The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1917-10-30
For the First Time in History
Burden Falls Most Heavily On
Class That Formerly Profited.
(By Harvey o'Higgins.)


He had been drafted. He had been
refused exemption. He was a young
hack driver, with no one dependent
on him. But he was not eager to
fight; he had been reading The
Masses. What we / got to fight
for?" he argued. It's a rich mans
war"
1t 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
munition makers drew enormous
dividends. The steel trust, the coal
trust, the meat trust, the railroad
and the shipping magnates charged
all that the war time traffic would
bear, and had no war taxes to pay.
1t was to their interest to keap this
nation out of the conflict in order to
preserve their gains. With our en-
trance upon hostilities, the govern
ment obtained 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 exploitation. That power
has been sought, for how many dec
AIDES, in times of peace, by how
many social reformers? The war
won it. 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
allowed the rich man to buy eXemp-
ton by paying $500 for 1t. There is
no such clause in the present law.
In the later days of the Civil war
the rich man could buy exemption
by paying 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 Rich Mans War.
1t 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 a rich mans war in the 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
laborer and the poor are everywhere
comparatively exempt.
For the first time in the history of
the world a war is being waged that
falls most heavily upon the classes
who. in times past, have most profit
ed by war.
In this country, as yet, the results
of that new aspect of the conflict
are not glaringly evident. But in
England they are so striking that
they amount to a revolution. There,
it is the poorer classes that have
I gained in material comfort, in poll
teal power, in control of their con-
ditions of life, in happiness and in
freedom. 1t is not merely that wages
/ have been raised, that the cost of
/ living has been controlled, that the
! people have taken over the direction
! of the railroads, and of the coal
! mines, and of the food supply, and of
/ the organized industries of the ma
ton. 1t is not merely that the work.
! ingman has been given a larger place
F, in the government councils and the
1 idle rich man smaller place-his
/ income taxed to the bone and his
profits reduced to extinction 1t is,
above all. that industry itself has
obtained a democratic government of
it's 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 condi-
tions of his labor.
Reforms Overnight.
The reforms for which British
! Socialists have been struggling for
/ so years have been obtained aver-
night. A revolution that could not
4 have been effected in a century Of
peace has been forced by three years
of war. The conditions which for
warded that revolution are the con.
ditions saat are so rapidly advanc-
ing q similar revolution here. Oui
Socialists. who cry This is q rich
mans war let the workingman OPP
pose f." are as blind ais those So.