Chapter SIX: Tricked to the Trenches—Then Snubbed (2)

While at wining and dining tables in closely guarded private parlors in the best hotels in Washington this unmatchable plundering was cunningly arranged (“to develop the country, of course”) working class men and boys, half starved and weary, were obediently slaughtering themselves at the word of command—for 43 cents a day, in depreciated paper money forced upon them by pirate patriots.

While the nation is blinded with tears and the common men’s blood gushes from their torn veins, the “business” man, with pious patriotism talking grandly of the “glorious flag,” cunningly sneaks to the nation’s store-house, a blushless burglar; he climbs aboard the ship of state, a conscienceless pirate.[161]

FIFTH ILLUSTRATION: “FREEING CUBA”—“REMEMBERING THE MAINE.”

So you were—or wished to be—in the Spanish-American War?

Well, I wish to explain why the capitalists excited some young men—carefully excited them—and then sent them to Cuba in 1898.

There were very strong reasons for their doing so.

(1) American capitalists already had investments in Cuban industries, and they knew that if the United States took charge of Cuba, their investments would be more secure, would thus increase in value—and thus yield more profits.

(2) American capitalists wanted Spanish capitalists crowded out in order to give still more opportunity to American capitalists to extend their American capitalism in Cuba—and thus make more profits.

(3) Some American capitalists and craftily noble statesmen also secured some Cuban Revolutionary bonds at extremely low prices or as gifts, and they hoped and struggled to have the interest and principal guaranteed by the United States Government, and thus have these bonds rise in price at least to par—which would mean enormous profits.

(4) There was also at least some possibility (seriously discussed by prominent statesmen in Washington) that Spanish-Cuban bonds, said by some to aggregate hundreds of millions, already issued by the Spanish Government against the revenues of the Island of Cuba,—a possibility that these bonds also would be guaranteed by the United States Government.[162] In case of war these bonds would become doubtful, would fall very low in price, and then they could, of course, be bought up for almost nothing. Then, if guaranteed by our Government, they would rise high in price and become a “good thing” for those who bought them at a sacrifice price and then made all haste to have them thus guaranteed.

Here again the goal was profits.

(5) American capitalists well knew that intervention in Cuba would involve a costly war—so expensive as to make “necessary” the issuing of interest-bearing United States bonds, purchasing which, the buyers could milk the nation in interest for a generation or more. House Bill No. 10,100[163] actually proposed that our Government should issue, “for Cuban War expenses,” $500,000,000 in 3 per cent. untaxable bonds, which, if purchased at par, would annually yield the purchasers the snug little sum of $15,000,000, in profits, besides other immense pecuniary advantages.

“And under the authority to borrow conferred by the Act of June 13,
1898, $200,000,000 of 3 per cent. bonds were actually sold.... The
total subscriptions [offers for the bonds] amounted to
$1,400,000,000.... Within a few months the original holdings passed
into the possession of a comparatively few persons and
corporations.”[164]

That is, the bond-buying patriots who were not at the front eating canned beef were _willing_ to buy _seven times as many bonds as were offered_ and thus in tender “love of country,” fasten themselves, like leeches, to the social body—profitably.

(6) It was absolutely certain that such a war would vigorously stimulate business—and thus increase profits.

(7) A war in Cuba was also certain to make “necessary” a larger standing army. And an army is very useful to the capitalist class in holding down the working class—in the game of profits.

Thus there were seven, or more, patriotic (and profitable) reasons for having Cuba “freed.”

They fooled us—didn’t they? They shouted: “Remember the Maine!” That made our blood hot—stampeded us—didn’t it? But we are cooler now—aren’t we? Let us see: Suppose a great ship should sink in a shallow harbor, as the Maine did, and suppose it had on board three dozen young men from the homes of the leading capitalists of America—_millionaires’ sons_. What think you—would the vessel be raised or not?

Did you ever think of this? If the Spaniards blew up the Maine with a sunken mine, how can you explain the fact that the Maine’s armor-plate was bent _outward_ and not _inward_ at the points of fracture? _Why does not the United States Government push the investigation to the very limit?_ Why stop the investigation very suddenly just as things get extremely interesting?—just as it seems likely that information is about to come out which would astonish the whole world?

Ever think of it? Would it not have been profitable for some American capitalists to have bribed some scoundrel to blow up the Maine from the inside? It _was_ profitable for capitalists in the American Civil War to furnish Union soldiers with rifles so defective that thousands of them exploded in the hands of the soldier boys. Thousands of the guns _when sold to the Government and handed on to the soldiers_ bore the mark “Condemned.” Look this matter up in Gustavus Myers’ _History of Great American Fortunes_, Vol. II., pp. 127–38. Then when you hear some “Remember the Maine” music you will not become so violently excited and eager to enlist.

Of course you were told that the purpose of American interference in Cuba was to free the poor, suffering, abused Cubans:—the usual dose of philanthropy, flattery and bombast. Some eloquent speeches were made by Senators and Congressmen, speeches of unusual power and rare beauty. But the beauty and the power and the eloquence did not induce any of the eloquent statesmen to go to the war. Hardly.

If the United States Government had promptly recognized the revolutionary Cubans’ right to become a sovereign nation possessing _international rights and privileges_, the Cubans could have freed themselves. France thus recognized the puny, rebellious American Revolutionary government in 1778; and that recognition helped us along wonderfully.

American capitalists in 1897–98 were simply searching the world for an opportunity to line their pockets. Excitable young men and boys came in handy as armed hired hands, hired fists; though, of course, these same hired men were left in the lurch, got disease, broken health—and contemptuous laughter.

