Chapter III: Preface: To the Fifth Edition

A few amusingly oracular and pitifully (not to say pardonably) impotent voices have been raised—necessarily not very high, of course—against the style of this book. Deferring, for the present, any discussion of certain evident pedagogical exigencies, my reply is: In the ninth month from the date of first issue, the book is in its Fifth Edition, Thirtieth Thousand.

G. R. K.

May 24, 1911.

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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 New York. The author is genuinely grateful for their kind cooperation.

Ready.

The Roman 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 blacksnake 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_ working 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 company with six rapid-fire guns of the Maxim or some similar type should be added to each of the thirty regiments of infantry 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-earning_ 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 defended by a wage-earning police, by the side of which the
[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 Commander=in=Chief:

“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 [military] 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 Report 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 Report 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.”

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How long will strong men of the working class accept a kick as a compliment—from so-called “great” men?

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Footnote 1:

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. See Index: “Desertions.”