The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-10-26
RICH IN THIS
WAR WILL HAVE
TO BEAR BRUNT
The Sons of the Rich Must
Fight and Wealthy Are
Heavily Taxed.
(By Harvey o'Higgins.)

refused exemption. He was a young |
hack driver, with one dependent |
on him. But he was not eager to |
fight; he had been reading The |
Masses. What I've got to fight for?" |
he. argued. Its a rich mans war"
It is. But not in the sense that he |
meant.
AS long as this country, at peace,
was supplying Europe with food and
munitions the rich man gained. The
makers drew enormous divi-
dends. The Steel Trust, the Coal
Trust, the Meat Trust, the railroad
and the shipping magnates charged
all that the wartime traffic would
bear, and had no war taxes to pay. It
was to their interest to keep this ma
ton out of the conflict in order to pre-
serve their gains. With our entrance
upon hostilities, the government OBJ
tanned, the power to tax profits, to fix
prices, to control the food supply to
protect the poor from exploitation and
deprive the rich of the fruits of ex-
ploitation. That power has been
sought, for how many decades, in
times of peace, by how many social
reformers? The war won 1t. If it is
a rich mans war, the rich have been
singularly deluded in procuring it.
And, in the matter of the draft, they
have been equally blind. The first
conscription act Of our Civil War al
lowed the rich man to buy exemption
by paying $500 for it. There is no
such clause in the present. law. In
the later days of the Civil War the
rich man could buy exemption by pay
ing a substitute to take his place. He
can not do SO in this war. The only
exemptions allowed today are allowed
to the poor man who has dependents
or to the workers in the industries and
professions that are necessary to the
life and efficiency Of a modern nation
in war time.
It is a rich mans war, therefore, in
the sense that the sons Of the rich are
the most liable to die in it. 1t is
rich mans war in tho sense that the
rich are chiefly paying for it with
their lives. with their money, with
their time and service. and with the
loss of their special privileges, while
the workingman, the small farmer,
the producer, the productive 1aborer
and the poor are everywhere compar-
ative1y exempt.
For the first time in the history of
the world war is being waged that
falls most heavily upon the classes
who, in times past, have most profited
by war.
In this country, as yet, the results
of that new aspect of the conflict are
not glaringly evident. But in Eng
land they are so striking that they
amount to a.revolution. There, 1t is
the poorer classes that have gained in
material comfort, in political power,
In control OF their conditions Of life. in
happiness and In freedom. It is not
merely that wages have been raised,
that the cost Of living has been con-
trol1ed, that the people have taken
over the direction Of the railroads, and
of the coal mines, and Of the food sup
ply, and Of the organized industries of
the nation. It is not merely that the
workingman has been given a larger
place in the government councils and
the idle rich man a smaller place
his income taxed to the bone and his
profits reduced to extinction. It is,
above all, that industry itself has OBJ
tanned a democratic government Of its
own, SO that the workingman now sits
with the employer at the board of
business management and helps to
make the rules under which he works
and to regulate the conditions of his
labor.
The reforms for which British So
cialists have been struggling for SO
years have been obtained overnight.
A revolution that could not have been
effected in century of peace has
been forced by three years of war
| The conditions which forwarded thai
revolution are the conditions that are
so rapidly advancing a similar revolu-
ton here. Our socialists, who cry
This is rich mans war; let the
workingman oppose it, are as blind
as those socialists in Great Britain
who originally raised the same CRY
and similarly opposed their own ad
vantage.
We have already obtained, in thi.
country. measures of state socialism
| that looked as far away as the millen
ium to our socialists three years ago
We shall have to carry the still NOR,
/ Incredible reforms that have carried
in England If we are to defend our
selves as well as the English are de
Tending themselves. We. too, shall
have to "democratize industry" a.
the phrase is, il we expect our work
ing man to reinforce our battle line a
j the British workingman has reinforc
ed the British front. And not onl,
that. After the war is over, our in
dustry and our commerce will not b
able to live in the same world a
, British industry and commerce.
, say nothing Of the French and Ger
man-ff our workingman is not a
loyal and satisfied and happy and eff
cient as theirs. Our revolution vii
!, have, to continue, because the life o
!. the Nation. in peace, as in war, wi
| depend upon continuing 1t.
A rich mans wari A war that ha
exterminsted half the evils Of op
preston Of which the predatory rio
have been accused! A war that ha
reduced their power. curtailed thei
: privileges, confiscated their profits! {.
war that has made England in thre
. years. a radical democracy. not onl
politically, but industrially! If an
9 socialist thinks that such war is
rich mans war, he thinks SO becaus
: his mind has ceased to +function-bt
a cause he has reduced thought to
g dogma and bleats a mechanical uttel
8 ance like toy lamb-because h
a has taken his stand on the econom
formula, like the lamb on its be
! lows, unable to change its note und.
e the pressure of any circumstance
g baaing Its invariable answer to ar
I<ay fro foA iNv, 80 -