into their working
class Brother Carpenter;

Because he said, "Put up thy sword," regarded no man
as "foreigner," and died for International Fraternalism.

A Social Man.

A Sample.

I love him.

Let us, too, brother, be social and international.

Let us bury the hatchet, break the rifle, spike the cannon,
despise the sword, accept the Sermon on the Mount for its
spirit of peace, and scorn any sermon that urges us to war
against our own class brothers. Let us detest any sermon that
stirs and fosters the tiger within us and arrests our social
development.

Social development.

"Social development," did I say? Yes, reader, that is
what we need, social development.

Man on his long march upward — up from the jungle —
has been impeded by a heavy burden — ^in his blood. He has
carried the menagerie — in his veins.

Here permit me to use a very homely metaphor, a figure
of speech neither to your taste nor to mine, yet needed and
defensible :

In its social development the world is hindered by too
much bull-pup.

263 WAR— WHAT FOB?

A bull-pup is at a disadvantage — socially. His social
development is stunted. The malignant wrinkles of his prize-
fighter face obstruct his vision. His outlook is restricted.
Thus his notion of the world is small. Hence the bull-pup
is narrow, local and unsocial. Being socially local and mean
— and therefore petty and pugnacious — he enjoys a fight.
In the world of dogs he is a tough, a "rough-rider" and a
"war-lord." All other dogs are "foreigners," "guilty," and
"undesirable citizens."

Peace is too large and fine for the bull-pup. War is "dee-
lightful," "just bully"— for the bull-pup.

Thus even the humble dog v/orld is worried and hindered
by the socially narrow and pugnaciously strenuous bull-pups
— "great" and "successful," in their estimation.

Thus littleness and localism hinder even brutes in their
social development.

And it is thus in the human world also.
Confucius was a great man.

But Confucius is hindered — hindered by littleness — little
Confucians.

Christ? Christ is great, fascinatingly, commandingly
great.

But Christ is hindered — hindered by the pettiness of pug-
nacity, hindered by littleness, little Christians.
Let us be brothers? Let us have peace?
Not yet. We can't. We must wait. Strange, but true,
we must wait for the most reasonable thing in the world. —
peace.

Peace is on the program — next number.
From the warring tribes of the long, long ago, up, up, up-
ward to the federated races of the world, — that is the first
number on the program — a long steep climb for the human
mind, up, up through the hundreds of centuries, a half mil-
lion years consumed in expanding the human heart, in re-
fining the human affections, in strengthening the social vision
to see all the way 'round the world, in widening the diameter
of Society, in creating, revising, and re-creating a definition

GROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 363

of "Brother," — the race generating the Social Man, the
World Patriot, the International Citizen,

The arithmetic of history — Given : Life. To find, or pro-
duce, or deduce, the god, the god of aspiring intelligence, the
god of a socialized race. A puzzling problem — how to sub-
tract the brute, add the brother and multiply the brains ; how
to proceed to the next number on the program — Peace; how
to move our bruised lips to say : "Put up thy sword. We are
of one blood."

We are hindered.

Brotherhood and peace — divinely high thought!

But, alas ! the thought is too high for low-browed strenu-
osity of the tough-rider type ; the thought is too large and fine
for the poor brain of a bull-dog or a human bully or a so-
cially blunted holy man or any other breed of stunted runts.

The strutting, thin-brained rooster in the farmyard crows,
"Hurrah for this our very own dunghill, the finest filth
pile on earth." Thus this spurred and feathered patriot vir-
tuously cultivates his vanity by boisterously challenging "the
enemy" in the neighboring farmyards.

"Hurrah for our tribe," screams the savage — patriotically.

"Hurrah for our village of Squeedunk," yells the local
human shrimp. More patriotism.

"Hurrah for our great city!" squeals the boastfully
"metropolitan" small man sweltering in unspeakable corrup-
tions.

"Hurrah for the nation — right or wrong!" yelps the pa-
triotic national mongrel.

And thus these socially puny creatures, these social runts,
stand ready, as it were, to "patriotically" throw carbolic acid
at their national and international neighbors.

"Hurrah for Mankind, hurrah for Life!" finely calls the
socially developed man, the Increasing International Man.

Eeally, reader, the narrow-visioned provincial, the local
sniveling, the social shrimp, the pugnacious nationalist, the
racial bigot, and the stunted, sacerdotal manlet — really, these
unsocial people are, as yet, too local and little and narrow for
a federated world, for an internationally social Christ.

264 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Keally, these unsocial human runts can not sincerely and
effectively carry "to all the world" any magnificent social
gospel of "peace on earth, good will toward all men," and
"make of one blood all nations" — even tho' they be baptized.

Now please do not misunderstand me. I do not belittle
the rite of baptism.

But baptism has no effect on a declaration of war by an
extremely narrow local bull-dog, whether he be a humble
canine wearing a brass collar, or a strutting puny human
being wearing a "Prince Albert," or a lard-and-tallow mil-
lionaire worshipping a cash-register. None of these is emo-
tionally and socially fine. As usual, the world is embar-
rassed when trying to make a silk purse of a sow's ear.

A Christian assassin mounted on the throne of Eussia
remains an assassin — in spite of his baptism.

A Christian bully elevated to the throne of the German
Empire or to American presidential distinctions, remains a
pugnacious ruffian, spoiling for trouble, always "not only
willing but anxious to fight."

Sacerdotal ceremonies have no effect on a leopard's spots,
a tiger's stripes, a bull-pup disposition, or a cash-register
ambition.

War among brothers is civil war.

All men are brothers.

Therefore all war is civil war.

But peace is hindered by local littleness — especially by the
belittling, localizing effects of the sacred cash-register and
its smaller unsocial time-servers.

The Confucian capitalist, the Christian capitalist, and
all other kinds of capitalists of the whole world stand
behind their blessed and belittling cash-registers, plot in their
Wall Street dens, cheating, cheating, cheating — and snarling
at one another. And this unsocial snarling is called business,
and this Christless business is morally legitimated, "made
respectable," by too many unsoeialized "spiritual advisers."
Some of the holy men are finely social, nobly large, splendidly
fearless ; and these great social souls refuse, proudly refuse, to
"sic" or urge the "dogs of war." But unfortunately these

CROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 365

truly greater holy men are too few and they are threatened
and bullied by the over-fed, fat-pursed industrial Caesars in
the best pews of the house of God; and, moreover, these
greater holy men are abused and outvoted in the church con-
ventions by their less developed brethren, if they oppose a
war — esjDCcially if there is a "national crisis."

And there is always a "national crisis" imminent when
greater markets must be had and new territory is to be
scrambled for by the capitalists of the world.

Whenever there is a "crisis on," whenever the cash-register
captains, the politicians and unsocial "spiritual leaders" be-
lieve, or announce, that there is a "crisis upon us," — at such
times Christ, the peaceful, nobly social Christ, is thrust to
the rear of the stage and forced to be silent, while the "fight-
ing parsons" and the politicians and the money-mongers and
some glory-hunting buccaneers rush to the front of the stage
and scream for war — a "patriotic war."

And more and more the actual necessity for a larger
foreign market produces a "crisis/'

It is coming — another war.*

Then for brotherhood — a sneer.

Then for the man of peace — a scornful "Mollycoddle !"

Then for Christ — coarse jeers.

Then for markets, for profits — blood and tears.

Then will the malignant manikins patriotically and prof-
itably shout for "national honor."

Then Christ must wait.

Peace must wait.

Brotherhood must wait.

International federation, social grandeur, the human
race, must wait.

All these must wait for the poor little fellows to get the
emotions of the prize-fighter and the savage heat and hate
of the bull-pup out of their veins; all these must wait, too,
while the cash-register devotee and his man Friday get the
money — and "divide up."

<<r*-

*See Index: "Another War."

266 WAR— WHAT F0R9

Possibly, reader, some of these paragraphs seem unfair.

Very well; perhaps it will seem fair to let a clergyman
speak with frankness on this matter. Here following are
some paragraphs from a powerful book. The Moral Damage
of War, by the fearless Dr. Walter Walsh, a distinguished
and eloquent clergyman of Dundee, Scotland.* In the chap-
ter, "The Moral Damage of War to the Preacher," Dr. Walsh
speaks to his clerical brethren with the courage and direct-
ness of the ancient Jewish prophets. Here are some illus-
trative paragraphs (reprinted with kind permission of pub-
lishers) :

"The belief that Christianity is incompatible with war, was
designed to abolish war . . , was held by all the Christians of the
first three centuries. . . . Christianity is the religion of peace.
How then is Christendom still at war? We naturally turn to the
professional teachers of religion for an answer.

"The paid teachers of Christendom are numbered by hundreds
of thousands: Priests, bishops, ministers, catechists and so on, —
while their lay helpers — deacons, church-wardens, elders, Sunday-
school teachers, missioners, lay preachers — may be counted by the
million and it is incomprehensible that war should continue to
exist in Christendom unless by first demoralizing these formers of
religious opinion. The fact also that all Christian countries alike
compete in the equipment and spoils of war can be understood only
as a proof of a corrupt or undeveloped conscience. The reason why
Christendom is today in such straits and that so many countries
wallow in debt, waste, ignorance, covetousness, poverty and misery
imspeakable, is chiefly that the paid teachers of Christianity with
their hosts of unpaid assistants have capitulated to the war god. . . .
War is never pure, but is hell; and it can never be permissible to
inaugurate heaven by the help of hell. . . . Here and there a smaller
Elijah refuses to bow the knee to the military Baal, a faithful
Micaiah, tho' smitten on the mouth, continues to bear his testimony
to the true significance of the gospel. . . . 'For centuries the church
met the hostility of a pagan and unscrupulous world and never
flinched. . . . No revenge or bitterness marred the security of her
soul.' . . . The appalling nature of the preacher's defection is seen
by the contrast with the magnificent opportunity war time aff"ord3
him, than which prophet or apostle never had a greater. ... A
trial of strength between conflicting nations is also a trial of the
preacher's moral character; the height of noble opportunity to

Published by Ginn and Company, New York.

CROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 267

which it lifts him has its counterpart in the base opportunism to
which he may descend. He may temporize like a politician. ... He
may accept the carnal policies of the parliament as limitations of
his gospel and hang his head like a dumb dog when statesmen fling
Christianity incontinently out of the house of legislation. He may
soothe his conscience with the lie that war is a matter of politics,
having nothing to do with the preaching of the gospel, and slide
gently down into the dastard, blind equally to the humor and the
atheism of his position. Between the churches which cry, "No
politics in the gospel!" and parliaments which cry, "No gospel in
polities!" the Son of Man is hard put to it to maintain a footini^
in modern affairs. . . . Few invocations to the Prince of Peace are
heard [in time of war], but many to the God of battles. . . . The
conscience [of ecclesiasticism] lies limp and voiceless before the
uplifted sword, bribed by gold, paralyzed by fear . . . shielding
itself. . . . The federated tribes of Israel slink to their tents, mur-
muring some safe platitudes about peace and prayer meetings whilst
the world triumphs, the flesh riots and the devil grins with infinite
content. ... It were hard to say which is worse, — the silence of the
pulpit or the timidity or wickedness of its speech when it does
find tongue. ... A dumb dog is bad, but a bloodhound baying upon
the trail is worse. . . . What is to be said of a preacher, who, when
the war spirit and the peace spirit are trembling in the balance,
either can not speak or speaks only to blaspheme his own gospel?
. . . It can not be doubted that the church, exerting herself in ac-
cordance with her principles, could make all bloodshed impossible,
and could have averted every war of recent times; yet on many
such occasions the multitude of ministers stir no finger, preach no
sermon, sign no petition, sound no note that the government, will-
ing enough to know the temper of a nation, can interpret as hostile
to their project. . . . The appalling truth has to be faced: that the
church, contrary to every expectation that might be formed from
her principles and the character of the Being she worships, is
always, as a whole, for the war of the day. It is true that when
peace is the popular cry, the preachers are also for peace. If there
is a peace crusade on hand which excites the shallow enthusiasms
of the fashionables, the preachers will also catch the excitements of
the hour; but when the white banner yields to the red, the pastors
beat the drums for the fighters as furiously as they had previously
denounced the savagery of armed conflict. . . . Organized Christian-
ity divests herself of her robe of righteousness and her garments
of meek humility to clothe herself in khaki. ... A thousand pulpits
are manned by Bible bullies who cite every obsolete and bloody prec-
edent of the wars of the Jews and show themselves destitute of
the elementary humanities and of the faculties necessary to dis-
criminate between Judaism two thousand years before Christ and

268 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Christianity two thousand years after him. . . . What can mankind
do with a church that jjeels itself like a pugilist and reveals the
murdering pagan instead of the martyred Christian; which for
carnal reasons cancels the Sermon [on the Mount], contradicts the
Beatitudes, flatly denies the gospel, repudiates every specific
Christly ideal, and unseats Jesus in order to elevate Mars to the
throne of conscience? ... At frequent intervals the cross with its
suffering victim recedes and out of the blood-red mist emerges the
foul idol of war erect on his crimson chariot. . . . The sanctification
of revenge is, indeed, the vilest function performed by a war-
poisoned, blood-stained church. ... It is thus that the masses are
kept from seeing the degenerate nature of the thing. . . . Their
pastors lead them into the blood-red fields of Jahveh when the
politicians give the word, and into the green pastures of the Naza-
rene only when there is no national scheme of murder and robbery
afoot. . . . The churches as they are today can not prevent war.
Their palsied lips can not echo, however feebly, the words of the
master, 'Put up again thy sword into its place!' There is not
spiritual power left in organized Christianity to insure the sub-
stitution of reason for brute force. . • . Alas! it has hitherto been
impossible to get Christianity to obey Christ."*

That is the language of a brave Christian preacher. In
connection with the reverend Doctor Walsh's chastisement of
the church in the morning of the twentieth century it is in-
teresting to read on the same subject the words of a philos-
opher of the eighteenth century, Voltaire.f

"This universal rage which devours the world. . . . The most
wonderful part of this infernal enterprise [war] is, that each chief
of murderers causes his colors to be blest, and solemnly invokes
God before he goes to exterminate liis neighbors. ... A certain
number of orators are everywhere paid to celebrate these murderous
days. . . . All of them speak for a long time, and quote that which
was done of old in Palestine. . . . The rest of the year these people
declaim against vices. . . . All the united vices of all ages and places
will never equal the evils produced by a single campaign. Miserable
physicians of souls! you exclaim for five quarters of an hour on
some pricks of a pin, and say nothing on the malady which tears us
into a thousand pieces. . . . Can there be anything more horrible
throughout nature?"

And now let us get at this matter from the point of view

* Italics mine. G. R. K.

f Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary.

CROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 269

of a political economist, a rcall}^ great economist, John A.
Hobson — who puts the case thus :*

"When has a Christian nation ever entered on a war which has
not been regarded by the official priesthood as a sacred war? In Eng-
land the State Church has never permitted the spirit of the Prince
of Peace to interfere when statesmen and soldiers appealed to the
passions of race-lust, conquest and revenge. Wars, the most insane
in origin, the most barbarous in execution, the most fruitless in
results have never failed to get the sanction of the Christian
Churches. . . . There is no record of the clergy of any Church having
failed to bless a popular war, to find reasons for representing it as a
crusade."

The following lines from a British philosopher, Frederic
Harrison,t are to the point for the workingman's instruc-
tion:

"The oflScial priests of the old faiths accept without questioning
the authorized judgment of the political government. They are
engaged ... in calling upon their God of Battles (can it be, their
God of Mercy?) to keep the British soldiers — the invaders, the
burners of villages, the hangmen of [native] priests — in his good
and holy keeping. ... A system of slavery prepares the slave-
holding caste for any inhumanity that may seem to defend it. . . .
If it hardens our politicians, it degrades our churches. The thirst
for rule, the greed of the market, and the saving of souls, all work
together in accord. The Churches approve and bless whilst the
warriors and the merchants are adding new provinces to empire;
they have delivered the heathen to the secular arm. . . . Christianity
in practice, as we know it now, for all the Sermon on the Mount,
is the religion of aggression, domination, combat. It waits upon the
pushing trader and the lawless conqueror; and with obsequious
thanksgiving it blesses his enterprise."

Who, indeed, shall deliver us from war?

Our pastors ?

Hardly.

The pastors' economic masters will not permit them to
do so.

Tho' the machine guns mow down a million of the world's
choicest working men, pile up windrows of human carcasses

* The Psychology of Jingoism, pp. 41, 133.
■{■ National and Social Problems, pp. 252-53.

270 WAR— WHAT FOR?

and desolate the huts, flats, hovels and "homes" of the poor;
tho' ten million pairs of calloused hands of agonizing working
class women be stretched toward well-fed, comfortable pastors,
begging for a united, effective declaration against war; tho'
these ten million humble working class mothers, their eyes
streaming with tears, on their knees beseech the "holy men of
God" to unitedly cry aloud against the accursed "Death's
feast" where their dear ones are devoured; tho' multitudes of
little working class children in mute despair dread the roar
of the belching cannon that slay their fathers and brothers;
still the pastors (most of them) will "stand by the adminis-
tration" in any and all wars, as usual.

"The administration," "the government," under capital-
ism, is simply the executive committee of the capitalist class.

The capitalist class are internationally struggling for the
world market.

In these international struggles the capitalists need the
support of public opinion.

Public opinion can be created and controlled by the
pastor.

The pastor must therefore be controlled by the capitalist.

The campaign begins — to capture the market and the
minister.

The soldier goes to war and the capitalist goes to church.

The soldier takes a gun, the capitalist takes gold.

The soldier slays.

The capitalist prays — by proxy.

Being "the will of God" it is, of course, "mysterious."

The capitalist occupies the very best pew in the house of
God — and lays beautiful bankbills in the collection plate.

The minister is embarrassed — and impressed.

The pastor and his master divide up.

The war? Isn't war hell?

It beats hell.

But it is "all for the best" — mysteriously.

With conscience "seared as with a hot iron" the preacher
joins the politician; and the precious pair unite their rented
voices in patriotic melody in support of the capitalist class.

CROSS, CANNON, CASH-REGISTER. 271

Brother, — you of the working class, — Jew, Eoman Catho-
lic, Greek Catholic, Protestant, peaceful Buddhist or peaceful
Confucian, or what else, — wherever you are, whatever you
are in religion, worshipping, searching, groping through the
universe for God, worship as you prefer, worship whom you
prefer: I do not seek to break your church allegiance. But,
sir, to save your life, to save your own wife's tears, to defend
your own children, to protect your own working class, I do
wish to have you realize distinctly that: —

The working class must draw the bayonet from its own
breast. So far as war is concerned the working class must
band together and stand together against war. The working
class must themselves protect the working class against the
industrial system through which they are robbed and be-
trayed.

The workers of the world need a political party of their
own class — and as wide as the world, International, and com-
mitted to justice and therefore to peace.

Listen to the confession of the editor of a very powerful

capitalist newspaper:

"It is significant that the Socialists of different races, and
speaking different tongues, strangers in blood and customs, in Ger-
many, France, Great Britain, Austria, and Italy, constitute the
one great peace party of the world."*

Ldsten again — to the best-known and the best loved Chris-
tian woman in the United States, Miss Jane Addams, of
Hull House, Chicago:!

"The Socialists are making almost the sole attempt to preach
a morality sufftciently all-embracing and international to keep pace
with even the material internationalism which has standardized
[even] the threads of screws and the size of bolts, so that machines
become interchangeable from one country to another. . . . Exist-
ing commerce has long ago reached its international stage, but it
has been the result of business aggression and constantly appeals
for military defense and for the forcing of new markets."

You, you who are to be tricked and shot at the factory door

•The New York World, editorial, August 15, 1907. Italics
mine. G. R. K,

■\ Newer Ideals of Peace, pp. 114-15. Italics mine. G. R. K.

272 WAR— WHAT FOR?

and on the battlefield, go to your public library and get
Christianity and the Social Order, and read there the words
of a preacher great enough for the City Temple of London,
great enough to be the worthy successor of the world-known
Joseph Parker, read the Reverend Dr. E. J. Campbell's
splendid tribute to the Socialist Party as the only political
party in the world today scorning the belittling jealousies of
capitalist statesmen and working effectively for international
brotherhood.

Eeader, you working class reader, a special word here:

Perhaps your working class neighbor's son is at this mo-
ment falling into a patriotic trance, gullibly planning to
join the local militia or the standing army or the navy, medi-
tating on butcheries. Go to him. With a firm grasp on
his mind (if he has one) wake him, rouse him, from that
race-cursing dream, rouse him from the spell that for thou-
sands of years has damned his class. Be kind. Be patient.
But — wake him. Wake him for the world movement for the
working class. Wahe him for the war — the war without a
sword, the war without a cannon; the war with a printing
press, the war with a book. Teach him that salvation is
through information. Teach him that the "truth will make
him free." In his brain kindle a fire, a divine unrest, a desire
that can not die, the desire for peace born of justice.