Brothers, you veterans of the Cuban War, crafty men excited you, amused you, confused you, then used you and despised you so thoroughly that they gave some of you horse meat while in camp within five miles of Washington on your way to the war—so some of your number have said—and gave you on the battlefield embalmed meat canned years before, meat that even fizzed with a vile odor when the point of a knife-blade was thrust into the can, meat unfit for a mangy cur or a buzzard.

Excited you?

Yes, that is exactly what happened to you.

A man is pretty thoroughly excited and confused—isn’t he?—when he is singing “My Country! ’tis of Thee!” at the very time that country is feeding him meat unfit for a dog. Mr. Roosevelt confesses that a special effort was made to excite you, and he also tells us some other things:[165]

“And from the moment when the regiment began to gather, _the higher
officers kept instilling_ into those under them the spirit of
eagerness for action, of stern determination to _grasp at death_
rather than forfeit honor ... fever sickened and weakened them so
that many of them died from it during the few months following their
return.... We found all our dead and all the badly wounded.... One
of our own dead and most of the Spanish dead had been found by the
vultures before we got to them; and their bodies were mangled, their
eyes and wounds being torn.... A very touching incident happened in
the improvised open-air hospital after the fight, where the wounded
were lying.... One of them suddenly began to hum, ‘My Country, ’Tis
of Thee,’ and one by one the others joined in the chorus, which
swelled out through the tropic, where the victors lay in camp beside
their dead.”

How lovely—so perfectly sweet of them. So extremely touching—“_grasping_ at death.”

The buzzards tore out the eyes of some of the brave young fellows and feasted on them; the grave-worms got some of them; vile diseases sickened many thousands of them; and many of them came home to “their _dear_ country”—so poor in purse that they had to beg on the streets of Philadelphia, New York and elsewhere.

Their dear country.

They had been “grasping at death” for their dear country.

Remember: The buzzards and the battlefield grave-worms did not get the “prominent people” who actually own this dear country. “Higher officers” can not instill or fill a banker or a manufacturer so full of the “spirit of eagerness” that he becomes eager to “grasp at death” and have his eyeballs ripped out and his shattered body eaten by vultures.

These men were not excited—not in the least.

These men were thinking.

These were not “grasping at death”; they were grasping for Cuba.

Cuba looked good and you looked easy.

These men needed you in their business. And they got you, you Cuban War veterans.

Some items of interest concerning this matter leaked out and got into the papers—into obscure columns of a few of the papers. It improves one’s enthusiasm for “patriotism” to read a few of these “leaks.” Following are a few of the items, from the New York Tribune:[166]

“According to the statement given out by the Cuban Junta yesterday,
the Republic of Cuba issued $2,000,000 of bonds, payable in gold, at
6 per cent. interest, ten years after the war with Spain had ended.
Of this lot $500,000 were sold at an average of 50 per cent....
Among the purchasers of these bonds were many prominent financiers
of this city; and now the bonds which were originally sold at 50 per
cent. of their face value have increased to 60 per cent....

“The disposition of the bonds of the Cuban Republic has been a
question discussed in certain quarters during the last few days ...
and the graver charge has been made that the bonds have been given
away indiscriminately in the United States to the people of
influence who would therefore become interested in seeing the
Republic of Cuba on such terms with the United States as would make
the bonds valuable pieces of property. Men of business, newspaper
and even public officials have been mentioned as having received
these bonds as a gift....

“Some interesting facts were developed before the Foreign Affairs
Committee of the House today. B. F. Guerra, Deputy-Treasurer of the
Cuban Republic, appeared with his books, and they were inspected by
the Committee. He explained that of the $10,000,000 in bonds
authorized ... the lowest price at which any were sold was 25 cents
on the dollar.... One million of the bonds were locked up in the
safe of Belmont and Company, of New York, to be sold when the price
fixed, 45 cents on the dollar, had been obtained.

“... Mr. Guerra was asked about the Spanish-Cuban bonds issued
against the revenues of the island. He replied that he did not know
their amount, which report placed at $400,000,000....
Deputy-Treasurer Guerra was also before the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations today. He said the Cuban bonds which had been sold
had been disposed of for an average of about 40 cents on the
dollar....

“Some of the Republicans in Congress ... are investigating the
question as to whether the United States under international law, if
it intervened in Cuba and cut off the revenues, could be held
responsible for the Spanish bonds, said to aggregate $400,000,000,
which have been issued against the revenues of the island. Mr.
Bromwell says he is looking into the question, and finds some
warrant in law for such responsibility....

“Congressman ‘Blank’[167] in the House on Monday, said he had
$10,000 worth of Cuban bonds in his pocket ... while H. H. Kohlsaat,
in an editorial in one of the Chicago papers, charges the Junta with
offering a bribe of $2,000,000 of Cuban bonds to a Chicago man [to
one man!] to use his influence with the administration for the
recognition of the provisional government....

“Mr. Guerra made the somewhat startling statement that a man
representing certain individuals at Washington has sought to coerce
the Junta into selling $10,000,000 worth of bonds at 20 cents on the
dollar. ‘This man practically threatened us that unless we let him
have the bonds at the price he quoted, Cuba would never receive
recognition. He said he was prepared to pay on the spot $2,000,000
in American money, for $10,000,000 of Cuban bonds, but his offer was
refused.’”

As the possibility of “good things” increased, the statesmen’s tender hearts were deeply stirred, naturally, and they set up a melodiously patriotic howl for intervention. Many powerful newspapers were turned upon the public to “work” the working class, and soon tens of thousands of humble fellows of the working class were wild with eagerness to rush to the front and “help the poor Cubans.”

