People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1895 — WE NEED A WAR. [ARTICLE]

WE NEED A WAR.

Mast Kill the Surplua Population for the Benefit of the Rich. In conversation with a gentleman he said that “we ought to have a war in order to kill off the thousands who had nothing to do and could get nothing to do.” And this is the 19th century! This is a civilization that has been moulded by the influences of Christianity and softened by the tenderness of brotherhood! This is an age that is brilliant with the power and creations of accumulated wealth! This is the country in which millionaires increase, churches and school houses multiply and art galleries and libraries and colleges and inventions grow more and more numerous! And yet, like hungry men from a shipwreck it is brutally concluded that we must kill some of our number that the rest may live. The idea is monstrous; it is savage; it is devilish. If in 1,900 years the human race is yet so near a barbaric state as to harbor a thought as horrible as this man expressed, there can be no longer a doubt of the gospel truth of the doctrine of man’s total depravity. The thought at once ignores, brutally ignores, the teachings of Jesus Christ and outrages every lofty sentiment of the heart. That it should be deemed necessary or advisable to slaughter thousands, that the Goulds, and Vanderbilts, and Morgans and Rockefellers should keep their useless millions and accumulate more, is a violation of every principle of civilization. The Almighty, we do not believe, ever created men for other men to kill in order that there might be more room on the earth for greed and plunderers. In a sparsely settled country like this, not yet inhabited by the one-tenth of the people that it can support, to talk of its inability to feed and clothe and house a portion of those who are already here, is not only preposterous, but is the savage experience of a blood-thirsty disposition that would shame a cannibal and offend the religion of a Choctaw; and if such talk cannot awaken the masses to change our systems so that a man can live where wheat sells for 50 cents a bushel and potatoes for 25 cents, God help the nation and the race.—Chicago Voice.