The Northwest worker. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1915-1917, 1915-07-08
FLAG vs.. FLAG
BY JOHN F. MacKEY


legislation are the acts of various
state legislatures against the red flag.
The red flag. which stands for hui
man brotherhood and universal free
dom, is forbidden to appear in public
by the capitalistic minions who are
elected, by the workers help, to rep
resent the railroad lords, mine barons,
bankers, and other parasites. They
thing that by suppressing the symbol
they can kill the cause that it repre-
sents.
This state has not yet adopted such
law, but the last legislature has pro-
vided for weekly flag drill In the pub
lie schools.
The flag of nation is its war en-
sign. 1t flaunts from the peaks of bat
tleships and over military barracks.
Flags originated in war. The first
flag was battle standard. National
flags are like the crest of fighting
cock. Flag drill and other school ex-
ercises to teach veneration for the
flag go logically with the movement
to teach military drill in the schools.
All to produce a spirit of war and an
aptitude for war so that the nation
may have supply of willing puppets
to fight for its trade advancement and
opportunities to appropriate and ex-
plot weaker peoples.
The flag of a nation is the flag of
its ruling class. 1t is the flag of those
who own the nation. The disinherited
proletariat has no interest in the col
or of the rulers flag. 1t is the flag
they shoot down striking workmen
and their helpless wives and children.
The home flag and the alien flag are
equally the flags of his enemies. A
nine years war was once fought to
drive the British flag from this ma
ton. Are the workers here any bet
ter off now than those of Canada
where that flag still remains? A slave
has no country, and it is all one to
him whether he is driven by a for
eign or domestic master
Modern patriotism is bourgeois
ideal. Stripped of it's veneer, it is
simply the desires of the class in
power to hold that power over the re-
sources and labor of country against
their prototypes of other countries,
whose armies and warships stand
ready to rob them of their privileges.
The government of country belongs
always to the ruling class. AS the
Communist manifesto says: political
power, properly so-called, is merely
the organized power of one class for
depressing another" and again, "The
executive of the modern state is but
a committee for managing the COM
mon affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."
Faithful to it's duty as a committee
of the bourgeoisie, the Legislature of
Massachusetts, along with those of
some other states, has passed an act
against the red flag of the proletariat.
And, in accordance with the usual
hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, in trump
ing up moral pretexts to cover nefar-
ious designs, the usual piffle about
''law and order" suppression of an
archy," patriotism" and the like is
dealt out by the legislative pecksniffs
and the harlots of the capitalist press
the dollar patriots and dollar wor-
shippers, who in time of war would buy
exemption from service, and-instead
of offering their lives to defend "our
country'-would rather stay at home
and swindle the country with dis
honest fulfillment of contracts for
war supplies and drive hard bargains
with it in the purchase of war bonds
at discount.
They may pass their laws against
the red flag When will they ever
learn that coercion merely stimulates
revolt in souls smarting under
wrongs? Forbidding the display of
our flag will only create fonder rev.
erence for it, and it's absence will
only deepen our love and excite a
tenderer remembrance.
1.-THE Caesars pageant, shorn of Bru-
tus' bust,
Did but of Rome's best son remind
her more"
And our professions and our halls,
stripped of the emblem of worldwide
brotherhood, will serve more than it's
unforbidden display to remind us OF
the ideal for which it stands.