But a very high authority, Professor McMaster (University of Pennsylvania), assures us[168] that the outrages committed against the Cubans by the Spanish Government _had been common for more than fifty years_. “The Cubans had rebelled _six times in these fifty years_.” But not until American capitalistic interests were well developed did it seem “noble” and “grand” and “the will of God” to intervene. But by the year 1895 “upwards of $50,000,000 of American money were invested in mines, railroads and plantations there. Our yearly trade with the Cubans was valued at $96,000,000.”

It was time to weep—profitably.

Hence the tearful orations and powerful editorials for intervention. How the orators and business men far from the firing line loved “the men behind the guns.” Here is some more evidence:[169]

“The canned roast meat ... a great majority of the men found it
uneatable. It was coarse, stringy and tasteless and very
disagreeable in appearance, and so unpalatable that the effort [!]
to eat it made some of the men sick. Most of them preferred to be
hungry rather than eat it.... As nine-tenths of the men were more or
less sick, the unattractiveness of the travel-rations was doubly
unfortunate.... In some respects the Spanish rations were preferable
to ours.... We had nothing whatever in the way of proper nourishing
food for our sick and wounded men during most of the time.... On the
day of the big fight, July 1, as far as we could find out there were
but two ambulances with the army in condition to work—neither of
which did we see.... On several occasions I visited the big
hospitals in the rear. Their condition was frightful beyond
description from lack of supplies, lack of medicine, lack of
doctors, nurses, and attendants.... The wounded and the sick who
were sent back [to the hospitals] suffered so much that, whenever
possible, they returned to the front.... The fever began to make
heavy ravages among our men ... not more than half our men could
carry their rolls.... But instead of this the soldiers were issued
horrible stuff called ‘canned fresh beef.’... At best it was stringy
and tasteless, at the worst it was nauseating. Not one-fourth of it
was ever eaten at all even when the men became very hungry.... The
canned beef proved to be practically uneatable.... When we were
mustered out, many of the men had lost their jobs, and were too weak
to go to work at once. Of course there were a few weaklings among
them; and there were others, entirely brave and self-sufficient, who
from wounds or fevers were so reduced that they had to apply for
aid....”

While our government was feeding its soldiers on meat unfit for a dog, our export trade included millions of pounds of the best meat on earth—sent to Europe to be eaten by the aristocratic snobs of the “_better_ class.”

Shakespeare has asked the thoughtful man’s question:

“What would you have me do? Go to the wars, would you? Where a man
may serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not money in
the end to buy a wooden one.”

“Freeing Cuba” was—was what? A change of masters for the Cuban working class, and a “fool’s errand” for the American working class soldiers, as many of them have confessed—confessed with curses for the crafty prominent people who seduced them to the battlefields.

SIXTH ILLUSTRATION: STANDING AT ATTENTION FOR CIVILIZED CANNIBALS:

Consider a moment the recent war between Christian Russia and pagan Japan, a war for the capitalist control of Manchuria, the working class of course doing the fighting—as usual.

It is well-known that the economic interests of the pagan Japanese capitalists in Manchuria inspired the Japanese statesmen to the recent war with Russia. The Christian Russian capitalists had precisely the same sort of inspiration for the war. Here are presented some facts to be considered by the spiritual followers of Christ who presume to scorn the “sordid materialism of the ‘unsaved’ pagan Japanese”:

(1) For years preceding 1903 the Christian Tsar and the Christian Empress and many of their Christian friends had opposed the threatening war in Manchuria.

(2) In 1903 the Royal Timber Company was organized to scoop up many millions of dollars in profits to be made out of the vast lumber forests in the Yalu River valley “secured” from the pagan Corean government.

(3) In 1903 the Tsar and the Empress and many of their friends joined the Royal Timber Company, taking stock to the amount of many millions of dollars.

(4) Having become involved in Corea _as capitalists_ with _economic_ interests to be protected, the Tsar, the Empress and their friends immediately and completely reversed their position on the question of war—vigorously favored the war which now seemed to be necessary to protect their Yalu River lumber interests. It now, of course, became perfectly clear that “the kingdom of Christ could be advanced among the heathen”—on the point of the bayonet.

Hence the two years of butchering of brothers by brothers—who were duly informed that they were “enemies.”[170]

It seems barely possible that the 47,387 Japanese soldiers who were killed in that war could have no proper appreciation of the Tsar’s spiritual motives in promoting the war; but, on the other hand, during the war 320,000 sick and wounded were sent from Manchurian battlefields to Japan. These, while nursing their festering wounds and their wasting health, had some leisure to have explained to them the somewhat elusively spiritual element of a Christian war inaugurated for “Jesus’ sake” and the protection of a saw-mill enterprise.

This terrible war lasted two years. But it would certainly have closed in six months because of lack of funds—if Christian business men and gentle, “cultivated” Christian women of the world had refused to lend money to the two sleek groups of official brutes in Japan and Russia who were forcing hundreds of thousands of humble working men into Manchuria to slaughter one another. Just charge up twenty-four months of that ferocious blood-spilling—charge it, not only to the Christian barbarians the Tsar and his friends, and the un-Christian Mikado and his pagan capitalist friends, but also to the civilized, fur-lined, orthodox savages of Western Europe and of the United States who were so wolfishly eager for unearned incomes in interest on war bonds that they were willing, by lending money to fan the flames of war,—willing to foster wholesale murder, willing to wet the earth with working class blood and tears—willing thus to sink their industrial tusks deep into the quivering flesh of the toilers of Japan and Russia. Always there is a reason.

