It Can Be Stopped!
Newby, Edith O.
It Can Be Stopped! By EDITH O. NEWBY In the Christian Century The Strange Story Of Two Meetings And A Course Of Action That Grew Out Of Them THE DRIFT TO WAR can be stopped. It is being done in...
...In our town out of that first home meeting has come a branch of the Keep America Out of War Congress...
...I want to know what assurance we have that our men will not go...
...release of 25 four-motor flying fortresses...
...Sherwood explained that he would have to sit down and read his speech, All Wrapped With Ribbons "because I simply cannot be trusted to speak extemporaneously on this subject," which turned out to be our "stupid Congress" and the "subversive activities" of those trying to prevent our taking part in this war...
...The musician was beckoned quickly to the piano and the question period abruptly terminated...
...When told that we "should see it through," one parent asked, "How far should we see it through ? Even to our sons...
...The meeting opened with that British imperialist anthem which is sung to Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance": Wider still and wider Shall thy bounds be set...
...Read that again carefully...
...In other words, the politicians of England will sit down with the politicians of our own country and for certain imperialist gains, we are to hand over the lives of 500,000 American youth who had nothing to do with this war...
...Hundreds of communities acting at once can stop the drift to war because that drift slows down the minute the propaganda of the White committee is seriously challenged...
...The President of the United States, however, could be depended on, he emphasized, to do right by Britain, and to ignore this "blind minority," if the committee's followers produced another storm of telegraphed demands when the committee again called for them...
...The same "articulate minority" responsible for foisting prohibition with its gangsterism and its crime upon the country, screamed Mr...
...Since that time one protection after another has gone, until we are now actually handling over, without benefit of Congress, destroyers, bombers and other materials...
...If America will send such an army, Great Britain will make us certain concessions...
...We did not understand all we owed England...
...And the one thing of which they are mortally afraid is a question designed to make them speak plainly concerning their ultimate objectives...
...Stunned Silence Follows Asking Of The Question THE EFFECT WAS as if someone had opened a dark closet, revealing a gruesome secret...
...Posters Scream American Dependence On Great Britain \17E WALKED INTO AN American public school whose * ? halls were plastered with appeals for Britain, asking everything from guns to blood for transfusion "from American veins...
...We saw pictures of bereaved English mothers...
...Dr.'Van Dusen replied: "That was a list submitted to the committee by English officers when asked what their ultimate desires would be...
...He believes this war must be fought on the Continent...
...It sounds incredible, this business of pitching men down into blood and slaughter, and calling upon the cross of Christ to justify the deed...
...One daily paper, in reporting the meeting, said: "The speakers explained that they were not necessarily reflecting the views of the White committee . . . but evidence has come...
...Then suddenly, a burst of spontaneous applause, amazing from an audience which was supposed to be C9 per cent in favor of the White committee program...
...I should like to ask whether this is the ultimate objective of the William Allen White committee, and whether it is a part of secret agreements made between this administration and Great Britain...
...So a few who could two days later attended a meeting of the county chapter of the White committee, presided over by Mrs...
...Morrow and Dr...
...But then there was an invitation for questions...
...We have already committed acts of war...
...Posters shouted at us that our democracy is a gift from a benign England, and that without her generations of guardianship of our coast we should today be the vassals of totalitarian beasts...
...God who made thee mighty Make thee mightier yet . . . Said one newspaper: "You got the impression that with the traditional abettance of the Almighty, the Crown would do all right for itself...
...Van Dusen replied that the answer to both parts of the question was a "categorical No...
...Anti-draft youth is cowardly and anti-war adults are blind and stupid...
...When they are not feeble and vulnerable, without an argument strong enough to stand up under direct question, they become brutal, and appeal to hate and fear as in the Sherwood speech...
...the status quo in Europe ought to be destroyed and we, if we enter the struggle, will be permitted to "supervise" the "reconstruction...
...Soldiers are needed...
...Summons Cross Of Christ To Justify Mass Slaughter OF COURSE, IT MAY be said that this was not an official pronouncement of program by the White committee, but only an expression of opinion by members (though these seem to be very influential members...
...I have never heard a speech that equaled it for venom...
...You do not need money or prestige...
...2. According to another, Germans are biologically different from other people...
...Because the feeling has been growing that interventionists are not revealing their ultimate purposes, we invited a speaker from the local chapter of the William Allen White committee, whose county leaders are Mrs...
...our entry into the war is a matter of weeks, and the White committee is content that it should be so...
...But the questioner persisted: "Then how do you account for the presence of these seven requirements in the William Allen White news service telegrams to fifty key United States papers on September 8 as the White committee's absolute demands...
...The Author Asks About Committee's Ultimate Aim THE PROPAGANDA THAT we ought to stay out of this war was "insidious" and to be regarded with aversion and suspicion...
...It produced a shocked silence which one could never forget...
...The leaders of the William Allen White committee have been called skillful propagandists...
...Only One Holy War: The War For Peace RESULTS have been amazing...
...Why are you people so afraid to die ? Why should your sons be afraid to die ? Jesus died on the cross, didn't he ? England's battle is the same thing...
...Van Dusen was embarrassed and not quite clear in answering...
...release of 20 navy P. B. Y. bomber flying boats...
...But it happened, just as I am reporting it...
