There can be no doubt that the masters are well aware of the hypnotizing influence of marching loud, gay-colored bands, festively uniformed infantry, and fascinating cavalrymen through the streets where they may be seen and admired by the working class, admired by many thousands of ill-fed, ill-clothed, meanly sheltered young men and women whose lives are dull and sad, consumed with the killing monotony and hurry of the factory. A cavalry captain in the United States Army, a part of whose business is to wheedle the gullibles into the dreary army life, has this to say of parades:
“The good influence in popularizing the army by having it stationed in large cities is exemplified in London. The various guards and other bodies of troops marching through the streets, preceded by their gorgeously dressed bands, all the uniforms recalling traditions of brave, gallant deeds, gain friends every time.”
The best known butcher of modern times (Napoleon) also understood this matter.
“You call these toys? Well, you manage men with toys!” said that red-stained egoist, speaking of the ribbons and crosses and other gewgaws of his Legion of Honor.[[234]]
When at the street-side a boy of seven, watching a military parade, shouts in gleeful admiration and claps his small hands in happy hurrahs, Mars, the bloody god of war, begins to fasten his clutches on the little fellow, the child’s imagination takes fire with visions and hopes, his soul begins to thrill with the kill-lust, then and there he is being prepared to enlist—when he “gets big.” How different it would be for the small boys if, when soldiers were marched through a city, these armed slayers of their kind should march at night with all lights out and with the rumble of drums and the frequent boom of cannon in the darkness making the air tremble. The working class mother might well consider this matter. She has all to lose.[[235]]
In the average parade-and-review the workingman is made ridiculous. Did you ever see prominent bankers or other “better class” business men in large numbers trudging along afoot in the middle of the dusty or muddy street, marching and sweating miles and miles past a gay-colored reviewing-stand to be “reviewed” and grinned at by a bunch of sugar-coated crooks in the “reviewers’ stand”? No! And you never will. The trudging and the sweating, as usual, are handed over to the “common people,” chiefly the wage-slaves. When the “very best people” do take part in the parading before the “grand-stand,” they ride, up front, in carriages or on horseback. They laugh and chat and gaily enjoy the stupid gullibility of the working men as the humble fellows are thus “bell-weathered” through the dirt and heat. On the occasion of a recent great parade in New York City a well-known capitalist gliding along in a handsome automobile swaggeringly called out, “We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, and we’ve got the money too!” A seedy, hungry-looking young man proudly answered back, “You bet we have!” On the same occasion thousands of ten-dollar-a-week clerks and factory workers were charmed into hand-clapping as the gaudily dressed soldiers marched by carrying the very rifles they were ready to use to crush the admiring toilers if they should strike and struggle for justice.
The usual “review” is a pompous occasion on which hundreds or thousands of meek, ill-fed, cotton-lined, callous-palmed working men “hoof it” for an hour or so past a “reviewing-stand” occupied by some grinning, well-fed, silk-lined, lily-fingered, decorated “great” men who scorn even the thought of the working class having a political party of their own for their own self-defense.
(31) A great many fathers and sons are thinking a good deal about an “era of peace” to be ushered in mainly through the good offices of peace societies. The Hague Peace Conference is, in the judgment of many people, “the hope of the world.”[[236]]
The first meeting of the Hague Conference was called—in Jesus’ name, of course—by the most infamous blood-stained butcher of feeble old men and women and thoughtful, aspiring young men and women, in all the world,—that is, by the Tsar of Russia. The sincerity of this crowned murderer may in some measure be realized by a brief study of his gross inconsistency in the year 1903 and in the years immediately preceding. (See Chapter Six, and Sixth Illustration.)
The second meeting of the Society was held in 1907, and another is scheduled for the year 1915.