Ingers all on ’em the same.”
And Tolstoi thus:[[272]]
“Every war—even the briefest—with its accompaniment of ruinous expenses, destruction of harvests, thefts, plunder, murders, and unchecked debauchery, with the false justifications of its necessity and justice, the glorification and praise of military exploits, of patriotism and devotion to the flag, with the pretense of care for the wounded, etc.,—will, in one year, demoralize men incomparably more than thousands of thefts, arsons and murders committed in the course of centuries by individual men under the influence of passion.”
Let the women’s literary clubs and circles, many of them devotees of John Ruskin, consider the following lines from his pen:[[273]]
“But Occult Theft—Theft which hides itself even from itself, and is legal, respectable, and cowardly,—corrupts the body and soul of man, and to the last fibre of them. And the guilty thieves of Europe, the real sources of all deadly war in it, are the Capitalists,—that is to say, those who live by percentages on the labor of others.—The Real war in Europe—is between these thieves and the workman, such as these thieves have made him. They have kept him poor, ignorant, and sinful, that they might without his knowledge gather for themselves the produce of his toil. At last a dim insight into the fact of this begins to dawn upon him.”
As to thieves: Think of stealing several years of a man’s life when he is in the prime of young manhood, by tearing him from his own friends and loved ones, forcing a rifle into his hands, and compelling him for years to learn the vile science and art of human butchery. Thus are the best years of millions of the choicest young men in Europe stolen—stolen by a class,—a class of prominent kidnappers, industrial and political thieves, “leading citizens” hypocritically wearing a mask called “Patriotism.” Think of many millions thus stolen—stolen from their parents, stolen from their brothers and sisters, stolen from their wives and children.
When the working class think about war and see the vast theft of their lives they will astound the world with their protest.
And the mothers will take part in this protest.
(14) Didn’t Christ say in substance: “I came not to send peace, but a sword?”
Yes. At least that is what some of the gentle Christ’s followers are said to have reported that they heard he had been reported to have been heard to say. And it is true, too, that tyrants, hypocritically mumbling interpolated malignance ascribed to Christ, draw the sword to combat the brotherhood of man—as, doubtless, Christ expected they would do. But it is worse than blasphemous nonsense to teach children—young or old—that Christ, the Great Lover of Mankind, was a cheap jingoist, recommended the sword and counseled wholesale butchery of brothers by brothers. The distinguished intellectual prostitutes who argue Christ into the same butchers’ list with Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon and the Tough Rider, are pridelessly down on their faces in the dust cringing before their industrial masters; they are simply betraying Christ again for “thirty pieces” of blood-stained silver called salaries.[[274]]