Golden Age, May 22, 1935
Download: PDF — Golden Age, May 22, 1935
The Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
in this issue
GIDEON'S TROOPS
ON NEW JERSEY
AND OTHER BATTLE FRONTS
WOMAN AND WAR
PRAYER
BOY SCOUT LITERATURE
BAYONET FIGHTING
HANDWRITING ON THE WALL
every other
WEDNESDAY
five cents a copy
one dollar a year
Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol. XVI - No. 409
May 22, 1935 CONTENTS
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
ITEMS ON MILITARIZATION . . . . 535
Richly Deserve What Is Coming . . 536
World Made Safe for Hypocrisy . . 537
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
GIDEON’S TROOPS ON NEW JERSEY AND OTHER BATTLE FRONTS . . . 515
Inquisition at Alexandria . . . . 518
“I’m Not Interested” . . . . . . 518
PRAYER . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
QUOTATIONS FROM BOY SCOUT LITERATURE . . . . 531
Italian Protection Against Attack . 537
Anonymous Screed from Toronto . . 543
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
International Murderers, Limited . 536
Murderers Govern League . . . . 536
Bristol Explosives Used . . . . . 537
Hideous Stupidity of War . . . . 537
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
“Dangerous for the State” . . . . 518
WOMAN AND WAR . . . . . . . . 519
Trembling on Brink of Armageddon 531
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
BAYONET FIGHTING . . . . . . . 532
Forts Underground . . . . . . . 537
Defends Poison Gas . . . . . . . 537
Babes in Trenches Hear Mothers Cry . . . . . . . . . 543
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
ANOTHER GOOD WITNESS AT PLAINFIELD . . . . . . . . 530
“No Goal in Mind” . . . . . . . 531
All Consciences Subject to Congress 536
Canadian Veterans Ditch Archbishop 537
HANDWRITING ON “CHRISTENDOM’S” WALL . . . . 538
Published every other Wednesday by
GOLDEN AGE PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A.
Clayton J. Woodworth President Nathan H. Knorr Vice President
Charles E. Wagner Secretary and Treasurer
FIVE CENTS A COPY
$1 a year, United States; $1.25 to Canada and all other countries.
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS
REMITTANCES: For your own safety, remit by postal or express money order. When coin or currency is lost in the ordinary mails, there is no redress. Remittances from countries other than those named below may be made to the Brooklyn office, but only by INTERNATIONAL postal money order.
RECEIPT of a new or renewal subscription will be acknowledged only when requested. NOTICE OF EXPIRATION is sent with the journal one month before subscription expires. Please renew promptly to avoid loss of copies.
SEND CHANGE OF ADDRESS direct to us rather than to the post office. Your request should reach us at least two weeks before the date of issue with which it is to take effect. Send your old as well as the new address. Copies will not be forwarded by the post office to your new address unless extra postage is provided by you.
PUBLISHED also in Bohemian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish.
OFFICES FOR OTHER COUNTRIES
British . . . . . . . . . . 34 Craven Terrace, London, W. 2, England
Canadian . . . . . . . . . 40 Irwin Avenue, Toronto 5, Ontario, Canada
Australasian . . . . . . . 7 Beresford Road, Strathfield, N. S. W., Australia
South African . . . . . . . . Boston House, Cape Town, South Africa
Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879.
The Golden Age
Volume XVI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, May 22, 1935 Number 409
Gideon’s Troops on New Jersey and Other Battle Fronts
LET us hope it is not the final decision, but, at the moment, New Jersey, by one of its highest constituted authorities, has decided against Almighty God and definitely refuses to let His people freely worship Him as they desire and as He commands them to do.
In the summer of 1934 three of Jehovah’s witnesses, one man, two women, were preaching the good news of Jehovah’s kingdom from house to house in Maplewood, New Jersey.
They were arrested because they had not first asked for and obtained a police permit to do their work.
Why not apply for a permit? For the sole reason that Jehovah God is supreme and He has commanded them to do this witness work; and to ask a permit of men to do what God has commanded would be not only inconsistent but a violation of their obligation to Jehovah. Like the apostles, they say: "We ought to obey God rather than men."—Acts 5:29.
On August 7, 1934, they were convicted as "lawbreakers" and sentenced to pay fines or go to prison. Their case was appealed, and first one justice, Charles Parker, of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, affirmed the decision of the Maplewood police judge. Again appeal was taken to a panel of three other justices of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, known as Part 2 of that high tribunal. Those three justices are Perskie (a Hebrew), Trenchard (a Protestant), and Heher (a Roman Catholic). Trenchard was occupied in the Hauptmann-Lindbergh case on January 16, 1935, when the case of Jehovah’s witnesses was opened for argument before Part 2 of the Supreme Court; hence only two of the three justices heard the argument. Then the two justices took the case under advisement. In the middle of April they gave their decision. It is summed up in the concluding paragraphs of the written opinion, here quoted:
It would seem to this court that men and women engaged in the lofty and idealistic work, as the prosecutors [meaning Jehovah’s witnesses who were "prosecuting" the appeal] claim to have been engaged herein, i.e., of spreading their religious conceptions to the public at large, ought to be among the very first to submit to and comply with all reasonable regulations which, obviously, were enacted in the interest of the public health and safety and which regulations were designed for the good of the greatest number. There is no question here of prohibition; it is rather a simple question of reasonable police regulations; regulations which have for their purpose safeguards against those who are not so concerned with ideals and morals; a type, of which there are altogether too many, which resort to any guise, innocent or otherwise, in order to further their illegal schemes and objectives.
The prosecutors [meaning Jehovah’s witnesses], notwithstanding the sanctity of their work, are not immune to the necessary and reasonable police regulation herein challenged.
WAR BULLETIN
On Thursday, May 2, 1935, there were mailed at Paterson, New Jersey, 8,500 letters, to every home in Maplewood, New Jersey, each containing a copy of the statement which appears on pages 516-517 of this issue of THE GOLDEN AGE.
These letters also contained an invitation to the people of the city to listen to a special Watch Tower broadcast of direct interest to Maplewood taxpayers, to be given at 9 a.m. Sunday, May 5. The postmaster at Paterson gave assurance that these letters would all be delivered before Sunday.
Perhaps at that time Postmaster General Farley had not yet had time to consult Amleto Giovanni Cicognani (archbishop and "pope’s" personal representative at Washington) as to his duties in the premises.
