You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Friday September 3, 1915
From The New York Times: Gompers Denounces L. N. P. C. and Friends of Peace
Samuel Gompers
In today's edition of
The New York Times, we find a report that Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, has denounced
Friends of Peace and also
Labor's National Peace Council through a strongly worded letter to
John Brisben Walker:
Mr. Gompers's criticisms are contained in a letter to John Brisben Walker of New York, Chairman of the National Committee of the Friends of Peace. Mr. Gompers, in his letter, emphatically declines an invitation to associate himself with the society...
Mr. Gompers's letter follows letters from several labor leaders resigning from or refusing to join the Friends of Peace or Labor's National Peace Council, all of which have been given out from his office. Mr. Gompers is convinced that neither of the societies is interested in peace and that neither is neutral. His associates seem to be of the same opinion.
[Says Mr. Gompers in his letter to Mr. Walker:]
If it were possible for me...to regard the movement in which you are engaged as prompted in the interest of peace, I would not hesitate to pledge my most earnest and active cooperation; but from my knowledge of events it is not peace which is being furthered by your movement and your meeting; your purpose is to place the people of the United States in a false position before the world, to play into the hands of one side of the warring nations as against the other. Carried to its logical conclusion, our movement would make of the United States not only an unneutral nation, but would lead to the direst limits of militarism in every country and in its worst form.
From The New York Times of September 3, 1915:
GOMPERS DENOUNCES
'FRIENDS OF PEACE'
-----
Pro-German Society Under False Colors,
He Writes Its Chairman, Brisben Walker.
-----
SOUGHT TO CORRUPT LABOR
-----
Some Led by Fair Words to Support Movement-
Labor Chief's Compliments to Henry Weismann.
-----
Special to The New York Times.
John Brisben Walker
WASHINGTON, SEPT. 2.-Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, today declared that the Friends of Peace, a pro-German organization, had, "by insidious and false representations attempted to corrupt financially a large number of representative men among the union workers of the United States." While many of the workers proved themselves incorruptible, said Mr. Gompers, some had been cajoled into believing the society was really working for peace. According to Mr. Gompers, the name of the society is misleading; it works to put the United States in a false and unneutral light,he says, and has bent its efforts to lend support to one of the contending groups in Europe.
Mr. Gompers's criticisms are contained in a letter to John Brisben Walker of New York, Chairman of the National Committee of the Friends of Peace. Mr. Gompers, in his letter, emphatically declines an invitation to associate himself with the society. Mr Walker, he says, has taken upon himself to speak for labor because sixteen years ago he was invited to preside at a labor dinner. On the strength of that incident, says Mr. Gompers, Mr. Walker has ventured to stigmatize workingmen who differ from his "quaint understandings" as traitors to their fellows.
Mr. Gompers's letter follows letters from several labor leaders resigning from or refusing to join the Friends of Peace or Labor's National Peace Council, all of which have been given out from his office. Mr. Gompers is convinced that neither of the societies is interested in peace and that neither is neutral. His associates seem to be of the same opinion.
[Says Mr. Gompers in his letter to Mr. Walker:]
If it were possible for me...to regard the movement in which you are engaged as prompted in the interest of peace, I would not hesitate to pledge my most earnest and active cooperation; but from my knowledge of events it is not peace which is being furthered by your movement and your meeting; your purpose is to place the people of the United States in a false position before the world, to play into the hands of one side of the warring nations as against the other. Carried to its logical conclusion, our movement would make of the United States not only an unneutral nation, but would lead to the direst limits of militarism in every country and in its worst form.
Mr. Gompers refers to an editorial by Mr. Walker in Your Affairs, the publication of the Friends of Peace, in which a European confederation was proposed for the preservation of the German and other monarchies against the rising tide of democracy, and then proceeds:
If you believe that the perpetuation of empires, royalties and thrones is the course which the citizens of this republic should advocate, then, Sir, it might be well, in order to be consistent, to advocate the establishment of monarchical institutions in our Republic. If you think that, after the war is over, the democratic sentiment deep down in the hearts of the German and Austrian people, when these men can and dare speak, will afford any resting place for your propaganda for the perpetuation of empires, dynasties, and thrones, you have misread and misunderstood, and now misinterpret the feelings of the people of Germany and Austria, and England, and Italy, and the other countries.
