William Thurston Brown on the sucker’s game of working class patriotism. Brown (1861–1938) had an intriguing political life; a traitor to his class who went from Yale-educated Congregationalist and later Unitarian minister, to fall and become a founder of the Socialist Party and partisan of revolutionary action. Markedly different than many of the clergy who hitched their wagon to the Socialist horse, Brown was a genuine leftist, advocating for industrial unionism and allied with the I.W.W., which he would become increasingly close. After his unfortunate political retreat during the First World War, he reclaimed his leftism and was in the orbit of the Communist Party during the 1920s. But Brown’s most important and lasting role, however, was as a leading proponent of the Modern Schools, helping to start many, including the famous one in Stelton, New Jersey which he ran for years, and writing on the method.

‘The Damnable Insult of Patriotism’ by William Thurston Brown from Industrial Worker. Vol. 4 No. 1. March 28, 1912.

The consummate insult which the master class heaps upon the working class everywhere is the insult of “patriotism,” and the one consummate mark of ignorance and degradation in members of the working class is any exhibition or feeling of patriotism on their part. Patriotism is perfectly natural to the masters it is the extremity of treason in a member of the working class. Consider the facts, and see if this is not true.

Here is an advertisement posted on the billboards of every large city by the U.S. government:

“Wanted–For the United States Marine Corps, able-bodied men who wish to see the World.

“Which is better for a young man who can never travel on his own account, to enlist in the Marine Corps for four years, where he will be able to see a great portion of the world and perform a loyal duty to his country–or to drudge away on the farm, in the shop and various other places, for from ten to fifteen hours per day in all kinds of weather, and at the end of the month or, better still, of four years, not have as much clear cash to show for all his hard wearisome labor as he would have, if he enlisted?”

And the ad closes with the words: “He–the enlisted man–is always clean.”

That advertisement alone convicts this government of lying and hypocrisy, and is a confession of the fundamental need of revolution.

Think! That advertisement is official. It embodies the mind of the government itself. It is an invitation. To whom? To the young men of the working class especially. To young men who cannot know as yet either what war means or what society is. What does it say to these young men? It says: By becoming parasites, producing nothing, consuming much, learning the trade of killing, you can, in this country, under its flag, have more clear cash at the end of a month or of four years than you can by producing the necessities and luxuries of life. Be a producer and you must be a drudge, working long hours, in all kinds of weather, for little pay, under the Stars and Stripes! Be a parasite, train yourself to kill people, surrender your mind, your will, all that marks you a man, and you can travel, see the world, live well, have leisure, and “perform a loyal duty to your country, under the flag!

The government which thus invites there young men professes to be THEIR government. It is nothing of the kind, and it knows it is not. No young man in either army or navy can perform a loyal duty to his country–except by deserting from that service. His country, if he belongs to the working class, cannot be served by army or navy. The working class have no country–yet. That is their immediate business, to secure a country of their own. And that is no more possible for the workers today without destroying capitalism, than it was possible for the workers of France in 1793 to secure anything for themselves without destroying feudalism. The flag of any capitalist government, no matter what stars or stripes or colors are on it, is the flag of the enemy of the working class. Your country, a country in which parasites thrive and producers drudge, according to the government’s own confession? Well, not so you would notice it.

This is a Christian nation. If you don’t believe it, read the advertisement again. It bears the unfailing mark of Christian religion all over it–hypocrisy. And these good Christian officials say that the soldier is “always clean.” What do they mean? Their meaning becomes clear when you find out that venereal diseases lead all the rest in the army. President David Starr Jordan quotes a letter from a soldier in the Philippines to the effect that “twenty-one per cent of our soldiers there are attacked with venereal diseases, and so prevalent is the disease that it is believed by the soldiers that even pigs and dogs have syphilis.” Following the Spanish war, venereal diseases as the cause for discharge from the army increased 250 per cent. Under the unnatural conditions of soldier life on shipboard many strong characters and all weak ones utterly collapse, and perverted sexual appetite has a vile festival for weeks at a time.

“Lead us not into temptation,” say these sniveling hypocrites on Sundays. But these same Christian governments, supported and prayed for by Christian priests and church members, are providing prostitutes for the soldier boys. Here is a letter from a commanding officer of the British army in India:

“Please send young and attractive women as laid down in the quartermaster general’s circular, No. 21A. There are not women enough; they are not attractive enough. More and younger women are required. I have ordered the number of prostitutes to be increased, and have given especial instructions as to the additional women being young and of attractive appearance.”

Surely, the working class of the world ought to be deeply interested in patriotism and in keeping up the wars and armies which are a part of that patriotism, because they above all others, must not only furnish the men who do the shooting and the dying, but they also must furnish the prostitutes for these armies of our Christian nations. No other class can furnish either.

What a beautiful and holy purpose for marriage in the working class this fact discloses! The workers have the unexampled privilege, not only of furnishing the hundreds of thousands of prostitutes who throng the streets of our cities at least, the prostitutes without the union label of respectability–but they can also fill the orders for our standing armies.

In 1902, in India, the enormous number of 12,686 men were admitted to the hospitals, suffering from sexual diseases alone–more than one thousand military victims of that disease all the time in the hospital! In the home army in a single period of twelve months, of 154,000 troops, there were 24,176 sexual complaints, or one in every six, Eight per cent of the entire British army in India, and a slightly smaller proportion of the home army have been at some time afflicted.” The chief difference between the British government and the American is that the latter has the former skinned a mile in its unctuous hypocrisy.

There are quantities of alleged human being who look upon this revolutionary proletariat as lawless, criminal, treasonable. They are violating city ordinances by holding meetings where they choose on the streets, as they will continue to do. They denounce the police, the soldiers, the preachers and other parasites of capitalist society. Why shouldn’t they? They wouldn’t be men if they didn’t. What use have they for the flag of a master class, for the laws of exploiters, for the machinery of exploitation? None whatever. They are all either the signs or the instruments of his enslavement. The working class as it becomes intelligent, never will have any use for these things. The emancipation of that class depends on the destruction of these symbols and instruments of oppression.

Patriotism is the grossest insult masters can inflict upon their slaves; and it is the one unforgivable treason a member of the working class can be guilty of toward his class.

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