“We declare war.
“Mr. Wage-Earner, don’t you ask any impertinent questions about why we statesmen declare war. That’s our business. Attend to your own business—working—just working and sweating—till we statesmen order you to the front and ‘sic’ you on some other working people somewhere. When we conclude to declare war, we don’t consult the working men’s wishes. We simply don’t have to.
“They are so easy.”
Working Class Brothers—Off for the Front—To Kill “the Enemy,” Their Working Class Brothers:
“We fight the wars.
“Friend, please don’t ask us to explain why we fight the wars. We really do not know why we fight the wars. We modern wage-earners do just as the ancient chattel slaves and serfs did. We meekly do as we are told to do by the ‘best people.’ The sleek, glossy folks tell us to ‘rush to the front’—so we meekly march right to the front and blaze away. We furnish the tears, blood, cripples and corpses. We are dead easy—and we don’t understand it at all. Of course, we don’t like to shoot and bayonet one another. It seems so strange to us that the working men should always be ordered to shoot working men;—but our ‘betters,’ our ‘social superiors,’ the ‘men with the brains,’ tell us to ‘show the stuff that is in us’—so it must be all right. Great business men tell us frequently, ‘What this country needs is confidence.’ Well, we working people have the confidence—also the blisters and the lemons and the cold lead.
“We are so easy.”
THE EXPLANATION.[[10]]
(A)—Capitalists want war—because—
War sends up prices—of most things.