the ordeal. Even from the traditional militaristic standpoint,
strength does not reside in numbers, though the Caesars, the Napoleons
and the Kaisers of the world have always believed that large exploitable
populations were necessary for their own individual power. If Marxian
dictatorship means the dictatorship of a small minority wielding power
in the interest of the proletariat, a high-birth rate may be necessary,
though we may here recall the answer of the lamented Dr. Alfred Fried to
the German imperialists: "It is madness, the apotheosis of unreason, to
wish to breed and care for human beings in order that in the flower of
their youth they may be sent in millions to be slaughtered wholesale by
machinery. We need no wholesale production of men, have no need of the
`fruitful fertility of women,' no need of wholesale wares, fattened and
dressed for slaughter What we do need is careful maintenance of those
already born. If the bearing of children is a moral and religious duty,
then it is a much higher duty to secure the sacredness and security of
human life, so that children born and bred with trouble and sacrifice
may not be offered up in the bloom of youth to a political dogma at the
bidding of secret diplomacy."

Marxism has developed a patriotism of its own, if indeed it has not yet
been completely crystallized into a religion. Like the "capitalistic"
governments it so vehemently attacks, it demands self-sacrifice and even
martyrdom from the faithful comrades. But since its strength depends
to so great a degree upon "conversion," upon docile acceptance of the
doctrines of the "Master" as interpreted by the popes and bishops of
this new church, it fails to arouse the irreligious proletariat.
The Marxian Socialist boasts of his understanding of "working class
psychology" and criticizes the lack of this understanding on the part
of all dissenters. But, as the Socialists' meetings against the
"birth strike" indicate, the working class is not interested in such
generalities as the Marxian "theory of value," the "iron law" of wages,
"the value of commodities" and the rest of the hazy articles of faith.
Marx inherited the rigid nationalistic psychology of the eighteenth
century, and his followers, for the most part, have accepted his
mechanical and superficial treatment of instinct.(5) Discontented
workers may rally to Marxism because it places the blame for their
misery outside of themselves and depicts their conditions a