Chapter EIGHT: For Mother and the Boys and Girls (2)

“Oyster Bay, July 17. President Roosevelt has put his hearty
approval on public school rifle practice. In a letter of
congratulation to Ambrose Scharfenberg, of Brooklyn, winner of the
shooting trophy of the Public School Athletic League, he takes
occasion to encourage the system of rifle practice inaugurated by
General George B. Wingate, retired.

“That the letter to young Scharfenberg may have as far-reaching
influence as possible, it was made public at the President’s
direction today. It is as follows:

“‘My Dear Young Friend:—I heartily congratulate you upon being
declared by the Public School Athletic League to stand first in
rifle shooting among all the boys of the High Schools of New York
City who have tried during the last year. Many a grown man who
regards himself as a crack rifle shot would be proud of such a
score. Your skill is a credit to you, and also to your principal,
your teachers, and to all connected with the manual training school
which you attend, and I know them all. [The usual diffident
confession of omniscience.]

“‘Practice in rifle shooting is of value in developing not only
muscles, but nerves.... It is a prime necessity that the volunteer
should already know how to shoot.... The graduates from our schools
and colleges should be thus trained so as to be good shots with the
military rifle. When so trained they constitute a great addition to
our national strength and great assurance for the peace of the
country.’”

That is to say: Tho’ the capitalists should refuse to employ 5,000,000 men and virtually spit in their faces and order these willing-to-work men out of the factories and mines to shiver and starve in rags, and thus infinitely humiliate millions of working class wives and daughters with the terrors of poverty—no matter, the rifle-practiced graduates of high schools, colleges and universities will be “ready for use,” ready to crush the unemployed if they loudly protest, ready to help the master class thrust all the injustices of a _class_-labor system into the lives of the working class, ready to thrust bayonets into the out-of-work wage-slaves who cry aloud for work, for bread, for justice in the industrial civil war of capitalism.

Bright and early every school day, in New York City, about 600,000 children are _compelled_ to salute the flag and recite some mocking lies about the “glorious freedom they have” and the “bounteous blessings they enjoy”—under the “friendly folds of the Stars and Stripes”—tho’ a whole half million of the children _have no homes of their own and in a hundred ways are stung with the lash of poverty_.

(=17=) Many additional instructors in military tactics have in recent years been appointed to service in high schools, colleges and universities. United States Army officers are now in ninety-three universities, colleges and schools, drilling 22,910 students in “military departments.”

Improved rifles, riot cartridges, and killing equipment are being distributed among the State militia forces; local armories are being improved and made attractive,—all made “ready for use” when needed to pacify the out-of-work wage-earners. Recently in one State, Colorado, military training was being systematically taught in the high schools of six of the largest cities. The Secretary of War in 1909 reported forty-four schoolboy rifle clubs. In the newspapers and magazines, in the sermons and speeches and especially in the public school,—by all such means—the size and perfection of rifles, cannon, battleships and the like, are held up to the children for their admiration and as evidences of our superiority and of our “splendid civilization.” The children are taught to clap their hands for our readiness to engage in some great international butchering contest. But the children are _not_ taught what arsenals, armories, cannon, rifles, soldiers, militia, riot guns and riot cartridges—what all these things mean and what war means for the _working_ class. Never!

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

“Europe is still in arms: each nation watching every other with
suspicion, jealousy, or menace.... And what is the result? Russia
overwhelmed with a military cancer, a prey to social confusion such
as has not been seen in this century. Germany, with her intelligence
and industry, bound in the fetters of military service, governed as
if she were a camp, as if the sole object of peace were to prepare
for war. France staggering.... Italy weighted with a useless army,
uneasy, intriguing, restless.... Spain weak from the drain of a
series of wars.... England uncertain, divided in action, continually
distracted and dishonored by an endless succession of miserable wars
in every quarter of the globe.

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

“Who is the gainer? Is the poor Russian moujic, torn from his home
to die in Central Asia or on the passes of the Balkans, doomed to a
government of ever deepening corruption and tyranny? Is the workman
of Berlin the better, crushed by military oppression and industrial
recklessness? Who is the gainer—the ruler or the ruled? Is the
French peasant the gainer now that Alsace and Lorraine are gone, and
nothing exists of the empire but its debt, its conspirators, and its
legacy of confusions?

“... Who is the gainer by this career of bloodshed and ambition?...
We hear the groans of the millions—the working, suffering
millions—who are yearning to replace this cruel system, none of
their making, none of their choice, by which they gain nothing, from
which they hope nothing.”[279]

Who indeed is the gainer? The workers lose; and the mothers lose most of all—their children. Yet everywhere complete contempt for the working class mothers of the whole world, absolute scorn for the blood of men and the tears of women—of the _working_ class.

What magnificent protest will roll round this world when the working class is roused to think of these things!

(=19=) In the dollar-hunting spirit of the age it may be inquired: Doesn’t war make business brisk, and thus furnish work for the wage-earners?

Yes, certainly. But so also would a lunatic in the streets armed with a repeating shotgun shooting down the children at play: he would make business brisk for the coffin trust, the undertakers and their employees—and the grave-digger.