Otherwise, beware lest your neighbor's son be wheedled
at any moment into the militia or the standing army or the
navy — ready to be consecrated, sanctified, blessed, — for whole-
sale assassination, ready as a militiaman, as a Cossack, as a
soldier, to stain his consecrated sword with the blood of his
neighbors and brutally — patriotically — laugh at the tears of
women and children.

Read to your neighbor the next Chapter: "Now, What
Shall We Do About It?"

■if

CHAPTER TEN.
Now What Shall We Do About It?

"No people will toil and sweat to keep a class in idleness
unless cajoled or compelled to do so. . . . There are various devices
by means of which a body of persons may sink their fangs into their
fellows and subsist upon them. Slavery ... is the primary form of
the parasitic relation. By modifying this into serfdom the para-
sitic class, without the least abating its power of securing its nour-
ishment from others, places itself in a position more convenient
to it and less irritating to the exploited. . . . Finally, the insti-
tution of property is so shaped as to permit a slanting exploitation
under which a class is able to live in idleness. The parasitic class
is always a ruling class, and utilizes as many as it can of the means
of control." — Professor Edward A. Ross, Department of Sociology,
University of Wisconsin.*

"The various institutions, political, ecclesiastical, professional,
industrial, etc., including the government, are devices, means,
gradually brought into existence, to serve interests that develop
within the State." — Professor Albion W. Small, Head of Department
of Sociology, University of Chicago.f

"The non-industrial or parasitic classes are often the most
active. • . . They are wonderfully successful in creating the helief
that they are the most important of all the social elements." — Dr.
Lester F. Ward, Department of Sociology, Brown University.J

The preceding chapters have, it is hoped, been of some
assistance to the reader in realizing in what unqualified con-
tempt the working class are held in our boasted civilized
society, — how utterly the working class are tricked and be-
trayed, brutalized and bled, degraded and despised, robbed,
starved and stung, — their flesh torn, their blood spilt, their
bodies tossed to the buzzards and grave-worms, and even the
widows and orphans insulted with thirty dirty pieces of silver
in payment for the life and love and joy lost in war. Hav-
ing tried to make this, and more, clear, now let me explain
"what to do about it."

* Social Control, pp. 376-79. Italics mine. G. R. K.

■f General Sociology, p. 233.

t Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., p. 582. Italics mine. G. R. K.

374 WAR— WHAT FOR?

What, indeed, shall the working class do to rid themselves
of the curse called war?

We can do nothing, absolutely nothing, with sweeping
effectiveness, till we understand the industrial structure and
purpose of the present order of society, and, as a class, also
understand the art of self-defense — political and industrial
class-defense.

Eepeatedly in preceding chapters I have written of two
classes.

Are there indeed two classes?

Get distinctly in mind the three following propositions
stating the three largest facts of all concerning the present
order of society:

First Proposition: In the present capitalist form so-
ciety is divided into two classes, two industrial classes: the
capitalist class and the working class.

Second Proposition: Industrially, society is organized
and managed for the special benefit of part of society — for
one class, the capitalist class.

Third Proposition: Each of these two classes has in-
dustrial interests as a class; these class interests conflict ; and
there is, therefore, as a part of and because of the class form
of society, a constant class conflict, a class struggle.

Let me try to make these three propositions clear. Please
note carefully the exact wording of the propositions to be
explained.

The explanation, — first proposition:

Of course you wish to live and be comfortable. To live
and be comfortable you must consume useful things. But
before you can consume useful things they must be produced.
And since this is true of all the members of society it is
readily seen that the first task of society, the primary social
function, is production.

Production, industry, is the foundation of society.

Now, in performing this industrial work, in doing this
first thing, we use raw materials, mines, forests, fields, mills,
factories, tools, machinery, railways, etc., etc.; and these

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 375

things are called the means of production. We make use
of these things, these means of production, in applying our
labor-power — that is, in producing the things society wishes
to consume.

But:—

One class privately own the coal mines and iron mines
and buy labor-power;

The other class work in the coal mines and iron mines
and sell labor-power.

One class privately own lumber forests and marble
quarries, and buy labor-power;

The other class work in the lumber forests and marble
quarries, and sell labor-power.

One class privately own cotton mills, steel mills, and
flour mills, etc., and buy labor-power.

The other class work in cotton mills, steel mills, and flour
mills, etc., and sell labor-power.

One class privately own railroads and buy labor-power;

The other class work on railroads and sell labor-power.

Or, to say it briefly.

One class, the capitalist class, privately own the chief
material means of production — and buy labor-power.

The other class, the working class, use the chief material
means of production — and sell labor power.

Surely you can see that there are two industrial classes.

There are, under capitalism, not only two industrial classes,
but also two social classes. Industrial classes become social classes.

Johan Kaspar Bluntschli, one of Germany's most eminent writers
on political science, has this to say:

"Classes have very often been founded on the basis of property.
In these constitutions . . . property becomes the determining political
force, and citizens are valued by amount of their income. . . . The
Proletariate . . . consists mainly of the waste of other classes, of
those fractions of the population who, by their isolation and their
poverty, have no place in the established order of society." [That is,
they are in no commanding relation to the industrially vital prop-
erty.]*

See The Theory of the State, Bk. II., Chs. 17, 18.

276 WAR— WHAT FOR?

"Conversely, social rank depends on economic conditions; tlie
state is made . . • conservative ... by the economic interests at its
foundation. . . .

"Perhaps its [property's] most important social eflFect has
come to be the fact that the possession of property is so generally
the basis of social differentiation. In earlier times, physical force,
later, institutions of caste, were the basis of differentiation in so-
ciety; wealth is the most universally recognized source of power,
so that social rank is often determined by the possession of wealth."
— Professor Fairbanks, Yale University.*

And now the second proposition: Are these industries
and the other industries really operated for the special bene-
fit of part of society? The answer is clear in the following
illustration :

If the profits on all these industries should, during the
next twelve months, rise two billion dollars higher than usual,
would the wages of the workers engaged in these industries be
increased in that proportion? Most certainly they would not.
You know very well they would not. But why not? Simply
because these industries, like all other industries, are, under
capitalism, operated for the special benefit of those, the capi-
talist class, who privately own these industries and buy labor-
power, and, by this arrangement, live on profits, — on sur-
plus value.f

And, finally, the third proposition : Do the industrial in-
terests of these two industrial classes fundamentally conflict?
Perhaps the answer will be clear in the following homely
illustration :

If you are selling a horse, you wish to sell him for — say
$300. But the buyer of the horse wishes to buy the horse for,
say, $150.

Clearly there is a conflict of interests between the buyer of
the horse and the seller of the horse.

A wage-earner selling labor-power wishes to sell, say, eight
hours labor-power for $6.

The capitalist employer buying labor-power wishes to buy.

\

f

* Introduction to Sociology, pp. 132-36.
•{■ See Chapter Three, The Explanation.

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 277

say, nine hours labor-power for $2.50 — in order to get the
surplus value — that fascinating surplus.

Thus there is a fundamental conflict between the in-
dustrial interests of this buyer of labor power and the in-
dustrial interests of this seller of labor-power.

And it is just so with the two industrial classes.

There is a fundamental conflict of industrial interests be-
tween the employer class buying labor-power and the work-
ing class selling labor-power.

Between these two industrial classes there is a struggle,
a class struggle — to defend their conflicting industrial in-
terests.

This class struggle takes on many different forms — but
it is always the same thing down at the bottom — a class
struggle in industry.

The three propositions explained above are most im-
portant. A clear understanding of these three propositions
always — always — revolutionizes the 'political thinking of the
working class man, or woman, who has not, before, under-
stood them. These three truths destroy old political preju-
dices and customs, cut the reins by which the political trick-
sters misguide the workers, clear the air of "hot air," reveal
the blind alleys of old party politics, point the road to power
and freedom for the working class, and make a rock-bot-
tom foundation for a working class political philosophy and
policy and tactics.

The capitalist class {who rule and ruin the toilers) re-
gard these three truths as more dangerous than any other, or
all other, teachings that ever reach the working class mind.
It is to the capitalists' interest that the workers should not
learn these three truths. But it is to the interest of the work-
ing class that the working class should learn these three
truths.

With these three primary facts of present society clearly
in mind let us proceed.

In addition to their powerful position as capitalist
OWNERS OE THE. MEAIsTS. oj PR.ODUc.xi.ON, the Capitalist class.

278 WAB—WHAT FOR?

have three special advantages over the working chiss in this
class struggle:

(1) The caj^italist class are more class conscious than
the working class are — at present. That is, the capitalists
more distinctly realize that, as capitalists, they constitute a
class — with class interests to defend.

(2) The capitalists, because they are more class con-
scious, are, naturally, more class loyal than the working class
are — at present. In obedience to the biological law of self-
preservatioti, a class, as well as an individual, will defend
themselves, as a class — that is, will be class loyal — in propor-
tion as they are class conscious, or in proportion as they are
aware of and understand the interests of their class. Tho'
the capitalists understand that they are a class with class
interests, they are always cooing softly to all workers who are
ignorant enough to listen, cooing sweetly about "no classes,"
"all in the same boat," "harmony of interests," "Capital and
Labor are brothers," etc.

(3) The capitalists study tactics of class warfare —
tactics of industrial struggle, far more than the working class
do — at present. Being more class conscious and therefore
more class loyal and consequently more eager, as a class, for
self-defense, the capitalist class naturally study more pa-
tiently the ways and means for their own class defense. And
because they do study more they really know more — at present
— about politics, about the game called the class struggle,
about the art of self-defense, class defense in industry.*

In all the modern forms of this unhappy class struggle,
one phase of which is called war, the capitalist class are awake
and watchful, united and victorious — seated in the saddle
of power at the head of the procession; and the working
class are drowsy and confused, divided and defeated — limp-

* "Classes differ in readiness to twist social control to their
own advantage. ... In general, the more distinct, knit together,
and self-conscious the influential minority, the more likely is social
control to be colored witli class selfishness." — Professor E. A. Ross,
Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Social Control,
p. 86.

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 279

ing afoot and ridiculous at the tail end of the grand march of
the world's affairs.

All great military leaders in all wars — in all struggles —
in all time have always used the two following tactics :

First: Divide the enemy, if possible, and have them
crush one another; or,

Second: If circumstances hinder the first tactics, then
divide the enemy and crush them one part at a time.

And the captains of industry, the capitalists, right now
employ these tactics with success. They themselves band
together, but they divide and rule the working class. More
class conscious, more class loyal and more studious of the
ways and means of struggle than the working class are, the
capitalist class proceed as follows :

(A) On the Economic Field the capitalists divide the
working class and have them fight one another; and thus the
capitalist class are easily able to defeat and fleece the work-
ers all the time, everywhere. The workers, having no part
in the ownership of the means of production and being thus
divorced from a commanding relation to the economic founda-
tions of society, craftily fooled with false teaching of "capital-
and-labor-harmony-of-interests," sore and humble with dis-
appointment, whipped with the lash of hunger, stung to des-
peration, confused and traduced by bribed pets, spies and
traitors, — the workers angrily, blindly, split up into jealous
groups, shamefully turn against one another, fight one an-
other, under-bid one another, "scab" on one another, desert
one another, — defeat one another. Moreover one part of the
working class is flattered and cheaply bribed into volunteer-
ing to organize and arm themselves and proudly stand guard
over their brothers and against their brothers; and thus the
workers spy and inform on one another, arrest one another,
jail one another, "bull pen" one another, bayonet one
another and shoot one another — under the capitalist sys-
tem— the present class-labor system.

The working class, of course, are thus easily defeated and
robbed industrially.

278 WAR— WHAT FOR?

have three special advantages over the working class in this
class struggle:

(1) The capitalist class are more class conscious than
the working class are — at present. That is, the capitalists
more distinctly realize that, as capitalists, they constitute a
class — with class interests to defend.

(2) The capitalists, because they are more class con-
scious, are, naturally, more class loyal than the working class
are — at present. In obedience to the biological laiv of self-
preservation, a class, as well as an individual, will defend
themselves, as a class — that is, will be class loyal — in propor-
tion as they are class conscious, or in proportion as they are
aware of and understand the interests of their class. Tho'
the capitalists understand that they are a class with class
interests, they are always cooing softly to all workers who are
ignorant enough to listen, cooing sweetly about "no classes,"
"all in the same boat," "harmony of interests," "Capital and
Labor are brothers," etc.

(3) The capitalists study tactics of class warfare —
tactics of industrial struggle, far more than the working class
do — at present. Being more class conscious and therefore
more class loyal and consequently more eager, as a class, for
self-defense, the capitalist class naturally study more pa-
tiently the ways and means for their own class defense. And
because they do study more they really Icnoiv more — at present
— about politics, about the game called the class struggle,
about the art of self-defense, class defense in industry*

In all the modern forms of this unhappy class struggle,
one phase of which is called war, the capitalist class are awake
and watchful, united and victorious — seated in the saddle
of power at the head of the procession; and the working
class are drowsy and confused, divided and defeated — limp-

* "Classes diflfer in readiness to twist social control to their
own advantage. ... In general, the more distinct, knit together,
and self-conscious the influential minority, the more likely is social
control to be colored with class selfishness." — Professor E. A. Ross,
Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Social Control,
p. 86.

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 279

ing afoot and ridiculous at the tail end of the grand march of
the world's affairs.

All great military leaders in all wars — in all struggles —
in all time have always used the two following tactics :

First: Divide the enemy, if possible, and have them
crush one another; or.

Second: If circumstances hinder the first tactics, then
divide the enemy and crush them one part at a time.

And the captains of industry, the capitalists, right now
employ these tactics with success. They themselves band
together, but they divide and rule the working class. More
class conscious, more class loyal and more studious of the
ways and means of struggle than the working class are, the
capitalist class proceed as follows:

(A) On the Economic Field the capitalists divide the
working class and have them fight one another; and thus the
capitalist class are easily able to defeat and fleece the work-
ers all the time, everywhere. The workers, having no part
in the ownership of the means of production and being thus
divorced from a commanding relation to the economic founda-
tions of society, craftily fooled with false teaching of "capital-
and-labor-harmony-of-interests," sore and humble with dis-
appointment, whipped with the lash of hunger, stung to des-
peration, confused and traduced by bribed pets, spies and
traitors, — the workers angrily^ blindly, split up into jealous
groups, shamefully turn against one another, fight one an-
other, under-bid one another, "scab" on one another, desert
one another, — defeat one another. Moreover one part of the
working class is flattered and cheaply bribed into volunteer-
ing to organize and arm themselves and proudly stand guard
over their brothers and against their brothers; and thus the
workers spy and inform on one another, arrest one another,
jail one another, "bull pen" one another, bayonet one
another and shoot one another — under the capitalist sys-
tem— the present class-labor system.

The working class, of course, are thus easily defeated and
robbed industrially.

282 WAR— WHAT FOR?

This form of society may properly be called an industrial
democracy.

The purpose of this form of society is the welfare of all
the members of society.

Under this form of society there would be no industrial
classes; and therefore, class robbery would not be and could
not be organized, legalized and easy.

Second Possible Form of Social Organization: On
the Plan of Antagonism — that is, with a CZass-Labor System
— under which the industrial foundations of society are
PRIVATE PROPERTY, — privately owned by one class and pro-
ductively used by the other class.

Society can, indeed, be organized for the performance of
this great industrial function of production on the plan of a
class-labor system — one part of society being in the strategic
position of industrial masters, a ruling class, their mastery
being due to the fact that they own as private property the
chief material means of production; — the other part of so-
ciety being in the helpless position of industrial dependents, a
working class, — their industrial dependence being due to the
fact that they have no effective share in the ownership and
control of the chief material means of production.

This form of society we may properly call an industrial
despotism.

The purpose of this form of society is the special welfare
of part of the members of society.

Under this class-labor form of society, class robbery is
organized, legalized, and easy.

The foundation institution of all despotism is the institu-
tion of private property in the economic foundations of so-
ciety— that is, in the means of production. This is the rock-
bottom of organized, legalized and easy robbery of the work-
ers by the shirkers.

Historically society has been organized in a class-labor
form in three different ways, — as follows:

(1) Chattel slavery, instituted thousands of years
ago, was a c/rt.^s-lalior system, — an organized, legalized op-
portunity for wholesale class robber}- : and under that form

WHAT IS 11 ALL WE BO? 283

of class-labor system, with class robbery legally arranged for,
class robbery was, of course, respectable, profitable and easy —
and therefore inevitable.

Peace was impossible.

The purpose of this form of society was unsocial.

Under this form of society the masters were in legal pos-
session of the means of production and also of the forts,
courts, and legislatures (such as existed) ; and were thus in
perfect position to defend and extend their industrial robbery.

The chattel slave owners were thus parasites, aggressive
social parasites.

That is admitted.*

(2) Serfdom, common in Europe only a hundred years
ago, was also a class-labor system — an organized, legalized
opportunity for wholesale class robbery ; and under that form
of class-labor system, with class robbery legally arranged for,
class robbery was, of course respectable, profitable and easy
— and therefore inevitable.

Peace was impossible.

The purpose of this form of society was unsocial.

Under this form the masters were still in legal possession
of the means of production and also of the forts, courts and
legislatures, and were thus in perfect position to defend and
extend their industrial robbery.

The landlords-and-masters of the ancient serfs wer6 thus
also parasites, aggressive social parasites.

That is admitted.

(3) Capitalism, the present system, is also a class-
labor system, an organized, legalized opportunity for whole-
sale class robbery; and under this form of class-labor system,
with class robbery legally arranged for, class robbery is to-
day, of course, altogether respectable, abundantly profitable
and temptingly easy — and therefore, naturally, inevitable.

The purpose of the present capitalist form of society is

* See Chapter Eleven for suggestions on the origin of large-
scale parasitic aggression ; and on the origin and history of the work-
ing class and of the class-labor form of society.

284 WAR— WHAT FOR?

the special welfare of only a part of society, the capitalist
class, and is, therefore, an unsocial purpose.

Peace is impossible — while capitalism lasts.

Under this form of society the masters, the capitalist
class, are in possession of the means of production ; that is, in
legal possession of the industrial foundations of society, and
also in legal control of the arsenals, cannon, soldiers, forts,
courts and legislatures, and are thus in perfect position to
defend and extend their industrial robbery.

The capitalists (so far as they receive social irwomes with-
out rendering equivalent social service) are thus parasites,
aggressive social parasites. (See footnote, pages 298-99.)

That is admitted. That is admitted, explained and con-
demned even by the President of the American Sociological
Society, Dr. Lester F. Ward, Professor of Sociology in
Brown University.*

* See Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., pp. 581-97; Psychic Factors in
Civilization, Chapter 24.

Note carefully the quotation on methods of social parasites at
the head of the present chapter from Dr. Ross's Social Control.
Professor Ross is generally recognized as one of the most profound
and brilliant writers on Sociology.

It is important to consider, too, that, as a Socialist, Dr.
Franklin H. Giddings, Head of Department of Sociology in Co-
lumbia University, recognizes the capitalist class's parasitic relation
to society. Dr. Giddings is recognized in all the universities of the
world as having few equals as a sociologist.

The social parasites of the world will never forgive the learned
Socialist, Dr. Thorstein Veblen, recently of the University of
Chicago, for writing his bold and astonishing book. The Theory of
the Leisure Class. The screaming mockeries and glittering pre-
tentions of the "princely-fortune" parasites of capitalism are merci-
lessly explained by him.

It is noteworthy too that the Editor-in-Chief of the American
Journal of Sociology, and Head of the Department of Sociology in
the University of Chicago, Dr. Albion W. Small, has for many years
been calling attention, in lectures, to the parasitic nature of oh'
of the forms of capitalist income, thus: "There is no moral justi-
fication for the taking of interest incomes." In his General So-
ciology, pp. 268-69, Dr. Small says: "In the first place, capital
produces nothing. It earns nothing." See also his suggestions on

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 285

This parasitism of capitalism is easily seen in this way:

Wealth equivalent to three hundred and sixty-nine tons
of gold ($200,000,000) was given by inheritance to William
H. Vanderbilt's eight children.'*

If the daughter of John D. RocJcefeller, senior, should hy
inheritance receive one-half of the present six-hundred-mil-
lion-dollar fortune, she would receive, without rendering any
service whatever, wealth equivalent to five hundred and fifty-
three tons of gold.

Billions of dollars' wortli of mines, railways, factories,
forests and other means of production, will, by inheritance,
without function, — that is, without service — legally fall into
the hands of the children of the present capitalist class,
Avhether those children are intelligent, virtuous and indus-
trious, or stupid, vicious and lazy. And thus, like the children
of kings and nobles, they will be in position to win the race
of life without running, in position to prey upon others in the
struggle for existence, in legal position to procure substance
without service.

This whole vast scheme of robbery — social parasitism — is
"correct" and "proper," — that is, the process is elaborately

LEGALIZED.

Parasitism is robbery.

Parasitism does not cease to be parasitism, nor does rob-
bery cease to be robbery, when, like chattel slavery, it shrewd-
ly gets itself organized, baptized and legalized as an "emi-
nently respectable" and profltahle righteous institution for
committing perpetual grand larceny.^

Thus at present, as in the past under slavery, as in the
past under serfdom, the ruling class, as intelligent parasites,
prepare for class aggression, prepare for class robbery. They

social parasites on page 266, where he is clearly in considerable
degree in agreement with Dr. Ward.

