War—What For?

“On the whole, the patriotism of the average citizen rises and falls inversely with the Income Tax; ...”^[117]

Imagine J. P. Morgan, rifle in hand, doing picket duty on a dark, sleet-drizzling night. Imagine J. Ogden Armour, George Gould and Thomas F. Ryan with heavy shovels digging trenches, stopping at noon to eat some salt pork, embalmed beef and stale crackers. Imagine Reggie Vanderbilt as a freighter hurrying rations to the front and taking care of six mud-covered horses at night. Imagine the strong younger John D. Rockefeller on the firing line with his breast exposed to the hellish rain of lead from a Gatling gun. Yes, indeed,—just imagine a whole regiment of big bankers and manufacturers dressed in khaki, breakfasting on beans and bacon, then rushing sword in hand to storm a cannon-bristled fort belching fire and lead and steel into their smooth, smug faces—for fifty cents a day.

Brother, when you are ordered to the front just glance around and notice the noisily patriotic gentlemen who keep to the rear—at home where it is safe and delightfully quiet. These patriots in the rear will sweetly say, “See you later!” If you ever get back from the war, they will see you when they flatteringly give you a “welcome home.” Mark you: When war breaks out these “best people” do not say, “Come on, boys, come on—follow us.” Hardly. It is “Go on, boys, go ahead, go right on. We will be with you.” That is, they will be with you as far as the railway station, and after that these “prominent people” will give the “brave boys” absent treatment.

The man in the factory and in the mine is the “hand,” the “hired hand,” of capitalist society; and when he shoulders a rifle for military service he becomes the steel-toothed jaw of capitalist society. Soldiers are to the capitalist class what teeth are to tigers and beaks are to eagles. Soldiers are often called the “dogs of war”; and they are, indeed, the watchdogs of capitalism—with barracks, armories and tents for kennels. Bankers, manufacturers, mine owners and the like despise the very thought of living themselves in the military “war-dog” kennels. Such men can not be tricked to the tents and trenches.

In wheedling young men to join the army and the navy the National Government is hard put to it; must even make fun of the poverty and ignorance of the humble toilers in the industries—and openly sneers at them. Here is a sample of the vile means used by the Government to shame green young fellows into the army and the navy.^[118]

“WANTED—for the United States Marine Corps—Able-bodied men who wish to see the world....

“Which is better for a young man who can never hope to travel on his own account: to enlist in the Marine Corps for four years ... where he will be able to see a great portion of the world and perform a loyal duty to his country,—or, to drudge away on the farm, in the shop and various other places, for from ten to fifteen hours per day in all kinds of weather, and at the end of the month or better still, of four years, not have as much clear cash to show for all his hard and wearisome labor as he would have, had he enlisted?... he [the enlisted man] is always clean.”

There you have it, young farmer, young mechanic: the Government throws it right into your teeth—the sneer that as a wage-earner in the shop and mine and on the farm, you are cornered; that with all your toiling and sweating you will always be a “dirty-faced tender-foot” living humbly around the old home place, never having opportunity to see the world you live in; that you can not even hope to travel on your own account, simply because as a wage-earner you don’t own enough of “your” country—you can not get ahead far enough financially—to enable you to do so. If you want to see the world you will have to join the butchers in the service of the rulers. In its effort to tease and trick you aboard its great warships, into the “armed guard” work, your own Government makes fun of your humble income and taunts you for always staying around home like a “sissy boy.” The Government also tells you that your face is dirty and that a military man’s face “is always clean.” The Government’s advertisement just quoted is like the sneer at the soldier’s poverty by that elegant aristocrat, Ralph Waldo Emerson:^[119]

“Where there is no property the people will put on the knapsack for bread.”

Think of ten million five hundred thousand trained strong men in five European countries ready to leap into the trenches at the word of command. ‘In a war between the Dual Alliance and the Triple Alliance there would be over ten million men under arms, thus:^[120]

These would not so much be tricked to the trenches as they would be forced to the trenches. Emperor William of Germany at Potsdam, in November, 1891, addressed the young men who had just been compelled to take the military oath. He said:

“You are now my soldiers, you have given yourselves to me body and soul. There is but one enemy for you, and that is my enemy.... It may happen that I shall order you to fire on your brothers and fathers.... But in such case you are bound to obey me without a murmur.”^[121]

Think of ten or fifteen million men ready to be forced or tricked to war to do the bidding of rulers whom these big strong men outnumber ten thousand to one; ready to do the bidding of a coterie of parasitic cowards; ready—cheap, weak, humble and contemptible—ready to scramble to the trenches and obey the murderers’ orders: “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Slay! Slaughter! Butcher!”

That millions of strong men should, like whipped dogs, grovel on the ground before their masters and fight at the word of command—this, of course, is ridiculous; and naturally these millions of meek, weak, prideless, grovelling common soldiers—all over Europe—all over the world—are held socially in supreme contempt by the political and industrial masters of society. But whether the soldier is conscripted, “drafted,” or volunteers to serve, the masters’ contempt is complete.

The soldiers during a war, the workers who support a war, and both the soldiers and the toilers after a war—are held in contempt even by those who praise them most. It will help somewhat in realizing this to make a short study of several actual cases as illustrations. The examples following are, most of them, from English and from American history. In all the illustrations the mocking insincerity of the profit-lusting, long-distance patriot is easily seen.

First Illustration: The English in the Napoleonic Wars, and in the Boer War.

Never in modern times did a nation of toilers longer or more loyally support a war than did the working class of England support the British Government in the Napoleonic Wars—a fifth of a century of continuous blood-letting. Never before or since did the working class of a nation longer or more gladly give up its choicest men to butcher and be butchered than did the English working class for the Napoleonic Wars. Never did men serve more loyally or longer or fight more bravely. This long storm of death closed with the awful Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

After such service we might expect the patriotic capitalists of England to be most thoughtfully and finely kind to the toilers who supported the wars and to the veterans who fought the wars.

