The Martial Adventures of Henry and MeWhite, William Allen
History
The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me
White, William Allen
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
But the things that roll off the laps of the gods, after humanity
has put its destinies there, sometimes are startlingly different
from the expected fruits of victory. We fight a war for one thing,
win the war and get quite another thing. The great war now waging
began in a dispute over spheres of influence, market extensions,
Places in the Sun and Heaven knows what of that sort of considerations.
Great changes in these matters, of course, must come out of the
war. But boundaries and markets will fluctuate with the decades
and centuries. The important changes that will come out of this
war--assuming that the Allies win it--will be found in the changed
relations of men. The changes will be social and economic and they
will be institutional and lasting. For generally speaking, such
changes as approach a fair adjustment of the complaints of the "have
nots" against the "haves" in life, are permanent changes. Kings,
overlords, potentates, politicians, capitalists, high priests--masters
of various kinds--find it difficult to regain lost privileges and
perquisites. And in this war Germany stands clearly for the "haves."
If Germany wins, autocracy will hood its losing ground all over
the world. For the same autocracy in Berlin lives in Wall Street,
and in the "city" in London, and in the caste and class interests
of Italy and France. But junkerdom in Germany alone among the nations
of the earth rests on the divine right of kings that is the last
resort of privilege. In America we have the democratic weapons to
break up our plutocracy whenever we desire to do so. In England
they are breaking up their caste and economic privileged classes
rapidly. In France and Italy junkerdom is a motheaten relic. And
when junkerdom in Germany is crushed, then at least the world may
begin the new era, may indeed begin to fight itself free. In the
lands of the Allies the autocracy will be weakened by an allied
victory. In Germany the junkers will be strong if they win the
war, and their strength will revive junkerism all over the earth.
If the Allies win, it will weaken junkerdom everywhere. Germany, it
is true, treats her working classes better than some of the Allies
treat their working people. But it is with the devilish wisdom of
a wise slaveholder, who sees profit in fat slaves. The workers get
certain legal bonuses. They have economic privileges, not democratic
rights of free men under German rule. And the roaring of the big
guns out at the front, seemed to Henry and me to be the crashing
walls of privilege in the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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