At any rate, by Sunday morning only a very few of those letters had been delivered, and the Maplewood postal clerks admitted that practically all of the letters were still lying in that post office.
Accordingly, 190 of Gideon’s valiant troops covered the city that same day with great care, inviting every householder to listen to the same broadcast, which was repeated at 4:30 p.m. While thus engaged, they placed 1,410 books and booklets, in 517 homes. One man and one woman were thrown into prison for doing this good work.
Manifestly, the United States postal service is breaking down, and Jehovah’s witnesses must act independently where the public interest is involved.
Writs are dismissed, with costs.
When he returns to America from the Hawaiian Islands, where he was engaged in the work of God’s kingdom during April, the statement following will greatly interest Judge Rutherford, who, during the World War, as one of Jehovah’s witnesses, stood for Almighty God and suffered imprisonment because of it. It will also be of great interest to all of Jehovah’s people in New Jersey and elsewhere, and to thousands of other truth-loving and liberty-loving Americans who in this will see more of the thin beginnings in America of an attempt to deprive men and women of their inestimable right to worship and serve Jehovah God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of their own consciences.
The following statement was signed, and the original of it served about noon of Monday, April 29, 1935, to Richard H. Thiele in his office at Newark, New Jersey, by Wallace A. Vick; and by special courier copies were delivered simultaneously on Monday April 29 to Supreme Court Justices Parker, Perskie and Heher at Trenton; and to Governor Hoffman and the attorney general of New Jersey. Copies were furnished also to The Associated Press and other news associations, the New York Times, and other papers in New York and New Jersey; to radio stations and broadcasting systems; to members of the New Jersey legislature and Congress at Washington, to the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to the president of the United States, to numerous counselors and attorneys, to various branch offices of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, and to the president of the Society, Joseph F. Rutherford.
Responsibility
On Tuesday evening, April 30, in open court at Maplewood, the official to whom the following statement was specifically addressed coolly and bluntly ordered Wallace A. Vick to be locked up in the Essex county prison for thirty days; Anna Rettenmaier for ten days, and Anna Dziatkiewicz for forty days. Forthwith their bodies were taken in charge by the “strong-arm squad”.
Jehovah, the Most High God, and His King Christ Jesus unquestionably saw and heard what occurred in that courtroom, and will require the willful transgressors against Him and His servants to pay the penalty.
Eighty days behind the bars will soon be gone. But how about those responsible for acting deliberately to hinder the increase and the prosperity of the work of Jehovah’s government, just before the battle at Armageddon?
The Statement
To Richard H. Thiele
as Recorder of the Township of Maplewood (N. J.)
By three of JEHOVAH’S witnesses, namely,
Wallace A. Vick,
Anna Rettenmaier,
Anna Dziatkiewicz,
Greetings!
JEHOVAH, the living and true God, gives now to His King Christ Jesus and to His witnesses upon earth the privilege and the responsibility of publishing among the people of all nations the good news of His supremacy, of the majesty of His King and Kingdom, and of the day of His vengeance against all enemies of His government which in the near future shall break in pieces and utterly consume all other kingdoms and dominions and which alone shall stand forever.
Within this month the New Jersey Supreme Court, by its learned justices, Perskie and Heher, having formally affirmed the judgment of their associate, Parker, of the same Court, who previously did affirm a judgment which you did enter on the seventh day of August 1934 against each of us,
Because we, when arrested last summer in Maplewood, were going from house to house in your community for the purpose only of enlightening the people on the Word of God, and each of us was then and thus sincerely and conscientiously serving the Most High God, JEHOVAH, under the leadership of His reigning King and in obedience to His command as written in the Bible, and
Because to you we gave offense only in this, that we admittedly and intentionally did omit to apply to and receive from the Maplewood police a permit before performing our God-given duty among the people of your community,
Now, therefore, you are hereby respectfully invited to notice that, according to the understanding of the purposes of the Most High God as by Him and His King given to His witnesses through His written Word, and in the sober and humble judgment of each of us,
1. The written commandments of Almighty God “whose name alone is JEHOVAH” are to us, His witnesses, mandatory and superior to all statutes and ordinances of human origin; and that the statutes and commandments of the “Higher Powers” (Romans 13:1), namely, JEHOVAH and His reigning King Christ Jesus, direct the manner and time or season that His witnesses upon earth to whom He gives understanding of His purposes shall freely and joyfully publish such information among the people of all nations.—Matthew 24:14; Isaiah 12:4-6; 43:10-12; 61:1-3; 62:6, 7.
2. The crowning glory of so-called American freedom, from the beginning of the United States of America, including the State of New Jersey, up to this time, has been the unquestioned and untrammeled right of each person to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of his own conscience without let or hindrance from any person or any source whatsoever; and the Supreme Court of the United States has held "that this [United States of America] is a Christian nation".
3. The New Jersey Constitution specifically restrains, estops, and prohibits any legislative, judicial, executive or administrative servant of the people of the State from attempting to regulate or prohibit any person, as one of Jehovah's witnesses "worshiping Almighty God", going from house to house for the purpose of informing and enlightening the people on the Word of God and its message concerning His government, whether such information for householders be conveyed to them orally or by means of written or printed communications, inasmuch as the New Jersey Constitution provides that
"No person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience".
4. The deliberate judgment of the New Jersey Supreme Court justices by them officially communicated to us, and of you as Recorder of the Township of Maplewood, that we before performing our God-given duty formally submit ourselves for "necessary and reasonable police regulation", we must and do hereby publicly and freely condemn and reject as contradictory of the superior written judgment and law of the Most High God; and to those justices, officially and personally, and thus also to you, we, in language (Acts 4:19) of our brethren and fellow soldiers of Jesus Christ, freely submit: "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."
WHEREFORE you are further invited to notice that, according to information communicated on your behalf to us, we shall personally present ourselves before you on Tuesday, the thirtieth day of April 1935, at seven o'clock in the evening, that you may, if you will, assure us of your readiness to do everything in your power to advance and cause to prosper in the Township of Maplewood and elsewhere the work of Jehovah's witnesses.
Seriously, in all sobriety, and without malice we now say that if, on the other hand, you decide to choose the unmanly and unreasonable course of attempting to further obstruct this good work and to prosecute a claim upon the bond heretofore provided at our request as security for the cost of our recent appeal in this matter to the New Jersey Supreme Court, then take notice now that such choice by you will be without our concurrence and in deliberate disregard of what either the bondsman or any of us desires or allows.
