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WRL History Radical Pacifism: Reviewed by Wendy Schwartz This history of the War Resisters League arrives at an important point in WRL’s existence, when political dissension, staff upheaval and a leadership gap have challenged the organization’s ability to confront a spectacularly violent world. It is a welcome reminder that WRL has faced, and weathered, similar difficulties in the past. But the book also delivers a potentially pessimistic message, as it demonstrates how WRL has made the same mistakes and fought the same battles over and over, just like the governments whose policies it opposes. Since 1923, when WRL was officially established (despite the book’s somewhat erroneous title), members from the left and right wings of the pacifist movement have struggled over the correct nature of WRL’s work and the breadth of its agenda. That WRL was initially led by socialists created an ongoing tension for decades, and ultimately official ties with the Socialist Party were severed. Another early argument concerned whether WRL should organize its own protests or just support activists acting on their own. Then a schism developed over whether the organization should sanction civil disobedience. There were also debates about the effect of the atom bomb on world politics and the nature of war in the future, the expansion of WRL’s program to include civil rights activities, and the treatment of women in WRL. Nearly always, the more radical camp prevailed. Often, along the way to the resolution of these various disagreements, there were resignations of key staff and executive committee members, decidedly non-pacifistic name-calling, secret caucusing, and other examples of acting out by the individualistic and iconoclastic individuals who belonged to WRL. The organization’s leaders had very strong values, little respect for the conventions of mainstream society, and a healthy distrust of majority rule; sadly, ego and narcissism, not the desire to do what was necessary to maintain the health of the organization, frequently seemed to fuel the core WRLers with the most intractable positions. Still, WRL conducted an impressive array of campaigns, many with great originality and courage, and all designed to show that nonviolence was a realistic alternative to war. In 1931, for example, WRL organized a demonstration and march in response to a military air show over New York City, with banners and leaflets asserting that the glorification of war was an attempt to divert the attention of the unemployed from their plight. After Pearl Harbor, WRL condemned the attack but also pointed out how the United State’s various anti-Asian policies were contributory. While not publicly protesting World War II, the organization vigorously supported U.S. conscientious objectors and resisters, and in the postwar period operated a Food Packet Plan for European and Japanese resisters. WRL’s active support for victims of anti-Communist hysteria in the early 1950s was unique among progressive groups, as was its hiring Bayard Rustin, whose homosexuality had caused his dismissal from other organizations. There have been notable lapses in WRL’s organizing efforts, though. Over the years covered in the book, and until the present, WRL has not been successful in enlarging its leadership to include people of color and members of the working class—and, to a lesser extent, women. Nor has it been able to involve in a meaningful way people who want to integrate pacifist activism into their lives but cannot make it their highest priority. WRL has had only three female chairs, and only a handful of people of color on its committees. Most WRLers do not worry constantly about paying their bills. Also, like the organization’s founders, most of the organization’s leaders today do not have families to raise and support. Both a strength and weakness of Radical Pacifism is the fact that it was begun as a dissertation. The strength is that the book was meticulously researched, with a wide range of sources contributing to its accuracy and fairness. Scott Bennett, drawing on a combination of interviews and archival materials, did a fine job of describing WRL’s policies and activities and the people responsible for them. I detected only one significant error—the understatement of the role of Tracy Mygatt and Frances Witherspoon in the founding of WRL—which is likely the result of interviews with individuals who downplay the women’s contributions. The only serious omission I noted is the lack of a full discussion of WRL’s activities during the Korean War; it appears that there was little protest, but Bennett did not explain the reasons for the organization’s reticence to resist such a questionable military intervention. The book’s weakness is that it lacks color, humanity and humor, probably because these are not characteristics that dissertation committees value. For example, while Bennett’s description of WRL’s anti-civil defense campaign is accurate, it omits the funny, if unfortunate, tale of the immigrant shoemaker who was arrested by mistake in the sweep of demonstrators refusing to take cover during an air raid drill. More importantly, Bennett fails to engage in the kind of informed speculation or to draw the type of arresting conclusions which would give the book added value to sociologists, anthropologists and present-day activists who are trying to be more effective by learning from the past; going out on such limbs can unnecessarily antagonize dissertation committees. An analysis of WRL’s perpetually skewed demographics would have been useful, though, particularly with consideration of the facts that over the years many women have formed their own peace organizations rather than attempt to gain leadership roles within WRL, and that organizations founded and run by people of color concentrate on social and economic justice with only a passing attention in disarmament and peace. Perhaps it is simply not possible for WRL to speak with equal authority to all groups, but a dispassionate exploration of its relationships with progressive activists who are not white males is sorely needed. Despite these limitations, Radical Pacifism is a rich chronicle of U.S. pacifist activism, and a welcome resource in this increasingly ahistorical world. It is essential reading for everyone involved in the War Resisters League, and it should be both a source of pride and a challenge to ensure that the organization’s best years are not behind it. Wendy Schwartz frequently writes about feminist and pacifist history and is an editor of scholarly research including dissertations. Reminder Patriotism, Peace, and Vietnam: Reviewed by Lenna Mae Gara This slim volume provides a reminder to movement “biggies” that their work is always augmented at the local level by quietly persistent people like Peggy Hanna. Writing after more than 30 years, she tells of the tumultuous Vietnam War years from the perspective of a small-town housewife whose evolution in attitude mirrored the changes in American society itself. At first, Peggy Hanna, an obedient Catholic girl, was shocked and angered by antiwar demonstrations because she believed that opposition to government policies meant betrayal of the troops who had to carry them out. Ultimately she realized that she must oppose the war in order to support the troops. After that sea change in outlook, she became a tireless worker for the peace movement. In 1968 she helped organize Ohio’s Springfield People for Peace, which held weekly vigils, faced angry veterans, and lobbied in Washington. In 1971 Peggy and a friend went to Paris to observe the stalled peace talks and attend the Citizens’ Conference on Ending the War in Indochina. In 1972, after working tirelessly for George McGovern and a local grandmother who ran against the Republican incumbent for Congress, they were stunned when their efforts met crushing defeat. “It was as if there had been a death in the family,” she writes. That election and the Christmas bombing that followed left the Springfield People for Peace exhausted. They had endured noisy opposition or icy silence for their efforts. The most hurtful criticism, recalls Peggy, was the baseless charge that they had insulted returning veterans. Sickened at the thought of such cruel behavior, she came to accept that it had probably happened somewhere, though never to anyone she knew who could confirm it personally. “All of us know in our own heart and conscience,” she writes, “whether we need forgiveness or to forgive. Sometimes, maybe it’s both. ... Therefore the one thing I’d change would have been to use the peace movement as a catalyst to welcome our vets home. No one else did, maybe we could have.” Peggy Hanna writes without overblown rhetoric, telling her story simply and eloquently. It is an important addition to the literature of the Vietnam War, and must reading for national organizers who depend on grassroots workers to promote their causes. |
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