Chronicles of Brunonia

War Against War: The Story of Brown Daily Herald’s National Peace Movement

Sarah Gibson

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/cob

Copyright © 2007 Sarah Gibson Written in partial fulfillment of requirements for E. Taylor’s EL18 or 118: “Tales of the Real World” in the Nonfiction Writing Program, Department of English, Brown University. The New York Times paper was dimpled and blurred from the morning’s rain, but its headline still put a knot in Max Hoberman’s stomach: “Reichstag

Meeting Today is Prepared to Give Hitler Full Control as Dictator”. Ten o’clock on

March 21, 1933, and international affairs already looked dismal.

Spring had just arrived, and 1933 promised to be one of the most tumultuous years in the nation’s history. The Great Depression had reached its most horrific stage, with hundreds of thousands of “Okies” traversing the dry, dusty Midwest towards California, homeless families constructing drab shantytowns in the underbellies of America’s cities, and a quarter of the country’s workforce looking for jobs.

Providence, Rhode Island, a city jammed with factories for textiles, silverware, machine tools and jewelry, saw its economy plummet along with the country’s. It, too, viewed the state of national and world affairs with uncertainty.

On March 4, the new President Franklin Roosevelt addressed this trepidation in his inaugural speech, observing famously “that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Soon thereafter, he introduced New Deal Legislation and began passing acts such as the Emergency Banking Act, which helped to reopen and fund banks across the nation.

News from abroad threatened these hints of optimism at home. In

Germany, authorities began to round up Communists, Marxists, and other citizens with undesirable affiliations. The words “concentration camp” made their way into newspapers, police raided Einstein’s home, and the American Jewish

Committee issued public pleas in an attempt to “ameliorate the sufferings of

Jews.” On March 21st, gray clouds bulged low in the sky and a cold rain made small streams on the road and brought out the scent of an early spring storm.

That evening, senior Max Hoberman walked across the soggy ground of the

Brown University campus, his face dripping with rain and his hands stuffed inside the pockets of a black knee-length overcoat.

Phrases ran through his head as he began to prepare himself for the meeting, but the one sentence that kept on squeezing itself back was not his own.

It was the headlines of the morning newspaper, written in an ominous black bold that took up nearly one-fifth of the New York Times front page.

When he was elected to editor-in-chief of the student newspaper The

Brown Daily Herald nearly a year earlier, Max and the other editors had vowed to make the newspaper more progressive and international. Now, in the midst of crackling on-air announcements about the rise of Hitler and the daily news articles about the horrifying impoverishment in their own country, Max realized that tonight they must begin something radical: Something that would inspire and galvanize, unnerve and upset.

Max was not alone in his musings. The rest of the editorial board was just as –and sometimes more – concerned about changing the direction of the

Herald, the campus, and the country. Gradually, dark forms of his fellow editors emerged from the foggy distance, walking briskly towards the large, gray stone

Faunce House on the main green. When they finally gathered around the table in the cramped office of the Brown Daily Herald, the bottoms of their dress pants were soaked but their minds were unclouded.

Max began, “Everyone read the news?” Heads nodded somberly up and down.

He looked down at his notebook. “Fifteen years ago 37,494,186 men died thinking they were fighting the war to end all wars.”

He narrowed his small, wide-set eyes and paused to allow the immensity of that number to settle.

Harold Seidman interrupted the silence with a soft Brooklyn accent.

“Looks like there’s another one brewing.”

The room erupted into conversation.

“Hitler’s there for life.”

“They shut down all the Communist printing presses.”

“Well of course. Someone discovered a communist plot to assassinate him!”

Harold Wagner looked pointedly at Max.

“They’re arresting and beating Jews.”

“Have they actually explained why?”

Max interjected. “Alright,” he chuckled, “I’m glad we’re all reading the newspapers. Wagner, what did President Roosevelt say in his inaguaral speech?”

“He’ll ask for wartime powers if needed.”

Another pause. Chairs scraped the worn wooden floor as people placed their elbows on the table, preparing themselves for the ensuing hours of debate, writing, and revisions that Max demanded.

Seidman added, “You remember what the Oxford Debating Team just pledged?”

Wagner answered, “To never bear arms.” “So,” Seidman continued, excited by the momentum of the group but directing his question mostly at Max, “We’ve discussed what we do about this, yes?”

Another editor chimed in, “Remain dedicated to pacifism unless we’re invaded.”

“A massive petition.”

“Some sort of pacifist campaign.”

Seidman leaned forward “How about we model it after Ernst Friedrich’s book? We’ll begin a ‘War against War’.”

“There it is!” Max sat up. “A front-page editorial tomorrow. No arms unless we’re invaded.”

The men murmured in agreement.

“Fifteen years ago…” Seidman began.

