(1) Invite your pastor to preach against war, urge him to do so, and
render him any assistance you can in the way of literature on war. Help
get out an audience to hear the sermon. Urge others to do likewise.
(2) Inform your own children and other children concerning the class
struggle and war, and urge them to talk about the class struggle and
against war, at school. Teach them the cause of war. See also Chapter
Eight, Section 20, and Index, “Recitations.” _Rouse the children._
(3) Wherever possible—in colleges, high schools, labor unions, fraternal
organizations, women’s clubs, churches, Sunday schools, at picnics, and
so forth—have debates, declamations and essays on war. Help the
debaters, writers and speakers, find literature on war, and, if
possible, get the subject presented from a working-class point of view,
showing especially the fundamental cause of war and what war always
means for the working class. (See page 350, _last two lines_.)
(4) Have as many persons as possible call at your public library for
books on war, and suggest books on war to be called for. Suggest books
for purchase by your public library management. If the books you urge
for the library are not purchased, _discuss_ the reason. All the
sociological works quoted in Chapter Eleven should be in your public
library.
(5) Get articles and letters on war into your local newspapers and labor
union journals.
(6) On the 30th of May, the 4th of July and other “great” days, when the
blood-steaming praise of human butchery is poured forth by the noisy
“patriotic” orators, pass around all possible literature helpful in
counteracting the befouling suggestions commonly thrust into the minds
of the people at such times. Chapter Two and other selections from
_War—What For?_ making an inexpensive sixteen-page booklet, may be had,
printed separately, for such purpose.
It is possible to compel an entire community to think about the vast
outrages against the working class. As long as the workers have the
privilege of spreading the printed page, one of their highest pleasures
and powers will be found in _forcing society to consider the case of the
working class_. The first thing on the program in every community is to
take the community by the shoulders, so to speak, and _compel it to
consider the most vital subject of the hour_.
(7) A Ten-Dollar Cash Prize for the best essay or debate, or declamation
on _war as a phase of the class struggle_ by local school-children under
eighteen years of age would create much interest in the vicious
slaughter of men of the working class and in the new working class
politics, if the proper literature were brought to the young people’s
attention. See Chapter Eight, Section 20, Suggestion (7).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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