Dietrich Bonhoeffer - A Profile in Remarkable Courage

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was only thirty-nine years old when he was executed at the Flossenburg concentration camp in the South of Germany on April 9, 1945.  He was a pastor and theologian of some renown.  His open opposition to the Third Reich was considered to be a formidable enough threat to the fascist ideology that the leadership determined that he needed to be eliminated.  It is interesting to note that this occurred at a time when the war was reaching its disastrous conclusion in regards to the ill-conceived aspirations of Adolph Hitler.

Bonhoeffer was born on February 4, 1906 in Breslau, Germany – a city that is now Wroclaw, Poland.  He had a twin sister, Sabine, born ten minutes after him.  They were the sixth and seventh children born to Paula and Karl Bonhoeffer; there would be eight children in the family.  Karl Bonhoeffer was an eminent and practicing psychiatrist.   His specialty what was referred to as “intuitive psychiatry.”  This psychiatric approach depends upon intuition rather than analytical reasoning as a way to bring the elements of the subconscious mind into consciousness.  His contemporaries in the field of psychoanalysis were such notables as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.   As a parent he was insistent upon expecting high intellectual standards from all his children.

Bonhoeffer’s maternal great-great grandfather was a well-known and respected theologian and professor at the University of Jena.  His maternal grandmother had studied music under Franz Liszt.  Musical ability had been passed down to Bonhoeffer’s mother who was a talented pianist and singer.  Paula Bonhoeffer was also a highly literate, intelligent and fiercely independent woman; she was also a teacher – an unusual profession for a woman in Germany at the time.  Bonhoeffer was also a talented musician.  Although his father was ambivalent about religion, – not surprising given his profession – his mother took on the spiritual education of her children and Karl did not interfere.

Even at a young age, Bonhoeffer was admired for his gentleness and kindness of spirit.  Although he was athletic and was vigorously competitive, he remained notably fair and measured in his judgment.   He mastered the piano by age eight and when he was ten years old, he could play Mozart sonatas.  At the age of six, his family moved to Grunewald so that his father would be close to the University of Berlin where he secured a prestigious position.  The year was 1912 and two years later was the beginning of World War I.  In that horrendous conflict, Bonhoeffer lost three cousins and another was blinded.  He was personally devastated when his brother left for the front in April of 1918 and was killed two weeks later.  His mother was deeply stricken with grief.  This left a lasting impression on the young boy.

Following Germany’s ignominious defeat, the German economy was plagued by horrendous problems including, unemployment, malnutrition, and disease.   The plight of Germany was further exacerbated as the Great Depression of 1929 swept through Europe.  Furthermore, the draconian provisions of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) – the treaty that ended the war - drained the country of its economic resources.  The cumulative impact of these conditions would ultimately make the German population susceptible to the disastrous fascistic policies and fantastic promises in regards to the future of the “fatherland” that would become the hallmark of the Third Reich.

Following his brother’s death, Bonhoeffer made the momentous decision to become a theologian.  Given the severe hardships endured by the German people, Bonhoeffer was acutely sensitive to his family’s privileged position.  This may have been a contributing factor in his ultimate decision regarding the career he chose to pursue.  He was fourteen years of age (1920) when he brought this decision up with his family.   His father was somewhat disappointed with his choice; for, his family had a long tradition of pursuing professions in law and science.

Bonhoeffer went to the University of Tubingen where he studied religion, philosophy and Hebrew.  He actively pursued sports being endowed with both strength and agility.  As a first year student - during the winter of 1924 – he had a terrible fall while ice skating and suffered a severe concussion.  He spent his eighteenth birthday confined to a hospital bed.  After his recuperation, he spent a term studying in Rome where he taught himself Italian.  During his visit, he was impressed by the strong sense of community he witnessed among Italian Catholics.  This reality had a profound impact on his view of religion; he began to see religion as having a strong communal component.  He began to see the Church as community.

Bonhoeffer pursued further studies at the University of Berlin and focused on liberal theology.  He read Martin Luther assiduously.  He became interested in the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth who was a professor at the University of Gottingen.  He was drawn to Barth’s ideas that were in marked opposition to the thinking of liberal theologians that relegated scripture to an accounting of religious experience, and that focused upon Jesus from an historic perspective.  For example, Barth claimed that in scripture we find “divine thoughts about men, not human thoughts about God.”

Bonhoeffer became somewhat of a theological rebel who was able to express his ideas brilliantly and was gifted with a natural charisma.  Given his propensity towards community, he became interested in parish work rather than becoming an academician.  He enjoyed working with young people who found him to be open, receptive, generous and mostly a good listener. 