Max interrupted with the number that had launched their conversation, speaking slowly to ensure that the freshman editor punched out every word on the typewriter.

“37,494,186 young men willingly gave their lives for a cause which their trusted leaders had made them believe was worth the supreme sacrifice.”

Two hours passed. The rain had diminished to wet fog and the editorial was ready for the printing press. It opened with Max’s statistic and ended with:

“On the monument for the Brown war dead is engraved the lines: ‘It is perdition to live when for truth one ought to die.’ It is just as true that it is perdition to die when for truth one ought to live. Let us join and pledge ourselves never to bear arms unless an enemy invades our shores. Our war dead must not have died in vain!”

Indeed, this “war dead” was substantial, and Brown had provided its fair share of soldiers. 1,974 students, graduates, and Faculty members had fought in the World War I. In 1933, many students were at Brown on a ROTC scholarship or part of the Citizens Military Training Camps, and still more others had family member who had been active in duty.

On March 22, the editorial “War Against War” ran on the first page of the

Brown Daily Herald next to news about the upcoming legalization of beer on

April 6, an article on the violence in Germany, and announcements by the student language clubs.

Editors from the Herald drafted a petition that resounded with an informed balance of realism and optimism. It read:

WHEREAS: we believe that war is futile and destructive and should be abandoned as an instrument of international action, and WHEREAS: we believe that it is to the best interests of the United States and other nations that peace be maintained, and WHEREAS: we believe that peace can only be maintained by open opposition to the selfish interests that promote war, and WHEREAS: we believe that increasing militarism and nationalism in the United States must be opposed by united action, and WHEREAS: we believe that war is only justified in case of invasion of the mainland of the United States by a hostile power, and WHEREAS: we believe that the united refusal of the youth of America to bear arms, except in case of invasion, will do much to prevent war, We, the undersigned students of Brown University pledge ourselves not to bear arms, except in case of invasion of the mainland of the united states, to work actively for the organization of the world on a peace basis.

That afternoon, editors compiled a list of 145 colleges where they would send the petition. Seidman began searching for students from various fraternities, campus clubs, and sports teams who would serve on a committee to oversee the campaign at Brown and encourage other colleges to join it.

For the next seven mornings, the Brown Daily Herald greeted its readers with excited updates on the anti-war drive, the flood of students joining the campaign on college campuses throughout the Northeast, and the relative support of the Brown administration and faculty. Op-eds from current students, alumni, and professors from other colleges called the original editorial everything from “immature and childish” to “the finest piece of writing which has come to my attention in recent years”.

On Friday, March 24, the same day that the Herald announced the members of the anti-war committee, the Newport Daily News carried an editorial that denounced the Herald’s campaign, quoting a Mrs. Paul Fitzsimons as saying

“I have no word to express my scorn and contempt for those who would corrupt our youth to cowardice . . . I suppose they think that someone else will protect us until they can get together water pistols and sling-shots.”

The editors, like many Rhode Islanders, were surprised that Brown

University, the third oldest college in New England and the favored institution for

Rhode Island’s wealthy elite, would suddenly “be a hotbed of pacifist propaganda”. The editorial ended stubbornly stating: “we refuse utterly to believe that the pacifistic and wishy-washy editorials of the Brown Daily Herald represent the attitude of the undergraduates of that famous old Rhode Island institution.”

The Herald pounced on this criticism, hoping perhaps that such disapproval might excite and galvanize Brown students. An editorial responded to the Newport Daily News claiming that “a man is patriotic when he desires to

save the country not by standing by, and allowing us to be thrown in the clutches

of the war machine, but rather by trying to produce a sentiment and an

understanding that will prevent war.”

Unfortunately for the Herald, there was another powerful sentiment in

Providence. William A. Needham, a Brown alumnus, local lawyer, and sentimental self-proclaimed patriot, accused the Herald of treason, calling it a “communist- inspired plot” and telling U.S. attorney Henry M. Boss Jr. “I know the horrors of war far more thoroughly than they do, and I do not feel that they should be allowed to spread such doctrine.”

James Kiernan agreed with Needham. Kiernan was also a World War I veteran and had served as representative of Providence in the Rhode Island

Legislature for the past eighteen years. When the Herald campaign began, he had just become the Deputy Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives.

On Thursday, March 29, he introduced a resolution to appoint members to a committee that would investigate potential “disloyal purposes” of the Herald pacifist campaign. The resolution passed unanimously. On Friday, the speaker of the House appointed legislators to serve on the committee. Three were

Republican, three were Democrat, and four out of six had fought in World War I.

The Brown Daily Herald office erupted. The day before, annual elections for the 1944 editorial board had replaced all Seniors, so several members involved in the campaign were no longer active on the board. Seidman had just become a managing editor, and suddenly he was receiving telegraphs from the American Civil Liberties Union and local Brown alumni wanting to defend the

Herald in the upcoming legal battle.

