War's Folly and Futility
 
 FOLLY # FUTILITY 
 
 Printed by 
 
 NEW ULM PUBLISHING CO. 
 New Ulm, Minn.
 
 Send Your Address For 
 
 TOTTEN'S 
 
 "Truth Seeker" 
 
 A little periodical of "the changing order" published at Bow- 
 man, North Dakota, for the discerning. The price is 
 fifty cents per year, but you need not pay for 
 it until you feel sure that you are 
 getting more than your 
 money's worth 
 
 You will not like the "TRUTH SEEKER" if you 
 are afraid to submit your pet superstitions to 
 the scalpel of logic :::::: 
 
 Reedy's Mirror 
 
 A Journal of Literary Excellence, pub- 
 lished by William Marion Reedy, Syn- 
 dicate Building, St. Louis. $2.00 per year. 
 The Mirror reflects down-to-date opinion 
 and is always at the forefront of every 
 truly democratic movement : : :
 
 WAR'S 
 
 FOLLY * FUTILITY 
 
 Printed hy 
 
 NEW ULM PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 New Him. Minn. 
 
 1913
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 This pamphlet has been printed and published at the expense of my 
 friend and comrade, A. G. Wagner, of Henning, Minnesota. For some 
 years I have put upon paper thoughts excited by current events and 
 writings relating thereto that have appeared in books, magazines and 
 newspapers that I have read. During recent years I have entertained a 
 wish and hope that sometime, by some accident, I should obtain means 
 that would permit me to print and publish what I had written in book 
 form. In the event that I am sometime able to thus please and gratify 
 vanity, the subject matter of this pamphlet will be made a chapter in the 
 book. Moved by desire for such sympathy, approval and criticism as 
 might be found among friends I have, from time to time, placed in their 
 hands some of my manuscripts. Of the five friends to whom I thus gave 
 the original draft of what now is herein presented under title of "The 
 Folly and Futility of War," Wagner was one. He suggested that it be 
 printed and published immediately, and separately, generously (perhaps 
 foolishly) offering to bear the expense hence the offense. 
 
 I have not the skill and training which those who are capable acquire 
 through time devoted to literary work, and because of this lack I have 
 probably failed to present what I have written as happily and convincingly 
 as another might. However, to avoid error of statement and inference I 
 have been as careful and painstaking as incapacity and prejudice would 
 permit and it is my hope that my defects have not operated to prevent my 
 presenting fact and inference with reasonable fairness and accuracy. 
 Faults in composition, or occasional error of statement and inference will 
 not affect validity of the general scope of reasoning in any material 
 connection, nor deter the intelligent and fair-minded from acceptance of 
 that which is proven. 
 
 It is in the nature of human nature to accept as true the agreeable 
 and usual; and to reject as error the disagreeable and unusual. No one is 
 able to get rid of erroneous belief, illusion, and prejudice and assume a 
 mental attitude free from their influence to an extent which will permit 
 acceptance of truth from every source and in any form in which it may 
 appear; and the average of mankind only accept that which coincides with 
 predispositions born of beliefs and prejudices that are agreeable but have 
 little or no foundation in fact. The operation of the inflexible forces of 
 nature has moved, and will, in future, move people to turn from illusion 
 and accept reality as a guide, and effect modifications of belief in the 
 direction of nearer approach of truth, but change has ever been slow and 
 laborious in effectuation, and must so continue. 
 
 The historic record of "superior" and "progressive" peoples, written 
 by themselves, show without material variation or exception that the 
 "superior" and "progressive" peoples have been the original aggressors 
 in all conflicts with "inferior" peoples and "barbarous savages." The 
 advantages possessed by "superior" peoples and the extreme improbability, 
 not to say impossibility, of their being invaded, conquered, crowded out 
 and supplanted by "inferior" peoples are too obvious to require mention. 
 Yet people who boast most of their intelligence and are most insistent in 
 claiming superiority over all others devote their best talent and greatest 
 energy to the up-keep of big military establishments as a provisional 
 defense against an anticipated and feared invasion by some "inferior"
 
 but warlike people. If an individual complains of having "bad neighbors" 
 almost invariably the cause will be found with the complainant. If 
 nations have "natural enemies" they are, without exception, of their own 
 making; and this is especially true in its application to the United States. 
 
 Because it was agreeable to the beliefs which move people to support 
 and defend existing political governments the doctrine set forth by Dr. 
 Malthus in his book entitled "The Principle of Population," published a 
 century ago, has been generally accepted as being true. Malthus asserted 
 that the cause of Poverty, with incident misery, was to be found in the 
 fact, that human fecundity outran earth's productivity; that population 
 increased in geometrical ratio, while the productivity of earth went forward 
 in arithmetical ratio. If the proposition were true, which it is not, its 
 practical demonstration must be deferred until such time as every habitable 
 portion of the earth became fully occupied something which has never 
 yet taken place in any extended area, however densely it may have been 
 populated. Nowhere on earth have people ever been reduced to want and 
 suffering because of earth's failure to produce enough. If at times, and 
 in localities, enough was not produced, or was unvailable, it has been 
 due to restraints upon liberty, and to defective mechanism connected with 
 that part of production which economists have chosen to call Distribution. 
 Limitations imposed by political governments have kept the people from 
 access to the earth, and prevented them from completing production 
 through proper and equitable distribution. The cause of Poverty and 
 Misery, everywhere in the world resides in and proceeds from "Taxation!" 
 When note is taken of the fact that even in this "most favored" Nation 
 one half the earnings of the people are forcibly taken from them, directly 
 or indirectly, by the taxing power of various and numerous political 
 governments, the Cause of Poverty becomes too obvious to be disputed. 
 Much the greater part of the enormous sums wrested from people through 
 taxation is spent for war purposes; and the spirit of aggression which 
 everywhere moves people to seek and embrace opportunity to prey upon 
 each other is inculcated by militant activities. Compulsory taxation in 
 its essence is a warlike aggression. It is impossible that the burden of 
 compulsory exactions should be equitably distributed; and that which is 
 inequitable is anti-social warlike in character. When people become wise 
 enough to refuse to engage in war they will not tolerate the spoliation of 
 compulsory taxation. 
 
 A. W. WRIGHT 
 
 Pontiac, Michigan, August, 1913.
 
 WAR'S 
 FOLLY and FUTILITY 
 
 For thousands of years the wise men of the world have 
 ignored Agriculture, engaged but little in any industrial activ- 
 ity, and devoted thought and energy to Conquest and the build- 
 ing of Empires. The hope of gaining military leadership with 
 its fame ; the desire for dominion, with its pomp and pageantry, 
 led men of greatest capacity, and best intellectual equipment to 
 devote themselves to purposes and ends which degraded, and 
 impoverished mankind instead of enlightening and enriching 
 them. 
 
 Agriculture is the most fundamental of industries. It was 
 the first to be learned and is the last in being developed. For 
 ages the soil was prepared for seed with wooden plows drawn 
 by oxen, often by the puny strength of human hands. There 
 were no harrows, the work being miserably done with brush or 
 sticks tied together with withes, or thongs cut from untanned 
 skins. The harvest was laboriously accomplished with the aid 
 of sickle by hand . Each bushel of grain represented hours and 
 hours of fatiguing hand work. Famines were frequent, separ- 
 ated, in occurrence, by but few years; often prevailing unin- 
 terruptedly through several succeeding years. Millions upon 
 millions of people perished miserably for lack of food. At the 
 same time the governments under which these people lived were 
 most elaborate, having vast military establishments consisting 
 of great armies and navies. The best strength of the nation; 
 the wisdom of its best men were employed in devastating all other 
 countries, destroying all other peoples for the upbuilding and 
 glory of Empire ! The tiller of the soil was "brother to the ox," 
 a mere thing, unworthy of even momentary thought or con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Out of war and conquest has grown the perversion of 
 moral vision that refuses to see wrong in obtainment of some- 
 thing for nothing. It is for an invading host to seize upon the 
 resources of the invaded, thus sustain itself; and in the event
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 of conquering success, to thereafter impose taxation as a means 
 of popular exploitation that is to remain permanent and unin- 
 terrupted. 
 
 When the taxing power is analyzed; when its purpose and 
 its effect upon those in whose hands the power rests is noted, 
 the slowness with which agriculture has reached even the crude 
 development of today is explained. Tilling the soil is laborious 
 and results uncertain, while farming farmers is easy and results 
 certain. 
 
 In peaceful agriculture there is neither fame nor glory. A 
 great name enduringly engraved on a memorial tablet of bronze 
 or stone is not to be dug from the earth like a bushel of wheat. 
 The glory of enduring fame has been and remains for men who 
 organize great armies, engage in carnage, murderous destruc- 
 tion, shedding seas of human blood. Men who employ wit and 
 energy in war; men having the power to tax the tiller of the 
 soil and thus despoil him, look upon his vocation with 
 aversion, and treat him with contemptuous disregard. Edu- 
 cationally war and its objects became the exciting cause which 
 turned men of superior intelligence from agriculture and made 
 militancy as an organized profession possible. 
 
 The war spirit is now everywhere dominant. Almost 
 without exception the heads of national agencies, reinforced and 
 sustained by the priests of the religion of love, unitedly lift their 
 voices for war! That primitive peoples, with little intellectual 
 development, low ethical and moral standards, devoted to rude 
 and barbarous practices, should engage in war against neigh- 
 boring tribes seems in accord with their nature. But war is 
 clearly incompatible with what might be reasonably -expected 
 of people who declare themselves intelligent and to be devoted 
 to pursuits in harmony with ethical and moral requirements 
 of a civilization having basis in a religion of love and a belief 
 that all men are brothers. Are the declarations and profes- 
 sions of professing Christians to be accepted as true, or as sheer 
 declamation and pretense. 
 
 The records of the past present proof in abundance show- 
 ing the futility of war; but "statesmen," politicians and priests 
 are devoted to upholding agreeable beliefs and alleged princi- 
 ples so they have no time to even consider, much less to heed, 
 lessons from facts. The few who hold property, and live com- 
 fortably, remain indifferent, while the masses who carry the 
 load are kept so busy sustaining militancy and getting neces- 
 sities for existence that they have no time for inquiry or 
 thought. As a result the people of all the "progressive" nations 
 of the earth remain subject to conditions of war; filled with 
 obsessions that Justice depends upon physical force, and the 
 ultimate resource for righting wrongs resides in appeal to arms ! 
 
 For efficacy and effectiveness in obtainment of ends sought, 
 passive resistance has never received deserved consideration.
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 3 
 
 An attitude of passive resistance, as a means of defense against 
 aggression, has in it nothing to commend itself to the spirit 
 whereby would-be rulers of mankind are animated. And yet, 
 in the few known instances where, because of happy accident, 
 or intelligent design, passive resistance has been made the re- 
 source for obtainment of desired ends and has been resolutely 
 adhered to, it has never failed of successful issue. 
 
 About the middle of the 17th century a few non-resistant 
 Quakers, less than twenty of whom were active in offending, 
 successfully defied the power and authority of Massachusetts. 
 They were pursued, arrested and prosecuted for a time, but Gov- 
 ernor Endicott was finally forced to admit the futility of it all, 
 and to allow the non-resistants to proceed with their work and 
 hold their meetings unmolested. It is true a few were made to 
 undergo grievous sufferings. They were arrested, tried and im- 
 prisoned. In extreme cases, some had ears cut off, tongues 
 pierced with red hot iron, cheeks branded, and one, a woman, 
 was hanged. But suppose the Quakers had elected to meet force 
 with force? Their defeat would not only have proved certain, 
 but if they had persisted, they would have been exterminated. 
 By remaining- passive, limiting resistance to Authority solely to 
 ba manifested through peaceful meetings, they not only gained 
 all they sought, but obtained it at least possible cost in hard- 
 ship and suffering. 
 
 View the policy of the Puritans in their dealings with and 
 treatment of the Indians of New England; the scenes of horror 
 and bloodshed that resulted and compare with the policy of the 
 Quakers in Pennsylvania, and the practically undisturbed peace 
 and harmony in which they and the Indians lived side by side. 
 