But what happened?

After the Battle of Waterloo, leaving tens of thousands of their comrades on the skull-strewn plains of the Continent, the hypnotized veterans—scarred, ragged and proud—returned home—home from hell—returned to England with glad hearts ignorantly and gullibly expecting a joyous “welcome home” by the masters who had flattered, brutalized, ruled, and used them. Welcome home! The cruel mockery of it! The hideous irony of the masters’ prompt treatment of them! Promptly these brave and ignorant men from the battlefields were openly scorned and threatened by the industrial masters of England. Never were masters more cruel toward deluded veteran patriots. Never were masters more heartless toward millions of half-starved toilers—than were the British masters toward the half-starved ragged British workers whose labor had supported the army in the field for twenty years.

Promptly at the close of the Napoleonic wars a movement was made in the British Parliament to relieve the leisure class of one-half the income tax, but none was made to ease the burdens of the starving working class. There was biting irony in the fact that

“One of the first parliamentary struggles [following the war] was the proposal of the government to reduce the income tax from 10 to 5 per cent., and to apply this half [the unremitted half] of it, producing about $37,500,000, toward the expense of maintaining a standing army of 150,000 men.”^[122]

Of course the purpose of this to-be-increased army was to have an armed guard ready to crush the “hobo” heroes home from the war and unemployed, ready also to hold down the great multitude of poorly paid or unemployed toilers—all now loudly complaining against the increasing misery thrust into their lives.

The landlords at once advanced the land rents and the house rents so outrageously that many thousands of feeble working class veterans were forced into trampdom, and were then brutally abused for vagrancy. The huge and hungry army of the unemployed actually found that in some ways peace was, at that time, even worse than war—for the working class.

This outrageous treatment, this brutal contempt for the workers from their pretentiously patriotic rulers may seem to the reader impossible. The case, however, is so typical as to be worth space for evidence. And here is some testimony from witnesses not prejudiced, perhaps, in favor of the workers. Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers writes thus of the matter:^[123]

“In point of fact, the sufferings of the working classes (in England) during this dismal period [the first twenty years of the nineteenth century] ... were certainly intensified by the harsh partiality of the law; but they were due in the main to deeper causes. Thousands of homes were starved in order to find means to support the great war, the cost of which was really supported by the labor of those who toiled on and earned the wealth which was lavished freely, and at a good rate of interest for the lenders, by the government. The enormous taxation and the gigantic loans came from the store of accumulated capital, which the employers wrung from the poor wages of labor, or the landlords extracted from the growing grains of their tenants. To outward appearance, the strife was waged by armies and generals; but in reality the resources on which the struggle was based were the stint and starvation of labor, the over-taxed and underfed toils of childhood, the underpaid and uncertain employment of men. Wages were mulcted in order to provide the waste of war, and the profits of commerce and manufacture.”

The case is summed up by another authority:^[124]

“Distress instead of plenty, misery instead of comfort—these were the first results of peace.”

The English historian, J. R. Green, is thus frank:^[125]

“The war enriched the landowner, the farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer; but it impoverished the poor. It is indeed from these fatal years that we must date that war of the classes, that social severance between employers and employed, which still forms the main difficulty of English politics.”

S. R. Gardiner furnishes this testimony:^[126]

“Towards the end of 1816 riots broke out in many places, which were put down.... The government ignored the part which physical distress played in promoting the disturbances.... The Manchester Massacre ... a vast meeting of at least 50,000 gathered on August 16, 1816, in St. Peter’s Field, Manchester.... The Hussars charged, and the weight of disciplined soldiery drove the crowd into a huddled mass of shrieking fugitives, pressed together by their efforts to escape. When at last the ground was cleared many victims were piled one upon another.”

The people who had fed and clothed and armed the soldiers, were now cut down and trampled down in heaps by mounted soldiers. The historians Brodrick and Frotheringham summarize the matter as follows:^[127]

“Four troops of Hussars then made a dashing charge ... the people fled in wild confusion before them; some were cut down, more were trampled down; an eye-witness describes ‘several mounds of human beings lying where they had fallen.’”

Justin McCarthy’s statement of the case is instructive:^[128]

“There was widespread distress [in 1816]. There were riots in the counties of England arising out of the distress. There were riots in various parts of London.... The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended.... A large number of working men conceived the idea of walking to London to lay an account of their distress before the heads of government [Perfectly reasonable?].... The nickname of Blanketeers was given to them because of their portable sleeping arrangements. (Every man carried a blanket.) ... The ‘Massacre of Peterloo’ ... took place not long after.... It was a vast meeting—some 80,000 men and women are stated to have been present.... The yeomanry, a mounted militia force, ... dashed in upon the crowd, spurring their horses and flourishing their sabres. Eleven persons were killed and several hundred were wounded. The government brought in ... the famous Six Acts. These Acts were simply measures to render it more easy to put down and disperse meetings ... and to suppress any manner of publication which they chose to call seditious.... It was the conviction of the ruling class that the poor and the working classes of England were preparing a revolution.... In 1818, a motion for annual parliaments and universal suffrage was lost by a majority of 106 to nobody.”

Says Professor Jesse Macy:^[129]

“By a series of repressive measures popular agitation was arrested.... Popular agitation was brought to an end by force. So complete was the repression that there occurred no great political consequences until the movement which carried the Reform Bill [1832].”

“Silence!” is always the order of despotism when the “bruised lips” of starving slaves speak loud for freedom.

