"For a long time in these intertribal wars it was the practice to take no prisoners (except the younger women), but to kill, kill, kill, because the conquerors had no use for the captive men. When, however, society had developed industrially to a stage enabling the victors to make use of live men as work animals, that new industrial condition produced a new idea—one of the greatest and most revolutionary ideas that ever flashed into the human brain; and that idea was simply this: A live man is worth more than a dead one, if you can make use of him as a work animal. When industrially it became practicable for the conquerors to make use of live men captured in war, it rapidly became the custom to take prisoners, save them alive, beat them into submission—tame them—and thus have them for work animals, human work animals.
"Here the human ox, yoked to the burdens of the world, started through the centuries, centuries wet with tears and red with blood and fire.
"Thus originated a class of workers, the working class.
"Thus also originated the ruling class. Thus originated the 'leading citizens.'
"Thus originally, in war, the workers fell into the bottomless gulf of misery. It was thus that war opened wide the devouring jaws of hell for the workers.
"Thus was human society long ago divided into industrial classes—into two industrial classes.
"Of course the interests of these two classes were in fundamental conflict, and thus originated the class struggle.
"Of course the ruling class were in complete possession and control of all the powers of government—and of course they had sense enough to use the powers of government to defend their own class interests.
"Of course the ruling class made all the laws and controlled all institutions in the interests of the ruling class—naturally."[281]
With all other international and revolutionary Socialists, Mr. Kirkpatrick believes that when the masses are educated to see the truth of this view and have learned the true nature of modern industry, class government, and armies, they will put an end to them. He concludes:—
"The working class men inside and outside the army are confused.
"They do not understand.
"But they will understand.
"And when they do understand, their class loyalty and class pride will astonish the world. They will stand erect in their vast class strength and defend—Themselves. They will cease to coax and tease; they will make demands—unitedly. They will desert the armory; they will spike every cannon on earth; they will scorn the commander; they will never club nor bayonet another striker; and in the legislatures of the world they will shear the fatted parasites from the political and industrial body of society."[282]
Here we have both the Socialist point of view and a glimpse of the passionate feeling that accompanies it. "War—What For?" has been circulated by scores of thousands among the working people and in the army and navy.
In countries like America and England, where there is no compulsory service, the practical objective of such agitation is to prevent enlistment. In France, Belgium, and Italy, where there is compulsory service, the Socialists for years have been preaching openly desertion and insubordination.
Complaint against this anti-military propaganda is general in United States army and navy circles. Recently a general in Southern California was said by the press to have reported to Washington that the distribution of one circular had dissuaded many men from joining the army. The circular, which was published, was attributed, whether rightly or not we do not know, to Jack London. It ran in part:—
"Young men, the lowest aim in your life is to be a soldier. The good soldier never tries to distinguish right from wrong. He never thinks; he never reasons; he only obeys. If he is ordered to fire on his fellow citizens, on his friends, on his neighbors, on his relatives, he obeys without hesitation. If he is ordered to fire down a crowded street when the poor are clamoring for bread, he obeys, and sees the gray hair of age stained with blood and the life tide gushing from the breast of women, feeling neither remorse nor sympathy. If he is ordered off as one of a firing squad to execute a hero or benefactor, he fires without hesitation, though he knows that the bullet will pierce the noblest heart that ever beat in a human breast.
"A good soldier is a blind, heartless, soulless, murderous machine. He is not a man. He is not even a brute, for brutes only kill in self-defense. All that is human in him, all that is divine in him, all that constitutes the man, has been sworn away when he took the enlistment roll. His mind, conscience, aye, his very soul, is in the keeping of his officer."
This language will appeal to many as extremely violent, yet it is no stronger than that of Tolstoi, while Bernard Shaw used almost identical expressions in his Preface to "John Bull's Other Island," without anybody suggesting that they were treasonable.
"The soldier," said Shaw, "is an anachronism of which we must get rid. Among people who are proof against the suggestions of romantic fiction there can no longer be any question of the fact that military service produces moral imbecility, ferocity, and cowardice.... For permanent work the soldier is worse than useless; such efficiency as he has is the result of dehumanization and disablement. His whole training tends to make him a weakling. He has the easiest of lives; he has no freedom and no responsibility. He is politically and socially a child, with rations instead of rights, treated like a child, punished like a child, dressed prettily and washed and combed like a child, excused for outbreaks like a child, forbidden to marry like a child, and called Tommy like a child. He has no real work to keep him from going mad except housemaid's work."