Anarchism and Other Essays
peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen
is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life
fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try
his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really
peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations,
with the result that peace is maintained.
However, the clamor for an increased army and navy is not due to any
foreign danger. It is owing to the dread of the growing discontent
of the masses and of the international spirit among the workers. It
is to meet the internal enemy that the Powers of various countries
are preparing themselves; an enemy, who, once awakened to
consciousness, will prove more dangerous than any foreign invader.
The powers that have for centuries been engaged in enslaving the
masses have made a thorough study of their psychology. They know
that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and
tears can be turned into joy with a little toy. And the more
gorgeously the toy is dressed, the louder the colors, the more it
will appeal to the million-headed child.
An army and navy represents the people's toys. To make them more
attractive and acceptable, hundreds and thousands of dollars are
being spent for the display of these toys. That was the purpose of
the American government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the
Pacific coast, that every American citizen should be made to feel the
pride and glory of the United States. The city of San Francisco
spent one hundred thousand dollars for the entertainment of the
fleet; Los Angeles, sixty thousand; Seattle and Tacoma, about one
hundred thousand. To entertain the fleet, did I say? To dine and
wine a few superior officers, while the "brave boys" had to mutiny to
get sufficient food. Yes, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars
were spent on fireworks, theatre parties, and revelries, at a time
when men, women, and children through the breadth and length of the
country were starving in the streets; when thousands of unemployed
were ready to sell their labor at any price.
Two hundred and sixty thousand dollars! What could not have been
accomplished with such an enormous sum? But instead of bread and
shelter, the children of those cities were taken to see the fleet,
that it may remain, as one of the newspapers said, "a lasting memory
for the child."
A wonderful thing to remember, is it not? The implements of
civilized slaughter. If the mind of the child is to be poisoned with
such memories, what hope is there for a true realization of human
brotherhood?
We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed;
we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the
possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon
helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch
anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the
attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell
with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful
nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on
the necks of all other nations.
Such is the logic of patriotism.
Considering the evil results that patriotism is fraught with for the
average man, it is as nothing compared with the insult and injury
that patriotism heaps upon the soldier himself,--that poor, deluded
victim of superstition and ignorance. He, the savior of his country,
the protector of his nation,--what has patriotism in store for him?
A life of slavish submission, vice, and perversion, during peace; a
life of danger, exposure, and death, during war.
While on a recent lecture tour in San Francisco, I visited the
Presidio, the most beautiful spot overlooking the Bay and Golden Gate
Park. Its purpose should have been playgrounds for children, gardens
and music for the recreation of the weary. Instead it is made ugly,
dull, and gray by barracks,--barracks wherein the rich would not
allow their dogs to dwell. In these miserable shanties soldiers are
herded like cattle; here they waste their young days, polishing the
boots and brass buttons of their superior officers. Here, too, I saw
the distinction of classes: sturdy sons of a free Republic, drawn up
in line like convicts, saluting every passing shrimp of a lieutenant.
American equality, degrading manhood and elevating the uniform!
Barrack life further tends to develop tendencies of sexual
perversion. It is gradually producing along this line results
similar to European military conditions. Havelock Ellis, the noted
writer on sex psychology, has made a thorough study of the subject.
I quote: "Some of the barracks are great centers of male
prostitution.... The number of soldiers who prostitute themselves
is greater than we are willing to believe. It is no exaggeration to
say that in certain regiments the presumption is in favor of the
venality of the majority of the men.... On summer evenings Hyde
Park and the neighborhood of Albert Gate are full of guardsmen and
others plying a lively trade, and with little disguise, in uniform or
out.... In most cases the proceeds form a comfortable addition to
Tommy Atkins' pocket money."
To what extent this perversion has eaten its way into the army and
navy can best be judged from the fact that special houses exist for
this form of prostitution. The practice is not limited to England;
it is universal. "Soldiers are no less sought after in France than
in England or in Germany, and special houses for military
prostitution exist both in Paris and the garrison towns."
Had Mr. Havelock Ellis included America in his investigation of sex
perversion, he would have found that the same conditions prevail in
our army and navy as in those of other countries. The growth of the
standing army inevitably adds to the spread of sex perversion; the
barracks are the incubators.
Aside from the sexual effects of barrack life, it also tends to unfit
the soldier for useful labor after leaving the army. Men, skilled in
a trade, seldom enter the army or navy, but even they, after a
military experience, find themselves totally unfitted for their
former occupations. Having acquired habits of idleness and a taste
for excitement and adventure, no peaceful pursuit can content them.
