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Strike Against War Famous Speech by Helen Keller
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Strike Against War Famous Speech by Helen Keller
Speech at Carnegie Hall, New York City - January 5, 1916
To begin with, I have a word to
say to my good friends, the editors, and others who are moved to pity me.
Some people are grieved because they imagine I am in the hands of
unscrupulous persons who lead me astray and persuade me to espouse
unpoplular causes and make me the mouthpiece of their propaganda. Now, let
it be understood once and for all that I do not want their pity; I would
not change places withone of them. I know what I am talking about. My
sources of information are as good and reliable as anybody else's. I have
papers and magazines from England, France, Germany and Austria that I can
read myself. Not all the editors I have met can do that. Quite a number of
them have to take their French and German second hand. No, I will not
disparage the editors. They are an overworked, misunderstood class. Let
them remember, though, that if I cannot see the fire at the end of their
cigarettes, neither can they thread a needle in the dark. All I ask,
gentlemen, is a fair field and no favor. I have entered the fight against
preparedness and against the economic system under which we live. It is to
be a fight to the finish, and I ask no quarter.
The future of the world rests in the hands of America. The future of
America rests on the backs of 80,000,000 working men and women and their
children. We are facing a grave crisis in our national life. The few who
profit from the labor of the masses want to organize the workers into an
army which will protect the interests of the capitalists. You are urged to
add to the heavy burdens you already bear the burden of a larger army and
many additional warships. It is in your power to refuse to carry the
artillery and the dread-noughts and to shake off some of the burdens, too,
such as limousines, steam yachts and country estates. You do not neet to
make a great noise about it. With the silence and dignity of creators you
can end wars and the system of selfishness and exploitation that causes
wars. All you need to do to bring about this stupendous revolution is to
straighten up and fold your arms.
We are not preparing to defend our country. Even if we were as helpless as
Congressman Gardner says we are, we have no enemies foolhardy enough to
attempt to invade the United States. The talk about attack from Germany
and Japan is absurd. Germany has its hands full and will be busy with its
own affairs for some generations after the European war is over.
With full control of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the
allies failed to land enough men to defeat the Turks at Gallipoli; and
then they failed again to land an army at Salonica in time to check the
Bulgarian invasion of Serbia. The conquest of America by water is a
nightmare confined exclusively to ignorant persons and members of the Navy
League.
Yet, everywhere, we hear fear advanced as argument for armament. It
reminds me of a fable I read. A certain man found a horseshoe. His
neighbor began to weep and wail because, as he justly pointed out, the man
who found the horseshoe might someday find a horse. Having found the shoe,
he might shoe him. The neighbor's child might some day go so near the
horse's hells as to be kicked, and die. Undoubtedly the two families would
quarrel and fight, and several valuable lives would be lost through the
finding of the horseshoe. You know the last war we had we quite
accidentally picked up some islands in the Pacific Ocean which may some
day be the cause of a quarrel between ourselves and Japan. I'd rather drop
those islands right now and foret about them than go to war to keep them.
Wouldn't you?
Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is
planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors in
Mexico, South America, China, and teh Philippine Islands. Incidentally
this preparation will benefit the manufacturers of munitions and war
machines.
Until recently there were uses in the United States for the money taken
from the workers. But American labor is exploited almost to the limit now,
and our national resources have all been appropriated. Still the profits
keep piling up new capital. Our flourishing industry in implements of
murder is filling the vaults of New York's banks with gold. And a dollar
that is not being used to make a slave of some human being is not
fulfilling its purpose in the capitalistic scheme. That dollar must be
invested in South America, Mexico, China, or the Philippines.
It was no accident that the Navy League came into prominence at the same
time that the National City Bank of New York established a branch in
Buenos Aires. It is not a mere coincidence that six business associates of
J.P. Morgan are officials of defense leagues. And chance did not dictate
that Mayor Mitchel chould appoint to his Committee of Safety a thousand
men that represent a fifth of the wealth of the United States. These men
want their foreign investments protected.
Every modern war has had its root in exploitation. The Civil War was
fought to decide whether to slaveholders of the South or the capitalists
of the North should exploit the West. The Spanish-American War decided
that the United States should exploit Cuba and the Philippines. The South
African War decided that the British should exploit the diamond mines. The
Russo-Japanese War decided that Japan should exploit Korea. The present
war is to decide who shall exploit the Balkans, Turkey, Persia, Egypt,
India, China, Africa. And we are whetting our sword to scare the victors
into sharing the spoils with us. Now, the workers are not interested in
the spoils; they will not get any of them anyway.
The preparedness propagandists have still another object, and a very
important one. They want to give the people something to think about
besides their won unhappy condition. They know the cost of living is high,
wages are low, employment is uncertain and will be much more so when the
European call for munitions stops. No matter how hard and incessantly the
people work, they often cannot afford the comforts of life; many cannot
obtain the necessities.
