The New Heroes. (1920)

From the December 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

The "Daily News" of October 25th published the following note and comment:

  "The estate of the late Mr. Andrew Carnegie has been finally certified at 23¼ million dollars (nominally £4,650,000).
"By law only half of this amount is available for public bequests, which are therefore reduced by ten millions during the life of the widow, unless she elects to make gifts.
"[When Mr. Carnegie's will was published in August, 1919, the estate was estimated at between £5,000,000 and £6,000,000. Gifts during the testator's lifetime exceeded £70,000,000. Annuities under the will included £2,000 a year to Mr. Lloyd George, £2,000 a year to Lord Morley, £1,000 a year to Mr. John Burns, and £1,000 a year to Mr. John Burt.]"

Mr. Andrew Carnegie must have been class-conscious in a very high degree to have recognised the heroes mentioned in the liberal way he has.

John Burns, Lloyd George & Co. are once more seen in their right setting, as champions of the robber class of which Carnegie was a typical representative.

Carnegie is still thought by some to be a great benefactor of the working class, because he has bequeathed a few libraries to his fellow capitalists, to enable their wage slaves readily and cheaply to take in the mental dope which is stored on those libraries' shelves.

Yes! Carnegie was class-conscious. He recognised the necessity of keeping working class minds inoculated with the poisonous matter which comprises the bulk of the literature contained in his libraries. He also recognised the valuable services which men like Lloyd George and John Burns have rendered to him and his class. The "honest John," as some used to know him—the supporter of butcher Asquith and his shooting of the miners at Featherstone. Lloyd George, the great bamboozler, the silver-tongued betrayer.

Yes! they are the Carnegie war heroes; they were the valiant supporters of the class war, waged in full consciousness by Carnegie and his fellow capitalists. Strange as it may appear, no bequests are made to the million and one heroes who bled to death, who were blown to death, who were frozen to death in the great European war just ended, to defend the property and interests of the murdering Carnegie class, the capitalist class.

Yet perhaps it is not so strange, for fellow wage slave, Carnegie was class-conscious.

When will you. become so, and join with us in waging the only war worth while—the class war—in order to dethrone capitalism's gang of thieves and inaugurate the Socialist co-operative Commonwealth ?

O.C.I.