Vol. 2 No. 9 September, 1914
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At the present rate of progress—which will surely augment itself dunn* the tall and winter months—it is demonstrably certain that the NEW REVIEW will be Review self-supporting within ten months. The war will be analyzed from month to month in the Vol. II. pages of the NEW REVIEW. The two brilliant articles by SEPTEMBER, 1914 No. 9 Frank Bohn and William English Walling in this month's issue are a brilliant augury of what is to come. * * * * Since the NEW REVIEW was re-organized it has been mak- ing steady progress. Old readers who ceased reading the THE EUROPEAN EXPLOSION NEW REVIEW, upon receiving sample copies, have written us, saying: "We are surprised at the progress which has been BY FRANK BOHN made." The following figures show the progress made in the purely business income: March $142.42 The ease with which the ruling classes of Germany have placed April 156.93 May 163.83 the whole national life of the German people as a pawn in the game June 176.27 of war, cannot but astonish the world. How many times have not July 221.76 Subscriptions during July were double those of July last the Socialists been called "dangerous to civilization." They would year, and considerably higher than .any month this year. Bundle orders are increasing; and our friends are enthu-> overthrow "culture" and what not. Judging from the most reliable siastic concerning the NEW REVIEW. reports, the whole German nation, with the sole exception of the Geo. N. Falconer, of Denver, recently went on a litera- ture tour of Colorado, selling the NEW REVIEW. He tried to Socialists, is now willing that Germany shall be made a shambles, speak in Oak Creek, the seat of one of the coal districts that its wealth and its art treasures, the homes of its people and under martial law. Capt. Morgan in command forbade Fal- coner's speaking on the street: but our comrade held a big the thousand places made sacred by the thoughts and deeds of meeting in the miners' tent, with rousing success. Comrade Germans, shall all be overwhelmed and utterly ruined. Industrial Falconer is active in Local Denver, carrying on revolution- ary propaganda. society to-day cannot endure such havoc. The economics of its * * * * While donations have increased we are still shy $100 a daily life is a too closely wrought texture to be slashed by the month, which we ask our friends to supply by becoming sword. Germany, attacked from every side, will, if the war Contributing Subscribers pledged to pay $i a month for one year. continues through the winter, lose five from starvation for every one killed by the bullets of the enemy. The conditions of the Thirty The great European War is creating Years' War will be repeated. And on what a scale! The schools havoc throughout the world. Condi- closed. Industry paralyzed. Cities in ashes. Railroads blown up tions everywhere are in a state of crisis; by dynamite. A thousand roadways clogged with fleeing, starving money is tight. During this crisis the women and children. All this was brought upon the Fatherland NEW REVIEW will need, more than by its arrogant Junkers and greedy capitalists, who were never ever the co-operation and aid of its tired of telling the world that Socialism was "a danger to the civil- friends. ization of Germany." Louis C. Fraina, There are to-day two unholy alliances in Europe. Each of them Business Manager. has been for a generation an insult to the intelligence of humanity and a danger to the peace of the world. The more wicked and more dangerous of these is the alliance between the German mili- tarist aristocracy, with the Emperor at its head, and the German middle classes, from the capitalists to the intellectuals. Hardly less disgusting is the counter alliance between barbaric Russia on 502 THE NEW REVIEW THE EUROPEAN EXPLOSION 503 the one hand and "enlightened" France and Great Britain on the was not a vtry fine or a very modern way of settling a political other. The two alliances are fundamentally alike. In each case it question. But the Slavs do not claim to be, according to the stand- is the assignation of those who are essentially political democrats ard of Western Europe or the United States, a very fine or a very with the brutal passion of soldier imperialists. modern people. Why are these nations at war? In answer we must say that the AUSTRIA-HUNGARY first fact to be disposed of, the one nearest the surface, is that of The German "pressure toward the East," its effort to expand militarism. For half a century the governments of Europe have commercially through the Balkans and then secure an all-land strained every effort to prepare for war. They have burdened their route to Asia, is accomplished politically