Have a Conscience

Norman Thomas. Is Conscience a Crime? 1923, 1927

In the midst of our current wars and global boiling, this book and the views of the famed peace activist Norman Thomas are worth revisiting. 

“There has been conscientious objection to compulsory military training in many American schools and colleges.” (v)

Government power over people’s lives ends with forcing them into service for something “wholly opposed to their convictions.” (viii)

Influential University of Chicago psychologist  George Herbert Mead argued no one should be forced to act counter to his “moral nature.” (5)

This argument can be applied to many things, such as COVID-19 vaccinations, sending children to public schools, and paying taxes.

However, Thomas writes that “all philosophical defenses of conscription are but rationalizations of the fear that without conscription, the protection of that sacred entity, the nation, might be impossible.” (7)

“The sovereignty of the state and the right of conscription, defended in the name of the supremacy of the common good over the conscience of the individual, were indisputable among the causes of the greatest calamity of modern times.” (8) However, kings of the past have been able to form armies.

“There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state recognizes the individual as a higher and independent power.” (9) But, with so many people in the world will that mean chaos?

“The overwhelming majority of American conscientious objectors were pacifists, opposed to all wars. Most of them were members of Christian sects.” (10)

Conscientious objection during the First World War created great consternation in America. (14)

Contrary to popular belief, “most objectors were foreign-born or at any rate pro-German. Ninety percent of them were native born.” (18)

“According to the War Department, nearly 90% of the objectors were religious.” (19)

However, there are those objectors who will not “fight the proletariat of Germany just to get at the ruling classes. He may even believe in the use of force and fighting, but it is capitalism and imperialism that he wants to fight.” (20)

“Newspapers and magazines were either too hostile to the objectors or too much in fear of that extraordinary thought-controller, Postmaster General Burleson, to give publicity to letters from objectors.” (22)

“Roger N. Baldwin, director of the Civil Liberties Bureau, refused to comply with the draft . . . The compelling motive for refusing to comply with the draft act is my uncompromising opposition to the principle of conscription of life by the state for any purpose whatever, in time of war or peace.” (27)

Baldwin continued, “I feel myself just one protest ion a great revolt surging up form among the people - the struggle of the masses against the rule of the world by the few - profoundly intensified by the war. (28)

Thomas writes that Christianity and war do not go together. Although “Christianity itself has historically been anything but a religion of pacifism.” (30) I am not sure how he conceives of both ideas. 

“American Catholics seeming had no difficulty in squaring their own consciences with the demand of the state.” (31)

“The synagogue, orthodox and reformed, was as militant in the service of the state as the church. Jewish objectors based their case on political grounds.” (31)

Religion was not the only basis for conscientious objection in the First World War. (56)

A reasoned criticism of war was not peculiar to the United States. In all countries, there was pacifism tooted in objection on moral grounds to the method of war, or on economic, racial or international grounds to this particular war.” (56)

Before 1914, peace was respectable in the United States. Churches accepted it as an outlet for idealism. ( 59) Not so fast, Thomas. At the turn of the century, they had the Spanish-American War and the Philippine War. 

America has a history of resistance to conscription. The War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War of “were not only fought by volunteers but were so unpopular anyway that Daniel Webster and others denounced them in language, which in 1918 would have resulted in long, long terms of imprisonment.” (60-61)

There was vociferous resistance to the draft during the Civil War. (61) “Conscientious objection aroused little discussion in the North during the Civil War.” (62) In the South, many hid in caves and in the wilderness to avoid the Confederate draft. (63)

In 1914, pacifism “was the characteristic attitude of Americans. However, this quickly reversed in 1917 when many pacifists enthusiastically supported the war.” (64). Nevertheless, American pacifists at this time referred to the slaughter occurring in Europe at this time. (64-65)

Thomas further examines pacifism in the United States, noting that Americans are not averse to war, as ur conquest of North America demonstrates. (65)

Despite our pioneer, individualistic spirit, Americans are conformists. British First World War leader Lord Northcliffe was in charge of propaganda. The story goes that Lord Northcliffe visited “America shortly before our declaration of war and pointed out to an interviewer that Americans “wear the same kind of hats. They are the most docile people in the world.” (66-67) This ties in with the Late Great John the Pilger, who was asked by Soviet journalists how you get the American press to behave so compliantly. 

