A thinking slave is the terror of the plunder-bloated rulers of the world—always.
When the workers once think about war they will promptly do two things:
First, They will refuse to go to war;
Second, They will find the cause of war, and will remove it.
Of course, it requires the deep and prayerful investigation of “great” and “prominent Christian” gentlemen in peace conference assembled to discover that it is wrong for men to butcher men with swords and bullets dipped in poison, but that it is not wrong for men to destroy men with clean lead and clean steel, their souls charged with hate as an adder’s fang jetting venom into its victim’s flesh; to discover that it is wrong to have soldiers thrust poison-dipped bayonets into one another’s stomachs, but that it is not wrong for a “Christian business men’s” government to feed its soldiers on poisoned canned beef. The poor dupes who butcher one another at the word of command are, of course, too “common” and ignorant to understand the logical legerdemain of these prayerfully discovered distinctions; but the learned and prominent gentlemen in peace conference assembled, far, far from the battle line, smoking 50–cent cigars, quaffing the world’s costliest champagne—these noble braves, these bottle-scarred heroes, can tell us all about it.
Certainly.
With thoughtful tenderness many Christian governments, influenced by peace societies, have made an international agreement that, in case of war, no bullet used weighing 14 ounces or less shall be an explosive bullet,—that is, a bullet that easily expands, flattens and shatters when it strikes flesh. However, these same “more refined and civilized” nations are all at perfect liberty to use a cannon bullet, or shell, weighing hundreds of pounds, charged with explosives, flesh-tearing materials and deadly gases, arranged with time-fuses in order to explode over the heads of, or among, a great body of men on the field, or in the midst of men when it has pierced the armor of a war vessel.
It is not definitely known how these wise Christian statesmen and scholars discovered that a three-hundred pound explosive bullet might properly and lovingly be used by gently sensitive Christian butchers, but that a thirteen-ounce explosive bullet might not with propriety be used by these loving followers of the gentle Jesus. Possibly the discovery was made by some deep-seeing pot-house statesmen and scholars after a prayerful study of the Sermon on the Mount,—with champagne on the side.
War is “human” or “inhuman” according to the orations, discussions, confusions, delusions, conclusions, decisions and provisions of these perfumed, patent-leathered fighters after a long fast—on terrapin, porter-house and “Mumm’s Extra Dry.”
The eloquence of the Hague Peace Conference literature concerning its long list of extremely “glorious achievements” would lead the uninstructed to suppose that till this organization came on the field there had never been a dispute settled without war. It modestly claims everything in view.