Categories
Harry Kemp Masses

The War They Never Fought – Harry Kemp (1913)

“Yes, all the Workers stayed at home
and knew a happy lot”

From ‘The Masses’, September 1913, NYC

 

The Millionaire went forth to fight
in The War They Never Fought,

The Broker and the Banker,
each a place in the vanguard sought,

The Preacher left the church behind
to march, and shoulder a gun,

The Senator tied on his sword,
the Magnate sent his son,

Then, finding war so fine a thing,
he put by all his pelf,

And took a rifle in his hand,
and went to war himself;

The King served on the battleship,
he fought as gunner there,

The Emperor went forth on foot
the lot of war to share,

And none of them on horses rode,
but side by side they went,

And carried knapsacks, slept in rain,
and ate hard fare, content . . .

The Poor, the Poor, they stayed at home
while all these bore the brunt,

Charging, and breasting cannon balls,
and starving, at the front:

Yes, all the Workers stayed at home
and knew a happy lot—

The Ruling Classes were so brave
in The War They Never Fought!

HARRY KEMP.


Also

Denmark begins extended military conscription in response to Russia, America, by Tom Little & Soren Jeppesen (2026)

Russian deserters struggle to win asylum in Germany, by Daniil Sotnikov (2026)

Fascism, Militarism and Anarchism: A Tale of Three Ukrainians, by K. C. Sinclair (2026)

Ukraine’s conscription crisis is getting increasingly bloody, by Branko Marcetic (2026)

As US Bombs Iran, ICE Is Deporting Iranian Americans Into Danger, by Etan Mabourakh (2026)

U.S. deports dozens of migrants to Ukraine amid war, by Ximena Bustillo & Polina Lytvynova (2025)

Croatia reintroduces military conscription as Europe worries about Russia-Ukraine war, by the Associated Press (2025)

‘I will not enlist in an army committing genocide’: Meet the Israeli teens refusing Netanyahu’s war on Gaza, by Bel Trew (2025)

The Downward Spiral of Militarism, by K. C. Sinclair (2025)

Anarchism and Revolutionary Defeatism, by K. C. Sinclair (2025)

Clarity Contra Complicity [on Aaron Bushnell’s act of refusal], by K. C. Sinclair (2025)

White House pressing Ukraine to draft 18-year-olds so it has enough troops to battle Russia, by Aamer Madhani (2024)

Lithuanian extends term of military conscription, by Konstantin Eggert (2024)

The Camp Logan 1917 ‘incident’ haunted Houston for more than a century. Why a reckoning now?, by Monique Welch (2023)

Latvia reintroduces compulsory military service, by Grzegorz Szymanowski (2023)

Camp Logan Mutiny resolution, by the NAACP Houston Branch (2018)

The 1917 Houston Riots/Camp Logan Mutiny, by Prairie View A&M University (2017)

Sweden reintroduces military draft, this time including women, by Jan M. Olsen (2017)

The Durruti Column Responds to the Militarization Decree, by Buenaventura Durruti (1936)

On the March, by Ricardo Flores Magón (1917)

The Barricade and the Trench, by Ricardo Flores Magón (1915)

The Revolutionist and War, by Anna Strunsky (1915)

Suicide, by Anna Strunsky (1915)

Should I Ever Be a Soldier, by Joe Hill (1913)

Hell Here, No Hereafter, from Industrial Worker (1911)

Military Power, from Industrial Worker (1909)

The War Spirit, by Lizzie M. Holmes (1898)

Refusal/Desertion

Anarchist Anti-Militarism

Anti-Imperialism

Leave a Reply

Creative Commons License
Except where otherwise noted, the content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.