World history surveys to freshman, i tell the students, most of whom are there only because the university requires them, that the value of history lies in its ability for us to see the past in such a way that we can reimagine the present and the future. That perspective can allow us to create a better world than the one in which we now inhabit. This is the gift our speaker, Michael Kazin brings to us tonight and has shared with the readers of many of his books, such as his biography of William Jennings bryan, his account of the political place of the left in American History, and most relatively to this conference, his recent study of peace activists in world war i. He is a professor of history at Georgetown University and the editor of descent magazine. He writes for the new york times, foreign affairs, the nation, and the daily beast. He has written many books and lectured in the United States, europe, and japan and we are lucky to have him here this evening. Please join me in extending a welcome to professor Michael Kazin. [applause] thanks for that lovely introduction. I was going to ask us to applaud andrew and all the people who helped him for putting together this inspiring conference. [applause] i have to say that the whole staff here this is the best run museum i have ever been to and that includes the National Museum of American History. It is a great institution. I often say we always face the problem americans do not care that much about world war i but anybody who comes to this museum and walks out not caring had their eyes closed or were looking at their phone the whole time. Thanks to this great museum. Andrew asked me to use what i learned about the movement to oppose world war i in writing my book to reflect on opposition to war today. I would also like to do a couple of other things. I will get to that. Knowing that i was going to be speaking to a room full of people who studied world war i a lot longer than i have, i wanted to pose an uninspiring question about not just the history of world war i but the history of Peace Movements generally in American History. I wanted to reflect on the legacy of the movement that opposed preparedness in the great war and the decades that followed it and i will get to the question of what the Antiwar Movement looks like in the present. My question is a troubling one why are the voices of war opponents so muted . The title of this conference was well chosen. For most americans, perhaps most europeans, why do antimilitarists received so receive so little attention in narratives about Armed Conflicts and among u. S. Historians generally . That is true for world war i, this museum notwithstanding. Think about the National Museum of American History in washington. Maybe people have seen the exhibit they have on americans at war at the museum of American History. They have a small section devoted to world war i. They have a website based on it as well. As far as i can see, there is almost nothing on the movement to oppose that war. The images i got on the website are typical images. The famous flag poster, the song about the Woman Working as a nurse, combat photos, African American soldiers, etc. Photos of prowar images generally. Hardly anything about the movement that was so important giving americans an alternative way of thinking about the war and doing a lot to stall those who wanted the u. S. To get into the war and then continuing in opposing the war after the u. S. Declares war in april, 1917. The basic facts about opposition that are known to scholars are unknown to most people. How large draft resistance was, for example. How many people outside this room know there were 350,000 americans who resisted conscription . There were 3 million americans who never registered for draft. How many know it was the Womens Movement that began the Antiwar Movement . Beginning from the womens march down 5th avenue in 1914. How many know that votes for antiwar candidates increased in the election of 1917 . Including the labor lawyer and socialist of new york when he got almost a quarter of the vote in a three man race on an antidraft platform . How may people know the origins of modern Civil Liberties jurisprudence are there, with the beginning of the aclu and of course, with the cases out of the war, the abrams case and others, which Oliver Wendell holmes made his famous decision. There is also a good deal of neglect about the most successful Peace Movement in history that against the war in indochina. Take the 18 hour pbs documentary i heard a sigh 18 hours, produced by ken burns. The treatment of the war itself is splendid and negative. They made clear the u. S. Was doomed to lose that war and deserved to lose. When they turned to the subject of those who made the same arguments about the war itself, they fall back on caricatures about millions of people, protesters, screaming at gis and spitting on them. About how most americans oppose the war, routing for a communist victory. They almost entirely neglect the efforts by groups like Vietnam Veterans against the war to get people who were serving and had served in the military to oppose the mission they were called upon to serve. They neglect for the most part the americans who put almost all their effort on the politicians their emphasis on the politicians who were taking america to war as opposed to looking at the soldiers as enemies, which hardly anybody did. Perhaps we should not blame filmmakers for their flaws. The United States has been at war for most of its history. There have been organized opposition in each major conflict to the present. The scholarship in Antiwar Movements is less known as compared to that of other social movements in American History, such as those are black freedom, for black freedom, labor organizing, and the grassroots left and right. Why . That is the question i want to start with. Why is the movement we know so neglected by most scholars and textbooks as well. Some is due to the reverence for the military which has always run deep in u. S. History. 