Gustavus Myers' History of Great American Fortunes is here
again commended as an extraordinary record of remarkable social
parasitism in American history.

* See Twenty-Eight Years in Wall Street, p. 388 ; by Henry
Clews, a very well known banker of Wall Street.

■j- See Chapter Three, "Explanation" — Surplus.

286 WAR— WHAT FOB?

as a class create and secure their opportnnit}'^ for legally rob-
bing the producing class by arranging to control the industrial
structure of society and thus control the performance of the
industrial function — that is, the fundamental function, the
first function, of society.

The ruled and robbed working class must get it in mind
distinctly and unforgetably that the foundation of all class-
labor forms of society, that which gives to part of society the
control of society, the foundation upon which industrial para-
sitism rests, the substructure of all despotism — is the in-
stitution of private property in the chief material means of
production. This institution splits society into two
CLASSES, namely, the producers and the parasites. Political
parties do not create classes. Political parties are a conse-
quence of industrial classes and are intended to defend in-
dustrial classes. Sometimes, to make sure of victory, the
capitalist class have several political parties in the field —
under shrewdly confusing names.

A class-labor system, any class-labor system, all class-
labor systems — provide, by means of institutions, the legal
conditions and opportunities at the industrial foundations of
society for part of society, a class, to act directly or indi-
rectly as parasites; and it is entirely natural that that part
of society, in pursuing their own interests, should use their
opportunity to act like parasites. And it is entirely natural
also that there should be resistance by the producers, and
therefore class struggle, class war. Indeed all class-labor
forms of society are industrially so brutally unjust and there-
fore so irritating that the largest fact in such societies is an
eternal, internal, infernal conflict of industrial class interests
— <an endless civil war in industry, a class war, a class
struggle, around and around the industrial foundations of
society. (See pages 167-70.)

Antagonism is thus in the Structure of class-iorra society.

This helps to an understanding of past and present con-
flicts.

It becomes evident that the source of war is to be found
at the industrial foundations of society.

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 287

War — war broadly considered — the class struggle,
throughout the history of civilized society is no more and no
less than the natural aggressive robbery by a part of society
provided with an opportunity to rob and the natural resistance
of the class that is robbed.

War, the war, is aggression and resistance — robbery

AND resistance — PLUNDER AND PROTEST : —

(1) The aggressive industrial robbery by one class, and

(2) The resistance to industrial robbery by the other
class.

Not only in the history of civilized peoples everywhere for
thousands of years, but also in our own present-day capitalist
society everywhere, we see this natural aggression and natural
resistance.

The result to-day — as in the past — is struggle, war, class
war — between the parasites and the producers.

The war is the class war.

Modern "foreign" wars are simply contests between dif-
ferent groups of capitalists (the workers of course doing the
fighting and bleeding) to extend the area of opportunity for
industrial class robbery, and are thus simply phases and ex-
tensions of the class war.

War, then, begins with aggression, continues with aggres-
sion ; and is at present extended by aggressive foreign wars of
industrial or commercial conquest.

To summarize.

(a) War, conflict, class aggression and class resist(mc&,
are inherent in all class-labor forms of society.

(&) Capitalism is a class-labor form of society.

(c) Therefore, under capitalism there will be, there
must be as long as capitalism lasts — class aggression and
class resistance, class conflict — class war.

The conclusion cannot be dodged: Peace is impos-
sible— under capitalism.

A million sermons and a million peace talk-fests cannot
heal the smarting wounds in the robbed toiler's breast; can-
not pull the fangs of the capitalists from the flesh of the

288 WAR— WHAT F0R9

toilers, as long as capitalism lasts. Organized eloquence can
not stop a cannon ball or persuade the rulers to resign.

Under capitalism, as under slavery and serfdom, the em-
ployers are in a position down at the indtistrial foundations
of society to legally filch their livings from the working class
— thus: — the capitalists privately own and privately control
the means of production — the things the workers must use
in getting a living. Like leeches the capitalist class are thus
fastened to the very foundations of society. Here at the
industrial foundations of society the industrial blood of so-
ciety, wealth, is produced. And here are the leeches; and
here they are in absolute control of the industrial blood of
society. And it is natural, entirely natural, that here, in
such position with such opportunity, they should, like leeches,
suck this industrial blood, that is, behave like parasites.

The capitalists — with society arranged in this manner —
are indeed in position to rob the world wholesale, in position
to hold up all the weary producers on all the earth.

This organized, legalized hold-up and the resistance to
this hold-up — this is war, the war.

The policeman, the militiaman, the cossack and the sol-
dier are all always ready to rush upon the world's stage to
serve.

To serve whom ?

In all the conflicts due to class-labor forms of society,
the ruling class, as already indicated, have always a heavy
social fist, a social weapon — an armed guard, such as militia,
heavy police forces, and standing armies to extend the robbery
and to protect the industrial ruling class in their unjust, un-
social position of legalized robbers of the working class.
All talk, all hope, all prayer, for peace and quiet and harmony
are idle as long as society is unjustly organized — that is,
unsocially organized, down at its very foundations, one part of
society being in the position of industrial masters, the other
part of society being in the position of industrial dependents.
The yawning chasm in society thus created between the two
warring classes — can never he bridged with wishes, hopes and
prayers, nor hy peace conferences dominated by profit-stuffed

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 289

masters and their well-fed intellectual serfs wJio dare not
admit the fundamental cause of war*

Thus it becomes clear what the future has for the
working class — while capitalism lasts:

In spite of all the sincere and insincere hopes and prayers
for peace there will always be, under capitalism, legalized
wholesale plundering of the workers by the capitalist employ-
ers— a form of aggressive social parasitism by the employers
and vigorous resistance by the workers in proportion to their
realization of the robbery; — and consequently there will be
wage struggles, wage reductions, compulsory under-consump-
tion, "over-production," unemployment, bread lines, soup
kitchens, rent riots, evictions, "demand-work" marches.

* Andrew Carnegie is a sample of a profit-stuflFed tyrant whose
parasitic industrial income is tens of millions per year without
rendering industrial service, whose legally parasitic heirs, ren-
dering no industrial service, will, like leeches, suck up many
millions per year. The audacity of his hypocrisy is typical of
his class. In recent international peace congresses Carnegie has
been steadily grinning and chattering in the spot light. But study
this man for a moment:

( 1 ) In the Homestead industrial civil war, in 1892, Pinkertons
received $5 per day and expenses for murdering Carnegie steel
workers.

(2) The Carnegie Company furnished the Russian Government
steel armor for warships at about one-half the price the same com-
pany patriotically charged Carnegie's own dear, dear country.

(3) "Our records show that the companies governed by Mr.
Carnegie received more rebates [in anarchistic defiance of Ms coun-
try's laws] during the time when rebates were given by our road,
than any other shipper in any line of business." — First Vicf^-Presi-
dent Green of the Pennsylvania Railway Company. Quoted in the
New York Independent.

(4) This same crafty gentleman recently provided enormous
old-age pension funds for college and university professors. This
will perhaps tightly seal the lips of thousands of teachers on the
raging civil war in industry in which war Carnegie is already a
blood-stained tzar. Fearing to lose their old age pensions, teachers
may find it easier and more "respectable" to desert the working
class in its struggle against the capitalist class — Carnegie's class.
(See Index: "Hague Peace Conference" j also Chapter Two, pages
24-25.

290 WAR— WHAT FOB?

strikes, picketing, "scabbing/' boycotting, lockouts, injunc-
tions, "bull-pens," blacklisting, insterstate kidnapping; and
also anti-picket thugs, — policemen, Pinkertons, deputy sheriffs,
constabulary, cossacks, militiamen and the "regulars" shooting
down underpaid, underfed workers; everywhere the belittled
lives and the spilt blood of the working class.*

And there will be increasing opposition to free assem-
blage, opposition to free speech, opposition to free press — in
order to silence discussion and stop the spread of knowledge
of what is fundamentally wrong.

Also there will continue to be, from time to time, natur-
ally, under capitalism, wars of conquest to widen the field
of exploitation — to enlarge the opportunity for aggressive
social parasitism, — wars to open up foreign markets, wars to
protect foreign markets for products which the producers'
wages will not permit them to consume and the employers
are not able to consume; — and everywhere the world will be
stormy with the stirring trumpet call, "To arms ! To arms !"
— stormy with the crafty and confusing cry, "To the front!
To the front ! The flag !" — stormy with the shrilling fife,
the roll of drums, the rattle of musketry, the flash of swords,
the booming roar of cannon, burning cities, sinking war-
ships and the thundering tread of galloping cavalry horses, —
the class struggle in a thousand visible bitter forms, — and
everywhere windrows and ditchfuls of dead men, dead working
men, everywhere the torn flesh, the slit veins, the streaming
blood and tears of the M'orking class : hell everywhere except in
the homes of our "very best people" who in times of trouble as
in times of peace are always calmly feeding (like leeches

* "If, however, there occurs some general industrial disturbance
of a serious sort, such as a condition of over-production, ... it is
likely to turn out that these vocational groupings will be weakened
or even destroyed. In their place the economic classes will enter the
political arena, and carry on the conflict with great energy. . . .
It may be that the standard of life of an industrial class may be
so seriously threatened that this class struggle will reach the ex-
treme of absolute hostility." — Professor Albion W. Small, Head of
Department of Sociology, University of Chicago: General Sociology,
p. 264. Italics mine. G. R. K.

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 291

ever feeding) on the surplus legally filched from the working
class.

Thus capitalist society is everywhere cursed with a
festering social sore, an unhealable sore, poisoning, withering
the best things in society, blasting the finer forms and feelings
of brotherhood and peace. Everywhere the lives of the toilers
are vulgarized and brutalized and wasted. And all these
things will always be natural and unescapable facts and parts
of any class-labor form of society, an unsocially organized
society, with injustice organized, legalized and easy, down
deep in the industrial foundations of society, — ever an end-
less civil war in industry between the two, the only two, in-
dustrial classes.

Now what shall we do about it ?

It is as plain as "a, b, c."

War and all the forms of the class struggle are excessive
social inflammation.*

(a) Injustice violently inflames society.

(b) Social parasitism is monstrously unjust.

(e) Social parasitism therefore inflames society — and
should be destroyed.

(a) Any form of society that produces and protects a
class of social parasites will always inflame society, and should
therefore be destroyed.

(b) Capitalism produces and protects a class of social
parasites, and thus inflames society.

(c) Capitalism must therefore be destroyed.

Justice soothes society.

Society must be organized with justice in its structure.
We must search for justice — for a new social structure.
We must construct a form of society that will "make it
easier to do right and more difficult to do wrong.^f
Shall we be non-resistant?
No, emphatically, no.

* Reread first page of Preface,
t William E. Gladstone.

292 WAR—WHAT FOR?

Non-resistance is not natural (especially for the class con-
scious workers) — for workers who understand their interests
as a class; and non-resistance is not reasonable, is not safe,
and is not possible. Non-resistance would mean defeat and
degradation for the working class — forever.*

Then is peace a childish dream and is war to be an end-
less wrangle and blood-spilling nightmare — for the working
class ?

No — ^not necessarily.

We must resist.

But we should not resist first and only by physical force.

The working class must think — or they will have to
struggle and bleed and weep and wait forever, — wait and
whimper like babies in the woods for "some one" or some
"good people" to come and "save" them.

The workers must think till they find a form of social
organization in which the fundamental cause of war, that is,
class robbery, will have no opportunity, and will therefore
cease to exist.

What Dr. Ward calls the "spirit of aggression" will fade
and finally expire when the condition (the parasitic opportu-
nity) which cultivates the "spirit of aggression" is destroyed.

The founders of the American republic resisted fear-
lessly, hy force too. But the worhing class in the United
States at presemt should not, and cannot now, with advantage,
resist hy force and force alone, and that for very good rea^
so7is:

First : — We of the working class in the United States have
now for our own class defense another, and better, form of
power, a form of power less dangerous, less expensive, quieter
and more legal and therefore more strategic, — a form of
power that makes the capitalist class dread the awakening of
the working class; namely, our political power — our united
ballots.

* ". . . Non-resistance would be fatal. ... If ever war is
done away, it will be when the spirit of aggression, not of protec-
tion, shall have been quenched." — Lester F. Ward: Dynamic Sociol-
ogy, Vol. I., p. 684.

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 293

Second : — Until we are intelligent enough to strategically
defend our class with our united ballots we shall be too dull,
even if it should be necessary, to use force of arms success-
fully in defense of our class. It seems unwise to counsel
the use of the ruder methods of armed force until, having
developed the necessary intelligence, we have by trial fairly
tested our peace powers, our political powers — our united
ballots. (See special paragraph, page 303.)

Third : — We are not politically prepared, — that is, we are
not legally in possession of the powers of government,
and therefore we are not in strong position to protect our
class with all our forms of power legally. And until we are
prepared we shall be used and abused.

Thus it is evident we can not, with advantage, use physical
force.

What must we do?

We must destroy capitalism and close the class struggle.

In all the variations of the struggles or wars of capitalism
the working class are hired, flattered, fooled, or forced to do
all the actual fighting.

This must cease — as soon as possible — as a preliminary.

This will cease — when the conscious workers successfully
explain.' capitalism and war to the confused and deluded work-
ers. War will cease when we have explained the national and
international conspiracy of the capitalist class.

War will cease when we rouse the workers of the world hy
explaining.

By explaining we inform.

By informing we increase intelligence.

By increasing intelligence we increase self-respect and the
passion for a greater life and for the freedom necessary for a
greater life.

Therefore,

Explain — inside and outside the ranks — everywhere — in
shop, mill, mine and on the farm.

Explain till emperors and presidents dread their own
conscripted and "volunteer" armies.

294 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Explain till murder for board and clothes and $16 a
month looks vile.

Explain till young working-class men inside and outside
the ranks see the light.

Explain till an advertisement for human butchers and
military fists becomes utterly disgusting to the working class.

Explain till our class becomes class conscious — till it sees
itself, sees its class interest and its class power.

Explain till our class can not be fooled, hired, flattered or
forced to butcher or be butchered.

Explain till our class, like the capitalist class, understand
the political method of class defense.

Explain till millions of the roused workers of all political
parties clasp hands at the ballot box in a political party of
their own class for the defiant self-defense of their own class.

Explain till our class clearly sees and proudly declares
that we must destroy the capitalist class-labor form of so-
ciety and reconstruct society on a plan of rational mutual-
ism.*

All such explanations, all such teachings tend powerfully
to rouse the working class to a consciousness of themselves,
make them eager to defend themselves, both on the industrial
field and on the political field — with all their forms of power.

Chattel slavery has been destroyed. Certainly. Why not ?

Serfdom has been destroyed. Of course. Why not ?

Capitalism must be destroyed. Of course

What ! Shall we destroy the rich men, the capitalists ?

No, of course not.

That would not be fair. Capitalists are capitalists legally
— permitted by the working class.

By politically created laws and institutions capitalists are
legally in position to rule and rob the working class.

And by politically created laws and institutions the ruling
class shall cease to be in that position.

The personal destruction of thousands, or hundreds of
thousands of capitalists would not in the least degree mend

See Chapter Seven, Section 12,

WHAT SHALL \YE DO? 295

matters. The children of chattel slave owners became slave
owners by the politically created laws of inheritance. Just so
the children of capitalists become capitalists through neither
virtue nor vice of theirs — they become capitalists through
politically created laws of inheritance.

The legal right to own privately the industrial founda-
tions of society must be destroyed, legally. If the capitalists
should hecome anarchists and illegally resist legal methods
they could not reasonably object to having their own laws
against anarchists applied to themselves vigorously.

Of course it is true that the capitalists fleece the workers
of surplus value all the time, and many of the capitalists
are malignant and cruel toward the workers and by a thou-
sand persecutions invite their own personal destruction. Some
of the capitalists have destroyed themselves, have committed
suicide, to escape the disgrace of their crimes. Some capi-
talists are now in the penitentiary; many more capi-
talists should be in the penitentiary — as many of their own
class confess; a far larger number of capitalists, if the laws
were enforced, would promptly leave the country to keep out
of the penitentiary — some have done so; and a large number
of capitalists are also bribing juries and prosecuting attorneys
in order to avoid the penitentiary; many prominent business
men, trust magnates, have had the anti-trust law changed to
enable them to more easily avoid the penitentiary — so Presi-
dent Taft said in Columbus, Ohio, August 19, 1907.*

* William Howard Taft: Present-Day Problems, pp. 162-63: —
". . . It is also true that had the Elkins bill never been passed,
the same acts could and doubtless Avould have been prosecuted . . .
under the Interstate Commerce Act of 1889 which the Elkins law
supplanted. . . . Under the 1889 amendment, liowever, the individuals
convicted could have been sent to the penitentiary, whereas under
the Elkins Act the punishment by imprisonment was taken away.
. . . The chief effect of the Elkins law had on these particular prose-
cutions . . . was ... to save the guilty individual perpetrators
from imprisonment.

"It was well understood that the Elkins bill was passed without
opposition by, and with the full consent of, the railroads, and the
chief reason was the elimination of the penitentiary penalty for

I

296 WAR— WHAT FOR?

And the capitalist class outrage the working class in a
thousand ways. This is all true. The multitude of capitalist
outrages are sufficient to provoke revenge. But we do not
seek revenge. Eevenge is not fine. Eevenge is not noble.
Moreover we cannot escape war by means of revenge, and, still
more important, rich men and women are not a form of so-
ciety. They are members of society and they behave na-
turally— under the circumstances; that is, being a ruling class
in a class-form society, they behave as masters.

Capitalism as a form of society must be destroyed.

unjust discriminations. . . . The imprisonment of two or three
prominent officers of a railway company, or a trust . . . would have
greater deterrent effect for the future than millions in a fine."

Theodore Roosevelt knows a good deal about the capitalist
class. He wrote on pages 5, 6, 9, 10 of his book, American Ideals,
as follows:

"The people that do harm in the end are not the wrong-doer
whom all execrate. . . . The career of Benedict Arnold has done
us no harm as a nation. . . . The foes of order harm quite as much
by example as by what they actually accomplish. So it is with the
equally dangerous criminals of the wealthy classes. The conscience-
less stock speculator who acquires wealth by swindling his fellows,
by debauching judges, and corrupting legislatures, and who ends his
days with the reputation of being among the richest men in America,
exerts over the minds of the rising generation an influence worse
than that of the average murderer or bandit, because his career is
even more dazzling in its success, and even more dangerous in its
effects upon the community. Any one who reads the essays of
Charles Francis Adams and Henry Adams, entitled A Chapter of
Erie, and the Gold Conspiracy in New York, will read about the
doings of men whose influence for evil upon the community is more
potent than that of any band of anarchists or train robbers. . . .
Too much cannot be said against men who sacrifice everything to
getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character
than the mere money getting American, insensible to every duty, re-
gardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortvme . . .
whether ... to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or
to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and
gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social posi-
tion, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the
more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a
college or cndoicing a church which makes those good people, who
are also foolish, forget his real iniquity." Italics mine, G. R. K.

WHAT SHALL WE DO 9 297

Is it meant that we shall destroy the means of produc-
tion— the mills, mines, forests, railroads and such things?

Certainly not. The means of production are material,
mechanical things. They are not a form of society.

What then? Are we to "destroy society"? Are we to
turn society upside down, inside out and "other end to," —
suddenly — "some dark night," so to speak?

Not at all.

Here is what we must do: — Rapidly, just as rapidlv as
possible we must destroy the present class-labor form of so-
ciety called capitalism, — and to do this we must striJce at
and strike out the foundation of the capitalist form of society.

But what is the foundation of this capitalist cZass-labor
form of society?

As already pointed out, the foundation of capitalism is
the institution of private property in the means of production.

The capitalists, the employers, the ruling class, stand
legally between the means of production and the users of the
means of production; thus a legal obstruction is raised be-
tween the workers and the things they work with in getting
a living.

The capitalist class legally control the conditions under
which the workers may use the means of production.

The capitalist class are in a legalized parasitic relation
or connection to the means of production.

This relation is the key-stone in the arch of capitalism ;
this relation is the prime element in the present form of
society.

This parasitic relation enables the capitalists to rule, rob
and ruin the working class all the time everywhere.

This relation must be destroyed; this despotic, parasitic
relation must be cut.

The capitalist class must be legally pared off, legally
pushed off, legally shorn from, the chief material means of
production — as private owners.

Yes, this robbery, this organized, legalized robbery called
capitalism — must be destroyed.

"The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast com-

298 WAR— WHAT FOR?

binations of capital, which have marked the development of our
industrial system, create new conditions and necessitate a change
from the old attitude of the state and nation toward property."*

The case, the circumstances, require unflinching social
surgery.

You believe in surgery, don't you. Of course you do.
Surgery is recognized the world over as a rational and neces-
sary means of saving life, the life of the individual.

