respond to any militarist appeal. His conscience constrains him to refuse conscription. He will obey his conscience at any cost. "God helping me, I can no otherwise."—Those who resist the war madness constitute a little Church where persons of all parties make common cause, Christians, atheists, Quakers, artists, socialists, etc. Hailing from all points of the compass, and holding the most conflicting ideas, they share only one article of faith, that of the war against war. This common creed suffices to bring them into closer association than the associations they had with their friends of yesterday, with their brothers by blood, by religion, or by profession.[1] Thus did Christ pass to and fro among the men of Judea, detaching those who believed in him from their families, from their class, from all their past life.—In the United States, as in Europe, young men are far less possessed with the war spirit than their elders. A striking example comes from Columbia University. Here, while the professors were conferring on General Joffre the degree of doctor of literature, the students assembled to pass a unanimous resolution against answering the call of military conscription.[2] This exposed the voters to the penalty of imprisonment. For they manage things with a heavy hand in the classic land of liberty. Many American citizens have been thrown into gaol, and others, we are informed, have been immured in lunatic asylums, for having expressed their disapproval of the war. The recruiting sergeants go wherever they please, even forcing their way into meetings of the workers and maltreating all who resist them.[3] Under the rubric A Week's War "The Masses" records all the brutalities, all the blows, wounds, and murders, to which the war has already led in America. We may well ask to what extremes of violence these antipacifist repressions will some day be carried. The alleged freedom of speech in the United States would appear to be pure humbug. "In actual fact," exclaims Max Eastman, "freedom of speech has
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