At one time in the war Japanese statesmen offered interest-bearing, Japanese national bonds for sale in San Francisco. There was instantly a swinish scramble by lily-fingered Christian ladies and gentlemen of that city to buy those pagan blood-wet bonds; the bonds were thus purchased immediately—with the unblushing promptness of greed. The offers of cash vastly exceeded the amount of the bonds offered. And now these “leading Christian citizens,” having thus stuck out their tongues in scorn at the Christ of Peace, having thus given the loud laugh of contempt for the noble sentiment of the brotherhood of man,—these eminently respectable cannibals by means of their bond purchases having adjusted their scornful lips to the veins of the far-away working class of Japan—_are satisfied_; and for a generation they will suck and tug—like beautiful tigers at the throats of common work horses—will suck the industrial blood of the working class they despise.

This blood-sucking process will be called “business.”

The blood they suck will be called “interest.”

These gilt-edged cannibals will continue to be called “the very best people of San Francisco.”

Their occasional contribution to Christian missionary work in Japan will be called “splendid generosity.”

Their “views” on the “harmony of capital and labor” will be quoted in many capitalist newspapers as “sound advice.”

And, strangely enough, these smooth murderers—particeps criminis—will actually go unhung, such is the irony of the present order.

And these distinguished abettors of international assassination will—with crafty thoughtfulness—occasionally visit the armories and barracks in San Francisco and carefully flatter the working class militia and the working class “regulars,” flatter them into the folly of standing guard for those who despise and betray and bleed the working class of the whole world.

Brothers, will _you_ be tricked to the trenches, march in the mud, murder your class and bleed yourselves for such as these? Will you stand at “attention” for these international leeches? What about loyalty to your own class?

Concerning these international bond-buying leeches the Reverend Dr. Walter Walsh writes:[171]

“By the very condition of its existence international capitalism has
no country—save Eldorado; no king—save Mammon; no politics—save
Business.... Mammon worshippers of all nations forswear every
allegiance whensoever and in whatsoever part of the world it clashes
with their allegiance to capital and interest; that heterogeneous
and polyglot crowd of millionaires, exploiters, money-lenders,
gamblers ... or the adoring circle of political women who worship
them—being moved by no other consideration than profit and loss....
By the transference of its investments from native to foreign
countries capitalism ceases to be national ... this bloated order of
capitalism.”

The English philosopher, Frederic Harrison, hands these international profit-gluttons the following compliment:[172]

“Turn which way we will, it all comes back to this—that we are to go
to war really for the money interests of certain rich men.... All
this is very desirable to the persons themselves. But it is not the
concern of this country to guarantee them these profits, privileges
and places. It would be blood guilt in this country to enforce these
guarantees at the cost of war. The interests of these rich and
adventurous persons are not British interests; but the interests of
certain British subjects. And between their interests and war and
conquest, domination and annexation—how vast is the gulf.”

“War seldom enters but where wealth allures.”—Dryden: “Hind and
Panther.”

“Gold and power the chief causes of war.”—Tacitus: _History_, Book
4.

“A great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle
[patriotism] alone.”—George Washington: In a letter to John
Bannister, April 21, 1778.

“Let the gulled fool the toils of war pursue
Where bleed the many to enrich the few.”
—Shenstone: “Judgment of Hercules.”

“When wars do come, they fall upon the many, the producing class,
who are the sufferers.”[173]

SEVENTH ILLUSTRATION: THE AMERICAN COSSACK.[174]

“The man on horseback” has always typified despotism. He means “Silence!” to all opposition. He is the assassin of discussion and the destroyer of democracy. Historically he has usually been the ambitious general usurping political powers and becoming an autocrat. He has always been dreaded by all who have worked for the progress of freedom. “The man on horseback” has ceased to be a myth in America. He has been recreated by the Neros of American capitalism whom he proudly serves for rations and flattery, the pet of the “captains of industry.”

The Tsars of Russia have used the Cossack and recommend him to all the rulers of the world.

The American Cossack has been on duty for several years in some parts of the United States. He is shameless, dangerous, effective. He will probably be multiplied by thousands, in numbers, and by infinity, in insolence,—within the next ten years—in the United States. _He must be understood—by the working class._ Here is a sample:

In the anthracite coal strike of 1902, 145,000 humble miners whose average income was $1.29 per day, struggled for a few pennies more for their toil with which to feed and clothe themselves and their families. In that strike the following brave deed was done by a mounted militiaman, an American Cossack, in the service of the tyrants who own the vast stores of anthracite coal.

A mounted militiaman, armed with a modern rifle and a powerful revolver, a double row of cartridges and a club in his belt, rode pompously through the street of a mining village, bravely daring the unarmed toilers and heroically glaring at the humble women and the helpless little children at the cabin doors. _Ready_—with him fed, petted, armed, mounted and brutal—the _capitalists_ were _ready_, ready though the capitalists themselves were a hundred miles or ten thousand miles away. That AUTOMATIC TUSK of the capitalist class was on duty. Suddenly he cried out to an old man, a “mine helper,” on strike, an old veteran of the Civil War: “Halt!”

Then, pointing down the dusty road, “the man on horseback,” the American Cossack, said to the hungry old man: “March! Git! Damn you, git! Right down that road right now—and keep marching—straight ahead of me! Mind you—I’ll be right behind you, you damned lazy scoundrel! Walk pretty—damn you! If you make a mis-step or even look side-wise, I’ll put a bullet through you! Now march!”

The march began at once. Thus this well-dressed, well-mounted, well-armed young working man, an American Cossack, rode hour after hour—for half a day—a few steps behind the weary old wage-slave, a veteran of the Civil War,—on and on in the hot sun for many weary miles, down the Susquehanna River (in the direction of Gettysburg). Finally, after the long march, the noble hero on horseback called out to the old hero on foot, “Halt! Do you see that trail over yon mountain? Yes? Well, now, you damned old cheap skate, you scratch gravel over that mountain—quick, too! And let me tell you one thing—if you ever show your damned skinny old face in the anthracite coal region again, we’ll shoot you like a dog. Now, you old gray-headed —— —— ——, git up that mountain—git up that mountain and out of sight or I’ll shoot you. Go!”