Well, extend the application of the principle and practice
of surgery to society — to the social body.f

Parasites never voluntarily let go their grasp on the
source of their lives, never voluntarily let go the living things
from which they suck their livings. And the parasitic capi-
talist class will stick to the means of production, as private
owners, till they are legally dislodged — shorn from the means
of production. What is here written concerning social para-
sites should not be misunderstood as malicious reflection on
the ancient slave owner or the ancient feudal landlord or the
modern capitalist. In the course of human evolution the ap-
pearance and activity of social parasites has been — and is
now — as natural as the appearance and activity of parasites
in the lower animal world and in the vegetable world. And
the effort to dislodge human parasites from society should be,
as far as is humanly possible, free from personal malice.X

* Theodore Roosevelt: in a speech at the State Fair, Minne-
apolis, Minnesota, September 3, 1901.

f "If the public economy of a people be an organism, we must
expect to find that the perturbations, which affect it, present some
analogies to the diseases of the body physical. We may, therefore,
hope to learn much that may be of use in practice, from the tried
methods of medicine." Roscher: Political Economy, Vol. I., pp.
85-86.

Jit must be added for the sake of clearness (and fairness) :

( 1 ) Tliat some members of the capitalist class detest the cap-
italist system; that these regret their unsocial relation to the social
body; and that while they are living under the capitalist system
they are in somewhat the same difficulty that a democrat is in
Russia. One can believe in democracy in Russia, but he can not
practice democracy under the autocratic form of Russian govern-

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 399

However, on the farm, in the care of plants and animals
no matter how small or helpless or innocent or beautiful
parasites may be which interfere with the wheat crop or the
flock of sheep, the parasites must be dislodged — rigorously
and promptly. And, in society, no matter how handsome,
polite, pious, learned, philanthropic, or ancestrally distin-
guished and blue-blooded a human parasite may be who lives
on the labor of the workers, that parasite, old or young, male
or female, must dismount promptly, must be forced from the
shoulders of the working class. Those who, at the time of
social reconstruction, endeavor to defend themselves by pol-
ishing their family coat-of-arms and climbing their ancestral
trees in search of credentials, will simply be making monkeys
of themselves. They will be even more ridiculous than the
Royalists in the American Revolution. Those of "gentle
breeding" will have to learn the gentle art of getting a living
by producing a living; that awful saying, "If he will not
work, neither shall he eat," will mean more and more.

The working class must, then, legally, do whatever is
necessary to protect themselves from the strangling clutches
of the capitalist class.

And here is what is necessary :

The working class must themselves become organized po-
litical authority, must seize the powers of government — and
thus secure legal control of sovereign political power which
carries with it the legal right* to control, or revise, or abolish,
or reorganize industrial institutions; must thus secure the

raent. So under Capitalism: one may believe in industrial democ-
racy, but he cannot practice it under an industrial despotism.

(2) That some members of present society belong partly to the
capitalist class and partly to the working class.

(The Theory of the Leisure Class, a brilliant book by Dr. Thor-
stein Veblen, helpful in understanding social parasites, is urged upon
the reader's attention. Also W. J. Ghent's Mass and Class.)

* "The government which has the right to do an act and has
imposed upon it the duty of performing the act, must, according
to the dictates of reason, be permitted to select the means." — Su-
preme Court of the United States, March 7, 1819. See Supreme
Court Reports, Vol. 17, pp. 409, 430.

300 WAR— WHAT FOR?

legal right (and power) to construct and inaugurate that
industrial form of society which will destroy capitalism with
its organized, legalized opportunity for class robbery, and which
will, at the same time, substitute organized, legalized op-
portunity for every member of society to make a living with-
out being robbed, opportunity to live without wasting and
vulgarizing his life in a struggle against his fellow men.
And this destruction of unsocial capitalism and the con-
struction, at the same time, in place of capitalism, the neces-
sary social substitute, can he accomplished hy the industrial
reorganization of society on the following plan —

The Plan of Rational Mutualism:

(1) The SOCIAL ownership of the means of production.

(2) The SOCIAL control of the means of production.

(3) Equality of opportunity to use the means of
production, under regulations made by the workers them^
selves.

(4) The production of goods primarily for social serv-
ice OF ALL^ — instead of primarily for profits for a part
OF society.

(5) The self-employment of all who are willing to do
useful work, — by virtue of the fact of their joint ownership
and joint control of the things the workers must collectively
use in production, the reward of each to be undiminished by
rent, interest or profits.

(6) The possession and control of the powers of
government by anp in behalf of tpiose who seek the
freedom of the working class^ by those who seek to
destroy the tyrannical capitalist wage-system and

THUS secure industrial LIBERTY.

This plan connects every life with the source of life.
This plan plants firmly the feet of all members of eo-
ciety upon the industrial foundations of society.
Safe.

Unafraid.
Free,

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 301

This mutualism in industry will not interfere with such
private affairs as religious life, family life and social life, — ■
any more than the mutual ownership of the public library
now interferes with such private affairs.

Thus we must, in short, socialize society, — by social-
izing the ownership, socializing the control, socializing the
management, and socializing the purpose of the industrial
foundations of society.

This would be the destruction of that class-labor system
called capitalism which now rests on the institution of private
property in the means of production; and this would, at the
same time, also constitute a rational substitute — social in its
nature.

Mutualism would thus be in the structure of society.

The purpose of this form of society would be a funda-
mentally social purpose, namely, the welfare of all the will-
ing-to-be-industrious members of society.

The capitalist class, as such, would cease to exist.

The working class, as such, would cease to exist.

All — all the people would be in full, vital, unhindered, un-
robbed connection with the industrial foundations of society,
the chief material means of production. All people of proper
age and condition of health would become workers. Indus-
trial class lines would disappear. Industrial mastery would
disappear. Industrial dependence would disappear.

This would be the foundation of industrial democracy.

This would be reorganization.

This would be revolution.

A revolution is a rapid, fundamental change in a funda-
mental institution.

The rapid reorganization of industry into the form called
the trust is a revolution — now in process.

The trust magnates are revolutionists — so far as it suits
their economic interests.

Revolutions are neither noisy nor bloody, unless there is
violent effort to prevent the growth of society.

As to the matter of being afraid of revolutions: Why

302 WAR— WHAT FORf

should we clap our hands in praise of the American Revolu-
tionists (who employed sword, rifle, bayonet and cannon in
their revolution) and then harshly condemn the peaceful
Socialists who stand for peace in all parts of the world and
always urge the orderly methods of procedure in accomplish-
ing the revolution (the fundamental change) they seek to
effect.

Don't he afraid.

Fortunately millions of American school hoys and girls
are required to commit to memory the following words of
splendid defiance and self-respect:

"We hold these truths to be self evident: . . . That gov-
ernments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any
form of government becomes destructive of these ends (the
inalienable rights . . . life, liberty and the pursuit of happi-
ness) it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to
institute a new government, laying its foundation on such
principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and hap-
piness. . . . When a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to re-
duce them under an absolute despotism, it is their right,
it is their duty, to throw off such government and
to provide new guards for their future security." — American
Declaration of Independence.

Don't be afraid.

"The State must from time to time readjust the relation of
govermnent to liberty. ... As the people of the State advance in
civilization, the domain of liberty must be widened." — Professor
John W. Burgess, Head of Department of Political Science, Colum-
bia University.*

Don't be afraid.

The time has come for the workers to use their political
liberty to secure industrial liberty — to "widen the domain of
liberty," to secure a fair race, to secure equality of opportu-
nity.

Political Science and Constitutional Law, Vol. I., p. 87.

WHAT SHALL WE DO 9 303

Equality? Yes, — equality of opportunity. Certainly.

Why not?

"A race that is fair requires an equal start. . . . The state must
aim at perpetual renewal of the opportunities of life in every man
and class of men." — Dr. John Bascom, Ex-President of the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin.*

Don't be afraid.

There will be no noise, no bloodshed ; all will be orderly,
legal and sociable — unless the capitalists anarchistically re-
fuse to obey the law. In that case, of course, the roused,
proud and powerful working class will do whatever is made
necessary by the anarchistic capitalists.

Be it remembered — distinctly:

The roused working class, roused to self-respect,

ROUSED to clearness OF VISION BY THE STUDY OF THE FACTS,
ROUSED TO REALIZE THE WRONGS THRUST INTO THE LIVES OF
THE WORKERS PAST AND PRESENT, ROUSED TO SEE THEIR
RIGHTS AND REALIZE THEIR POWER AS A CLASS, — SUCH A
WORKING CLASS WILL BE A WHOLLY DIFFERENT CLASS FROM
THE PRESENT MEEK, WEAK, CHEATED GRATEFUL SLAVES.

Don't be afraid.

We are weary of Antagonism.

We seek Mutualism.

The American Eevolutionists said plainly in their
Declaration that it is a duty to reorganize society, under
certain circumstances.

We recognize our duty.

We make no cheap and noisy boast of insulting defiance.

We see our goal — Peace and Freedom.

We shall build Peace and Freedom into the Structure of
Society.

We scorn any wheedler who would betray us from the
correct, direct path to our goal.

We accept any challenge from those who would by force
defeat us.

Social reconstruction — that is our plain duty.

Sociology, pp. 45, 47.

304 WAR— WHAT FOR 9

Thus we of the working class must, to this extent, unify,
— that is, mutualize, socialize, — society.

The class aggression of the capitalist class would cease
with the disappearance of the capitalist class in the recon-
structed society. And the class resistance by the working
class would cease with the disappearance of the robbing of
the workers in the reconstructed society.

Thus would disappear the unsocial clashing of class in-
terests— the class struggle. And thus also would disappear
the dominant motives for "foreign" wars and "civil" wars.

Thus the working class could remove war — both from
the shop and from the battlefield.

Thus we would inaugurate peace simply by removing the
cause of war.

Is a political 'party of the tvorJcing class necessary for this
political work of the working class?

To accomplish the work of industrial reconstruction we
must first secure the political powers of government and thus
secure the right, the legal right, and legal power to do this
work.

A POLITICAL PARTY IS SIMPLY A LEGITIMATED ORGANIZA-
TION AVITH WHICH TO SEIZE AND USE SOVEREIGN POWER — TO

BECOME AUTHORITY. (See page 280.)

The political power and privilege necessary to accomplish
this industrial reconstruction of society — this political power
and privilege — can be secured only by means of a political
party; and that party must, of course, be a party wholly
committed to this industrial reconstruction of society.*

* "It is the peculiarity of the social struggle that it must be
conducted by a collective whole . . . every society [or class] must
SECURE SOME SUITABLE ORGAN FOE CONDUCTING THE SOCIAL STRUGGLE.

"Thus the ruling classes, through their parliaments, exercise
the legislative power and are able, by legal institutions, to fur-
ther their interests at the cost of others. . . . Thus the rulers them-
selves forge the weapons with which the ruled and powerless classes
successfully attack them and complete the natural process." —
Gumplowitz: Outlines of Sociology, pp. 145-146. Italics mine.
G. R. K.

WHAT SHALL WE DO ? 305

Only a political party of the working class can be six-
CERELY committed to this work of industrial reconstruction
for the working class. Indeed, no political party stand-
ing FOR ANY FORM OF CAPITALISM WILL PERMIT ITSELF TO
BE SINCERELY COMMITTED TO THIS PROMPT, THOROUGH IN-
DUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION.

Therefore, banded together in a political party of the
working class the workers

must seize the political powers to make laws,

must seize the political powers to interpret laws,

must seize the political powers to enforce laws.

Then and then only shall we be in position by legally
possessing the power to defend ourselves, our class.

Then and then only shall we be in position to destroy the
parasitic class aggression, the class robbery, out of which
grows the class struggle — the civil war in the shop, and the
war, the civil war, of the toilstained brothers of the working
class on the battlefield.

Then, and then only, shall we be in best position to de-
clare war against war.

Then we shall cease forever to foolishly wet the earth
with our blood and tears and cease to be robbed in the shop
and factory; and then we shall claim our own, a greater life.

The only safety therefore for the working people in all
lands is to organize themselves into a political party, an in-
ternational political party, of the working class, a7id patiently
build their party big enough for each national group of work-
ers to seize the political powers of government in their own
country — always, everywhere, loudly declaring war against
war.

There is but one working class political party on all the
earth. That party sincerely proclaims: "Freedom for the
working class! No more war!" And loudly and patiently
that party sounds an immortal call of brotherhood to all
the workers on all the blood-stained earth : — "Workingmen
of all countries, unite. You have nothing to lose but your
chains; you have a world to gain."

That working-class party is the Socialist Party.

306 WAR— WHAT FOB?

Already this working class party, loudly calling, "Free-
dom in the shop and freedom from the battlefield" — already
this party is beginning to save the blood and tears and homes
and joys of the working class.

Every working man and woman should learn — and teach
the children to recite at school — the following page of his-
tory, four historic events :

First Event: In 1847 two men, geniuses, wrote a very
small, but powerful book.* The book was published in IS-iS.
Kings, emperors, tsars and presidents have turned pale when
their common people began to understand that small book. The
first proposition in that astonishing book is : "The [recorded]
history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class
struggles." That is a great fact. Pack it into your mind.
That sentence has opened wide the mental windows of mil-
lions of working men — and women. The last sentence of that
book of social lightning is this : — "Workingmen of all coun-
tries, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains, you
have a world to gain!" That is a sublime call. That call
has thrilled millions of weary working-class people. Every
year it thrills millions more. Some day that call will enter
your soul. Then you will know the meaning of this next
event.

Second Event: In 1870 two distinguished crowned as-
sassins sent hundreds of thousands of working men to the
boundary between France and Germany to butcher and be
butchered.f Even then — forty years ago — the shrewdest
workers in Germany, France and other European countries
realized what war meant for the working class. These men
were banded together in the International Working-Men's
Association. These keen, studious toilers warned the work-
ing class against the war. In 1870 they sent out this general
announcement: "They (the members of the International
Working-Men's Association) feel deeply convinced that what-
ever turn the impending horrid war may take, the alliance
of the working classes of all countries will ultimately kill

* The Communist Manifesto.

•f- Reread Chapter Seven, Section 4.

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 307

war." The Paris l)ranch of the International issued an ad-
dress saying: "French, German, Spanish working men!
Let our voices unite in a cry of reprobation against war.
. . . Working men of all countries ! Whatever may be the
result of our common efforts, we members of the International
Association of Working-Men, who know no frontiers, we send
you, as a pledge of indissoluble solidarity, the good wishes
and the salutation of the workingmen of France." The
Berlin section of the International finely responded : "We
join with you heart and hand in protestation. . , . Solemnly
we promise you that neither the noise of drums nor the
thunder of cannon, neither victory nor defeat, shall turn us
aside from our work for the union of the workingmen of
all countries." German delegates at Chemnitz, Saxony,
representing fifty thousand workingmen also made noble
reply: "We are happy to grasp the fraternal hand stretched
out to us by the workingmen of France. . . . We shall never
forget that the workingmen of all countries are our friends,
and the despots of all countries our enemies."

The grand old International has become the Socialist
Party of our day. The Socialist Party is indeed the political
party of the working class.

In recent years election returns show in one country,
the best educated country in Europe, this political party of
the working class, the Socialist Party, with over three million
four hundred thousand serious, loyal workingmen banded
together voting solidly together. Every year a larger and larger
number of them taJce their seats in the ivorld's leading legisla-
tures. In ten countries in Europe this party has from one
to eighty members of the working class in the national legis-
latures in legal position to defend "the working class. And
right vigorously these brave working-class comrades have de-
fended the working class in every possible way they could.
With the increasing election victories of this working-class
party, the working class have increasing power to defend
themselves. And everywhere this party is down on war. The
influence of this party has already been effectively exerted
against war. The vast influence of this party against war is

308 WAR— WHAT FOB?

admitted by the most bitter and jDOwerful enemies of the
working class.

Third Event: In 1905-6 the Norwegian and the
Swedish armies (working men, of course) were ordered to
the front to butcher one another. They were assembled at
the national boundary. Tens of thousands of homes were
desolate. Fear was an agony in the hearts of a multitude of
women and children. Reporters were present from all parts
of the world to flash the news of the butchery around the earth.
The capitalist coffin trust was exceedingly glad, business was
about to pick up. Gilt-braided buccaneer commanders were
about to shout : "Form ! Fire ! Charge ! Slaughter !"

"Everything was ready" — it seemed.

Then something happened — something sublime and new
in the sad and "somber march of mankind."

No sword was drawn.

No cannon roared.

No Gatling gun mowed down thousands.

No wild cavalry charged.

No hospital became a hell of cursing, groaning, screaming,
mangled men.

Yet "everything was ready" — ready to defend the sacred
honor of "royal" and "noble" coward parasites.

Everything was ready except one thing — the consent of
the working class.

The conscripted Socialist soldiers in both armies and the
Socialists everywhere throughout both countries had passed
the sign of worhing-class brotherhood all through both armies
and through botli countries: "We working class men are
brothers. Let us not slit the veins of our own class simply
to satisfy the vicious pride of snobbish masters. Let us save
our own blood and tears."

This international brothers' cry was like a splendid flash of
lightning at midnight. Brothers saw brothers, working-class
brothers, in the night, the midnight of capitalism. The soul
of the working class in both these countries flashed response:
"Brothers ! Brothers ! We understand !" The human race
seemed to smile. The Swedish and the Norwegian soldiers

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 309

mingled. These armed workers fraternized. Armed men
embraced armed men. They shouted and wept — for joy.

They sneered at the frowns of their commanders. Proudly
and promptly they refused to butcher and be butchered.*
. That settled it. There was no war.

There can not be war unless the working class agree to it.

No working men were butchered, and the international
misunderstanding had to be settled without opening the blood
vessels of the toilers. For of course you know, reader, that
the broadclothed capitalist snobs of these countries were too
cowardly to fight the war themselves.

And now there are many more happy homes, happy wives,
happy mothers and happy children in Norway and Sweden
than there would have been if the humble working people
of these two countries had permitted a precious lot of gilt-
edged cowards to excite them and confuse them and then
"sic" them at one another's throats.

Fourth Event: Very recently, in 1906-7, the Socialist
Party in Germany and France prevented war between Ger-
many and France over the "Morocco affair." This is ad-
mitted even by distinguished European enemies of the So-
cialist Party. This threatened war might easily have cost
five hundred thousand lives — working-class lives — and five
billions of treasure and desolated hundreds of thousands of
homes and darkened both countries with an international
hatred lasting half a century.

But the Socialists blocked the game.

Again and again in their International Congresses the
Socialists have protested against war and militarism as being,
for the working class, nothing but a burden and a curse.f

* Fearing that the powerful suggestion might reach and rouse
the slumbering working class tlie capitalist press of the world kept
silent as an oyster on the behavior of the clear-visioned soldiers
of Norway and Sweden. Only the working ■c\ass press properly
reported the sublime event. (See Challenge, page 206 et seq.)

■f For an excellent and convenient discussion of the Socialist
Party's opposition to war and militarism, see Werner Sorabart's
Socialism and the Socialist Movement, pp. 193-211; Morris Hill-
quit's Socialism in Theory and Practice, pp. 296-302.

310 WAR— WHAT FOR?

Political masters and industrial masters on all the earth
— these recognize the Socialist Party as the Working-ClasB
Political Party.*

You, my brother, should also recognize the Socialist
Party as your own Working-Class Political Party.

Eeread propositions numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, p. 300.

The outline of industrial reconstruction there given in
the six propositions is the outline of the constructive plat-
form and program of the working-class political party, the
Socialist Party, everywhere.f

Because the Socialist Party recognizes and points out
the clash of class interests in the present class-labor system;

Because the Socialist Party proposes industrial freedom
for the working class;

Because the Socialist Party proposes the destruction of
the class-labor system called capitalism;

Because the Socialist Party proposes that every person
who renders useful social service shall have the value of his
service — undiminished by the modem legalized forms of filch-
ing, namel}^, rent, interest and profits;

Because the Socialist Party proposes that the working
class band together and save themselves;

* "It is no easy task to detect and follow the tiny paths of
progress which the unencumbered proletarian with nothing but his
life and capacity for labor is pointing out for us. These paths
lead to a type of government founded upon peace and fellowship
as contrasted with restraint and defence. . . . From the nature of the
case, he who would walk these paths must walk with the poor and
oppressed, and can only approach them through affection and un-
fierstanding. The ideals of militarism would forever shut him out
from this new fellowship." — Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House,
Chicago: Hi ewer Ideals of Peace, p. 30.

I The class who despise you so thoroughly that they would be
willing to have you murdered on the battlefield — would these hesitate
to tell you a lief Certainly not. And they have lied to you about
"different kinds of Socialism," "Socialists don't seem to know what
they want," etc., etc. But secretly the capitalists are worrying
because they know that the Socialists of all the world do know
what they want and also know how to organize the necessary power
to get what they want.

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 311

For such reasons the Socialist Party is the Political Party
of the Working Class.

