[Peace-discuss] Emma Goldman's Anti-War Stand (fwd)

[C. G. Estabrook]

The AP reported the following on Tuesday: "Emma Goldman, the iconoclastic,
anti-war muckraker whose anarchist leanings got her deported to Russia, is
at it again -- 63 years after her death. Goldman's provocative,
turn-of-the-century writings, housed at the University of California
(Berkeley), are at the center of a new controversy. Candace Falk, the
director of the Emma Goldman Papers Project, used three quotations from
Goldman's work as part of a fund-raising appeal. University officials
stopped the mailing, saying she deliberately chose the quotes to make a
political statement against war with Iraq."

Here is one of the tracts from which an offending quotation was taken.
From the middle of the First World War (but before the US had entered), it
does sound remarkably contemporary.  (Although I think Goldman is too
easy on Wilson, a nasty racist and imperialist.)  --CGE

	========================================================

	Preparedness, the Road to Universal Slaughter
	by Emma Goldman [First published in Mother Earth, Vol. X, no. 10,
	December 1915, and also as a pamphlet.]

EVER since the beginning of the European conflagration, the whole human
race almost has fallen into the deathly grip of the war anesthesis,
overcome by the mad teaming fumes of a blood soaked chloroform, which has
obscured its vision and paralyzed its heart. Indeed, with the exception of
some savage tribes, who know nothing of Christian religion or of brotherly
love, and who also know nothing of dreadnaughts, submarines, munition
manufacture and war loans, the rest of the race is under this terrible
narcosis. The human mind seems to be conscious of but one thing, murderous
speculation. Our whole civilization, our entire culture is concentrated in
the mad demand for the most perfected weapons of slaughter.  Ammunition!
Ammunition! O, Lord, thou who rulest heaven and earth, thou God of love,
of mercy and of justice, provide us with enough ammunition to destroy our
enemy. Such is the prayer which is ascending daily to the Christian
heaven. Just like cattle, panic-stricken in the face of fire, throw
themselves into the very flames, so all of the European people have fallen
over each other into the devouring flames of the furies of war, and
America, pushed to the very brink by unscrupulous politicians, by ranting
demagogues, and by military sharks, is preparing for the same terrible
feat.

In the face of this approaching disaster, it behooves men and women not
yet overcome by the war madness to raise their voice of protest, to call
the attention of the people to the crime and outrage which are about to be
perpetrated upon them.

America is essentially the melting pot. No national unit composing it, is
in a position to boast of superior race purity, particular historic
mission, or higher culture. Yet the jingoes and war speculators are
filling the air with the sentimental slogan of hypocritical nationalism,
"America for Americans," "America first, last, and all the time." This cry
has caught the popular fancy from one end of the country to another. In
order to maintain America, military preparedness must be engaged in at
once. A billion dollars of the people's sweat and blood is to be expended
for dreadnaughts and submarines for the army and the navy, all to protect
this precious America.

The pathos of it all is that the America which is to be protected by a
huge military force is not the America of the people, but that of the
privileged class; the class which robs and exploits the masses, and
controls their lives from the cradle to the grave. No less pathetic is it
that so few people realize that preparedness never leads to peace, but
that it is indeed the road to universal slaughter.

With the cunning methods used by the scheming diplomats and military
cliques of Germany to saddle the masses with Prussian militarism, the
American military ring with its Roosevelts, its Garrisons, its Daniels,
and lastly its Wilsons, are moving the very heavens to place the
militaristic heel upon the necks of the American people, and, if
successful, will hurl America into the storm of blood and tears now
devastating the countries of Europe.

Forty years ago Germany proclaimed the slogan: "Germany above everything.
Germany for the Germans, first, last and always. We want peace; therefore
we must prepare for war. Only a well armed and thoroughly prepared nation
can maintain peace, can command respect, can be sure of its national
integrity." And Germany continued to prepare, thereby forcing the other
nations to do the same. The terrible European war is only the culminating
fruition of the hydra-headed gospel, military preparedness.

Since the war began, miles of paper and oceans of ink have been used to
prove the barbarity, the cruelty, the oppression of Prussian militarism.
Conservatives and radicals alike are giving their support to the Allies
for no other reason than to help crush that militarism, in the presence of
which, they say, there can be no peace or progress in Europe. But though
America grows fat on the manufacture of munitions and war loans to the
Allies to help crush Prussians the same cry is now being raised in America
which, if carried into national action, would build up and American
militarism far more terrible than German or Prussian militarism could ever
be, and that because nowhere in the world has capitalism become so brazen
in its greed and nowhere is the state so ready to kneel at the feet of
capital.

Like a plague, the mad spirit is sweeping the country, infesting the
clearest heads and staunchest hearts with the deathly germ of militarism.
National security leagues, with cannon as their emblem of protection,
naval leagues with women in their lead have sprung up all over the
country, women who boast of representing the gentler sex, women who in
pain and danger bring forth life and yet are ready to dedicate it to the
Moloch War. Americanization societies with well known liberals as members,
they who but yesterday decried the patriotic clap-trap of to-day, are now
lending themselves to befog the minds of the people and to help build up
the same destructive institutions in America which they are directly and
indirectly helping to pull down in Germany--militarism, the destroyer of
youth, the raper of women, the annihilator of the best in the race, the
very mower of life.