Wearily the old Union veteran climbed the mountain. When he finally got away from his noble tormentor he sat down to rest—and think—to think of “our free country.”

Long ago that old gray man—when in his excitable youth—had marched proudly under the “Stars and Stripes” on gory battlefields, risking all, all, to defend “his country,” and his dear “Old Glory.” Once, he told me, the flag was reddened with his own blood.... But now “Old Glory” mocked him. Captains of industry, capitalists, industrial Caesars, had captured the flag and with devilish craftiness used that same flag to defend their industrial despotism. Sons and grandsons of veterans of the Civil War were now shrewdly flattered and bribed into the ignoble rôle of Russianizing America. Sons and grandsons were becoming Cossacks, and they cursed his gray hairs for demanding of American capitalists a few more pennies a day for ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-housed women and children in the dismal homes of the miners.... A cursing Cossack wearing khaki and flying the flag virtually spat in the old veteran’s face.

“A cold-blooded organization that [Pennsylvania] State
Constabulary.”[175]

When Decoration Day comes, when the Fourth of July is to be celebrated, when “patriotic” displays are to be made—at such times—bankers, big business men, politicians and statesmen—many of these—should put on black masks, wrap themselves in black flags, and sneak (blushingly, if possible) down into dark cellars and stay there during the celebration—with their memories crowded with soldiers, widows and orphans brutally wronged,—with their memories crowded with congresses corrupted, treasuries looted, lands stolen, charters, privileges and “good things” shamelessly raped from the unseeing public while brave but deluded working men agonized on bloody battlefields.

And on such days the working class should shout less and think more. “The man on horseback” should have some special thought.

And the working class are thinking today more than ever before. And, thinking, they begin to see that hand-clapping, fife-playing, drum-beating and buncombe from a prostituted orator are neither freedom nor justice, nor even the _sign_ of such; but are, rather, just what Mark Twain called them[176]—a “bastard patriotism.”

The motive of the young men who voluntarily join the army or the militia is possibly, in many cases, a good motive. Perhaps they do not see the tricks of the string-pullers behind the scenes, the powerful motives of the industrial masters behind the curtains. _It is not always easy for the young man to realize that he is to be used to punish the half-nourished, pale-faced working class baby that vainly tugs weak-lipped at the withered and milkless breasts of the ill-fed, ill-clothed, discouraged working class mother_. However, the cheap rôle of the armed protector of industrial parasites is becoming more and more clearly understood, and consequently more and more disgusting to the entire working class—including both the militia and the regulars themselves. LIGHT IS BREAKING IN THE TOILERS’ MIND. THE HIDEOUS BUSINESS OF STANDING READY TO BAYONET THE MILLIONS OF MEN AND BOYS AND WOMEN AND GIRLS WHOSE LIVES ARE MADE UP OF MEANLY PAID DRUDGERY—THIS VILE BUSINESS IS RAPIDLY SINKING BELOW THE LEVEL OF CONTEMPT. STRONG YOUNG FELLOWS IN THE ARMY AND THE MILITIA AND THE NAVY INCLINE MORE AND MORE TO LINE UP WITH THEIR OWN CLASS, THE WORKING CLASS, AND REFUSE TO ASSASSINATE THEIR BROTHERS WHO ARE STRUGGLING FOR A FEW PENNIES ADVANCE IN WAGES.

They see the trick.

Some of the militiamen resigned in the anthracite coal strike of 1902, resigned when they realized that they were being used simply as watchdogs for industrial masters who were cheating even the little ten-year-old boys in the coal-breakers, cheating even these little fellows whose fingers, worn through the skin, were bleeding on the coal they sorted with their hands.

That was in Republican Pennsylvania.

Not long ago when the street railway union men were on strike in New Orleans some of the militiamen, with splendid contempt and defiance, threw their rifles down on the cobblestones rather than obey orders to shoot their old neighbors who were struggling for a larger share of life.

That was in Democratic Louisiana.

Workingmen, both Democrats and Republicans, begin to see the trick.

Thousands of young men desert—and thousands more would like to desert—the United States army every year. They cannot stand the snubs and sneers of their “superior officers,” and the contempt now increasingly felt by the working class for the armed handy man serving as a fist for the ruling class.

So many young men in America understand the working class soldier’s disloyalty to his own class that the Department of Murder now has much difficulty in keeping the ranks full. The Government now has to tease and coax young men to join the army and the navy. In the autumn of 1907, the capitalist press began to discuss boldly the necessity of _conscription_ for filling the ranks of our standing army, the European plan of forcing young men to assume the rôle of armed flunkies. But just as the capitalist papers began to discuss and commend compulsory military service, the panic, the hard times, broke upon the country; hundreds of thousands were suddenly thrown out of employment. Instantly the Government and the capitalist papers ceased discussion of conscription, knowing well that thousands of jobless men could easily be recruited to save themselves from rags and hunger. At the same time Congress _advanced the pay of regular soldiers_—while millions of toilers were out of work, millions were reduced to “part time,” millions had their wages cut: the destroyers’ wages were advanced, but the producers’ wages were cut down.

These facts made millions think. Thinking whets the edge of the working class mind. This sharpened mind cuts through the noisy mockery and the glittering sham of capitalist patriotism.

The workers wake. They see the trick.

Volunteers?

