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Show 4) SHALL WE CONTINUE CIVILIZATION? T Walter Lippman, writing in that tingling, vibrant monthly, the International, for April, pens j a query, under the title of "Slnll We Continue ;J Civilization?" the poignancy of 1vhich strikes in jj with a luminance and force that compels atten-tion. atten-tion. Ho says: War as we know it may be a cruel j thing, but it presupposes a minimum of civiliza- I tion. It has developed rules which hedge it about so that the fighting is done with a certain degree of decency. There are crimes against militarism itself. The sick and wounded are protected, the n non-combatant safe-guarded, truces are respected, " and above all the fighting is over when the treaty of peace is signed. "When two men are fighting," says John Jay Chapman, "and agree that they will stop at sun- ' down, we have government." For, however tre- " mendous their differences, there is a mite of common com-mon understanding between them. Now the war ., , between capital and labor has in this country, at least, beeen fought on a certain level of common understanding. I do not mean the farcical pre- ) tense of the Civic Federation that their interests are identical, nor the Rooseveltian illusion that there is such a thing as a square deal between F the exploiter and his victim. What both sides i have tacitly accepted is that production shall go K on under the terms agreed upon in the treaty of peace. And so, in spite of the incessant harrying, I industry has continued. I But in Lawrence the sanctions have collapsed. The agreements and consents which have heretofore hereto-fore clothed the class struggle are torn up, and an irreconcilable conflict is on. Hunger has met tyranny, and there is no basis of understanding any more. For hunger has risen to say to tyranny: I no longer accept your ideals. We can agree on nothing. Production cannot proceed. That is Sabotage. The dynamite war of the McNamaras is civilized in comparison. It was merely the old war in more violent form. But sabotage, the secret spoiling of goods, isn't war. It is pure and simple nihilism an absolute rerusal to continue civilization on the present basis. The Lawrence strikers have come to the end. You can imagine them articulate saying to the American people: "You will not change the situation by raising your voice in horror, or writing editorials telling labor to be good. Putting the Ettorl3" ill jail will not help you, nor will praise of the wis- ' dom of John Mitchell. Labor has got beyond car- ! ing what you say or what you do. Your advice is rubbish. Your curses are like the east -wind. You are facing something which is at the roots of modern civilization, something more arresting than all your prattle about elections, charters, and the constitutionality of this or that. "You have had ample time to learn and to prepare. pre-pare. You have been warned by the best minds for the last fifty years. Lincoln warned you, and Wendell Phillips, not to mention Marx, Bismarck and Lasalle, Hyndman, Bernard Shaw and Jaures. And you have gone right on electing McKinley, Taft, Dix. You have seen a few ripples on tho ' surface, and so you have turned to Roosevelt, Bryan and La Follette. But the groundswell you i have Ignored. ' "Your politics is a mockery. Just think of that houseful of incompetents at Washington. Think of their debates, think of what they call issues, and then look at us. Our hunger is tho answer to your stupidity. We are too wretched to continue con-tinue with civilization." What answer shall we make to them? On what grounds shall we ask them to bo satialied? Just think that over when you are eating your dinner. I forone shall be glad to devote all tho space allowed to me in the next number of The M International to publishing anybody's reasons why 1 the mill people of Lawrence should continue to H play the game of civilization. i HI Would you do it? I wouldn't. If life held B nothing for me but endless drudgery rewarded H by starvation, with a chance to lose a finger or an M arm at any moment, and early death as a cer- M tainty, I should attribute my acquiescence to cow- 1 ardico. If I found that politics was a deception, that argument and facts made no impression upon you, the only thing that would keep me down is M fear of the police. M They have got beyond that in Lawrence. I don't like sabotage. The few yards of clotn mat I will be spoiled don't matter. What matter it that we, in our greed and stupidity, have driven thousands thou-sands of human beings to a point where life has ceased to be worth living. What stands above was written about ten Ndays before the end of the strike. It is unueces- M j sary to change it on account of the "victory." H Let no one rejoice overmuch at the result H There are, to be sure, gradations of misery in Hj bell, and these mill people may have moved up H I one circle. But all the strikers have not yet been H taken back, nor has the Woolen Trust shown H what its plans are for preventing a second strike Hj Tho essential point of the situation remafhs: H that tho two sides have no common consents, that H both will justify any kind of move, and that what H we are watching is merely a surface reconcilia- 1 tion. Having gained a few points, these workers B may go on with production for a little time longer. H But nothing permanent is accomplished. The H class war is not over. The advantages gained will H'l soon be imperceptible. The newspapers are back Hl at their old complacency and the revolutionary H situation is not broken because it is covered up. |