Russell greets the War with a question and an observation on the staggering number of accidents, deaths, and injuries befalling workers while on the job in the United States.

‘Yes—But What About the War at Home?’ by Phillips Russell from International Socialist Review. Vol. 15 No. 9. March, 1915.

Killed: 35,000.
Wounded: 2,000,000.

These are figures not from the latest European casualty list, but from our own.

They are the findings of the United

States Bureau of Labor in regard to the losses suffered by the army of labor in this country annually. Everyone knows a government bureau is a very conservative finder.

Isn’t this European war terrible? Isn’t it dreadful to think of the thousands of splendid young men, the flower of the race, marching to certain death, returning to their homes maimed and crippled, or wasting away in some hospital in the grip of a scorching fever? Yes; I know, I know.

But why is it, you pro-British, pro-French, pro-German argufier, you can’t, can’t keep your attention on these figures? You think it is horrible that these virile, upstanding, two-fisted men–so urgently needed to carry on a vigorous race and produce a healthy generation, should be chewed up as cannon-fodder, while the weak, the unfit and the defective are left at home to reproduce their kind.

But if you are going to compare a man to a stud-horse, why is it you take so little interest in that clothing worker there, healthy enough now, but doomed to become a pale and yellow consumptive; that big miner whose back is going to be broken by a ton of falling coal; that foundryman whose eyes are going to be put out by a splash of molten steel? What about their children?

It’s too bad about the future generation in Europe. I heard an English lecturess moaning about the subject in London after the war started and she almost made me believe the next crop of babies in the countries at war would be born with one eye missing or carry a limp in the left leg.

We should worry. My own observation in regard to the sort of men who have lots of beef and no brains is that they produce offspring, of which those who don’t become policemen, mine guards, strong-arm thugs, or Burns detectives, go to a law school and become judges.

As to babies, less quantity and more quality might make a good platform.

To return to our figures: Since you have ceased to speak to your wife because she sympathizes with the Germans, and since you and your best friend have parted company because he maintains Great Britain started the war, the Massachusetts Industrial Accident Board has given the following figures on the number of accidents per 1,000 in that state for the year ending last June:

Automobile factories–271
Foundries and metal works–257
Packing houses–178
Electrical supplies–164
Rubber factories–153
Box makers–125
Tanneries–116
Car and railroad shops–99
Woolen and worsted mills–65

That means that out of every 1,000 men who enter an automobile plant this March 271 will emerge from the plant next March either dead or injured.

The Massachusetts official figures for the year put the total number of working people injured at 96,571. Of these accidents 608 were fatal.

If the United States engaged in war and Massachusetts put 1,500,000 men in the field who suffered a loss of 96,571 in the first year, what an outcry would arise! What sackcloth and ashes! And yet Massachusetts can see 96,571 of her workers put out of business physically every year and not say a damned word.

It is a mad world, and maddest of all are those who can sit by the hour and argue endlessly as to which army now embroiled is suffering the greatest losses, while around them the useful ones of the earth are being struck down by thousands, and thousands more survive only to perpetuate the disease and degeneracy that peace under capitalist industrialism entails.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v15n09-mar-1915-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf