Strike Against War Essay Example for Free

Strike Against state of contend EssayNot all the editors I incur met can do that. Quite a deem of them have to take their French and Ger bit second hand. No, I will non disparage the editors. They ar an overworked, misunderstood class. Let them remember, though, that if I cannot foregather the fire at the end of their cig atomic number 18ttes, neither can they tramp a needle in the dark. any I ask, gentle men, is a fair field and no favor. I have entered the run against prep ardness and against the economic system under which we live. It is to be a fight to the finish, and I ask no quarter. The future of the world rests in the hands of America.The future of America rests on the backs of 80,000,000 workingmen and women and their children. We are facing a grave crisis in our national life. The few who profit from the grok of the masses privation to organize the workers into an army which will protect the interests of the capitalists. You are urged to add to the heav y essences you already bear the burden of a larger army and many additional fightships. It is in your power to refuse to carry the triggerman and the dread-noughts and to shake off some(prenominal) of the burdens, too, such aslimousines, steam yachts and country estates. You do not neet to make a great noise well-nigh it.With the silence and dignity of creators you can end wars and the system of selfishness and exploitation that causes wars. all in all you need to do to bring about this stupendous revolution is to straighten up and fold your arms. We are not preparing to defend our country. Even if we were as helpless as Congressman Gardner says we are, we have no enemies bold enough to attempt to invade the United States. The talk about attack from Germany and Japan is absurd. Germany has its hands replete(p) and will be busy with its own affairs for some generations after the European war is over.With ripe control of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the allies failed to land enough men to defeat the Turks at Gallipoli and then they failed again to land an army at Salonica in time to check the Bulgarian invasion of Serbia. The conquest of America by water is a nightmare confined exclusively to ignorant persons and members of the dark blue League. Yet, e verywhere, we hear fear advanced as argument for armament. It reminds me of a fable I read. A current man found a horse tog. His neighbor began to weep and wail because, as he justly pointed out, the man who found the horseshoe might someday find a horse.Having found the shoe, he might shoe him. The neighbors child might some day go so near the horses hells as to be kicked, and die. undoubtedly the two families would quarrel and fight, and several valuable lives would be lost through the finding of the horseshoe. You k straightway the finish war we had we quite accidentally picked up some islands in the Pacific Ocean which may some day be the cause of a quarrel between ourselves and J apan. Id rather drop those islands right now and foret about them than go to war to keep them. Wouldnt you?Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is proviso to protect the capital of American speculators and investors in Mexico, in the south America, China, and teh Philippine Islands. Incidentally this preparation will put on the manufacturers of munitions and war machines. Until recently there were uses in the United States for the money taken from the workers. But American labor is exploited almost to the limit now, and our national resources have all been appropriated. Still the profits keep cumulus up new capital.Our flourishing industry in implements of murder is filling the vaults of New Yorks banks with gold. And a long horse that is not being used to make a slave of some human being is not fulfilling its purpose in the capitalistic scheme. That dollar must be invested in South America, Mexico, China, or the Philippines. It was no accide nt that the Navy League came into prominence at the same time that the National City depone of New York established a branch in Buenos Aires. It is not a mere coincidence that half-dozen business associates of J. P. Morgan are officials of defense leagues.And chance did not dictate that Mayor Mitchel chould appoint to his Committee of rubber eraser a thousand men that represent a fifth of the wealth of the United States. These men counter for their foreign investments protected. Every modern war has had its root in exploitation. The Civil fight was fought to decide whether to slaveholders of the South or the capitalists of the North should exploit the West. The Spanish-American War decided that the United States should exploit Cuba and the Philippines. The South African War decided that the British should exploit the diamond mines. The Russo-Japanese War decided that Japan should exploit Korea.The present war is to decide who shall exploit the Balkans, Turkey, Persia, Egypt, I ndia, China, Africa. And we are whetting our sword to scare the victors into sharing the spoils with us. Now, the workers are not interested in the spoils they will not get any of them anyway. The traildness propagandists have still another object, and a very important one. They want to give the people something to think about besides their won unhappy condition. They turn in the cost of living is high, wages are low, employment is uncertain and will be much to a greater extent than(prenominal) so when the European call for munitions stops.No matter how hard and incessantly the people work, they often cannot pass the comforts of life many cannot obtain the necessities. Every few days we are given a new war scare to lend realism to their propaganda. They have had us on the verge of war over the Lusitania, the Gulflight, the Ancona, and now they want the workingmen to become excited over the sinking of the Persia. The workingman has no interest in any of these ships. The Germans might sink every vessel on the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and pop Americans with every onethe American workingman would still have no reason to go to war.All the machinery