War and the Workers

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 6, 1 July 1913, Page 1

War and the Workers

By Walker C. Smith.

YOUNG MAN: Wlien you are asked to enlist in the army or navy to be used as food for cannon, be sure you look before you leap. Remember: The Spanish-Ameri-can War, with its vile and unspeakable record of Embalmed Beef, Shoddy Uniforms, Bum-fit-ting Brogans, Leaky Tents, Rotten Ships and a Rottener Bureaucracy, Blow Hole Armor Plate a la Carnegie, Insufficient and Inedible Food, Venereal Diseases and Malarial Fever.

Remember: That the sugar and tobacco trusts got the goods and the workers got the malarial fever. Remember: That the officers got the honor and the glory, and the men got shot at. Remember: That the officers got three squares each day, while the rank and file were starving on three mouldy hardtacks. Remember: That these arrogant and overbearing officers were commissioned because they hadn’t energy enough to work; brains enough to beg; or courage enough to steal.

Remember: That the American Workers had no quarrel with the Spanish Workers, anyway. Remember: That the acquisition of Cuba and the Philippines never raised your wages, shortened your hours, or otherwise bettered your conditions. Remember: The pensions the men didn’t get. Remember: Those who were maimed, mutilated ,and disfigured for life. Remember: The boys who never came back. Think of the Widows. Think of the Orphans. Think of Yourself.

LET THOSE WHO OWN THE COUNTRY HO THE LIGHTING! Put the wealthiest in the front ranks; the middle class next; follow these with judges, lawyers, preachers and politicians. Let the workers remain at home and enjoy what they produce. Folldw a declaration of war with an immediate call for A GENERAL STRIKE. Make the slogan: “ Rebellion Sooner Than War.” Don’t make yourself a target in order to fatten Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie, the Rothschilds, Guggenheim, and the other industrial pirates. Don’t be fooled by jingoism: The workers have no quarrel with Mexico nor Japan. American capitalists own most of the Mexican industries and operate them with peon or slave labor. The revolutionary insurrectos threaten to give these slaves a taste of freedom. Both Taft and Madero are pliant tools of the interests, and U.S. troops have been and may be used again to keep the Mexican workers in subjection. American capitalists want war with Japan in order to seize the rich Manchurian lands; gain railway, mining and other concessions ; unload their surplus stock of shoddy goods upon the government ; secure investment for their money in interest-bearing bonds; AND TO KILL OFF THE SURPLUS OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS WHO ARE THREATENING TO OVERTHROW THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM. Japanese capitalists want war for