“The British volunteer army is in reality recruited to the extent of 80 per cent. by the peril of starvation. The yearly average of desertions from the British Regular Army is 7,000.”[177] The writer of the present volume has heard of young men volunteering for the American Regular Army who enlisted in the fall and deserted in the spring, some of them doing this even three times.[178] The capitalists would not hire them and they were too proud to beg. They “wintered” in the army. But they despised the whole thing.

They see the trap.

A WORKINGMAN’S MEDITATIONS: “WE APPRECIATE IT.”

In time of peace the “leading citizens” give us horny-handed working people the cold gaze—socially. We are not invited to dine with them—socially, or dance with them—socially, or otherwise visit with them—socially. They say we are ignorant and coarse-grained—socially; and they turn us down “cold and hard”—socially, _in time of peace_. But in time of _war_ these “very best people” don’t neglect us so much—and we appreciate it. _Then_ the “best people” give us glad, stimulating glances and speak up kindly—and we appreciate it. They tell us we are brave and intelligent and patriotic—and we appreciate it. They tell us that soldier clothes look good (on us)—and we appreciate it. When our newly enlisted working class company are ready to go away to war the bankers and the other big business men chip in a quarter apiece to get the brass band out to give us a “send off”—and we appreciate it. The bankers and the big business men and the band go down to the railway station with us: we grin, then they smile—and we appreciate it. As our train of dirty old second-class coaches pulls away we look out through the car windows and see the bankers and the other leading citizens waving their soft white hands and sweetly smiling at us, saying, “You are the very _thing_”—and we appreciate it. The “best people” know we are going to feast on embalmed beef and show our patriotism: they wipe their eyes sympathetically—and we appreciate it. The “best people” modestly and courteously remain at home in order that we working people may have all the honor and glory of butchering and being butchered—and we appreciate it. The “best people,” with beautiful forethought, give us working people the blessed privilege of leaving our homes lonely, leaving our wives desolate and widowed, our children orphaned—and we appreciate it. The “leading citizens” fraternally let us working people do the fighting and the bleeding and the dying for the country—and we appreciate it _so_ much. With gracious manner these “prominent people” show us a “hot time” and tell us to “_go_ to it”—and we appreciate it. With melting tenderness the “_very best people_” give us working people the “hot air” and the “frosty lemons”—and we begin to appreciate the trick.

When the southern slave-driver gave the slave fifteen lashes instead of sixteen the slave appreciated it.

Reader, in nearly every country in Europe, in America—in all parts of the civilized world—the workers are having their eyes opened. They begin to understand the crafty flattery of the dollar-marked patriots who never get on the firing line.

A SPECIAL WARNING TO THE WORKING CLASS OF THE UNITED STATES:

Open wide your eyes, brothers—and sisters.

The next trick-to-the-trenches is being prepared.

There is _talk_ of peace—but _preparation_ for war.

For more than twenty-five hundred years the great sea wars have been fought on the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The bottoms of these oceans are strewn with shattered ships and human bones.

But the vast butcherings at sea in the near future will probably be, most of them, on the Pacific Ocean.

Like hungry wolves hotly eager in sight of prey, like clouds of vultures swooping confidently over a field strewn with a vile feast—thus the capitalist nations are gathering together their drums, their rifles, cannon, dynamite, lyddite, embalmed beef, hospitals, soldiers, marines, battleships, and boat-destroyers, preparing to assemble on the Pacific Ocean for bloody struggles.

There is _talk_ of peace—but _preparation_ for war.

What for?

Simply to secure more opportunity to make more profits for more money-hungry cowards, who will loll at home—safe—while the “brave boys” do the fighting.

There is talk of peace—and preparation for war.

What for?

Eastern Asia is the prize.

Working-class boys everywhere who are socially snubbed at home—and even turned down at the factory—these boys will join the armies and the navies of the world for these future struggles. Huge guns will roar, big shells will boom across the waves, splendid ships will shudder, then plunge to the bottom of the deep, filled with boys enticed from the homes of the humble. The sharks will send the innocents to the sea.

It will be “great” and “glorious.” Very.

And especially profitable: which is the main thing.

Perhaps your own bones or your son’s bones will bleach at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

The _fundamental_ cause of these future wars on the Pacific Ocean and in Eastern Asia, the cause, will be ignored or concealed by all International Peace Conferences and Conventions. And, afraid to admit the cause, they can not treat the cause of these wars; they will thus be unable to prevent these wars—these wolfish struggles for Eastern Asia as a capitalist prize. The leading capitalist citizens of the world have no confidence in these International Peace Conferences. Therefore they continue building more cannon, more battleships and more than ever they are teasing the boys—our own younger brothers of the working class—teasing them on board these great butchering machines.

Warn your neighbor—right away.

More and more defiantly the purpose is announced. In the year 1908 the President of the great American “Republic” uttered an imperial fiat—and lo! 18 battleships, 8 armored cruisers and a flock of torpedo-boat destroyers, with thousands of cheap and humble young fellows on board,—a fleet of butchering machines with the butchers aboard—pompously steamed ’round the earth on a forty-five thousand-mile cruise and carouse, meaning—meaning what? Precisely this:

The capitalists of the United States are prepared with “civilized” weapons, a shark’s appetite and a tiger’s methods, to conquer a lion’s share of the vast profits to be wrung from Eastern Asia if they can find enough gullible jackies to do the fighting.

Be warned—you toilers in the mills and mines and on the farms.

“During the last half century,” writes Dr. Josiah Strong,[179]
“European manufactures have risen from $5,000,000,000 to
$15,000,000,000. This increase of production has led the European
Powers to acquire tropical regions nearly one-half greater than
Europe. But while European manufactures were increasing threefold,
ours increased sixfold, and we, too, must find an outlet.

