All that by which hell is peopled, or is sad
As hell—mere mortals who their power abuse—
Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose....
War’s a brain-spattering art.”[[265]]
(13) In connection with the foregoing section 12 examine Chapter Seven, Section 18.
“War! War! War!... God send the women sleep in the long, long night, when the breasts on whose strength they leaned heave no more.”[[266]]
Wives and mothers of the working class, as soon as the government has had your choicest sons slaughtered, the government is through with you—except to send you a miserable, blood-stained, silver sop, a sort of cash bribe, once a quarter. Then as you receive the vile cash, you can, in imagination, hear the shrieks of your dead loved ones. The government seeks to win your approval and to silence your hearts’ protests against human butchery with the cheap jingle of some filthy dollars—as if you had sold your sons and husbands for a price. Such a pension is a form of hush money.
“If the stroke of war fell certain on the guilty heads, none else ... but alas!
That undistinguishing and deathful storm
Beats heaviest on the exposed and innocent;