The Socialists urge:

That no longer shall the workers whimper for the protecting
wings of that strange political bird, that large male angel,
called a "good man";

That no longer shall the workers childishly accept the
treacherous advice from political stalking horses, called
political "reformers," and "political saviors";

That no longer shall the workers rest in dull dependence
upon the advice of eager-to-be-elevated capitalist "leaders of
the people";

That no longer shall the workers go guUibly chasing after
still-fed "statesmen" on election day;

That no longer shall the workers rest in dull dependence
door of legislative halls teasing smooth, stall-fed capitalist
"statesmen" for labor legislation;

That the workers band together and emancipate them-
selves from war, from the wholesale robbery, tyranny and
blood-letting of Capitalism.

With heads and hearts and hopes together the working
class should read together, study together, reason together,
band together, struggle together, and altogether in a political
party of the working class stand together and vote together
and capture the power of government for the freedom and
protection of the working class.

Let us respect our own working class.

Let us have faith in our own working class.

Let us protect ourselves.

"Let us get up off our knees — and our masters won't
seem so tall."

Down with industrial despotism and its wars !

Up with industrial democracy and its peace !

(Before reading the following paragraphs examine last
four pages of Chapter Six, paragraph headed: "A Special
Warning to the Working Class of the United States.")

313 WAR— WHAT FOR?

One more word here:

Brothers, beware !

With pride and defiance hold up your heads — and think.

Prepare to say: "WE EEFUSE."

Beware. Another war is brewing.

"Another war is necessary!" — ^your betrayers will pres-
ently tell you.

True! From the capitalist's point of view another war
will, indeed, presently be necessary; another war becomes
more and more imperatively necessary — and for a new and
increasing reason.

The much plundered working people are beginning to
think. Thought is revolutionary. A thought is a file, a keen
saw, with which a soul may escape from the gloomy dungeon
of prejudice. Thought is intellectual nitro-glycerine for
blasting the flinty mountains of prejudice. Thought utterly
destroys mental rubbish. Thought kills what ought to die.
Thinking slaves promptly become defiant and dare to do for
freedom. Thought kills — kills slavery.

Thought, however, can still be prevented. Even the splen-
did thought of peace and freedom can still be strangled in a
wild delirium called "patriotic" war. Hence every purchas-
able educated human thing with influence must play its prosti-
tute part in resurrecting and perpetuating the ferocious
thirst for war.

For capitalist purposes another war is necessary.

Therefore strangle brotherliness.

Therefore stifle man's grand sweet dream of peace.

A fat living of domineering idleness for industrial pirates
and their pampered pets and shameless hangers-on is not
much longer possible, unless the masters as usual can set the
working people clutching at one another's throats, draining
one another's sweat and blood in a hateful spasm of inter-
national epilepsy called "patriotic" war.

Therefore drug the working people.

Therefore read again to the weary multitude the goriest
pages of history, and declare to them that an act must be
soaked in a brother's blood before it is magnificent, The

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 313

people must lust again for another savage storm of stupid
wrath called war.

Therefore we see the war-flag of capitalism shrewdly
waved before the bulging, easily inflamed eyes of the multi-
tude: "Good fighters — war"; "young men not only willing,
but anxious to fight — war"; "heroes, heroes — war"; "glory,
military glory — war" ; "noble, noble soldiers — war" ; "ours the
most improved arms in the world — war"; "greatest navy on
earth — war"; "splendid victories — war"; "better militia —
larger army — war"; "our national honor — war"; "we never
surrender — war"; "America in the Orient — war"; "we must
defend our foreign markets — war" ; "see the brave boys behind
the guns — war"; "send the fleets around the earth and dare
the world to war"; "we are all ready for war, war, war"; —
over and over this oratorical flag, this Christless vocabulary
of blood-spilling cruelty, on and on, year after year — till these
disgusting phrases steam in memory with the spurting blood
of the long-mourned slain.

Another war is necessary.

Therefore fill the trenches with the carcasses of citizens
and with fixed bayonets march on — on — on to noisy glory, on
to the red madness of the brutal battlefield. This is the
pagan text of literary and oratorical hirelings before a na-
tion of Christians and peaceful Jews; this is the loveless
refrain bellowed before blushing school girls; this is the
Alexandrian slogan before excitable, impressible boys; this
is the gore-stained banner to be gallantly flaunted on holi-
days before the tear-wet eyes of the sad old widows and
the hobbling cripples of the Civil War; this is the race-curs-
ing call to ninety millions of people sick of stupidly disput-
ing with sword and cannon, longing to embrace one another
in caressing f raternalism. Hideous echoes of the cruel voice of
Caesar, savage whoop from the tomb of Napoleon, the assassin
of France, barbarous yell from the war-cursed plains of the
long, long ago — this — yes, this is the sublime height reached
by the average orthodox teacher and preacher of patriotism.

And from all parts of this thinly veiled despotism of foxy,
industrial tsars, comes enthusiastic afproval of all such teach-

314 WAR— WHAT FOR?

mg; — approval from the profit-stuffed leeches whose pout-
ing lips suck and tug at the veins of the toiling multitude;
approval from the supercilious snobs at Palm Beach, Newport
and Monte Carlo; approval from the editorial intellectual
prostitutes of a subsidized press; approval from the "leading
citizens" that roll contemptuously along carefully smoothed
streets in rubber-tired carriages and from those who sneer
through the palace car windows at the common "hired hands"
who man the trains and keep the track in repair; approval
from the masters who own the mills and mines and stick out
their tongues in scorn at the hundreds of thousands out of
work or on strike for a few cents more a day; approval
from the "great business men" who search the earth for
markets for goods produced by the sweating wage-slaves
shrewdly kept too poor to buy what their own weary minds
and their puffed and blistered hands create; and, saddest of
all, approval from the millions of shame-faced wage-earners
viciously seduced with ironically empty "prosperity" phrases,
chloroformed with pompous military rhetoric, stupified
with the proud strut and cheap swagger of "prominent"
and "cultivated" vulgarians — yes, approval also from these
modest modern slaves through whose veins seems to slip the
inherited taint of long, low-bowing servitude.

Another war is "necessary."

Therefore from Mississippi to Minnesota and from Florida
to Oregon there is a wide-grinning chuckle of lip-smacking
satisfaction in the palaces and club-houses of America's in-
dustrial masters when the easily deceived multitude clap
their calloused palms in thoughtless approval as the bribed
orator makes fierce visaged War stalk with hypnotic fascina-
tion across the stage before the plain deludable people. The
people's delight in arms is thus artfully deepened; — and
thus and therefore both the walls of prejudice and the de-
fiant fortresses of glittering steel — ^behind which the gorged
masters of the multitude have for ages fattened and threat-
ened in security — these fortresses of prejudice and force are
with increasing diligence made stronger with every possible
opportunity, made stronger by every possible means.

WHAT SHALL WE DO? 315

Another war ?

Expect it and prepare for it by resolving not to go to
the next war till the bankers and statesmen have been bleed-
ing on the firing line for at least six weeks.

Yes — yes, it is true that the employers' fortress of riot-
guns is still strong, defiantly strong. No doubt the rent-interest-
and-profit game, the game of gouge and grab and keep, will
be played securely yet a while by the plunder-bloated masters
of our great and glorious country. Undoubtedly millions of
our thoughtless young working class men are still ready for
plutocratic Senators and Congressmen and uncrowned cruelty
in the White House to craftily yell : "Sic 'em, boys, sic 'em."

But light breaks.

Everywhere, every day the toilers of the world listen —
listen more respectfully, listen more intelligently, listen more
gratefully to the glad new gospel of justice and peace.

The change comes and come it must. That cruel spell
wrought over the mind of the multitude by the bribed ora-
tor, by the purchased writer, by the blood-lusting "man on
horseback," and by the far-looking masters of industry — that
spell will be, must be, broken. The iron shackles on the
wrists and ankles of the toilers have already been broken.
The wage-slaves' shackles also must be rended, not only the
industrial, but the mental slavery of the modern workers must
be destroyed.

And comes now swiftly forward that soft-toned, but all-
conquering gospel of peace and freedom — freedom for the
dumb, voiceless multitude, now deadened with the deafening
roar of machinery, deadened with the stifling dust and with-
ering heat of the mills, deadened with the poisonous gases
in the mines, freedom for the multitude soon to be glad,
happy, loving, laughing in the commonwealth of co-operation,
of mutualism, of fraternalism — of Socialism.

Courage, courage. Put the strong shoulders of your
twelve million ballots to the "stalled world's wheel" and push.
Strike. March. Dawnward toward peace.

Know this, you toil-tormented horde: That shrewd jug-
gler's word war — word with which the swinishly selfish mas-

316 WAR— WHAT FOBf

ters have for ages seduced the gullible multitude into the
ditches across which those same masters have then rolled on
sneering, snickering and safe, that spell-working word reek-
ing with the blood-rotting stench of centuries, that word war
and all that that word war now stands for must be stricken
from the language of brothers, struck from the affairs of
mankind, — forgotten forever — forever replaced by the sweet-
ening peace and the sane abiding power of warless Social-
ism.

Brothers of the working class, wherever you are on all the
earth, let us all say, altogether:

Peace is patriotism to mankind.

We do not want other people's Mood and we refuse to
waste our own.

For thousands of years the ruling class have bled us pale.
All cannon have always been aimed at us — ^by us.

We did not see. Our eyes were blinded with our own
blood; our minds were paralyzed vrith lies.

But now we see. Now we understand. And therefore
now we stand erect in self-respect. Now in sincere fellow-
ship we extend the right hand of brotherhood to all the
working men — and to all the women and to all the children
— of the whole world ; and to all these we promise :

We will not fight.

We refuse to plunge bayonets into one another's breasts.

We refuse to slay the fathers of tender children.

We refuse to murder the brothers and lovers of women.

We refuse to butcher the husbands of devoted wives.

We refuse to "Hurrah" over victories that break the heart
and blind the world with tears.

We refuse the cheap role of Armed Guard — as the salaried
assassins in the service of the plunder-bloated coward ruling
class.

If the masters want blood let them cut their own throats.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.
A Short Lesson In the Histoty of the Working Class.

(A very careful distinction should always be made between
those who abuse and those who nobly use great offices and
powers.)

"We have repeatedly pointed out that every social institution
weaves a protecting integument of glossy idealization about itself
like a colony of caterpillars in an appletree. For instance, wherever
militarism rules, war is idealized by moniunents and paintings,
poetry and song. The stench of the hospitals and the maggots of
the battlefield are passed in silence, and the imagination of the
people is filled with waving plumes and the shout of charging
columns." — Professor Walter Rauschenbusch, Rochester Theological
Seminary.*

Knowledge of the history of the working class,
which includes the history op war, will cement the
workers inseparably together — socially, industrially
and politically, and will thus many times multiply
their power for self-defence.

When the working class understand the history of the
working class, a bronze monument erected in honor of a
great general will look to the workers like a vote of thanks
to the Superintendent of Hell, and an ornamental cannon
in a public park will look like a viper on a banquet table
spread for a feast of brothers.

In the public schools of the world the history of the
working class is almost wholly neglected. No text-book gives
the facts, and no teacher is permitted to tell the truth —
clearly — about the martyrdom of labor since the dawn of
class-form, "civilized" society. The union labor men and
women of the world could with great advantage to the work-
ing class devote a few thousand dollars for the expense of
a five-hundred-page book summarizing: The History of
Labor— The Tragedy of Toil.

Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 350.

318 WAR— WHAT FOR?

(At this point please reread first two pages of the pre-
face of the present volume.)

The following pages are offered as suggestions for a half-
hour lesson chiefly on the origin of the working class. It
is suggested to the working class reader that he teach this
lesson to the children of his family and of his neighborhood.

Now, no living thing can be understood without a study
of its history, and the study of the history of a living thing
requires special attention to the origin of the thing studied.
The working class are a living reality, and in order to un-
derstand themselves the working class must study their class
history — with the very special attention to their origin as
a class.

Long, long ago — ^thousands of years ago — our ancestors
lived in tribes. These tribes grew, expanded till finally the
pressure of population forced the tribes to enlarge their terri-
tories; and thus the tribes trespassed — aggressed upon one
another's territory.

This caused wars — intertribal wars.

This was the origin of war.

This led to the opening of hell — for the workers.

After a while a working class arose — and began to fall
into hell. Here is the way it came about:

For a long time in these intertribal wars it was the prac-
tice to take no prisoners (except the younger women), but
to kill, kill, kill, because the conquerors had no use for the
captive men. When, however, society had developed indus-
trially to a stage enabling the victors to make use of live
men as work animals, that new industrial condition pro-
duced a new idea — one of the greatest and most revolution-
ary ideas that ever flashed in the human brain; and that
idea was simply this: — A live man is worth more than a
dead one, if you can make use of him as a work animal.
When industrially it became practicable for the conquerors
to make use of live men captured in war, it rapidly became
the custom to take prisoners, save them alive, beat them into
submission — tame them — and thus have them for work ani'
mals, human work animals.

A LESSON IN HISTORY. 319

Here the human ox, yoked to the burdens of the world,
started through the centuries, centuries sad with tears and red
with blood and fire.

Thus originated a class of workers, the working class.

Thus also originated the ruling class. Thus originated
the "leading citizens."

Thus, originally, in war, the workers fell into the bot-
tomless gulf of misery. It was thus that war opened wide
the devouring jaws of hell for the workers.

Thus was human society long ago divided into industrial
classes, — into two industrial classes.

Of course the interests of these two classes were in funda-
mental conflict, and thus originated the class struggle.

Of course the ruling class were in complete possession and
control of all the powers of government — and of course they
had sense enough to use the powers of government to defend
their own class interests.

Of course the ruling class made all the laws and con-
trolled all institutions in the interest of the ruling class —
naturally.

Of course the ruling class socially despised the slaves —
that is, despised the working class; this "upper" class felt
contempt for the "lower" class — naturally; and thus orig-
inated the social degradation, the social stigma that still
sticks to the working class, so clearly clings to the workers
that, for example, the banker's daughter does not marry the
wage-earning carpenter; the mine-owner's son does not
marry the wage-earning house-maid; the rank and file of
union labor are not welcome in the palatial parlors and ball-
rooms where the "very best people" are sipping the best
champagne and are rhythmically hugging themselves in the
dance; the servants, both white and black, in a high-grade
(high class, "upper" class) hotel are not even permitted to
take a drink of water at the guests' water fountain tho' the
guest-list may include scores of blase old reprobates, scores
of polygamous parasites, scores of the most infamous, dollar-
Justing, law-breaking disreputables in the world. The work-

320 WAR— WHAT FOR?

ing class are indeed even yet of)enly or secretly despised so-
cially by their "betters."

It was thus and there and then that, long ago, in war,
originated the first class-labor form of society, the institu-
tion called slavery.* A class of despised human work animals
and a class of domineering masters thus appeared; and these
two classes developed, this method of production developed,
to such vast proportions that this CLAss-labor system became

the FUNDAMENTAL THING IN THE INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE OF

SOCIETY. It was in this manner that, long ago, one part of
society climbed upon the shoulders of the other part of so-
ciety and became parasites, social parasites, and as a class
sunk their parasitic beaks into the industrial flesh of those
who had become a working class. (Eeread carefully the
three quotations at the head of Chapter Ten. They are spe-
cially important.)

Of course the industrial blood of 'the workers tasted
good to the masters — that is to say, the more work the slaves
did the less work the masters had to do, — and that was lovely,
for the masters, for the ''leading citizens." The "leading
citizens" knew they had a bright idea — just like a "leading
citizen's" idea of course. The new idea became popular, ex-
tremely so — of course. The "leading citizens" were so pleased
— with themselves and their "brainy" idea. They were
"superior" people — their idea proved that, of course. At that
point in human history a ruling class began to flatter them-
selves and talk in a loud and handsome manner about "the
best people," "the right to rule inferior people/' "the pro-
gressive, enterprising part of society," and so forth. The
"leading citizens" knew very well that they had a "good
thing" — for the "leading citizens," for the upper class who
thus became so very pleasantly located as an upper class — ^that
is, upon the industrial shoulders of the "lower class," the
working class. (Note carefully the quotation from Dr. Ward
at Head of Chapter Ten.)

* It is true that even before this time woman occupied a servile
position and virtually constituted an industrial class. See August
Bebel's Woman — Past, Present and Future.

A LESSON IX HISTORY. 321

Very naturally the ruling class at once busied themselves
promoting and protecting their new class-work plan, their
new idea. The idea was their idea and it was such a splendid
idea. Indeed slavery was such a perfectly delightful idea —
for the rulers — that, being "gentlemen of push and enter-
prise," they eagerly studied the problem of developing ways
and means of extendimg their new advantage. They thought.
They planned — to manage the new human mule.
Their first idea was — force.

Kick the mule — and rule.

An institution, an armed guard, was, therefore, promptly
organized for holding down the slaves, the "lower class," by
force, — to hold the toilers, as it were, by the wrists. But an
armed guard was expensive, and it was expensive simply be-
cause one armed guard could not hold many slaves to their
tasks — by force. Now, the ancient slave-holding ruling class,
like the modern capitalist ruling class, were, of course, eager
to "reduce expenses and increase efficiency." Thus the rulers
had another idea, a big bright idea. Mark well the masters.

Their second idea was — fraud.

Fool the mule — and rule.

The brilliant idea of using fraud in ruling slaves, that
is, in ruling the working class, was simply this: to have an
unarmed guard teach the human horse to "stand hitched,"
as it were, or, rather, to work like a trained horse without
requiring an armed driver to whip him, to force him to his
tasks. This unarmed guard was to hold the workers to their
tasks by getting a grip on their minds, on their brains, rather
than on their wrists.

This was more "refined."

This was also much cheaper. This method Ims always
been cheaper. It is cheaper for this reason: One unarmed
deceiver acting as a guard by holding the mind, the brain,
of the workers, can hold to their tasks hundreds of times as
m-any as one armed guard can hold by force. This was a
most happy idea — for the ruling class.

A new era opened.

The ruler smiled at the deceiver. The deceiver smiled

322 WAR— WHAT FOR?

at the ruler. They understood — each other, and agreed upon
"the best interests of society."

Precisely so.*

Here originated the vile role of the intellectual prostitute,
the cheap part of the chloroformer of the working class, the
contemptible business of the professional palaverer. Here,
right at this point in human history, the perfumed intellec-
tual prostitute joined the blood-stained soldier, — in the ruler's
service of holding down the robbed and ruined working class.
The palaverer taught the toil-cursed workers to be obedient
and grateful and humble and meek and lowly and contented,
to "forget it" that they have poverty here and keep in mind
that "it will be all right over there" — "up above" (over in
behind beyond the stars) where they will be "richly re-
warded, in the sweet bye and bye, for all their sufferings in
this world" ; taught them that they should not be "resentful,"
Ijut "in patience bear all sufferings," — bear even the agony
of having their daughters raped by rulers, and their sons
run through with spears.

Thus the toiler was kept in his "proper place" (at work)
by the soldier and the palaverer, compelling and cajoling the
domesticated human work animal.

They held him fast.

One seized his wrists, the other seized his reason ; one used
force, the other used fraud; one used a lash, the other used
a lure; one used a club, the other used chloroform; one
frowned threateningly, the other smiled seductively. With
curses and cunning these two have taught the toiler law

AND ORDER — THE LAW AND THE ORDER MADE BY THE MASTERS
FOR THE MASTERS.

Both guards were "necessary" — in the business of robbing
the working class. Both have served the ruling class long

* Professor E. A. Ross ( Department of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin) gently hints thus {Social Control, p. 86) :

"Under the ascendency of the rich and leisured, property be-
comes more sacred than persons, moral standards vary with the
pecuniary status, and it is felt that 'God will think twice before He
damns a person of qvxality.' "

A LESSON IN HISTORY. 323

and well. Through the long sad centuries these throe, the
ruler and his two "standbys," the soldier and the palaverer,
have ridden the human beast of burden, the working class.
The mailed fist of the hired assassin and the soft voice of
the bribed palaverer have held the worker utterly helpless
while the ruler robbed him.

Both guards have been rewarded — with provender and
flattery, with pelf and popularity. The whipper and the
wheedler of the toiler, the slayer and the seducer of the
working class, have been the specially petted patriots whose
ignoble role has been to help defend the class-labor system.

The workers have been kicked and tricked for ten thou-
sand years, but chiefly tricked, betrayed into helpless consent
and stupid approval. The more fraud the less force.

Undoubtedly far more important than the physical con-
quest over the working class was the conquest over the mind
of the working class. Undoubtedly the idea of teaching the
slave to be a slave and to be satisfied with slavery and thus
make the slave, the serf, the wage-earner, an automatic
human ox to bear and draw the burdens of the world in
brainless obedience and dull humility — undoubtedly that idea
has done more solid service in the successes of injustice than
any other idea ever born in the brain of tyrants.

The ruling class have always carefully secured the services
of many of the world's ablest men to play Judas to the
carpenters — to the working class. Profound men, gifted men,
trained men, eloquent men, enjoying the world's choicest
food, blissfully happy with the world's finest wine, living in
homes of comfort and splendor, dressed in softest raiment,
ijiany of these have traduced the slave, the serf and the wage-
earner without shame. Tho the splendid Christ said: "The
truth shall make you free," these Judases have taught the
working class that learning is a useless or an evil thing for
the working people ; * that the toilers' poverty is the will of

* Even great literatures, regarded as divinely inspired and
boasted to be The Truth, have been kept from the free access of the
people — the "plain people," too plain to understand the literature
said to have life in it. Such literature has been hidden from the
people for many hundreds of years — or "rightly divided" and diluted.

