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PATRIOTISM AND GOVERNMENT

from it! Never shall I forget those pitiful groans that pierced one to the marrow!

"People who never did each other any harm hegin to slaughter one another like wild animals, and petty slavish souls implicate the good God, making Him their confederate in such deeds.

"My neighbour in the ranks had his jaw broken by a bullet. The poor wretch went wild with pain. He ran like a madman, and in the scorching summer heat could not even get water to cool his horrible wound. Our commander, the Crown Prince (who was afterwards the noble Emperor Frederick), wrote in his diary: 'War—is an irony on the Gospels.' . . ."

People are beginning to understand the fraud of patriotism, in which all the governments take such pains to keep them.


Chapter VIII

"But," it is usually asked, "what will there be instead of governments?"

There will be nothing. Something that has long been useless and therefore superfluous and bad will be abolished. An organ that, being unnecessary had become harmful, will be abolished.