(=20=) Following are several special suggestions for the mothers and fathers of the working class:

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

Faithfully and patiently help the boys and girls master a half dozen or more passages of the strongest prose and poetry to be found against war; help them in this work till they understand—till their eyes kindle, till their hearts burn, till their imagination is aflame with disgust and detestation for war and for the foul rôle of the armed guard of the ruling class. (See page 350, _last two lines_.)

(2) Teach the children the pledge on the first page of Chapter One of the present volume. Teach them to teach that pledge, or some similar pledge, to other children.

(3) Teach the boys and girls the _historical origin_ of the working class. (See Chapter Eleven.)

(4) Explain to the boys and girls, page by page, all of Chapter Ten, and _urge them to explain the matter to other children_.

(5) Patiently and clearly explain the meaning and the purpose of the local militia and the army.

(6) Interest the children in a circulating anti-war library, and _co-operate with them in promoting the enterprise_.

(7) A Ten-Dollar Cash Prize for the best definition of a militiaman who is willing to shoot the fathers and brothers of the little working class children of his neighborhood when those fathers and brothers are on strike struggling to better the condition of the mothers and the children—such a prize contest would induce a great amount of helpful thoughtfulness and discussion.

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

(=21=) Following are several passages suitable for children as declamations. Also see Index, “Declamations.”

(=A=) The Soldier’s Creed:[280]

“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 unmanly 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_!’”

(=B=) ROBERT G. INGERSOLL’S MUSINGS AT THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON:[281]

“A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—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, contemplating 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 murder, known as Napoleon the Great.”

(=C=) VICTOR HUGO’S REFLECTIONS ON WAR:[282]

“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 drumbeats is met with a shrug of the
shoulder. These sonorous heroes have, up to the present day,
deafened human reason, which begins 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
comprehend 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 bloodshed is bloodshed; 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 changed
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 is 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:[283]

“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 appeals
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 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=) INGERSOLL’S VISION OF THE FUTURE.[284]

“A vision of the future rises: ... I see a world where thrones have
crumbled and where kings are dust. The aristocracy of idleness 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 suicide 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 vision of unstained, untroubled pleasure: Mankind at Peace—Socialized. The children safe. The future vast and beautiful 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.

-----

Footnote 241:

See footnote on page 13; and also introductory paragraph, Chapter
Seven, preceding Section 1.

Footnote 242:

See Index: “Another War.”

Footnote 243:

See Chapter Seven, Section 30.

Footnote 244:

See Index: “Napoleon.”

Footnote 245:

_The Moral Damage of War_, pp. 97–99.

Footnote 246:

See _The Downfall_, passim, Part II., also p. 446. This powerful 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.

Footnote 247:

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

Footnote 248:

Quoted by George Allan England, in _New York Daily Call_, Dec. 2,
1909.

Footnote 249:

See Lucia A. Mead’s _Patriotism and the New Internationalism_, p. 22.

Footnote 250:

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.

Footnote 251:

New York _World_, editorial, May 6, 1910.

Footnote 252:

See New York _Times_, October 31, 1908, long article on the increasing
manufacture of such toys.

Footnote 253:

Quoted by Walter Walsh: _Moral Damage of War_, p. 380.

Footnote 254:

_The Economy of Happiness_, pp. 519–20.

Footnote 255:

Walter Walsh: _Moral Damage of War_, p. 376.

Footnote 256:

_Imperial Democracy_, p. 270.

Footnote 257:

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

Footnote 258:

See _Social Diseases_, p. 24, March, 1910; Contents—A Symposium
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.

Footnote 259:

See Walter Walsh: _Moral Damage of War_, pp. 151–52. Emphasis mine. G.
R. K.

Footnote 260:

Edmondson: _John Bull’s Army from Within_.

Footnote 261:

Elbert Hubbard: _Health and Wealth_, quoted in the _New Age_, August
5, 1909. See Index: “Venereal Diseases.”

Footnote 262:

See Chapter Seven, Section 18.

Footnote 263:

_International Journal of Ethics_, April, 1908.

Footnote 264:

_Arbeiter in Council_, pp. 38–39.

Footnote 265:

_Don Juan_, VIII., IX.

Footnote 266:

E. C. Stedman: “Alice of Monmouth.”

Footnote 267:

_Works_, passim.

Footnote 268:

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

Footnote 269:

_Autobiographical Note._

Footnote 270:

Isaiah: Chapter II., par. 4.

Footnote 271:

“Biglow Papers.”

Footnote 272:

The Kingdom of God.

Footnote 273:

Quoted by John A. Hobson: _John Ruskin—Social Reformer_, p. 346.
Italics mine except for “The _Real_ War.” G. R. K.

Footnote 274:

See Index: “Christ.”

Footnote 275:

See _The World To-Day_, p. 956, Sept., 1905.

Footnote 276:

Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 277:

See Chapters Nine and Eleven.

Footnote 278:

_American Brigadier_, November, 1907.

Footnote 279:

Frederic Harrison: _National and Social Problems_, pp. 237–40. Written
in 1880.

Footnote 280:

Ernest Crosby: _Swords and Ploughshares_. Published by Funk and
Wagnalls, New York.

Footnote 281:

See _Prose-Poems and Selections from the Writings and Sayings of
Robert G. Ingersoll_. Published by C. P. Farrell, New York.

Footnote 282:

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 applauded 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 excerpt from the oration begins,
“Whoever says today.”

Footnote 283:

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.

Footnote 284:

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.