Linda Colley Quotes
Once conscription was introduced during the First World War, and once Britain's wars ceased being confined to the empire or to continental Europe and began seriously threatening our own shores and safety, it became much easier to denounce any anti-war agitation and argument as inherently irresponsible and unpatriotic.
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837. Yale University Press, 1992.
Berger was actually prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to 20 years in prison, for this editorial. The House refused to seat him after the 1918 election (see {587981}); his constituents re-elected him in 1920 anyway. Finally the Supreme Court overturned his conviction, and he was again seated in Congress.
This is surprising to most people who believed the the Vietnam War draft resistance was the first in American History and an aberation. Actually, there have been active draft resistance in America as long as there has been military conscription.
President Johnson was referring specifically to Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas.
First woman elected to Congress. Vote against the Declaration of World War I requested by President Woodrow Wilson. The Congresswoman was consistent. When President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan after Pearl Harbor, she cast the only "no" vote. She was therefore the only member of Congress who voted against the declaration of War in both WWI and WWII.
Just 7 months earlier the King had made a direct appeal to the people for enlistment in the military—See {587166}. The response was very good, but the First World War developed in such a way that huge manpower resources were needed and the King had to reluctantly assent to a military draft.
The founder was Charles E. Coughlin, 1891-1979, a demagogic Catholic Priest who drafted the principles and invited others to join him. Hundreds of thousands did in this organization which began in idealism, and ended in scandal and hate mongering, so much so that Father Coughlin was ordered off the radio and out of politics by the Catholic Church. The National Union in 1936 had morphed into the Union Party which ran Presidential candidates in the 1936 election. In this principle there were two purposes: First to have the wealthy sacrifice something in time of war. Historically wealth could keep a man from the draft if he so wanted. Second, when the company went to war the argument went it was the rich who could profit who had more political influence and could make the war. This way, they would pay a high price and might oppose war. Many of Coughlin’s followers were pro-German and wanted to keep the country out of the European war.
First woman elected to Congress. She was one of a handful of Congressman who opposed the WWI declaration. She was the only member of the House to oppose FDR’s request for a Declaration of War against Japan after Pearl Harbor.
Linda Colley, CBE, FBA, FRSL, FRHistS is an expert on British, imperial and global history from 1700. She is currently Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University and a Long Term Fellow in History at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala. She previously held chairs at Yale University and at the London School of Economics. Her work frequently approaches the past from inter-disciplinary perspectives.
