The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-03-29
The Poison of Pocifsn1

The appearance of young pacifst, Brent
Dow Atkinson, at the Northwestern University
in behalf of an anti-war movement making
rapid Roadway amongst the students of the
country has aroused the ire of the 'best citi-
zens" of Chicago and its fashionable suburbs
The Tribune and the Hearst Herald and
Examiner, supposedly actuated by the common
danger of the pacifst "scourge" overwhelming
the nation, have buried their sharp hatchets of
yesterday and are now vieing with each other
IN call to arms against the anti-war move
ment in the local schools In series of vicious
attacks and malignant diatribes, these saffron
journals of the exploiters have denounced
pacifism as a danger primarily because of its
poisonous effect on the plastic mind of the
youth.
Let us analyze bit this poison in pacifsm
Is the opposition of the young students to force
to Internal wars in itself a poisonous doctrine
under all conditions? Would the Tribune have
the working masses believe this as the cardinal
truth OF the controversy? If so, would the
Tribune indorse the opposite policy of general
resource to force, to wars under all conditions?
Would the Hearst sheet applaud the use of
force by striking coal miners in defense against
attacks by hired armed thugs of the operators
on the defenseless women and children of the
coaldlggers? Would not our morally indig-
nant Tribune and Examiner then engage in
denunciation of the force employed by the
workingmen in self-defense far more vigor-
ously than the denunciation now resorted to bv
the pacifsts of the capitalist recourse to helltsh
destruction of the lives of the workers and
farmers in support Of the imperialist interests
Of our bosses?
No one will be fooled by the cries of the
capitalist press about the poison" in the paci
INST propaganda against militarism and par
tlcularly regarding the opposition to supporting
this or any other employing class government
In its defamation of hundreds of thousands of
workingmen in order to defend billions of
dollars of capitalist profits and investments.
wars, force, armed struggle are all sacred and
moral to the capitalists, their newspapers and
churches when employed in behalf of the in
terests of the exploiting class Wars force.
armed struggles are unholy and poisonous TO
the mind OF youth" when employed against the
capitalist class. Non-resistance and pacifst
doctrine are most holy to the bosses when
workngmen are on strike and are terrorized
by gunner in and out of uniform; when bank
rupt farmers are being driven off their land at
the point OF the gun by sheriffs serving the
banking interests Capitalist class interests
are the sole criterion of holiness and morality
to the Tribune and Hearst.
The poison in pacifism, in so far as tho
capitalist class is concerned lies in the fact
that 1t may develop, sooner or later, under GER
tain conditions, into the sound revolutionary
doctrine OF organized workingclass refusal 70
night capitalist wars and into the proletarian
desire Of fighting the only war in which the
workers OF the world should enVape-the
war against capitalist imperialist wars and
capitalism.