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.