 When Stanley undertook the expedition to "Darkest Africa" 
 in search of Livingston, his party went fully armed. They an- 
 ticipated hostility, and they found it. The expedition encoun- 
 tered few tribes with which it did not have trouble. Warfare 
 was almost continuous, and the course of the expedition across 
 the continent was marked with a trail of blood. 
 
 A few years ago Professor Starr of Chicago University 
 visited and crossed the African continent for the purpose of 
 studying the habits of Apes, and to ascertain if they had and 
 employed a language with which to converse. His party went 
 unarmed. Routes hitherto unknown were taken and tribes not 
 before visited by white men were encountered. Some of these 
 tribes v/T.re composed of cannibals. But being approached in an 
 attitude of friendliness the natives everywhere responded in 
 kind. Starr and his party offered harm to none, and they were 
 not harmed. Such difficulties as arose from mutual misunder- 
 standings were easily adjusted and the journeyings of the ex- 
 pedition proved peaceful from beginning to end . 
 
 In Russia there is a small sect composed of religious fanatics 
 known to the external world as Dukhobors. A few years ago a
 
 4 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 portion of them refused to serve in the army. Cossacks were 
 sent against them to enforce compliance, but people who refused 
 to meet force with force were not to be shot into submissive 
 states of obedience. The Czar of all the Russias, sustained and 
 backed by a million bayonets suffered defeat at the hands of a' 
 few unarmed, poverty-stricken, non-resistant peasants. A few 
 of the Dukhobors were killed, a few more were wounded, but the 
 victory was theirs ; the Czar with all his power was successfully 
 defied and forced to acknowledge defeat, to recognize the Duko- 
 hobor's claims and give a reluctant consent to emigration. If 
 they had put up an armed resistance they would have suffered 
 annihilation. Two or three thousand of them left Russia, going 
 to Canada, where they settled. The Canadian government is 
 now having trouble with them because of their refusal to pay 
 taxes on land occupied. If they remain firm in their attitude and 
 adhere to resolution, the Canadian government will be power- 
 less against them. It is impossible that even so inconsiderable 
 a number as two thousand people should be made to pay tax 
 upon land against their will . Also, impossible that they should 
 be taken up bodily, forcibly evicted and deported. 
 
 A few years ago in Ireland, in connection with trouble grow- 
 ing out of tenant occupancy of parcels of land, the tenants had 
 recourse to the Boycott. It is the opinion of intelligent observ- 
 ers of scenes and events of those days who viewed the situation 
 at close range, that if the tenants, at the critical time and point, 
 had not allowed themselves to have been persuaded by the 
 priests, into abandonment of the boycott, they would have suc- 
 ceeded in obtainment of recognition of their claims. But in 
 consequence of abandonment of a policy of passive resistance, 
 expressed through an intelligently applied boycott, they suf- 
 fered denial and defeat. 
 
 In connection with political freedom for Ireland it remains 
 a fact that obtainment has not been gained because never wise- 
 ly attempted. The original conquest of Ireland by Saxons was 
 effected through co-operation and aid of Irishmen; and during 
 all the days of all the centuries since the invasion and conquest, 
 the sole essential requisite for freedom has resided in Irish 
 hands. It has been necessary only, that Irishmen should stand 
 together in refusing to recognize England's authority and to 
 refuse to serve as soldiers in the English Army! 
 
 It is the habit of people with white skins to speak con- 
 temptuously of the Chinese as a people who are lacking in 
 "military virtues." But why is it that the civilization of the 
 Chinese remains as the most stable and enduring of any the 
 world has ever seen, or of which the world has ever known? 
 The mightiest empires of earth have come into being, flourished 
 for a time, sunk into decadence and passed away. Of these 
 empires of the past their strongest and most intelligent men de- 
 voted their highest talent and energy to War! The "non-
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 5 
 
 progressive" Chinese have clung to pursuits of peace. So in- 
 sistent and firmly resolved were they in adherence to policies 
 of peace that they refused to fight warlike neighbors to obtain 
 it; and along the northern border of their country they built 
 a gigantic wall 1,200 miles long, to the end that fighting, ma- 
 rauding enemies should be kept out. By war their enemies 
 perished and disappeared, but the Chinese lived and went se- 
 renely on. Think of "progressive" peoples professing Christian 
 virtue and forbearance, adopting and adhering to methods of 
 defense similar to those made so effective by the Chinese! 
 
 In one of his public lectures while Minister from China to 
 the United States, Wu was reported as having said that China 
 was for forty-five centuries, without a soldier ! Whatever of loss 
 or inconvenience the Chinese people may have been made to 
 suffer through invasive attacks from warlike outsiders they 
 were never made to bear the infinitely greater losses and priva- 
 tions involved in an up-keep of a big military establishment. 
 The nation was always able to pay as it went; and until the 
 Great Powers, of which the United States was one, demanded 
 and obtained an enormous indemnity to defray cost of an un- 
 warranted interference with China's internal affairs and to 
 pay private claims for damages because of riotous disturbances 
 in and about the Chinese Capitol City during the "Boxer" out- 
 break, there was no public debt. The nation had been able to 
 get along without incurring debt because war had been avoided ; 
 and it's people had never been borne down with crushing loads 
 of taxation necessitated by war or the upkeep of a great mili- 
 tary establishment. Compare the treasuries of the "progres- 
 sive" nations of Europe, that of the United States, their tre- 
 mendous war debts, and continuous necessity for enormous tax- 
 ation with that of China. Does the comparison presented imply 
 or convey no lesson? 
 
 Under the influence of a "great illusion" and unscrupulous 
 motive the rulers of European countries have sought territorial 
 aggrandizement. The countries of Asia and Africa have been 
 invaded, vast areas seized, occupied and held with military force. 
 Recently influenced by the same "illusion" the United States 
 has engaged in similar adventure and acquired "Island Posses- 
 sions." 
 
 In view of what has been done by these powerful "pro- 
 gressive," and Christian nations in connection with invasion and 
 conquest of countries inhabited by "inferior peoples" can it be 
 doubted by any intelligent observer, that the territorial in- 
 tegrity of China today, is due solely to the fact that the Chinese 
 people have been contemptuously looked upon as being "too 
 contemptible to fight?" That partition and division of China 
 has been entertained and discussed by fatuous rulers and 
 "statesmen" is no secret. It is certain that no ethical or moral 
 consideration operated as a deterrent. No consideration having
 
 6 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 to do with the welfare and well-being of the Chinese stayed the 
 absorbing benevolence or the assimilating itch of Christian 
 hands. All dark skinned peoples who have resisted invasion 
 of their countries thus far, with a few minor, but only one im- 
 portant exception, (Abyssinia) were conquered and made sub- 
 ject to an alien military despotism. The situation of these peo- 
 ple has been made infinitely worse and more hopeless than if 
 they had not lifted a hand in self-defense. If the Chinese had 
 been warlike, is it not more than probable that provocation for 
 attack and invasion would have been already found and con- 
 quest and "partition" of their country been made actual instead 
 of remaining a speculative contemplation? 
 
 In imitation and under tutelage of alien and "progressive" 
 peoples the Chinese are now being betrayed into militancy; and 
 to engage themselves with the fatality of self-armament and 
 the up-keep of a military organization. As a result and at the 
 very outset, the Chinese government finds itself forced into the 
 debt-buying marts of the world to effect sale of bonds repre- 
 senting a considerable national debt. After enjoying the bless- 
 ings of many centuries of peace, it is astonishing that such a 
 reversal of policy and attitude should be made and it remains 
 to be seen how far the Chinese people will permit themselves 
 to be led into the criminal follies and futilities of militancy. If 
 adhered to, the beginning of China's decadence will have been 
 marked a decadence to be followed by speedy decline, ultimate 
 exhaustion and a final disappearance of Chinese autonomy. 
 
 Whatever threat there may have been or now is to Chris- 
 tian civilizations from the "Yellow Peril," exists nowhere ex- 
 cept in the superheated imaginations of would-be great military 
 Captains and their sympathizers. But, suppose, that the re- 
 cent astonishing reversal of policy and change of attitude on 
 the part of the Chinese has the effect of making the hereto- 
 fore imaginary "Yellow Peril" actual and imminent; and let 
 it be further supposed that the Chinese so successfully emulate 
 and pursue the policies and activities of Christian nations that 
 they conquer and subjugate all the peoples of all the countries 
 of the world, what will have been the probable result in its ef- 
 fect upon the all-conquering Chinese themselves? Only this, 
 that in conquering the world its conquerors will have so com- 
 pletely exhausted all resources as to have reduced themselves 
 to a common level of suffering, poverty, destitution and misery 
 along with the conquered. The testimonies of the past show 
 that armament for defense and preparedness to resist invasion 
 does not shield and safeguard, but operates to deny declara- 
 tion of peaceful intention, and therefore to excite and provoke 
 attack from onlooking outsiders. 
 
 The testimony from India proves beyond controversy that 
 if the people of that unhappily ruled country had, like the 
 Chinese, devoted themselves to pursuits of peace, establishment
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 7 
 
 of the iron rule of England would have remained unthought of 
 there would have been no provoking excitation. In the be- 
 ginning, in the interest of their respective countries, Dupliex 
 and Clive played off rival bands of native forces against each 
 other, until Clive, more skillful in strategy than Dupliex, gained 
 the advantage. Later came the tragedy of the "Black Hole" 
 wherewith to conjure and appeal to British passions. From 
 the horror of the Black Hole dates the actual establishment 
 of British Empire of India. And now, after more than 150 
 years of uninterrupted supremacy and rule, if the native soldi- 
 ery should refuse to bear arms in support of England's rule, 
 her Empire would at once fall and disappear into nothingness 
 as quickly as a summer's mist. 
 
 When England invaded and occupied Egypt as bailiff in the 
 interest of British bondholders, Fuzzy Wuzzy resisted he re- 
 sisted with such vigor and valor that he "broke the English 
 Square!" Something that no other of the world's fighting men 
 ever did. But of what avail his heroic resistance and most 
 bloody sacrifice? The fighting men of England took off their 
 hats in admiring recognition of Fuzzy Wuzzy's valor ; but he was 
 defeated, subjected to conditions of slavery and still remains 
 in servitude. If in refusing to recognize England's claim he had 
 declined to fight, denied England's authority by ignoring it and 
 gone about the business of satisfying his wants as best he 
 could, he would have thereby made England, with all her might, 
 powerless to subdue and subjugate. Fighting men when opposed 
 by greater numbers, greater resources, or superior strategy are 
 easily overcome and reduced to states of submission; but men 
 capable of self-control, wise enough to remain quiet and 
 calmly look would-be invaders in the eye and who are brave 
 enough to refuse to fight remain invincible and unconquerable. 
 
 That a people subject to foreign rule should become rest- 
 less and that a people so situated should seek relief and adopt 
 measures for obtainment of freedom, is in the nature of things. 
 But it does not follow that any and all means adopted shall be 
 viewed as having been justifiable. Intensity of outraged feel- 
 ing due to exasperating irritations to which people despotically 
 ruled are continuously subjected moves them to employ violent 
 measures for relief, and supercharged feeling is set up in excuse 
 and justification; but the penalty for unwisdom may not be 
 thus set aside and averted. The sense of -deep injury, the con- 
 suming anger born of it, the zeal and enthusiasm which fires 
 people in a struggle for freedom, makes them incapable of listen- 
 ing to and heeding the voice of reason and they are thereby 
 betrayed into all kinds of intemperance of action ; but the pen- 
 alty for acts of folly must be paid. However desirable an end 
 sought, it's obtainment through acts of violence and bloodshed 
 always proves more costly, while it remains less sure, than 
 rational and peaceful measures.
 
 8 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 Suppose an appeal to arms and war's arbitrament involves 
 sacrifice of 100 units of life, an expenditure of 100 units of ef- 
 fort, the undergoing of 100 units of privation, with proportion- 
 ate amounts of suffering and misery; when obtainment of all 
 that was sought might have been secured at a cost of one 
 unit of life and expenditure of one unit of effort, the hardship 
 of one unit of privation with proportionately diminished suffer- 
 ing and misery, if peaceful methods had been adopted and 
 adhered to. May appeal to arms and going to war still be 
 viewed and judged as a reasonable and justifiable resource? 
 
