But when the sky darkens
And the prospect is war
Who’s given a gun
And then pushed to the fore
And expected to die
For the land of our birth
When we’ve never owned
One handful of earth?
-Ed Pickford
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday October 26, 1916
The Northwest Worker on “Political Saviors”
POLITICAL SAVIORS WHO WILL
“KEEP US OUT OF WAR”
—–
Wilson kept us out of war. Therefore, if re-elected, he will continue to keep us out of war. How, we ask, can any intelligent person assume that there is the slightest basis for such reasoning? We can imagine a person attributing supernatural powers to Wilson accepting it, but he certainly would not be an intelligent person, or let us say, he accepted it as a matter of faith, and not of reason.
If Wilson should be re-elected, and the country does not go to war, that faith would naturally be strengthened among his supporters. But, if, under the same circumstances, the country did go to war, there would be nothing easier than for his supporters to claim that it was forced on him; that he was not able to keep the country out of war, despite their belief that he could. That belief would be conveniently forgotten, and they would hate to be reproached with ever entertaining it.
But nothing is more certain than that the opponents of Wilson would at once accuse him of plunging the country into war, and deny that it was forced on him.
In like manner, if Hughes were elected, and no war resulted, his supporters would at once claim that peace was the result of his election. And if war did result, the supporters of Wilson would instantly accuse him of bringing it about, and reiterate that “we told you so.”
In 1913, at the last Hague Conference, the German Emperor was universally hailed as the man who had kept peace in Europe. People who almost worshipped him then as the peacemaker par excellence are now cursing him by all their gods as the destroyer of peace and deliberate fomenter of war.
If he had died in 1913, or before August, 1914, his successor, the Crown Prince, would have been the recipient of the curses his father is now receiving, and thousands of publicists would have conclusively shown that the war resulted only because the son departed from the peace-loving and peace-preserving characteristics and policy of his father. William would have preserved his peace halo untarnished.
The individual who really believes that Wilson, Hughes, or any other man can keep us out of war is nothing more than the ordinary fool who is the ordinary prey of the capitalist politician, who catches him through his political superstitions.
No Socialist would for one moment make the claim that Benson could “keep the country out of war.” No Socialist votes for Benson under that misapprehension. But he knows that Socialism, when fully realized, can keep us out of war, while capitalism is always just as likely as not to plunge us into it.
Those who see nothing but a Wilson or a Hughes as a preservative against war are in reality leaving themselves defenseless against it, through knowing nothing of the economic system under which both work, and which either will equally serve if elected.-New York Call.
[Photograph added.]
Benson and Kirkpatrick, Socialist Party of America, 1916
Pamphlets by Benson and Kirkpatrick
SOURCE
The Northwest Worker
“Official organ of the Socialist Party
of Snohomish and Stevens Counties,
owned and controlled by the
Socialist Party of Snohomish County”
(Everett, Washington)
-Oct 26, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/64154186
IMAGES
Benson Kirkpatrick, American Socialist July 8, 1916
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/american-socialist/v2n52-jul-08-1916-TAS.pdf
Benson Kirkpatrick, SPA, 1916
http://retrocampaigns.tumblr.com/post/92733814488/great-poster-from-1916-depicting-allan-benson-and
Benson Kirkpatrick pamphlets for sale, AtR, Sept 23, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67312341
See also:
Inviting War to America
-by Allan L. Benson
NY, 1916
https://archive.org/stream/invitingwartoame00bensiala#page/n5/mode/2up
Think or Surrender
-by George R. Kirkpatrick
Appeal to Reason, 1916
https://archive.org/stream/thinkorsurrender00kirk#page/n3/mode/2up
Allan L. Benson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_L._Benson
George R. Kirkpatrick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ross_Kirkpatrick
The Workers’ Song – Dropkick Murphys
Lyrics by Ed Pickford
http://www.unionsong.com/u608.html