by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
We must grab them by their hairy throats,
We must shake them off their feet.”
It was Comrade this and Comrade that
And “Comrade, let me shake,”
And “Comrade, you’re a poltroon
When the Fatherland’s at stake.”
I walked the streets of Paris
And I hadn’t walked so far,
Ere the thought was born within me:
The nation’s going to war.
Beneath a spluttering torch-light,
For the day was turning dark,
A Red was loudly shouting,
And I stopped to hear him bark.
It was Comrade this and Comrade that,
“But our German comrades! God!
We must bayonet them and burn them
We must plant them neath the sod.”
For, Comrades, you’re my brother,
No matter what your ‘ality,
But you’re a hissing, crawling serpent,
When it comes to boundary.
I stood upon the battle field
And watched the spitting flow
Of life-blood from the Saxon
And his stalwart Teuton foe.
And Comrade this and Comrade that
Had drenched themselves again;
They had done their masters’ bidding,
And were numbered ‘mongst the slain.
Now many words could type this sheet
Of what I saw cross the sea,
But what’s the use of wording
When it comes to you and me.
For Comrade this and Comrade that
It sounded very fine.
The bomb has burst beneath you,
You are swallowed in a mine.
And the cant that turned to cannon,
And the handclasp that was mailed
Will record unto ages
The philosophy that failed.
2
“Blasphemy,” by Covington Hall, who frequently used the pen names “Covington Ami” or “Covami” is included in the I.W.W. file of songs and poems in the Labadie Collection.
BLASPHEMY
By COVINGTON AMI
“You shall not kill. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
You shall not spend your days in piling pelf on pelf.
You cannot serve both God and Mammon, for you must
In one or yet the other put your heart and trust.
“Call no man master. To the truth be ever true.
The light within you, keep it burning, clear and pure!
He who denies the truth the truth to be,
Unpardonable in the Father’s sight is he.
“As brothers work and live. All things in common hold.
Remember this: Love’s spirit is not bought nor sold:
He who is without sin let him first cast the stone:
Not by your words but by your works shall you be known.”
And this was “blasphemy,” so they who heard him said,
And forth to Pilate they, the “rebel Wobblie,” led;
And he was hanged. The charges? Oh, the same: “Intent
To dethrone God and overthrow the government.”
3
The unsigned poem “Onward Christian Soldiers” was printed in Voice of the People (December 4, 1913), the publication edited by Covington Hall. Exactly two years later on December 4,1915, two poems were printed side by side in Solidarity. One of them was attributed to William Lloyd Garrison (1805–79), the abolitionist. The other was signed “John Kendrick.” Titled “Christians at War,” Kendrick’s poem was first included in the thirteenth edition of the Wobbly’s songbook. The harsh language and supposedly antireligious sentiment of “Christians at War” caused a furor, and the poem was used as evidence in several federal and state trials as proof of the Wobblies’ anti-Christian, anti-American position. Little is known about John Kendrick. It is claimed that he was a Chicago newspaperman.
ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS
Onward, Christian Soldiers,
March into the War,
Slay your Christian Brothers,
As you’ve done before.
Plutocratic masters,
Bid you face the foe,
Men who never harmed you,
Men you do not know.
Raise the Christian War-whoop,
You who love the Lord,
Hearken to your masters,
Buckle on the sword;
Bombshells, bullets, grapeshot,
Shower on the foe,
Heed your Christian Chaplain,
Into battle go.
Heed not dying groans from
Those whom you have slain,
Heed not pleas for mercy,
Nor the shrieks of pain.
Plunge the sword and dagger
Through your brothers’ heart,
Never shirk your duty,
Always do your part.
Onward Christian Soldiers
Into brutal war,
Break the hearts of mothers
As you’ve done before;
Close your eyes to horrors
Of the bloody field,
Forward into battle,
Slay with sword and shield.
Thus you prove your love for
Him who lived for all,
And without respect to
Persons great or small,
Said to his Disciples
If my name you’d seek,
Love you one another,
Turn the other cheek.
Onward Christian Soldiers
To plunder Mexico;
Onward Christian Soldiers,
Into battle go;
Onward Christian Soldiers,
Shoot your brothers through,
While your chaplain’s praying,
They do the same to you.
4
ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS
By WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
The Anglo Saxon Christians, with gattling gun and sword
In serried ranks are pushing on the gospel of the Lord;
On Afric’s soil they press the foe in war’s terrific scenes
And merrily the hunt goes on throughout the Philippines.
What though the Boers are Christians; the Filipinos, too!
It is a Christian act to shoot a fellow creature through.
