The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1913-09-04
THE FLAG FETISH.

flag In which they seem 10 be taking
an increasing degree of interest as
their faith in other devotional per
formances dies out let me take a
gentle fall out of some of my own com
rades for their own little flag fetish.
Permit me to assure the bone-heads
who are fortunately outside of the
party where they belong and also the
enthusiastic flag worshippers inside
the party that this is no attack on
either the red flag nor the stars and
stripes. Flags are hard things to at
tack. It puts one in mind of Don
Quixote attacking windmills or a
drunken man that | once saw attack
ing nightgown on a cloths line. But
they say that people actually do attack
flags. Even the bone-heads say this.
Flags and skirts are alike the prod
uct of the toll Of the working class.
They create the value that is i'm the
raw material. They weave the fabric,
with nervous hands directing the ma
chinery. They dye these fabrics with
their weary life blood. They shape
them into shirts and flags and then
they part with them forever. True,
the poorest of the shirts are from
time to time given back to the work
ers and at certain seasons selected by
the bosses they are allowed certain
/ flo ha flo haf hayn ma
| They are taught to worship these
creatures of their own painful handi-
work. In fact the master class that
makes no flags insists on this worship
while the parasites who compose this
master class invest American money
stolen from American workers under
the flags of distant lands where the
workers who speak another language
are taught by these same masters to
worship other flags. Thus American
capitalists who have invested millions
under the Mexican flag are very anx-
ious that the poems of that unhappy.
land shall be true to their Mexican
flag and not rebel against the govern
ment that helps the vested interests
the most. In Calgary, up in Canada,
l met an American capitalist wearing
British flag most jauntily. He was
very wrathy when l called attention
to his disloyalty to his native land.
His flag fetish was the child of his
new investments. He would probably
mob anyone who might attack his
flag when he was here with his money
invested in American saloon buildings.
1t was the Sta flag then every
morning in tt ayers, But he has
| Topped. He saw greener grass else
where and he has now fetish, new
toy for an empty mind.
AS a soldier in the revolutionary
army I cannot help but see that While
we are heartily amused at the flag
fetish of the various master classes in
the various countries, yet we too, have
fetish. notice also that the thinner
our Socialist minds are the more
blindly do we worship this fetish
which when viewed sensibly is no
fetish at all. l refer to the worship
of the red flag which is just as silly
as the worship of any flag. oh, yes,
I know that through the long ages OF
human tortures through which our
class has gone in it's various historical
guises that this banner of crimson has
| thrilled many fainting soul with
hope and fired many an aching heart
to fresh endeavor. / know that even
the petty bourgeois owe much of their
so-called freedom to this mighty in
spiration at which they sheer today.
But anything that abstracts from
the bread and butter problem, be 1t
flags or fire crackers or dreams or
torture-wracked infernos, is outside
the class struggle and deserves our
sternest resentment. Whether this
flag fetish be of the masters or OF
our own ever-enthusiastic comrades, 1t
deserves nothing but contempt. Here
beside me l have play in which one
of the actors kisses a red flag. rms
is nothing but cheap imitation OF
capitalistic nonsense and no self
respecting human being unless driven
to it by threats of death or fearful
bodily pain will do it. We have no
more reason for kissing this mani
mate product of our toll than we have
for kissing a spring chicken whose
Iustv crow we might decide was the
clarion note of our emancipation.
Down with every form of fetish. We
have ourselves and a suffering world
to save Temples and totems and
symbols may change. They are the
transient bubbles of time. But yes
terday and tomorrow and on through