Even Woodrow Wilson, who not so long ago indulged in the phrase "A nation
too proud to fight," who in the beginning of the war ordered prayers for
peace, who in his proclamations spoke of the necessity of watchful
waiting, even he has been whipped into line. He has now joined his worthy
colleagues in the jingo movement, echoing their clamor for preparedness
and their howl of "America for Americans." The difference between Wilson
and Roosevelt is this: Roosevelt, a born bully, uses the club; Wilson, the
historian, the college professor, wears the smooth polished university
mask, but underneath it he, like Roosevelt, has but one aim, to serve the
big interests, to add to those who are growing phenominally rich by the
manufacture of military supplies.

Woodrow Wilson, in his address before the Daughters of the American
Revolution, gave his case away when he said, "I would rather be beaten
than ostracized." To stand out against the Bethlehem, du Pont, Baldwin,
Remington, Winchester metallic cartridges and the rest of the armament
ring means political ostracism and death. Wilson knows that, therefore he
betrays his original position, goes back on the bombast of "too proud to
fight" and howls as loudly as any other cheap politician for preparedness
and national glory, the silly pledge the navy league women intend to
impose upon every school child: "I pledge myself to do all in my power to
further the interests of my country, to uphold its institutions and to
maintain the honor of its name and its flag. As I owe everything in life
to my country, I consecrate my heart, mind and body to its service and
promise to work for its advancement and security in times of peace and to
shrink from no sacrifices or privation in its cause should I be called
upon to act in its defence for the freedom, peace and happiness of our
people."

To uphold the institutions of our country--that's it--the institutions
which protect and sustain a handful of people in the robbery and plunder
of the masses, the institutions which drain the blood of the native as
well as of the foreigner, and turn it into wealth and power; the
institutions which rob the alien of whatever originality he brings with
him and in return gives him cheap Americanism, whose glory consists in
mediocrity and arrogance.

The very proclaimers of "America first" have long before this betrayed the
fundamental principles of real Americanism, of the kind of Americanism
that Jefferson had in mind when he said that the best government is that
which governs least; the kind of America that David Thoreau worked for
when he proclaimed that the best government is the one that doesn't govern
at all; or the other truly great Americans who aimed to make of this
country a haven of refuge, who hoped that all the disinherited and
oppressed people in coming to these shores would give character, quality
and meaning to the country. That is not the America of the politician and
munition speculators. Their America is powerfully portrayed in the idea of
a young New York Sculptor; a hard cruel hand with long, lean, merciless
fingers, crushing in over the heart of the immigrant, squeezing out its
blood in order to coin dollars out of it and give the foreigner instead
blighted hopes and stulted aspirations.

No doubt Woodrow Wilson has reason to defend these institutions. But what
an ideal to hold out to the young generation! How is a military drilled
and trained people to defend freedom, peace and happiness? This is what
Major General O'Ryan has to say of an efficiently trained generation: "The
soldier must be so trained that he becomes a mere automation; he must be
so trained that it will destroy his initiative; he must be so trained that
he is turned into a machine. The soldier must be forced into the military
noose; he must be jacked up; he must be ruled by his superiors with pistol
in hand."

This was not said by a Prussian Junker; not by a German barbarian; not by
Treitschke or Bernhardi, but by an American Major General. And he is
right. You cannot conduct war with equals; you cannot have militarism with
free born men; you must have slaves, automatons, machines, obedient
disciplined creatures, who will move, act, shoot and kill at the command
of their superiors. That is preparedness, and nothing else.

It has been reported that among the speakers before the Navy League was
Samuel Gompers. If that is true, it signalizes the greatest outrage upon
labor at the hands of its own leaders. Preparedness is not directed only
against the external enemy; it aims much more at the internal enemy. It
concerns that element of labor which has learned not to hope for anything
from our institutions, that awakened part of the working people which has
realized that the war of classes underlies all wars among nations, and
that if war is justified at all it is the war against economic dependence
and political slavery, the two dominant issues involved in the struggle of
the classes.

Already militarism has been acting its bloody part in every economic
conflict, with the approval and support of the state. Where was the
protest of Washington when "our men, women and children" were killed in
Ludlow? Where was that high sounding outraged protest contained in the
note to Germany? Or is there any difference in killing "our men, women and
children" in Ludlow or on the high seas? Yes, indeed. The men, women and
children at Ludlow were working people, belonging to the disinherited of
the earth, foreigners who had to be given a taste of the glories of
Americanism, while the passengers of the Lusitania represented wealth and
station--therein lies the difference.

Preparedness, therefore, will only add to the power of the privileged few
and help them to subdue, to enslave and crush labor. Surely Gompers must
know that, and if he joins the howl of the military clique, he must stand
condemned as a traitor to the cause of labor.