10 of the 40 elected u. S. President s were elected in part because of their military exploits. The opponents of the other progressive movements i mentioned i include the movement for lgbtq writes are widely viewed as racist, homophobic. Neither antiwar activists nor the scholars who study them want to view ordinary combatants as the culprits behind war even though no war can be fought without them. It is difficult to respect their service but also explaining how and why americans tried to stop them from carrying out their mission. There is ambiguity there. To a certain degree, it muddies the water for people appreciating scholarship. Another reason for the neglect is they are part of a history of war and diplomacy. It has long been dominated by scholars, mostly men. Understanding why powerful men made decisions to prepare for and negotiate an end to Armed Conflicts. The citizens and noncitizens seem marginal to that greater history. The kind of social changes or cause or at least accelerate, also play a role. Womens suffrage triumphed in in part as a result of the role women played in world war i supporting it, not opposing it. The black Freedom Movement got a huge boost in numbers as a result of world war ii. The naacp increased its membership by 1000 in world war ii. Figures like this guy, the first black man to play major league baseball, jackie robinson, was part of the black Freedom Movement during the war. He was courtmartialed during the war for refusing to get to the back of the bus at fort hood, texas, a segregated state. He was found innocent because it was on a federal bus, not a state bus. If he had not been found innocent, he would not have been the first black man to play major league baseball. There is a recent book called the great leveler has anybody read that . It is fascinating but troubling. He argues that wars are the great leveler in human history. They sometimes promote a gala and a gala terrorists in and a gala terrien spirit which helps narrow the income gap. Sometimes they just destroying everything in their path, including the property of the rich and the poor and that helps level things. There is a way in which war has been responsible for Movement Towards a more egalitarian social policy in history. The very nature of Antiwar Movements plays a part in this neglect as well. Antiwar movements are not like other collective attempts to change society. In contrast to those who seek rights and a measure of power for women or workers or people of color, peace seekers have no natural constituency, unless it is everybody. That is not the same thing as having a specific constituency demographically. Neither can their movement cannot grow slowly, taking decades to convince people and to enact laws and embody that new perspective, the way other movements can. The black freedom Movement Began during slavery and is still going on but had take try amps but had try amps during reconstruction and in the 60s. A massive effort to stop a war that is already raging has to grow quickly or will have little or no influence. That movement has to lure talented activists away from other political commitments. Every new war requires activists to create a new movement and to define partners for a new coalition who might be capable of ending it. Thereve always been pacifists in the United States and weve heard papers today and we will hear more tomorrow about the peace churches. A wonderful panel today. During periods of peace, endure on the margins, unknown to most of their fellow citizens. The americans who fought a war against war in 1914 until the declaration of war almost three years later, managed juice or mount these obstacles. Their coalition was ideologically broad. It was tripartisan because the socialist party was a large but minor party at the time. It operated inside but outside congress. It used a range of tactics, like a huge war against war exhibit in new york city that featured cartoons, a scale model of a stegasaurus with the caption that he went extinct because he had armored plate but no brains. Hundreds of thousands visited that in new york. As most of you know, the most important tactic was to try to get congress and the president to authorize a referendum. They were confident they would win that if it had been held. They were unable to convince the president and congress to keep the nation at peace. The legacy is not one of failure. They warned credibly about the consequences of American Intervention and were transformed by the 20s from traders into something akin to profits. Prophets. A democrat from missouri was one of the six senators to vote against the declaration of war said this, i will not vote for war because if we go into a, we will never again have the same republic. This can be read in many ways. It can be read as a statement it was clearly accurate whether the old republic was good or not. The antimilitarist had made a mighty attempt to prevent the establishment of a political order most americans take for granted. That is a state equipped to fight numerous wars abroad will while keeping a close watch on activities of its citizens at home. The surveillance state call it what you will. The identity of the nations enemies has changed often. Stated