"This is a capitalists' war. It does not concern the working people. The capitalists of one country want to ruin the capitalists of another country, and the capitalists of all countries want to slaughter the workers in order to so weaken their class that they will not be able to overthrow the capitalists and bring in socialism."

Day after day the war is thus explained to the people by the Socialists, Internationalists, Bolsheviks and various other kinds of "friends of the working man." Whoever does not agree with this opinion and ventures to say that the war was otherwise caused--namely, by Germany with its militarism--is sure to be called the capitalists' slave and an enemy of the people by the Socialists. No person or newspaper can escape their name-calling. At the same time the Socialists forget that the German Socialists have been supporting German militarism from the very beginning.

Only after a couple of years of war, only after millions of people had been killed and rivers of blood were flowing, did some of the Socialists begin to open their eyes and recognize the truth, which they either had not seen or had not wanted to see until then.

The Socialists of Italy recently sent a message to the people of the United States, in which they stated clearly that they favored the Allied cause. That was not all. They declared that the war against Germany had to continue to be waged and that, in order that it should be successful, the so-called "class war" and agitation for it had to cease, for it set one part of a country's population against another.

The friends of the Italian Socialists, the French Socialists, declared the same thing in stronger words. They issued a formal statement recently in which, among other things, they said:

"We must not hide behind catch words and say that the blame for the present war belongs to the capitalists. That would not be a truthful statement, for the mania 3for greatness and power is not especially capitalistic. The greatest culprit is Pan-Germanism."

If the Russian Socialists had understood this, what has happened might not have happened, and thousands of lives which have needlessly been lost might have been spared.

Now, some of the Russian Socialists do understand this but unfortunately it is too late. It is important for all the American Socialists to understand this and to follow the example set by the Italians and French. This applies especially to our Lithuanian Socialists who, as the recent past has proved, are inclined to imitate the Russian Socialists, even though the latter not only have failed to pass the examinations, but have compromised Socialism itself.

Everybody, whether he is a Socialist or something else, should know these plain truths:

1. That the fate of the working people depends upon the outcome of this war no 4less than the fate of any other class, and perhaps even in a greater degree.

2. That the greatest enemies of liberty and, at the same time, of the welfare of the people, are Kaiserism and everything it represents.

3. That agitation for a "class war" at this time is an action which destroys unity among the people, and is thus the best aid to Kaiserism.

These truths are clear today. Whoever cannot understand them should see his doctor without delay.