Mitchell, James Lynch, Elon R. Brown, Governor Whitman, Mayor Mitchel and finally Commissioner John H. Finley.1

Following Mrs. Kelly, there came Owen R. Lovejoy, on "Child Labor and the War;" Miss Elizabeth Freeman on "Finances of the Conference;" Stephen Bircher, of the Brotherhood of Metal Workers, on "Labor in War Time;" Edward J. Cassidy, of the Central Federated Union, on "Labor and Peace;" and Abraham. Shiplacoff, on "Labor Laws in War." Each gave a short talk (more or less alike), each agitating against some war measure, each claiming to be altogether patriotic in the "new democratic sense." 2

66

With the advent of the next speaker, Miss Leonora O'Reilly of the National Woman's Trade Union League, whose subject was Safeguarding Labor in War Time," the beauty and nobility of "true democracy" was once more strongly emphasized. "One thing is certain," said Miss O'Reilly, "not only the labor movement, not only the trade unionists, not only these Socialists, not only these agitators, but the whole people together will begin to sense how fundamental are the teachings of that much abused labor movement which teaches that every child that is born be taught that labor creates all wealth and that all wealth belongs to those who create it." (P. 60.)

Mary Ware Dennett closed the third session of the first day with an address on "Taxation of Wealth During War Time," in which she called "for a land value tax that would force them to use the land they are holding out of use" during war time and forever afterward. (P. 62.)

On the morning of May 31, 1917, Rabbi Magnes, after announcing the presence of Department of Justice agents, for the purpose of reporting any anti-draft utterances on the part of speakers, declared the inflexible purpose of the Conference to keep within the law. Following this, he introduced five speakers, all of whom attacked conscription in terms altogether subversive, yet so carefully within the letter of the law that no arrests seem to have followed.

As examples of what these advocates of "democracy" allowed themselves to insinuate against the draft during war time, we quote a fragment from the address of each speaker in turn:

1

Pages 50 to 53, Report of First Amer. Conference, 1917.

Pages 53 to 59, Report of First Amer. Conference, 1917.

Page 64, Report of First Amer. Conference, 1917.

Mr. Daniel Kiefer, on "Conscription and Democracy," said in part:

"The conscription act is both immoral and unconstitutional. . . We are not at war because we are attacked but because certain persons with authority wish to have us at war, regardless of necessity and regardless of the popular wishes. We have been told that it is a war for democracy. Well, any people that are determined to have democracy can have it without war. When Russia definitely decided to send the Czar packing she did not have to wait for a victory over Germany to do so. She simply sent him away. We can get democracy in the United States too whenever we get as ready for it as Russia is." (Pp. 64and 65.)

Rev. Richard W. Hogue of the Prisoners' Association of Maryland and of the Open Forum, Baltimore, Md., said:

"We are at war with our government in the announced motive and purpose of the country's call to arms. We are sincere and conscientious objectors to the adoption of the method set before us not only because of history's evidence of its futility, but because of its injury to liberty, its damage to democracy and its substitution of autocratic compulsion for their inalienable freedom of conscience which is the very foundation of the republic." (P. 66.)

Mr. Gilbert Roe, President Free Speech League of America, after protesting his patriotism, said:

"Do not be bluffed on this subject of free specch. Remember that the first amendment of the Constitution stands. I would say it with greater emphasis if I were a member of the forces of the present Administration; for I want to say that if any administration in this country wants to seek trouble it will find it along the line of denying the constitutional rights of free speech and free press."

Rev. Norman Thomas, of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, after protesting both his love of America and of the Church, said:

1

"To substitute the Prussian ideal" (conscription) "for the American ideal in a war to make the world safe for democracy is a cause for anguish on the part of those who Page 70, Report of First Amer. Conference, 1917.

love America. What is there then that we can do for this thing? I have already said that we can educate the public looking to the repeal of conscription." (P. 74.)

Mr. Harry Weinberger of the American Defense League:

"I don't believe we should wait till the end of the war to demand and take our liberties in this country. I don't believe any country has the right to force into the army or to compel any individual to do any work against his conscience. The tyrannies of majorities are as bad as the tyrannies of kings. Are you going to wait for peace to maintain your rights or are you going to maintain them here and now?" (P. 75.)

