War Opposition from Addams to Murtha
The political news this weekend is probably the firestorm around Democratic Congressman Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania calling for a redeployment of the troops in Iraq. Murtha may be from my home state, but he’s from the western side of the commonwealth, so I have only been vaguely aware of him up to now. Kagro X at The Next Hurrah had a terrific post pulling together the reasons why his voice on military matters holds so much weight.
Clearly there was an impact because Republicans in the House tried to pull a maneuver Friday night to either embarrass Murtha or force other House Democrats to disavow his position and support the war. The stunt went haywire. Murtha had suggested that Congress pass a joint resolution calling for the orderly redeployment of troops and a continued use of diplomacy, which would include introductory language that established the reasons for such a move. House Republicans instead offered a one-paragraph sense-of-the-House resolution simply calling for the immediate termination of operations in Iraq. Again, for the parliamentary distinctions, check out Kagro. At one point, a newly-elected Representative from Ohio named Jean Schmidt quoted a Marine who asked her to send a message to Murtha that “cowards cut and run, Marines never do.� Thing is, Murtha is an ex-Marine. The House was in an uproar until Schmidt retracted her remarks.
Now, I’m not sure how this is all going to play out over the next few weeks. Public support for the war is clearly dropping, but I just don’t know if it’s going to have any effect on the government’s decisions in the short term. What I have found interesting, as yet another example of history repeating itself, is the way opponents of the war are characterized as disrespecting our troops and aiding the enemy. (Check out this post from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo for another example.) There’s a particular incident about Jane Addams, one of the leaders of the settlement house movement and a major progressive force at the turn of the century, that Jean Elshtain cites in her book Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy and which I frequently think about these days.
On July 9, 1915, Addams gave a speech at Carnegie Hall, relating her experiences abroad as a member of a delegation of women urging a peaceful resolution to the World War. She expressed her frustration that while every country insisted it was fighting only for its own self-defense, it could not be the first to broach the subject of peace because that would project weakness and weaken the war effort. In an effort to convey how much war runs counter to basic human impulses, she talked about soldiers willing to kill themselves rather than go back to the front to kill others. In her final paragraph, she mentioned that soldiers of every nationality need some kind of intoxicant to be able to handle the gruesome responsibility of carrying out a bayonet charge: “They all have to give them the ‘dope’ before the bayonet charge is possible . . . But in the end human nature must reassert itself. The old elements of human understanding and human kindness must come to the fore.�
Addams was trying to argue that soldiers needed to dull the horror of killing others. But many interpreted her comments as a charge that the soldiers on the front lines lacked the courage to fight without artificial stimulation. A letter to the editor of the New York Times appeared less than a week later castigating Addams, and her efforts to clarify her remarks fell on deaf ears. Neither her criticism of the war, nor public criticism of her pacifism, ceased. In June 1917, the Supreme Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, a longtime friend, appeared at an Addams speech to publicly denounce her antiwar efforts. In August 1917, some members of the University of Chicago faculty questioned a decision to honor Addams at a reception; even though the University president was not inclined to cancel the invitation, he made remarks suggesting that peace activists were giving “aid and comfort to the enemy.�
Even in 1919, at which time Addams was working on behalf of Herbert Hoover’s food drives, an invitation to appear before a group of influential Chicago women caused a controversy that reached the local papers. After the war, the Daughters of the American Revolution argued that Addams was a force trying to destabilize the very foundations of the country – even though Addams herself was also a member of the DAR.
I often wonder why these kinds of attacks are so effective – why the general population listens to them so often. It is almost as if the task of morally justifying warfare is so strenuous that for many, it must be done by appealing to the basic moral goodness of their society. We are good people, the thinking goes, so if we are doing this horrible thing, it must be because we had a good reason and were forced to do so. Since many people still think in the binary, Either-Or dualisms that John Dewey criticizes, to depict some aspect of society as not good – or even not as good as it could or should be – is to categorize that aspect, and society at large, as bad. And that provokes a visceral response.
There is a certain logic to this perception, especially from the pragmatic democratic perspective which I support. If one functions best when one has a clear understanding of the purposes of one’s actions, when one’s mind and body are fully engaged in those actions, and when one has faith in the collective effort of which one is a part, then positive morale and faith in the government and chain of command should make a tangible difference in the effectiveness of those fighting a war. So if critics and reformers do things that appear to reduce that morale and faith, they appear at first glance to be causing a direct negative effect on the country’s fortunes. Fortunately this is not an impossible problem for the pragmatic war opponent to overcome. Open discourse and deliberation on a course of action is fundamental to democracy. To completely stifle such discourse would be to defend democracy by abrogating it. Beyond this apparent contradiction is a further practical defense – a war fought for poor reasons, or executed poorly, will eventually run into significant failures that also cause significant loss of morale and faith. I’ll turn one more time to Next Hurrah, to a post from DemFromCT who suggests that this is what’s happening now. So while open discourse and criticism of mobilization may appear to do short term damage to society, in the long term it is clearly necessary and beneficial. I just wish we didn’t have to keep re-learning this lesson.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.