 The revolt of the American colonies against the rule of 
 England is universally spoken of and accepted as having been 
 a righteous undertaking. The appeal to arms for obtainment 
 of political freedom was in accord with practice and resulted in 
 final success ; but all that was so painfully and laboriously gained 
 could have been obtained without firing a shot, or the undergo- 
 ing of the terrible and countless privations and the awful suffer- 
 ings of a long and bloody war. At the close of the revolutionary 
 struggle the whole American people were reduced to deepest 
 depths of poverty and destitution. Immense sacrifices had been 
 made. Thousands had given up their lives, a vastly greater num- 
 ber of thousands were so shattered and broken in health by 
 wounds, disease and hardships endured that they survived the 
 war's close but a short time ; and very few participants recovered 
 fully from injuries received during that prolonged and ter- 
 rible struggle. They gained freedom, but at what a cost ! A cost 
 as needless as it had been terrible. 
 
 Subject to constant and exasperating irritation it is to be ex- 
 pected that resentment and anger thus kindled, should at last 
 flame into passionate and uncontrollable outburst; that people 
 so affected should be moved to intemperance of speech and act, 
 but, as has just been said, however deep the sense of injury and 
 however natural intensity of feeling may be, justification for 
 acts of folly, or escape from penalty, is not made possible be- 
 cause of uncontrollability of emotions. 
 
 War rights no wrongs it deepens and intensifies them. 
 There is always an enormous debit balance. All that is gained 
 through war invariably costs more than it is worth. War 
 never builds up nor conserves; it always tears down and des- 
 troys. It operates as a paralyzing blight upon industrial ac- 
 tivity and every refining and civilizing influence. It brutalizes 
 every human instinct. It impoverishes victor and vanquished 
 alike. All the "progressive" peoples of the earth are today being 
 borne down and crushed by an enormous load of taxation made 
 necessary for up-keep of military establishments and the pay- 
 ment of interest on gigantic war debts. The notion that people 
 are or can be protected against foreign invasion and spoliation 
 through self -armament and a readiness for war has no basis in 
 fact, \rmed militancy enslaves and despoils those who employ
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 9 
 
 it for defense as certainly and completely as it does those 
 against whom its force is aggressively directed. The agencies 
 of a friendly, home-grown, home-supported military establish- 
 ment will take from a loyal people all that is required for its 
 up-keep, and hostile militancy cannot take more. 
 
 Freedom of action for anybody, in any capacity or con- 
 nection, is incompatible with the requirements of militant org- 
 anization; everything must be made subordinate to military 
 exigency. Such obtainments and recognitions of freedom for 
 individuals as have been gained came into being in spite of war- 
 like activities and not at all because of them. As a result of 
 war nothing more than change of ruler, or change in form of 
 depotisim has ever been gained. All that the colonists gained 
 through separation from England was opportunity to set up a 
 political despotism, directed and controlled by native profes- 
 sional politicians, in place of despotic rule of England, directed 
 and controlled by foreign professional politicians. 
 
 If the people of Boston and vicinity had taken counsel of 
 reason, instead of listening to incendiary talk and heeding ad- 
 vice of agitators, no such indefensible exploit as the "Boston 
 Tea Party," would have taken place. The shippers of the tea 
 destroyed had nothing to do with putting a tax on tea; and if 
 they had, they, nor the power of England behind them could 
 compel the people of Boston to buy and drink the tea. At about 
 the same time other shipments were made to Philadelphia and 
 Charleston. The people at these places simply declared they 
 would neither buy nor use the tea and adhered to their resolu- 
 tion. Nothing of violence or destruction of property was en- 
 gaged in. After the war was over the tea, mouldy and musty 
 with age, was returned to England by its owners where they 
 disposed of it as best they could. The owners of the tea had 
 no cause for cherishing bitterness of feeling against the peo- 
 ple to whom it had been originally shipped, and the people of 
 Philadelphia and Charleston had no unjustifiable act to regret. 
 
 It may have been that no troops would have been sent to 
 Boston if the people of that place had been less intemperate in 
 their speech and acts. None were sent elsewhere until after an 
 attitude of open hostility had been assumed. All petitions hav- 
 ing been denied, suppose the colonists had through orderly mass 
 meetings or delegate conventions, declared for political inde- 
 pendence, set about effecting such self-governing arrangements 
 as were deemed necessary, and then devoted themselves to pri- 
 vate and domestic affairs and peaceful industry, what could 
 England have done to regain political allegiance to itself? How 
 could governing control of the colonies been regained? Sup- 
 pose as many or even more troops had been sent to America 
 than were sent, what could have been done with them? Of 
 what avail are soldiers against a people who will not fight? 
 Some seizures of property for non-payment of taxes might have
 
 10 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 been made, probably would have been made, but what could 
 have been done with the property? It could not have been sold 
 in America and very little could have been taken abroad. In all 
 probability numerous persons would have been arrested, tried, 
 imprisoned, and some executed. But no great number could 
 have been shot or hanged. And would more of hardship and suf- 
 ering have resulted from property confiscations and arbitrary 
 imprisonment of individuals than was borne by all the people 
 during seven years of actual war and for many years there- 
 after? Suppose England had persisted in confiscatory seizures 
 of property and imprisoning of individuals for as many years as 
 the war lasted? It would have been impossible that a tithe of 
 the loss actually experienced during the war could have been 
 made; and nowhere near as many persons could have been im- 
 prisoned as were killed or permanently disabled. But in the 
 face of the whole world whose sympathies would have been 
 with the oppressed colonists, England could no more have car- 
 ried out, year after year, a policy of intimidation and subjuga- 
 tion by confiscation of property and general imprisonment of 
 people, than she could have successfully employed troops gainst 
 non-resistants. 
 
 Another thing, during the whole progress of the war there 
 was a formidable opposition to it in England. The conflict be- 
 tween Authority and Liberty was being waged between the two 
 political parties of England pari passu with that w aged in the 
 colonies. It is more than probable, therefore, that the English 
 government would not have dared to further provoke and fur- 
 ther arouse opposing opinion of the home public by projecting 
 an armed invasion in the midst of a people engaged only in pas- 
 sive resistance to home authority. A protest from the whole 
 world would have been forthcoming; an adverse opinion, world- 
 wide in its generality is too powerful in its respect-compelling 
 force to be ignored or resisted by even the mightiest of nations ; 
 for in respect to such influences, nations like individuals, can- 
 not remain indifferent and refuse to heed. Continuous refusal 
 to recognize, and defiance of, general opinion requires more of 
 fortitude and endurance than mankind possesses either in in- 
 dividual or collective capacity. The liberals in England gained 
 a majority and effected a bloodless revolution, the American 
 colonies easily could have done the same. And will anybody 
 who loves peace, who loves truth, deny that the force of such 
 a glorious achievement and example would have failed to oper- 
 ate as a sure and lasting guide for all mankind? And that its 
 effect would have been to stay the bloody hand of war to the 
 end that during all the years since that noteworthy struggle 
 wars would have been less numerous, and there would have 
 been less of needless sacrifice of human life and happiness? 
 
 It is to observe and note the significance of what men have 
 done who have gone before. It is not to censure the men of '76
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 11 
 
 for engaging in war with the mother country ; they acted in ac- 
 cord with the lights they had, they were not wise enough to adopt 
 and resolutely adhere to a policy of passive resistance. There 
 were too many Puritans and too few Quakers among them. The 
 aggressive spirit of dominion, self-assertion, fierce intolerance, 
 and desire for conquest, which animated the Puritans over- 
 shadowed and nullified the gentle spirit of brotherly love, sweet 
 tolerance, and non-aggressive attitude habitual to the Quakers. 
 The men of those days did the best they knew, but if they had 
 been wiser and political independence had been gained by a 
 peaceful and bloodless revolution, future growth and develop- 
 ment of the country inevitably, would have proceeded along dif- 
 ferent and happier lines. War's devastations and a reduction 
 of the people to states of deep privation and penury would not 
 have been experienced. Interruptions to industrial activity be- 
 fore independence was gained would have been few, infrequent, 
 and inconsequent in general effect. Instead of having been re- 
 duced to the verge of complete exhaustion the people would have 
 remained strong and prosperous, ready to go forward at once; 
 with mighty bound, when political independence became an 
 established fact. The form of political organization effected, 
 probably, would have been genuinely republican, instead of oli- 
 garchical; but, whatever the form, its essence would have been 
 in haVmony with the needs of a people devoted to peaceful in- 
 dustry, with its mutual and reciprocal relations. There would 
 have been little or no thought certainly no dominating 
 thought of a political organization calculated to fulfill require- 
 ment of a nation devoted to war and conquest! 
 
 Perhaps peace policies might not have been consistently ad- 
 hered to at all times, but at least the barren war of 1812, the 
 inexcusable war with Mexico, and more recently with Spain, 
 would never have occurred. The folly of the second war with 
 England and the subsequent Mexican and Spanish infamies 
 would have remained impossible,and the people of the United 
 States would have been spared the ignominy, the infinite shame 
 and disgrace of having so far forgot themselves and every con- 
 sideration of humanity and justice, as to have engaged in wars 
 so despicable. Nor would the policies of the United States have 
 been so shaped as to excite the suspicion and distrust of all the 
 peoples of Central and South American countries. There never 
 would have been any tremendous internecine conflict deluging 
 the country with brothers' blood. 
 
 No other historical event presents so convincing an illustra- 
 tion of the futility of appeal to arms as the Civil War. The 
 causes which moved the people of the North and South to en- 
 gage in that terrible conflict need not be inquired into. The 
 people of the South, at least a dominating majority, wished to 
 withdraw from the Federal Union and set up a political organ- 
 ization and government of their own. Sincerity of desire and
 
 12 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 purpose were amply proved by four years of struggle accom- 
 panied by unparalleled sacrifice of life, destruction of property, 
 privation and suffering. It is enough to know that the South 
 desired political independence, that their heroic struggle and 
 tremendous sacrifice to gain the end sought met with failure 
 complete and miserable. 
 
 Having decided upon withdrawal from the Federal Union, 
 suppose the people of the South, while resolutely holding to 
 determination, had refrained from threat or act implying in- 
 tention of employing physical force? After passing ordinances 
 of Secession, suppose they had. quietly gone about their usual 
 activities? Contenting themselves, whenever occasion required, 
 with declaration of wish and purpose; and with clearly defined 
 denials of validity of any claim set up, on the part of the govern- 
 ment of the United States, for exercise of any governing juris- 
 diction over them; and that resistance to the authority of the 
 United States had been expressed only in refusal to recognize 
 or obey, what could the federal government, or the people of the 
 North have done about it? 
 
 It was the shot at Sumter that fired the hearts and indig- 
 nation of the people of the North, and made the raising and 
 equipment of a conquering army of more than a million of men, 
 possible. If the people of the South had simply declared for 
 secession, gone about their daily business, with no thought of 
 armed resistance, the government of the United States would 
 have remained powerless to compel obedience. Just as certainly 
 as it is impossible that a whole people, inhabiting a consider- 
 able area, shall be indicted and proceeded against in a criminal 
 court, so it remains impossible that a people who refuse to en- 
 gage in war shall be conquered and subjugated by war. Even 
 if the sentiment of the people of the North had been unanimous 
 and united in favor of backing up the Federal Government in at- 
 tempt to coerce the South with bayonets it would have been 
 impossible that it should have been done; for the sentiment of 
 the whole world beside would have been against it, and in the 
 face of adverse opinion of world-wide generality no nation is 
 powerful enough to proceed. 
 
