Until the Spanish War broke out.
Then these fakir patriots—what did they do—then?
Resigned.
Or they did what amounted to the same thing—voted not to go to the war.
Certainly they did. Promptly, too—and intelligently.
Why not?
Surely you do not expect a lot of intelligent men to leave their happy homes, go to hell and make themselves ridiculous, do you? Why, the cost of a rubber tire for one wheel of an automobile would pay the war wages of a cheap man of the “lower classes” for six months.
(15) “Didn’t one millionaire go to the war in Cuba?”
Yes. Out of our six thousand patriotic, flag-waving millionaires, one, just one, a young green one, went to the war in Cuba—“for a little excitement and a lark,” he said. He found large quantities of excitement “all right,” and some cold lead. He was killed. As a millionaire “patriotically” going to war his case is an exception, clearly an exception, a conspicuously lonely, vain and stupid exception; and that exception will never be imitated. Too much intelligence—among the millionaires. Even his millionaire friends laughed at him for going to war. But he wanted a “hot time.” He got the “hot time”—and the cold lead.
There were several thousand other millionaire flag-wavers instructively conspicuous in that war—by their intelligent patriotic absence.