“Conformity is the social law in America. We wear the same sort of clothes read the same sort of magazines, belong to the same sort of social organizations. . . . When war was declared, it was easy to persuade us that the voice of the government was the voice of the people - even though they probably would have defeated a referendum on war.” (66)

“There was an opposition to the war which rested one a class-conscious internationalism, but it was not effective in a country where labor was not class conscious and only the comparative handful connected with the I.W.W. or the Socialist Party understood the meaning to its terms.” (67)

According to Norman Thomas, President Wilson viewed the Germans and the British as responsible for the war. (68)

Organizations that supported conscientious objectors made clear that they were not against conscription. The National Civil Liberties Bureau, which became the American Civil Liberties Union, supported “conscientious objectors” and “freedom of option and expression.”

After war was declared in April 1917, the Selective Service Act was passed. Opposition to it was weak and disorganized. (73)

“Conscientious objectors were always tried for disobedience, to specific orders, not for conscientious objection, but the courts well knew that they were not dealing with cases of disobedience by regular soldiers. . . . purely technical grounds . . . purely technical grounds . . . [refusing] to sign papers essential to his uttering in - payroll, assignment to company, insurance, etc. Yet, to sign these papers would have been, in his eyes, to acknowledge himself a part of the army to which he consistently refused to belong. . . . other objectors were court-martialed for refusing inoculation, refusal to don the uniform, or for supposed propaganda among their fellows” (167-168)

For the conscientious objector, military court-martials “did not have the slightest resemblance to justice. “ They existed to suppress conscientious objection. They “were prejudiced.” (169)

In one case, a conscientious objector argued his trial had nothing to do with the “discovery of the truth, but merely to secure a conviction and to inflict an outrageous and almost unbelievable sentence.” (169)

Many imprisoned conscientious objectors refused military legal counsel because they did not believe a military officer could understand conscientious objection. In addition, they feared that the military lawyer “would leave out precisely what we wanted said.” (171)

One conscientious objector forced an army officer to admit he lied. (176)

“The general disposition of many courts-martial seems to have been to sentence objectors to life or to death. . . . None of these long sentences was ever carried out though the objectors had to pass through many tribulations before they were modified.” (178-179)

Mostly, World War One conscientious objectors fared well after the war. (249)

Of all the political leaders who could have been expected to understand conscientious objectors, it would have been President Woodrow Wilson who “declared we fought for the right of men everywhere to choose their way of life and obedience.” (255) However, his use of the Espionage Act demonstrated positive vindictiveness. It was as if they sinned against the Holy Ghost in disputing his justification of the war.” (256)

The newspapers referred to conscientious objectors as “yellow, slackers, pro-German traitors.” (258) Thus, they created a mob mentality. “William Penn would have been reported.” (259)

Interestingly, after the armistice, the war became “more unpopular.” (260)

Also interesting is that anti-German hatred transferred to anti-Bolshevism after the war. (260)

The American philosopher John Dewey used his pontifical position among young intellectuals to misinterpret and almost ridicule the objectors whose case he, the prophet of the new education, did not understand.” (262)

“The political objector got short shrift.” (267)

Norman Thomas cites “a few sentiments from all known men. “The real conscientious objector is unbalanced. True Christian churchmen are dying for Christ.” (267) It was clear to Thomas that church leaders would not understand the objection to serving in the war. (268)

One conscientious objector remembered that army chaplains and the Y.M.C.A. were intolerant towards them. (270)

This surprised conscientious objectors because the head of the Y.M.C.A., “John R. Mott, had been the prime mover in establishing the uncompromising pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation in America.” (271)

During their imprisonment, the American public ignored the brutal conditions of the conscientious objectors. “The press was closed to the truth.” (274)

However, conscientious objectors to the Great War failed in their goal to influence society to change. (278)

“Liberals who advocated for tolerance failed to understand that objectors fought in their own way for a social principle as important as any which sent men to war.” (278-279)

“The wartime appeal to the duty of absolute obedience is a rationalization of all the fear, hate, hysterical patriotism, edification of the State without which modern wholesale warfare can not be carried on.” (296)

Following the Great War, peacetime conscription insinuated itself into our educational system. (298)

Students who refused to participate in compulsory military training were either fired to leave the school or perform another activity. It was estimated that the University of Minnesota expelled 100 students each year. (298-299)

Resistance to military conscription is a time-honored American tradition.(299)

With little protest to peacetime conscription, wartime conscription will be accepted as normal. (300)

Nevertheless, clergy who supported defeating “the Hun” . . . announced that they cannot take part in another war. (300)

Social pressure and fear of prison caused men to go to war.

“No mere objection to participating in war is likely to save us in a world where rampant imperialism with all its injustices is accepted as the natural and normal state of affairs.” (302)