of the system has been mickle in motion. Above the complaint and din of the protest from the workers is heard the voice of authority. Friends, it says, fellow workmen, patriots your country is in danger There are foes on all sides of us. There is nothing between us and our enemies unpack the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. Look at what has happened to Belgium. Consider the fate of Serbia. give you murmur about low wages when your country, your very liberties, are in jeopardy?What are the miseries you endure compared to the humiliation of having a victorious German army sail up the East River? Quit your whining, get busy and prepare to defend your firesides and your flag. Get an army, get a navy be ready to meet the invaders like the loyal-hearted ejectmen you are. Will the workers walk i nto this trap? Will they be fooled again? I am afraid so. The people have always been amenable to oratory of this frame. The workers know they have no enemies except their masters. They know that their citizenship papers are no warrant for the safety of themselves or their wives and children.They know that honest sweat, persistent wear and years of defend bring them nothing worth holding on to, worth fighting for. Yet, deep down in their foolish hearts they believe they have a country. Oh blind vanity of slaves The clever ones, up in the high places know how childish and silly the workers are. They know that if the government dresses them up in khaki and gives them a rifle and starts them off with a brass band and waving banners, they will go forth to fight valiantly for their own enemies. They are taught that brave men die for their countrys honor.What a price to pay for an abstractionthe lives of millions of recent men other millions crippled and blinded for life existence mad e hideous for still more millions of human being the achievement and inheritance of generations swept away in a momentand nobody demote off for all the misery This terrible sacrifice would be comprehensible if the thing you die for and call country fed, clothed, housed and warmed you, educated and cherished your children. I thinkthe workers are the most unselfish of the children of men they toil and live and die for other peoples country, other peoples sentiments, ther peoples liberties and other peoples happiness The workers have no liberties of their own they are not unembellished when they are compelled to work twelve or ten or eight hours a day. they are not free when they are ill paid for their exhausting toil. They are not free when their children must labor in mines, mills and factories or starve, and when their women may be driven by leanness to lives of shame. They are not free when they are clubbed and imprisoned because they go on strike for a educe of wages and for t he elemental justice that is their right as human beings.We are not free unless the men who frame and execute the laws represent the interests of the lives of the people and no other interest. The ballot does not make a free man out of a wage slave. there has never existed a truly free and democratic nation in the world. From time immemorial men have followed with blind loyalty the inexpugnable men who had the power of money and of armies. Even while battlefields were piled high with their own dead they have till the lands of the rulers and have been robbed of the fruits of their labor.They have built palaces and pyramids, temples and cathedrals that held no real shrine of liberty. As civilization has grown more complex the workers have become more and more enslaved, until today they are little more than part of the machines they operate. Daily they face the dangers of railroad, bridge, skyscraper, frieght train, stokehold, stockyard, lumber raft and min. Panting and training at t he docks, on the railroads and underground and on the seas, they move the traffic and pass from land to land the precious commodities that make it possible for us to live. And what is their give back?A scanty wage, often poverty, rents, taxes, tributes and war indemnities. The loving of preparedness the workers want is reorganization and reconstruction of their satisfying life, such as has never been attempted by statesmen or governments. The Germans found out years agone that they could not raise good soldiers in the slums so they abolished the slums. They saw to it that all the people had at to the lowest degree a few of the essentials of civilizationdecent lodging, discase streets, wholesome if scanty food, proper medical care and proper safeguards for the workers in their ocupations.That is only a small part of what should be done, but what wonders that one step toward the right sort of preparedness has wrought for Germany For eighteen months it has kept itself free from in vasion while carrying on an extended war of conquest, and its armies are still pressing on with unabated vigor. It is your business to force these reforms on the Administration. Let there be no more talk about what a government can or cannot do. All these theings have been done by all the belligerent nations in the hurly-burly of war. Every fundamental industry has been managed best by the governments than by private corporations.It is your duty to insist upon still more radical measure. It is your business to see that no child is employed in an industrial establishment or mine or store, and that no worker in needlessly exposed to accident or disease. It is your business to make them give you clean cities, free from smoke, dirt and congestion. It is your business to make them pay you a living wage. It is your business to see that this kind of preparedness is carried into every department on the nation, until everyone has a chance to be well born, well nourished, justifiedly educat ed, intelligent and serviceable to the country at all times.Strike against all ordinances and laws and institutions that continue the slaughter of placidity and the butcheries of war. Srike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing scrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human being. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.