Max no longer held the title of editor-in-chief, but the op-ed he submitted took a prominent space on the front page directly beneath headlines announcing the investigation. Max called Needham’s accusations “unfounded” and explained the editors’ motives and process for launching the “War Against War intercollegiate movement”. Max’s final words were a call to action: “We urge

Brown men and all American collegians not to be intimidated by the throwing of mud and charges that the act of signing the petitions is treasonable. We are secure in our efforts, patriotic in our motives to prevent war.

On April 20, the House investigatory committee issued its report. By now, the Herald movement had reached as far as Reed College and Tulane University and the former Socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas had praised the petition as “the best thing that has been done in an American college for a long time.”

The report exonerated Brown students, explaining, “The consensus of opinion of this committee is that the young men who evolved these theories of pacifism are not lacking in the essentials of patriotism, but, in these days of unrest and heavy armament in foreign countries, they do not take into account the fundamentals of national defense.” It turned out that the committee never held a hearing, and that the most significant conference it held was with Brown president Clarence Barbour, who apparently convinced Kiernan’s committee that the Herald campaign was harmless. That evening, editors at the Brown Daily Herald congregated in their office, warm from the day’s late April sun, and wrote one of their last editorials about the pacifist campaign. It ended: “On the flag of the Rhode Island the word

‘hope’ is written in gold letters. It is with this hope of their ancestors, and the everlasting hope of youth in their hearts that the students of Brown and of colleges through the nation are making a united effort to save their country from the disastrous and perhaps fatal effects of war.”

Epilogue

Ten years after the “War against War” editorial was published, The Brown

Daily Herald carried a story entitled “See What Happened to Those Brown Men

Who Wouldn’t Fight”. Written in the midst of a horrifying world war, the article is wry, if not downright cynical. It reports that “the flaming Mr. Harold Seidman still has civilian status”, but that the vast majority of the 1933 editorial board was enlisted.

The most eager enlister appears to be none other than the former editor- in-chief Max Hoberman. Upon graduating in 1933, Max had planned to enter

Harvard Law School, but the unstable economy forced him to find a job immediately. In 1934 he served as the editor of the Providence Herald, and the next year he became as a part-time shoes salesman at the G. Fox and Co. Budget

Store in Hartford, Connecticut.

Max’s intelligence and affability quickly earned him promotions. He was beginning to settle into a conventional professional life complete with a wife, a position in the Jewish Federation, and an occasional game of golf when, on the morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese bombs tore through Pearl Harbor.

On noon the next day, Max enlisted as a private in the army air corps. Over the course of the next five years, the secretary at the Brown Alumni Magazine received short notes from him with his new address as he moved from air bases in Florida to Georgia to New Mexico to Colorado.

He returned to Connecticut in 1946 and resumed his work at the department store, where he eventually made an enviable wage as the Executive

Manager. It is unclear whether Max ever actually bore arms against the enemy, or whether instead he remained in the states, training for the ongoing bloodshed, uncertain of his future or that of his college friends, who, thirteen years earlier, had earnestly hoped with him that war would never reach American soil. Works Cited

“Brown Anti-War Drive Under Fire.” The Providence Journal 30 March 1933: A1.

Brown Daily Herald 22 March 1933 – 21 April 1933.

Enderis, Guido. “Rule Till 1937 Sought.” The New York Times 21 March 1933: A1.

Providence, Rhode Island. 18 March 2007.

“Daily Herald Gets Legal Aid Offers.” The Providence Journal 31 March 1933: A2.

Harold M. Wagner Biographical File, Brown University Archives.

H 867 Special Committee Report for the Rhode Island House of Representatives, 20 April 1933. Rhode Island State Archives.

“Jews Here Demand Washington Action.” The New York Times 21 March 1933: A1.

Liber Brunensis, 1933 and 1934.

Maxwell G. Hoberman Biographical File, Brown University Archives.

Mitchell, Martha (1993). Faunce House. In Encyclopedia Brunoniana. Providence: Brown University Library.

Needham, William A. “Speeches and Addresses in Public Educations.” Providence: 1922. Rhode Island Historical Society, Call No. RI auth N-28.

“New Bank Law Widely Extends the President’s Powers.” The New York Times 10 March 1933: A3.

No. 130, H 867 House Resolution by the Rhode Island House of Representatives, 29 March 1933. Rhode Island State Archives.

“Reichstag Meeting Today is prepared to Give Hitler Full Control as Dictator.” The New York Times 21 March 1933: A1.

“Text of the Inaugural Address; President for Vigorous Action.” The New York Times 5 March 1933: A1.