Michael Kazin - War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918

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PRAISE FOR WAR AGAINST WAR

With his customary clarity and insight, Kazin draws our attention to the remarkable group of individuals who arguedeloquently and with great moral urgencyagainst intervention. They lost the debate, but a singular achievement of this deeply incisive book is to show the lasting resonance of their analysis and their fears, down to our present day.

Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Embers of War

At a time when people tell veterans, Thank you for your service, Michael Kazin reminds us of some largely forgotten people who deserve our thanks far more: those who tried to keep us out of the most terrible war the world had yet seen. The dissenters against American participation in the First World War are still a model for us, and Kazin evokes them with care and grace.

Adam Hochschild, bestselling author of To End All Wars

Michael Kazins important history of American pacifism is a compelling cautionary tale. It not only provides an arresting history of a major American movement, it also reminds us of the false hopes that drew us into World War I, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The book should be required reading for aspiring military officers and every politician pronouncing on U.S. leadership around the globe.

Robert Dallek, bestselling author of An Unfinished Life

Once again, Michael Kazin has written a book about the past that forces us to take another look at our present. War Against War , the story of the activists who opposed American entry into World War I, is a gem of historical analysis. Eloquently written, powerfully argued, fully documented, it introduces us to a remarkable and remarkably diverse cast of American characters and compels us to reexamine the most fundamental of questions: When is a war worth fighting?

David Nasaw, bestselling author of The Patriarch

War Against War is a magnificent book that gives opponents of American involvement in World War I, one of the most profoundly destructive conflicts in human history, their due. In elegant and engaging prose, Michael Kazin tells a story about politics, morality, social forces, and a fascinating cast of personalities with power and clarity. This is a very important book, at once sobering and inspiring.

E.J. Dionne, Jr., bestselling author of Why the Right Went Wrong

In this penetrating account of the women and men of a century ago, whom he calls the anti-warriors, Michael Kazin brings off a skillful double play. First, he resurrects the memory of this varied and not so little band of sisters and brothers with both sympathy and critical detachment. Second, he illuminates attitudes and arguments that persist in underpinning and resisting Americas great power outreach. Anyone who cares about this countrys role in the world should read this book.

John Milton Cooper, Jr., author of Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

ALSO BY MICHAEL KAZIN

Barons of Labor: The San Francisco Building Trades and Union Power in the Progressive Era

The Populist Persuasion: An American History

America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (with Maurice Isserman)

A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation

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Copyright 2017 by Michael Kazin

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition January 2017

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Interior design by Ruth Lee-Mui

Jacket design by Thomas Colligan

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kazin, Michael, 1948 author. Title: War against war : the American fight for peace, 19141918 / Michael Kazin. Description: New York : Simon & Schuster, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016005355 (print) | LCCN 2016028651 (ebook) | ISBN 9781476705903 (hardback) | ISBN 9781476705910 (paperback) | ISBN 9781476705927 (E-Book) Subjects: LCSH: World War, 19141918United States. | NeutralityUnited StatesHistory20th century. | Peace movementsUnited StatesHistory20th century. | World War, 19141918Protest movementsUnited States. | World War, 19391945WomenUnited States. | Progressivism (United States politics) | United StatesPolitics and government19131921. | BISAC: HISTORY / United States / 20th Century. | HISTORY / Military / World War I. | HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century. Classification: LCC D619 .K39 2017 (print) | LCC D619 (ebook) | DDC 940.3/120973dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016005355

ISBN 978-1-4767-0590-3

ISBN 978-1-4767-0592-7 (ebook)

To My Fellow Dissentniks

INTRODUCTION

It is no longer questionable that modern war and the joy of existence are incompatible. War makes it impossible to live. It makes it impossible even to die for a noble purpose.

Max Eastman, 1916

This book is about Americans who tried to stop their nation from fighting in historys most destructive war and then endured the wrath of a government that punished them for refusing to change their minds. They came from a variety of backgrounds: wealthy and middle and working class, recent immigrant and old stock, urban and rural, white and black, Christian and Jewish and atheist. They lived in every region of the country and belonged to every political party. Most wanted to make big changes in American society, although not always the same changes and not always by expanding the powers of the state. But they shared a profound revulsion toward the conflict that was taking the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians in Europe and the Middle East. In print and in person, they urged President Woodrow Wilson to help stop the carnage rather than joining one side in order to vanquish the other.

As anti-militarists, they saw every war as a tragedy, a failure to

The foes of militarism in the United States tried to prevent such horrors from occurring at all. Until the nation entered the conflict nearly three years later, they organized the largest, most diverse, and most sophisticated peace coalition to that point in U.S. history. Not until the movement to end the Vietnam War half a century later would there be as large, as influential, and as tactically adroit a campaign against U.S. intervention in another land. There has been none to rival it since. From 1914 to 1917, cosmopolitan Socialists and feminists worked closely with members of Congress from the small-town South and the agrarian Midwest. They mounted street demonstrations and popular exhibitions, founded such new organizations as the Womans Peace Party and the American Union Against Militarism, attracted prominent leaders from the labor and suffrage movements, and ran peace candidates for local and federal office. For almost three years, they helped prevent Congress from authorizing a massive increase in the size of the U.S. Army, a step that, under the name of preparedness, was advocated by some of the richest and most powerful men in the landex-president Theodore Roosevelt foremost among them.