“All this means that the great manufacturing peoples are about
entering on an industrial conflict which is likely to be much more
than a ‘thirty years’ war,’ and like all war will cause measureless
misery and loss.”

The interocean Panama Canal, costing our country hundreds of millions of dollars, is simply _one part_ of the American plutocrats’ plan to dominate the Pacific, bleed Asia, convert the “Republic” into a still less veiled despotism for conquest, commerce and profits to stuff the pockets of the modern Caesars who talk of patriotism and always lust for gold.

Mr. William H. Taft, in an interview, spoke thus threateningly in 1908:

“The foremost issue of the coming campaign will be the question of
expansion and the affairs of our insular possessions.

“The American Chinese trade is sufficiently great to require the
government of the United States to take every legitimate means to
protect it against diminution or injury by any political preference
of any of its competitors.

“_The merchants of the United States are being aroused to the
importance of their Chinese export trade and will view political
obstacles to its expansion with deep concern. This feeling of theirs
would be likely to find its expression in the attitude of the United
States Government._

“The Japanese have no more to do with our policy as a people than
any other nation. If they have or develop a policy that conflicts
with ours, that is another matter....

“I am an advocate of a larger navy.”[180]

There is _talk_ of peace—but _preparation_ for war.

But mark it well, brothers of the working class: Mr. Taft’s sons will not be butchered as cheap American marines fighting on the Pacific Ocean for a larger market for American capitalists. No capitalist shark shall make a sucker of his sons and tease them to the sea. Mr. Roosevelt’s sons, Mr. Bryan’s sons, and the sons of Senators and of Congressmen, the sons of bankers, great merchants and manufacturers—the flesh of these will never rot at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. No, oh, no. Scarcely. They are too proud and shrewd to do anything of the sort—for fifty cents a day. The mothers and sisters and sweethearts of these thoroughbred boys will never weep in homes made desolate by the thoughts of skulls of loved ones shining and grinning at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Brothers, I warn you.

“Tell them who are so fond of touring around the globe to import—(I
would rather say to inflict)—their civilization on the backward
nations and tribes,” says Mr. Frederic Harrison,[181] “tell them
that you want civilization here at home, if you can get it
genuine.... Tell them that there are fifty burning social questions
at home to solve.... Tell these noisy philanthropists ... whilst
‘civilization’ is making the tour of the world on board iron-clads,
with eighty-ton guns, civilization is terribly wanted ... at
home.... Therefore it is, I say, that peace, international justice,
and quiet relations with all our neighbors, are first of all the
interest of the workingmen ... they lose most heavily by war, both
in what they immediately suffer and in what they have to surrender.
They may leave their bones to wither in distant lands, but they
bring back no fortunes, no honors ... no new honors for their class.
They only can speak out boldly and with the irresistible voice of
conscience, because they only have no interest in injustice, nothing
to gain by conquest, and everything to lose by interference.”

Refuse, brothers, refuse. Be proud. Refuse. Stand by your own class. Refuse. Bankers refuse. Manufacturers refuse. All the shrewd “prominent people” refuse. You also should refuse to let your flesh rot and your bones bleach at the bottom of the ocean in the interest of these international leeches.

Lift up your meek faces, you tricked toilers of the world. The war trenches are yawning for your lives—a gulf in which the hopes, the happiness, the blood and the tears of your class will be swallowed.

Refuse.

When you understand, brothers, you will defend yourselves.

The day is dawning when the working class will not only shrewdly refuse to be tricked to the trenches, but will also proudly seize all the powers of government in defense of the working class. The working class must defend the working class. The state, the school, the press, the lecture platform, and even part of the church, all these powerful institutions, are at present used to fasten and hold the burdens of toil and the curse of war on the backs of the brutalized and despised working-class producers and the working-class destroyers.

It is our move, brothers. Have we sense enough for self-defense? See Chapter Ten: “Now What Shall We Do About It?”

-----

Footnote 117:

J. H. Rose: _The Development of the European Nations, 1870–1900_, Vol.
II., p. 328.

Footnote 118:

Copied from a Government advertisement in front of recruiting
headquarters in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, September 7, 1907. Italics
mine. G. R. K. This same form of advertisement has also been used in
many other cities.

Footnote 119:

“Lecture on War.”

Footnote 120:

See Bloch: _Future of War_, Preface XXXII.

Footnote 121:

See Charles Seignobos: _The Political History of Europe Since 1815_,
p. 504.

Footnote 122:

See Brodrick and Frotheringham: _The Political History of England_,
Vol. XI., p. 172, et seq.

Footnote 123:

_Work and Wages_, p. 507.

Footnote 124:

Jephson: _The Platform—Its Rise and Progress_, Vol. I., p. 283.

Footnote 125:

_History of the English People_, Vol. IV., p. 377.

Footnote 126:

_A Student’s History of England_, pp. 877–80.

Footnote 127:

_The Political History of England_, Vol. XI., Ch. 8.

Footnote 128:

_Sir Robert Peel_, Ch. 3.

Footnote 129:

_The English Constitution_, p. 423. Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 130:

See, for example, J. F. Bright: _A History of England_, Period III.,
p. 1352.

Footnote 131:

_Arbeiter in Council_, p. 501.

Footnote 132:

_Bourienne’s Memoirs_, Vol. VII., c. 20. Reference in _Arbeiter in
Council_, p. 499. For cases equally monstrous in the American Civil
War history, see Myers’ _History of Great American Fortunes_, Vol.
II., pp. 127–38, 291–301; Chapters 11 and 12; Vol. III., pp. 160–176.

Footnote 133:

_History of the American People_, Vol. III., p. 120.

Footnote 134:

_A History of the American People_, p. 556.