 If the people of the South had simply declared to the people 
 of the United States and to the world, that they had set up a 
 political government of their own, and that all peoples, acting 
 either in individual or collective capacity who wished to have 
 dealings or communication with them could do so only through 
 such channels as were singular to the people and government 
 of the Confederate States within those States; that having 
 severed all political connection with the United States, it was 
 impossible that intercourse or communication should be sus- 
 tained through any agency or department of that government, 
 it would have taken a little while for readjustment there would 
 have been something of confusion and inconvenience perhaps
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 13 
 
 much of it, but it would not have been for long. Suppose, how- 
 ever, that much of confusion and annoying inconvenience had 
 been suffered; and that it had continued for as long a time as 
 the war itself lasted; as long as all the dismal years during 
 which the horrors of "reconstruction" were being forcibly im- 
 posed upon the prostrate people of the South, would there have 
 been a millionth part of the sacrifice, privation, intensity of 
 suffering, and bitterness of humiliation that resulted from four 
 years of unsuccessful war? 
 
 It is to be remembered that notwithstanding the warlike 
 attitude asumed from the first by the people of the South, the 
 extreme provocation involved in and the intense indignation 
 and excitement caused by firing on Sumter, there remained 
 much diversity and variance of opinion among the people of 
 the North. There was a very considerable number who were 
 not in favor of "vigorous prosecution of the war!" and if the 
 South had not engaged itself in preparation for war and actually 
 began hostilities, there would have been few to demand that 
 the Federal Government should engage itself in war to keep 
 the South in the Union, or to approve and support it in the un- 
 dertaking. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the South would have achieved 
 its desire and gained political separation and independence from 
 the United States if it had adopted and resolutely adhered to 
 peaceful measures for obtainment. It is not to be expected that 
 in present states of human imperfection in intellectual, ethical 
 and moral development, that people shall so control feeling as 
 to permit intelligent action in the presence of exasperating ir- 
 ritations, oft repeated and long endured; but this has nothing 
 to do with, nor does it weaken the cogency of facts showing the 
 absurdity and futility of engaging in war for obtainment of 
 relief. 
 
 The people of the 'South desired political independence. On 
 the altar of Desire they offered themselves a blood sacrifice, suf- 
 fering all the horrors and privations of four years of war, only 
 to bring upon themselves utter defeat and in addition all the 
 bitterness of humiliation involved in a long period of enforced 
 subordination to an inferior race. If the end sought justified 
 all the horrors endured; if the effort was worth what it cost; 
 how infinitely greater in worth would have been a course which, 
 certainly, would have been crowned with success. If it would 
 have been a noble and glorious achievement to have gained in- 
 dependence through war as it would have been historically con- 
 sidered, how much more noble and glorious to have gained it 
 without striking a blow or the shedding of a drop of blood? 
 What an example for future generations! If the South had 
 dec]ined to engage in armed conflict for obtainment of its 
 "rights," it would not only have gained all contended for, but 
 the glory of its wisdom would have illumined the world, and by
 
 14 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 its splendid example had the effect of unfettering and freeing 
 all the oppressed peoples of earth. The world today would not 
 be a vast military camp, filled with worse than useless fighting 
 men; the most of mankind would not now be propertyless ; one- 
 half of the people of earth would not now be living in poverty, 
 squalor and misery; and all because their substance was being 
 forcibly taken from them to sustain conditions of war! 
 
 Perhaps not all of the wars that have been fought during 
 the past fifty years would have been averted; but in the light 
 of such an example with object gained, as would have been 
 presented by the South's achievement, people everywhere would 
 have received intellectual and moral illumination sufficient to 
 have made them too wise to approve and yield themselves to 
 ambitions and purposes of alleged statesmen, and the direction 
 of reverend savages who "battle for the Lord," and ever clamor 
 for war! 
 
 The institution of African slavery would have persisted for 
 a time, but not for long. Its economic error had been recognized 
 by many, if not most of the people of the South it did not pay. 
 The development of ethical and moral perception has ever de- 
 pended upon utilitarian considerations. People did not perceive, 
 accept and adopt rules of common honesty in dealing with one 
 another, until it became apparent that "honesty was the 
 best policy." So it was with the holding of human beings as 
 chattels in slavery. It was not viewed as a moral wrong until 
 after involved economic error became too obvious to be longer 
 ignored. Abolition of slavery in the South had become inevi- 
 table. If the South had gained its independence, slavery could 
 not have been perpetuated. The sentiment of the world was 
 against it. Its abolition would have been effected gradually, 
 however, without violence, without bitterness of feeling affect- 
 ing anybody. Master nor slave would have been made to suffer 
 the fears, terrors, hardships or privations involved in sudden 
 termination as an exigency of war. There would have been 
 nothing of mutual distrust and enmity between the races. 
 
 In blood and suffering, in expiation for the sin of slavery, 
 the people of the whole country have been made to pay a ter- 
 rible price. A nominal freedom for the negro has been purchas- 
 ed at a price involving actual enslavement of all both white 
 and black to the requirements and up-keep of a big military 
 establishment and the policies of a great "World Power," de- 
 voted to conquest and territorial aggrandizement. 
 
 The North American continent would have been divided into 
 four separate political jurisdictions instead of three as now, but 
 the difference in effect upon industrial activities, the welfare 
 and well-being of the people, because of that, would have been 
 merely nominal. There would have been no sectional wounds to 
 heal. The people, North and South, would not have been affect- 
 ed with deep resentments, long persisti?i animosities, intense
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 15 
 
 hatreds and the bitterness of feeling which grew out of four 
 years of dreadful war; and the miserable years of ill-advised 
 "reconstruction" which followed. The interests of the people of 
 both sections being mutual and reciprocal, recognition and con- 
 formity to requirements of identity of interest would have be- 
 come mutual and reciprocal. 
 
 The evils which grew out of the Civil War were numerous ; 
 and in effect were monstrous in their cruelty and injustice, and 
 many of them still persist with increased force and malevolence. 
 Whatever the form or nominal character of a government, once 
 war is engaged in, everything must be made subordinate to 
 war's purpose, and the government becomes resolved into a 
 military despotism. Very soon after the beginning of the Civil 
 War, at numerous places throughout the North citizens sus- 
 pected of disloyalty were seized with considerable frequency; 
 and, without examination or trial, turned over to the military 
 and imprisoned in fortresses. By those in authority the ex- 
 igencies of war were made the excuse and justification for acts 
 and measures whereby all the traditions and former policies of 
 the nation in its past were ignored, set aside, reversed or in- 
 verted, and complete political revolution effected. From its 
 beginning, and up to the time of the Civil War, it was held that 
 the general government of the United States was one of dele- 
 gated powers ; that its sphere and scope was limited to and with- 
 in the powers delegated. While since those unhappy days the 
 claim and practice has been that any and all power, not ex- 
 pressly inhibited by the Constitution, may and shall be exer- 
 cised. 
 
 As a war measure, and affected by influences which worked 
 to nullify the Constitution, the Congress was moved to engage 
 itself with legislation whereby a hacking system, born of long 
 years of costly experience, which was rapidly growing into con- 
 ditions of soundness and splendid efficiency, was arbitrarily 
 destroyed, and the ci ide, imperfectly devised National Banking 
 arrangement set up in its place. If there had been no Civil 
 War the country would have been spared all the privations in- 
 cident to prevalence of abnormally high rates of interest during 
 a period of more than fifty years, and all the terrors and fright- 
 ful monetary losses that have come to its people because of four 
 disastrous panics. Conditions bordering on financial disturbance 
 and panic have been manifested at some time during almost 
 every year for more than forty years; and there have been two 
 panics during which distress remained acute for more than five 
 years. The one of '73 beginning with the failure of Jay Cooke 
 & Company ; the other of '93 beginning with the failure of Bar- 
 ing- Bros, of London in 1890. 
 
 There had been two panics prior to the war period those 
 of 1837 and 1857. Those panics were intensified, if not actually 
 caused by the fact that a great majority of the banks of the
 
 1G WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 country were organized and conducted along lines laid down in 
 the pseudo "Currency Principle." But the lessons of those ter- 
 rible years and of other costly experiences, had been sufficient 
 to teach and turn bankers from this false method of banking, 
 and during the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the 
 Civil War the banks of the country had rapidly become organiz- 
 ed, and reorganized in accord with the "Banking Principle." The 
 soundness of the "Banking Principle," and the splendid efficiency 
 of banks organized and conducted in accord with it had been un- 
 mistakably proven during the panic of '57. No bank of that 
 kind had failed during the disastrous year, and very few had 
 been forced to suspend; and these for only a very short time. 
 The National Banking Act forced bankers to again face about 
 and return to the alleged, but over and over again exploded, 
 "Currency Principle," as a basis for bank organization. With 
 the result that today there is no system of banking in the United 
 States, merely on arbitrary arrangement ; and in the whole coun- 
 try there is not a bank note in circulation which represents 
 credit. Every bank note in circulation has cost more than its 
 face value to bring it into being. 
 
 Against the counsels of the most eminent and efficient 
 bankers of the country, and against the practically united op- 
 position of all the banks of the country, the national banking ar- 
 rangement was violently thrust upon the people. Existing 
 banks, and the people were forced to submit, because to gain 
 the end sought, administrative agencies, imposed the iniquitous 
 and destructive 10 per cent tax upon all circulating notes of 
 banks, other than those of national banks. In the absence of 
 arbitrary arrangements thus set up, no banking or money mon- 
 opoly could ever have grown into being! 
 
 For about twenty years prior to the war period, and es- 
 pecially so after the "Walker Tariff" of 1846, the trend of eco- 
 nomic thought and of legislation, had been in favor, and to- 
 wards the granting of freedom of trade. As an effect of the 
 Civil War all this was changed ; and as a further effect the long 
 exploded "Mercantile System" was revived, rehabilitated and 
 put into practice under guise and name of "Protection" and a 
 "Protective Tariff." The theory of the "Mercantile System" 
 is set up in the doctrine that wealth consists in the precious 
 metals; that no trade is advantageous except that in which 
 goods are exchanged for gold (and silver), and the one who 
 parts with gold is injured thereby. Belief and acceptance of the 
 "Mercantile Theory," constituted a resource exactly suited to 
 the ambitions and purposes of rulers who sought conquest of 
 the world; the subjugation and bringing of all peoples under 
 personal despotic dominion and subjecting them to perpetual 
 exactions of tribute. 
 
 Among the first, if not the first to exemplify and make 
 practical application of the "Mercantile Theory," was Charles
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 17 
 
 V. of Spain. The present status of Spain, among Earth's na- 
 tions, is truly representative of an outcome inevitable to a na- 
 tion adhering to policies based upon the "Mercantile Theory." 
 From a position of world dominance Spain has descended to 
 such weakness and insignificance that she exerts no influence 
 whatever. No nation of Earth today is relatively so strong as 
 Spain was at the zenith of her power during the reign of Char- 
 les V. 
 
 If the alleged principles of the "Mercantile System" were 
 true; if the claims set up in justification of policies of aggres- 
 sion and universal conquest had valid basis instead of being the 
 weakest and poorest of nations, Spain would be the most power- 
 ful and richest. Belief in the doctrine that a nation's wealth 
 depended upon aggression and conquest led the rulers of Spain 
 to devote that country's energies and resources to war, to the 
 end that gold might always be obtained for goods, and ever flow 
 into the coffers of Spain. That war degrades and impoverishes 
 victor as well as vanquished has been indubitably shown by 
 Molonari in his book entitled "The Society of Tomorrow," and 
 more recently by Norman Angell in a volume entitled "The Great 
 Illusion." 
 
