Page:The General Strike (Haywood, ca 1911).pdf/25

Rh which their mates have built, is most of it being used to enrich those who take no part in the work and who form a class apart from and superior (as it believes) to the workers.

To the wife and kiddies whom he dearly loved he had been able to give only the bare necessities of life. He has seen them cut off from the luxuries of the world and the joys of culture. His little world, his country and his life have been rendered unbeautiful to him because the best of all which the worker can produce goes to make rich the master class. He has fought against this, fought so that he might bring a little more beauty into the lives of those he loves, and to help the class of which he is one.

And who has been opposed to him in this fight? Is it those whom he is now trying to kill, the German soldiers, or the Austrians? No, both of them, if they are workers like himself, have been suffering from the same wrongs in their own land; they have been fighting the same battles and striving in the same way against those who own the country in which they live.

Our man in the trench then, when he returns from the war—if he ever does—and when he renews his fight for a fuller life at home, will find himself face to face, not with an alien enemy, but with the British soldiers who were fighting side by side with him in the trenches. At the word of command they will fire, upon him, so great is the power of discipline in the army.

The German also, when this sad business is over will return to his daily work, and should he, with his friends, try also to capture a little of the country and its wealth for the workers, instead of the wealth-owning class, he will find soon that the German military are ready to shoot him. These facts surely force us to think. And we pause before we rejoice in the honor of dying for our country, for is it not true that we who are asked to die this glorious death in a foreign land are compelled even by the military to live but sad, inglorious lives here at home?