by means of Austria. peoples with huge taxes. They have enforced the slavish service of The Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy is a political monstrosity, soldiering upon their workers. They have developed a huge army the like of which the world does not possess elsewhere. Its popula- and navy officialdom, whose insolence in Germany has more, in tion is made up of Germans (12,000,000), Hungarians (10,000,- France as much, and in England almost as much, influence upon the 000), and Slavs (24,000,000). Besides these there are Italians, destiny of the nation as the greed of the capitalists. Throughout Jews, Gypsies and Rumanians to the number of about 5,000,000. Europe the most respected business is the business of murder. The In the corrupt and withering structure of the Dual Monarchy, feuds six great nations which have made up the "Concert of Europe" between these various populations smoulder and break out like fires have, during times of peace, a hundred and seventy-five thousand in a dung-hill. The Emperor Franz Josef is the most nearly per- armv officers, proud idlers strutting1 about from barracks to ban- fect remaining representative of the Germany of the eighteenth quet-hall and ball-room. Fat from much idleness during eleven century. He is now eighty-three years of age and has forgotten months of the year, sneering at and spitting upon folk of every nothing and learned nothing since he harried every liberal-minded class but their own, this professional soldier class makes any last- person out of the land after the revolution of 1848. ing peace in Europe impossible. The twenty-four millions of Austrian Slavs are politically sub- More fundamental, of course, is that group of national and servient to the twelve million Germans. The Hungarians have a economic problems which, during the nineteenth century, super- separate government at Budapest, with Franz Josef as their king. seded dynastic quarrels in the history of Europe. The great inter- The present war will probably mean the rending of this political national feuds are three in number. They are the Balkan problem, "crazy-quilt" of Europe. Since the defeat of Austria by Prussia the mutual hatred of the ruling classes of France and Germany, in 1866, her policy has been entirely dominated by the German gov- and finally the rivalry of the German and British capitalists in the ernment. Industrially as well as politically the Dual Monarchy is international market. subsidiary. It furnishes Germany with food products and the raw SEBVIA materials of manufacture and conducts its oversea commerce largely through German ports. The vast majority of the population of the Balkans are Slavs. The gross swindle called "Pan-Germanism" is transparent to The spokesman of the Slavic interests is naturally the Czar. The the most superficial observer. To increase German power by the Russian Empire has everything to gain by the victories of the small subjugation of the Southern Slavs, to beat back Russia, Germanize Balkan States over Turkey. Russian policy looks forward to the Europe to the Black Sea and the Bosphorus and place German sales- time when all of these shall be gathered in the fold of the Russian agents in Asia on an equal footing with those of Great Britain— Empire. Servia, backed by Russia, stands with bold front in the that is the dream of empire which sweetens the sleep of Kaiser and path of German policy, which aims at political and economic expan- capitalist alike. sion through the Balkans into Asia Minor. More than that, she RUSSIA covets the million and three-quarters of Slavs in Bosnia and Herze- Russia is not an industrial but an agricultural country. The govina, as France covets her re-union with Alsace-Lorraine. The policy of her Imperial Government is directed not to secure markets hatred of the Slavs of the Balkans for Austria is popular, profound but to conquer territory, as did the emperors of Rome and the Euro- and enduring. The assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, heir pean kings of the Middle Ages. Its hundred millions of peasants to the Austrian throne, undoubtedly met with sincere approbation are peaceful enough—the man with the hoe never wants the man on the part of all the Slavs south of Austria and of many millions with the sabre to ride through his turnips. But they are as unde- of Slavs within the Austrian Empire. This act on June 18th last 504 THE NEW REVIEW THE EUROPEAN EXPLOSION 505 veloped and illiterate as the Mexican peons. There has been some- European civilization develops, as every informed Socialist thing almost cosmic, something terrifying to the civilizations of knows, through a series of class struggles. One ruling class suc- Europe, in the relentless progress of Russian power.