John Maclean? James Hudson? James Riley? H. L. Mencken? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: Warring countries enlist workers to fight battles. Pacifists have adopted the following slogan. Here are three versions:
(1) A bayonet is a weapon with a working man at either end.
(2) A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end.
(3) A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends.
This saying has been attributed to Scottish socialist John Maclean and English politician James Hudson. Would you please explore the provenance of this slogan?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match found by QI appeared in a March 10, 1939 article by pacifist James Hudson published in the periodical “Peace News” of London. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
In war, one defends neither democracy nor the workers. A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end.
Based in current evidence, James Hudson is the leading candidate for creator of this saying.
The evidence supporting the attribution to John Maclean is very weak because he died in 1923, and he implausibly received credit decades after his death.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1917 a thematically pertinent quotation appeared in a Piqua, Ohio newspaper. An article described the training received by U.S. soldiers in Europe during WWI which encouraged ruthless combat techniques. There would be guts on both sides of a bayonet. The triumphant soldier must display guts, i.e., fortitude. The vanquished soldier must spill their “guts”, i.e., viscera:2
At the present time we cannot see how it is possible to face a fellow man and run him through, or two inches deep with a bayonet …
As was explained, the war will be won with guts. That is guts on the end of the bayonet and guts on the other end. “Get ’em and get ’em hard,” is the soldier’s cry and the man who goes after the foe tooth and toe nail, is the soldier who is coming out alive.
In 1918 a newspaper in Kalispell, Montana printed the hardhearted military adage again:3
We are watched by the French and British officers and get the benefit of all their experience. A British major lectured to us several times last week. In speaking on The Spirit of The Bayonet he said: “You’ve got to have guts on both ends of your bayonet to be successful.” That statement is the keynote of all of our work.
Perhaps the structure of the “guts” adage facilitated the later emergence of the pacifist adage.
On March 10, 1939, pacifist James Hudson used the saying under examination in “Peace News” as mentioned previously:4
In war, one defends neither democracy nor the workers. A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end.
On March 15, 1939, the “Kirkintilloch Herald” of Dunbartonshire, Scotland presented a dialog between politicians during which the saying was called a slogan:5
Mr. T. Conway asked if Mr. Cassells had never heard the slogan — “A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends.” Could Mr. Cassells justify war under any circumstances?
Mr. Cassells replied that it seemed from Mr. Conway’s remarks that the policy of the S.S.P. was one of passive resistance. Surely, if one’s neighbour was attacked, one had to help him.
On March 17, 1939, “Peace News” published a note which credited the adage to James Hudson. The term “PPU” referred to the Peace Pledge Union, a pacifist organization:6
There was one sentence in James Hudson’s article last week that deserves rescuing from the oblivion of the back number file — “A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end.” What better slogan to inscribe on the banner of the PPU?
On April 3, 1939, the “Huddersfield Daily Examiner” of West Yorkshire, England printed the adage:7
The job of the Labour Party is to unify the workers of this country, not to don the mantle of Don Quixote, for they must remember that a bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end, and that Hitler will most likely sit just “as pretty” as the Kaiser after another war.
On August 13, 1939, a newspaper in Tulsa, Oklahoma published a piece by a student who visited Hyde Park in London, a famous free speech venue. The student saw a sign with the adage posted adjacent to an orator:8
The next fellow was an independent Communist who spoke above the sign, “A Bayonet Is a Weapon With a Worker at Each End.”
On September 22, 1939 “The Ramsbottom Observer” of Greater Manchester, England published a message from peace campaigner James Riley addressed to politician Arthur Greenwood:9
You may object, and say that this is no imperialist war. Whether that be so or not, one thing is certain that this conflict will not differ from any other in that it will find a worker at both ends of the bayonet, or that the bombs or gas dropped by the workers of one country will fall heaviest on the workers of another country.
In 1942 scholar H. L. Mencken published “A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources” which included the following entry under the topic “Bayonet”:10
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end.
Slogan of English pacifists, 1940
In 1944 a newspaper columnist in Texas wrote the following:11
Early in the present war certain pacifists in England used the slogan, “A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end.”
In 1966 the collection “Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations” included the following item:12
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end.