So much for the patriotic, democratic, pacifistic gentlemen who invoked the First Amendment of the Constitution in order to undetermine the Constitution itself—and to save their own skins in the doing!

At the afternoon session of the May 31st Conference, after Fola La Follette had read the report of the Committee on Permanent Organization and Future Activity (p. 77), Rebecca Shelly took the floor with "Suggestions for a People's Council of America."

The most original statements put forth by her were as follows: "Congress as now constituted does not represent the will of the American people. We propose therefore that this Conference commit itself to the immedate organization of a People's Council, modeled after the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates which is the sovereign power in Russia today. The majority of delegates should come from the progressive trade union locals, the single taxers, the vigorous Socialist locals, the Granges, the Farmers' Co-operative Union and other agricultural organizations. The first session of the People's Council might begin with the immediate object 'To consider ways and means of re-establishing representative government in America and to work for an early and lasting peace The Council should also act as a medium through which the democratic leaders and groups in Europe could speak to the people of America."

991

1 Pages 77 and 78, Report of First Amer. Conference, 1917.

At the evening and last session of the Conference Dr. Magnes spoke briefly again, mainly to introduce the other speakers and to announce that the outcome of the Conference was to be the organization of a People's Council. Mr. Maurer followed with an anti-war speech. Mr. Hillquit again spoke against war from another angle; the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones added his voice to the protest, including an appeal for a peace without victory; and Seymour Stedman ended up the symposium by dwelling once more upon the rights of free speech and striking his final note with the favorite refrain of the Conference:

"Let us make one thing emphatic, that as liberty rises in Russia it shall not perish here."1

If it should be necessary to prove further our assertion that the First American Conference for Democracy and Terms of Peace presented during the second month of our war with Germany a thoroughly socialistic, pro-German and defeatist program, all the proof in the world may be found by following the manoeuvres of the Conference officials under its brand-new name of the People's Council of America. The next chapter of this report deals with the events leading up to the Convention of the People's Council, called to convene in Minneapolis from September 1 to September 6, 1917.

1

1 Pages 79 to 81, First Amer. Conference for Democracy and Terms of

Peace.

CHAPTER VII

People's Council of America, June, 1917, to April, 1920

As will be recalled, in June 1917 the People's Council of America, "modeled after the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Council, the sovereign power of Russia today," was the outgrowth of the First American Conference of Democracy and Terms of Peace. Similarly the Conference was a reorganization of the 1917 Emergency Peace Federation, and the 1917 Emergency Peace Federation an outgrowth of the American Neutral Conference Committee, which in turn was a development of the Ford Peace Party, this a result of the original Lochner-Schwimmer Emergency Peace manoeuvres of 1914. By 1917, the old peace strategy having worn rather thin, and the revolution in Russia having made the sham Pacifists very bold, Lochner and his followers came more and more into the open with their revolutionary Socialism, scantily disguised as peace measures.

When we examine the names of the organizing committee of the People's Council, we find the following:

James J. Bagley, former president of the Central Labor Union, Brooklyn, N. Y.; Emily Greene Balch, College Professor, Economist, author; Joseph D. Cannon, organizer, International Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers' Union, N. Y.; H. W. L. Dana, professor, Columbia University; Eugene V. Debs, former Socialist nominee for President, Terre Haute, Ind.; Mary Ware Dennett, former head of the Woman's Bureau of the Democratic National Commission, New York; Crystal Eastman, Executive Secretary of the American Union Against Militarism; Max Eastman, editor "Masses," New York; Edmund C. Evans, architect, member Single Tax Society, Philadelphia, Pa.; P. Geliebter, Recording Secretary, Workmen's Circle, New York; Edward T. Hartman, secretary, Civic League, Boston, Mass.; Amy Mali Hicks, artist and author, New York; Morris Hillquit, international secretary of Socialist Party and its nominee for Mayor of New York City; Richard Hogue, minister, Baltimore, Md.; Bishop Paul Jones, Episcopal Bishop of Utah, Salt Lake City; Linley M. Keasby, author, economist, former professor of Institutional History, University of Austin, Tex.; Daniel Kiefer, Chairman, Fels Fund Commission, Cincinnati, Ohio; Charles Kruse, president Inter'Page 77, First Amer. Conference for Democracy and Terms of Peace.