War is wholesale, scientific suicide for the working class under orders from their political and industrial masters.

War is:

For working class homes—emptiness,

For working class wives—heartache,

For working class mothers—loneliness,

For working class children—orphanage,

For working class sweethearts—agony,

For the nation’s choicest working class men—broken health or death,

For society—savagery,

For peace—defeat,

For bull-dogs—suggestions,

For the Devil—delight,

For death—a harvest,

For buzzards—a banquet,

For the grave—victory,

For worms—a feast,

For nations—debts,

For justice—nothing,

For “Thou shalt not kill”—boisterous laughter,

For literature—the realism of the slaughter house,

For the painter—the immortalization of wholesale murder,

For the public park—a famous butcher in stone or bronze,

For Roosevelts—opportunity to strut and brag of blood, and win a “war record” for political purposes,

For Bryans—a military title and a “war record” for political purposes,

For Christ—contempt,

For “Put up thy sword”—a sneer,

For preachers, on both sides,—ferocious prayers for victory,

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

For bankers—bonds, interest (and working class substitutes),

For big manufacturers—business, profits (and working class substitutes),

For big business men of all sorts—“good times” (and working-class substitutes),

For leading business men, for leading politicians, for leading preachers, for leading educators, for leading editors, for leading lecturers—for all of these windy patriots who talk bravely of war, who talk heroically of the flag, who talk finely of national honor and talk and talk of the glory of battle—for all these yawping talkers—never positions as privates in the infantry on the firing line up close where they are really likely to get their delicately perfumed flesh torn to pieces.

Thus war is hell for the WORKING class.^[5]

It is, of course, true that in ancient times the leading citizens did much of the fighting—but that was very long ago, in the days when the machine-gun had not yet been dreamed of. Even two thousand years ago the plutocratic snobs were beginning to show traces of intelligence sufficient to avoid going to hell voluntarily—afoot.

Says Professor E. A. Ross:^[6]

“Service in the Roman cavalry, originally obligatory on all who could furnish two horses, became after a time a badge of superiority. ‘Young men of rank more and more withdrew from the infantry, and the legionary cavalry became a close aristocratic corps’.... Finally the rich came to feel that wealth ought to buy its possessors clear of every onerous duty. In Caesar’s time ‘in the soldiery not a trace of the better classes could any longer be discovered... the levy took place in the most irregular and unfair manner. Numerous persons liable to serve were wholly passed over.... The Roman burgess cavalry now merely vegetated as a sort of mounted noble guard, whose perfumed cavaliers and exquisite high-bred horses only played a part in the festivals of the capital; the so-called burgess infantry was a troop of mercenaries, swept together from the lowest ranks of the burgess population.’”

At present a movement is being promoted by Harvard University authorities to organize in the University “a fashionable troop of cavalry.”^[7] It does not seem likely that many members of the labor unions, so heartily despised by scab-praising ex-president Eliot, will be able to join this “fashionable troop of cavalry.” The labor unionists on strike, unarmed and helpless, may later come in handy as targets for practice by the highly educated “fashionable troop of cavalry.”

After all is “said and done” concerning wars past and present—what is really determined by a so-called great war?

Which of two warring nations is the nobler—is that what a war decides?

Not at all.

Which of the two bleeding nations is the more refined—is the more sensitive to the cry for justice, or has the greater literature, or the keener appreciation of the fine arts, or is more devoted to the useful arts and sciences, or contributes most to the profounder philosophy—which of the two warring nations is the more truly civilized—is that what is decided by war?

Not at all.

Which of the struggling nations is the more wholesomely social? Does a war make that evident?

Not at all.

Which nation has the better cause? Is that, then, what a war decides?

Not at all.

Which nation does more for the progress of mankind? Is that made clear by a war?

Not at all.

A war decides no such questions.

Well, then, what is determined when two nations go to war?

Simply this:—which can make the better fight.

That is all.

And that is exactly what is determined when two sharks fight, or when two tom-cats, or two bull pups fight, or when a cruel hawk and a sweet-throated song bird fight: which is superior as a fighter.

War is the ignoble trick of slitting open the blood vessels of the excited working class to “satisfy” the “honor” and save the pride and business of crowned and uncrowned cowards of the ruling class. There never is a war and never can be a war till the working men are willing to do the marching, the trench-digging and the actual fighting, bleeding and dying. And the working men are never willing to butcher and be butchered wholesale till influential but coarse-grained people of the capitalist class or “highly educated” panderers to the capitalist class, craftily or ignorantly excite the humble toilers to the fiend’s stupid mood of savage hate. First come the “powerful editorials,” the “great speeches,” the “eloquent sermons,” and ferocious prayers for the war; then the fife and drum; then the brain-storm of the humble, humbugged working men; then the recruiting; then the hand-waving and “Good-bye, boys, good-bye, good-bye”; then the butchering and the blood; then the tears and taxes.

It is, of course, true—grandly true—and is here gladly, gratefully acknowledged—that some educated influential people are too highly civilized, too finely noble, to stoop to the shameless business of rousing the slumbering tiger in the human breast. Some of them proudly scorn the vicious rÔle of throwing fire-brands into the inflammable imagination of the weary toilers. These have courage—true courage. These we greet with profound gratitude.

But every lily-fingered snob, every socially gilt-edged coward, every intellectual prostitute, every pro-war preacher, every self-exempting political shark, and every well-fed money-glutton, who dares help excite the working class for the hell of war—these, every one of these—in case of war, should be forced to dance on the firing line to the hideous music of the cannon’s roar till his own torn carcass decorates a “great battle” field.