 The "Mercantile System" is no longer accepted as valid; 
 and yet it is adhered to in practice by most of the nations of 
 the world; and has been by the United States for more than 
 forty years and up to date. Its continued vitality resides in the 
 fact that it constitutes an ever available and agreeable resource 
 for those who wish or choose to engage in policies of aggression. 
 The essence of the theory of "Protection" is identical with that 
 of the "Mercantile System." It is the claim of each theory 
 that trade is beneficial to but one of the parties thereto; that 
 profit for one is obtainable only through injury to the other. 
 The value of goods sold must always exceed the value of goods 
 bought so that the '"balance of trade" shall always remain in 
 favor of the seller a balance to be paid in gold ! The Congress 
 passed a Tariff Bill based upon considerations identical with 
 those of this long discredited theory, and a few years afterwards 
 the man whose name this Bill bore became a successful candidate 
 for the presidency. During the campaign which resulted in his 
 election, he went about the country giving voice and the cre- 
 dence of a great name, to the pseudo doctrines of the "Mercan- 
 tile System." The people were told that under "Protection" 
 "the foreigner paid the tax," and "the balance of trade in favor 
 of the country" that is, excess in value of goods sold over goods 
 bought "would be paid in gold !" The doctrine is vicious in its 
 falsity. Think of the ethical and moral purity, and the nobility 
 of motive which seeks to make foreigners pay for the up-keep 
 of home institutions, and to mulct them by trading away un- 
 desirable goods for the precious wealth of gold! Nothing is 
 more vicious than influences born of notions which affirm the
 
 18 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 legitimacy of getting something for nothing by artifice and 
 trick. 
 
 The doctrines of "Protection" ignore, set aside, and nul- 
 lify influences born of social instincts which tend to draw to- 
 gether and unite mankind in amiable and reciprocal associa- 
 tion in effect they are anti-social. But for the aggressions in- 
 volved in making effective policies based upon the "Mercan- 
 tile System," as exemplified by "Protection," and belief in its 
 verity, wars between nations would have ceased long ago. The 
 alleged principle of "Protection" affords justification for pre- 
 datory impulse and activity, and in consequence constitutes the 
 chief influence that keeps the war-spirit alive in the midst of 
 industrial activity and operates to induce people to acquiesce 
 while administrative agencies seize upon and devote so great a 
 part of industry's product to the up-keep of great military 
 establishments and a pursuit of war. 
 
 About two-thirds of the disbursements from the United 
 States Treasury is for war purposes. Indeed, it is said that 
 seventy per cent of expenditure is for maintenance of the mili- 
 tary establishment and its relatives. In contrast it may be noted 
 that two per cent is being spent for development of Agriculture ! 
 In the presence of military aggression, tariff aggression, general 
 pillage and popular spoliation; and the wide disparity of in- 
 dividual fortune due to predatory activities, the people are 
 soothed and lulled into acquiescence by priests who tell them 
 it is God's will that things should so be; and by statesmen (?) 
 who instruct the popular intelligence that "taxation is a means 
 for distribution of wealth." 
 
 The Engineer, Colonel Goethals, under whose supervision 
 and direction the Panama canal is being built, is reported to 
 have said the enterprise was undertaken, and is being carried 
 forward to completion, by the United States, "As a Military 
 Necessity." No such declaration of purpose was made by any- 
 body originally. It is when the canal approaches completion 
 that it is declared that it was considerations having to do with 
 "Military Necessity" which moved the men administering the 
 government of the United States to engage in its building. The 
 wish and will of the people was never sought or asked in any 
 way by administrative agencies. When it was before the Con- 
 gress, however, how far in its progress towards passage would 
 the bill authorizing construction of the Panama canal have got- 
 ten if it had then been declared ,or even hinted, that upon its 
 completion an army of at least 25,000 men would be required 
 permanently as a defensive garrison? This is the statement 
 made in the closing days of 1912 by Colonel Goethals. It was 
 at first proposed that the canal zone be made "neutral," riot 
 that it should be fortified. But it now is made to appear that 
 the proposition for neutrality was a subterfuge wherewith to 
 cloak and conceal actual intention. For, certainly, the unanimi-
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 19 
 
 ty and vehemence with which all officers, from President down, 
 now urge and insist that the canal be fortified gives verity to 
 the declaration Goethals is reported to have made. But, what 
 is to be said of the equivocal concealment of purpose on the part 
 of "statesmen," politicians and engineers having the enterprise 
 in mind and control, until a time when the work nears comple- 
 tion? If the canal is to be employed as an agency and instru- 
 ment of peaceful trade and commerce and not for purposes of 
 popular exploitation, that is to be world-wide in reach and 
 scope, no "Military Necessity" for its building can be said to 
 exist, and the vehement insistance for its fortification has no 
 mi? on d' clrc. What may be looked for as an effect of an atti- 
 tude which implies hostility to all the external world? 
 
 In the presence of and exposed to educational influences 
 expressed through governmental policies habitually adhered to 
 and continuously operative, whereby external peoples are viewed 
 and treated as natural enemies, to be aggressed upon and ex- 
 ploited, is it not natural and to be expected that within the po- 
 litical organization itself, there should grow into operative being 
 a corresponding development; that there should arise Trusts, 
 Combinations, Employers' Associations, Trades Unions, and the 
 like, organized with a view to predatory policies and devoted to 
 methods and schemes of popular spoliation? 
 
 Before his appointment to office of Associate Justice of the 
 Supreme Court, Governor Hughes was reported as having said: 
 "It is needed to put an end to corrupt alliances between busi- 
 ness and politics." No mention of cause for such alliances was 
 made; necessity related solely to wiping out an effect. The 
 proposition relates to regulative control of men; not at all to 
 change of organization, or the influences whereby men are af- 
 fected. The political organization being militant as it is, there- 
 fore unsuited to activities other than aggressive and predatory ; 
 and "politics" having to do with determining the policies of the 
 organization, it becomes in the nature of things and unavoid- 
 able, that "Interests" should seek and effect alliances. A po- 
 litical organization suited to requirements of aggression only, 
 and devoted to pillage ar.d spoliation must share the spoils with 
 "Interests" or itself go out of "Business;" and of "Statesmen" 
 there are none who would consent that the State should go out 
 of "Business." 
 
 When fact is stripped of all pretense whereby it is hidden 
 and made to appear otherwise, does it not become clear: "That 
 there is no politics In politics," but that "it is a great game," 
 in which power is to be won by art, trick and subterfuge and 
 these failing, by fraud? That it is a "great game" whereby 
 those engaged in it seek power to the end that they may organ- 
 ize and conduct "political" and "business" activities so they may 
 "legally" get something for nothing? When the truth is noted 
 and properly weighed does it any longer appear strange that
 
 20 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 those who make the "political game" their profession and voca- 
 tion should become so intoxicated with its excitement that they 
 lose all sense of ethical and moral consideration and seek only 
 to win? Does it seem strange that men so engaged should at 
 last become affected with honest belief that the "prosperity" 
 of the country and the welfare and well-being of its people de- 
 pended upon their own, and their party's success in gaining 
 power; that the end sought justified means, and they should 
 engage in trick, artifice, subterfuge, all manner of deceit and 
 fradulent manipulation, for purpose of effecting and controlling 
 elections? That opportunity offering, they should even "count 
 out," or "count in," to gain desired results? 
 
 Always it is that political discussion and activity is direct- 
 ed towards determining who shall govern and who shall be gov- 
 erned; to the subordination, if not the exclusion of every other 
 consideration. It is time that that which determines the limit 
 of free and spontaneous activity on the part of individuals re- 
 ceived serious thought and attention. 
 
 It is said that war has proved an aid to the advancement 
 of civilization. On the contrary such progress as has been made 
 in intellectual growth, the growth and development of ethical 
 and moral concepts, and the civilizing refinements that have 
 come into being, has been in spite of influences born of war, 
 and not at all because of them. Intellectual growth, ethical 
 principles and moral ideas received original exciting impetus 
 from influences born of trade and commerce. When men began 
 to exchange economic quantities, they began to exchange views 
 and ideas, and out of these beginnings grew the culture that 
 made subsequent civilization possible. The testimonies of the 
 past show that people after having made considerable advances 
 towards civilization have often become rebarbarized by war. 
 That which appeals to and excites the brute in man does not 
 civilize; it is the refinements of peace that soften, refine and 
 exalt human nature and not the bloodthirst and cruelty of war! 
 Agriculture has reached its highest general development in 
 America. The impetus which led to present states of develop- 
 ment was gained during the infancy and youth of the nation, 
 and before its taxing power was employed to raise immense 
 revenues in support of a vast military establishment and to fur- 
 ther purposes of national aggrandizement. But now the nation 
 has become a great "World Power," and its taxing power takes, 
 directly and indirectly, one-half the earnings of the people and 
 dissipates them in promotion of militancy abroad, and "preda- 
 tory business" at home; the boys who were born and reared on 
 the farm are turning away from agriculture and the girls are 
 following them to the cities. The deadly blight of military ab- 
 solutism is being felt in America in ways that correspond to 
 what has long been experienced in Europe. With the develop- 
 ment of militancy and the splendors of a plutocracy born of it,
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 21 
 
 the old contempt for agriculture is being revived, everywhere 
 the rural population remains stationary, or is diminishing. Iowa, 
 with a soil unsurpassed in fertility by any in the world, during 
 the ten-year period between 1900 and 1910 showed a marked 
 decrease of rural population. The peace of the farm is too un- 
 eventful; the poison of the war spirit fills young men's minds 
 with desire for conquest and power to dominate fellowmen, and 
 to extort tribute from all mankind. The farm presents no op- 
 portunity for exercise of the power that goes with acquisition 
 of great wealth; the farmer is of the class "too contemptible 
 to fight," so farming is becoming contemptible! 
 
 Purposes of aggression moved administrative agencies to 
 employ taxation to the end that certain lines of industry may be 
 made exploitivs by giving those engaged in them power for 
 tribute over thsir fellowmen. This power was cloaked and con- 
 cealed under the euphemism of "Protection." Everywhere and 
 always taxation is indissoluably associated with aggression. 
 Stripped of verbiage, reduced to bare fact, the basis of taxation 
 is kingly prerogative; sheer arbitrary power the Imperium. 
 Since "Protection" became the avowed policy of the United 
 States the accumulation of gigantic fortunes in individual hands 
 has proceeded with amazing rapidity. Industrial maladjust- 
 ment, wide disparity of individual fortune, with concomitant 
 splendors of enormous wealth in individual hands, are presented 
 in ways which excite the envy and cupidity of the thoughtless, 
 and provoke grave inquiry and alarm among intelligent and 
 thoughtful. 
 
 All members of society are not equally capable of noting 
 causes and reasoning from them to their effects ; and those most 
 intelligent are frequently moved by feeling instead of judgment. 
 Millions who toil, do not reason at all; they have no time; they 
 only feel. In the Press and Magazines much is being written; 
 and from the pulpit and rostrum much is being said about "un- 
 scrupulous financiers" and the managing heads of great trad- 
 ing and manufacturing combinations by way of criticism and 
 denunciation. Almost without exception what is being writ- 
 ten and said carries the implication that the evil practices of 
 those criticized and denounced are due to inherent qualities of 
 depravity in human nature. The fact that the activities of men 
 who are engaged in piling up "swollen fortunes" are directly 
 excited, gene-rally actually authorized, by the State is ignored 
 or designedly concealed. As a result there is a belief among the 
 masses, which is daily becoming more and more general and 
 deeply confirmed, that the wealth of the rich, in some unjust 
 way, has been taken by its possessors themselves from the hard- 
 earned and rightful belongings of those who work and remain 
 poor. The poor think they have been robbed, directly and design- 
 edly by the rich, so they view the rich with feelings if distrust, 
 if not with enmity and hatred.
 
 22 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 Will people who are intelligent assert that no cause for 
 suspicion exists; that there is nothing to justify the feelings 
 of those whose lot it is to be compelled to take their place among 
 wage-workers who are to always remain propertyless ? How is 
 it that in the presence of inexhaustible resource in the pres- 
 ence of abundance for all, so many work hard and remain all 
 their lives propertyless and destitute ? 
 
 It is not for lack of self-supporting capacity in fair fields; 
 it is not because of improvidence or "criminal" instincts and 
 tendencies ; it is not because of indisposition to work or idleness, 
 that many are unable to gain an honest livelihood. Everybody 
 has capacity and willingness to do something; and even among 
 the alleged criminals, none are to be found who do not wish for 
 that which would be "fair and right" for all. Few are to be 
 found anywhere who are not animated by desire to act in capa- 
 city of "brother's keeper;" to so rule him that he will do jus- 
 tice; to so safeguard him that he will receive justice. In the 
 presence of universal goodness of intention, earnestness of de- 
 sire and purpose to do, and see that justice is done, how are the 
 wickedly inhuman, terribly unjust and inequitable relations and 
 conditions of the existing order to be accounted for? Is it that 
 all men are liars and cheats? That all expressions of desire for 
 equitable conditions, and purpose of obtainment is sheer pre- 
 tense? Surely not that. 
 
