Mars, god of war, devourer of men, scourge of women and curse of little children; Mars, “strife and slaughter ... the condition of his existence,” rushing in “without question as to which side is right, ... on his head the gleaming helmet and floating plume”; Mars, “well-favored, stately, swift, unwearied, puissant, gigantic ... foe of wisdom and scourge of mortals”; Mars whose “emblems are the spear and the burning torch, his chosen animals the vulture and the dog”;[[35]] Mars, butcher of mankind; Mars fiendishly drunk on the tears of women and children; Mars, the mock of mothers,—this race-cursing god, hour after hour, day and night, through a whole hundred recent years, has devoured one human being, has drunk more than two gallons of human blood—every twenty minutes.
A torrent of blood has gushed from the deep, damned war-wound in the breast of the working class. And in this the morning of the twentieth Christian century we hear the mouthings of hypocrisy, but we see the strut and dare of crowned and flattered brutes and buccaneers everywhere.
THE HISTORY OF IGNORANCE OBEYING ORDERS
“Base distrust, the red-eyed hound of hate,
Rules in a world by phantom foes alarmed.”
Everywhere we see the crowned and consecrated cut-throats preparing for war. Soon again the booming roar of “gun thunder” will terrify the world. Even now in Turkey, in Russia, in Spain and in Africa the blood of humble working class brothers is being splashed in the face of mankind.
Rouse, brothers, rouse!
Refuse! Refuse to paint this sad world red with the blood of the toilers fooled by the mocking flattery of gilded cowards.
Let us force Senators, Congressmen, and Presidents—let us force Tsars, Emperors, Kings, Lords, Dukes and the Industrial Masters also—let us force every one of these shrewd, proud cowards into the bloody mire of the firing line and compel them to stay there till by spilling their own blood they learn what war is—for the working class.