STRIKE AGAINST WAR, SPEECH BY HELEN KELLER AT CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK CITY -JANUARY 5,1916

STRIKE AGAINST WAR, SPEECH BY HELEN KELLER AT CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK CITY -JANUARY 5,1916


                      To begin with, I have a word to say my good friends, the editors, and others who are moved to pity me. I will not change places, I will not change places, and I will not change places I have been writing about my sources of information are as good and reliable as anybody else. I have been papers and magazines from England, France, Germany and Austria that I have read myself. Fair fie editors I have met you can do that. Quite a number fight 6 of them have to take their French and | econor German second hand No, I will not depreciate be a fig the editors. They are an overworked, All misunderstood class. Let them remember, set in though, that if I can not see the f ire at the end of the pr of their cigarettes, nor can they thread a voice c needle in the dark All I ask, gentlemen, is afair field and no favour . I have entered the umber fight against preparedness and against the 1 and economic system under which we live . It is to eciate be a fight to the finish , and I ask no quarter . rked , | All the machinery of the system has been mber , set in motion . Above the complaint and din of ne end the protest from the workers is heard the read a voice of authority . “ Friends , ” it says , “ fellow n , is a workmen , patriots ; your country is in danger !

                            There are foes on all sides Contain There is nothing between us and our enemies, people except the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. liberty look at what happened to Belgium They are the fate of Serbia, will you murmur e1ght h0 about low wages when your country, you 'an all all p6 very liberties, are in danger? What are the miseries you can not compare with the free humiliation of having a victorious German mills an army sail up the East River? Quit your women and grumble your firesides and your flag, Get an army, get clubbed a navy; be ready to meet the invaders like the strike fo loyal - hearted freemen you are. "Justice tE will the workers walk into this trap? I am afraid so. The and exec people have always been susceptible to the living oratory of this sort The workers know they do not have any enemies except their masters They wage sla know that their citizenship papers are not free and warrant for their wives. They know that honest sweat, blinds and persistent toilets, and fighting against them Yet, battlefie deep down in their foolish hearts Oh blind vanity of slaves! And have the clever ones, up in the high places know labor how childish and silly the workers are They pyramid = 1emony that if the government dresses them up no real sh in khaki and gives them a rifle and starts them with a band and waving banners, for their valiantly fight for 1 to go forth they enslaved for valiantly fight for forth They are taught that brave own enemies They are taught ty than day Asa for their country's honour, what a divi, price to pay for a vague idea the lives of millions of young meni other millions of crippled g the lives of bridge s ce made horrible railroads yes more millions of human being the tham. 

                       Attemp Germa not rai abolish the ped of civil wholes and pl their 00 whats force t des of us For other people's country, other people's enemies, continents, other people's liberties and otho, Lc Ocean. people's happiness! The workers have be Belgium Liberty of their own; They are not allowed to murmur if they are forced to work twelve or ten years of your eight hours a day. They are not free when they are ill paid for their exhausting toil. They are | to the not free when their children must labour in German mills and factories or starve, and when they are women They are not free when they are rmy, get clubbed and imprisoned because they like the strike for a raise of wages and for the basic justice that their right as human beings an? Will We Are Not Free The people and no other interest. ow they the ballot does not make a free man out of a es They wage slave There is never existed a true are the free and democratic nation in the world From Jesus and the time immemorial men have followed sweat, blind loyalty the strong men who had the power of money and of armies. Even while for Yet, battlefields were piled high with their own - believe dead, they have tilled the lands of the rulers es! and have been robbed of their fruits They have built palaces and re They are pyramids, temples and cathedrals that hold Chem up no realshrine of liberty. . 1 starts As civilization has grown more comp anners, the workers have become more and ml or their enslaved, until today they are little 't brave than parts of the machines they ope What a daily they face the dangers of railr0 Let th goven' things nation fundan better corpore It is radical that establi | GIC grie espg dang skill vala * own trans lum com deep f railroad.