The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1921-12-30
AMERICANISM
AND WAR
(By Robert Bridges)
Continued from last week.

people. They want to do something
that will make the burdens of hui
manity little lighter in this world.
They dream of a world that will be
warless and kingless; an earth that
will not be redeemed every few years
with the blood of countless millions
of boys; an earth that will not be
black with the drapery of mourning
millions of mothers whose hearts are
scared in the wild furnace of sor-
row; an earth that will not be bank
rupt, hungry and lacerated by the
terrible scoUrges, called war, brought
on by men who never shed a drop
of blood but who sit safely back of
the lines and plan and scheme-and
manufacture munitions.
| was talking with an Englishman
who lost two sons in battle He is
getting old like some of the rest of
US, but he has a sort of philosophical
balance and took it calmly. He said
you see, "Mr. Bridges, | gave my all
that democracy might not perish
from the earth; but it makes my
heart sick to see the English prof.
teers who made millions out of the
war, and who never went to the
front, standing back and cursing the
English laboring man, thousands of
whom are hungry. Before the war,
or rather when the. war started, these
some prOfiteers promised the labor
ers that if they would pull off their
coats and go to war they would have
squarer deal after the war was
over; but they were killed by mil
lions; the plutocrat and profiteers
curse the survivors because they
want what was promised"
l ask you if you remember the
many fine phrases that we in Amer
lea used about democracy; about
making the world safe for democ-
racy." Remember how Mr.. Schwab
and others fondled the dear laborer.
How he was promised justice and a
square deal?
But as soon as the war was over
what happened?
Immediately the big interests that
rule this country broke their prom
Use. Their newspapers began a sys-
tematic campaign of abuse and SLAM
der against the laborers. They sent
their leaders to jail and damned and
doubly-damned every one who would
talk about the rights of labor. They
branded them as "Reds," "Bolshe-
viks," anarchists" and so forth.
Everybody knows that was done for
the express purpose of keeping the
toilers in submission.
And what were these self-pro-
claimed patriots" doing during the
war? Most of them were piling up
millions and profiteering in a way
that would make Captain Kidd and
other pirates hide themselves in the
brush.
Go to our Lake Union in Seattle
and look at the worthless ships they
built Read the reports of congress
and other investigating committees
of the shameless profiteering.
These profiteers are now parading
as the true patriots. Their pockets
buldging with the frauds they perpe-
trated on the government; yet they
are the "real patriots" although they
did not stain the soil of France with
drop Of their blood No, sir, they
stained good clean white paper with
lying accounts of expenses and false
representations that would defraud
the government out of millions.
These are the men who would send
everybody to jail who protests
against the campaign Of force they
are using; who raises his voice
against the shameless raids, violence
and intimidation that prevails /;
against the bloody violence that has
placed West Virginia. Colorado and
Pennsylvania on the map as fit prov
inces for Old Russia.
Yes, they are going to keep the
peace and bring us back to NOR
malcy"-by using force.
1 ask you again to show me in all
history where force has been used
successfully against ideas.
Where in all history can you find
force used more terribly than it was
in Old Russia-the Russia of the
car. Read the books of Tolstoy or
Gorky, Of Prince Kropotkin, and
learn from their pages the unspeak-
able tortures. Of how men of good
characters were sent to that hell of
Siberia and made slaves in the mines
slaves with chains around their
limbs-slaves with a brutal master
starved, left to freeze on the Arctic
steppes, and when killed he was paid
for. And yet these awful atrocities
did not kill the idea and dream of
liberty in the mind of the Russian
peasant 1t burned there like
smouldering furnace. And when,
through the emergency of war. the
restraints broke, the old Russian ar
istocracy was given a dose of its own
medicine. | do not counsel violence.
l do not commend murder whether
committed by peasants or princes, by
beggars or by cZars-but / simply
observe that the brutal Russian aris-
tocracy and bureaucracy got a dose
of its own medicine. And the great
thought of all is that force failed in
Russia as it will fail in America.
Take Germany as another example.
/ like the German people; but / do
not like the old Prussian militarism.
Well. what did force do in Germany?
In 1878 there was a little band of
scholars and intellectuals in Germany
called socialists. Prince Bismarck,
who was the highest type of the
brainy militarist who believed in
force, decided to exterminate them
with force. He enacted the famous
laws. 1t would be very
hard to enact laws that were more
searching and severe. Socialists
could not hold meetings. They could
not have a procession. All socialist
papers and magazines were sup
pressed, and they were not allowed
70 be shipped or mailed into the
All socialist books, ETC..
we're confiscated and the man in
whose possession they were found
vas sent to jail for a long period. |
Sometimes he was exiled.
For twelve years this monstrous