rough all the ages--wars between different groups of owners with
conflicting interests, not the war between owners and workers which is
now on. This war will bless, not curse, the world, because it is for the
emancipation of the slave class, not for the enrichment of one group of
the masters at the expense of another group, at the cost of increased
misery to all the slaves on both sides.

If there is any truth in the representation that real religion and real
politics alike consist in desiring and endeavoring to make terrestrial
life (there is no celestial life of which aught is known) long and
happy, the advocate of war is the worst of heretics against Christianism
and the worst of traitors against Americanism.

War is a necessary characteristic of vegetables and animals, because
they cannot make and operate machines for the supplying of their needs.

Peace is the necessary characteristic of humans, because they can make
and operate machines for the supplying of their needs.

Wars between capitalists are inevitabilities, as much so as the wars
between two hungry dogs, when one has a bone upon which the lives of
both depend. The only difference between capitalists and dogs is, that
dogs do their own fighting, whereas capitalists first rob the laborers
who produce their commodities, and then persuade or compel them to fight
their battles with fellow capitalists in their competitive efforts to
distribute them.

On the one hand it is true that a few capitalists do lose money in wars,
and still fewer their lives, but on the other hand it is equally true
that the majority of them are made richer and that producing and
distributing laborers ultimately bear every cent of the enormous
financial burden, and that for every machine owning master who is killed
or wounded there are a hundred wage earning slaves.

Yet neither the making nor operating of machines constitutes a man a
human. It is co-operation which does this. Nor will co-operation in
itself suffice. Bees and ants co-operate and even capitalists do so, yet
with all their co-operating bees and ants remain animals and so do
capitalists. The co-operation which converts animals into humans is the
one which is purposely inaugurated and sustained with the view of
securing to each one the fruits of his labor while at the same time
increasing them for all--that deliberate co-operation which consists in
conscious living, letting live and helping to live.

It is this co-op