Thus did the proud, “patriotic” masters of England spit in the faces of the starving working class who supported the war and laugh to scorn the old working class soldiers who had fought the long and horrible war. Thus were the battle-scarred heroes—and their families—sabred and bayoneted. Thus were some of the rights they already had, torn from their hands. Thus were they denied a voice in the government they served. Thus were the toilers and veterans outraged—duped, despised, snubbed—during and after the “glorious” Napoleonic wars.

The shameless Caesars who constituted the English government of the time heaped wrong upon wrong by sending police spies into the great public meetings of the ragged veterans of war and industry to stir them up to violence, thus furnishing the government excuse for its brutalities and repressive legislation.^[130]

An anonymous author furnishes interesting fact and comment:^[131]

“The world will have to revise its notions of patriotism in the light of modern commerce.... Look at the strength of the interests. Where is the Government that would dare prohibit Birmingham firms from executing [filling] orders for a foreign Government? Even in our small frontier wars [British] soldiers must expect to be shot at with British rifles.”

At one time in the Napoleonic wars English manufacturers, “patriotic business men,” of course, filled one order for 16,000 military coats, 37,000 jackets, and 200,000 pairs of shoes to be used, as the commercial patriots knew, by the French army while slaughtering English soldiers.^[132] That was about a hundred years ago. But the silk-hat patriot is still the same hypocrite, talking loudly about “honoring the hero” whom he despises both socially and industrially. British veterans of the Boer War of recent years—tens of thousands of them—have cursed the day they enlisted, with the patriotism of ignorance, to serve in South Africa. The Government broke its promises with them shamelessly and wholesale; and many of these veterans, on returning from the war, were scorned at the English factory door, turned down at the shops and mines, and had to beg on the streets of London and other cities. It is the old story: duped, tricked, teased to the trenches—then snubbed, as usual.

When the soldier boys got back to England from the Boer war they were weak, poor, ragged and very weary, many hundreds of them scarcely able to walk. But no matter: they were at once driven from the ships like cattle, forced to fall into line, and march wavering and staggering from weakness and weariness—forced to march past the Queen’s reviewing stand, to be smiled at and flattered by a bunch of royal and noble parasites and thus be “honored” while they starved, “honored” as they staggered past in their rags, gazed at by shining gluttons and fat-headed lords who were too shrewd and cowardly to go themselves to South Africa to slaughter the Boers, steal gold and diamond mines and otherwise defend their own capitalist interests.

On this cruel reviewing march of many weary miles past the Queen of the home-coming butchers a great number of the men fainted in their famished weakness. Many eye-witnesses to this outrage were in tears....

The march ended.

The guns were put away with pride.

The blood of Dutch workingmen was wiped from the English swords—with British pride.

Blood-stained banners were piously placed in libraries, museums, and churches—with true Christian pride.

The war was over.

The butchers had come back to “their” dear country—and washed their hands.

Then—then what?

Then these cheap and stupid assassins of their class went to look for a job—teased the lordly parasites of England for whom they had been fighting—teased them for a job, whined like spaniels at the feet of the industrial masters of England, begged for a job.

And received insults.

A job is not guaranteed by any capitalist constitution on all the earth, even tho’ a job may mean salvation from starvation..

A hunting dog, having found the shot-mangled bird in the grass and briars, brings the game to his master confident of substantial favors—and gets the favors.

These English human hunting dogs had obediently hunted human game in South Africa, and they returned to their masters, their faces shining with the expectancy (and, almost, with the intelligence) of a retriever with a bleeding bird in his mouth.

And they were slapped in the face at the factory door with “Not wanted!”

Snubbed.

“Honored.” “Reviewed.” Reviewed? Certainly. That is part rule-by-wind trick.

Flattered—then kicked in the face when they asked for permission to work and by work save their own lives from the wolves of poverty.

“A nod from a lord is a breakfast—for a fool.”

Second Illustration: The American Working Class Revolutionists:

The American working class soldiers a hundred and twenty-five years ago were also equally despised by the industrial and political masters of that time. The poor men, the working class men, in Washington’s army after fighting for years, half starved, always in rags, sleeping in wind-swept tents at night, oftentimes shoeless, making bloody tracks in the snow and on the ice as they marched,—these battle-scarred veterans of the working class, after fighting for years in the “great Revolutionary War for freedom,”—these were not permitted to vote for many years after the war. It was not, indeed, till many years after the adoption of the “great” new Federal Constitution of the “free” people that these humble working class veterans were permitted to take part as voters in the government.

This was contempt supreme. Tricked to the “war for freedom”—then, after “glorious victory,” snubbed, as usual.

Of course, this page of “splendid” Revolutionary War history, this bright particular page of unqualified contempt of the so-called “great leaders” for the working class soldiers after the fighting was all over—this page is shrewdly hidden from the working class children in the common schools, the grammar schools and high schools of the United States,—this page is practically suppressed. The working class child in the public school is wheedled into being a blind devotee of the “great” Constitution and an ignorant worshipper of the “great men” who so cordially despised the men of the class to which the child belongs. There is plenty of evidence, however, that these “prominent” and “very best people” of American Revolutionary War times had nothing but political contempt for the working class veterans. President Woodrow Wilson (Princeton University) writes:^[133]

“There were probably not more than 120,000 men who had a right to vote out of all the 4,000,000 inhabitants enumerated at the first census [1790].”

The political and social contempt felt for the poor men of the times of George Washington is made clear by Professor F. N. Thorpe (University of Pennsylvania) thus:^[134]

“An unparalleled political enfranchisement [from 1800 to 1900] extended the right to vote, which in 1796 reposed in only one-twentieth of the population, but a century later in one-sixth of it—the nearest approach to universal suffrage in history.”

