Page:Scott Nearing - The Germs of War (1916).djvu/29

 Note these biting phrases:

"1. Jobs uncertain; strikes; lay-offs and sickness.

"2. Promotion and advancement uncertain and slow.

"3. Favoritism and partiality are frequently shown.

"4. Pay small and limited while learning a trade.

"5. Same old, monotonous, tiresome grind every day.

"6. Stuffy, gloomy and uninteresting working-place.

"7. When sick, your pay stops and doctor's bill starts.

"8. If disabled or injured, you receive little or no pay.

"9. If you die, your family gets only what you have saved from your small wages.

"10. Little CLEAR MONEY; nearly all you pay goes for your living expenses.

"11. Old age, sickness, little money saved, your job goes to a younger and more active man."

Do you know where they came from? They were printed on a circular issued by Uncle Sam, to explain why young men should join the navy, and work for seventeen dollars a month and board.

American ideals? No. They are not included in that description. That is not a picture of democracy, of opportunity, of liberty, and of justice. It does tell the story of exploitation, and hopeless, intolerable human degradation.

The Kaiser did not do that to us. No, nor did the Mexicans, or the Japanese. Those unspeakable conditions of American life, that may be met with in every great center of industry, commerce and finance, from New York to San Francisco, and from Chicago to New Orleans, are the product of that same system of exploitation that we are now patriotically preparing to defend in its policy of foreign aggression.