The bombs with dynamite surcharged their deadly missiles fling,
And gaily on their fatal work the dum-dum bullets sing.
The mahdis and the sirdars along the great Soudan
Are learning at the cannon’s mouth the brotherhood of man;
The holy spirit guides aloft the shrieking shot and shell,
And Christian people shout with joy at thousands blown to hell!
The pulpits bless the victor arms and praise the bloody work,
As after an Armenian raid rejoiced the pious Turk;
The Christian press applauds the use of bayonet and knife,
For how can social order last without the strenuous life?
The outworn, threadbare precept, to lift the poor and weak,
The fallacy that this great earth is for the saintly meek;
Have both gone out of fashion: the world is for the strong;
That might be Lord of right is now the Christian song.
Then onward, Christian soldier, through the fields of crimson gore,
Behold the trade advantages beyond the open door!
The profits on our ledgers outweigh the heathen loss;
Set thou the glorious stars and stripes above the ancient cross.
5
CHRISTIANS AT WAR*
By JOHN F. KENDRICK
(Tune: “Onward, Christian Soldiers”)
Onward, Christian soldiers! Duty’s way is plain;
Slay your Christian neighbors, or by them be slain.
Pulpiteers are spouting effervescent swill,
God above is calling you to rob
and rape and kill,
All your acts are sanctified by the Lamb on high;
If you love the Holy Ghost, go murder, pray and die.
Onward, Christian soldiers, rip and tear and smite!
Let the gentle Jesus bless your dynamite.
Splinter skulls with shrapnel, fertilize the sod;
Folks who do not speak your tongue deserve the curse of God.
Smash the doors of every home, pretty maidens seize;
Use your might and sacred right to treat them as you please.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Eat and drink your fill;
Rob with bloody fingers, Christ O.K.’s the bill.
Steal the farmer’s savings, take their grain and meat;
Even though the children starve, the Saviour’s bums must eat.
Burn the peasants’ cottages, orphans leave bereft;
In Jehovah’s holy name, wreak ruin right and left.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Drench the land with gore;
Mercy is a weakness all the gods abhor.
Bayonet the babies, jab the mothers, too;
Hoist the cross of Calvary to hallow all you do.
File your bullets’ noses flat, poison every well;
God decrees your enemies must all go plumb to hell.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Blighting all you meet,
Trampling human freedom under pious feet.
Praise the Lord whose dollar-sign dupes his favored race!
Make the foreign trash respect your bullion brand of grace.
Trust in mock salvation, serve as pirates’ tools;
History will say of you: “That pack of G—d—fools.”
6
Ralph Chaplin’s poem “The Red Feast” signed “a Paint Creek Miner,” was printed in the International Socialist Review (October, 1914). This rewritten version was included for the first time in the twenty-first edition of the I.W.W. songbook.
THE RED FEAST*
By RALPH CHAPLIN
Go fight, you fools! Tear up the earth with strife
And give unto a war that is not yours;
Serve unto death the men you served in life
So that their wide dominions may not yield.
Stand by the flag—the He that still allures;
Lay down your lives for land you do not own,
And spill each other’s guts upon the field;
Your gory tithe of mangled flesh and bone.
But whether in the fray to fall or kill
You must not pause to question why nor where.
You see the tiny crosses on that hill?
It took all those to make one millionaire.
It was for him the seas of blood were shed
That fields were razed and cities lit the sky;
That he might come to chortle o’er the dead;
The condor thing for whom the millions die!
The bugle screams, the cannons cease to roar,
“Enough! enough! God give us peace again.”
The rats, the maggots and the Lords of War
Are fat to bursting from their meal of men.
So stagger back, you stupid dupes who’ve “won,”
Back to your stricken towns to toil anew,
For there your dismal tasks are still undone
And grim Starvation gropes again for you.
What matters now your flag, your race, the skill
Of scattered legions—what has been the gain?
Once more beneath the lash you must distil
Your lives to glut a glory wrought of pain.
In peace they starve you to your loathsome toil,
In war they drive you to the teeth of Death;
And when your life-blood soaks into their soil
They give you lies to choke your dying breath.
So will they smite your blind eyes till you see,
And lash your naked backs until you know
That wasted blood can never set you free
From fettered thraldom to the Common Foe.
Then you will find that “nation” is a name
And boundaries are things that don’t exist;
That Labor’s bondage, world-wide, is the same,
And ONE the enemy it must resist.
7
Signed with the initials “O.E.B.,” “My Country” was printed in Solidarity (July 29, 1916).
MY COUNTRY
By O. E. B.
I have a country
I love my country
I love it with a love that is lasting
And that must be returned.