The first name appearing upon your letterhead is that of Mr. Henry Weismann, a most delectable person, one whose career the men in the labor movement have closely noted for more than twenty-five years. He has been an active worker in a least a half dozen different movements each the very antithesis of the others, and in no movement with which he has been connected has he proved himself other than an apostate. If your movement were possible of growth, you had better watch out for him. Of the other persons whose names appear upon your letterhead, the world knows of their general attitude of mind.
It may not be uninteresting to call attention to the fact that paid emissaries of your "Friends of Peace" have gone from city to city and by insidious and false representations attempted to financially corrupt a large number of the representative men among the union workers of the United States. That so many have proved incorruptible is due to their intelligence, to their honor, and to their integrity. That a number of workers have been cajoled into the belief that by attending your meeting they enlist themselves as friends of peace may be true, because they want peace, they are friends of peace, as is every humanity-loving man and woman of our country; but the false pretense will disclose itself to them not only by your meeting but by that which will inevitably follow.
The American Federation of Labor's officers have been in almost uninterrupted communication with the representatives of the organized workers of the countries now engaged in war, and when the time shall at all seem to be ripe for any decisive move to be made in the interest of peace, all may rest assured that no effort will be left untried to accomplish peace, a peace founded upon righteousness, upon justice, upon democracy and brotherhood the world over.
[Photograph added.]
~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCE
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Sept 3, 1915
"Gompers Denounces Friends of Peace"
http://query.nytimes.com/...
IMAGES
Samuel Gompers, 1911
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
John Brisben Walker
https://en.wikipedia.org/...
See also:
"ASKS U.S. TO STOP WAR SUPPLY SHIPS;
Labor's National Peace Council Charges Government Is Violating Neutrality.
PUBLIC INQUIRY IS URGED
Gives List of Seven Liners at New York Whose Cargoes They Want Investigated.
ASKS U.S. TO STOP WAR SUPPLY SHIPS"
-Special to The New York Times.
July 09, 1915
http://query.nytimes.com/...
The Advocate: America's Jewish Journal, Volume 50
-ed by Emil G Hirsch
Chicago, Illinois, 1915
https://books.google.com/...
The Reform Advocate-Aug 14, 1915
https://books.google.com/...
"A National Peace Convention" by Rutledge Rutherford
https://books.google.com/...
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CHRISTIANS AT WAR by JOHN F. KENDRICK, 1916
Onward, Christian soldiers! Duty's way is plain;
Slay your Christian neighbors, or by them be slain,
Pulpiteers are spouting effervescent swill,
God above is calling you to rob and rape and kill,
All your acts are sanctified by the Lamb on high;
If you love the Holy Ghost, go murder, pray and die.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Rip and tear and smite!
Let the gentle Jesus bless your dynamite.
Splinter skulls with shrapnel, fertilize the sod;
Folks who do not speak your tongue deserve the curse of God.
Smash the doors of every home, pretty maidens seize;
Use your might and sacred right to treat them as you please.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Eat and drink your fill;
Rob with bloody fingers, Christ okays the bill,
Steal the farmers' savings, take their grain and meat;
Even though the children starve, the Savior's bums must eat,
Burn the peasants' cottages, orphans leave bereft;
In Jehovah's holy name, wreak ruin right and left.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Drench the land with gore;
Mercy is a weakness all the gods abhor.
Bayonet the babies, jab the mothers, too;
Hoist the cross of Calvary to hallow all you do.
File your bullets' noses flat, poison every well;
God decrees your enemies must all go plumb to hell.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Blight all that you meet;
Trample human freedom under pious feet.
Praise the Lord whose dollar sign dupes his favored race!
Make the foreign trash respect your bullion brand of grace.
Trust in mock salvation, serve as tyrant's tools;
History will say of you: "That pack of G.. d..fools."
First published in the 9th edition
(Joe Hill Memorial Edition)
of the IWW Little Red Songbook, March 1916.
http://www.folkarchive.de/...