This same scorn for the thirteen-dollar-a-month men, who do the actual fighting, is seen in one form or another in the more recent American wars. The purse-proud rulers of the present day are so blatant in their expressions of patriotic admiration for the “brave boys” that the following illustrations are deemed worthy of the space required for their presentation—in order that the working class reader may not fail to recognize the mocking hypocrite in the gold-lust patriotic shouters who now decorate their palaces on holidays with “Old Glory.”

Third Illustration: The American Civil War—The Bankers and “Promoters”—and the Boys in Blue:

Thousands of Union veterans have declared: “The American Civil War was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight. We were duped. But we shall never be duped again.” (See Chapter VII., Sections 14 to 16.)

The volunteer Union soldiers who, at Lincoln’s first call, hurried to enlist for the war, understood distinctly that the government would pay them “in gold or its equivalent.” But the soldiers were forced to accept even their puny 43 cents a day in greenbacks containing the famous “exception clause,” which clause destroyed from 20 to more than 65 per cent. of the purchasing power of the money during the war and for years following the war. But the silk-hatted patriots, the “leading citizen” manufacturers, the bankers and the heroic sharks in Congress at the time, these who issued greenbacks and bought Government bonds, these noble gentlemen not only despised the very money they forced the soldiers to take for fighting, but, at the same time, arranged, virtually, for an iron-clad agreement that not only the principal of, but also the interest on, the Government bonds they “patriotically” bought, must be paid in gold.^[135] Gold for the patriot in business—“rag money” for the patriots in the trenches. At one time, owing to the “exception clause” on the paper money forced upon the soldiers, one gold dollar would buy as much as two dollars and eighty-five cents of paper money. Of course, the soldiers and the “common people” complained loudly. Says a high authority:^[136]

“Much opposition was caused by the clause inserted by the Senate, which provided for payment of interest on bonds in coin, which practically meant discrimination in favor of one class of creditors, and, as Stevens said, ‘depreciated at once the money which the bill created.’”

The Wall Street patriots never miss an opportunity to remind us with great show of pride that they “furnished the money with which to carry on the Civil War.” They did furnish a good deal of money, and like true patriotic Shylocks they took blood-sealed, interest-bearing bonds in exchange for their cash. On every possible occasion the bonds were bought at such a sacrifice price as to almost bleed the nation to death in the presence of its enemies. Dr. H. C. Adams (University of Michigan, Department of Finance) says:^[137] That, “estimated on the average price of gold,” the Federal Government, “for the forty-five months of the Civil War” realized from public obligations of all sorts less than 67 per cent. That is to say, certain bloodless patriots’ lack of faith and their desire also to “push a good thing” and take at least a “full pound of flesh”—resulted in their dear Government’s loss of blood in its financial transactions to the extent of more than 33 per cent.

This disastrous shrinkage was due unquestionably in a very large measure to the bankers’ manipulation of the Government’s financial affairs for their own private benefit. These glittering Shylocks were beautifully, even prayerfully, enthusiastic in their hand-clapping for their dear country’s welfare; and yet they showed almost perfect emotional self-control. Mr. Lincoln hated their gold-lust “patriotism,” but he was compelled to bow low before their power. The lovingly patriotic embrace which our country received from the bond-leech capitalists during the Civil War clearly revealed their amiable intention to bleed their country just as nearly to death as possible—and yet not kill it lest the precious goose should cease to lay such interesting eggs.

Your “patriotic” war-bond buyer is a temperamentally calm person.

Some citizens bleed for their country, others bleed their country.

“Guard against the impostures of patriotism.”—George Washington.^[138]

Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers^[139] states as follows the spirit of much of the argument in the British Parliament, even by many conservatives, concerning the bond-leech patriots who purchased British Napoleonic War bonds:

“But we have to endure, in addition to our misfortunes, the sight of the stock-jobbers and fund-holders, who have fattened on our misery, and are now receiving more than half our taxes. And for what? We have put down the Corsican usurper, and restored peace to Europe, legitimacy to its thrones. These people [the bondholders] not only get under our funding system at par, stock, with a number of incidental advantages, in exchange for some £50 or less, but they paid [even] this inadequate quota in notes which were constantly at a discount of 30 per cent. It is intolerable, it is unjust, that we should redeem such stock under the terms of so monstrous and one-sided a bargain.”

Perhaps, reader, you are one of the old gray men who “fought under Grant and are proud of it.” I do not criticize you, gray old man. I am offering you and younger men things to think about. A distinguished historian assures us that there were at one time during the War one hundred and fifty bankers in Congress. Inside and outside of Congress these, and other leading-citizen Mammonites, connived to bleed you and bleed the nation—utterly without shame. They alarmed President Lincoln repeatedly. They never let up in their swinish scramble for gold during the War. And after the War they continued their unholy manoeuvring—patriotically. For example, at one time following the War, after you soldiers had elected your General to the Presidency, these blushless blood-suckers sought to corner the gold market and thus scoop up a barrel of profits. To accomplish this it was necessary to have the President out of the way for a short time in order to render it impossible for him to rush to the rescue with the Federal Treasury. Read their plan to “turn the trick” in the words of a Wall Streeter himself, Mr. Henry Clews:^[140]

“He [Grant] was prevailed upon to go to a then obscure town in Pennsylvania, named Little Washington. The thing was so arranged that his feelings were worked upon to visit that place for the purpose of seeing an old friend who resided there. The town was cut off from telegraphic communication, and other means of access were not very convenient. There the President was ensconced, to remain for a week or so about the time the Cabal was fully prepared for action.”

Mr. Henry Clews’ own case is so finely typical of the banker-buncombe-patriot that a few lines may profitably be given here to him to illustrate his class.