On October 18, 1925 he had the opportunity to give his first sermon.  The following is a brief excerpt from that address - “Christianity means decision, change, denial, yes, even hostility to the past, to the men of old.  Christ smashes the men of the past into total ruin.  He smites and cuts through with his sword to the innermost nerve…where the apparently most noble feelings meet with a satisfied morality.”

In 1927, Bonhoeffer received his doctorate in theology.  His dissertation was entitled, The Communion of Saints.  In it, he elaborated upon his idea of Church as community working together to fulfill God’s will on earth.  Following his graduation, he was offered an assistant minister position at a church in Barcelona; he accepted the position.   As part of his post-graduate work he studied, lectured and worked in Berlin, New York and a German congregation in London.  His thesis was eventually published as a book in 1929 as well as his post-doctoral thesis entitled, Act and Being in which he proposed that the Church should not only function as a community but should also be involved in outreach to the community in response to urgent social need.  Bonhoeffer was influenced by Gandhi’s use of non-violent resistance in response to state-sanctioned oppression.

In September of 1930, he was offered a Sloane Fellowship to study at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, a prestigious position.   At first, Bonhoeffer did not expect to learn anything from his stay in America.  However, much to his surprise, he became quite taken with the strong sense of community he found within the Afro-American Church in Harlem.  In addition, he befriended a French scholarship student, Jean Lasserre, who was an outspoken proponent of pacifism.  His arguments were so compelling to Bonhoeffer that he began to reconsider his own position in this regard.  Although he did not entirely embrace pacifism, he was to become a powerful advocate for peace.

During his stay in America, the National-Socialist German Worker’s Party (NSDAP, Nazi Party) had begun to make serious inroads into the political leadership within Germany.  The likelihood of the leader of the Nazi Party, Adolph Hitler, becoming the nation’s chancellor was becoming increasingly more likely. 

Upon his return to Germany, he was deeply troubled by the political situation and entered a period of intense prayer and meditation.  He promoted small group meetings with students that became involved with intense and open theological discussions.  In 1931, he was officially ordained as a minister.  The political atmosphere was rapidly becoming hostile to the churches as the National Socialist Regime was taking steps to control them; some of the Nazi Party leaders wanted to ban the churches entirely.  The Party was skillfully exploiting the economic uncertainty that had gripped the nation; a central pledge of its leadership was to pull the country out of its profound economic depression.

Bonhoeffer was deeply disturbed by these events.  In November of 1932, he delivered a sermon at the Kaiser Frederick Memorial Church in Berlin.  The occasion of this talk was Reformation Sunday that was the traditional celebration of the legacy of Martin Luther.  In this sermon, Bonhoeffer issued the first of his many warnings regarding the perilous situation that the church faced in Germany.   The following is a brief excerpt from that sermon – “Our Protestant Church has reached the eleventh hour of her life.   We have not much longer before it will be decided whether she is done for or whether a new day will dawn.”  Two months later on January 30, 1933, German President Paul Von Hindenburg appointed Nazi Party leader, Adolph Hitler, as the Chancellor of Germany.

As if to confirm Bonhoeffer’s dire warning, Hitler immediately instituted the following measures that made abundantly clear the repressive nature of his regime –

•     The German Parliament, the Reichstag, was dissolved

•     Through a series of executive mandates, Hitler declared himself Fuhrer (leader) and Reich               Chancellor of Germany.

•     Extreme censorship was imposed upon the country

•     Public disagreement with Hitler or his policies was considered to be tantamount to treason.

In defiance of these developments, Bonhoeffer issued a provocative radio address – that had been cut off from broadcast – and distributed copies to students and friends. The following is an excerpt from this address – “If the leader tries to become the idol the led are looking for–something the led always hope from their leader–then the image of the leader shifts to one of a mis-leader, then the leader is acting improperly toward the led as well as toward himself. The true leader must always be able to disappoint. This, especially, is part of the leader’s responsibility and objectivity.”

 A mere four months after Hitler assumed his post, the Reichstag building was burned down to the ground.  Although a leading communist leader was accused of arson and beheaded for this alleged crime, there is a strong suspicion that the Nazis were involved.  Following the destruction of the Reichstag building, emergency decrees were put into place including the suppression of habeas corpus – the right of the accused to due process of law.  Finally, on March 23 of that year (1933), a law was enacted that essentially put an end to German democracy; that law was the Enabling Act that essentially gave Hitler the right to enact laws without the necessity to adhere to the German constitution.

