Page:The General Strike (Haywood, ca 1911).pdf/34

32 It is worth while here to lay special stress on this point, especially as some of our amateur recruiting agents have tried to hearten others to give their lives in the present conflict, with the promise that it shall be the last. Let no one believe it. So long as political governments last there will be wars.

Is it to be supposed that England will maintain unquestioned for all time her position as ruler of the waves and owner of vast colonies all over the world, when we know that young and vigorous races and nations are developing? So long as national ideals, the world over, lead men only to rejoice in the extension of their nation, so long will there be ceaselessly war and preparations for wars.

So long as there are sufficient men who are willing to give themselves in military service to those who own the country in which they live, and others who undertake to supply all the necessities of war, just so long, we may be sure, will the masters be willing to use them to fight their quarrels and settle their disputes.

Wars will cease only when the people have higher national ambition than that of capturing foreign lands, when men are not willing to fight in the quarrels of nations, when the people are no longer contented to have their country owned by a class which lives entirely on their labor. In a word the last war will be fought when the workers of all the various nations begin to capture their own countries from the real enemy which now holds them—an enemy so brutal that not only is it ever prepared to wage relentless war against the workers, but in time of peace commits more outrages than the most savage armies of the most ruthless war lords. Figures and facts condemn them beyond the lowest damnation.

What German atrocity can equal that committed by the master class here at home, which enjoys the wealth of the land while millions struggle with and even succumb to poverty? What German outrage can be equal