MIA > Archive > Mary Marcy
The International Socialist Review, Vol. 15 No. 9, March 1915, p. 561.
Transcribed by Matthew Siegfried.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Every intelligent workingman and woman is opposed to all capitalist wars. We vote against ALL war appropriations. We are opposed to ALL armies and navies. We object to having one workingman sacrificed to the interests of the capitalist class.
Even the capitalist has no patriotism in the shop, mill or factory. He talks patriotism and the flag when he wants to use you to fight his battles against other capitalists. But he hires the man who will work for the lowest wages, be he German, French, English, Japanese or American.
He exploits you, discharges you, permits you to starve regardless of your nationality. In every land he makes new laws, or evades old ones to bring foreign workingmen into that land when the foreign worker will work for lower wages.
He only emphasizes your nationality when he needs you to fight wars against other workingmen, who are also fighting for new markets for the employing class of the foreign land.
Workingmen of all countries have no fight against each other. Their interests are common. Their only enemy is the capitalist who exploits them.
The employing class is at present making all the rules in the game and every one of these rules is to further their interests at the expense of those who work.
We are opposed to ALL armies and ALL navies because they always have been, and always will be, the weapons of the ruling class to keep us in wage slavery. The army and navy have never been used in the interests of the working class.
Just remember, when the politicians are considering appropriations for national armaments, that these will one day be used AGAINST us and never FOR us, that every army and navy means that some workingmen will be forced to kill other workers in the interests of those who exploit you.
We want NO army, NO navy, not one cent expended in the implements of warfare, because these will not only be used against us today but will successfully crush any rebellion or revolution on the part of your class and my class in future.
The only foreigner we know is the boss who exploits us, whether he be German, English, French or American. All workers are our countrymen. The capitalist is our enemy.
The only war worth fighting is the class war, the war of the workers against the robber class. The abolition of the profit and wages system is the only fight that will benefit US.
Better to lose a thousand men in your OWN fight than lose one workingman in the war for the bosses who rob you!
Not one cent for armies, navies or the munitions of war!
And a general strike to prevent war!
Last updated on 31 May 2022