Regeneración, No. 256, English Section, April 21, 1917
The government of the United States has declared war against Germany and thereby placed the american people in the center of the great world catastrophe.
The principle that the government has invoked to drag the people into the abyss could not be more pleasing: that of liberty.
Liberty: what bad cause has not covered itself with your vail to seduce the people? The tyrant oppresses in your name; invoking you, the executioner crunches the head of his victim; the law crushes in your benefit, and as a guarantee of your benefactions, barracks are erected and prisons are constructed.
In the name of liberty the bourgeois is allowed to suck the blood of the people; in the name of liberty the priest stupefies the masses; the system of private property lives in the name of liberty.
In what way did the european conflict endanger the liberty of the american people? Whether the allies or the central empires triumphed, no matter on what side victory were, the american people would have continued to be the helpless and submissive victims of the rich, of the priest and of the ruler, with the advantage of not having lost a drop of blood in the stupid conflict. While it [is] dragged to war, no matter what side is victorious, the people shall continue to suffer the same wrongs, infinitely aggravated by the natural consequences of all fights undertaken for the benefit of selfish interests.
The european conflict did not endanger the liberty of the american people, but the liberty of plundering that the bourgeoisie abrogates to itself. The submarine campaign that the German bourgeoisie has undertaken is a formidable obstacle to the free exercise of the wholesale robbery practiced by the american bourgeoisie under the name of commerce. With the German submarine campaign the american people were not injured, but the manufactures of arms and munitions and the great exporters of foodstuffs. The people would have benefited by the recrudescence of the submarine campaign, because the foodstuffs, that are exported to Europe, would have remained here, and their price would have dropped.
A government that concerns itself with the well-being of the people, would have welcomed the recrudescence of the submarine campaign that impeded the shipment of foodstuffs, but when has the miracle ever been seen of government concerning itself for the well-being of the masses? All governments have as the principal of their duties the protection of the interests of the bourgeoisie, and the american government, loyal to that duty declared war against Germany in the name of liberty … to rob.
It is plainly seen that this declaration of war has not been made in the interest of the american people, but of their hangmen: the rich, and for the benefit of their hangmen, these people shall have to shed their blood in the trenches, they shall be burdened with enormous contributions to defray the costs of the war, they shall suffer the most extreme misery and shall lose under the iron law of militaristic legislation the last fragment of liberty that their masters had allowed them that they might dream themselves free and sovereign.
The date in which Woodrow Wilson signed the declaration of war, opens a black period for the inhabitants of this country. Persecutions multiply; every stranger is looked upon with distrust; and in every German a spy is seen; guards fire upon the first suspect who approaches an arsenal, a bridge, a munitions factory, a tunnel, or a fort; the jails become packed with spies or suspected spies; the muzzle that hushed the press has been reinforced; and in the offices of the big dignitaries a thousand plans are studied to recruit an army of two million men, that is, of two million proletarians seized from the arms of their families to defend the interests of the rich.
March on! The american people shall have to convince themselves that all governments are bad and that there can only be peace in the world when the so-called right of private property has disappeared.
The peoples are in the habit of moving along with their eyes shut, and it is not bad that they occasionally stumble that they may open their eyes.
Ricardo Flores Magón
Sarcasm
Translated from the Spanish of the original article that appeared in Regeneración, Numero 256, 21 de Abril de 1917
While all those in favor of the war shout that the United States is fighting for freedom, the Senate Judiciary Committee is considering the anti-spying bill. This bill, which will soon be approved by Congress, prohibits criticism of current events, and will only allow criticism of past events.
No one will be able to give their opinion on what occurs. If the government’s actions are absurd, they will remain absurd, because once the well-known bill is approved, it will be a crime of treason to think with one’s own head.
This bill also gives the Postmaster General broad powers to prevent anarchist newspapers from circulating through the mail.
One cannot wish for greater freedom or a greater spirit of justice.
An anarchist newspaper denounces war as a crime, as there can be no greater crime than to make human beings kill each other to sustain exploitation and tyranny. So the newspaper is denied all exemptions, its editors are arrested, and if the government so desires, they are shot.
On the other hand, a bourgeois newspaper stimulates the war of proletarians against proletarians, for the benefit of privilege and tyranny. Well, this newspaper, which fosters hatred between peoples, is given all the exemptions and its editors are showered with honors and distinctions.
There is freedom; but for lies and crime.
Ricardo Flores Magón
See also:
The Pacification of the Yaqui, by Librado Rivera (1927)
Carranza’s Doom, by Enrique Flores Magón (1916)
The Death of the Bourgeois System, by Ricardo Flores Magón (1915)
The Mexican People are Suited to Communism, by Ricardo Flores Magón (1911)
Mexican Workers in the IWW and the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM), by Devra Anne Weber
The Chaparral Insurgents of South Texas, by Aaron Miguel Cantú