This glittering patriot, Mr. Clews, was a young man when the Civil War broke out. His young heart—just as a banker’s heart should be, for business purposes—was warm with the holy fervor of a patriot. He loved the flag—tenderly, of course, just as a banker always loves an “attractive proposition.” The war was an opportunity—a splendid opportunity—to “make money” or to “fight for the flag.” After much patriotic (and no doubt prayerful) meditation he reached the conclusion (his first fear was confirmed) that if he went to the war he might unkindly be crowding out some other young fellow who also wanted to “fight for the flag.” So, just as a banker patriot would naturally do, he modestly decided to stay at home and humbly take the opportunity to “make money.” He at once organized a bond-buying, gold-lust syndicate, and as its organizer he went to Washington to buy bonds—at a discount (as he confesses), tho’ believing there was to be only a mere flurry (as he confesses), and especially to examine carefully (as he confesses) into the precise degree of risk assumed in buying the Government’s bonds.

Patriots in the trenches risk all. Patriots in the bond-buying business are not that kind; and they study the risk with great care, and coolly avoid not only the blood risk, but also the money risk—with skill, also with patriotism.

Calmly.

It seems that Mr. Clews went to Washington on a night train. He relates that when he awoke in the morning he raised the car window-shade and cautiously peeped out.^[141] He saw a long line of cars loaded with cannon. He was astonished—he confesses. Naturally, a banker is afraid of a cannon. “As I went around collecting information,” he says, “the sight of those cannon that at first had made such an indescribable impression upon me continued to haunt my vision wherever I went.... I felt that the contest would be a long and bloody one.... I was convinced that war to the knife was imminent, and that Government bonds must have a serious fall in consequence.” He telegraphed his syndicate to “sell out” and “clear the decks,” “to unload.”^[142]

Note that as soon as these far-from-the-firing-line patriots sniffed danger for their gold they were, as Mr. Clews virtually confesses, ready to leave the Government in the lurch and let the boys in the trenches starve till the bonds could be bought at a strangle-hold advantage in the way of discounts. Mr. Clews relates, with unmanageable pride, that the Secretary of the Treasury received him with great courtesy and supplied him with a large amount of useful information—information of the “inner” “ground-floor” sort so extremely helpful to the organizer of a bond-buying syndicate; also that the information and suggestions and encouragements he received from the Secretary were really the beginning of what he, with blushingly modest confession and a caress for himself, calls his “brilliant career.”

Early in life Mr. Clews made a profound impression upon himself—a lasting impression, as his books and speeches always reveal; a not uncommon experience with “prominent people.”

Thus Mr. Clews chose the humbler and more healthful rôle in patriotism.

Many of Mr. Clews’ old neighbors (hot-headed young men of the War time) are dead. They have been dead a long time. Cannon balls tore some of them to pieces. Bayonets were thrust through some of them. Some were starved to death in prisons. Their once hot blood is mold now. Long ago their flesh was eaten by the battle-grave worms. Time is busy in their nameless graves gnawing at their bones. But, now fifty years after the terrible war began, Mr. Clews is alive and well—he even boasts of his good health and often gives suggestions on how to keep one’s health till ripe old age.

And he is still buying bonds.

His special delight is giving advice to—mankind.

Mr. Clews lectures frequently. His favorite themes are “patriotism,” “the stars and stripes,” “the man behind the gun,”—and “how to succeed.” He is a sort of chairman of the committee on wind for patriots in the “greenhorn” stage.

All this space is given to Mr. Clews simply because he is so perfectly typical of the shrewd and powerful capitalist class who rule—rule by wind and a pompous manner when possible and by lead and steel when “necessary.”

His case should be explained carefully to the boys and girls of the working class. In the South such men are Democrats; in the North, Republicans. In both regions the working men are neither, if they understand.

Fourth Illustration: The Seven Days’ Battle—The “Brainy” Promoters and the Boys in Blue:

A nation in tears is the business man’s opportunity.

Any reference by a Thirtieth-of-May orator to the Seven Days’ Battle makes “big business men” and statesmen throw out their chests, pat their soft white hands and vociferate with perfectly beautiful patriotism. But let us look a little at the record.

In Chapter Three of the present volume it was briefly stated that one reason for the capitalists’ wanting war is that war completely concentrates a nation’s attention upon one thing and one thing only; namely, the war; and that while the people are thus “not looking,” the business man and the politicians have a perfect opportunity to arrange “good things” for themselves. And here I shall present a sample of American business men filching “good things” while the public’s attention is wholly absorbed in war. For shameless, treasonable corruption this sample can not be surpassed with the foulest page in the history of the ancient and rotten pagan Roman Empire.

Washington during the American Civil War was a robber’s roost for eminently respectable thieves, industrial “bunco-steerers,” and prominent and pious “come-on” financial pirates who were never near the firing line. The very best hotels in the city of Washington were constantly crowded with these patriotic citizens, “brainy men,” distinguished business men—from all parts of the North—a continuous thieves’ banquet by men who socially despised the humble fellows at the front. Cunningly during the entire war these gilt-edged, gold-dust bandits, far from danger of the firing line, plotted deals and steals and stuffed their pockets with “good things”—while brave men from the farms, mines and factories bled and died on the battlefield,—while working class wives and mothers agonized in their desolated humble homes. President Lincoln hated and dreaded these “hold-up” men, and sometimes he vented his splendid wrath against them in immortal words of warning to the people.^[143]

Washington is such a pleasant place in the kindly, smiling springtime. Business men enjoy that town—while Congress is in session.