Or if you, as the responsible servant of the community, choose instead to impose upon the community the needless burden of expense to maintain each of us in the county prison because we now hereby refuse to pay the several sums of money by you named as fines that you wrongfully imposed upon us, then you must bear the responsibility before the community and, above all, before Almighty God and His rightful Ruler, Christ Jesus, whose respectful and obedient servants we are.
WALLACE A. VICK.
ANNA RETTENMAIER.
ANNA DZIATKIEWICZ.
AFFIRMED and subscribed before me this twenty-ninth day of April, 1935, at Newark, N. J.
HARRY L. PIATT, Notary Public.
COPIES TO
C. W. Parker, Justice, Supreme Court, Trenton, N. J.
J. B. Perskie, Justice, Supreme Court, Trenton, N. J.
Harry Heher, Justice, Supreme Court, Trenton, N. J.
H. G. Hoffman, Governor of New Jersey, Trenton, N. J.
D. T. Wilentz, Attorney-General of New Jersey, Trenton, N. J.
J. S. De Hart, Jr., Chairman, and Each Member of the Town Committee, Maplewood, N. J.
Chief of Police, Maplewood, N. J.
Osborne, Cornish & Scheck, Attorneys, Newark, N. J.
Charles Steadman, Warden, Essex County Prison, Newark, N. J.
Sheriff, Essex County, Newark, N. J.
Frank Hague, Mayor, Jersey City, N. J.
J. J. Rafferty, Assemblyman, Middlesex Borough, N. J.
J. E. Toolan, State Senator, Perth Amboy, N. J.
Theron McCampbell, Assemblyman, Holmdel, N. J.
Dryden Kuser, State Senator, Bernardsville, N. J.
Will Newcorn, Corporation Counsel, Plainfield, N. J.
C. F. Stout, Publisher, Courier-News, Plainfield, N. J.
P. J. Siccardi, Editor, The Police Reporter, Hackensack, N. J.
S. N. Dick, Managing Editor, The Daily Courier, Orange, N. J.
Editor, The Trenton Times, Trenton, N. J.
Rollo Ogden, Editor-in-Chief, The New York Times, New York, N. Y.
James Shearer, Manager, Radio Station WHBI, Newark, N. J.
A. J. McCosker, President, Radio Station WOR, Newark, N. J.
W. S. Paley, President, Columbia Broadcasting System, New York, N. Y.
M. H. Aylesworth, President, National Broadcasting Company, New York, N. Y.
M. A. Howlett, Manager, Radio Station WBBR, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Kent Cooper, General Manager, The Associated Press, New York, N. Y.
Warren Barbour, Senator of New Jersey, Washington, D. C.
C. E. Hughes, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C.
F. D. Roosevelt, President, United States of America, Washington, D. C.
Jacob S. Karkus, Counselor at Law, Perth Amboy, N. J.
F. W. Sparks, Counselor at Law, Brooklyn, N. Y.
H. L. Parkhurst, 799 Bloomfield Avenue, Verona, N. J.
C. R. Hessler, Divisional Leader, New Jersey Division, Jehovah's witnesses, Paterson, N. J.
C. J. Woodworth, Editor, The Golden Age, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, Attention J. Hemery, London, England.
Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, Attention H. C. Schieman, Philadelphia, Pa.
Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, Attention Anton Koerber, 1603 Massachusetts Ave. NW., Washington, D. C.
J. F. Rutherford, President, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Jehovah’s witnesses Elsewhere
“Dangerous for the State”
THE Copenhagen Politiken has a story smuggled out of Germany showing the stand of a Nazi paper against religious liberty. Under the heading “Dangerous for the State” the Nazi press makes reference to Jehovah’s witnesses as a religious organization which according to its nature is ‘dangerous to the state’. The paper admits that in its eyes the Bible is nothing but unpleasant testimony, and concludes with the thought that “the Evangelical and Catholic churches may yet become as dangerous for the state as Jehovah’s witnesses”. The Devil is merely trying to cover his tracks. The only ones he seeks to destroy are Jehovah’s witnesses. Reports received at Brooklyn are that the only ones of Jehovah’s witnesses in Germany who are thoroughly happy are the ones who are in prison as a result of their uncompromising stand. All who tried to compromise are in hot water up to their ears.
Inquisition at Alexandria
A LITTLE while ago, when the Dark Ages were even darker than at present, the Roman hierarchy refrained from the dirtiest of the dirty work. They let the Dominicans and the public officials attend to that. Recently the present pope told the Dominicans to do their stuff again. Meantime some of the public officials are showing where their sympathies are. Ignoring the Constitution, and even common decency, they show the same spirit that lit the fires all over Europe back in the sixteenth century. In Alexandria, Va., Beatrice Kendall, 72 years of age, four other women and four men, were arrested by Sergeant Eberly, and jailed for fifteen days by Judge James Reese Duncan because they visited Alexandria to find out who had rooms to rent, how many rooms, and the rate per person. While seeking this information, which has the approval of the Washington Board of Trade, these witnesses also gave away tracts, which is their method of preaching the gospel. They were not officially arrested on the charge of breathing the Virginia air, though they might as well have been. The official charge was “soliciting without a permit while distributing religious tracts”. What the judge was charged with who sent them to jail for fifteen days may be gathered from a plaque on the courthouse, which reads: “Site of Colonial Jail, 1750-1752. Here Jeremiah Moore was imprisoned for preaching the gospel without a license.” When the nine witnesses were illegally and infamously deprived of their liberties, they were subjected to assault upon their persons in that they were vaccinated contrary to their wishes. It was in Virginia that Patrick Henry gave expression to his famous speech, “Give me liberty or give me death.” If alive today, and living in Alexandria, and having a love of truth, Patrick Henry would be denied the first. Before Judge James Reese Duncan he would be denied both.
“I’m Not Interested”
THAT it is really necessary to call and call again and again to wake people up to the importance of the great message now going forth throughout the earth is well illustrated by the following letter from A. R. Nutting, 65 Chetwynd Road, West Somerville, Mass. In the “Embarrassing Moments” column he wrote to the Boston American: “I had been annoyed incessantly by agents. Again the doorbell rang, and, upon answering, the man said ‘Jehovah is coming’ (he was advertising some religious paper); and, without thinking, I said, ‘I’m not interested.’ Can you imagine my embarrassment when I realized the significance of his statement?” Woman and War
By Rose Henderson, ex-Judge of the Juvenile Court of Montreal
THE uncivilized woman of the past, when commanded by the state, threw her babes into the Ganges or under the Juggernaut car to appease the "god of wrath". Today civilized woman in her ignorance hands her son a gun and to the strains of martial music and the waving of flags sends him forth at the command of the state to appease the greed and rapacity of the "god of profits".
