Capitalists do indeed want war and military servants—but the capitalists are too shrewd, too self-respecting, too proud to expose their own well-fed glossy bodies to the modern butchering machinery. In time of war or “labor troubles” these “prominent citizens” stay at home, eat fine food, wear good clothes, sleep in warm dreamy beds—and secretly laugh at the poor hoodwinked fellows on the firing line eating “hard-tack”;—they stay at home and plan for more profits—ever more profits from the increasing surplus. Capitalists band together and stand together. Capitalists are CLASS loyal. The capitalist class even hire working-class men to defend the capitalist class with rifles; shrewdly the employers confuse and hire the working class to get “behind the gun” to murder the working class in front of the gun. (B)—THE POLITICIANS DECLARE WAR: Because the capitalists want war. The politicians are either capitalists themselves or the political lackeys of the capitalists; and these ignoble flunkies take their pay in offices and opportunities to get graft. The capitalists pay the campaign expenses of their political flunkies, and, of course, whenever the capitalists _want_ war their political flunkey prostitutes _declare_ war.[23] After the war, on great public occasions, the politicians serve up some oratorically noisy nonsense to the widows and orphans and the poor old broken-down veterans about the “glory” of the war—about the grandeur of slaughtering and being slaughtered. Right here is where the fun comes in for the politicians, and sometimes for _some_ ministers,—in seeing an opera-houseful or a groveful of working men clap their hands together and yell when the politicians, or some ministers, sometimes, whoop and yawp and tell the working class all about the glory and grandeur of war. No wonder the politicians secretly laugh. How stupidly ridiculous! The glory of brothers butchering and being butchered—by themselves! To “declare war” makes statesmen and rulers popular. In our own country “war” presidents, “war” governors, “war” congressmen, _are almost invariably re-elected_. “The temptations of party politicians are of many kinds.... The worst is the temptation to war.... Many wars have been begun or have been prolonged in order to consolidate a dynasty or a party; in order to give it popularity or at least to save it from unpopularity; in order to divert the minds of men from internal questions which have become embarrassing, or to efface the memory of past quarrels, mistakes or crimes. Experience unfortunately shows only too clearly how the combative passion can be aroused and how much popularity can be gained from a successful war.”[24] Politicians do not join the militia and the army for actual service on the firing line—oh, no! No, thank you. They pass laws “to make the service attractive”—but they are so very careful not to let the attractions attract them.