For many months preceding July, 1862, a certain group of these broadclothed money-gluttons camped in Washington—alert as hawks, keen as hungry tigers sniffing warm blood. This precious group of eminently stealthy Christian business men planned and plotted. Cunningly these pirate patriots arranged a specially “good thing”—of which I wish to tell you here.

There was, you remember, one battle in the late Civil War called the Seven Days’ Battle. Mark the dates very carefully: June 25 to July 1, 1862—seven days—a bloody, horrible week. For several reasons this battle was regarded as most critical; many thoughtful people, North and South, believed the Union would stand or fall with this battle. President Lincoln ordered General McClellan to capture the Confederate capital, Richmond, or hurry north and protect Washington. As the conflict came closer and closer capitalists and statesmen grew busier—timing a master stroke.

June 24, the nation watched Virginia: one of the most prolonged and savage struggles in the whole history of mankind was imminent.

June 24, therefore, was, for certain men, the last day of special preparation. The cannon would surely begin next day to roar around Richmond.

All was ready (in Washington).... The understanding was perfect (in Washington).

“Without a single syllable of debate,” a certain bill (precisely as it had been handsomely amended by the Senate) was passed by the House by a vote of 104 to 21. The finishing touch was thus put upon a carefully constructed trap, a trap set by “leading citizens,” a trap for big game.

Next day—June 25—the cannon did begin to boom around the Confederate capital.

The first day’s struggle—June 25—was awful. The news flashed through the land. Millions turned pale.

But the bandits in Washington were cool. The trap was set. They waited.

The second day was a slaughter.

More smiles and confidence in the best Washington hotels.

The third day of the battle was a butchering contest. The whole people watched, listened. The news flamed north and south. Millions, terrified, read the dead roll.

But the broadcloth gentlemen wept not. They waited—patriotically.

The fourth day was a storm of blood and iron.

But the eminent business men, bankers, statesmen, promoters and other patriotic looters, safe in Washington—far from the firing line—waited, drank fine wine and very confidently waited—waited as lions wait—to spring to the throats of their victims.

Mr. Lincoln held back his signature from that “certain Bill.” He was doing his best for the boys in the trenches, and was justly suspicious of the promoter-banker patriotism in Washington.

The fifth day millions looked toward Virginia—and were sickened with grief.

But certain prominent gentlemen in Washington cheerfully jested, ate the best food on earth, lolled in easy chairs, gracefully reclined on elegantly upholstered sofas, craftily plotted—and waited, in calm confidence waited.

The sixth day of the battle was “Death’s feast.” The nation, North and South, was stupefied with the horror of the war.

But certain “highly respected leading citizens,” Christian business men—flag-waving patriots all of them—quaffed their wine, chatted gaily, plotted, and, like reptiles, coiled to strike—waited, confident.

The seventh day, the last day, the baptism of blood and fire broke the nation’s heart. As morning dawned the nation’s one thought was: The war—the awful battles—the week-long harvest of death in Virginia. Millions sobbed and eagerly sought more news. The storm of death completely absorbed the nation’s attention. The Seven Days of slaughter was the nation’s one heart-gripping thought.

For this day certain patriots, certain “men of energy and push and enterprise,” certain distinguished business men, had patiently and craftily waited. The psychological moment! The nation was blinded with rage, tears and despair. Half insane with an awful joy and a sickening sorrow, the people, millions of them, wildly screamed, sobbed and cursed—on July 1.

Intense day.

The Union army in retreat—defeated.

The President in profound alarm, half crazed with the agony of it all, decided, July 1, to call for 300,000 more soldiers for three years’ service.

Supreme moment—for the business man.

Now!

The people are not looking.

Now!

Strike, viper, strike!

Leap, gold-hungry patriot! Leap! Leap now—leap for your country’s throat!

Not another hour’s delay.... Place the final pressure on the President.

“Mr. President! Mr. Lincoln! Sign our bill! Please sign our bill now—right now. Quickly, Mr. President! Don’t delay longer. Now!”

Hundreds of cannon were roaring in Virginia. The President was devouring the telegraphic news from the firing line.

Business men—Christian business men—including flag-loving Congressmen, very noble Senators, and many other dollar-mark statesmen, were directly and indirectly urging that the bill be signed—at once, “for the country’s welfare,” of course.

The President, urged by these money-hungry patriots, urged by these “men of high standing,” thus urged, the President, writhing with grief over the Seven Days’ slaughter of his brave volunteers, almost sweating blood in his profound fear,—signed the bill, July 1.

What bill?

The bill that legalized a vast and shameless wrong against the wives and children of brave men on the firing line; the bill that legalized a rape of the National Domain and the Federal Treasury by gilded cowards, while from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, hundreds of thousands of brave men, ill fed, ill clothed, faced hell under the flag on the firing line; the bill that suddenly made plutocrats of Christian statesmen,—made millionaires of flag-waving traitors piously masquerading as patriots; the bill that created the Union Pacific Railway charter, the astounding terms of which are given presently.

The President was numb and dumb with sadness and a thousand worries.

“The news [of the Seven Days’ Battle],” says Rhodes,^[144] “was a terrible blow to the President. The finely equipped army which had cost so much exertion and money, had gone forward with high hopes of conquest, and apparently bore the fate of the Union, had been defeated, and was now in danger of destruction or surrender. This calamity the head of the Nation must face.... The elaborate preparations of the North had come to naught.... Lincoln grew thin and haggard and his dispatches ... of these days are an avowal of defeat.”

But the business men and the statesmen who were “in on the deal” winked wisely, smiled blandly, and made merry as they quaffed their champagne. They had “turned the trick”—they had made a fine bargain.

“Business is business.”

July 2 came. Certain statesmen and business men in Washington were happy, so very, very happy—far from the firing line.

