﻿Way of Peace Hard Enough Why Seek War? 
By T-BONE SLIM 
 
I still contend the war is a fake—a frameup between husband and wife to get the star boarder between two fires, Foreign trade is a delusion as a matter of major policy: look at what happened to Poland’s infant industry. Germany felt the rake-off should come to her. 

Already in the United States the procurers,’ packers, processors, refiners, brokers, wholesalers, and distributors have stepped out to rake in the chips and the cost of living is up 30 per cent, plus. Still we are not at war and boast a surplus of commodities. 
Canada (at war) has upped the income surtax and sundry other taxes hoping to raise $100,000,000—a 20 per cent boost. 
In the excise field the tax on the poor man’s drink went up front the present $4 to $5, to $7 and $8 it galIon. Champagne, the pabasites’ drink, got a tax raise form the present 75 cents a gallon to $1.50. 
These figures preach a sermon. 
Now we’re back in God’s country: 
“Evening schools slushed a third.” Teachers and students weeded out. Savings approximate $429,000. We can’t aford to learn any more. 
Cuts in city and state school funds made the trim necessary. 

It is said that America is saturated (all wet) with British and German propaganda; that the active part of the show business, cinema and legitimate, is surrendered unto the influence of foreign agitation. Well, what of it, if the boys want to sound off a little? 
If we enter this war on either side we are betting on the wrong horse (like Morgan) and may have to hitchhike back to the old fireside. 

“Feller pitching for Cleveland; James P. Thompson for the IWW. 

Journalism hero (NYC) is caught between a sit and a sweat trying, oh so hard, to make pure reading matter from the censors’ conflicting brainstorms. 
Go easy, press, in a moment we will be sending Jimmie Walker over to coordinate the British action. 

Economic conditions seem to be at loggerheads with the requirements of the day. So we’re going to jump into war, hey? Get taxed, robbed, plundered, and shot at? 
The ways of peace are tough enough. 
Organize, then, on the economic field. Forget commercialism. Concentrate on getting back the 30 per cent extra-legal tax the traders have put on you. To accomplish these economic wonders you have to go to those that understand economies—the IWW—the One Big Union of the working class. 
If the United States wants to end the war quickly in Europe, all it has to do is boycott the several belligerent states now and double boycott them after the war has ceased. If this is not done, our protestations for peace are lip-worship. Boycott operates like a general strike that brings reason to a boss—a revolt against butchery and greed. 
One of the lowest forms of emprise is the handing of weapons to a crazed state so that it can prosecute the extermination of human beings—men, women and children—indescrimmately, and live to brag about it afterwards. 
Were the Prince of Peace alive today he might reverse himself and say: 
“Pete, get your sword out and lop off their ears.” 
There can be no lasting peace so long as exploitation of labor is a fact and so long as the profit system shall remain, the ruling is a fact and so long as the profit system shall remain. The ruling class declares the wars; the “fat boys.” not the subject class. 
Let us not, then, bother our heads about the House of Adolph. House of Clivden, House of Molotov, Mussolini, or King Oscar; let us, rather clean our own shack. 
Truly, when the preachers say. “If war comes it is a Christian duty to fight,” they are going to hell fast—if there be hell, present, past, or future. 
(NOTE: Maybe the censor improvised that crack and the bishop is as innocent as a new-born babe.) 
Civilization and hell cannot be recoiled, so I guess it’s hell all right. 

The score: 
Ethiopia, double-crossed; 
Spain, double-crossed; 
Ruthenia, double-crossed; 
Albania, double-crossed; 
Poland, double-crossed; 
Jugo-Slavia, Turkey, and Romania, side-stepped. 
Who’s next? Or are the double-crossers going to double-cross themselves? Not so long as suckers bite! 
These are the reasons why the United States should stay out. Stay out and shout the battlecry of freedom. 
Pouf! Ten million dollars gone to hell just like that. Yes, an aircraft carrier in an argument with a submarine. War is costly, ain’t it? And Germany lost the price of one good torpedo. 
You can’t win, but bear up, children, interhal wars are still more costly. The Wall Street war of ‘29—ten billion dollars went up in smoke of get-rich-quick. 
But let us not forget the noble seamen that drowned. It cost $900 to raise each of them to fighting age. 
Weeding Out Mankind 
After each war, after all able-bodied men have been killed, society tries to survive on the pep of the culls weeded out by the military machine, and the answer is: national fraility, idiots, and molly-coddles. 
What good is national frailty? 
Ah, fellow workers, national frailty plays right into the velvety mitts of our leading parasites, for they have not subjected their able-bodied presence to the ravages of war. 
It is said, “the army makes men of its members.” That is hardly consonant with facts. The army carefully selects its members from the flower of the country and too many times they never come back, or they return in a pine box. 
A returned soldier affected with cooties once tried to boil water in my wooden tub. The army had made a man of him. And who am I to say water cannot be heated in a wooden tub, for miracles never cease.