324 WAR— WHAT FOR?

God, that nnrewarcled toil in this world would reap a ''spe-
cially rich reward beyond the grave." These paid and power-
ful human things, palavering about the "dignity of honest
toil," palavering about the "joy of the hope of good things
beyond" (always beyond) — these themselves have been prac-
tical and careful to take cash-down-good-things for their
collect-on-delivery services, careful to take a rich and prompt
reward here and now in this world, while at the very same
time they were advising and urging the slave, the serf, and
the wage-earner to accept unsigned cheques payable in heaven.

Always this for the worker : "Your turn will come next"
— that is, in the next world.

Following this vanishing lure, hundreds of millions of
toilers have, as it were, walked barefoot on broken glass
and lain down in their beds of misery menially paralyzed on
the subject of justice. Hundreds of millions of toilers have
not only accepted these teachings; but, saddest of all, have
been tricked into teaching these same things to their children.

Thus it was that almost the entire working class were
tamed and trained for many centuries into spineless meek-
ness, into the docility of humility — helpless — policed by
prejudice and fear founded on shrewdly perpetuated igno-
rance.

"Slaves, obey your masters," has been taught in a thou-
sand ways for ten thousand years by the stufEed prophets for
the profit-stuffed rulers of the robbed and ruined workers of
the world.

This perhaps will make it somewhat easier to understand
the present intellectual condition of the working class. It
thus becomes easier to understand why the workers were
taught (and are taught now) to be "satisfied with their lot,"
taught the "identity and harmony of interests of capital and
labor." This explains the meekness of the multitude, the
docility of the majority, and their political modesty.

Sheepish meekness, self-contempt and prideless obedience
long ago took the place of defiant and splendid rebellious
self-respect — in the character and th" thinhing of the work-
ing class.

A LESSON IN HISTORY. 325

In every possible way the shackles have been riveted to
the wrists and brains of the working class — what for? — in
order to perpetuate the class-labor system. Under slavery,
under serfdom and under capitalism, laws, constitutions, cus-
toms, religious teachings, secular teachings, and all the social
institutions have been shrewdly conformed or adjusted to

THE PREVAILING METHOD OF PRODUCTION for the PROTECTION

of that method of production m order thv^ to support the
CLASS who, m the struggle for existence, have had grossly

UNFAIR advantage BY MEANS OF THAT METHOD OF PRO-
DUCTION.*

Ferocious wrongs were studiously developed into vast in-
stitutions. For example, man-stealing and slave-breeding
became the chief business of the mightiest of the ancient
pagan societies, the Roman Empire, and was also a flourish-
ing enterprise under the most highly developed modern
Christian societies, the British Empire and the American
Eepublic. Christian Queen Anne, of England, unrebuked
by her "spiritual adviser," was a pious stockholder in a slave-
hunting corporation composed of prominent and pious Chris-
tian ladies and gentlemen.f The Christian churches, col-
leges, newspapers, of the United States not long ago, North
and South, were almost unanimous in their eloquent and
pious defense of human slavery.^ The business was emi-

* The inauguration of human slavery was a profound change in
human relations — the greatest possible "change in circumstances" —
down at the very foundations of society. Vast fundamental changes
resulted — inevitably — in changed, and even neio, institutions.

"Institutions must change with changing circumstances, since
they are of the nature of an habitual method of responding to
stimuli which these changing circumstances afford. . . . The insti-
tutions are, in substance, prevalent habits of thought with respect
to particular relations and particular functions of the individual
and of the community. . . ." — ^Thorstein Veblen: The Theory of the
Leisure Class, p. 190. See quotation from Dr. Small at the head of
Chapter Ten. Also consult Ross's Social Control.

fSee Thomas's History of the Umted States, p. 68.

t See Hyndman : The Economics of Socialism, Lecture 1, Methods
of Production.

326 WAR— WHAT FORf

nently respectable, the business of legally (and piously) suck-
ing the industrial blood out of one's fellowmen — ^living like
a parasite, — the business of producing nothing and living
upon the results of the worker's labor-power.
Thus keep in mind : *

(1) The origin of the working class,

(2) The origin of the first class-labor system,

(3) The origin of the class struggle,

(4) The origin of the social degradation, the socially
"down-and-out" condition, the loss of social standing — of the
working class people,

(5) The origin and growth of the humility of the work-
ing class, of the sheepish meekness of the working class, the
meekness which to-day shows itself in the politics of most
working men — always suspecting and despising their own
working-class political party, always in our day tagging along
after some smooth, well-dressed crook candidates on capital-
ist class party tickets.

(6) The perpetuation of ignorance — in the working class.

(7) The origin of the intellectual prostitute, the moral
emasculate.

Now, help your satisfied fellow worker, help Mm under-
stand why he is satisfied.

Without malice, without anti-culture prejudice, without
anti-religious hatred, without anti-church spite, but with
knowledge of the naturalness of human behavior domineered
hy economic necessity, with knowledge of the great historical
process, with your vision clear, your heart kind, your courage
high, and your purpose fraternal — explain, explain this mat-
ter of meekness to your humble, contented wage-slave neigh-
bor. Explain: That long ago the working man was forced
and taught to be docile and meek. Under slavery, later under
serfdom and still later under capitalism — for thousands of
years — ^he industrially, socially, and politically surrendered.
He was compelled to do so. He was taught to do so.

* And get these things into the minds of the children. If the
teacher at your nearest school does not know these things, have the
children teach the teacher.

A LESSON IN HISTORY. 327

He got the habit.

He had the manhood and the courage beaten out of him,
kicked out of him — and coaxed out of him.

He lost heart.

He humbly took his place — as a chattel-slave class, as a
serf-slave class, as a wage-slave class.

He has produced wealth.

He has reproduced slaves.

The wings of his aspiration have been clipped. He can
hope no higher than a job — for himself. He hopes no higher
than a job — for his children.

The top of the plans of his life is — toil.

And therefore even now as a wage-slave he teaches his
own children to "respect their betters" — their employer
masters.

He forgets.

He is so cringingly grateful for a job that he forgets he
should have not only the right to breathe the air, the right
to look at the sun, the right to read in the library, the right
to walk on the highway, and the right to sit in the park, —
but also the right to worh, the right to work unrohhed, the
right to work under dignifying conditions, and thus main-
tain himself on this earth at the upmost levels of life, en-
joying the full result of his applied labor power, — and with-
out whining for permission to do so.

He forgets.

He is still so very humble.

He is, under the wage-system, forced to obey orders all
his life in the factory, the shop and the mine. He is thus
habitually so obedient that he will obey any order. He prides
himself on his obedience. Under orders he will even plunge
a bayonet into the breast of his fellow workers — in the in-
terest of the capitalist class. He forgets the thousand wrongs
thrust into his weary life and into the life of his class.

He does indeed forget.

He is still in a dull, dumb slumber.

But he is beginning to rouse from the slumber of meek-
ness— from the social damnation of brainless obedience.

%

328 WAR— WHAT FOR?

He is heginmng io study the history of his own worJcing
class; and therefore he is rousing, waking, rising.

Following are some additional short paragraphs on the
history of the working class from books by distinguished |

writers and teachers. It is hoped that these quoted para-
graphs will induce further working class study of working
class history. These passages confirm the main points of
this lesson. (See Chapter Twelve, Suggestion 4.)

Professor Lester F. Ward (Brown University) :*

"Still, the world has never reached a stage where the physical
and temporal interests have not been largely in the ascendant, and
it is these upon which the economists have established their science.
Self-preservation has alioays been the first law of nature and that
which best insures this is the greatest gain. , . . All considerations
of pride or self-respect tvill give tcay to the imperious laio of the
greatest gain for the least effort. All notions of justice which
would prompt the giving of an equivalent vanish before it. . . ."

Thus wrote Sir Henry Maine rf

"The simple wish to use the bodily powers of another person,
as a means of ministering to one's own ease or pleasure, is doubtless
the foundation of slavery."

And thus Professor W. G. Sumner (Yale University) 4
"The desire to get ease or other good by the labor of another
and the incidental gratification to vanity seem to be the funda-
mental principles of slavery, when philosophically regarded, after
the rule of one man over others has become established. ... It
appears that slavery began historically with the war captive, if he
or she was not put to death, as he was liable to be by the laws
of war. ... It seems to be established that it [slavery] began where
the economic system was such that there was gain in making a
slave of a war captive, instead of killing him. . . . The defeated
[in war] were forced to it [slavery] and learned to submit to it.
... It seemed to be good fun, as well as wise policy, to make the
members of a rival out-group do these tasks, after defeating them
in war. . . . Inasmuch as slavery springs from greed and vanity,
it appeals to primary motives and is at once entwined with selfish-
ness and other fundamental vices. . . . It rises to an interest which
overrules everything else. . . . The motive of slavery is base and

* Pure Sociology, p. 61. Italics mine. G. R. K.

■^Ancient Law, p. 164.

t Folkways, pp. 262-3 and 307. Italics mine. G. R. K.

A LESSON IN HISTORY. 329

cruel from the beginning. . . . The interests normally control life.
. . . Slavery is an instinct which is sure to break over all re-
straints and correctives. ... It is a kind of pitfall for civilization."

Here are a few lines from Professors Ely and Wicker
(University of Wisconsin, Department of Economics) :*

"It follows from the need of larger territories [in the hunting
stage] that war becomes an economic necessity wherever there is
not an abundance of unoccupied land. This same condition of
things gives us one of the causes of cannibalism. The pressure of
increasing numbers bringing people continually to the verge of
starvation, they fall, little by little, into the custom of eating
enemies, taken in war. . . . Captives later came to be recognized
as of use in serving their captors, and thus slavery succeeds canni-
balism. . . .

"The Origin of a Working Class. Perhaps the most important
result of the change which produced the agricultural stage was the
growth of slavery as an institution. As we liave said, slavery
had its beginnings in the preceding periods [hunting and pastoral],
but it is only in the agricultural stage that it becomes an important,
almost a fundamental, economic institution. Tending the herds did
not call for persistent labor, but the prose of tilling the soil is
undisguised work, and primitive men were not fond of work. . . •
It is not strange then that they should have saved the lives of
men conquered in battle with the design of putting upon them
the tasks of tilling the soil."

On the origin of slavery the eminent French sociologist,
Gabriel Tarde, writes :f

"What do all our modern inventions amount to in comparison
with this capital invention of domestication. This was the first
decisive victory over animality. Now, of all historic events the
greatest and most surprising is, unquestionably, the one which
alone made history possible, the triumph of man over surrounding
fauna [animals of the region]. ... To us the trained horse that is
docile under the bit is merely a certain muscular force under our
control. . . . The idea of reducing men to slavery, instead of killing
and eating them, must have arisen after the idea of training animals
instead of feeding on them, for the same reason that war against
wild beasts must have preceded that against alien tribes. When
man enslaved and domesticated his own kind, he substituted the
idea of human beasts of burden for that of human prey."

* Elementary Economics, pp. 27-33.

■f Laws of Imitation, Parson's translation, pp. 277-79.

330 WAB—WHAT FOR?

And this from Wallis:*

"But whatever its merits, the consideration of slavery intro-
. duces a much larger subject — the place of class relations in social
development as a whole. In its material aspect, property in men is
an institution by means of which one class of people appropriates
the labor product of another class without economic repayment.
This relation is brought about lalso'\ by other institutions than
slavery. For instance, if a class engross the land of a country and
force 'the remainder of the population to pay rent, either in kind
or in money, for the use of the soil, such a procedure issues, like
slavery, in the absorption of labor products by an upper class with-
out economic repayment.

"We have observed the origin of the social cleavage into upper
and lower strata on this general basis at the inception of social
development. If we scrutinize the field carefully, it is evident that
one of the greatest and far reaching facts of ancient civilization,
as it emerges from the darkness of prehistoric times, as well as
one of the most considerable facts of subsequent history is just this
cleavage into two principal classes."

Herbert Spencer has written :t

"The sequence of slavery upon war in ancient times is shown
us in the chronicle of all races. . . .

"Eeady obedience to a terrestrial ruler is naturally accompanied
by ready obedience to a supposed celestial ruler; . . . Examina-
tion discloses a relation between ecclesiastical and political govern-
ments . . . and in societies which have developed a highly coercive i^;
secular rule there habitually exists a high coercive religious ''
rule. ...

"The Clergy were not the men who urged the abolition of slav- >

ery, nor the men who condemned regulations which raised the price |

of bread to maintain rents. Ministers of religion do not as a body K

denounce the unjust aggression we continually commit on weaker
societies." ,'

Dr. Ward writes :$

"Passing over rcbbeiy and theft, which, though prevalent every-
where, are not recognized by society, let us consider war for a
moment as a non-industrial mode of acquisition. In modern times,

* American Journal of Sociology, May, 1902, pp. 764-65. Italics
mine. G. R. K.

■f Principles of Sociology, Vol. III., pp. 84, 92, 148, 448; Apple-
ton's Edition, 1899. See also Lester F. Ward: Dynamic Sociology,
Vol. I., pp. 287-90. (Italics mine. G. R. K.)

t Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., pp. 583-85.

A LESSON IN HISTORY. 331

most wars have some pretext besides that of aggrandizing the
victorious parties engaged in them, although in nearly all cases
this latter is the real casus belli [justihcation of war]. This
shows that the world is so far advanced as to be ashamed of its
motives for its conduct, but not enough so to aifect that conduct
materially. In olden times no secret was made of the object of
military expeditions as the acquisition of the wealth of the con-
quered people. . . . We may regard war, then, strictly considered, as
a mode of acquisition. . . . War, then, when waged for conquest, is
simply robbery on so large a scale that in the crude conceptions of
men it arouses the sentiments of honor."

In Dealy and Ward's Text Book of Sociology, pp. 86-88,
is this luminous passage:

"The stage of race antagonism is reached and the era of war
begins. The chase for animal food is converted into a chase for
human flesh, and anthropophagous [cannibal] races arise, spread-
ing terror in all directions. . . . The use of the bodies of the weaker
races for food was, of course, the simplest form of exploitation
to suggest itself. But this stage was succeeded by that social assim-
ilation through conquest and subjugation. The profound inequal-
ity produced by subjugation was turned to account through other
forms of exploitation. The women and the warriors were enslaved,
and the system of caste that arose converted the conquered race
into a virtually servile class, while this service and the exemptions
it entailed converted the leaders of the conquering race into a
leisure class.

"Such was the origin of slavery, an economic institution which
is found in the earlier stages of all the historical races."

The next selected paragraph is from Professor Simon
Patten (University of Pennsylvania), Ex-President of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science :*

"The human hordes turned upon each other, and their prowlings
about the precarious supplies of food evolved in the course of time
the 'wars of civilization.' There was little peace where nature was
most productive, and the conquering populations of the better
lands, governing and protecting by conquest, built up whole states
on the traditions and practice of fighting. . . . Statesmen mid
philosophers set forth the necessity and beneficence of destruction.
It was in such a world, ivhere a man's death was his neighbor's
gain, that OUR social institutions were grounded. . . . Predatory

* The New Basis of Civilization, pp. 67, 69. Italics mine.

G. R. El.

333 WAR— WHAT FOR?

habits, which originated in the hunting of game, developed a zest for
hunting men as soon as conquests and the possession of slaves made
the agricultural resources of the valleys more desirable than those
of the mountain or upland plain. . . . The contests evolved social
institutions, which do perpetuate and conserve, and which do not
improve, man's adjustment to nature. Here arises the distinction
between the social institutions . . . and the economic institutions.
. . . The former establish status and the rights of possession and
exploitation; the other increase nobility of men and goods, promote
industry, and give each generation renewed power to establish
itself in closer relations with nature.

"The result of these conditions is two kinds of obstacles that
hinder advance. On the one hand are the obstacles economic, mal-
adjustments between man and nature, which forced men in the past
to submit to a poverty they did not know how to escape; and on
the other hand are the obstacles social which do not originate in
nature, but in those past [social'] conditions retaining present po-
tency that have aligned men into antagonistic classes at home and
into hostile races abroad. The economic obstacles are being slowly |

weakened by the application of knowledge, science and skill; but the f

social obstacles will never be overcome until an intellectual revolu-
tion shall have freed men's minds from the stultifying social tradi-
tions that hand down hatreds, and shall have given to thought the
freedom that now makes industrial activity. The extension of
civilization doivnicard does not depend at present so much upon
gaining fresh victories over nature, as it does upon the demolish-
ment of social obstacles which divide men into classes and prevent
the universal democracy that unimpeded economic forces would bring
about. The social status, properly determined by a man's working
capacity, has now intervened between him and his relations with
nature until opportunity, which should be impersonal and self-re-
newed at the birth of a man, has dwindled and become partisan."*

Thus Professor Patten, tho a conservative and a non-
socialist, frankly points out the necessity of such social re-
organization as will destroy the artificial barriers to equality
of opportunity for each to secure an abundance. And it is
certainly true, as Dr. Patten suggests, that we have arrived
at that stage in our knowledge of nature and in our indus-
trial evolution, which renders industrial reconstruction of
society logically necessary — both to avoid war and to secure
industrial justice and freedom for the working class.

See discussion of parasites in Chapter Ten.

A LESSON IN HISTORY. 333

Anent this matter one of America's noblest and most
scholarly women, Miss Jane Addams, writes as follows :*

"Existing commerce has long ago reached its international
stage, but it has been the result of business aggression, and con-
stantly appeals for military defense and for the foi-cing of new
markets. ... It has logically lent itself to warfare, and is indeed
the modern representative of conquest. As its prototype rested
upon slavery and vassalage, so this commerce is founded upon a
contempt for the worker, and believes that he can live on low wages.
It assumes that his legitimate wants are the animal ones, com-
prising merely food and shelter and the cost of its replacement."

Frederic Harrison thus if

"Within our social system there rages the struggle of classes,
interests, and ambitions; the passion for wealth, the restlessness
of want. The future of industry, the cause of education, social
justice, the very life of the poor, all tremble in the balance in our
own country, as in other countries; this way or that way will
decide the well-being of generations to come."

The wars of long ago originated because it was extremely
difficult to get a living out of nature's store-house of sup-
plies— when men were ignorant of nature's resources and
ignorant of how to make nature yield abundantly. Those
wars were due chiefly to ignorance of physical nature, due
to our inability to get into right relations with physical
NATURE. But the wars of the present are carried on, and
the wars of the future will be carried on, chiefly because of
the following combination of circumstances:

(a) We have so much knowledge of nature's forces and
resources that it is easy, now, to get livings from nature's
store-house, easy to produce abundantly; and

(b) Under the wage-system the worker's power to pro-
duce abundantly is so much greater than his permitted con-
suming power that the surplus product becomes so large as
to make a foreign market, a world-market, necessary; and,

(c) Since many nations have reached and more nations
are rapidly approaching this stage of development in pro-
duction, yet still remain under the wage-and-profit plan of

* Neicer Ideals of Peace, pp. 115-16.
•f National and Social Problems, p. 255,

334 WAR— WHAT FOR?

distribution, the world market is insufficient for all

OF THEM.

Hence there will be wars, if the working class permit them.

The future wars will be due chiefly to ignorance of social
nature, due to our hiahility to get into right relations with
ONE ANOTHER industrially.

War produced slavery, chattel slavery. Chattel slavery
evolved into serf-slavery. Serf-slavery evolved into wage-slav-
ery. And wage-slaves produce so much and are permitted to
consume so small a proportion of what they produce, that
the capitalists must order the wage-slaves to fight for a
foreign market for what the wage-slaves produce and the
capitalist employers do not consume or invest and the wage-
slaves are not permitted to consume. War thus originated
slavery and now slavery [wage-slavery] ends in war.

War, conflict, struggle, Antagonism is in the social struc-
ture wherever there is slavery.

Slavery is fundamentally unsocial — anti-social.

ISTow, the capitalist employer insists that the wage-earner
and the employer are in proper relation to each other. The
capitalist is satisfied to have had the first two class-labor
forms of society (slavery and serfdom) pass away. But he
accepts the present class-labor form of society (the wage-
system) as correct; it is satisfactory — to him. And he crafti-
ly has it taught in the high schools, colleges and universities
that the employer and the wage-earner are at present in propsr
relation to each other.

The capitalist enjoys his own freedom at the expense of
the worher's freedom.

He is eager to have the wage-earner believe that he too is
free ; and that, being free, he should be satisfied and keep quiet.

The capitalists explain that the wage-earners are free
because the wage-earners have the privilege of making a con-
tract, a contract to worh for wages; that the wage-earners
being thus at last free to make a contract, they have reached
their final status, an ideal status; and that thus (Blessed be
the Lord!) evolution has flnally finished its great work — ^the
work is done and well done.