July 2 came. And while a cloud of buzzards circled confidently over the Seven Days’ battlefield eager for a feast on the rotting flesh of the brave working class soldier boys; while the torn corpses of humble working class men were hurriedly pitched into the ditches and the dirt and gravel were shoveled upon them; while the grave-worms began their feast and revel in the flesh and blood of the men and boys from the farms, mines and factories; while, July 2, the wounded men and boys screamed under the surgeons’ knives and saws in the hospitals; while, July 2, millions mourned;—at such a time, while the Union army was retreating, defeated—the “big, brainy business men” in Washington celebrated their victory, the securing of the Union Pacific Railway charter. For months these distinguished patriotic sneaks had been preparing, hatching this “good thing,” the Union Pacific charter. After months of patriotic treason and fox-like watchfulness they had “landed” their prize.

They won.

They celebrated.

A nation in tears is the business man’s opportunity—for bargains.

This Union Pacific charter was, as shown below, unquestionably one of the most shameless pieces of corruption in the entire history of the civilized, unsocialized world, including even pagan Rome in her most degraded days. The crime was so foul and vast that many of the records were burned later—which, perhaps, saved some eminent gentlemen from being lynched.

Mr. Henry Clews relates:^[145]

“The investigation of the refunding committee of the Pacific railroads at Washington brought the most remarkable evidence from one of the principal witnesses, who stated that the books connected with the construction of the road had been burned or destroyed as useless trash involving the superfluous expense of room rent, though they contained the record of transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars, a record which became absolutely necessary to the fair settlement between the government and its debtors. Also the fact was put in evidence that a certain party in the interest had testified before another committee, on a former occasion, that he was present when $54,000,000 of profits were divided equally among four partners, himself and three others. None of the books of record containing this valuable information escaped the flames.”

The charter as originally granted, July 1, 1862, was treasonably generous; but these far-from-the-firing-line patriots were insatiably gluttonous, and they teased and bribed till exactly two years later (July 2, 1864, precisely at a time when the war was terribly intense and especially critical), the liberality of the terms of the charter was almost doubled.

Study the terms—the chief features—of the charter as granted and amended.

Remember the date, June 24 to July 1, 1862,—the week of the Seven Days’ Battle. Also look sharply for the patriotism—in the charter.

The terms, in outline, of the Union Pacific charter:

First: At a time when the nation was straining every nerve to carry on the war, at a time when the soldiers in the trenches were paid only 43 cents a day, and even that in depreciated paper money, and were given salt pork and mouldy crackers for rations—at such a time, business men (cunningly assisted by patriotic Congressmen and noble Senators) dipped their greedy hands into the National Treasury and took out a government “loan” to the railway company of $60,000,000 in interest-bearing government bonds worth more than sufficient to build the road. Professor W. Z. Ripley (Harvard University) says:^[146]

“From the books of the Union Pacific and the Credit Mobilier it appears that the expenditures by the Union Pacific directly amounted to $9,746,683.33; and that the actual expenditures under the Hoxie, Ames and Davis contracts were $50,720,957.94, making the total cost of the road $60,467,641.27.”

This good-as-cash loan from the government was “assistance” and “incentive” given to the genteel promoters of the Union Pacific Railway: $16,000 per mile from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains; $48,000 per mile through the Rocky Mountains; and $32,000 per mile beyond the Rockies. This was a liberal allowance, surely. Collis P. Huntington, long time president of the Southern Pacific, claimed afterward that the road could be built at an average cost of less than $10,000 per mile. More recently the Union Pacific Railway Company (contending with the State of Utah over tax burdens) proved before the Board of Equalization at Salt Lake City, by the sworn testimony of engineers, that the average cost of the Utah Central line, in a rough country, was only $7,298.20 per mile.

The dear capitalist government was rich enough to stuff the pockets of the glistening, flag-waving traitors with $60,000,000 in bonds like gold as “assistance” and “incentive” for self-preservation patriotism. But at the same time this dear government could give the “boys in blue” only 43 cents a day in cheap rag money as “incentive.” These “enterprising business men” drank champagne and slept in soft beds; but the “boys in blue” drank water from muddy horse-tracks and slept on the ground.

Second: The Union Pacific Company, it was cunningly arranged, might make elsewhere a private, cash, mortgage-bonded loan equal to the government loan, $60,000,000.

Third: The noble Christian statesmen in Congress and the noble Christian business men (patriots all) cunningly agreed that a first mortgage should be given for the private loan of $60,000,000.

Fourth: The government (bunco-steerers inside and outside of Congress) cunningly agreed to take a second mortgage on the road for the government loan of $60,000,000.

Fifth: It was cunningly arranged by these business men in politics and these politicians in business that ninety-five per cent. of the government second mortgage loan should not bear interest till thirty years later; but that all the private loans should bear interest at once.

Sixth: The Railway Company was cunningly given permission to sell $100,000,000 in railway stocks.

Stocks were sold to Congressmen and very noble Senators.

Stocks were sold to these very noble statesmen below the market price.

Stocks sold to statesmen—it was cunningly arranged—need not be paid for till after the road was finished and the stocks were paying dividends. For example, Congressman W. B. Allison, afterward Senator Allison, of Iowa (so sly and stealthy that he became known as “Pussy-Foot”), bought some of the stocks “on the quiet,” too, from the infamous Ames; he paid out nothing for the stocks, but when he had owned the stocks for only a brief time and while the unfinished road was yet in comparatively poor condition, his dividends more than paid for his stocks.^[147] The Union Pacific scandal snuffed out numerous lesser lights and sadly bedimmed the lustre of twenty-two other “great” names, such as Blaine, Logan, Garfield, Colfax.^[148]

This villainy of the nation’s “great” men is worthy of Emerson’s interesting flattery of eminent prostitutes:

“When I read the list of men of intellect, of refined pursuits, giants in law, or eminent scholars, or of social distinction, men of wealth and enterprise in the commercial community, and see what they have voted for and what they have suffered to be voted for, I think no community was ever so politely and elegantly betrayed.”—(“Lecture on Woman.”)