Too long have women been fed on the romance and glory of war. Too long have its realities been hidden from them by hypocrisy and lies. The death agonies of the dying have been drowned by the din of martial music. The scars of body and soul have been covered up by gaudy uniforms, gold lace, plumes and medals.
The warmongers have fooled and flattered women into the belief that their men folk were fighting for their honor, their home, their God, when in reality they were fighting for oil wells, coal fields, new markets to plunder and new "spheres of influence" to exploit.
So far, peace societies have dealt with the problem of making an end of war from the sentimental point of view. They have attempted to tame the beast of militarism with honeyed words, approaching it in a "diplomatic way", courting the approval of "leading citizens" and being scrupulously careful not to "antagonize" and always loudly proclaiming their loyalty to the "empire", the "republic", or whatever form of government prevails in the country in which they live.
I do not question the sincerity of these people. I have met and talked with many such men and women, and one and all conveyed the impression of sincerity and devotion to the cause of peace. But sincerity and devotion are not enough. A mother may be a devoted slave to her child, yet see it die by inches because she lacks the knowledge of child welfare and fails to understand its needs and constitution. Likewise, a mother, through her ignorance, may feed her children a mental poison which may be the cause of sorrow down to the "third and fourth generation".
Economic conditions have forced women to face the question of poverty, unemployment, infant mortality and prostitution, but in comparison to war these pale into insignificance.
Resolutely and fearlessly the women of the world must understand the causes of war or see the race exterminated.
Woman bears the burden of the race in time of peace as well as in war. She does not arm nor does she destroy armies, but she bears and nurtures the armies, both industrial and military, before, during and after the war.
The following is a table of the cost of the last war in blood and treasure. These figures are not taken from any pacifist journal nor from the tabulations of a peace organization, but from The Militiaman, official organ of the Vancouver Military Institute.
THE COST OF THE GREAT WAR
British Empire
Killed: 800,000
Wounded: 2,000,000
Pris. and Miss.: 65,000
Financial Cost: $ 39,703,000,000
France
Killed: 1,500,000
Wounded: 3,000,000
Pris. and Miss.: 450,000
Financial Cost: 24,265,000,000
Russia
Killed: 2,750,000
Wounded: 5,000,000
Pris. and Miss.: 2,500,000
Financial Cost: 22,600,000,000
Italy
Killed: 50,000
Wounded: 950,000
Pris. and Miss.: 1,400,000
Financial Cost: 12,413,000,000
Serbia
Killed: 700,000
Wounded: 350,000
Pris. and Miss.: 100,000
Financial Cost: 400,000,000
Belgium
Killed: 250,000
Wounded: 150,000
Pris. and Miss.: 10,000
Financial Cost: 3,000,000,000
Japan
Killed: 300
Wounded: 900
Pris. and Miss.: 3
Financial Cost: 40,000,000
United States
Killed: 80,000
Wounded: 225,000
Pris. and Miss.: 4,500
Financial Cost: 22,482,000,000
Rumania
Killed: 350,000
Wounded: 200,000
Pris. and Miss.: 100,000
Financial Cost: 1,600,000,000
Greece
Killed: 15,000
Wounded: 40,000
Pris. and Miss.: 45,000
Financial Cost: 270,000,000
Portugal
Killed: 4,000
Wounded: 17,000
Pris. and Miss.: 200
Financial Cost: [blank]
Germany
Killed: 1,600,000
Wounded: 3,800,000
Pris. and Miss.: 800,000
Financial Cost: 40,000,000,000
Austria-Hungary
Killed: 900,000
Wounded: 3,000,000
Pris. and Miss.: 450,000
Financial Cost: 20,622,000,000
Turkey
Killed: 450,000
Wounded: 400,000
Pris. and Miss.: 100,000
Financial Cost: 1,500,000,000
Bulgaria
Killed: 100,000
Wounded: 150,000
Pris. and Miss.: 10,000
Financial Cost: 815,000,000
Allied Powers' Total
Killed: 6,499,300
Wounded: 11,932,900
Pris. and Miss.: 4,674,703
Financial Cost: 126,773,000,000
Central Powers' Total
Killed: 3,050,000
Wounded: 7,350,000
Pris. and Miss.: 1,360,000
Financial Cost: 62,937,000,000
Grand Totals
Killed: 9,549,300
Wounded: 19,282,900
Pris. and Miss.: 6,034,703
Financial Cost: $ 189,710,000,000
(a) Founded on "Direct and Indirect Costs of the Great World War", by E. L. Bogart.
(b) It is estimated that fifty percent of those listed as "prisoners and missing" are dead.
(c) The cost has been estimated on the increase during the period of the war over normal peace expenditures. Reparations paid by the Central Powers increase their costs and decrease the costs of the Allied Powers.
Add to these figures the toll of the world-wide influenza epidemic, which cost 6,000,000 lives, not counting the 8,000,000 in India, and without reckoning those who have died since peace was declared, from cholera, typhus, famine blockades, civil wars and malnutrition.
The lifeblood, yea, life itself, of women was given to bring forth and nurture these millions, the victims of man's ruthless folly; given, not in the cause of freedom, but in the cause of mammon. What a waste of woman's life! what a waste of love! what a waste of labor and sacrifice! what a toll! what a condemnation of man's religion, morality and government!
Reflect, oh, mothers of the world, reflect! These are your children, your men and your boys, the babes you have put to bed and pulled the covers over, a thousand times petted, and nursed, and fed, and brought up to be men. The human blossoms of love for whom you have scrimped and saved and worked to give a trade, profession, or a better education, so that they might have a better opportunity in life than their forebears had.
The March of the Dead
If the dead of the Great War could be assembled in one great army this is the spectacle they would present:
“At daybreak they start, twenty abreast. Until sundown they march . . . and the next day, and the next, and the next. For ten days the British dead pass in review. For eleven days more the French dead file down ‘the Avenue of the Allies’. For the Russians it would require the daylight of five more weeks. Two months and a half would be required for the Allied dead to pass a given point. The enemy dead would require more than six weeks. For four months men actually killed in the war, passing steadily twenty abreast—”
The war claimed, says one journal, 10,000 miles of dead.