A LESSON IN HISTORY. 335

Capitalists and the intellectual flunbies of the capitalist
class do all possible to have the world believe the following
proposition:

The evolution of human relations is finished —

PERFECT — IN industry; AND, THEREFORE, THE WAGE-
EARNERS ARE FOOLISH AND UNGRATEFUL TO BE DISCONTENTED,
AFTER HAVING DEVELOPED TO THEIR PRESENT STAGE OF IN-
DUSTRIAL FREEDOM.

Following is a sample of the familiar soothing congratu-
lation on our having reached the present noble form of in-
dustrial freedom and civilization. Professor Fairbanks (Yale
University) writes thus:*

"When captives taken in war could be utilized for work in-
stead of being destroyed or eaten, a genuine means of production
was secured. . . . Feudalism marked a decided advance on slavery.
. . . The serf had certain interests of his own, not wholly identical
with his lord's. . . . Then masters gradually learned that hired
labor [the wage-system] was more profitable than forced labor,
and the principle of serfdom, like that of slavery before it, had to give
way to a higher form of organization for production [the wage-
system]. . . .

"The laborer [at present under the wage-system] is bound to
his master by no tie except such as he voluntarily assumes."

How frankly profits are admitted to have been the motive
inspiring the origin of the wage-system.

And how entertainingly ridiculous is the last proposition
quoted above. What cheap palavering about freedom. What
clownish antics pleasing to the kings — the industrial kings.
It certainly pleases the industrial Caesars to have the Pro-
fessor turn intellectual sommersaults to induce the wage-slave
to smile sweetly and admire the slave-bands on his own
wrists. Are not those bands plainly marked "Free"?

Notice that Professor Fairbanks uses the words "master"
and "bound" in referring to the relation between the employer
and the "free-contracting" wage-earner.

A free man does not voluntarily bind himself to a master.

With the lash of hunger cutting him and the wolf of
want at the throats of his wife and children, the "free-con-

Introduction to Sociology, pp. 136-39,

336 WAR— WHAT FOR?

tractmg" hired laborer, the wage-earner, promptly and vol-
untarily seeks an employer— "master," and "voluntarily"
"contracts" to produce a dollar's worth of value for twenty or
forty cents in wages and thus "voluntarily" degrades himself
and thus "voluntarily" submits to have his wife and little
children robbed of the abundant livings he wishes to pro-
vide for them. This is the freedom, the free contract, of the
wage-system, the present (the third) form of class-lahov
system. This glorious freedom of the modern wage-slave is
easily seen in the picture opposite the title-page of this look.
The "freedom" of the wage-earner in thus making a con-
tract, with starvation behind him, vagrancy laws reaching
for him, police, militia, soldiers, jails and bull-pens ready
for him, this freedom is about as complete as that of a citizen
facing an armed and threatening highwayman who com-
mands, "Hands up!" The wage earner and the held-up
citizen are free to comply, free to surrender and free to be |

robbed, and also free to decline and take the consequences — .
all "voluntarily" of course.

No ONE IS FREE INDEED TILL HE IS PREE IN THE MOST
FUNDAMENTAL ACTIVITY OF LIFE, THE ACTIVITY OF GETTING
A LIVING.

In the evolution of mankind the worker has, in some
parts of the world, secured :

Freedom to investigate.

Freedom of thought.

Freedom of assemblage,

Freedom of speech,

Freedom of the press,

Freedom of suffrage — for male workers,

Freedom of political party organization and association.

This indicates the stage at which we have arrived in the
development of freedom for the working class. These pre-
liminary forms of freedom are the means with which, if we
have pride enough, we shall secure freedom indeed — freedom
in getting a living, freedom from capitalist employers who,
with soldiers and the lash of starvation, force us into wage
contracts, freedom from the blue-blood social parasites who

A LESSON IN HISTORY. 337

despise our common blood in social relations, suck our blood
in industrial relations, and waste our blood in war.*

In the evolution of mankind the ancient free barbarian,
taken prisoner in war, loudly and grandly protesting, be-
came a chattel slave without any kind of freedom ; the chattel
slave became a serf without industrial freedom or any other
kind in reality and completeness ; the serf became a wage-
earner, a wage-slave, without industrial freedom — that is,
without the fundamental freedom, freedom in getting a liv-
ing. However, in very recent times the wage-earner has
come into the possession of several of those extremely im-
portant forms of freedom with which he can defend Jdmself
as soon as he has sufficient self-respect to do so.

Thus and therefore the question of our day is this :
Are the w^orking class proud and keen enough to

USE THE freedom THEY HAVE, TO SECURE THE FREEDOM THEY

NEED MOST NAMELY, FREEDOM IN INDUSTRY^ FREEDOM IN

GETTING A LIVING IN A SOCIALIZED SOCIETY, A SOCIETY yflTB.
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL, ALL OF US WITH OUR
FEET FIRMLY PLANTED ON THE COLLECTIVELY OWNED IN-
dustrial foundations of society, a society of rational
Mutualism, with Justice, Plenty and Peace?

Eeader, if you are with us in our peaceful struggle to win
the world for the workers, start a fire — in your neighbor's
mind (if he has one) — ^hand him a torch, a torch of truth.
Let us shake hands and fight — the enemy — with light.

With the truth we shall halt the galloping cavalry, si-
lence the cannon, "ground arms," and close the class strug-
gle— in a co-operative commonwealth.

With a dollar's worth of literature you can reach a hun-
dred brains.

It is your move.

* For a powerful argument showing the intellectual equality
of the working clasa and the ruling class see Professor Lester F.
Ward's AppUed Sociology. The political foolishness of the working
class is not due to lack of brains, but to lack of books — books that
tell the truth, the truth that clears the vision and rouses the
passion for fi'eedom and points the way. — Suggestions, next chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE.
More Suggestions and What to Read.

(1) Invite your pastor to preach against war, urge him to
do so, and render him any assistance you can in the way
of literature on war. Help get out an audience to hear the
sermon. Urge others to do likewise.

(2) Inform your own children and other children con-
cerning the class struggle and war, and urge them to talk
about the class struggle and against war, at school. Teach
them the cause of war. See also Chapter Eight, Section
20, and Index, "Eecitations." Rouse the children.

(3) Wherever possible — in colleges, high schools, labor
unions, fraternal organizations, women's clubs, churches,
Sunday schools, at picnics, and so forth — have debates,
declamations and essays on war. Help the debaters, writers
and speakers, find literature on war, and, if possible, get the
subject presented from a working-class point of view, showing
especially the fundamental cause of war and what war al-
ways means for the working class. (See page 350, last two
lines.)

(4) Have as many persons as possible call at your pub-
lic library for books on war, and suggest books on war to be
called for. Suggest books for purchase by your public li-
brary management. If the books you urge for the library
are not purchased, discuss the reason. All the sociological
works quoted in Chapter Eleven should be in your public
library.

(5) Get articles and letters on war into your local news-
papers and labor union journals.

(6) On the 30th of May, the 4th of July and other
"great" days, when the blood-steaming praise of human
l>utchery is poured forth by the noisy "patriotic" orators,
pass around all possible literature helpful in counteracting
the befouling suggestions commonly thrust into the minds
of the people at such times. Chapter Two and other selec-

SUGGESTIONS AND READINGS. 339

tions from War — What For? making an inexpensive sixteen-
page booklet, may be had, printed separately, for such purpose.

It is possible to compel an entire community to think about
the vast outrages against the working class. As long as the
workers have the privilege of spreading the printed page, one
of their highest pleasures and powers will be found in forcing
society to consider the cas0 of the worhing class. The first
thing on the program in every community is to take the com-
munity by the shoulders, so to speak, and compel it to con-
sider the mast vital subject of the hour.

(7) A Ten-Dollar Cash Prize for the best essay or debate,
or declamation on war as a phase of the class struggle by
local school-children under eighteen years of age would create
much interest in the vicious slaughter of men of the working
class and in the new working class politics, if the proper
literature were brought to the young people's attention. See
Chapter Eight, Section 20, Suggestion (7).

(S) It would be easy to make here a pretentious parade
of a discouragingly long list of books on war. But War —
What For? is primarily for the class of readers who are
usually too busy in the present warlike struggle for existence
to find time to read a roomful of books on war. However, it
is hoped that the present volume may also have readers with
opportunity to make extensive studies of the subject. Such
readers will find abundant bibliographies already prepared.
Excellent book lists for the student of war are as follows:

(a) The Political Science Quarterly, December, 1900:
over 200 titles, at the close of an elaborate article of great
worth, "War and Economics in History and in Theory," by
Edward "Van Dyke Eobinson.

(b) A pamphlet. International Peace, a list of Books with
References to Periodicals: 600 titles with comment on con-
tents, published by the Brooklyn Public Library, 1908.

(c) A well selected list of readings in The Arena, Decem-
ber, 1894.

Following is a list of pamphlets, magazine articles and
books, directly or indirectly on the subject of social conflict,
of which war is a phase. The list is short, tho' sufficient,

340 WAR— WHAT FOR?

it is hoped, to make a helpful beginning, a short reading
course, for any one who would understand the subject of so-
cial conflicts, that is, would understand, not the science of
war, but the cause, the meaning and results of class struggles
and war.

There is a vast amount of worthless, or worse than worth-
less, literature on war: worthless because of the writers'
neglect of the heart of the problem, namely, the indiLstiial
structure of all class-labor forms of society, with their wn-
social purpose and method of production, resulting in the
class struggle.

Whoever would understand war must give special atten-
tion: (1) to the economic interpretation of history; (2) to
the class struggle, considered historically and currently; and
(3) to surplus value, produced by the workers, but legally
escaping from their control to the capitalist class — as a re-
sult of the institution of private ownership and private con-
trol of the collectively used means of production. The fact,
the method, the purpose, and the result of the legal confisca-
tion of that part of the world's wealth which the workers
produce and are not permitted to enjoy — must have careful
study. In the light of such studies, national and inter-
national policies, politics and war can be understood. And
as war is thus understood we can make rapid headway against
war. Pretty little speeches and essays on the beauties of
peace, with "please-be-good" perorations, — such efforts, how-
ever carefuly prepared, tearfully punctuated, elegantly
printed and prayerfully delivered, will result in — nothing.
That is to say, occasional literary and oratorical snowballs
ignorantly, gracefully and grammatically tossed in the direc-
tion of hell will have no effect on the general temperature of
that warlike region. (See Index: "Another War," "The
Hague Peace Conference," and "The Explanation.")

A Reading Course.

In the following list of readings those indicated by paren-
thesis thus 0 would serve as a shorter course.

(1) Kautsky: The Capitalist Class; The Working Class; The

SUGGESTIONS AND READINGS. 341

Class Struggle; Ethics and the Materialistic Conception of History;
and The Road to Power, Chapters 8 and 9.

(2) Simons: The Man Under the Machine, and Class Struggles
in America.

(3) Marx: Wage-Labor and Capital; Marx and Engels: The
Communist Manifesto.

(4) Massart and Vandervelde: Parasitism — Social and Or-
ganic.

(5) Myers: History of Great American Fortunes, entire work
is an account of social parasitism in America; special references:
Vol. II., pp. 127-38, 291-301; Chapters 11 and 12; Vol. III., pp.
160-176.

(6) Veblen: The Theory of the Leisure Class.

(7) Ross: Social Control; The Foundations of Sociology, pp.
219-23, 272-76; Social Psychology, Chapters on Suggestibility, The
Crowd, and Mob Mind.

(8) L. F. Ward: Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., pp. 565-597;
Psychic Factors in Civilization, Chapters 33 and 38; Applied So-
ciology, pp. 224-295, 300-302, 307-313, 319-326; Pure Sociology,
pp. 266-72; "Social Classes in the Light of Modern Sociological The-
ory," American Journal of Sociology, March, 1908; Education and
Progress, Address delivered before the "Plebs" League, Oxford, Eng-
land, August 2, 1909.

9 W. G. Sumner: Folkways, Chapter 6.

(10) Morgan: Ancient Society, pp. V.-VIII.; Pt. I. Chs. 1-3;
and all of Pt. IV.

(11) J. O. Ward: Ancient Lowly, Chapter — "Spartacus."

12 Shoaf: The Story of the Mollie McGuires.

13 Hanford: The Labor War in Colorado.

14 : "Secret Army Guards New York Against a Traffic

Strike," New York Herald, Mag. Section, March 20, 1910.

(15) Debs: Class Conflict in Colorado.

( 16 ) Wright, U. S. Commissioner of Labor : A Government
Report on the Great Strike in Colorado.

17 Darrow: Speech to the Jury in the Haytvood Case.
(18) Untermann: The Dick Militia Law (U. S., 1903).

19 Commons: "Is Class Conflict in America Growing and Is It
Inevitable?" * * * Carver: "The Basis of Social Conflict"; * * -
Keasby: "Competition." American Journal of Sociology, March, 190h.
See also Papers and Proceedings of the American Sociological So
ciety, Vol. II., Special Topic: "Social Conflicts."

20 Small: General Sociology, Chapters 26 and 27.

(21) Shaler: "The Natural History of War," International
Quarterly, Sept., 1903; also The Neighbor.

22 Ridpath'. "Plutocracy and War," Arena, Jan., 1898.
(23) Jordan: "The Biology of War," an Address, Chicago,

342 WAR— WHAT FORf

1909, reported in Unity, June 10, 1909; Imperial Democracy, Chap-
ters 1, 2, 3, and 7; The Human Harvest; The Blood of the Nation.
24 Chatterton-Hill: Heredity and Selection in Sociology, pp.
316-24. Thompson: Heredity, pp. 532-34.

(25) Jefferson: "The Peace-at-any-Price Men," The Inde-
pendent, Feb. 4, 1909; "The Delusions of the Militarist," Atlantic
Monthly, March, 1909.

(26) Charles Edward Russell: Why I Am a Socialist.

27 Tolstoi: Bethink Yourselves; Patriotism and Christianity,
and Thou Shalt Not Kill.

(28) Robinson: "War and Economics in History and in
Theory," Political Science Quarterly, Dec, 1900.

(29) Ghent: Mass and Class.

(30) London: The War of the Classes; Revolution, Chapter,
"The Yellow Peril"; also, "Revolution," Contemporary Review, Jan.,
1908.

(31) W. T. Mills: The Struggle for Existence, Chapters 4-23.

(32) Hillquit: Socialism in Theory and Practice, pp. 36-65,
153-167, 296-302.

(33) Spargo: Socialism, Chapters 4, 5, 6, and Common Sense
of Socialism, Chapters 2-7.

(34) Ferri: Socialism and Modern Science, Chapter 7.

35 Seligman: The Economic Interpretation of History.

36 Boudin: The Theoretical System of Karl Marx, Chapters
1-5, 8-10.

37 Patten: "The Economic Causes of Moral Progress," Annals
of Amer. Soc. Pol. and Soc. Set., Sept., 1892.

(38) Engels: The Origin of the Family, Property and the
State, special attention to Chapters 8, 9; and Socialism — Utopian
and Scientific.

(39) Hobson: The Evolution of Modern Capitalism; Im-
perialism, special attention to first six chapters; The Psychology of
Jingoism; The War in South Africa, Part II.; and John Ruskin —
Social Reformer, Chapters 3-8 inclusive, and Appendix 1.

40 Ferrero: Militarism.

41 Liebknecht: Militarismus und Anti-Militarismus.

42 Biichner: Industrial Evolution (Wickett's translation).
Chapters 4-5.

(43) Robinson and Beard: The Development of Modern
Europe, Vol. II., Chapters 18, 30-31.

(44) Weale: The Coming Struggle in Asia, special attention
to Parts II. and III.

45 : "Peace on Earth," Public Opinion, Dec. 4, 1908, p. 635.

46 Schierbrand: America, Asia and the Paeifie.

47 Harrison: National and Social Problems, Part I., Chapters
1, 8-11.

SV0GE8TI0NS AND READINGS. 343

(48) Strong: Expansion, Chapters 2, 3, 4.

49 Bolce: The New Internationalism, Chapters 1-6 inclusive,

and 15.

50 Fisk: International Commercial Policies, Chapters 13-16.

51 Reinsch: World Politics.

52 Asakawa: The Russo-Japanese Conflict.

53 Kennan: "The Military and Political Memoirs of General
Kuropatkin," McClure's Magazine, Sept. 1908.

54 Smith: The Spirit of American Government, Chapters 4,
11, 12.

55 McCabe and Darien: Can We Disarm?

56 Carver: Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 132-73.

57 Jaures: "Socialism and International Arbitration," North
American Review, Aug. 1908.

58 Broda: "The Federation of the World," The International,
July, 1908.

(59) Herv6: "Anti-Militarism," The International, July, 1908;
Anti- Patriotism ; My Country — Right or Wrong.

60 Edmondson: John Bull's Army from Within.

61 Mead: Patriotism and the New Internationalism.

62 Kampffmeyer: Changes in the Theory and Tactics of the
(German) Social Democracy (Gay lord's Translation), Chapter 3.

(63) Sombart: Socialism and the Socialist Movement (Ep-
stein's Translation), Sixth Enlarged Edition, pp. 175-223.

(64) Stoddard: The Neto Socialism, Chapters 14, 15.

(65) Campbell: Christianity and the Social Order, pp. 176-230.

66 Warner: The Ethics of Force.

67 Wallace: The Wonderful Century, Chapters 19, 20.

68 ( Anonymous : ) Arheiter in Council.
(69) Walsh: The Moral Damage of War.
70 McLaren: Put Up Thy Sword.

(71) Bloch: The Future of War.

72 Molinari: The Society of Tomorrow.

73 Brooks : The Social Unrest, Chapter 6.

(74) Kim: Mind and Hand, Chapters 2, 17, 21, 22, 24.

(75) Seidel: Industrial Instruction.

(76) Eastman: Work- Accidents and the Law; Oliver: Danger-
ous Trades.

77 Addams: The Newer Ideals of Peace.

78 Anitchkow: War and Labor.

79 Cooley: Human Nature and the Social Order, Chapters 1.
3, 4, 7, 12.

80 Lloyd: Man the Social Creator, Chapters 1, 6, 11.

81 Kropotkin: Mutual Aid.

82 Bellamy: Equality, Chapters 22-27 and first half of 33.

83 Henry George: Progress and Poverty, Book 10, Chapter 3.

344 WAR— WHAT FOR?

84 Amos: Political and Legal Remedies for War, Chapters
1, 2. i

85 Charles Sumner: Addresses on War.

86 Fiske : The Destiny of Man.

87 Kelly: Government and Human Evolution, Vol, II. <

(88) Barry: Siege of Port Arthur — A Monster Heroism.

(89) Sakurai: Human Bullets.

(90) Von Suttner: Lay Doicn Your Arms.

(91) Andreief: The Red Laugh.

(92) Zola: The Downfall.

(93) Wells: The War in the Air.
94 Channing: Lectures on War.

(95) Hugo: Les Misirables — the Battle of Waterloo; also
William Shakespeare, Anderson's translation, pp. 294-312, 341-48,
384-95.

96 Sienkiewicz: With Fire and Sword.

(97) Crosby: Captain Jinks — Hero, and Swords and Plough-
shares.

98 Mr. Dooley: In Peace and War.

99 Kipling: Barrack-Room Ballads — "Tommy."

100 Mrs. Browning: Mother and Poet.

The various ''peace societies" have published consider-
able literature on war and peace — in most eases with good
intentions, no doubt. However, there could be no peace be-
tween a chattel slave and a chattel slave's master; nor can
there be peace between a wage-slave and a wage-slave's em-
ployer— if the wage-slave be awake; nor between the wage-
slave class and the capitalist class. Until "peace societies"
cry out against capitalism, — the heart of which is the wage-
system,— until then their literature will be discouragingly
ineffective.

Eeread first page of Chapter Npie, paragraph beginning
"The cash cost of militarism."

The one war sublime is: Light against Darkness.

The printing press is the machine-gun for the slaves
against slavery.

It is a high privilege to make a human brain ferment —
with facts.

THE END.

INDEX.

PAGE

Abuse of Soldiers. . .191-199, 219-223

Advertisements for Soldiers 108

199-201, 293
Aggression and Robbery, Social . . .

273-337

Airships, Dirigible 90

"All War, Civil War" 264

"American Brigadier, The," Church

Militarism 230 et seq.

American Civil War , . . . . 139

American Civil War, Cash Cost of

55-58
American Revolutionists, Resist-
ance by Force 292

American Revolutionary War, Be-
trayal of Working-Class Sol-
diers in 117-118

Anarchists, Capitalists as. .. .295-296

303
Andreief, Leonid, — "The Red

Laugh" 18-19, 83

Another War 30-43, 97, 154-158

207 ; 217 ; 265 ; 284 ; 287 ; 289-
290 ; 312-316 ; 333-334
Antagonism in Present Social

Structure 273-337

Antagonism — Mutualism — in the

Social Structure 281 et seq.