Socialist slogan, early 20th century
In 1987 journalist Dan van der Vat published a piece in “The Guardian” of London which asserted an early date for the creation of the adage, but QI has not yet found supporting evidence for this early date:13
The 1914-18 pacifist slogan that a bayonet was a weapon with a worker at each end could be applied with even more precision to the postwar German phenomenon of the Freikorps.
In 2014 “Socialist Review” of New Zealand printed an article that described a song performed by Scottish singer Alistair Hulett which attributed the adage to John Maclean:14
McLean was jailed in Scotland in World War One for organising against the war. In Hulett’s song he says this:
‘A bayonet that’s a weapon with
a working man at either end,
Betray your country, serve your class.
Don’t sign up for war my friend.’
In 2018 Henry Bell published the biography “John Maclean: Hero of Red Clydeside” which attributed the adage to Maclean:15
His unfailing contention that a bayonet is a weapon with a worker at either end meant that Maclean was also willing to help British soldiers.
In conclusion, this saying was circulating by March 1939. English politician and peace activist James Hudson used the expression in the London periodical “Peace News”, and Hudson is currently the leading candidate for creator although it remains possible that he was repeating an existing saying. Other activists such as James Riley used the adage after it was already circulating. The attribution to John Maclean is unsupported.
Image Notes: Illustration of a rifle with a bayonet from MBGX2 at Pixabay. The image has been rotated and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Jonathan Lighter, Kelsey Atherton, and Jane Thurber whose inquiries led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Also, thanks to Stephen Goranson who pointed to the citation H.L. Mencken’s quotation dictionary. Further thanks to Ian Hetzner who pointed out the citation in the “Tulsa Sunday World” newspaper. In addition, “The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs” compiled by Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro included a pertinent entry which listed a helpful 1942 citation together with the 1987 citation in “The Guardian”.
- 1939 March 10, Peace News, The Week in Parliament: Communists’ Role in Spain Arms “Squandermania” by James Hudson, Quote Page 2, Column 1, Published from the Office of Peace News, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1917 September 7, Piqua Daily Press, Snappy About the Army by W. J. Prince Jr., Quote Page 6, Column 4 to 6, Piqua, Ohio. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1918 May 13, The Daily Inter Lake, White Writes from Fields of France, Quote Page 2, Column 3, Kalispell, Montana. (Note: “Spirit” was misspelled as “Spriit”) (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1939 March 10, Peace News, The Week in Parliament: Communists’ Role in Spain Arms “Squandermania” by James Hudson, Quote Page 2, Column 1, Published from the Office of Peace News, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1939 March 15, Kirkintilloch Herald, The Chairman Answers “John Caurnie”, Quote Page 3, Column 5, Kirkintilloch, Dunbartonshire, Scotland. (British Newspaper Archive) ↩︎
- 1939 March 17, Peace News, Definition by Terence Traherne of London, Quote Page 4, Column 3, Published from the Office of Peace News, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1939 April 3, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, The Challenge of Pacifism, Quote Page 7, Column 5, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1939 August 13, Tulsa Sunday World, Tea and Parliament: A Tulsa Student Visits Merry England by Maurice Friedman, Section 4, Quote Page 4, Column 5, Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1939 September 22, The Ramsbottom Observer, Open Letter to Mr. Arthur Greenwood M.P. from James Riley, Quote Page 3, Column 4, Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester, England. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1942, A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources, Selected and Edited by H. L. Mencken (Henry Louis Mencken), Section: Bayonet, Quote Page 87, Column 1, Alfred A. Knopf. New York. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
- 1944 May 30, The Corpus Christi Times, You’d Be Surprised: Nuggets of Knowledge by George Stimpson, Quote Page 4, Column 2, Corpus Christi, Texas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1966, Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations, Compiled by Robert Debs Heinl, Category: Bayonet, Quote Page 31, Column 2, United States Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland. (Verified with hard copy) ↩︎
- 1987 August 21, The Guardian, Free booters: Dan van der Vat on a forgotten corps, Quote Page 14, Column 2, London, Greater London, England. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 2014 May-June, Socialist Review, Issue 48, Aim of ‘remembrance’ is erasing past, Start Page 14, Quote Page 15, Column 3, Published by International Socialist Organisation, New Zealand. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2018 Copyright, John Maclean: Hero of Red Clydeside by Henry Bell, Chapter 12: One Big Union, Quote Page 139, Pluto Press, London. (Google Books Preview) ↩︎