One Congressman was given $500,000 for his assistance in getting the charter granted.

“Another [expense],” says Professor Ripley (Harvard University),^[149] “of a worse sort concerned a government commissioner, Cornelius Wendell, appointed to examine the road and report whether or not it met the requirements of the law, who flatly demanded $25,000 before he would proceed to perform his duty ... his demand was paid in the same spirit in which it was made—as so much blood money.”

Another authority thus:^[150]

“Oakes Ames, member of Congress, from Massachusetts, and a promoter of the Union Pacific and its bills before the national legislature, distributed Credit Mobilier stock to influential Congressmen on the understanding that it should be paid for out of the dividends, which dividends depended largely on the passage of the bills giving grants of land and money to the U. P. The bills were passed. The dividends of the very first year paid for the stock and left a balance to the credit of the donees; and the total construction profits were $43,925,328 above all expenses, in which profits the stock-holding Congressmen who passed the railroad grants had an important share.”

Seventh: The statesmen-business men cunningly agreed that when the government used the road (which it had furnished more than sufficient means to construct) one-half the regular rate should be paid in cash and the other half should apply as credit on the government loan.

Eighth: The Union Pacific Railway Company, including the Central Pacific (same system),^[151] was cunningly presented—scot free—one-half of all the land within twenty miles of the right-of-way, and “all the timber, iron and coal within six miles” of the right-of-way,—a total of 25,000,000 acres of land. “At $2.50 per acre,” says President E. B. Andrews (University of Nebraska),^[152] “the land values alone would more than build the road.” The Northern Pacific Company received, just two years later, 47,000,000 acres of land as a gift which a land expert^[153] estimated to be worth probably $990,000,000 and possibly $1,320,000,000,—which gives us some idea of the value of the 25,000,000 acre gift to the Union Pacific.

It is worth the space to add: That “the promoters of the Northern Pacific, through unfair construction contracts and other frauds, made the capitalization of 600 miles of that line constructed down to 1874 amount to 143 millions on an actual expenditure of twenty-two millions.”^[154]

Ninth: Again and again the Union Pacific, when it suited its purpose to do so, refused to comply with the treasonably easy terms of its charter; but always the patriots in Washington and the distinguished railway gentlemen cunningly “got together,” made some “gentlemen’s agreement”—and the charter was not revoked.

As suggested above, this charter, as amended by the Senate and in the form signed by the President, July 1, 1862,—was, when it was finally “considered” in the House of Mis-Representatives, voted 104 to 21 “without a single syllable of debate.”^[155]

Professor Parsons sums up the case thus:^[156]

“The promoters got from Congress more than the cost of the road, bonded it again to private investors for all it was worth, issued stock also beyond the cost of construction, sold and gave away a good deal of it, and still had the road and the control of its earnings for themselves.”

The magnitude of this statesmen-patriot-thieves’ masterpiece (“for love of country and home and God”) can not be realized without a further word concerning the land grants.

Seventy-nine land-grant railroads (twenty-one of them “direct beneficiaries of Congress”) have been granted 200,000,000 acres of land (reduced by forfeiture to 158,286,627 acres).

“Over one-half of this acreage was granted by acts passed between 1862 and 1864.”^[157]

That is to say, during twenty-four terrible months, just while the nation was sweating blood from every pore, while the people were not looking at anything except the war, precisely at that time, patriotic statesmen gave away to railway promoters who shed no “blood for the flag,” gave to these “gentlemen of push and enterprise” a sufficient amount of the people’s lands to provide a hundred and twenty-five-acre farm for every one of the 800,000 men mustered out of the Union armies in 1865.

Professor Parsons says “the total national land-grants alone have aggregated 215,000,000 acres”—(15,000,000 acres higher than the estimate by Professors Cleveland and Powell).

“It could be said of more than one railroad company as was said by an English capitalist who inspected ... the properties of the Illinois Central, ‘This is not a railway company; it is a land company.’”^[158]

It is interesting (and instructive) to note that the charter of the Northern Pacific Railway with its 47,000,000 acre land gift, with astoundingly liberal amendments to the U. P. charter, was granted July 2, 1864, precisely at a time when the nation’s attention was again riveted to two specially terrible campaigns which absorbed the nation wholly in the war: Grant and Lee, with immense armies, were fighting bitterly, and Sherman with 98,000 men and Johnston with 45,000 men had been fighting fiercely and almost continuously from June 10 to July 2, 1864. As stated above, the Northern Pacific got 47,000,000 acres of land.^[159]

The three railways, says Professor Parsons in substance,^[160] the Union Pacific, the Central Pacific and the Northern Pacific, cost somewhat less than $132,000,000, and were capitalized at more than $383,000,000—that is to say, about $250,000,000 (two-thirds of the capitalization) was fictitious,—a fraud, a lie, commercial patriotism.

While at wining and dining tables in closely guarded private parlors in the best hotels in Washington this unmatchable plundering was cunningly arranged (“to develop the country, of course”) working class men and boys, half starved and weary, were obediently slaughtering themselves at the word of command—for 43 cents a day, in depreciated paper money forced upon them by pirate patriots.

While the nation is blinded with tears and the common men’s blood gushes from their torn veins, the “business” man, with pious patriotism talking grandly of the “glorious flag,” cunningly sneaks to the nation’s store-house, a blushless burglar; he climbs aboard the ship of state, a conscienceless pirate.^[161]