Every country has its
appeal--its shibboleth--ready for the lips of the imperialist. German
rulers pointed to the comfort of the workers, to old-age pensions,
maternal benefits and minimum wage regulations, and other material
benefits, when they wished to inspire soldiers for the Fatherland.
England's strongest argument, perhaps, was a certain phase of liberty
which she guarantees her subjects, and the protection afforded them
wherever they may go. France and the United States, too, have their
appeals to the idealism of democracy--appeals which the politicians of
both countries know well how to use, though the peoples of both lands
are beginning to awake to the fact that their countries have been
living on the glories of their revolutions and traditions, rather than
the substance of freedom. Behind the boast of old-age pensions,
material benefits and wage regulations, behind the bombast concerning
liberty in this country and tyranny in that, behind all the slogans
and shibboleths coined out of the ideals of the peoples for the uses
of imperialism, woman must and will see the iron hand of that same
imperialism, condemning women to breed and men to die for the will of
the rulers.
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