Every few days we are given a new war scare to lend realism to their
propaganda. They have had us on the verge of war over the Lusitania, the
Gulflight, the Ancona, and now they want the workingmen to become excited
over the sinking of the Persia. The workingman has no interest in any of
these ships. The Germans might sink every vessel on the Atlantic Ocean and
the Mediterranean Sea, and kill Americans with every one--the American
workingman would still have no reason to go to war.
All the machinery of the system has been set in motion. Above the
complaint and din of the protest from the workers is heard the voice of
authority.
"Friends," it says, "fellow workmen, patriots; your country is in danger!
There are foes on all sides of us. There is nothing between us and our
enemies except the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. Look at what has
happened to Belgium. Consider the fate of Serbia. Will you murmur about
low wages when your country, your very liberties, are in jeopardy? What
are the miseries you endure compared to the humiliation of having a
victorious German army sail up the East River? Quit your whining, get busy
and prepare to defend your firesides and your flag. Get an army, get a
navy; be ready to meet the invaders like the loyal-hearted freemen you
are."
Will the workers walk into this trap? Will they be fooled again? I am
afraid so. The people have always been amenable to oratory of this sort.
The workers know they have no enemies except their masters. They know that
their citizenship papers are no warrant for the safety of themselves or
their wives and children. They know that honest sweat, persistent toil and
years of struggle bring them nothing worth holding on to, worth fighting
for. Yet, deep down in their foolish hearts they believe they have a
country. Oh blind vanity of slaves!
The clever ones, up in the high places know how childish and silly the
workers are. They know that if the government dresses them up in khaki and
gives them a rifle and starts them off with a brass band and waving
banners, they will go forth to fight valiantly for their own enemies. They
are taught that brave men die for their country's honor. What a price to
pay for an abstraction--the lives of millions of young men; other millions
crippled and blinded for life; existence made hideous for still more
millions of human being; the achievement and inheritance of generations
swept away in a moment--and nobody better off for all the misery! This
terrible sacrifice would be comprehensible if the thing you die for and
call country fed, clothed, housed and warmed you, educated and cherished
your children. I thinkthe workers are the most unselfish of the children
of men; they toil and live and die for other people's country, other
people's sentiments, other people's liberties and other people's
happiness! The workers have no liberties of their own; they are not free
when they are compelled to work twelve or ten or eight hours a day. they
are not free when they are ill paid for their exhausting toil. They are
not free when their children must labor in mines, mills and factories or
starve, and when their women may be driven by poverty to lives of shame.
They are not free when they are clubbed and imprisoned because they go on
strike for a raise of wages and for the elemental justice that is their
right as human beings.
We are not free unless the men who frame and execute the laws represent
the interests of the lives of the people and no other interest. The ballot
does not make a free man out of a wage slave. there has never existed a
truly free and democratic nation in the world. From time immemorial men
have followed with blind loyalty the strong men who had the power of money
and of armies. Even while battlefields were piled high with their own dead
they have tilled the lands of the rulers and have been robbed of the
fruits of their labor. They have built palaces and pyramids, temples and
cathedrals that held no real shrine of liberty.
As civilization has grown more complex the workers have become more and
more enslaved, until today they are little more than parts of the machines
they operate. Daily they face the dangers of railroad, bridge, skyscraper,
frieght train, stokehold, stockyard, lumber raft and min. Panting and
training at the docks, on the railroads and underground and on the seas,
they move the traffic and pass from land to land the precious commodities
that make it possible for us to live. And what is their reward? A scanty
wage, often poverty, rents, taxes, tributes and war indemnities.
The kind of preparedness the workers want is reorganization and
reconstruction of their whole life, such as has never been attempted by
statesmen or governments. The Germans found out years ago that they could
not raise good soldiers in the slums so they abolished the slums. They saw
to it that all the people had at least a few of the essentials of
civilization--decent lodging, clean streets, wholesome if scanty food,
proper medical care and proper safeguards for the workers in their
ocupations. That is only a small part of what should be done, but what
wonders that one step toward the right sort of preparedness has wrought
for Germany! For eighteen months it has kept itself free from invasion
while carrying on an extended war of conquest, and its armies are still
pressing on with unabated vigor. It is your business to force these
reforms on the Administration. Let there be no more talk about what a
government can or cannot do. All these theings have been done by all the
belligerent nations in the hurly-burly of war. Every fundamental industry
has been managed better by the governments than by private corporations.
It is your duty to insist upon still more radical measure. It is your
business to see that no child is employed in an industrial establishment
or mine or store, and that no worker in needlessly exposed to accident or
disease. It is your business to make them give you clean cities, free from
smoke, dirt and congestion. It is your business to make them pay you a
living wage. It is your business to see that this kind of preparedness is
carried into every department on the nation, until everyone has a chance
to be well born, well nourished, rightly educated, intelligent and
serviceable to the country at all times.
Strike against all ordinances and laws and institutions that continue the
slaughter of peace and the butcheries of war. Srike against war, for
without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing
scrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against
preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human being. Be
not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army
of construction.
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Strike Against War Famous Speech by Helen Keller
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