 Is it not true, rather, that some constantly operating exter- 
 nal influence so affects every member of society that they are ir- 
 resistibly, but unconsciously, driven to engage in conduct in- 
 consistent, and in direct conflict, with inherent desire and pur- 
 pose? Over and over again in presence of some accident where- 
 by the authority of political government has been suddenly 
 abrogated or nullified, it has been shown that all thus affected, 
 irrespective of race, nationality or previous educational training, 
 become at once both amiable and decent. Under such condi- 
 tions a spirit of mutual respect and confidence is manifested ; the 
 spirit of brotherly love prevails, and all engage in co-operative 
 effort for the mutual and reciprocal good of all. Nobody stops 
 to ask in what, or how much they are to be paid. Everywhere 
 and always, it is only in presence and under influences which de- 
 scend upon them from political government that mankind en- 
 gage in frenzied effort for obtainment of unfair and throat- 
 cutting advantage over one another. It is only under con- 
 ditions of so-called "law and order" that the disorder of anti- 
 social practices maintain. With the "king-thing" dethroned, 
 and its arbitrary authority swept away, it is invariable that 
 the order of amity and fair-dealing prevails. 
 
 That which is true is made true and accepted as being true, 
 because of testimony presented in unvarying uniformity. If from 
 certain antecedent conditions certain results invariably proceed 
 they become connectedly associated as antecedent and conse-
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 23 
 
 tjuent; and by the intelligent are recognized and accepted as 
 cause and effect. There is no other way. The sole avenue open 
 for distinguishing truth and separating it from error consists in 
 that uniformly presented by the testimonies of experience; no 
 truth has been discovered by any other process or through any 
 other channel. Now, inasmuch, as invariable experience has 
 shown that in absence of arbitrary authoritative compulsion 
 from political government, people become kindly and gently 
 disposed towards one another; that instead of being brutal and 
 inconsiderate they are humane and considerate, is it not reason- 
 able that truth resides in the inference that it is influences which 
 descend upon them from political government that affect peo- 
 ple so that they become anti-social in their behavior? Nay more. 
 Is it not to be accepted beyond all dubitation that freedom is the 
 mother of order? And in the absence of political government 
 disorder born of compulsion will disappear ? 
 
 The nature of things has placed a limit upon human under- 
 standing which makes it impossible that anyone should know 
 the requirements of another; or what their requirements may 
 become. Consequently it is impossible that anyone should know 
 what would be fair, right and just for another. No one knows 
 what is required for the best good of self. The limit of 
 understanding relates to self -requirement ; so the true and 
 only safe guide for regulation of conduct is purely egoistic in 
 connotation and bearing, and consists in habitual avoidance of 
 doing to another anything which would offend if done to self. 
 No one knows or can know of what justice consists, but a fairly 
 good idea of what would be injurious and therefore unjust to 
 self, is in the minds of all; so whatever of truth there is to be 
 found for proper moral and ethical guidance lies in the direction 
 of examining the effect of things upon self, and not at all in the 
 direction of guidance by external authority. 
 
 That it is not the restraints put upon people by constituted 
 authority which hold and keep them in order is abundantly 
 shown by testimony presented by various peoples of Earth. The 
 American Indian affords striking illustrations. They go to war 
 rarely, they commit murder, because they believe in blood atone- 
 ment for personal injury. Claims to property receive universal 
 recognition and respect. Liars and cheats are unknown ; and the 
 thief is practically non-existent. No licentiousness; and except 
 those recently made so by white men, as in Alaska, no prosti- 
 tutes. Mo jails or arbitrary restraints of any kind. Among the 
 Creeks and Choctaws, those tried and condemned to death for 
 murder are permitted to remain at large, to come and go at 
 will, until day for execution arrives, when the condemned un- 
 failingly appear and pay the penalty. Are people with white 
 complexions less capable or less willing than untutored red men 
 to recognize and conform to traditional principles of ethics and 
 morals? Are they inferior in such respects, to the Creeks and
 
 24 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 Choctaws? The testimony of experience proves the contrary; 
 for where confidence is shown; where men are trusted without 
 oath or other formality, implying they are not to be trusted, 
 cases in which confidence and trust is violated are exceptionally 
 rare. Even those who are called criminals, who are released 
 and given restricted liberty from penal institutions, under con- 
 ditions which imply so much of distrust as to be calculated to 
 excite feelings of shame, humiliation and resentment, if not of 
 anger, violations of "parole" are so infrequent that they rare- 
 ly run into percentages expressed in double figures. In the 
 absence of compulsory measures and questioning restraints 
 people everywhere and at all times, with most rare exception, 
 refrain from aggressive acts and do as they agree. 
 
 That which pleases, or offends self, at once and unmistak- 
 ably, appeals to the understanding; so it is in the nature ol 
 things that the only genuine and intelligible guide to such gen- 
 eral conditions of fairness and justice as are humanly attain- 
 able reside in that which affects each individual pleasurably 
 or painfully. However, the pains and miseries born of the de- 
 forming and destroying effects of arbitrary measures employed 
 by "constructive statesmen" obsessed with high ideals and ani- 
 mated with humanitarian impulses will have to be borne until 
 such time as those who have grown intelligently selfish are 
 become sufficiently numerous and influential to cause a falling 
 off in demand for the follies and futilities embodied in "con- 
 structive legislation." Ideals affecting other's good; unrelated 
 to genuine and untrammeled expressions of human nature; 
 born, simply, of notions as to what "ought to be," are intensely 
 stimulating and most satisfying to would-be governors. They 
 constitute a most agreeable resource for the spirit of dominion 
 whereby all would-be kings and governors are animated; every 
 phase of despotism and tyranny may be justified thereby. 
 
 It will be a long time before "constructive statesmen" cease 
 to obstruct by going out of business, for the course of general 
 thought is still under guide and control of those who adhere to 
 the "intuitive" school of philosophy. It is assumed that Man 
 came into his present state of being as a creation, and not as 
 a subject of developmental growth. Hence man's moral nature 
 is "innate;" moral concepts are born of "intuition" and not of 
 any originating impulse growing out of sensuous experience. 
 Everything is attributed to and explained by spiritual agency. 
 Imagination being untrammeled in its flight by no opposing 
 disagreeable fact all explanations are affected with mysticism 
 and ecstacy. In every field except Statecraft and Priestcraft all 
 thought rests upon materialistic basis. In all other fields the 
 mechanistic theory of origins and mechanistic explanations of 
 being have gained supremacy. "Statesmen," and priests alone 
 refuse to accept or contemplate facts which cannot be distorted 
 and twisted into justifying accord with belief. They believe
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 25 
 
 first and seek to prove afterwards. But the law of continuity 
 from the past suggests with the force of verity that the mechan- 
 istic theory of origins and mechanistic explanations of being will 
 triumph in the political field; and finally, even in that which is 
 now devoted to theology. "Statesmen" accept for their rule and 
 guide the notion there is an Imperative Rule of Right, of which 
 Man has "intuitive" cognition; but on account of "innate" ten- 
 dencies no heed will be given these "intuitive" admonitions in 
 an absence of means and measures for compelling observance 
 and conformity. Hence the necessity for political absolutism 
 government. Also, the necessity and justification for war; for 
 against people who neglect or refuse to observe and conform to 
 a Rule of Right which is Imperative, War becomes not only just- 
 ifiable, but a moral necessity! 
 
 The validity of assumptions concerning origins of ethical 
 concepts and moral ideas need not here be inquired into; only 
 the validity of the ideas themselves. The test of goodness or 
 badness of anything consists in examining and weighing its 
 fruit; that which is good bears good fruit. Because of in- 
 fluences born of militancy trade and commerce have become 
 spoliative in tendency. That which is called "business" con- 
 sists in so organizing and conducting its activities that some- 
 thing for nothing may be obtained. Business does not consist 
 in exchanging equivalent services in the form of economic 
 quantities, but in getting "all the traffic will bear;" the more 
 obtained the better the "business" the greater the fortune 
 thus gained the more highly esteemed are those who conduct the 
 "business." It is not that trade is reciprocal, but is of the na- 
 ture ascribed to it in the theory of the "Mercantile System." In 
 practice the conduct of "business" is along the line expressed 
 by the notion that only one party to an exchange can be bene- 
 fited; the other must suffer injury. A rule of procedure con- 
 sistent only with aggressive activity; that is, hostility and war. 
 It is because of influences born of and associated with such no- 
 tions that it is everywhere assumed as an economic truth, that 
 in exchange of economic quantities there should always remain, 
 with one party to the exchange, a surplus value an agio, which 
 is to be viewed and accepted as legitimate spoil a spoil the na- 
 ture of which is softened and concealed under the euphemism of 
 "PROFIT." 
 
 Every service performed should be requited with an equiva- 
 lent, but why more? Why should there be any surplus value 
 remaining in the hands of anyone ? Is there in ethics or morals 
 any principle whereby "Profit" may be justified? Everyone is 
 entitled to receive equivalent return for services performed; 
 that is, to receive whatever may have been earned. Is there 
 anyone who is intelligent and candid who is prepared to say that 
 some are entitled to receive more than is earned, and thereby 
 oblige another, or others, to receive less? If so, it is incumbent
 
 26 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 on them to prove validity and justify "Profit," something that 
 no one has yet done. 
 
 The State has adopted and habitually employs methods of 
 taxation which affect industrial activity so that some are en- 
 abled to acquire exhorbitant "profits," because many are thereby 
 subjected to unfair discrimination and thus made to carry an un- 
 due share of social burden. To see that taxation, in its effects, 
 rests with disproportionate weight upon those least able to bear 
 it under existing arrangements, needs no acute power of dis- 
 cernment, or extensive inquiry. 
 
 Existing arrangements are not only unjust, but they are 
 inexpedient; for when the one time unsuspecting, but now sus- 
 picious, toilers find out, as they surely will, that all devices 
 wherein it has been pretended that the burden of sustaining the 
 politico-social organization was being shifted off them, onto 
 some one else, have always been, still remain, and must remain, 
 mere shams; that these devices have not only never been what 
 was alleged ; have never and can never produce promised effects, 
 but for every indirection whereby the burden of taxation was 
 said to have been removed from "labor," it has come back in 
 some way concealed, always with an overcharge, and instead 
 of taxation ever having been placed upon some one else, it has 
 rested with crushing weight upon them all the time; and with 
 more intensity than if it had been directly so placed at first 
 when the awakening comes what will happen? When it is found 
 the "cause of high cost of living" resides in taxation, and nowhere 
 else, what will the long and much wronged workers do; the 
 people whose acts are mostly directed and controlled by feeling; 
 and whose ideas of redress and justice, in common with those 
 expressed by constituted authority itself, is retaliation? Is it 
 not probable that Life Insurance Companies having rich men 
 for risks will feel impelled to go out of business the first day 
 after these people wake up ? In view of what may and probably 
 will happen, would it not be better if administrative agencies of 
 government dealt fairly and honestly with all? That instead 
 of any part of revenue being taken by stealth, and unawares, 
 every one should be directly dealt with and honestly affected? 
 
 Under existing arrangements taxes are laid in accordance 
 with the theory of benefit conferred by government, and re- 
 ceived by the individual; in accordance with the doctrine that 
 those should be made to pay who are best able; in accordance 
 with the doctrine of equal sacrifice; in accordance with theories 
 of progression, of succession, of graduation, and in accordance 
 with the dogmas of "Protection." They are laid upon this, that, 
 here, there, and everywhere, but never in harmony with re- 
 quirement of justice. It is said that taxes are inevitable! And 
 so they will be, and remain confiscatory and destructive as 
 long as people submit to the militancy of Imperial Power! 
 