Footnote 135:

“Apart from the phraseology of the statutes it appears during the
early years of the War the possibility of the payment of the bonds in
other than coin was hardly raised. According to the explicit statement
of Garfield in 1868, when the original five-twenty bond bill was
before the House in 1862, all who referred to the subject stated that
the principal of these bonds was payable in gold, and coin payment was
the understanding of every member of the committee of ways and
means.... It thus became practically an unwritten law to pay the
obligations of the United States in coin.”—Dewey: _Financial History
of the United States_, paragraph 148.

Footnote 136:

Hepburn: _The Contest for Sound Money_, p. 188.

Footnote 137:

_Finance_, p. 540, also _Public Debts_, p. 131.

Footnote 138:

Rice: _The Father of His Country—Year Book_.

Footnote 139:

_The Economic Interpretation of History_, p. 454. Italics mine. G. R.
K.

Footnote 140:

_Twenty-Eight Years_ (new edition _Fifty Years_) _of Wall Street_, p.
194.

Footnote 141:

Mr. Clews relates this whole matter in detail in his _Twenty-Eight
Years in Wall Street_ (new edition _Fifty Years_, etc.), in which
noble tome naive conceit and the pleasures of self-contemplation beget
an almost equal degree of incautious loquacity and innocent candor.

Footnote 142:

By “clear the decks,” and “unload,” when financial storms threaten,
bankers mean that any soon-to-shrink stocks and bonds held by them are
to be at once sold to (dumped upon) somebody else, to let somebody
else stand the certain loss—just as a sinful deacon might sell to his
neighboring fellow-worshipper a horse he was sure would die next day,
or as an enterprising grocer might sell a rotten lemon to a blind
child. It is “legitimate.” It is “opportunity.” It is “business.” And
conscience is a nuisance to some people when there is “opportunity” to
do “business.”

Footnote 143:

“It is a well-known fact that the War of the Rebellion was prolonged
as a result of the manipulations of the speculators who invested in
bonds. While the boys in blue were baring their breasts to the enemy
in a heroic struggle to save the Union, for $13 per month, the bond
sharks were speculating upon their necessities and the necessities of
the Government. At one time President Lincoln was so exasperated by
their greedy and unpatriotic actions that he declared they ‘ought to
have their devilish heads shot off.’”—Congressman Vincent, of Kansas,
in the House of Representatives, April 18, 1898.

Footnote 144:

_History of the United States_, Vol. IV., pp. 44–56.

Footnote 145:

_The Wall Street Point of View_, p. 29.

Footnote 146:

_Railway Problems_, p. 95.

Footnote 147:

See Davis: _The Union Pacific Railway_, p. 187.

Footnote 148:

Davis: pp. 89–202.

Footnote 149:

_Railway Problems_, p. 94.

Footnote 150:

Professor Frank Parsons (Boston University): _The Railways, the Trusts
and the People_, p. 64. And see Report of the Wilson Investigating
Committee, pp. III, IV, et seq., and Parsons’ Chapter on “Railroad
Graft.” Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 151:

“Similar franchises and subsidies were at the same time given to the
Central Pacific Railroad Company.”—Parsons: _The Railways, the Trusts
and the People_, p. 128.

Footnote 152:

_The United States in Our Own Time_, p. 103.

Footnote 153:

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

Footnote 154:

Parsons: _The Railways, the Trusts and the People_, p. 106.

Footnote 155:

Davis: _The Union Pacific Railway_.

Footnote 156:

_The Railroads, the Trusts and the People_, p. 128.

Footnote 157:

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

Footnote 158:

See Professors Cleveland and Powell: _Railroad Promotion and
Capitalization_, pp. 250, 255.

Footnote 159:

See Lalor’s _Cyclopedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and
United States History_, Vol. III., p. 514.

Footnote 160:

_The Railways, the Trusts and the People_, p. 107.

Footnote 161:

The Fourth Illustration was prepared before the appearance of Mr.
Gustavus Myers’ _History of Great American Fortunes_, in which the
reader can find much concerning the land steals. Myers’ three volumes
are brimful of bombshells for the “noble record” of the glistening
barnacles that have clung to the body politic ever since George
Washington was under indictment for swearing off his taxes. Mr. Myers
has sadly bedimmed the glory of the illustrious “solid men of
business.” The work serves as a great contribution to the literature
on _social parasitism_ concerning which the wage-earner should make
all haste to get all possible information.

Footnote 162:

See discussions in Congressional Record of the period.

Footnote 163:

See Congressional Records.

Footnote 164:

D. R. Dewey: _The Financial History of the United States_, p. 467.

Footnote 165:

_The Rough Riders_, passim. Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 166:

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

Footnote 167:

See _Tribune_ for real name in full.

Footnote 168:

_School History of the United States_, p. 476.

Footnote 169:

Roosevelt: _The Rough Riders_, passim.

Footnote 170:

See _McClure’s Magazine_, Sept., 1908.

Footnote 171:

_The Moral Damage of War_, pp. 332–33.

Footnote 172:

_National and Social Problems_, pp. 211–12.

Footnote 173:

Gen. U. S. Grant. Compare also Grant’s comment on the cause of the
Mexican War: _Memoirs_, Vol. I.

Footnote 174:

See Chapters Seven, Section 7–12.

Footnote 175:

_New York Evening Sun_, Editorial, Feb. 24, 1910.

Footnote 176:

In an address, New York, May 25, 1908.

Footnote 177:

British authority for this statement; but exact citation unfortunately
lost.

Footnote 178:

But see Index: “Desertion.”

Footnote 179:

_Expansion_, pp. 101–2.

Footnote 180:

Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 181:

_National and Social Problems_, pp. 186–88.