If these dead, as they passed by in the melancholy procession, could look into your eyes or could speak to you, what do you imagine their message would be? Would they tell you of the victories and heroics of war, or would they tell you that in war there are no victories for the common people, who supply the cannon fodder and pay the cost—95 percent of all the cost—in life, suffering and taxation for generations after the war is over?
They would tell you that for every “Victoria Cross” on the breast of the living there are 100,000 wooden crosses on the graves of the dead!
If the war’s dead could but return for one hour, that hour would be spent in shocking the women of the world into a sense of their responsibility!
Flower of Manhood Sacrificed
Men assert that during the war women were fiercer in their passions, stooped to meaner and crueler methods of attack, and were more relentless in their desire for revenge against the “enemy” than were the men.
Scarcely anyone able to retain sanity during the war and watch the effect of its psychology on women will dispute this accusation. In times of peace, at best, women are, with notable exceptions, but the echo, the product of man’s laws, man’s morality, man’s education, political, industrial and religious institutions.
In time of war, when the world goes mad, when all restrictions are let down, when men mock and laugh at their own moral and ethical codes, then the only appeal is to woman’s primitive emotions, and she is swept into every excess. She becomes the blind, senseless tool of blind, senseless men, who rule the world, men who march in their millions to fight unknown enemies, and to fill unknown graves, because someone told them to do so.
If these dead heroes could speak, they would tell of their mangled comrades writhing in trenches, tormented by lice, rats and mice, wallowing like swine in the blood, mud and filth of the battlefields. They would speak of barbed-wire entanglements, shell holes, guns, tanks, bombs, grenades, liquid flame, disease germs, poison gas, the babblings of the insane, and the ungodly spectacle of millions of men, armed with every device known to science, doing one another to death over the length and breadth of a continent.
And yet this picture but lifts the curtain on the first act of the drama of war. It would convey only a glimmer of the suffering that men endure.
Back of the millions of men are millions of women—mother, wife, sister or sweetheart. Back of these women are millions of children, the mute, outraged, exploited victims of an accursed system making for war.
The Social Cost of War
Bankers figure the cost of war in money; manufacturers, in lost labor-power and raw materials; merchants, in ruined commodities and lost markets; humanitarians, in loss of life; money-changers barter and wrangle over their profits and losses. Ministers of the gospel speculate on their heavenly gain in departing souls or acquired virtues in war, but, so far, no one has dared to estimate the cost of war to those helpless victims who bear the greatest burden. The mother heart sinks as she catches a glimpse of the babe she has borne on his way to “embark”. The wife stifles the anguish and terror that clutches at her heart when she hears the words, “I’m called up.” The maiden’s heart sinks when she questions, “Will he ever return?” and sees her dreams of home and children shattered perhaps for ever.
In her heart of hearts every intelligent woman questions if her men folk will be strong enough to withstand the moral degradation of the battlefield, and fears that when they are returned to their homes their moral and physical fitness to be fathers and husbands will be undermined.
For the women of the middle and ruling classes, generally speaking, war exists for them in conversations, military balls, reviews, anniversary banquets, organizing and raising "patriotic" funds, and kindred activities. Their husbands and sons go to war, but keep well away from the danger zones. They are officers, or subordinates. They fight the war by telephone, from armchairs, and luxurious clubs; the best that can be provided is theirs by "divine right", and their wives and families are especially favored in many ways. They belong to a different class, many having large investments in munition works, railroads, shipping, etc.
For the women of the masses, however, who supply 93 percent of the army, the story is a different one. The women of the masses, during the war, were used to do the meanest work. They were flattered, cajoled, threatened. While the blood of their men folk was being coined into profits on the battlefields, their labor, sex, and necessities were the object of profit extortion and barter at home. In munition, garment and packing factories they toiled incessantly, doing the work of men, but receiving "woman's pay". "Ministers of the gospel" grew wrathy and demanded that they "do their duty to replenish the loss of war"; illegitimacy was winked at and excused as "one of the inevitable results of war". Politicians tricked and deceived them with promises they never intended to carry out. They were told to knit socks, scarfs, sweaters and other garments "to keep the boys warm", but when they went to buy the yarn they found the price had soared. They were advised by sleek, well-fed men, and diamond-, fur-bedecked ladies, not to forget the "dear boys fighting for our home and honor", to send them chocolates, cigarettes, and fruitcake; but, alas, when after scrimping a few cents from the pay envelope or "patriotic allowance" they went forth to purchase these things, they found the prices 20 to 100 percent higher than before the war—someone had been "doing their bit" profiteering in a perfectly "patriotic" way.
They were told to eat less sugar and bacon; whereupon, after denying themselves and their children they found a corner on both these necessities and huge fortunes being made at their expense; and while men were being shot and jailed for military treason, no one was being hanged, jailed or shot for treason to those men and their dependents who were shedding their lifeblood and wading through hell to "make the world safe for democracy"—or plutocracy?
We can approximate the number killed and wounded; we can count the cost of making new garments, procuring food, furnishing implements of destruction; we may calculate the value of cities laid waste, crops ruined, the cost of constructing new homes, ships and railways, but who can measure, who describe, the suffering of the women and children whose homes are laid in ashes, who flee in terror before the advancing army, to hills and valleys, who crouch and shiver in ruins and dugouts, who forage on garbage heaps and feed off putrid flesh and roots, who are raped and famished, but who may not die by the bullet, or the swift thrust of the sword. Speak not to such as these, oh, ye hypocrites, ye befoulers of all that is holy and sacred, of the "glories of war"! What a desecration of virtue! what a mockery of the home! To the women of the masses, war is a grim reality. It sinks its poisonous fangs deep into their quivering flesh and pulsating hearts; it desecrates the marriage vow, breaks up their home, and poisons through venereal diseases the very wellsprings of life.
A well-known physician, who for the past ten years has given his life to war work and its after-effects, said to me when discussing this matter, "If I could by some means touch a button and put out of life quickly three-fourths of the babies born since 1914, I would consider I was conferring a benefit on mankind."
Think of the untold agony woman silently endures when she realizes that she and her children are the innocent victims of a foul disease, cursed from the cradle to the grave. And to add to her suffering the terrible thought is focusing itself upon her imagination, that it is her own men folk, husband, son or brother, the dupes and tools of mammon, who are bringing upon her and her babies this unspeakable burden of poverty, disease and woe.
