![]() In the years preceding the war, the Pacific Northwest was largely isolated from the establishment politics of the East Coast peace societies and lacked any real affiliation with any national peace organizations. Nowhere in the country were these economic and ideological shifts clearer or more evident than in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. This study explores the fundamental and dramatic transformation of this seminal social movement. Driven by increasingly dire economic conditions and angered by wartime conscription, the American anti-war movement of 1917 – 1918 rose to near-revolution-like levels before being suppressed by aggressive government repression. The small, elite and establishment peace movement of the early war years was overcome by the mass working-class and increasing radical anti-militarist and anti-capitalist movements of the later years. As scholar Roland Marchand explains, the pre-war peace movement was “an affluent, prestigious and ‘practical’ reform ” however, this changed in the four short years between 19. Īt the outbreak of the war, American peace societies counted among its ranks the likes of business tycoon Andrew Carnegie, social reformers Jane Addams and Lillian Wald, several university presidents and future Secretary of War Newton Baker. Far from a populist mass movement, the anti-war movement of 1914 was initially dominated by upper class intellectuals, prominent businessmen and Progressive establishment politicians. The opposition to World War I began as just another part of the pacifist movement of the early 19th century. Their stories are testament to how fragile civil liberties and freedom can be when threatened by militarism and the security state.Īlthough later anti-war movements like those of the Vietnam Era have attracted more scholarly and popular attention, the story of the 20th century’s first American anti-war movement is notable for its dramatic organizational and ideological transformation over the course of World War I. The men and women who spoke out against the war faced some of the greatest state repression in the history of the United States. The First World War was America’s first debut as a global military power, and although many Americans were swept up in a patriotic call to arms, a small but vocal minority of socialists, anarchists, pacifists and civil libertarians opposed American militarism. The divisions present in the courtroom on that September day mirrored the growing fractions on the streets of nearly every major city in the country. ![]() The war pitted citizen against citizen, patriot against radical. These men were just a few of the thousands who were charged with sedition or treason in the months after America’s entry into World War I. They were accused of conspiring against the government of the United States and interfering with military conscription during a time of war. In September 1917, in a crowded Seattle courtroom, charges of sedition were read to Hulet Wells, Sam Sadler and Joe and Morris Pass. ![]()
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