...We were "stupid," "obtuse," "recalcitrant" and "vicious...
...release of 250,000 Lee-Enfield rifles...
...As the questioner, I confess that it took nerve to get up in that lion's den and ask it...
...Henry P. Van Dusen...
...Propagandists, yes...
...the composition and the titles seemed to indicate that we had no right even to try to keep our own homes intact...
...It is with-the first question and its effect that I wish to deal chiefly...
...That all this is making itself felt might be the reason one aspirant for Congress called me on the telephone one evening to say that these were his sentiments, exactly...
...There was a stunned silence...
...The papers reported about nine hundred present, most of them members or sympathizers, and they gave vigorous approval to this monstrous speech...
...Our counter-offensive began less than two weeks ago, with a home meeting of peace-minded men and women, intent on action to dispel the atmosphere of confusion and helplessness hanging like a pall over the nation's homes...
...Van Dusen Denies Written Objectives Of Committee ARECOGNIZED POLITICAL writer then rose to read from their own prospectus the objectives of the William Allen White committee: Release—at once—to Great Britain of 20 motor torpedo boats...
...He was asked, "Is the White committee in favor of sending food to German-occupied countries ?" And the White committeeman replied: "Yes, but Hitler won't allow it...
...Van Dusen...
...With the help of God and a little nerve, it can begin here in America, at once...
...Take others with you...
...Now a mass meeting is planned at which General Hugh Johnson will speak...
...Sickened by what we had heard that evening, we nevertheless felt we ought to listen to the national leaders of this movement...
...We can stop the drift to war now...
...The William Allen Whiter did not press the point...
...Americans in a thousand communities throughout the country can stop the drift to war by stopping first the William Allen White committee...
...Here is this terrible question: "The first appeal for an American Expeditionary Force of soldiers has just been made...
...Dr...
...release of all present six-per-day production of modern tanks for the African campaign...
...They need men...
...The ultimate cost to us of this aid Mr...
...He felt it necessary to explain that we could not know "what can happen in these circumstances . . . but if we do send a force, it will be an air force which is needed...
...Morrow saw them...
...Van Dusen nor Mrs...
...He was reminded that England's reply to tentative approaches from the United States seeking a way to feed civil-: ians in occupied countries had been indignant refusal to relax her blockade...
...It comes in a book by H. N. Brailsford, political commentator of the Manchester Guardian...
...Sherwood's Speech Unequaled For Venom And Bitterness THE SPEAKER WAS Robert Sherwood, author of the "Stop Hitler Now" advertisement...
...Suavely, but with a dismay impossible to conceal, Dr...
...Sherwood, was back of this crafty attempt to prevent Congress from coming to the aid of Britain...
...But no longer skillful...
...we ought "to see it through...
...use of American training fields in Texas and California for training Canadian pilots during the winter, and, finally, release of the heavily guarded American bomb-sight...
...3. The twenty-five "flying fortress" bombers for which the White committee is now campaigning are to be sent within the next week or two, and anything else the British ask for they must be given, 4. There came finally angry admission that "talk of measures short of war is the bunk...
...Dwight Morrow and Dr...
...Just go to their own meetings and hear their own fantastic technique for saving "democracy...
...Truth is the weapon to use, and truth wielded by an aroused and unafraid people will dissolve the atmosphere of helplessness this committee has created...
...Three of the committee members arrived and—thanks be to God—for once they spoke frankly...
...England is only too eager to relieve the victim populations...
...Courage is contagious...
...How To Stop The Drift To War Without Expense AT THIS POINT THREE more people leaped to their feet for questions, but neither Dr...
...The rest of us, including Senator Rush Holt, who had exposed by name and station the financial interests back of this committee, were either "communists," "nazis" or, by innuendo, plain cowards...
...Sherwood was careful not to detail—yet...
...of a committee meeting in California, a continent away, where the same brutal program was proposed, also with the qualification that it was only a personal opinion...
...The Curious Answer On Issue Of Feeding Starving Europe NOT CONTENT WITH defiance, one spokesman resorted to what was either ignorance or deliberate falsehood...
...Senator Taft was "goofy," "thick" and "muddle-headed...
...The questioner pursued the point: "What assurance do we have that this will not happen ? Only last year we were told that all that was necessary was the repeal of one clause in the neutrality act—the arms embargo...
...Van Dusen denied these objectives...
...There is only one holy war—the war for peace...
...It is being done in my own community in war-minded New Jersey, within hailing distance of the great estates of the richest and most influential leaders of the William Allen White Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies...
...A visit to the publisher of the local daily has revealed more than we had hoped for...
...Measures Short Of War Admitted To Be The Bunk THIS IS THE GHASTLY program which was dragged out into the light, as can be testified by fifty witnesses: 1. The United States should be in the war now, to protect its Far Eastern interests in rubber, tin and quinine, said one spokesman...
...It was an attack on Americans in general, and those who did not agree with the William Allen White committee in particular...
...The White committee's representative turned on the questioner almost savagely...
...The paper's political columnist, genuinely interested in our fragmentary information on the White committee, began some research which has resulted in a series of four brilliant articles, which have reached thousands of people...
...Brailsford says that Englishmen are grateful for the materials already sent them, but that this is not what they need...
...Ask your questions...
Vol. 4 • December 1940 • No. 51