 Taxes inevitable! Aye! But why? and what for? Are
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 27 
 
 taxes more inevitable than food, raiment and shelter? Is it the 
 purpose of human life to pay taxes? Do people live solely that 
 they may contribute their lives and energies to support political 
 government? Is the exaction of tax-payment the aim and end 
 of co-operative political association? Or is it an incident? Is 
 government an end? Are people to be considered only as slaves 
 of the organization ? Or is the organization, when properly con- 
 sidered, an agency, employed by people, as a means for ac- 
 complishment of desired social ends? 
 
 It is asserted by apologists for the existing order, that po- 
 litical complexity and comprehensiveness necessarily increase 
 with advance of civilization; and, as a matter of course, the de- 
 mand for public revenues must enlarge as government becomes 
 complex and comprehensive. But will the defenders of Im- 
 perialism say that necessity for regulative restraint of people 
 increases and multiplies as they rise in intellectual and moral 
 development? Will they say that proportionately as people 
 cease to be barbarous and rude, become gentle and refined, the 
 mechanism and appliances for forcibly keeping them in order 
 must be strengthened, broadened and multiplied ? Will they say, 
 as people advance in intellectual and moral development they 
 become more and more aggressive, less and less capable of 
 discerning, recognizing and conforming to peaceful customs, 
 usages and amicable dealings with each other? Is it not true, 
 rather, that all these claims for necessity of enlargement and 
 increase of government, in its power, scope and comprehensive- 
 ness, is sheer hypocritical subterfuge whereby actual reasons 
 and purposes are cloaked and concealed? Is it not true that 
 those who wield and exercise authority are ever cowardly and 
 dare not openly avow purpose? Is it not true that the real rea- 
 son for political government, and all that relates to regulative 
 control of people by physical force, resides in love of dominion 
 and lust for power that has grown and developed in the minds 
 of men because of association with influences born of war and 
 warlike activities; influences operative continuously, extending 
 back in origin through all the ages of the past until their effects 
 have become incorporated in the human make-up as an inherent 
 and predisposing heritage? What is the testimony of experi- 
 ence? Does not the testimony of the past show beyond dubita- 
 tion that once man is invested with authority, invariably and 
 inevitably, he seeks to broaden and extend the reach of author- 
 itative jurisdiction? Is it not a maxim, among the judiciary, 
 that a good Judge ever seeks to enlarge the scope of his juris- 
 diction? Are men who act as Judges different from others in 
 personal attribute and desire? 
 
 Taxes are inevitable! But is it also inevitable that power 
 of taxation shall be so employed that in effect it will mark off 
 invidious and unjust discriminations and distinctions? Dis- 
 criminations and distinctions which excite ever increasing ani-
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 mosities among those affected, finally separating and arraying 
 them into distrusting antagonistic groups; the members of 
 each group so stirred with bitterness of feeling that they face 
 each other in warlike attitude and with angry threat? 
 
 If organized government can be justified; if there is ethical 
 warrant for existence of the State, there must be a just way 
 whereby the revenue for its sustentation may be raised. The 
 unwillingness to pay that people have always shown in connec- 
 tion with taxation, and their resistance to it, has been and now 
 is, due to the fact that no fair and honest way has ever been 
 proposed, much less tried. If there is a science of political org- 
 anization, there must be a scientific and just way whereby funds 
 for up-keep of political organization may be obtained. What- 
 ever of difference subsists between the preachments of the mis- 
 ruling politicians and misguiding priests of today, from those 
 who misruled and misguided during all the ages of the past prac- 
 tice still proceeds upon the hypothesis that the earnings of fools 
 by Divine Right is the patrimony of clever men. 
 
 Notwithstanding practices to the contrary, which have pre- 
 vailed during all historic time, Politics rightly viewed and con- 
 sidered, is the science of organizing people into co-operatively as- 
 sociated groups in accord with right ethical lines and true ethi- 
 cal principles. A scientific organization of society cannot b? 
 arbitrarily effected. It cannot be accomplished as a subject of 
 manufacture; it only remains to leave people so unaffected and 
 unobstructed by arbitrary limitations that their relations may 
 grow right; and in that way gain as nearly as the nature of 
 human nature will permit as close on approach as possible to 
 scientific organization. Any organization of society whatsoever 
 involves obtainment of requisite funds from its members for 
 continuous sustentation. In the nature of things public income, 
 or revenue, must be drawn from the wealth of society. The 
 wealth of society is the sum total of economic quantities that 
 come into existence in response to a demand arising from the 
 desires and wants of the people who compose it. Taxation, 
 therefore, either in form of compulsory exaction or voluntary 
 contribution, must rest as a privation upon all who are affected ; 
 and if the burden of privation is to be fairly distributed the 
 amount of tax, or contribution, must be measured and fixed 
 proportionate to the value of some instrument universally em- 
 ployed in satisfying the desires and wants of each individual 
 member of the organization. 
 
 Under conditions in which people were freed from all in- 
 hibitions imposed by political government satisfaction of in- 
 dividual desires and wants would be attended only by evils in- 
 cident to free and open competition; the cure for such evils 
 must be left to be worked out and solved by the mutations of 
 time. The State not only cannot do everything, but it is pos- 
 sible for it to do but very little; it is impossible even, that it
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 29 
 
 should defend people against aggression. But it is possible for 
 the political organization itself to be kept from attempts to en- 
 force compliance with arrangements in aid of aggression. In 
 arbitrary limitations imposed by the State limitations that re- 
 strict non-invasive activities, thereby defeating natural expres- 
 sions of human endeavor, resides ,the cause of friction, irritation, 
 and antagonisms shown in warring industrial strifes, every- 
 where presented in this country, and the world. The State by 
 making necessity for revenue an excuse and opportunity for af- 
 fording special interests a chance to obtain undue and unfair 
 advantage, constantly foments strife by increasing aggression, 
 instead of defending people from it. 
 
 As a result, everywhere in this country and the world, 
 there are ever increasing manisfestations of social discontent, 
 unrest and turbulency. All see and all feel the evils from which 
 they suffer, but few have powers of penetration adequate to 
 discovery of the source from which they arise and flow, and to 
 distinguish their true character. Those who are hurt most are 
 least capable of engaging in discriminating examination and 
 analysis of underlying forces relating to source and character 
 of the evils which descend upon them with such crushing and 
 destructive impact. They do not know that they are being used 
 by those who conduct and administer political agencies, merely 
 as tools whereby the machinery of the State is kept running, 
 and that it is the weight of the State that bears down upon 
 them with such inexorable and killing severity. Because of 
 ignorance, and cupidity born of it, the masses continue to listen 
 to demagogic appeal and promise, to vote as directed, and find 
 vent for bitterness of feeling in fierce denunciation of Trusts and 
 Monopolies, and expressions of hatred for the Rich; that is, 
 against effects of the State, instead of the real cause, the State 
 itself. 
 
 It needs no prophetic vision to penetrate and interpret the 
 future to enable a foretelling that it will not be possible for 
 political agencies to go much further, or to much longer persist 
 in methods which are now being employed before the existing 
 order will be disturbed and shaken by outbreaks of physical 
 violence, ever increasing in volume and intensity; until at last, 
 there shall come a tremendous, uncontrollable upheaval, like the 
 French Revolution, which will sweep all before it and deluge 
 the land with blood. 
 
 To so employ the taxing power as to wring from the people 
 the largest possible part of results of their industry and to 
 distribute the immense booty thus seized, in such a manner that 
 the operation can be repeated annually forever, presents a prob- 
 lem requiring Machiavellian ability and art for its solution. To 
 keep the political machinery running whereby people are con- 
 tinuously robbed, there must not only be concealment of method, 
 but a great number of citizens who are intelligent, but made
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 unscrupulous, must be sufficiently bribed to induce them to aid, 
 or remain quiet, while the despicable work goes on; and the 
 cupidity of the less intelligent must be excited sufficiently to 
 make them feel and believe that they too, are made, or are 
 about to be made, beneficiaries. No careful and intelligent ob- 
 server, who is candid, will deny that most of the expenditures 
 for what are called public improvements; all the legislation "in 
 the interest of Labor;" and much else, are bribes, offered by 
 those who control administrative agencies, to voting constituen- 
 cies. 
 
 In this way voters, in ever increasing numbers, are con- 
 tinuously impressed with the notion that political government, 
 instead of being an instrumentality the purpose of which is to 
 safeguard, and to secure to individuals a certainty of holding 
 and enjoying unmolested the results of self -exertion ; and to 
 maintain just relations among men, is a means whereby the 
 clever, who "vote right," are enabled, under legal forms, to ob- 
 tain and enjoy the fruits of other's toil. These influences, oper- 
 ating generation after generation, have produced moral lesions 
 which have become general lesions which may be properly 
 held responsible for the official corruption and bribery which 
 prevails in every walk of public life. 
 
 With taxation so laid that its incidence would be fairly and 
 justly distributed by a just system; the moneys paid into public 
 treasuries in the form of taxes, would represent to the payer 
 the price of all the benefits derived from living in society ; simply 
 an essential and necessary part of the cost of living. The gross 
 injustice, the morally corrupting and degrading influences of 
 present arrangements is apparent to the commonest intelligence. 
 So monstrous, so cruel are the effects of existing methods of 
 taxation that it would seem as if every self-respecting member 
 of society must be driven to ask for adoption of equitable 
 method ; and failing in this, to join with others in united refusal 
 to pay any taxes at all. 
 
 Taxation falls upon the individuals who compose society 
 as an enforced privation; the more taxes paid the greater the 
 privation. Instruments used to satisfy desire and want are 
 taxed and those who use them are mad? to suffer disproportion- 
 ately because some are enabled through operation of the taxing 
 power to shift the burden of privation onto others. Those who 
 pay in the first instance recoup themselves by passing it on to 
 the next buyer of the taxed instrument, with an overcharge for 
 profit, until finally those are reached who pay only in privation. 
 Those who fully recoup themselves suffer nothing of privation; 
 but proportionate to inability to thus defend and protect them- 
 selves privation becomes intensified. Some suffer but small priva- 
 tion, but as effect of taxation passes from one to another in its 
 descent through all social ranks and conditions an ever-increas- 
 ing severity of privation is suffered. MP.lions are borne down
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. Cl 
 
 to the very bottom where submerged in depths of deepest pri- 
 vation and misery they eke out a miserable existence until in- 
 creased susceptibility to disease brings kindly death to take them 
 away. Among these millions the death rate is appalling, but 
 hopelessnes of situation and bitterness of privation must often, 
 if not always, make it appear that death accords a blessed relief. 
 
 It is said: "The poor pay no taxes; having nothing with 
 which to pay!" Unfortunately many, if not most, people be- 
 lieve this to be true at least habit and action is inconsistent 
 with disbelief. Taxes are paid; and they are paid out of 
 results of productive industry, there is no other possible source 
 from which they can be drawn. People live on the products of 
 their labor; and no keenness of mental vision i\> required to see 
 and determine that a taking away of part of labor's results 
 means that all so affected will be made thereby less able to place 
 desire and want in gratified states; they will suffer privation 
 proportionate to amount taken away; some want will remain 
 unsatisfied, some desire to burn in vain, because means of grati- 
 fication has been taken away. Every cent of public revenue 
 raised subjects some one to privation to that extent; and those 
 numbers of society whose sole dependence for livelihood con- 
 sists in wages received, being most defenseless, suffer greater 
 privation than any other class. Much the greater part of 
 moneys raised by taxation are devoted to purposes of war. 
 
 Armies aro composed of those who live by labor of their 
 hands, and the cost of maintaining armies is paid in privation 
 by the same class. Those who live by their wits neither fight 
 nor pay. Thos? who employ wit in service pay in privation the 
 same as others. So it remains with workingmen themselves to 
 determine if there shall be war and misery or peace and happi- 
 ness. If they will but refuse to go forth as soldiers, to kill and 
 be killed, there will be no more of war, and no more of incident 
 privation and misery. The workingmen having thus become 
 wise it can no longer be said: "The earnings of fools by Divine 
 Right is the patrimony of clever men !" 
 