The bases upon which war rests are foul—the principles of the thug, the robber, the morals of the jungle.
The duty of the soldier is to kill; the more he kills, the greater his "reward". A "glorious battle" is heralded, "enemy vanquished," "spectacular heroism," "territory captured," and all eagerly watch to see who will be the honored, the recipients of medals, crosses and higher commissions.
War is organized human butchery, and its handmaidens are hypocrisy, robbery, rape, lies, obscenity, profanity, dope. It desecrates virtue and religion, laughs at honesty, and mocks the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill."
Pulpiteers and War
The church as an organization, to her discredit, be it said, stood solidly by the war. Here and there ministers had the courage to stand by the principles of Christ, but for this they were, in most cases, unfrocked, persecuted and drummed out of the "temple of the Nazarene". In every land the church held special services, to petition their national god to give them victory over their enemies, and held thanksgiving services when a victory was announced.
Surely this is blasphemy indeed; surely its ministers could sink no further! In the words of Mark Twain, when they prayed for victory this is what they prayed for:
"O Lord, our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle. Be thou near them! With them in spirit—we also go forth from the sweet peace of our firesides to smite the foe.
"O Lord, our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the cries of the wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children, to wander unfriended through wastes of this desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sport of the sunflames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes, who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet.
"We ask of One who is the Spirit of Love and who is the everfaithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset, and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Grant our prayer, O Lord, and thine shall be the praise and honor and glory now, and ever. Amen."
Victory! Victory! Yes, for the steel, coal, and banking kings; for the masses, no.
For the men who fought, and the women who bore them, there is but the grim reality of insecurity, unemployment, and a more brutal form of exploitation to exact the war debt. For the men there is at least the glamor of war, but for the women there is no hero worship, no martial music, no cheering crowds, song, story and laughter; no tablets are erected to them in church, civic building, park or market place. Unlike the women of the other classes, they endured all the horrors of war but none of its lure and abandonment; they enjoyed no dinners, banquets, bouquets, receptions, military displays, and victory balls. For thousands of women of the upper classes war ensured one hectic round of excitement, the glorious abandonment to the satisfaction of the senses, an outlet for their stifled energies, a mask to cover up their half-subdued elemental passions, an excuse to display their power, effrontery and newly acquired ill-gotten gains, a glimpse of which is so ably given in the following verses:
THE VICTORY BALL
The cymbals crash,
And the dancers walk,
With long silk stockings
and arms of chalk,
Butterfly skirts,
And white breasts bare,
And shadows of dead men
Watching 'em there.
Shadows of dead men
Stand by the wall,
Watching the fun
Of the Victory Ball.
They do not reproach,
Because they know
If they're forgotten
It's better so.
"What did you think
We should find," said a shade,
"When the last shot echoed
And peace was made?"
"Christ," laughed the fleshless
Jaws of his friend;
"I thought they'd be praying
The world to mend."
"Pish!" said a statesman
Standing there,
"I'm glad they can busy
Their thoughts elsewhere!
We mustn't reproach 'em,
They're young you see."
"Ah!" said the dead men,
"So were we!"
Victory! Victory!
On with the dance!
Back to the jungle
The new beasts prance.
God! how the dead men
Grin by the wall,
Watching the fun
Of the Victory Ball!
—ALFRED NOYES.
When the drumbeats are heard no more; when the bugles cease to call to battle, and the cannons are silent; when the dead are counted, the cost of war estimated, and profiteers have gathered in their bloodstained gold, woman's sorrow and service begin anew.
Back to the homes of the women of the slums, tenements, mills, factories and farms return what is left of poor, disillusioned, sick, half-crazed humanity. Out from the loins of labor issued these betrayed soldier lads; on the breasts of working-class mothers have they been nurtured and reared. When their masters who bade them go need them no longer, when they have spent their "lives" and conquered their masters' commercial rival, captured oil wells, wheat lands, and coal fields, back again to the slum shacks, and tenements, to whence they came must they return; there in the drab twilight of obscurity, and poverty, in the homes of their mothers, in the arms of wife, children, sister or sweetheart, will they receive all that is best in life, love, companionship, and unselfish care. There, and there only, in the environment of the home, poor though it may be, may they hope to be brought back once more to sanity, health, and a semblance of civilized life.
All over the world, from the sorrowing hearts and ruined homes of mothers, from the lone hearts of children hidden away in orphanages and hospitals for the incurable, arise the cry, the hope, that some day their fathers, their men folk, will cease killing each other, cease to be the sport of kings and financiers, and resort to ways of reason and peace.
The Betrayal
Women were asked, commanded in the name of democracy, God, and home, to hand over their sons to the state. Almost without question they did so. In return they were promised that war would be abolished, life made more secure, and their children rescued from poverty, ignorance, and slum life.
The men responsible for the war of 1914 have not ceased their diplomatic intrigues for one hour. Night and day they sit in every chancellery of the world laying plans for the "next war", which according to their own statements will be more terrible than the world has yet experienced. These old men, fossilized in hypocrisy, corrupted to the core with their lust for power and greed; these old men not a hair of whose head was injured through war; these old men who waxed fat, achieved "glory", and "honor" for heroic deeds, mostly performed on paper, at the end of telephones, or wireless, far away from the hell of battle, are gathering up their sinews of war, laying their plans and setting their nets to again ensnare and entrap the youth of all nations.
These men are planning wholesale extermination and debasing science for the purpose of war. The nations are groaning under a load of debt, the legacy of the late wars. Standards of health, education, and home life are being reduced to alarmingly low levels in order to obtain millions for the "next war". Every advance in knowledge and science heralds new discoveries in the art of man-killing.
If there is another war it will be terrible beyond thought. The inventions of death during the war were becoming more terrible; month by month since then the ingenious mind of man has gone on perfecting these hellish devices at a rate hitherto undreamed of, . . . Experiments in the use of chemicals as war weapons are being openly conducted by all nations, and by the signatory powers that are party to the Washington Treaty, to prevent the use in war of noxious gases and chemicals.
If the war had lasted a little longer, on the authority of our air lords, "we should have bombed many more, regardless of sex." All governments are spending huge sums experimenting in laboratories with a view to making poison gas, lethal acids, high explosives, more deadly, to be dropped on innocent, defenseless women and children from dragons of death, polluting the sky as their murderous bodies glide through the air.
