four ·, hights
he showed four lights when he Wished
. to set full ·sail and follow in his wake/'
From "First Voyare 'Rolllld the World by Marellu."
AN ADVENTURE IN INTERNATIONALISM
Isau• VIII.
\
•
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting ~he fr.e e exercise
thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of
the press; or the right of the \ people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievan-ces:
Fint Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America• .
The Illusion of War
War
I abhor,
And yet how sweet
The ,ound along the marching street
Of drum and fife, and I forget
Wet eyes of widows, and forget
Broken old mothers, and the whole
, Dark butchery without a soul.
Without a soul-save this bright drink
Of heady music, sweet as hell;
And even my peace-abiding feet
Go marching with the marching street,
For yonder yonder .g oes the fife,
And what care I for human life!
The tears fill my astonished eyes
And my full heart is like to break,
And yet 'tis all embannered lies,
A dream those little drummers make.
0 it is wickedness to clothe
Yon hideous grinning thing that stalks
Hidden jn music, like a queen
That in a garden of glory walks,
Till good men love the thing they loathe.
Art, thou hast many infamies,
But not an infamy like this.
0 snap the fife and still :the drum,
And show the monster as _she is.
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.
From ''New Poems.'' John Lule:co.
"We have sent these young men to the battlefield
for our evil passions, our ·spiritual death, our failure to
live generously out of the warmth o.f the 'h eart and out
of the living vision 6f the spirit. Let us come out of ,
this -death, for it is we ~o are dead, not the young
men who have died through our fear of life. Their
very ghosts have more life than we: they hold us up
for ev~r to the shame and ·obloquy of all the ages to
come. Out of their ghosts must conie life, and it is we
whom they must vivify."
BERTRAND RUSSELL,
''Wh;y Men Fight.''
Frantic energy was the true quality of a man .... The
lover of violence was always trusted, and his opponent
suspected. He who succeeded in a plot was deemed
knowing~ but a still greater master in craft was he who
detected one. On the other hand, he who plotted from
the first to have nothing to do with plots was a breaker- '
up of parties and a poltroon who was afraid of the
enemy. In a word, he who could outstrip another in a
bad action was applau~d, and .so was he who en'Couraged to evil one who had no idea of it.
.:_ From description by Thucydides of the state of Greece
during the Peloponnesian war.
F-reeing the
Germ~n
People
Jesus, the Military Man
The Pioneers
Some Incidents of the War for Democracy
• The Young Idea to Shoot.
Bridgeport, Conn. "All boy scouts acting as messengers for the military authorities have appeared today armed with revolvers and it was announced at the
armory that they have been ordered to shoot to kill 011
the slightest i1iterference b.v civilians.''
N . Y. Tribune, April 24.
Free Speech - The First Casualty of War.
"In the last few weeks at least a dozen persons~
among them brokers, writers, lecturers and business
men and women. have been arrested for lodging protests in one form or another again~ war and conscription."
N. Y. Sun,, April 25
Blessed., Are the Peace- Makers.
"Peace Pamphleteer Jailed. ' Shiloh' gets six months
for handing leaflets as parade passed."
N . Y. Tribtme, April 20.
For Observation.
"The case of De Boer is unusual. He is a graduate
of Yale and Heidelberg Universities and a genealogist
of note. With a woman pacifist he was ~tanding near
a recruiting station and their conversation aroused the
ire of a woman speaking for recruiting. When taken
before Magistrate Wiley, De Boer spoke on internationa'lism and the Court ordered him sent to Bellevue."
N . Y. Evening Sun, April 25.
Judicial Aesthetics.
''It took three policemen to rescue John Melinek
from a crowd of angry citizens in Bayonne yesterday
after he had been overheard insulting the American
flag. In the police court Recorder Cain turned to the
attendant and referring to Melinek said, 'I don't like
this man's face; officer. Take him out of the court
room. I will sentence him to six months in the county penitentiary and I only regret that he cannot be
exiled from the country.' "
N. Y. Trt.bt-tne.
Higher Criticism.
"Mrs. Emma Hopkins of 2053 Seventh Avenue was
fined $xo yesterday in the West Side Police Court for
calling President Wilson a 'Scotch parson.' Magistrate
Gardner decided it was disorderly conduct."
N . Y. Tribture, April 2L.
;
Industrial Democr&cy.
"Four bills, the result of the first session of the
Senate War Committee, made tlieir appearance in the
State Legislature today:(x) Authorizing the Public Service Commission to
repeal the Full-Crew Law for the duration of the war.