Just as it is with all the other institutions in our confused life, which
were supposedly created for the good of the people and have accomplished
the very reverse, so it will be with preparedness. Supposedly, America is
to prepare for peace; but in reality it will be the cause of war. It
always has been thus--all through bloodstained history, and it will
continue until nation will refuse to fight against nation, and until the
people of the world will stop preparing for slaughter. Preparedness is
like the seed of a poisonous plant; placed in the soil, it will bear
poisonous fruit. The European mass destruction is the fruit of that
poisonous seed. It is imperative that the American workers realize this
before they are driven by the jingoes into the madness that is forever
haunted by the spectre of danger and invasion; they must know that to
prepare for peace means to invite war, means to unloose the furies of
death over land and seas.

That which has driven the masses of Europe into the trenches and to the
battlefields is not their inner longing for war; it must be traced to the
cut-throat competition for military equipment, for more efficient armies,
for larger warships, for more powerful cannon. You cannot build up a
standing army and then throw it back into a box like tin soldiers. Armies
equipped to the teeth with weapons, with highly developed instruments of
murder and backed by their military interests, have their own dynamic
functions. We have but to examine into the nature of militarism to realize
the truism of this contention.

Militarism consumes the strongest and most productive elements of each
nation. Militarism swallows the largest part of the national revenue.
Almost nothing is spent on education, art, literature and science compared
with the amount devoted to militarism in times of peace, while in times of
war everything else is set at naught; all life stagnates, all effort is
curtailed; the very sweat and blood of the masses are used to feed this
insatiable monster--militarism. Under such circumstances, it must become
more arrogant, more aggressive, more bloated with its own importance. If
for no other reason, it is out of surplus energy that militarism must act
to remain alive; therefore it will seek an enemy or create one
artificially. In this civilized purpose and method, militarism is
sustained by the state, protected by the laws of the land, is fostered by
the home and the school, and glorified by public opinion. In other words,
the function of militarism is to kill. It cannot live except through
murder.

But the most dominant factor of military preparedness and the one which
inevitably leads to war, is the creation of group interests, which
consciously and deliberately work for the increase of armament whose
purposes are furthered by creating the war hysteria. This group interest
embraces all those engaged in the manufacture and sale of munition and in
military equipment for personal gain and profit. For instance, the family
Krupp, which owns the largest cannon munition plant in the world; its
sinister influence in Germany, and in fact in many other countries,
extends to the press, the school, the church and to statesmen of highest
rank. Shortly before the war, Carl Liebknecht, the one brave public man in
Germany now, brought to the attention of the Reichstag that the family
Krupp had in its employ officials of the highest military position, not
only in Germany, but in France and in other countries. Everywhere its
emissaries have been at work, systematically inciting national hatreds and
antagonisms. The same investigation brought to light an international war
supply trust who cares not a hang for patriotism, or for love of the
people, but who uses both to incite war and to pocket millions of profits
out of the terrible bargain.

It is not at all unlikely that the history of the present war will trace
its origin to this international murder trust. But is it always necessary
for one generation to wade through oceans of blood and heap up mountains
of human sacrifice that the next generation may learn a grain of truth
from it all? Can we of to-day not profit by the cause which led to the
European war, can we not learn that it was preparedness, thorough and
efficient preparedness on the part of Germany and the other countries for
military aggrandizement and material gain; above all can we not realize
that preparedness in America must and will lead to the same result, the
same barbarity, the same senseless sacrifice of life? Is America to follow
suit, is it to be turned over to the American Krupps, the American
military cliques? It almost seems so when one hears the jingo howls of the
press, the blood and thunder tirades of bully Roosevelt, the sentimental
twaddle of our college-bred President.

The more reason for those who still have a spark of libertarianism and
humanity left to cry out against this great crime, against the outrage now
being prepared and imposed upon the American people. It is not enough to
claim being neutral; a neutrality which sheds crocodile tears with one eye
and keeps the other riveted upon the profits from war supplies and war
loans, is not neutrality. It is a hypocritical cloak to cover, the
countries' crimes. Nor is it enough to join the bourgeois pacifists, who
proclaim peace among the nations, while helping to perpetuate the war
among the classes, a war which in reality, is at the bottom of all other
wars.

It is this war of the classes that we must concentrate upon, and in that
connection the war against false values, against evil institutions,
against all social atrocities. Those who appreciate the urgent need of
co-operating in great struggles must oppose military preparedness imposed
by the state and capitalism for the destruction of the masses. They must
organize the preparedness of the masses for the overthrow of both
capitalism and the state. Industrial and economic preparedness is what the
workers need. That alone leads to revolution at the bottom as against mass
destruction from on top. That alone leads to true internationalism of
labor against Kaiserdom, Kingdom, diplomacies, military cliques and
bureaucracy. That alone will give the people the means to take their
children out of the slums, out of the sweat shops and the cotton mills.
That alone will enable them to inculcate in the coming generation a new
ideal of brotherhood, to rear them in play and song and beauty; to bring
up men and women, not automatons. That alone will enable woman to become
the real mother of the race, who will give to the world creative men, and
not soldiers who destroy. That alone leads to economic and social freedom,
and does away with all wars, all crimes, and all injustice.

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