Foreign Policy has nearly always remained the same to create a world made safe for democracy. Donald trump has abandoned that rhetoric only to replace it with a different kind of idealism. He aims to put America First and to force every other country to surrender to its whims. As soon as the great war ended, its foes in the United States did begin to experience a kind of redemption. Former allies refuse to pay back war loans. European nations fell into bitter quarrels and strife. Americans increasingly viewed peace advocates as more prophetic and disloyal. A senator from wisconsin was almost expelled from the senate for his opposition to the war during the war. He was reelected to the senate by the largest majority in wisconsin history. The Womens International league for peace and freedom and the success of the womens peace party gave thousands of members through the 20s both in the United States and abroad with a radical platform. They called for pacifism and opposition to imperialism. In 1922, jane adams asked is not war a contradiction in terms . However often it was repeated. Most americans would have responded in the affirmative. 1931, as most of you know, jane adams won the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee in norway saluted her for being right all along. The quote from the statement she held fast to the ideal of peace even through the hours when other considerations obscured it from her compatriots and drove them into the conflict. You could not get a much clearer statement about how she was right. The new york times, which was not as liberal a paper as it is today, had excoriated adams for her pacifism, now hope to turn now hoped her wartime prophecy of International Cooperation might be coming true. At the time, most americans looked back at the conflict with regret. The number of war commemorations dwindled rapidly. The construction of the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington Cemetery was delayed for five years, as officials argued about whether it symbolized war or peace. This was shown by somebody else earlier. This was showing the american delegation to the hague in 1950. 1915. Jane adams is there, first from your left. 1929 the senate approved, one dissenting vote, the treaty to outlaw war. 60 nations signed it. 1934, a Senate Special committee began to investigate the charge that munitions producers had dragged the nation into the great war. They never uncovered a conspiracy. Most conspiracy theories never pan out but the wellpublicized hearings persuaded Many Americans that war is not a matter of National Honor but a matter of profit for the few. Popular history has written at the same time of u. S. Intervention as well, even though they did not always agree with economic analysis. Revisionist accounts of the great war sold well. Charles beard wrote one. The best selling was the road to war. High up on the bestseller list for many months. Popular opinion was both helping these books to sell well and was reflected by their point of view. In 1937, the gallup pole found 70 of american respondents believed it was a mistake to fight the great war. Each of the previous years, congress by overwhelming majorities, had voted for neutrality acts, which essentially took the same act the Peace Coalition had demanded 20 years before. An embargo on selling arms. And a prohibition on americans traveling on ships of belligerent nations. The war had not begun yet. 1937, lawmakers slapped a ban on u. S. Vessels claiming caring carrying people people of any nation at war. In other opinion polls, large majority of americans supported a constitutional amendment that would require a referendum for the u. S. To go to war, sponsored by this man. Franklin roosevelt was so afraid this amendment would pass he was opposed to this kind of restriction on war powers the Democratic Leaders in congress, pushed by roosevelt, make sure made sure the amendment never got to the floor to be debated because they were afraid if it got debated, americans might support it and be enacted. Robert had written to his soninlaw i might not live to see my own vindication but you will. He died in 1925. 20 years after the war ended, he seemed correct. Another war happened. Most politicians who it made these antiwar arguments repudiated that opinion after the attack on pearl harbor. Great war revisionism fell out of favor and it appeared unpatriotic. In the wake of the holocaust and nazi andt of the japanese empires, jane adams and her antimilitarist seemed naive, not prophetic. In the Second World War, most americans agreed the u. S. And its allies did help rescue civilization. I went to high school in the middle of the 1960s and my High School History ap textbook was written by samuel eliot morrison, a leading historian of that time. This is how he wrote about wilsons decision to go to war they compared it to abraham lincolns decision to try to reinforce the garrison at warts sumpter fort sumter. They said president wilson felt the lesser evil was for america to join the conflict to try to direct the peace that must eventually come into channels that would justify the sacrifice. They concluded few would doubt he was right. Then came another war. The debacle in indochina. In justifying intervention against the enemy force, Lyndon Baines johnson sounded like woodrow wilson, calling for peace without victory, calling for a declaration of war. In a speech he gave at johns we wantin 1965, he said a piece without conquest in vietnam. He said there is no difference. We fight because we must fight. If we are going to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny and