Think of ten or fifteen million men ready to be forced or tricked to war to _do the bidding of rulers_ whom these _big strong men outnumber ten thousand to one_; ready to do the bidding of a coterie of parasitic cowards; ready—cheap, weak, humble and contemptible—ready to scramble to the trenches and obey the murderers’ orders: “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Slay! Slaughter! Butcher!” That millions of strong men should, like whipped dogs, grovel on the ground before their masters and fight at the word of command—this, of course, is ridiculous; and naturally these millions of meek, weak, prideless, grovelling common soldiers—all over Europe—all over the world—are held socially in supreme contempt by the political and industrial masters of society. But whether the soldier is conscripted, “drafted,” or volunteers to serve, the masters’ contempt is complete. The soldiers during a war, the workers who support a war, and both the soldiers and the toilers after a war—are held in contempt even by those who praise them most. It will help somewhat in realizing this to make a short study of several actual cases as illustrations. The examples following are, most of them, from English and from American history. In all the illustrations the mocking insincerity of the profit-lusting, long-distance patriot is easily seen. FIRST ILLUSTRATION: THE ENGLISH IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS, AND IN THE BOER WAR. Never in modern times did a nation of toilers longer or more loyally support a war than did the working class of England support the British Government in the Napoleonic Wars—a fifth of a century of continuous blood-letting. Never before or since did the working class of a nation longer or more gladly give up its choicest men to butcher and be butchered than did the English working class for the Napoleonic Wars. Never did men serve more loyally or longer or fight more bravely. This long storm of death closed with the awful Battle of Waterloo in 1815. After such service we might expect the patriotic capitalists of England to be most thoughtfully and finely kind to the toilers who supported the wars and to the veterans who fought the wars. But what happened?