James Watson Gerard Quotes
Now that we are in the war [WWI], there are only two sides and every American must declare himself—American or traitor.
James Watson Gerard, 1867–1951, Ambassador to Germany and Spain, Speech, Loyalty and German-Americans, 1917
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
His wife also had a Doctorate in Chemistry—the 2nd woman to achieve that in Germany—and she was distraught that he had been the leading scientist developing not only the poison gas which the Germans introduced in WWI, but he also developed the tactics of use and personally went to the battlefield and supervised the first major gas attacks. This was much against the ethical value of most scientists and Jewish ethics in particular. Haber had been a close colleague of Albert Einstein and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and while Einstein was trying to get scientists to sign a petition against the war, Haber was developing the first weapon of mass destruction. After Haber gave this response to his wife, we left to go to the front to supervise another major gas attack. His wife committed suicide. Haber, while a German national hero to militaristic Germany, never again had the kind of pre-war relationship that existed with Einstein and many other fellow scientists.
James Watson Gerard III was a United States lawyer, diplomat, and justice of the New York Supreme Court.
