The Co-operative news. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1917-1918, 1918-01-10
GERMAN SOCIALISTS
APPEAL FOR REVOLT
Leafict Illegally Circulated Points TO
Bolshcviki Example

come into possession of copy of n
protest of German revolutionary So
cialists against the war, the publica-
ton of which the German Govern
ment has forbidden. 1t calls on
working people TO quit the factories,
and ends with a bit of verse which
demands, down with the war! Down
with the Government"
In giving out the text the Com
mitee ON Public Information attach
ed to il the following explanatory
note:
"Clandestine presses and clandes-
tine circulars have disseminated
through Germany the following pro-
test of labor against the war. 1t
has been reprinted in Switzerland
in the Berner Tagwacht and in Das
Freie Deutsche Wort. A copy of
the broadside forbidden in Germany
has reached the Committee on Pub
lie Information, has been literally
translated, and the original has been
deposited in the Library of Congress.
1t is single sheet of foolscap size,
printed on both sides, and is dec
GRATED by cearsely executed wood
cut representing soldier in arms
workman in blouse and woman
showing rock off precipice be-
meath which is seen the head and
bust of the Emperor, crowned and
sceptred and mustached, looking up
in terror at the fate impending"
Following is the text:
Fight on To Finish
"The foes of the people are grow
ing ever holder, ever more shame
less. War wastrels, war instiga-
tors, war profiteers, those to whom
the misery of the people brings pow
er and gain, such wish no peace.
Disfranchisement of the masses,
misery of the masses, state of siege,
slaughter of the people-that is what
this Government has brought upon
us.
Must we stand idle and see our
wives and children pine away, our
strength to labor-our only means
of subsistence-growJ less and less :?
"They promise extra rations to
save themselves from the wrath of
the people, from revolution like
that in Russia. But no extra ra-
tons can be given without consuming
the seed potatoes and the breeding
cattle. Should the Government de-
eide upon this course millions of the
German proletariat, German women
and children, must face hunger and
starvation in the coming winter.
"For the Government is in no
position to fulfill it's promises ex-
cept under conditions which in the
near future we shall have to face
with fear and trembling. For there
are not enough potatoes or cattle ir
Germany to assure the promised al
lowance for any length of time. If
it were now possible to ration the la
boring people more plentifully il
would have been a crime without
parallel to let them starve. But as
a matter of fact the instigators OF
the war are hiding the truth from
the people.
1T is their harvest of blood which
is crushing Germany and their aims
are for themselves alone.
But the immediate negotiation of
peace is the only rescue from the
abyss into which the Government is
hurting the country.
But the Government proceeds to
plumber the land 1t wills no peace
which would be acceptable to the
so-called enemy countries. And if
it should fashion peace on terms ac-
cording to it's own liking and if it
could bring about peace according
to those terms, they would always be
as we know only too well-in the
interest of militarism and imperial
! ism, of the Junker and CAPITALIST
castles, and contrary to the vital in
terests of the German proletariat.
Such an ending of the war touches
each one of us.
THUS the most urgent task of
German labor is to force peace
Just as our Russian brothers are do
ing-and to fashion it's terms accord
ing to the interests of the interna-
tlonal proletariat, that we have our
own peace and not that of the i'm
perialists.
There is only one means to this
end, the strike of the masses. The
strike of the masses must swell in
the cry of a million voices for
peace, and that cry will serve for a
klndling spark in the barracks and
in the trenches; it will make men
fight on sturdily to the end. it
will bring about an organization of
the masses which shall force peace
and freedom.
Victory will be won by fighting
and bV the strike of tha p,aseoe