The editor of the I.W.W.’s western paper on the deleterious, deadly, influence of the patriotic mindset on the working class.

‘Patriotism, An Effect Without a Cause’ by Walker C. Smith from Industrial Worker. Vol. 4 No. 1. March 28, 1912.

Of all the idiots and perverted ideas accepted by the workers from that class who live upon their misery, patriotism is the worst.

If patriotism is based on love of one’s country then a patriotic working stiff is the nearest approach to an effect without a cause that is today known to science.

But to look upon patriotism merely as love of a country or reverence for a flag is to fail to get a glimpse of its deeper and more degrading meaning.

The appeal to all that is animal in human kind so that they sally forth to murder those whom they do not know and from whose hands they have never felt a wrong is but one of the many crimes directly traceable to patriotism.

Patriotism has been the means of lowering wages, of causing mutual hatreds, of engendering distrust and it is one of the most vital factors in keeping the wage slaves in their chains.

The mine owners pit Irish against Welsh, praise each by turns and thus force them to vie one with another in producing wealth for the masters benefit and for the workers further degradation.

It is the basis of the race war in the South. Through its agency the employers have forced the dock workers to unremitting hours of toil. The negro is told of his superior strength and asked to demonstrate it by loading or unloading more cotton that the whites. To the whites the same master whispers of “white supremacy” and the whites speed up. Back and forth this process goes until both whites and negroes are worked to the limit of human endurance with no resultant increase in pay.

Building contractors segregate their gangs into nationalities. pitting one against another, thereby causing all to throw themselves so forcibly into the work that they hasten the time when they are cast back to starve upon an already over-crowded labor market. One contractor in Chicago by promising the most faithful toilers the privilege of placing the flag of “their” country at the top of the building when completed, was able to cut several weeks from the time and pocket thousands of extra dollars through the credulity of the toilers.

The beef trust places different speaking workers in the various departments and have employees for the purpose of creating distrust and also to cause each section to labor harder to demonstrate their superiority. These departments are constantly being shifted so that the hunger language may not speak louder than the native tongue.

Patriotism has caused certain cities to maintain and accentuate certain vile practices in order to sustain their reputation. Paris, with its worse than bestial prostitutes is a striking example of this practice.

Aristocracy of skilled labor, with its prevention of solidarity, is the result of patriotism. The engineer considers himself better than the fireman, the fireman deems himself better than the brakeman, the brakeman despises the trackwalker, and so on all along the line. Yet all are necessary. Together they are invincible, but separated by patriotism they effectually prevent the solidified effort necessary to achieve emancipation.

Patriotism makes the skilled hate the unskilled and causes the “home guard” to despise the blanket stiff. Nearly every craft organization has leagued itself together against the “boomer” in their own line of work. But analysis shows that the little the crafts are able to retain in this day of master class organization is but the result of the refusal on the part of the boomers and blanket stiffs to accept the conditions the masters desired to impose upon them. There are enough idle, wandering, skilled mechanics today begging handouts rather than scab, to replace every craftsman who is organized upon the basis of skill.

These migratory workers have lost all patriotism–and rightly so.

Love of country! They have no country. Love of flag! None floats for them. Love of birthplace! No one loves the slums. Love of the spot where they were reared! Not when it is a mill and necessity cries ever “move on.” Love of mother tongue! They know but the slave drivers jargon whose every word spells wearisome toil followed by enforced idleness. Love of race! Capitalism has forced them to work with all manner of men and under all climes and the worker has become cosmopolite.

That species of patriotism that masquerades beneath the name of religion cannot snare the feet of the modern proletariat–the propertiless worker. He alone is the true anti-patriot. On him the blighting curse of patriotism does not rest save as it is used upon the balance of the workers to keep him down. Directly, it causes him no concern.

Not until patriotism has been expelled from the minds of our class shall we see reared a society which will be worthy of the name of civilization.

The Industrial Union Bulletin, and the Industrial Worker were newspapers published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1907 until 1913. First printed in Joliet, Illinois, IUB incorporated The Voice of Labor, the newspaper of the American Labor Union which had joined the IWW, and another IWW affiliate, International Metal Worker.The Trautmann-DeLeon faction issued its weekly from March 1907. Soon after, De Leon would be expelled and Trautmann would continue IUB until March 1909. It was edited by A. S. Edwards. 1909, production moved to Spokane, Washington and became The Industrial Worker, “the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism.”

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v4n01-w157-mar-28-1912-IW.pdf