 It has been shown in another chapter that one half the an- 
 nual earnings of the people of the United States are forcibly 
 taken from them to support political government, and the para- 
 sites it creates. If the sums which aggregate this enormous 
 annual exaction were left in the hands that earned them they 
 would remain available for use in satisfying individual wants; 
 the privations now suffered would not be felt ; in the absence of 
 these privations almost everybody would become self-support- 
 ing, and poverty would practically disappear. Poverty would 
 disappear because its cause would bs recognized and made in- 
 operative. It is clear that an agency instrumental in filching 
 from people one-half their earnings must be the cause for their 
 poverty. Taxation is not only the cause of poverty, but the 
 pinch of its privation drives people to alcoholic intemperance, to
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 crime, and all the vices incident to poverty; and the cause will 
 remain operative until tax-incidence becomes fairly distributed 
 and felt by those who are made to pay. Intelligent and adequate 
 resistance to taxation can never become effectively presented 
 until tax-incidence is sensibly felt by each individual tax-payer! 
 
 So long as methods of indirection and stealth are permit- 
 ted, so long will those who carry the load remain poverty-strick- 
 en, so long will they work and grovel through their short and 
 miserable lives, to the end that clever men may make the earn- 
 ings of fools, by Divine Right, their patrimony. 
 
 If tax incidence is to become fairly and equitably distributed, 
 the basis of taxation must be some instrument of production 
 that stands exactly in the same relation to every desire and 
 want. In other words, equitable taxation remains impossible 
 unless the amount paid by each individual tax-payer is gauged 
 and determined by the value of some economic quantity that is 
 actually in continuous and universal use as an instrument of 
 production whereby each individual's desires and wa nts are 
 placed in gratified states. For until some basis that is uni- 
 versally true and exact, in its relativity to all, as a want-satis- 
 fying instrumentality, is used as a guide and measure in ap- 
 portioning taxation, equity in distribution of incidence is im- 
 possible of attainment. In another chapter it has been shown 
 that there is but one such instrument Land. 
 
 It is pretended that taxes are now laid upon those who are 
 possessed with property, but such is not the case, nor is it pos- 
 sible to do any such thing. For the things that have value, and 
 are called Property are merely instruments which, in the hands 
 of labor, minister to desire and want ; and unless the instrument 
 is consumed wholly by its possessor the tax put upon it will 
 not stay where originally placed, but, ultimately, will be paid 
 by those whose desires and wants are satisfied through its em- 
 ployment as an instrumentality. A tax placed upon an economic 
 quantity employed as an instrument to produce an article of 
 food necessitates an exchange of more of something else before 
 that food can be obtained; and who so buys and eats the food 
 will inevitably bear the burden of the tax. A tax placed upon 
 an economic quantity used as an instrument in production of 
 articles of raiment will unfailingly rest upon whosoever buys 
 and wears those articles. Suppose a tax is placed upon a stock of 
 groceries, the tax in the first instance would be paid by the 
 grocery keeper, but, ultimately it will be paid by those who buy 
 and consume the groceries. Suppose a tax placed upon a cloth 
 mill. The owner will pay no part of the tax except the portion 
 represented by the value of cloth devoted to personal use, and 
 consumed by self. It is obvious that taxes wherever originally 
 placed finally rest upon and are paid by the person whose de- 
 sires and wants are satisfied through use of the instrument 
 taxed. It is in this way that those who are propertyless are
 
 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 33 
 
 made to pay taxes. A tax upon land would be paid in the first 
 instance by the landlord, but ultimately by those who bought 
 and consumed the products of the land. Land is not singular 
 to other want-satisfying instrumentalities in respect to taxation, 
 and ultimate payment. The greater the amount raised by tax- 
 ation the higher prices are made, and the greater popular priva- 
 tion becomes ; for privation consists in inability to satisfy want, 
 and in incompleteness of want, satisfaction. 
 
 Taxes rest upon desire and want, because the cause of all 
 Wealth springs from desire and want. There is no such thing 
 as absolute Wealth. There is nothing which is in its own nature 
 Wealth ; for whether anything is Wealth or not depends entire- 
 ly on its being desired, wanted and demanded. Wealth is pro- 
 duced in various ways, but it comes into economics solely in 
 response to Demand that springs from human desire and want. 
 A tax placed upon an economic quantity does not stay where 
 originally put, but through exchange is shifted from one in- 
 dividual to another until the one is reached whose desires and 
 wants are satisfied by consuming the product of the thing taxed, 
 or the thing itself. 
 
 If all taxes v/ere assessed against some economic quantity 
 that stood in like relation to every individual member of the po- 
 litical organization as an instrumentality through the use of 
 which all desires and wants were placed in gratified states, 
 (Land Parcels), each individual would pay a share proportioned 
 to the number of desires and wants satisfied, and the degree of 
 satisfaction in which they were placed. As the desires and 
 wants of mankind increase in number and intensity with in- 
 crease of ability to gratify, it follows, as a matter of course, that 
 under an arrangement of that kind, those who were strongest 
 and most capable would pay most, while those who were weak 
 and incapable would pay least. The requirements of justice 
 would be met; for those who derived most benefit from the col- 
 lectivity would pay most, while those who derived least would 
 pay least. Some economic writers have asserted that the poor 
 and weak receive greater benefit from the State than the rich 
 and strong ; but it is not and cannot be true. Men endowed with 
 great capacities engage themselves in large undertakings and 
 entensive activities and, a fortiori, require more and receive 
 greater benefit from the collectively organized all than those 
 endowed with small and weak capacities. 
 
 Distinctions among men are accidental, nothing more. Those 
 who are propertyless under existing arrangements are made 
 so by accident of the time in which they live. In point of num- 
 ber the Have-Nots are in overwhelming majority, but in common 
 with the Haves, the Have-Nots are animated with the same be- 
 liefs, actuated by the same motives, and seek like obtainments. 
 It is not that people are prone to evil, or designedly do evil ; but 
 being constantly affected by influences which descend upon them
 
 34 WAR'S FOLLY AND FUTILITY. 
 
 from a bad political organization; an organization that has 
 grown into being in response to supposititious needs born of er- 
 roneous beliefs, they have become anti-social. A militant org- 
 anization, devoted to purposes of aggression and war, is un- 
 suited to requirements of people engaged in co-operative in- 
 dustry and non-invasive pursuits of peace. Belief in the virtue 
 of aggression and the efficacy of war for attainment of right 
 ends is an inheritance of the past. Belief in the virtue and ne- 
 cessity for compelling force is so universal that nearly all are 
 thus affected. Humanitarians and those devoted to obtain- 
 ment of conditions of universal peace, deny their preachments 
 by invoking measures of compulsion. 
 
 The existing order was born of force, is sustained by force ; 
 it is the apotheosis of Force. It is impossible that it should 
 be forcibly reformed; made to right-about-face and stand for 
 peace. Employment of compulsion can operate only to confirm 
 opinion as to the validity of belief in war! The injunction to 
 fight the devil with fire is vicious nonsense. The devil cannot 
 be defeated with fire; he knows all about fire; he's used to it. 
 And any who are vain and foolish enough to engage with his 
 Satanic Majesty with fire his own weapon will inevitably suf- 
 fer defeat. Those who believe in Peace must cease to advocate 
 and practice War, before there can be Peace. 
 
 That mankind should co-operate is in the nature of things. 
 It is impossible that Man should live either in individual or 
 collective capacity unless he co-operates. Man must co-operate 
 or cease to be ; so it is not at all necessary that artificial measures 
 of compulsion should be employed. The forces of nature affect 
 people impartially, there are no personal favorites. Not be- 
 fore, but as soon as people become wise enough to put aside 
 present beliefs, and considerable numbers of them refuse longer 
 to recognize the authority, or engage themselves in the service 
 of a State militantly organized ,will the dawn of Peace and con- 
 ditions of social justice be at hand. When the masses refuse to 
 bear arms or to engage in any act of an invasive or aggressive 
 nature the day of their emancipation will have arrived. So long 
 as they cling to superstitions born of the past, continue to vote 
 for aggressive power, remain willing to go forth as soldiers to 
 conquer and subjugate, to kill and to be killed, they will remain 
 enslaved to a militant despotism, which they themselves support 
 and maintain. And so long will it remain true: The earnings 
 of fools by Divine Right is the patrimony of clever men.
 
 A PROCLAMATION 
 
 ' Whenever you have met a dozen men pledged to a new idea 
 Wherever you have met them, you have met the beginning of a 
 revolution" Wendell Phillips. 
 
 We, the undersigned, representatives of "the changing order" in con- 
 ference assembled at Henning, Minnesota, this 4th day of July, 1913, 
 being firmly impressed with the conviction that the time is now ripe for a 
 more harmonious, tranquil and symmetrical basis of social inter-relation- 
 ships, do hereby issue a call for a MASS CONVENTION to assemble at 
 Minneapolis, Minnesota, at noon the third day of July, 1914, for the purpose 
 of considering, modifying, amending or adopting the following preamble 
 and resolutions: 
 
 "WHEREAS, the progress of human intelligence from 
 primitive superstitions toward enlightenment has consisted 
 always of a growing ability to discriminate between what is 
 real and what is false, and 
 
 "WHEREAS, the securing to every human being an un- 
 disputed foothold upon the earth will make all other social 
 problems easier of solution, and 
 
 "WHEREAS, the common illusion that land can be owned 
 has already persisted too long to the detriment of every in- 
 dividual resident upon this planet and to the entire destruction 
 of satisfactory social relations, 
 
 "BE IT RESOLVED by all the men and women hereunto 
 subscribing that from and after the first day of January, 1920, 
 we will no longer recognize the validity of any land title 
 howsoever granted except such as is based upon the occupancy 
 and use of land, 
 
 "AND FURTHERMORE, we pledge ourselves from said 
 date to stand by for the protection of the tenure of all who 
 then are and shall thereafter become occupiers and users of 
 land, against invasion of any and every kind to the full 
 extent that the force of an awakened and enlightened public 
 opinion shall be available and effective." 
 
 All men and women who have sufficiently developed the sense of humor 
 to perceive the gigantic fallacy of vested rights to land by any tenure 
 save that of occupancy and use are invited to attend this convention. 
 Attendance upon and participation in the deliberations of the conference 
 does not necessarily involve the severance of any political, religious or 
 other form of allegiance. 
 
 The place of meeting will be announced later. Further information 
 and copies of this proclamation can be had by addressing 
 
 A. G. WAGNER, 
 
 708 Central Ave., Minneapolis, Minn.
 
 THIS pamphlet is not Copyrighted. There 
 is not an original idea in it; all has 
 been suggested, if not actually taken 
 from the speech and writings of others. The 
 manner and form of presentation only is that 
 of the author. The notion that inventors and 
 authors may justly claim "Property Rights in 
 Ideas," is too absurd for argument. The 
 granting of such "rights" is arbitrary; a pre- 
 rogative of the kingthing in political govern- 
 ment. 
 
 AUSTIN W. WRIGHT, 
 
 395 North Perry St., 
 
 Pontiac, Mich.
 
 AFTER THOUGHT 
 
 Force of circumstances compels a couple of radicals to get 
 out two conservative weekly newspapers, The New Ulm Review 
 (English) and The New Ulm Post (German). We entered 
 upon this work absolutely ignorant of every detail of the 
 newspaper game and in the two years we've been at it we 
 have merely gained a foot-hold. 
 
 Our plan as outlined for the future is to give our readers as 
 much advanced thought as they are able to accept. We do 
 not believe one can tell a man anything he does not already 
 know but we hope to help clarify the ideas now formulating 
 in the minds of those who are beginning to think. If we 
 succeed in this effort in any degree it will be enough. 
 
 Ideas and contributions from radicals will be warmly 
 welcomed. New Ulm Post $2.00; Albert Steinhauser, 
 Editor. New Ulm Review $1.50; H. Payne, Editor. 
 
 We make a specialty of fine job printing and find our 
 greatest pleasure in getting out radical literature similar 
 to this pamphlet. 
 
 NEW ULM PUBLISHING CO, New Ulm, Minn.
 
 \AJ'| 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482