C. H. Hamlin

“ The great World War has brought mankind to a new and surprising conclusion such as probably never before prevailed at the end of a war. Leading people in all nations are at one in the conclusion, that no thoughtful person in any country which entered the war knew of any adequate reason why his government should spend the blood of its people. ”

“ This view is the very opposite of democracy. Democracy assumes that the group has control over its actions and that they are not the result of a blind fatalism. To look upon past events as inevitable makes man the victim of forces over which he can have no control. It makes man a slave. This fatalism is incompatible with democracy. The democrat must study history not to discover the forces of fate but to discover more perfect rules of human conduct. ”

“ Once in war, it never will do to let good be known of the enemy! War counts upon the plentiful outpouring of passion and hatred.
The churches also are pressed in war-time to undertake the defense of doing evil that good may come, and to strain their arguments over the verge of hypocrisy in making the worse appear the better reason. So altogether, "hell is let loose." The worst of it is that the lower passions, once let loose, do not willingly return under control, but remain to haunt the earth. ”

“ Once more, Professor Hamlin shows how in each case after a war the whole horrible storm flattens out into waste, corruption and futility. The World War is the most colossal demonstration of this condition. If a people thought they knew what they were fighting for, they failed to get it; the victor proves often at last to be the vanquished. It is curious now in looking back to the Civil War to note that the reason which chiefly persuaded "good" and chivalrous souls to engage in it was to put an end to slavery. ”

“ We shall not undertake a long discussion of the causes of the World War but simply examine the reasons for the participation in it of the United States on the side of the Allies. For the first time in history the generation living through a great war has been able to ascertain the facts regarding its origin. These facts, however, have not yet become the common property of the great masses, although they are gradually becoming evident to everybody. A great many people are still influenced by the passions and hatreds aroused by the conflict. ”

“ The Richmond Times-Dispatch, on December 6, 1925, said editorially:
"Not the least of the horrors of modern warfare is the propaganda bureau which is an important item in the military establishment of every nation. Neither is it the least of the many encouraging signs which each year add to the probability of eventual peace on earth.
"The famous cadaver story which aroused hatred against the German to the boiling point in this and other allied nations during the war has been denounced as a lie in the British House of Commons. ”

“ All Europe was equipped as a military machine, and the murder in 1914 simply put the machinery in motion. It was an absurd fallacy to think that Germany was the only armed nation at the time, and to believe that Great Britain entered the conflict to defend Belgium is equally absurd. As early as 1911, Great Britain had made plans with France for marching an army through Belgium to Germany in the event of war with Germany. Belgium was regarded as part of the Allied powers. Great Britain has officially acknowledged to be false her ostensible reason for entering the war—the protection of Belgium. ”

“ Lincoln coerced them in order to uphold the Constitution, for he had been legally elected president and his office required his execution of federal laws. Thus, both the north and the south fought to defend the Constitution. Both felt themselves defensive—neither section understood the other—and emotionalism in the matter was so kindled that reason could not function on either side. The Civil War was a war about an abstraction—the status of slavery in the western territory—which was the real cause of the war. ”

“ The encouraging sign found in this revolting admission of how modern war is waged is the natural inference that the modern man is not overeager to throw himself at his brother's throat at the simple word of command. ”

“ Save for the great common human characteristics which gleam out among all peoples and on both sides in times of calamity—the patience, the heroism, the self-sacrifice, the exceptional acts of magnanimity—he finds nothing whatever holy in a single one of our national wars, but rather the manifestation of every mean, cruel and cowardly trait which has ever debased human nature. ”

“ Great Britain had as much right to demand that Boston pay for the tea destroyed as we have to demand that a foreign power compensate our subjects for property lost there through the mob action of its subjects. ”

“ THE WAR WITH SPAIN
For almost a century, the Spanish possession of Cuba had been regarded with disfavor by certain elements in the United States. Reasons for this attitude varied from those of acquisition on grounds of "manifest destiny," to those of the highest altruism. When the Spanish American republics won their independence during the early years of the nineteenth century, Porto Rico and Cuba remained in the possession of Spain.
Thomas Jefferson advocated the acquiring of Cuba and its annexation as a state, chiefly for fear that it would be acquired by England. ”

“ We have many other examples of taxation without representation. The great majority of people in England were then disfranchised yet taxed. Women were taxed before they were given the ballot. Many people are now taxed even in those states where they are deprived of the ballot. Phrases, as this regarding taxation, were merely effective generalities without real meaning. The mistake of Great Britain was not in the passage of any illegal or unusual laws for governing the colonies, but it was in trying to rule a group of people against their will. Such a policy invariably invites trouble. ”

“ The common opinion in the United States regarding the American Revolution is that it was a war waged against Great Britain in which the American people as a whole rose up against the mother country in order to protect themselves against unjustifiable and unbearable oppression. ”

“ The effective element of the present peace movement is based chiefly on the fact that there is no nation of "sole guilt" in any war once the facts are studied carefully. The following study is an attempt to show that in our wars there has not been the "sole innocence" of the United States as opposed to the "sole guilt" of our opponents. That its wars are defensive against an offensive enemy, is the war myth of every country. This national bias makes it easy for the military party to predominate and to precipitate war. ”