Antagonism — Second Possible Plan

of Social Organization 282

Antagonism, Social, Basis of 282

Anti-patriotism of George Wash-
ington 217-218

Arbitration 202-206, 308-309

Arbitration, "Nothing to Arbi-
trate" 166-167

Aristocrats, Roman, Avoiding In-
fantry 22

Armed Guard, Rapidly Increasing,

Necessity of. New Danger 42

164-174
"Arm Everybody or Nobody" .... 175
Arms, Defective, Provided Union

Soldiers 139

Arms, Modern, Improved 77-97

Arms, Rapid Improvement of 26

Arms, Right to Bear 175

Army, Composed of Working-Class,

General Army Staff Quoted .... 10
"Army, the Poor Man's University,"

176

Bankruptcy 64-73

Barry, Richard 82-83, 88

Battles in Industry Compared With

Battle in War 164

Bayonet, a Stinger 12

Births Prevented by Life in Mili-
tary Service 48

Block, J. . .49, 56, 75, 80, 85, 89, 109
Blood Cost of War. in General, 47-
54; in Manchuria 145

PAGB

Blood Lust, Fostering of, In Chil-
dren 213 et seq.

Boer War 32, 67, 93, 181 et seq.

Bond Leech, International. .. .146-148

"Boys in Blue," The 118 et seq.

"Boy Scout" Movement, The.. 228-233

British Government, Its Betrayal
of Soldiers in Napoleonic Wars
and in the Boer War 110-118

Brutality of Soldiers 180 et seq.

Bryan, W. J 21

In Cuban War 178-179

Sons of 157

Bullets, Dumdum 204-205

Business and Government in Im-
pending War 156-157

"Business Is Business" 244-272

Caesar's Victories 105

Capitalism 30-46, 283 et seq.

Capitalism, Destruction of. .291 et seq.
Capitalism, Peace Impossible Un-
der 286-289

"Capital Produces Nothing" . .284-285
Canned Beef for Soldiers. .. .137-144

Cannibals, "Civilized" 144-148

Carlyle, Thomas, on the "Brave

Boys" 189-190

Carnegie, Andrew 289

Carnegie Steel Company, Patriot-
ism of 289

Cause of War. .Chap. Three, Six, Ten,

Eleven
Challenge to Hague Peace Society,

206 et seq.
Chattel Slave, Protection of . . . .97-99

Chattel Slavery 282 et seq.

Children 207-243, 338-339

Chinese Export Trade 156-157

Christ 21, 52, 144 et seq., 184

226-278, 244. 259-260

Characterization of 260-261

Christian Governments in the R61e

of Procurers 220-223

"Christianized" War 52

Church, The, and War 244-272

Defense of Chattel Slavery, Serf-
dom and Capitalism. .256 et seq.
Training Children for Strikes

and War 228-232

"Civil War, All War Is" 264

Civil War, American 54-58,

100-101, 118-124

Civil War — in Industry 37-46

168-174

Origin and Perpetuation of. .318-37

See also Chapter Ten

Classes — Industrial 274 et seq.

Classes — Industrial, Property as
Basis of. Professors Bluntschll

and Fairbanks 275-276

Classes, Social — What Creates. . . .286
See Civil War In Industry.

ue

INDEX.

PAGE

Dlass Interests — Clash of 29-46

273-337
Dlass War, Raging Around Un-
socialized Industrial Property . .167
et seq. See Civil War in Industry.

Clergy and War, The 228-234

244-272

Slews, Henry 121-124, 285

3ommander-in-Chief, Insult From. 10

■Come On! or Go Ahead!" 107

Commerce Develops into Militar-
ism 29-46, 137-158

Competition and War 40

Laborers Relieved of, by War.. 188
Conciliation, See Arbitration.
Conscription, in Caesar's Time.... 22

77, 152

For Napoleon's Armies 104-05

Conservatives, Liberals 173-174

Constabulary, The State 148-153

170-175
Corruption of Soldier Youths, Taft,
Dickinson, Jordan, Col. Van
Rensselear, General Sherman and

others 219-227

Cossack, The American, See Con-
stabulary.
Cost of War, in Blood 100 years

following 1789, total 50

Cost in Cash, of War 54 et seq.

In Manchuria 145

Cost of War in Cash 54-76

Credit Mobilier 124-137

Crosby, Ernest 237

"Cross, Cannon, and Cash Regis-
ter" 244-272

Cruelty of Soldiers 180 et seq.

Cuban War 32, 94, 137-144

Cyclone of Dynamite, etc., on Bat-
tlefield 89-90

Debts, War 47, 54-76

Decadence, Physical 45-54, 92-106

Declamations for Children.. 237 et seq.

Declaration of Independence,
American 302

Democracy, Increasing. . .70, 167-168
273-316, 335-337

Deserters, System for Catching. .7, 77

153, 193, 199

Despotism, Foundation, and His-
torical Forms, of 282 et seq.

Also Chapter Eleven.

"Dick" Militia Law, The 161

170 et seq.

Disappointment of Young Soldiers,

194 et seq.

Disarmament 206 et seq.

Disease in War. . .48, 92-97, 220-223

"Dreadnoughts" 60-65

Dumdum Bullets 204-205

Economic Determinism — Applica-
tions and Illustrations of. Chapters
Six, Nine, Ten, Eleven

Education and Militarism 24-25

59-76

$8,000,000,000 69-74

Blkins Law 295-296

Employer Class, Interest of, Josiah

Strong 100

Enlistment 77-SG

97, 102-103, 107-109

PAGE

Expansion of Capitalism 34

Exemptions, Substitutes 160-161

228-230

"Explain !" 293-294

Explosives, Modern 77-92

Father and the Boys 159 et seq.

Ferrero, G., on Roosevelt Type of

Greatness 180, 187

On War as a Promoter of Civ-
ilization 185

"Fighting Parsons" 244-273

Firing Line, the Industrial 164

Fiske, John, on Evolution of Social

Man 183

Fittest, Survival of, in War.... 47-54

188-91

Force, Resistance By 291-293

"Foreigners" 257-264

Foundation of Democracy. .281 et seq.
Foundations of Society, Privately

Owned 39 ; See Chapter Ten

Foreign Markets 30-46

155-157, 254-255, 333-334

Four Great Events 306 et seq.

Franchise, Right of, in America,

117-118

Franco-Prussian War 26, 93

160-163, 210
Freedom, Evolution of 334-337

Foundation of 273-316

"Freeing Cuba" 137-144

French Wars of the Revolution ... 49
Functions, Social — Organization

Necessary for 281

Future Wars, See "Another War."

Garrison, William Lloyd, on Pa-
triotism 216

"Governments Destroy Nations" . . 70
Government's, the Federal, Sneer at
the Poverty of the Working

Class 108-109

Government, Use of, in Defense of
Interests, by Washington and
Others, 217-219 ; Discussion and
Suggestion of. Frequent.

Habit, Force of in Working Class,

326 et seq.

Hague Peace Conference 201-205

214, 289-290
Hale, Edward Everett, Rebukes

Teachers of Blood Lust 214

Harvard University, "Fashionable

Cavalry" 23

Hearst (Newspapers) 32

Hearst, Mr., Patriotic 178

Hell 77-106

Heroes 180-184

History of Great American For-
tunes, Gustavus Myers. .. .137, 139
Humanizing War 203-204

Illinois Central Railway Company,

Lands Secured by 135-136

Impending War, See "Another War."

Income-Tax and Patriotism 107

Industrial Function — Society Al-
ways Organized Primarily with

Reference to 281 et seq.

Industrial Despotism, Historic
Forms and Foundation of . 282 et seq.

INDEX.

347

Ingersoll, R. 6 180. 182

225, 235, 237-238-241
Insanity Among Soldiers.. 6-7, 88, 195
Institutions, Origin of. Illustra-
tions 317-337

International Citizens 262-264

Japanese-Russian War 99, 144

Jingoism, The Beginning of.. 209-210
Jordan, President D. S.. 104-105, 198

ICidnapping and Militarism 227

Labor Market, See Labor-power.
Labor-power, Buying and Selling
f 29-47

97-99,' 106,' '274-27'5','333-337

Lad's Brigade, The 230 et seq.

"Land-Grant" Railroads, Land

Gifts, etc 124, 137

Law and Order 6, 321-322

Liberals, Conservatives 173-174

Limitation of Armaments, 69-70 ;

See Hague Peace Society, The.
Lincoln, President, and the Wall

Street Patriots 118-137

Lockouts, Strikes, Statistics of,

168-169
"Love of Country" 217-219

"Man on Horseback, The".. 148 et seq.

Marines 108, 154-158, 221-222

Markets, See Foreign Markets, and

Labor-power.
Medical Service, U. S. Govern-
ment's Criminal Neglect of. Ut-
terly Inadequate. . . .94-95, 143-144
Meditations of a Workingman. . . .153

et seq.

Mexican War 148

"Might Makes Right".. 21-28, 185-190

Militarism 29-106

In Public Schools, Chapter Eight.

Militarism and Education 59-76

Militarism and Kidnapping 227

Militarism in Churches 228-233

Military Tactics, Applied in Poli-
tics 278-280

Militia and Army — Rich Men's

Sons in 160, 176-177

Militiamen and Soldiers 25, 40

45, 46, 148, 151-152
Millionaires in Cuban War .. .176-178

Ministers and War 6, 20

22, 24, 27, 28, 41, 44, 78, 244-272
Modern Machinery, Knowledge,
Methods, Specially Import Re-
sult 42

Moral Decline of Youth in Army,

180-187, 219-227

Morocco -affair. The 309

Moskow Campaign 104-105

Mother — and the Boys and Girls,

207-243
Mothers, Special Suggestions for,

236 et seq.
Murdering Machinery, Modern. .77-92
Mutualism — Antagonism in the So-
cial Structure 281 et seq.

"My Country is the World, My
Countryman All Mankind" 216

Napoleon 104-105

110-115, 124, 200, 208-209, 237

PAGE

Naturalness of Social Parasites'
Behavior 286 et seq.

Naval Life, Unnaturalness of and
Disastrous Moral Results. .221-222

Navy 58-59, 69, 108, 191

Next War, The — How to Avoid Be-
ing Wounded in 97

Non-Combatants, Deatruction of,
in Time of War 48-50

Non-Resistance 291 et seq.

Northern Pacific Railway Company,
Land Gifts to 134-136

Norwegian-Swedish War, See "Four
Great Events."

"No Sentiment in Business". .244-272

Notice, Special, to Hague Peace
Society 206 et seq.

"Obey or Starve". . .257-258, 334-337

"Off for the Front" 30

"Old Glory," Abuse of 150

Old Veteran and Young Cossack,

148 et seq.
One Christian Century of War. .52-53

Opportunity, Equal Basis of 281

"Our Country!" 218-219, 225-226

Overproduction 37-42, 333-335

Panic of 1907 — Regular Soldiers'
Pay Advanced in by Congress,

152-153
Parades, Military, Purpose and Re-
sults 199 et seq.

Parasites "7. 1 J

137, 190-191, 273-337

Parents, Suggestions to 207-243

Patriotism 227, 196-197

Patriotism a Matter of Cash. W.

H. Taft and T. Roosevelt. .196-197
Patriotism, Capitalist, Specimens

of 107-158

Patriotism, Fallacy of False, Ex-
ploded by James Mackaye 217

Patriotism, False, Taught to Chil-
dren 208 et seq.

"Patriotism is Killing Spaniards,"

252-253
Patriotism of Buyers of War

Bonds 118-124

Patriotism — of George Washington,

217-21S
Patriotism — Lowell, J. R., on.... 217
Patriotism, Petty, Interferes With

Social Evolution of Child 213

215 et seq.
Patriotism, Professor Paulsen on.. 180

Patriotism, R. G. Ingersoll on 180

Patriotism. R. W. Emerson on... 217

Patriots, Some Petty 262-264

Peaceful Slaughter — in Industry,

97-106
Peace Impossible Without Social-
izing Unity of Interest. .257 et seq.

282 et seq.

Peace on the Program 262-263

Peace Societies 201-20o

Peace, Talk of, but Preparation for

War 154 et esq.

Peace, The Hague Conference,

201-205

Penitentiary for the Rich 295-296

Pensions 55-59

Industrial Pensions and Military _
Service Pensions 163-16a

348

INDEX.

PAGE

Perverted Sex-Appetite in Life at
Sea 221-222

Philippines, A Soldier's Letter
from the 198

Philippine War 99-101

Pledge to Working Class 11

Poetry that Poisons 213, 214

Poisoned Arms, A Revolution Pro-
duced by 203-204

Political Logic, Elementary, 167 et seq.

Political Parties — Do Not Create
Classes 286

Political Party, Definition of 304

Political Resistance 293 et seq.

Politics, Elementary. Chap. Ten.

Politics, Military Tactics Applied
in 278-280

Poverty of Soldiers Following War,

110-117, 137-144

Power, the Road to 167-168

Powers of Government, Necessity

of Capturing 25. 41-42

75-76, 105-106, 159-206. 273-316

Preachers on the Firing Line. 228-230

"Preaching Heaven, Practising
Hell" 230

Preparation for War 34. 54-76

Talk of Peace and Preparation
for War 154-155

Press, The 24. 32

177-178. 336-337, 338-344

Prevention of War. . .24-25. 105-106,

158, 160, 174-176, 201-206, 235-

243 ; Chapters Nine, Ten ; "Four

Great Events," pp. 306 et seq.

Prize-Fighter Statesmanship. . .58-76

Procurers, Christian Governments
as 220-223

Progress Promoted by War,

184 et seq.

Property Basis of Social Classes —
Professors Bluntschli and Fair-
banks 275-276

Property Rights, "Sacred" 39

322-325

Property, Socialized 167-168

Prostitutes Furnished by Christian
Governments to Their Soldiers,

219-223

Quarters, Soldiers' 192 et seq.

Race Suicide 207-209

Rag-Money for "Boys in Blue,"

119-120
Rations — For Soldiers .... 191 et seq.

•'Real War, The," Ruskin, J 227

Rebellion 69-70

See Washington.
Recitations. Declamations, Selec-
tions from Chapters One, Two,
Four, Five, Six, Eight, Nine,
Ten. See Suggestions Chapter
Twelve.

Recruiting 42, 43

Recruiting — Devices 108

Red Cross Society 88

"Remembering the Maine," See

"Freeing Cuba."
Resistance by all Forms of Power.

292-294

Revolution 300-303

Revolutionary War, American.... 57

PAGE

Revolutionists, American. . . .217-218

292, 302-303
Revolution of Opinion. . .152-153. 187

Revolution, Prepare For 167-168

Revolution, Produced by Poisoned

Arms 203-204

Rifle Practice Clubs in Public

Schools 233 et seq.

Rifle Ranges in Public Schools,

210 et seq.

"Righteous War" Chapter Nine

Risks in War — At the Front and

in Wall Street. See "Clews."

See also 163-164

Road to Power, The 167-168

Robbery Institutional 282 et seq.

Romans. Decadence of 105

Roosevelt. T 21, 47, 93, 102, 141-

143, 157, 179-180, 197, 233, 251-253

Rough Riders. The 140

Royal Timber Company, The,

144 et seq.

Russian- Japanese War 18-19

68-69, 86-88, 101, 144 et seq.

School Children, Deception of . . . . 56
Schools, Public, Abuse of. by Mili-
tarists Chapter Eight

Schools, Use of. to Betray and

Poison Children 213 et seq.

Sedan, Battle of 84. 85, 163

Senate, U. S., Dignity and Nobility

of 124-137

"Sentiment in Business". .. .244-272

Seven Days' Battle 124 et seq.

Seventh Regiment (N. Y.), The,

176-177
"Silence!" The Command of Des-
potism 113-114, 148

Silent Destroyer, Disease, The.. 92-97

Slavery as a Revolution 318

Slavery. Serfdom, Capitalism, Pur-
pose of 38

Socialist Party and War 68

270-272, Chapter Ten. 336-337
Social Organization — Mutualism,
Antagonism, Two Possible Social

Forms 281 et seq.

South- African War 103

Spanish- American War... 93. 176-177

Special Warning, A 154 et seq.

Standing Army. A.. 109-110. 170-176
Statesmen. Politicians, in War... 30

Temptations of 44

Strikes 17

Militiaman's Cheap R61e in.. 45-46

1894 165-166

At Iron Mines in Minnesota.

1907 166 et sea.

"Great Coal Strike". . . .148 et seq.
Strikes, Lockouts, Statistics of.

168-169
Schoolboys Prepared for Strikes,

233-235

Substitutes, Exemptions 160-161

Suggestions 25, 54. 56, 58. 68

74-76, 97, 105-106. 174-175, 184.

210-214, 226 et seq.. 293-294;

Chapters Eleven, Twelve

Suicide 6-7, 77, 194 et seq.

Surgery Applied to Society. .298-299

Surplus 37-43

Surplus Products. Embarrassingly
large 254, 255

INDEX.

349

PAGE

Swedish-Norwegian War, See
"Four Great Events".. .306 et seq.

Taft. W. H 10, 48, 154-157, 191

et seq., 195 et seq., 219, 295-296
Teachers, School, Their Power to
Blast or Develop Social Nature

of Child 209-216

Teaching Youths How to Avoid
Venereal Disease in Associating
With Women (U. S. Govern-
ment and British Government),

219-223
Temptations Frankly Offered by

Federal Government. . . .192 et seq.
Territorial Force Act (English),

"Dick" Law 173-174

The Hague Peace Society. .202 et seq.
"The War is the Class War". .37-46,

286

"To Arms! To Arms!" 13-17

289-291

"Topics for Discussion" 159-243

Toys, Military 216

"Train Everybody or Nobody". . . .175

"Trade Follows the Flag" 36

Trust Laws 295-296

Tsar of Russia, and The Hague

Peace Conference 201-202

Tyranny Protected by the Flag,
Chapter Six, Seventh Illustra-
tion, and 148-153, 164-165

"Undesirable Citizens," Soldiers
as, W. H. Taft. 195 et seq. ; 260-262

Unemployed, The 42, 152-153

Union Pacific Railway Charter,

124-137
Universal Military Service, Chap-
ter Seven (3). (11), (12)

Venereal Diseases. . . .48, 49, 219-223
"Vision of the Future," Inger-

soll's 242

"Vision of War," Ingersoll's. .240-241
Volunteers 77

Wage-System, See Labor-power,

Buying and Selling of.

Wall Street Patriots 118-124

Walsh, Dr. Walter 147, 182, 199

210, 222-223. 266 et seq.
"War a Collision of Interests,"

General Von der Goltz 170

PACK

War and Industry, Comparative

Destruction of Life in 77-92

War, and the Survival of the Fit-
test 188

War and Women 207-243

War as Hell, Chap. Five, 160, 289-291
War as a Relief to Competition

Among Laborers 188

War as a System of Exploitation,

Ferrero 187

War, Comment on 160

War, Definition of 21

Ward, Lester F. .38, 183. 284, 292, 328
War, Explanation of. Motives and
Occasions of. Chaps. Three, Six,

Ten, Eleven

"War is Hell" 159-160

War Necessary to Progress. 184 et seq.

War. Origin of 317-337

Warning, Special 14, 17

154-158, 288-290, 311-316
"War" Statesmen, Popularity of . . 44
War — The Class Struggle. .286 et

seq. ; See Classes
War, The Next, See "Another

War."
War, What is Determined By. .21-28

185-188
War — What to Do About It. .159-243
273-316 ; passim
War, Who Want Who Declare,

Who Fight 29 et seq.

Washington, Anti-Patriot. . . .217-218
Letter to John Bannister on Pa-
triotism 148

Waterloo, Battle of 110-111

"Welcome Home !" 107-158

"Wintering" in the Army 153

Women and War 18, 26, 207-243

Working Class, Self-Defense of,

1-344
Wounded, the DifBculties in At-
tending to in Modern War.... 94

"Young Men Not Only Willing but
Anxious to Fight," Origin of
Saying 47

Youth, Conscription of, for Napo-
leon's Armies 104-105

Zeppelin's, Count, Airship 90

Zola, Emile, The Downfall 26, 83

211-212

350 ANNOUNCEMENT

Our highest activity is thinlcing. Our highest privilege Is
persuading or compelling others to think. Discussion is de«
struction for despotism. The Three Great Rights are
Freedom of Assemblage,
Freedom of Speech,
Freedom of the Press.

Why? Because with these three rights we HOLD the rights
we HAVE and GET other rights we NEED. All tyrants
dread those men and women who are shrewd enough to PRO°
TECT and use these Three Great Rights.

Tyrants are absolutely unafraid of all others. Perhaps of these
three rights the freedom of the press is the greatest; because, for
example, with from ten cents to a dollar you can reach from ten to
a thousand minds. If each of 5,000 books is read by ten persons,
50,000 persons are reached; and if these 50,000 discuss the themes
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sons are reached with the 5,000 books.

The printing press is the Gattling gun for use in the struggle
against any and all wrongs. As a means of self-defense the printed
page is a thousand times more powerful than a rifle ball fired thru
a tyrant's brain.

Salvation comes, and can come, only thru information.

Books, like blood, should circulate.

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the vast red crimes that curse mankind. The author has been in-
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Eugene V. Debs: ". . . An immortal achievement."

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presentation of hard facts. The author digs into the fundamental
causes of war."

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heaviest blow ever dealt against the insanity of militarism. A re-
markable book. No one can escape the logic of its massed up
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