(z) Ordering the State Industrial Commission to
suspend the Labor Laws when they are found to obstruct effective prosecution of the war.
(3) Arranging that children (twelve years or more)
be excused from school attendance to work on farms;
and
(4) Allowing the state departments to suspend
contracts on public works while the war is going on."
N. Y . Eveni1lg Post, April 20.
"Possibilities of a straight ten-hour working day for
all government employees. on account of the rush of
war work, loomed up today along with the other possibility, freely discussed in the various branches of
the government, of the suspension of the Saturday
half-holiday this summer.
"Overtime work is now in vogue in many of the
departments, especially in the War, State and Navy
Departments. But in other branches of the government the demand for help is great.
"Government employees receive no extra pay for
overtime work."
Washington Evening Star, April 18.
Jeannette Rankin : " I want to serve my coUlltry, and 1 cauuot vote for war.
I vote' No."
That Government of the People, By the People, For the People,
Shall Not Perish from the Earth
" If a vote were taken today and every man in the House
would have voted the way h.e . is talking, the majority against
the President' s conscription plan would be tremendous. However, the vote cannot be taken for at least two weeks. If President Wilson makes anything.like the strong fight he has on the
Panama Canal-on the McLemore Resolutions and on the
war resolution itself,-he will get conscription.''
N. Y. Tribune, April 10.
"In these days before the appeal has been introduced and
before pressure from the President has been brought to bear
you can count opponents to conscription in large numbers.
They spring up like men in Buckram everywhere. If you are
willin g to persuade yourself that there is a good story in the
situation, you may make yourself believe that the fight is ... .
between Congress and the President. But if you have recently
come here from New York and know only Congress as it is
today and see how completely it has ll>bdicated, how it merely
does what the PrO"SWe1tt asks i.t to do and echoes what he says,
}'01t 1.vill believe that conscription will go if. the President wa-nts
it. . . . . Opposition to compulsion breaks out in unexpected
places. . . . . But it will probably not be large enough to defeat
the President if he appeals for support, the habit of surrendering the right of private judgment during a war being fairly
fixed and Congress not being much disposed to insist on it
even under ordinary circumstances."
N . Y . Tribune, April
II.
War is, after all, a good deal like a church fair. A
crisis arises in church finances and some one says,
despondently :
"We'll have to have a church fair."
Nobody wants to, but nobody has any other plan to
offer. So the members decide to have a really successful one while they are about it, so as never to have to
have another. The participants put in unstinted time,
abounding strength, apd tons of raw material. They
get out a few dollars, weariness unto death, and several feuds. The church debt thumbs its nose at the
modicum of money and someone says:
"Let's begin now to prepare for a really good one
next year.''
Now, out of war- as out of church fairs-come some
very definite gains. You get delicious coffee at a church
fair with much thicker cream than is served at home.
The present war has brought us, among other things,
a new interpretation of the Gospels. An interpretation
which shows that Jesus was really a military man.
Formerly we were obliged to lay aside our Christianity
when we took up a gun. The scrap over, we repented
and again put on the garment of religion. But the new
interpretation commands us to substitute the rifle for
the cross. "The tribute of our ships is being demanded," I find the daily press quoting from a sermon~
"and we believe that the submarine is the fish Christ
would have us catch in order to render unto Cresar
the things that be Cresar's.''
Under this Higher Appreciation, the annotation runs
something like this :
"Seek peace (with gunboats) and pursue it (with
machine-guns) " ... . "Blessed are the peacemakers (i.e.
all navies except the German) for they shall be called
the children of God" . . . . "Peace be unto you (an ancient form of salutation, figurative only)". . . . "My
peace I leave with you" (my peace, note, indicating
refusal of negotiation and cOrilpromise).
If you ~ead the alleged peace passages in the New
Testament-with the right fore-finger in the subject
index at the back of the book, fluttering the front pages
with a trained left hand-you will find that the military interpretation keeps Jesus' sayings, as a minister
happily observes, from appearing absurd.
In the light of this new discovery we must logically
deduce that the Prince. of Peace was crucified, not as
has been erroneously supposed, because he was a nonresistant, but because he was riot prepared. Jesus died
-according to the new interpretation-to teach us not
to follow his teachings.
MARY ALDEN HOPKINS.
Women Have No Sense of Humor
W ashington, April I I. - "Official Washington is
smiling broadly at the telegraphic correspondence betweeq Representative Medill McCormick, of Illinois,
and a woman pacifist of Chicago.
"'We elected President Wilson to keep us out of
war,' she wired, protesting against any action against
Germany.
" 'McCormick answered with a one-word message.
