War and the Workers

From the front page of ‘Solidarity’, May 20, 1911, New Castle, Pennsylvania. The main body of the text had also appeared under the title, “Anti-Military Stickers” (without subheadings) on the inside pages of ‘Industrial Worker’, May 11, 1911, Spokane, Washington, and ‘The Agitator,’ Home, Washington, May 1, 1911, under the title “War” (without subheadings)

General Sherman said, “War is Hell!”

Don’t go to Hell in Order to Give the Capitalists a Bigger Slice of Heaven

YOUNG MAN: When you are asked to enlist in the army or navy to be used as food for cannon, be sure to look before you leap.

Remember: The Spanish American War, with its vile and unspeakable record of Embalmed Beef, Shoddy Uniforms, Bum-fitting Brogans, Leaky Tents, Rotten Ships and a Rottener Bureaucracy, Blow Hole Armor Plate a la Carnegie, Insufficient and Inedible Food, Venereal Diseases and Malarial Fever.

Remember: That the sugar and tobacco trusts got the goods and the workers got the malarial fever.

Remember: That the officers got the honor and the glory, and the men got shot at.

Remember: That the officers got three squares each day, while the rank and file were starving on three mouldy hardtacks.

Remember: That these arrogant and overbearing officers were commissioned because they hadn’t energy enough to work; brains enough to beg, or courage enough to steal.

Remember: That the American Workers had no quarrel with the Spanish Workers, anyway.

Remember: That the acquisition of Cuba and the Philippines never raised your wages, shortened your hours, or otherwise bettered your conditions.

Remember: The pensions the men didn’t get.

Remember: Those who were maimed, mutilated and disfigured for life.

Remember: The boys who never came back. Think of the Widows. Think of the Orphans. Think of Yourself.

LET THOSE WHO OWN THE COUNTRY, DO THE FIGHTING!

Put the wealthiest in the front ranks; the middle class next; follow these with judges, lawyers, preachers and politicians. Let the workers remain at home and enjoy what they produce. Follow a declaration of war with an immediate call for A GENERAL STRIKE. Make the slogan: “Rebellion Sooner Than War.” Don’t make yourself a target in order to fatten Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie, the Rothschilds, Guggenheim, and the other industrial pirates. Don’t be fooled by jingoism.

The workers have no quarrel with Mexico nor Japan: American capitalists own most of the Mexican industries and operate them with peon or slave labor. The revolutionary insurrectos threaten to give these slaves a taste of freedom. Both Taft and Diaz are pliant tools of the interests, and U.S. troops are being used to keep the Mexican workers in subjection.

American capitalists want war with Japan in order to seize the rich Manchurian lands, gain railway, mining and other concessions; unload their surplus stock of shoddy goods upon the government; secure investment for their money in interest bearing bonds; and to kill off the surplus of unemployed workers who are threatening to overthrow the capitalist system. Japanese capitalists want war for just about the same reasons. Even if they lose: they win.

“Workers of the World, Unite!”

Don’t become hired murderers.

Don’t join the Army or Navy.

Walker C. Smith

–—–

Order the above leaflet from the I.W.W. Publishing Bureau, Box 622, New Castle, Pa. Price, 20 cents per hundred; $1.50 a thousand

[The earlier features in ‘The Agitator’ and ‘Industrial Worker’ instead had a Denver, Colorado, IWW Local 25 address at the bottom of the text, with the same prices, and in the case of ‘The Agitator’ adding “The above will be published in leaflet form” -Ed]

A Worker’s Pledge

From ‘Solidarity’, June 24, 1911, New Castle, Pennsylvania

I refuse to be a soldier — capitalist’s watchdog. I refuse to be a bullet stopper or food for any cannon. I refuse to eat moldy hard tack and be treated like a dog. I refuse to obey the orders of any brainless gilded snob called officer.

I have no superior in the army. I refuse to let any cockroach officer do my thinking for me. I know as much as any officer. I refuse to dress like a monkey to be laughed at by fellow workers. I refuse to be “patriotic” and be shot at for $16 per month. I refuse to kill my father. I refuse to kill my brother. I refuse to kill my fellow workers. I refuse to make widows and orphans. I refuse to blind kind eyes with tears and wet the earth with the blood of any man, and then like the coward that I would be, wrap my blood-stained fists in the folds of any flag.

No, a thousand times no, I would refuse to be such a damnable coward for any and all countries. I have no equal among the gilded snobs. Therefore I refuse to enlist and be buffeted around by these know-nothings. I refuse to enlist to satisfy the savage blood lust of this or any other capitalist government. I will starve first, for I have only one enemy — that is the capitalist class. Therefore I will join the I.W.W. and learn some more sense.

M.J.P.

“Military power is always against the interest of the working class.
[…] The defenders of the army are the enemies of mankind.”

Industrial Worker, April 29, 1909, Spokane, Washington