If love of one’s country
Makes a patriot
Then I am a good patriot.
My country is boundless
It has no limit
No king, no potentate-
Only a race of human beings.
There need be no hunger, nor cold,
No want in my country.
There is room for all the
Children of the world there;
And they can dwell in peace,
And plenty, and happiness,
And joy forever
In my country.
I do not dwell in my country,
But I can live in the hopes it holds
For the future,
When many shall sojourn therein.
I can be a patriotic subject
Of my country
Without robbing or slaying
One of my brothers.
I need not wrest from others
Land, or riches of any sort,
That I may pour them into the coffers
Of a group, or of an individual.
I can be a true patriot
And love all the people of the earth
As I love my own family.
My country demands of her patriots
That they be charitable to all mankind.
I can work and fight
For my country,
And die, if need be,
But I cannot dwell there alone.
Humanity is the population
Of my country.
Industrial Democracy
Is my country.
8
Contrasting the antimilitary position of the I.W.W. with the prowar position of the A.F.L., the antiwar tract “The Deadly Parallel” was printed on the front page of Solidarity (March 24, 1917). Although plans had been made to distribute it as a leaflet once the U.S. entered the war on April 6, 1917, Bill Haywood told Solidarity editor Ralph Chaplin to cancel an order to have additional copies printed. “The Deadly Parallel” was read into the record by the prosecution at the Chicago trial as evidence that the I.W.W. opposed the war. To these charges, Bill Haywood answered, “The Deadly Parallel was never circulated from headquarters after war was declared.” As Professor Philip Taft wrote in his article, “The Federal Trials of the I.W.W.,” in the Winter 1962 issue of Labor History: “It is noteworthy that only members of the I.W.W. were prosecuted on conspiracy charges, although the I.W.W. never took an official position on the war. In contrast, the Socialist Party, which held a special convention in St. Louis to define its attitude and issued a militant anti-war declaration, was never prosecuted for conspiracy, although many individual Socialists, including Eugene Victor Debs, were jailed for encouraging opposition to or interfering with the war effort.”
Penciled Program of an I.W.W. entertainment in Cook County Jail, Chicago.
Labadie Collection file of cartoons and pictures.
THE DEADLY PARALLEL
A DECLARATION
By the Industrial Workers of the World.
We, the Industrial Workers of the World, in convention assembled, hereby reaffirm our adherence to the principles of Industrial Unionism, and re-dedicate ourselves to the unflinching prosecution of the struggle for the abolition of wage slavery, and the realization of our ideals in Industrial Democracy.
With the European war for conquest and exploitation raging and destroying the li
ves, class consciousness, and unity of the workers, and the ever growing agitation for military preparedness clouding the main issues, and delaying the realization of our ultimate aim with patriotic, and therefore, capitalistic aspirations, we openly declare ourselves determined opponents of all nationalistic sectionalism or patriotism, and the militarism preached and supported by our one enemy, the Capitalist Class. We condemn all wars, and, for the prevention of such, we proclaim the anti-militarist propaganda in time of peace, thus promoting class solidarity among the workers of the entire world, and, in time of war, the general strike in all industries.
We extend assurances of both moral and material support to all the workers who suffer at the hands of the Capitalist Class for their adhesion to the principles, and call on all workers to unite themselves with us, that the reign of the exploiters may cease and this earth be made fair through the establishment of the Industrial Democracy.
PLEDGE GIVEN
To Nation by American Federation of Labor.
We, the officers of the national and international trades unions of America in national conference assembled, in the capital of our nation, hereby pledge ourselves in peace or in war, in stress or in storm, to stand unreservedly by the standards of liberty and the safety and preservation of the institutions and ideals of our republic.
In this solemn hour of our nation’s life, it is our earnest hope that our republic may be safeguarded in its unswerving desire for peace; that our people may be spared the horrors and the burdens of war; that they may have the opportunity to cultivate and develop the arts of peace, human brotherhood and a higher civilization.
But, despite all our endeavors and hopes, should our country be drawn into the maelstrom of the European conflict, we, with these ideals of liberty and justice herein declared, as the indispensable basis for national policies, offer our services to our country in every field of activity to defend, safeguard and preserve the republic of the United States of America against its enemies, whosoever they may be, and we call upon our fellow workers and fellow citizens in the holy name of labor, justice, freedom and humanity to devotedly and patriotically give like service.
9
The unsigned poem “I Love My Flag” was printed in the Industrial Worker (April 14, 1917).
I LOVE MY FLAG
I love my flag, I do, I do,
Which floats upon the breeze
I also love my arms and legs,
And neck, and nose, and knees.