Have You A Country? (Revolt, January 15, 1916) posted by Rad Geek 06 Jan 2011 6:33 pm
This is a letter published in Vol. I, No. 2 of Revolt (dated January 15th, 1916), an Anarchist newspaper edited by Hippolyte Havel and published by the Revolt Publishing Association, 63 East 107th Street, New York, N. Y. The copy came to us by way of a facsimile edition published by The Match!, a journal of Ethical Anarchism, published from Tucson, Arizona. The letter was contributed by Robert Minor, and appears on pp. 6-7 of the issue.
British Labor shows fight. The army poison hasnt twisted their brains as much as their bosses had hoped for. It gives a fellow’s heart a quicker throb to know that even in the mob-crazy war country, Labor can hold up its head and be Labor still. In times of
peace,workers know that capitalists are their enemies; in time of war they are often fools enough to go fight their friend workers of another country for the sake of the capitalist enemies that they have been fighting at all other times. They’ve got to learn better, and it looks as though the English are learning. Hurrah for the English! (That means English Labor, not the Greedy British Empire, their greatest enemy.)They are not perfect by a long sight, but neither are we, nor any other labor. They are improving, that’s the point. They have got their bosses so badly worried as to be afraid to make a daring stand for their crooked privileges. It is really amusing. Go to it, friends; you may weaken and be fooled later on, but even then, the little start you have made in defying conscription will not be forgotten, and the world will profit by the example.
May we do as well here in America. It’s our turn now. Conscription is at the door, the back door, trying to sneak in. Stand up, American Labor! You ought to do even better, without the disadvantage of actual war upon you. You haven’t any country. No labor, anywhere, has any country. So don’t be patriotic. Be Labor. And fight to GET your country, not to help your bosses hold it.
HAVE you a country? Then, why do you pay rent?
Robert Minor.