Released from the army, they can turn to no useful work. But it is
usually the social riff-raff, discharged prisoners and the like, whom
either the struggle for life or their own inclination drives into the
ranks. These, their military term over, again turn to their former
life of crime, more brutalized and degraded than before. It is a
well-known fact that in our prisons there is a goodly number of
ex-soldiers; while on the other hand, the army and navy are to a
great extent supplied with ex-convicts.
Of all the evil results, I have just described, none seems to me so
detrimental to human integrity as the spirit patriotism has produced
in the case of Private William Buwalda. Because he foolishly
believed that one can be a soldier and exercise his rights as a man
at the same time, the military authorities punished him severely.
True, he had served his country fifteen years, during which time his
record was unimpeachable. According to Gen. Funston, who reduced
Buwalda's sentence to three years, "the first duty of an officer or
an enlisted man is unquestioned obedience and loyalty to the
government, and it makes no difference whether he approves of that
government or not." Thus Funston stamps the true character of
allegiance. According to him, entrance into the army abrogates the
principles of the Declaration of Independence.
What a strange development of patriotism that turns a thinking being
into a loyal machine!
In justification of this most outrageous sentence of Buwalda, Gen.
Funston tells the American people that the soldier's action was a
"serious crime equal to treason." Now, what did this "terrible
crime" really consist of? Simply in this: William Buwalda was one of
fifteen hundred people who attended a public meeting in San
Francisco; and, oh, horrors, he shook hands with the speaker, Emma
Goldman. A terrible crime, indeed, which the General calls "a great
military offense, infinitely worse than desertion."
Can there be a greater indictment against patriotism than that it
will thus brand a man a criminal, throw him into prison, and rob him
of the results of fifteen years of faithful service?
Buwalda gave to his country the best years of his life and his very
manhood. But all that was as nothing. Patriotism is inexorable and,
like all insatiable monsters, demands all or nothing. It does not
admit that a soldier is also a human being, who has a right to his
own feelings and opinions, his own inclinations and ideas. No,
patriotism can not admit of that. That is the lesson which Buwalda
was made to learn; made to learn at a rather costly, though not at a
useless, price. When he returned to freedom, he had lost his
position in the army, but he regained his self-respect. After all,
that is worth three years of imprisonment.
A writer on the military conditions of America, in a recent article,
commented on the power of the military man over the civilian in
Germany. He said, among other things, that if our Republic had no
other meaning than to guarantee all citizens equal rights, it would
have just cause for existence. I am convinced that the writer was
not in Colorado during the patriotic regime of General Bell. He
probably would have changed his mind had he seen how, in the name of
patriotism and the Republic, men were thrown into bull-pens, dragged
about, driven across the border, and subjected to all kinds of
indignities. Nor is that Colorado incident the only one in the
growth of military power in the United States. There is hardly a
strike where troops and militia do not come to the rescue of those in
power, and where they do not act as arrogantly and brutally as do the
men wearing the Kaiser's uniform. Then, too, we have the Dick
military law. Had the writer forgotten that?
A great misfortune with most of our writers is that they are
absolutely ignorant on current events, or that, lacking honesty, they
will not speak of these matters. And so it has come to pass that the
Dick military law was rushed through Congress with little discussion
and still less publicity,--a law which gives the President the power
to turn a peaceful citizen into a bloodthirsty man-killer, supposedly
for the defense of the country, in reality for the protection of the
interests of that particular party whose mouthpiece the President
happens to be.
Our writer claims that militarism can never become such a power in
America as abroad, since it is voluntary with us, while compulsory in
the Old World. Two very important facts, however, the gentleman
forgets to consider. First, that conscription has created in Europe
a deep-seated hatred of militarism among all classes of society.
Thousands of young recruits enlist under protest and, once in the
army, they will use every possible means to desert. Second, that it
is the compulsory feature of militarism which has created a
tremendous anti-militarist movement, feared by European Powers far
more than anything else. After all, the greatest bulwark of
capitalism is militarism. The very moment the latter is undermined,
capitalism will totter. True, we have no conscription; that is, men
are not usually forced to enlist in the army, but we have developed a
far more exacting and rigid force--necessity. Is it not a fact that
during industrial depressions there is a tremendous increase in the
number of enlistments? The trade of militarism may not be either