And to this end—as part of their own emancipation—the working class should make all haste to seize the powers of government, and thus be in position, by being in legal possession of the power, to make and enforce all laws concerning war. Beginning now, always hereafter, the labor unions, the working class political party, and all the other working class organizations should for future use, keep a careful record of all male editors, teachers, preachers, lawyers, lecturers, and “prominent business men” and politicians and “statesmen,” who speak, or write or even clap their hands in favor of war; and in case of a war thus fostered, these, all of these, should be forced by special draft to fight in the infantry, without promotion, on the firing line, till they get their share of the cold lead and the cold steel. Thus let the mouthers do the marching, let the shouters do the shooting, let the bawlers do the bleeding, let the howlers have the hell—force them to the firing line and force them to stay on the firing line—and there will be far less yawping about the “honor” and the “glory” of war, and there will be fewer humble homes of the poor damned with the desolation of war.

But, you see, for all such self-defense the working class must as soon as possible capture the powers of government. You see that, don’t you?

Friend, don’t curse the militiamen and the soldiers. No, no. They are our brothers. Explain—with tireless patience explain—to them that the capitalists seek to make tools and bullet-stoppers of them. Explain it like a brother inside and outside the ranks till our working-class brothers everywhere—inside and outside the ranks—are roused to a clear consciousness of the meaning of a Gatling gun with a working-class “man behind the gun” and a working-class man in front of the gun.

Brother, stamp this into your brain and explain it into the brain of our brothers:—The working class must themselves protect the working class.

If in imagination the mothers, sisters, sweethearts and wives of the world could get the roar of the cannon in their ears and feel the splash of blood in their faces, could see and hear the horrors of the battlefield and the agonies of the war hospital, they would never again be fooled into smiling caressingly upon the haughty and jaunty “higher officers,” when, like peacocks, these gilt-braided professional human butchers strut through the ball-rooms and through the streets on military dress parade, and these women would also regard the pro-war orator with complete contempt.

The women of the world owe a great debt of gratitude to the writers of some powerful pen pictures of war. The terrible but accurate realism of some of their descriptions of war makes one hate the word war. Emile Zola’s story, The Downfall,^[8] is crowded with these pictures. The Downfall should be in a million American private libraries. Following is a page of Zola’s flashlights from the battlefields of the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71:^[9]

“At no time during the day had the artillery thundered more loudly than now.... It was as if all the forces of the nether regions had been unchained; the earth shook, the heavens were on fire. The ring of flame-belching mouths of bronze that encircled Sedan, the eight hundred cannon of the German armies... were expending their energies on the adjacent fields.... The crash that told of ruin and destruction was heard.... Some lay face downward with their mouths in a pool of blood, in danger of suffocating, others had bitten the ground till their mouths were full of dry earth, others, where a shell had fallen among a group, were a confused, intertwined heap of mangled limbs and crushed trunks.... Some soldiers who were driving a venerable lady from her home had compelled her to furnish matches with which to fire her own beds and curtains. Lighted by blazing brands and fed by petroleum in floods, fires were rising and spreading in every quarter; it was no longer civilized warfare, but a conflict of savages, maddened by the long-protracted strife, wreaking vengeance for their dead, their heaps of dead, upon whom they trod at every step they took. Yelling, shouting bands traversed the streets amid the scurrying smoke and falling cinders, swelling the hideous uproar into which entered sounds of every kind: shrieks, groans, the rattle of musketry, the crash of falling wall. Men could scarce see one another; great livid clouds drifted athwart the sun and obscured his light, bearing with them an intolerable stench of soot and blood, heavy with the abominations of the slaughter. In every quarter the work of death and destruction still went on: the human brute unchained, the imbecile wrath, the mad fury, of man devouring his brother man.... Horses were rearing, pawing the air, and falling backward; men were dismounted as if torn from their saddle by the blast of a tornado, while others, shot through some vital part, retained their seats and rode onward in the ranks with vacant, sightless eyes.... Some there were who had fallen headlong from their saddle and buried their face in the soft earth. Others had alighted on their back and were staring up into the sun with terror-stricken eyes that seemed bursting from their sockets. There was a handsome black horse, an officer’s charger, that had been disemboweled, and was making frantic efforts to rise, his fore feet entangled in his entrails.... Of the brave men who rode into action that day two-thirds remained upon the battlefield.... A lieutenant from whose mouth exuded a bloody froth, had been tearing up the grass by handfuls in his agony, and his stiffened fingers were still buried in the ground. A little farther on a captain, prone on his stomach, had raised his head to vent his anguish in yells and screams, and death had caught and fixed him in that strange attitude.... After that the road led along the brink of a little ravine, and there they beheld a spectacle that aroused their horror to the highest pitch as they looked down into the chasm, into which an entire company seemed to have been blown by the fiery blast; it was choked with corpses, a landslide, an avalanche of maimed and mutilated men, bent and twisted in an inextricable tangle, who with convulsed fingers had caught at the yellow clay of the bank to save themselves in their descent, fruitlessly. And a dusky flock of ravens flew away, croaking noisily, and swarms of flies, thousands upon thousands of them, attracted by the odor of fresh blood, were buzzing over the bodies and returning incessantly.”

But let this fact burn its way into your brain to save you from hell and rouse you for the revolution—this fact:

Nowhere on all that battlefield among the shattered rifles and wrecked cannon, among the broken ambulances and splintered ammunition wagons, nowhere in the mire and mush of blood and sand, nowhere among the bulging and befouling carcasses of dead horses and the swelling corpses of dead men and boys—nowhere could be found the torn, bloated and fly-blown carcasses of bankers, bishops, politicians, “brainy capitalists” and other elegant and eminent “very BEST people.”

Well, hardly.

Naturally—such people were not there, on the firing line—up where bayonets gleam, sabres flash, flesh is ripped, bones snap, brains are dashed and blood splashes.

Why not?