And what was the cause of this blackest of calamities?  The speaker went on to show that the determining motive was not racial jealousy, but commercial greed.  The fountain-head of the war was world-capitalism, clamouring for markets, seeking to get rid of its surplus products, to keep busy its hordes of wage-slaves at home.  He analysed the various factors; and now, with the shadow of the European storm over their heads—­now at last men and women would listen, they would realize that the matter concerned them.  He warned them—­let them not think that they were safe from the hoofs of this war-monster, just because they were three thousand miles away!  Capitalism was a world phenomenon, and all the forces of parasitism and exploitation which had swept Europe into this tragedy were active here in America.  The money-masters, the profit-seekers, would leap to take advantage of the collapse over the seas; there would be jealousies, disputes—­let the audience understand, once for all, that if world-capitalism did not make this a world-war, it would be only because the workers of America took warning, and made their preparations to frustrate the conspiracy.

This was what he had come for, this was the heart of his message.  Many of those who listened were refugees from the old world, having fled its oppressions and enslavements.  He pleaded with them now, as a man whose heart was torn by more suffering than he could bear—­let there be one part of the fair garden of earth into which the demons of destruction might not break their way!  Let them take warning in time, let them organize and establish their own machinery of information and propaganda—­so that when the crisis came, when the money-masters of America sounded the war-drums, there might be—­not the destruction and desolation which these masters willed, but the joy and freedom of the Co-operative Commonwealth!

“How many years we Socialists have warned you!” he cried.  “But you have doubted us, you have believed what your exploiters have told you!  And now, in this hour of crisis, you look at Europe and discover who are the real friends of humanity, of civilization.  What voice comes over the seas, protesting against war?  The Socialist voice, and the Socialist voice alone!  And to-night, once more, you hear it in this hall!  You men and women of America, and you exiles from all corners of the world, make this pledge with me—­make it now, before it is too late, and stand by it when the hour of crisis comes!  Swear it by the blood of our martyred heroes, those slaughtered German Socialists—­swear that, come what will, and when and how it will, that no power on earth or in hell beneath the earth shall draw you into this fratricidal war!  Make this resolution, send this message to all the nations of the earth—­that the men of all nations and all races are your brothers, and that never will you consent to shed their blood.  If the money-masters and the exploiters want war, let them have it, but let it be among themselves!  Let them take the bombs and shells they have made and go out against one another!  Let them blow their own class to pieces—­but let them not seek to lure the working-people into their quarrels!”