War—What For?

by George R. Kirkpatrick

Precisely so.[^[334]]

Here originated the vile rôle of the intellectual prostitute, the cheap part of the chloroformer of the working class, the contemptible business of the professional palaverer. Here, right at this point in human history, the perfumed intellectual prostitute joined the blood-stained soldier,—in the ruler’s service of holding down the robbed and ruined working class. The palaverer taught the toil-cursed workers to be obedient and grateful and humble and meek and lowly and contented, to “forget it” that they have poverty here and keep in mind that “it will be all right over there”—“up above” (over in behind beyond the stars) where they will be “richly rewarded, in the sweet bye and bye, for all their sufferings in this world”; taught them that they should not be “resentful,” but “in patience bear all sufferings,”—bear even the agony of having their daughters raped by rulers, and their sons run through with spears.

Thus the toiler was kept in his “proper place” (at work) by the soldier and the palaverer, compelling and cajoling the domesticated human work animal.

They held him fast.

One seized his wrists, the other seized his reason; one used force, the other used fraud; one used a lash, the other used a lure; one used a club, the other used chloroform; one frowned threateningly, the other smiled seductively. With curses and cunning these two have taught the toiler LAW AND ORDER—THE LAW AND THE ORDER MADE BY THE MASTERS FOR THE MASTERS.

Both guards were “necessary”—in the business of robbing the working class. Both have served the ruling class long and well. Through the long sad centuries these three, the ruler and his two “standbys,” the soldier and the palaverer, have ridden the human beast of burden, the working class. The mailed fist of the hired assassin and the soft voice of the bribed palaverer have held the worker utterly helpless while the ruler robbed him.

Both guards have been rewarded—with provender and flattery, with pelf and popularity. The whipper and the wheedler of the toiler, the slayer and the seducer of the working class, have been the specially petted patriots whose ignoble rôle has been to help defend the class-labor system.

The workers have been kicked and tricked for ten thousand years, but chiefly tricked, betrayed into helpless consent and stupid approval. The more fraud the less force.

Undoubtedly far more important than the physical conquest over the working class was the conquest over the mind of the working class. Undoubtedly the idea of teaching the slave to be a slave and to be satisfied with slavery and thus make the slave, the serf, the wage-earner, an AUTOMATIC human ox to bear and draw the burdens of the world in brainless obedience and dull humility—undoubtedly that idea has done more solid service in the successes of injustice than any other idea ever born in the brain of tyrants.

The ruling class have always carefully secured the services of many of the world’s ablest men to play Judas to the carpenters—to the working class. Profound men, gifted men, trained men, eloquent men, enjoying the world’s choicest food, blissfully happy with the world’s finest wine, living in homes of comfort and splendor, dressed in softest raiment, many of these have traduced the slave, the serf and the wage-earner without shame. Tho’ the splendid Christ said: “The truth shall make you free,” these Judases have taught the working class that learning is a useless or an evil thing for the working people;[^[335]] that the toilers’ poverty is the will of God, that unrewarded toil in this world would reap a “specially rich reward beyond the grave.” These paid and powerful human things, palavering about the “dignity of honest toil,” palavering about the “joy of the hope of good things beyond” (always beyond)—these themselves have been practical and careful to take cash-down-good-things for their collect-on-delivery services, careful to take a rich and prompt reward here and now in this world, while at the very same time they were advising and urging the slave, the serf, and the wage-earner to accept unsigned cheques payable in heaven.