“ It is obvious that every nation at war will try to weaken its opponent. We encouraged the Latin American republics to declare war on Germany, which was no more than Germany did in encouraging Mexico to declare war on the United States, should we declare war on Germany. ”

“ All texts and instruction exalted the nation to show its superiority to others. Patriotism meant national propaganda. With the rise of democracy patriotism began to shift to mean the support of the group,—pro-group rather than pro-king. This was the cause and the result of the national mind set. Patriotism became international hatred, measured in terms of military service. This attitude toward history caused the teaching and writing of history to be largely national propaganda, by interpreting all the wars of a nation as defensive with the opponent always the offensive nation. ”

“ President McKinley over-estimated its strength and lost his nerve, fearing the disruption of his party. Spain was not surprised but "stunned" when the United States declared war, a war which cannot be defended on any grounds. Cuba was Spanish territory and we had no more legal right to intervene than Spain, for example, had a right to demand that the United States change her methods of government in Alaska. Morally, the war was indefensible, for Spain was conceding and was ready to go to any extent to avoid war, even to the point of granting independence to Cuba. ”

“ It has been argued that if we had remained a part of the British Empire the democratic spirit of the colonies would have been a great help to the democratic element in Great Britain, that these elements co-operating would have democratized and federated all the English-speaking peoples, which, in turn, would have aided in democratizing the world. ”

“ American troops set fire to the houses of the people to plunder and rob. In fact in some sections the colonists looked upon the British army with as much favor as the American army. New York alone confiscated $3,600,000 worth of property belonging to Tories, and all the states did likewise. During that entire period the Tories were the great sufferers. It is obvious that a person had as much legal and moral right to be a Tory as to be a Whig, provided he committed no act of violence against society, and the great majority of Tories had committed none. ”

“ Since the object of warfare is the physical destruction of an opponent, once you justify the war you must justify any means employed to gain the victory. In protesting to Germany, we argued that the submarines could not warn ships to take off passengers before they were sunk, but neither could the mines planted by Great Britain. American ships kept out of the mine zones but disregarded the submarine zones for reasons we shall later explain. The Lusitania, a British ship, was sunk by a submarine on May 7, 1915. One hundred and fourteen Americans lost their lives. ”

“ Many sailors deserted English ships and came to America because of the higher wages paid by the owners of American ships. Every British warship anchoring in American waters would lose a good part of its crew, who would secure positions on American ships. Great Britain demanded the return of these deserters, who would often become naturalized citizens. Great Britain, however, at that time regarded citizenship as a contract between citizens and government which could not be broken without the consent of both, disqualifying the sailor from citizenship in the United States, without her consent. ”

“ In Georgia, the frontier people were pro-British because they were dependent upon Great Britain for subsidies and protection from the Indians. The frontier people of North Carolina were also Tory because they had a sharp difference with the eastern part of the state. Had the frontier of all the colonies had a similar sharp difference with the coastal plains they would no doubt have been Tory and defeated the Revolution. The frontier of Virginia got possession of the state and furnished such leaders as Henry and Jefferson.
The Revolution was the American phase of an English civil war. ”

“ Captain Ferdinand Tuohy of the British Secret Service in "The Secret Corps" says: "All the trickery and subterfuge and war-wisdom of the ages brought up-to-date, intensified and harnessed to every modern invention and device, ... a Machiavelli, a Talleyrand or some other master schemer of the ages come back to earth, would have thrilled at the amazing cunning and corruption of it all." The Belgium authorities themselves have denied the truth of the crimes given out in the Bryce Report. ”

“ Troops were raised to invade Canada but interest in the venture was slight. Many of the militia refused to march out of American territory, as it was understood then that the militia could not be ordered to foreign soil. The expansionists could have united to declare war, but plans of expansion collapsed. The northern states opposed the annexation of Florida without Canada. The troops could never take Canada. Madison and Monroe were interested in Florida, not Canada. The British repulsed the troops from Canada. The south had no desire to acquire northern territory. ”

“ The north judged the south by these extreme actions, and the efforts of the south to suppress anti-slavery agitation resulted only in greater propaganda for the abolitionists.
The public is quick to demand war, but is not so willing to accept its hardships. During the conflict it was necessary for both the north and the south to suspend civil liberties, including freedom of the press and speech. Expressions that might weaken war morale were punished—both sections suspended the writ of habeas corpus and arbitrarily imprisoned their citizens. ”

“ Thus he brings to light, what every one ought by this time to know, that the Revolutionary War, far from being undertaken by the will of a free citizenry, was actually forced upon the American people by a small minority in the teeth of the earnest opposition of a highly respectable percentage of thoughtful citizens, while another large part of the colonists was quite indifferent to the issue. ”

“ On the night of May 9, 1846, news came to President Polk that on April 24, 1846, the American army had had a skirmish with Mexican forces. On May 11, 1846, President Polk sent a message to Congress stating Mexico had "shed American blood upon American soil. War exists, and notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself." And two days later, May 13, 1846, President Polk informed his cabinet that the United States must acquire New Mexico, California, and the surrounding southwest territory as a result of the war. ”