How Britain Prepares for Peace
The exchequer's issues as to war, given in the House of Commons last March (in answer to Mr. T. Johnson, M.P.), showed that between April 1, 1914, and March 31, 1919, there were 9,590 million pounds sterling spent on war. Since that time 1,290 million pounds sterling have been spent on militarism.
Francis Ahern, Australian correspondent, reports the following interview with a highly placed military officer who was recently in Australia on a secret mission:
"Behind closed doors of laboratories and in secluded workshops, and in lonely bays or remote spaces of the world, has begun, with government secret funds, the strangest and weirdest battle of wits that has ever been embarked upon.
"Tanks that swim, great metal sea destroyers that fly, uncanny air machines which dive silently beneath the waters to hide themselves, crews who must learn to live and fight in three different elements—land, sea, or air—it is with such marvels and closely guarded schemes that the great push has begun for world power.
"Great Britain is carrying out tests secretly. A machine is being built for the air ministry by the Fairey Co., in which there are four of the new Condor engines, built by the Rolls-Royce Co., cleaving the surface of the water prior to taking wing, and developing nearly 3,000 horsepower.
"To keep abreast of the times, the British naval authorities have entrusted to a well-known supermarine company the construction of the largest flying boat ordered by them since the war. This winged vessel is intended to go out with the fleet for almost any length of time desired.
"Its hull when resting on the water will ride out rough seas. It will taxi along the water like a surface ship, or speed off through the air. It is to have anchors, foghorns, riding lights, and all the equipment of the ordinary vessel of the sea, while its crew within the hull will eat and sleep on board just like the crew of an ordinary naval craft. Designs also in hand for machines which will be an amplification of such amphibians as the 'Vicker's Viking'.
"The new machine will fight like a tank on earth, be a superdestroyer on water, and climb to give combat in the air, and when concealment is required, it will fold its wings, seal its hull, and dive like a submarine beneath the surface of the sea.
"These uncanny monsters are to be called Tessaurins, meaning 'machines which live in all elements'. Science is striving to make these crafts both silent and invincible."
In the next war "the whole of the manhood, most of the womanhood, and part of the childhood of the nation will be involved."—Army and Navy Gazette.
The British air ministry has given orders for the construction of a three-engined battleplane which will be the most powerful and destructive weapon in the world. It will be run with three 1,000-horsepower Napier "Cub" engines, and it is expected to attain a speed of 140 miles an hour.
General Swinton says that progress is being made in the development of rays for lethal purposes. "We have X rays," he says. "We have light rays. We have heat rays. . . . We may not be so very far from the development of some kind of lethal ray which will shrivel up or paralyze or poison human [creatures]."
General Swinton also prophesies the coming of germ warfare. "I think it will come to that," he says, "and so far as I can see there is no reason why it should not. . . . We must envisage these new forms of warfare, and as far as possible expend energy, time, and money in encouraging our inventors and scientists to study the waging of war on a wholesale scale instead of . . . thinking so much about methods which will kill a few individuals only at a time."
Headlines in the London Daily News
A Happy New Year!
GAS MASKS FOR ALL
Says Commander Burney:
"Gases now exist that are more than 1,000 times as powerful as anything used in the late war, and I venture to think that on a still day containers carrying gas instead of explosives would kill more people than the same weight of bombs. There is one gas so powerful that the person inhaling it would be killed instantaneously. When the gas was tried upon a cat, the animal fell over dead without even a tremor. Such a gas would not give people time to put on gas masks."
"With regard to germs and bacteria, I do not propose to enlarge on this matter, but I am given to understand that flasks and containers filled with those could be popped into reservoirs and would thus poison the water supply of all towns."
A Happy New Year!
The ramifications of war are international. War lords and munition makers know no nation. Their "patriotism" is a cloak for profits.
In Bedford, England, they have a gun—"a trophy"—and in front, on a brass plate, is engraved: "Captured by the Bedfords at Gaza from the Turks." And on the back, on a bigger brass plate, we read: "Made by Sir George Armstrong, Witworth & Co."
Japan, we are informed, is turning out aeroplanes at the rate of 500 weekly.
The Daily News of some time ago has a picture in it. The crown prince of Japan is seen walking with the chief of the British air mission in Japan. Underneath we read: "Since the disarmament conference Japan has been constructing huge fighting planes under the direction of British aerial experts." Why are British aerial experts helping Japan to construct "huge fighting planes"? And against whom does Japan propose to use those planes? Apparently Vickers are building some of them, for the Japan Chronicle reports the accidental destruction by fire of "a new airship at Oppama", costing 170,000 yen and built by that firm.
How America Prepares for Peace
Successful tests have already been carried out by the United States air service with automatically controlled pilotless aeroplanes.
In these tests the automatic "pilot" was described as using a gyroscope for its brains, and pneumatic apparatus, similar to that in an automatic piano, for its muscles.
By the use of such apparatus, flights of over 90 miles were carried out. Hertzian waves were not used in those tests.
The American government has built a triplane for war purposes capable of carrying 10,800 pounds of bombs. This flying machine is the largest yet constructed in America; it will weigh 20 tons, and it will be driven by six Liberty (!) engines, developing 2,400 horsepower. Two pilots and two engineers will be carried.
Poison Liquid
New York, Oct. 28.—A third victim of "looney gas" poisoning in the research laboratory of the Elizabeth (N. J.) plant of the Standard Oil Company died today. He was Wm. McSweeny, aged 27. Before his death he became so violent he had to be placed in a strait jacket.
The United States chemical warfare service has announced the discovery of a new poison liquid so deadly that three drops on the skin will kill a man.
Captain Bradner, the chief of the department, says that one aeroplane carrying two tons of the liquid could kill every man within a space of 7 miles long and 100 feet wide.
The war budget of the United States and all other countries shows tremendous increases over prewar figures. (Disarmament conferences and naval conferences all turned out to be mere shams. The military and naval officials made it their business to destroy them, directly or by inspired propagandists like Shearer at Geneva.)
Mad-House Gas
At a meeting of aerial and chemical experts, recently held in New York city, it was stated by Will E. Irwin that one great power has already perfected a "mad-house gas" that can be sprayed upon civilian populations and drive them permanently insane. There are four kinds of gas that can be used, irritating, asphyxiating, incendiary, and mad-house gas, stated Mr. Irwin, and governments were diligently manufacturing them in preparation for the next war.