The word was:
"'Stung.'"
N. Y. Trilnme, Aprilt2.
THE AMERICAN INQUISITION
To "punch a man in the eye" because he does not
stand when you think he ought to stand, for instance
when the Star Spangled Banner is played (a prevalent
form of patriotic expression), is different in degree but
not in kind frorn burning him at the stake because he
does not kneel when you think he ought to kneel. The
same assumption underlies both acts, the assumption
that you have the right ~o impose your beliefs, your
standards of morality and behavior on another human
being by force, and to punish him because he acts according to his own conscience instead of according to
yours.
Persecution of religious non-conformers would be
· looked upon with horror in America today. But persecution of social non-conformers is not only sanctioned
by the press, ~e courts, and public officials, but ac.:.
clCLimed as an evidence of high public virtue. An officer commends a soldier who knocks down a man for
"disrespect to the flag" and a patriotic society presents
him with a medar. A .company of restaurant diners attack a man who did not rise for the anthem. The
magistrate before whom their victim is brought de-'
clares such conduct "imprudent and discourteous."
Whose conduct? The victim's, of course. The at-
tackers were acting with perfect prudence as events
show, and their courtesy was of the latest ' American
model. In other similar cases there have been fines
and prison sentences. For whom? Need we ask?
Patriotism is thus fast becoming the splendid justification for violence, lynch law, intolerance and brutality
of every sort. Not that America is worse in this respect than any other country where militarism is in the
ascendant. Like causes, like effects. But it comes
with a more violent shock to a people like ours who
have for years sentimentally lulled themselves to sleep
with the belief that they were free by some divine right
and could never be anything else. It will be a still
greater shock if we face the present meaning and
probable future development of the new inquisition. It
is religious persecution, the old enemy, in a new form.
Internationalism is today a religion for millions of people, a religion. of humanity, of social justice, of reverence for the sacred diversity' of the human spirit. To
cripple, to enslave that spirit, as Militarism always
must do, is in that religion the one unforgivable des~­
crati<;>n. · Liberty of conscienC'e will yet need its saints
and martyrs if it is to prevail in the end.
CLARA G. STILLMAN.
CONSCRIPTED WORDS
A war that has scarcely begun has already achieved
a sinister · influence upon the words , of our common
speech. There has crept swiftly into use a war language, employing old words in new and formidable
meanings. Thus, words that have had forced upon
them an extraordinary igniting power are now successfully used as verbal fuses, even where their use is utterly paradoxical Conspicuous among these, of course,
are the words "democracy" and "democratic."
A war instigated in the name of national vengeance
is now declared to be a fight for "Democracy."
Many docile-minded persons are acquiescing in the
policy of conscription because they are assured it is
"democratic."
The slaughter, starvation and utter humiljation of a
foreign people is urged a~ a means of converting it to
"D~mocracy."
What does the word Democracy mean? And shall
it without protest be made to serve as an implement
of warfare?
The word "peace," recently conscripted, has likewise
come to find itself in the strange company of the word
"force"; and "courage" is now used to· describe the attitude of persons who think and act with the majority.
Quite as significant, perhaps, are the interned words;
words that are suspected of a disaffecting tendency;
words that have suddenly become blanched~ meaningless and no~-committal :-the war language makes no
use of the word "liberty."
OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR.
Democracy in Our. Schools
The Board of Education will be glad to know their
course has turned one teacher into a cowaJ;d and hypocrite. This Board compelled me to sign a pledge I
would have given muc}J. not to sign. As I am in my
probationary period, I ~ould have been dismissed 'fithout a hearing.
.
,
I, therefore, give formal notice that I shall sign all
other such. pledges in the same spirit till my time
comes.
How many thousands-teach~rs and pupils-has this
Board educated into cowardice _and hypo~risy! And
how long will the parents of these children e~dure the
. force that makes us teach our doctrines by su terfuge?
v
A_COWARD AND A TE CHER.
This issue of Four Lights is edited by :-""~
MARTHA GRUENING
MARGARET LANE •
....................... .
*One of the contemplated · editors of this issue of FOUR LIGHTS felt obliged to withdraw her name_
and assistance as she is under bond for six months to "keep the peace." Her offence against the peace was
expressing the sentiment, "No Conscription. Thou Shalt Not Kill." This, in April 1917, is called "disorderly conduct."
Published by the Woman's Peace Party of New York _C ity, 70 Fifth Ave.,
who are glad to have contents reprinted, with due acknowle~gment.
Additional individual copies, S Cents.
Bundles of 100 Copies, $2.50.