War—What For?

by George R. Kirkpatrick

“Put up thy sword,” said Christ.

“Business is business! There is no sentiment in business! We must conquer the markets of the world,” say the capitalists.

And there is the parting of the ways for toads and men, for the time-server and the prophet, for the emasculate and the masculine.

In 1898 a certain man lived in a small western “city”—and took notes. A local company of working class volunteers was organized to go to Cuba to slaughter the working men in the Spanish army and thus secure greater opportunity for American capitalists. On the day of departure of the volunteer company the people, thousands of them, assembled on a wide public square, surrounding the local volunteers. Suddenly, when interest was intense, a high table was rushed to the center of the square, a banker thoughtfully assisting. Hastily a meek and lowly follower of the Peaceful Jesus—a preacher—took his place upon this table, his eyes flashing hate and his chest bulging heroically. All hats were off. All heads, but two, were bowed in prayer. With head erect and eyes open the preacher, in prayer, addressed—the audience. With his eyes to the sky, the preacher, praying, used the name of God and the ears of the people. There was no “praying in secret” about that “eloquent effort.” The prayer was “powerful.” That prayer was an assault—an assault upon the finest sentiments that bloom in the human heart, the sentiments of the brotherhood of man.

But what of that? “Business is business.”

That eloquent prayer electrified the vast audience. The preacher became an incendiary—he committed arson. His ferocious rhetoric set on fire the gullible souls of young men, humble women, innocent small boys and tender little girls. With crafty eloquence he petted the working class volunteers till they stood more erect in manly pride and licked their lips for the blood of almost equally ignorant Spanish working men; with flattering phrases he seductively praised the plain women who bore these “brave boys” now ready to butcher, praised them till these gentle, humble mothers were warm with an elation known only to mothers of strong men, praised them till they were keen with a savage gladness that they had borne these men now burning to slaughter humble toilers from the working class homes in Spain. With artful power of phrase and voice the preacher praised the small boys present, praying for “more brave boys in future years to stand by the flag”—caressed them thus till the poor little fellows longed to be men in order that they too might rend the flesh of humble working-class men in war—somewhere, anywhere, somehow, sometime. And then with cunning suggestiveness and with vulgar boldness this handsome panderer to capitalist masters rudely invaded the holy of holies, the innocent imagination of tender little girls present, brutally outraged the sacred instincts of kindness natural to these dainty little maids till these young doll-lovers were half excited with a dim but horrible hope, till their faces flushed in anticipation of the patriotic part they too in future years might have in sending their assassin sons to the front.

The prayer ended. The preacher rolled his fine dark eyes and fervently bellowed, “Amen!”

He had done his work. He had played his part. Souls had been branded. Human brotherhood had been suffocated in the hearts of gullible working men—strangled with elegant (and pious) eloquence.

Then the thousands of humble working class people moved off, “hoofing it,” marching behind the soldiers to the railway station. A half dozen bankers, a dozen lawyers, and many other “leading business men” lingered, left their carriages, surrounded the preacher and congratulated him on his “splendid effort”;—and that was part of his pay for his eloquent ferocity. Well-dressed women of the “best families in the city” gave the preacher their gloved right hands and practically embraced him with the virtuous and caressing fondness in their eyes;—and that was part of his pay for scarring the souls of men, women, and little children with the branding-iron of Old Testament ferocity. That savage prayer made him more popular in the city;—and that was part of his pay for his noble ferocity. He was now more secure in his job;—and that was part of his pay for his ecclesiastical buncombe and flap-doodle,—for his jungle growl of civilized ferocity. The collections were for some time larger in his church;—and that, yea, that also, was part of his pay for serving the cash-register and thus playing the rôle of betrayer of the Prince of Peace.

The handsome preacher had performed a miracle. He had so fixedly riveted the attention of the “brave boys” upon the Spaniards that the gullible volunteers noticed nothing strange in the fact that strong, healthy bankers, lawyers, merchants and preachers (patriots all of them of course)—with the stealthy quiet of a cat on a carpet—remained at home just at the very time when “great deeds of glory and patriotism” and manly heroism were to be done.