The report further states that Mr. Irwin's paper on the future of aerial and chemical warfare, and the discussion brought forth, opened up one of the worst vistas of horrors since Dante wrote his Inferno.
How France Prepares for Peace
The expenditures in Europe on armaments is colossal, and can have but one object, war. If another war is precipitated, Europe will rapidly rattle back to barbarism. Many travelers in the small states return shocked at the dehumanized condition of large masses of people who are sinking into a state of hopeless despair, under the load of debt and war expenditure. Another point not fully realized is the fact that the power of France rests upon a black basis. It is astonishing that the peoples of other nations are not awakened to one of the most menacing and sinister facts of history.
With the twentieth century come the questions: Is Europe to be dominated by Africa: are the blacks to be trained to subdue and enslave the white peoples? And if Europe, why not England? If England, why not Canada?
Supposing friction were to arise between England and America (not at all impossible), how would Canadian mothers feel to see the Negroes of the south sent into the industrial centers to protect the interests of the United States? This would be merely war tactics, exactly what is happening now in Europe. France has under her sway 43,500,000 in Asia, 43,500,000 in Africa, and has now applied to all these people her laws of military conscription. She reckons to have within the next five years a permanent army of 800,000 Africans for war in Europe, if need be, permanently stationed in Europe. The conscription of Africa by France is one of those tremendous events which alter the destinies of nations.
Aeroplanes, Without Pilots, Directed from Earth
Hertzian waves for the automatic control of aeroplanes are among the latest peacetime preparations for war.
According to the Petit Parisien, quoted by Reuter, an experiment of flying by this means has been successfully carried out.
A heavy biplane, fitted with an engine of 300 horsepower, says the message, was flown for some time without pilot or passenger, above Etamps, Seine et Oise, without difficulty.
The machine took off in a fog; the "pilot", comfortably seated in an engineer's office, performed some perfect flying movements.
The Morning Post of about that time quoted a "French expert", who said that toxic gas, which attacks the nervous system, and lachrymatory gas, "which provokes only temporary blindness," have not been altogether successful.
This humane gentleman declared: "Aeroplanes dropping mustard-gas bombs on a town will, in addition to causing the death of many of its inhabitants, render the place absolutely uninhabitable for a number of days. . . .
"The effect of this gas, causing, as it does, dreadful pains and, in many cases, permanent blindness, is particularly impressive for the onlooker."
More Danger
Having said this much, the expert concluded that the various nations should, therefore, particularly direct scientific research to the betterment of mustard gas. Gas experts, he said, would endeavor to render it more persistent and dangerous!
He added that other gases are under consideration. Among them are certain substances intended to cause temporary loss of control and clear thinking.
By using them, he said, "we could thus witness a whole city staggering to and fro, its inhabitants being deprived of all moral and physical control, and as unconscious as drunkards or idiots."
France declared to her creditors, after the war, her inability to pay either interest or principal of her war debt, yet, notwithstanding her bankruptcy, France has since 1918 built up one of the most powerful armies and air forces in the world.
Moreover, she has used French credit for the purpose of making military subsidies to Poland, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary and Finland, supplying these countries with munitions and war supplies, thus making Europe today a huge arsenal which needs but a match to cause another international explosion.
It is significant that France has now returned to her status of a first-class naval power. She proposes to have 178,000 tons of battleships, 360,000 tons of submarines, as well as auxiliaries. The coast defenses of France have been rebuilt and strengthened since the war, and some of the longest-range guns are now mounted on these shore batteries.
"The war chemistry of today," said a French scientist a few days ago, "bears the same relation to the war chemistry of 1914 as the machine gun does to the old flintlock. If I were in the shoes of the French minister of war, I should tremble."
Among these is a terrible development of yperite, or mustard gas, which, in the form of a fine rain of infinitely pulverized corrosive liquid, may be dropped in bombs from aeroplanes or fired in shells from guns, and which is guaranteed to destroy every living thing within an area of several square miles. Another preparation is a cloud of poisonous arsenical dust that will choke and destroy the lungs. Other gas weapons still, in which experiments are constantly being carried out, contain the bacilli of mortal disease, which may destroy whole populations.
Causes of War
To speak of the economic causes of war has been considered seditious, and disloyal. Men and women are today lying in jail for no greater crime than that they tried to enlighten their fellow men of the causes of war, and the foul deception that was played upon them. If the menace of modern war is to be removed, causes of war must be made known. Who more competent to explain these causes than the war lords themselves? Premier Nitti, in his book The Decadence of Europe, shows not only the lies and intrigues, before and during the war, but also the sinister motives, the callous hypocrisy of the old warmongers, who gathered at Versailles in the name of the people to make peace.
Instead of the warmongers' making peace, as they promised to do, when they induced Germany to lay down arms on the strength of Wilson's fourteen points, they began to squabble and fight like thieves amongst themselves over the loot of Europe and the plunder of Asia.
During the war 340,000 persons in England increased their wealth £4,180,000,000. Idleness, legally entrenched behind the system of profits, draws a far larger reward than those who shed their blood and labored for victory.
When will people realize that it is not the business of war lords and capitalists to make peace? This war was never intended to end war; for, in the words of a well-known general, "war is a great and profitable industry."
Profiteers and War
If profits were taken out of war, and the profiteers, patriots, editors, ministers, and politicians put in the first-line trenches, war would not long continue.
A book has been recently translated, written by M. Caillaux, former prime minister of France, Whither France Whither Europe, in which he says:
"The masters of the cartels and trusts saw quite plainly that the markets were choked up."
Stocks were accumulating for which there was no sale, and which they thought a war would help them to dispose of. "War," they said, "will save us from all this humanitarian nonsense, and deliver us from Socialists and their plans. It will do away with the foolish idea of a European union which would eat up our profits. It, and it alone, will secure us large advances in prices."
M. Caillaux gives some illustrations of the "orgy of profits" made during the war. "The largest smelting works in France saw its profits increase from 5 millions in 1913 to 17 millions in 1916 and 18 millions in 1917." The profits of a shipping company in 1914 were 6 millions; "in 1916, 18 millions; in 1917, 23 millions; in 1918, 45 millions." He instances a firm in Japan which in 1915 and 1916 paid dividends of 220 percent, and 600 percent, and adds: "One could quote such cases ad infinitum. Who does not know this as the war of pillage? We have given a few figures merely to symbolize it."
…