“It is especially prohibited to employ poison or poisoned arms.” WELL BE IT KNOWN:— THAT KLEPTOMANIACS’ PERIODICAL LUNCHEON, OR “THIEVES’ SUPPER,” CALLED THE HAGUE CONFERENCE, WOULD HAVE NO MORE WORK TO DO FOR THE NEXT THOUSAND YEARS, WOULD NEVER AGAIN HAVE ANYTHING WHATEVER TO MEET FOR, IF ALL BULLETS AND ALL SWORDS AND ALL BAYONETS USED IN ALL THE ARMIES WERE DIPPED IN A DEADLY POISON; FOR, IN THAT CASE, THE WORKING CLASS OF THE WHOLE WORLD WOULD FLATLY REFUSE TO VOLUNTEER OR BE DRAFTED TO SERVE IN ANY WAR ANYWHERE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. AND, OF COURSE, THE SOFT-VOICED, WELL-FED “HUMANIZERS OF WAR” WOULD NOT GO TO WAR—POISON OR NO POISON. THE UNIVERSAL USE OF POISONED BULLETS, SWORDS AND BAYONETS WOULD MAKE WAR ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE, BECAUSE THE INAUGURATION OF SUCH A POLICY WOULD MAKE THE WORKING CLASS THINK. A thinking slave is the terror of the plunder-bloated rulers of the world—always. When the workers once think about war they will promptly do two things: _First_, They will refuse to go to war; _Second_, They will find the cause of war, and will remove it. Of course, it requires the deep and prayerful investigation of “great” and “prominent Christian” gentlemen in peace conference assembled to discover that it _is_ wrong for men to butcher men with swords and bullets dipped in poison, but that it is _not_ wrong for men to destroy men with clean lead and clean steel, their souls charged with hate as an adder’s fang jetting venom into its victim’s flesh; to discover that it _is_ wrong to have soldiers thrust poison-dipped bayonets into one another’s stomachs, but that it is _not_ wrong for a “Christian business men’s” government to feed its soldiers on poisoned canned beef. The poor dupes who butcher one another at the word of command are, of course, too “common” and ignorant to understand the logical legerdemain of these prayerfully discovered distinctions; but the learned and prominent gentlemen in peace conference assembled, far, far from the battle line, smoking 50–cent cigars, quaffing the world’s costliest champagne—these noble braves, these bottle-scarred heroes, can tell us all about it. Certainly. With thoughtful tenderness many Christian governments, influenced by peace societies, have made an international agreement that, in case of war, no bullet used weighing 14 ounces or less shall be an explosive bullet,—that is, a bullet that easily expands, flattens and shatters _when it strikes flesh_. However, these same “more refined and civilized” nations are all at perfect liberty to use a cannon bullet, or shell, weighing hundreds of pounds, charged with explosives, flesh-tearing materials and deadly gases, arranged with time-fuses in order to explode over the heads of, or among, a great body of men on the field, or in the midst of men when it has pierced the armor of a war vessel.