The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-02-22

The idea of the distinguished Gi- vine" that the peace proposals of the United States would be received with greater attention if the United States were armed cap pie is pre- posterous, and could only be formed in the mind of one who has been subjected to terrorism wherein might will instinctively appeal as the right
 i Not all of this preparedness ta.ss is rot by a darn sight. Not all of it is the elevated clap trap Of a po- litician trying to take the wind out of his opponents sails. That's cheap politics and dangerous but it will have little ultimate weight. The candid view is the view that bsays that commerce is latent war That the commercial rivalry under capitalism gives rise to artagonistlc impulses in the ration. That under capitalism within the shell Of peace is developed the fledgeling of open Eviolence called war. That in the struggle for industrial, financial and commercial supremacy forces are brought into play which place the nations and the interests of those who rule the nations in direct ana conflicting opposition. That the peaceful business man is the man who develops war and that it is as a matter of hard fact merely the final evolution of a conditio offs things began when the effort to ac- quire at someone's expense started commercial enterprise expanding beyond the confines of the nation.
 We believe firmly that given ca pitalism, wars are a certainty and that every sort of attitude to the contrary is moonshine pure and simple
 Just as long as nationalism per sists and the world is divided into races and peoples and nations each with positions to be upheld only with constant struggle and constant effort, direct antagonism such as war can be predicated with reason able certainty.
 In this European war we miss the entire lesson if we do not realize that it is not racial antipathy, not personal ambition, not any elevated | principle that caused it, but the great and continuous and ever active rivalry of tho notions themselves: territorially, commercially, fnanci- ally and industrially.
 In the first place it was the terri torial overlords who planned it and who caused it. It was promoted 1 during peace by financial arrange ments with commercial alliances in control of the industrial organiza- tions of the nations. The political aspect, given a position of fictitious importance in the origin or the war, was only subordinate one, and at that a reflex of the greater econo- mic forces which precipitated it.
 It can be granted that there were matters can hardly be called eco homie which entered into the war, but they are elements which bcfcg rather than explain the real cause
 Thus to the Teuton, the Teu;on kultur is very real thing if unin- telhgible to the enemy. To the Slav, the Pan Savism ideal is not such an irridcscent and threatening dream as it is to the Teuton. To the British and the French consti- tutional freedom is an actuality worth fighting and dying for But none of these things are the basis upon which war condition is built They are merely architectural orna- ments which deceive the purpose of the structure.
 We see absolutely nothing in Am erican. capitalism as represented by Standard Oil, by the great financial commercial, industrial organizations say, which would incline us to think that their methods are less ferocious or less ruthless than the territorial commercial, industrial, financial magnatcs of Europe Not . bit of 1t. They in the!l relation to their employees are as oppressive. as domincering. as of fcious as any are >, inEurope anu { "