Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1915-06-30
RESPONSIBILITY OF WAR
From a Letter Of June II, by Frederic
c. Howe, United States Commits
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T rom Letter OF June IT, by Frederic
c. Howe, United States Commits
sioner Of immigration.
The present European war is not a
peoples war. The people were not
Germany is ruled by the
Junker class. The people have no
voice in the Government. Russia and
Austria are ruled by the same feudal
caste. In England, too, however de-
mocratic her institutions may appear,
it is the old aristocracy that really
rules. It rules through the House of
Lords, and the Tory Party in the
House of Commons, through Lombard
Street, the press and the large invest
ing class in the Liberal Party. Eng
lands Foreign Ministers have almost
always come from the aristocracy.
And the class that rules these war
ring countries is the class that owns
railroads, mining, oil and landed con-
cessions all over the world. They
own billions of bonds in foreign coun-
tries and weak dependencies. The
foreign investments of England alone
are estimated at twenty thousand
million dollars. And it is the bond
holders and concessionaires in the
Orient, in Africa, in Egypt, in South
America, and in Mexico that mold the
foreign policy, that urge ornaments,
and that have kept Europe on the
verge of war from the time when Eng
land acquired the shares of the Suez
Canal, which was the beginning of her
aggressive commercial foreign policy.
|. {. . It is not the American peo-
pie who urge armed Intervention in
Mexico. 1t is those who own rail-
roads, mines, and great haciendas,
which, according to a statement in
the New York Times, are valued at
twice the amount of the property own
ed by the Mexican people themselves.
|. .. The killing of men never set
tied anything either in private or pub
lie disputes. National dignity cannot
be elevated or national honor vindi-
Gated by war, no matter if the offend
ed nation should kill a great many
more men than the offender. l believe
it is literally true that a nation can be
too proud to fight" too secure in it's
own position to accept the blood feud
as means for settling disputes. At
some time or other some man was
courageous enough to decline to fight
a duel. Some time some nation will
take the same position and insist that
the killing of thousands of men and
the wasting of hundreds of millions
Of dollars is too medieval an arbitra-
ment for it to accept, even though
private property or, individuals may
suffer at the hands of some offending
nation. We do not permit drunken
bully or an uncivilized savage to es-
tablish the rules of personal dealings;
and nation as big and as strong as
our own should have the courage to
say that it will not permit some other
nation with the standards of an ear
lier age to force upon us it's ideas of
international controversy. I
stated that there SHOULD be no profit
in war; or suspicion that some men
were making money while other men
we're giving up their lives, and that
the Government should take control
of all munition works and the manu-
facture of all war supplies. It would
be a horrible travesty for one group
of men to swell their fortunes while
another group gave up their lives for
the safety Of the State. Especially Is
this true when those at the front sac
rifice not only themselves but their
wives and children they have left at
home. War should call for universal
sacrifice. 81. The public records Of
England, Germany and France are fill-
ed with proof Of accelerated public