The United States and the Second World War: New Perspectives on Diplomacy, War, and the Home Front

9. American Pacifism, the ‘‘Greatest Generation,’’ and World War II

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c h a p t e r n i n e ........................................................... american pacifism, the ‘‘greatest generation,’’ and world war ii Scott H. Bennett During NBC’s coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day, I was asked by Tim Russert on Meet the Press my thoughts on what we were witnessing. As I looked out over the assembled crowd of veterans , which included everyone from Cabinet officers and captains of industry to retired schoolteachers and machinists, I said, ‘‘I think this is the greatest generation any society had ever produced.’’ tom brokaw1 Why do we use the term ‘‘greatest generation’’ for the participants in war? Why not for those who have opposed war, who have tried to make us understand that war has never solved fundamental problems ? Should we not honor, instead of parachutists and bomber pilots , those conscientious objectors who refused to fight or the radicals and pacifists who opposed the idea that young people of one nation should kill young people of another nation to serve the purposes of politicians and financiers? howard zinn2 Journalist Tom Brokaw has dubbed the citizen soldiers who endured the Great Depression, won the ‘‘good war,’’ and reformed postwar America, the ‘‘greatest generation.’’ Both in wartime and in peace, the greatest generation championed liberty, democracy, and progress—at home and abroad. Even though Brokaw stresses the courage, heroism, and sacrifice of the uniformed citizen soldier, he also celebrates civilian contributions to the greatest generation’s project of economic recovery, war, and social reform. The greatest generation thesis, though deeply flawed, provides a useful approach to the discussion of World War II pacifism and pacifists.3 Less known and uncelebrated, tens of thousands of American pacifists opposed World War II. The pacifist camp included pacifist organizations— notably the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the War Resisters League (WRL), and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)—the historic peace churches (Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren), and conscientious objectors (COs). Even more than during the First World War, COs were a major element in the antiwar dissent during World War II. To honor their mainly pacifist convictions, at least 43,000 COs refused to take up arms, including 6,000 COs who went to prison, 12,000 who served in Civilian Public Service (CPS), and 25,000 or more who performed noncombatant jobs in the military. Thousands of other nondraft-eligible paci- fist men and women opposed the ‘‘good war.’’ Pacifists—no less than the citizen soldiers celebrated by Tom Brokaw—condemned Italian fascism, German nazism, and Japanese militarism; they also struggled for freedom, democracy, civil rights, and social justice on the home front and overseas during and after the Second World War. Pacifists, too, are part of the ‘‘greatest generation.’’ pacifism and pearl harbor ‘‘Do not let Japan led us into disastrous war,’’ WRL founder Jessie Wallace Hughan telegraphed President Franklin D. Roosevelt immediately after the Japanese attack on Hawaii. ‘‘We urge peace in spite of the Pearl Harbor events.’’4 Two weeks later, the WRL declared: ‘‘Under no circumstances, regardless of cost to ourselves, can we abandon our principles or our faith in methods that are the opposite of those demanded by war.’’ At the same time, the WRL announced that it had no ‘‘intention of obstructing or interfering ’’ with the war. ‘‘We respect the will of the government. . . . [and] our fellow citizens to whom war presents itself as a patriotic duty.’’ The WRL recognized that Pearl Harbor, along with the subsequent declarations of war by Germany and Italy, ‘‘left no choice for those who believe in military defense.’’5 Other pacifist organizations, including the FOR and WILPF, issued similar statements. 260 : American Pacifism, the ‘‘Greatest Generation,’’ and World War II Even though pacifists condemned the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor, they argued that the United States and the Allies were complicit in the developments that had prompted the attack—and, more generally, that had led to the collapse of the interwar international system, to Hitler’s rise to power, to Japanese expansionism, and to the Second World War. Contributing to World War II were the unjust Versailles Treaty, Western imperialism in Asia, the Allies’ attempts to preserve their own empires while opposing Axis imperial ventures, and support for Nazi Germany as an anticommunist bulwark by Allied governments and corporations...