The Nazi regime claimed that the German people had two enemies – the Jews and the Communists.  In order to “protect” the people from these combined threats, the following strategies were employed by the State –

•     Arbitrary search of homes

•     Indiscriminate tapping of phone lines

•     Seizure of property

•     Arrest without probable cause.

As a result of these measures, 26,000 Germans were arrested in 1933 and more than 50 concentration camps were secretly established.  On April 1, Hitler proclaimed a nationwide boycott of all Jewish-run businesses.  Nazi storm troopers used this opportunity to harass and assault Jews.  Bonhoeffer’s ninety-one year old grandmother refused to be intimidated and purposefully shopped at the Jewish business she habitually frequented.  A few years later, the Aryan Clause was promulgated that barred Jews from civil service jobs.  This latter decree personally impacted Bonhoeffer’s sister, Sabine.  Sabine’s husband, Gerhard Leibholz was a Christian of Jewish descent.  As a result, he lost his teaching position at the University of Gottingen and the family immediately became subject to threats.

Bonhoeffer was so disturbed by the cumulative impact of these policies that he gave a talk to fellow ministers entitled, The Church and the Jewish Question in which he claimed that it was the duty of the church to oppose any government that abused basic human rights and that the church had the responsibility to help the victims of Nazi repression.  Some attendees were so appalled and probably frightened that they walked out of the talk.  This represented the first public opposition to the treatment of the Jews.  It was Bonhoeffer’s stated conviction that Christianity and National Socialism could not coexist.  Furthermore, it was his strongly held belief that by not speaking out, churches were, in fact, undermining their own moral authority.

By 1933, the Christian church in Germany had become split into two essentially irreconcilable groups – the German Christians that had a clear Nazi affiliation and the Young Reformers of which Bonhoeffer was an influential member.  He was urged by this group to compose a confession - a statement of faith.  He agonized over the composition of this work that was entitled, The Bethel Confession.  In it, he urged the church to remain true to the bible, to be concerned with the plight of the Jews and to be willing to endure persecution rather than abandon the Jews or any suffering people.  To Bonhoeffer’s great disappointment, this document was so severely watered down after review by twenty theologians that he could not put his signature to it.  Following this personal debacle, he left Germany and traveled to London accepting a position there.  He spent eighteen months abroad where he found some comfort and solace. 

Karl Barth, the famed theologian, had become so unnerved by Hitler’s claim that his “mission” was in accord with God’s plan that he issued the Barmen Declaration that was published in June 4, 1934.  At the core of this declaration was the claim that the Christian message cannot be adapted to suit any political agenda.  This statement of principles became the founding document for the Confessing Church.

In the spring of 1935, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany to the Berlin-Brandenburg District Seminary in Fickenwalde – now in Poland - where he was offered an administrative post; he arrived on April 15.  He used this position to train young clergy on the path of the Confessing Church that focused on the church as community and emphasized Christian responsibility in regards to the issue of social justice.   This viewpoint was in direct opposition to the German Christian church that was aligned with the Nazi Party.  All through 1935, the Nazis tried to dislodge the Confessing Church from any prominent role in church affairs.  The Nazi social agenda was temporarily sidelined, however, in 1936; for, that was the year the Olympics was hosted in Germany.  It was Hitler’s desire to use the Olympics as a showcase of Germany’s alleged superiority as a nation and a people.

Fickenwalde was finally shutdown in 1937 and 800 hundred of its clergy were arrested in that same year.  In spite of this setback, Bonhoeffer continued to secretly train the clergy.  He did so in his house and at secret German locations in Koslin, Schlawe and Gross-Schlonwitz.  He periodically returned to Berlin communicating using secret coded messages and secret mailing addresses.  On April 20th, Hitler’s birthday, the German churches prepared an oath of allegiance that pastors were expected to take.  Bonhoeffer  refused; he was chagrined to learn that many of the confessing church pastors felt compelled to take the loyalty oath.

The situation had grown so dangerous in Germany for Jews that by 1938, 300,000 Jews had fled the country.  On departure they were required to sign over all property to the State.  On September 8 of that year his sister Sabine and her family fled to England.  On November 9, Hitler ordered a massive nationwide event tailored specifically to terrorize the German Jewish population.  This event was referred to Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass.  On that horrific occasion, storm troopers dressed in civilian clothes burned 200 synagogues to the ground and burned and looted more than 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses.  Hundreds of Jews were killed in the ensuing chaos and many were attacked and killed by lawless mobs.  Following that event, 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps.

In 1938, Bonhoeffer briefly traveled to England to stay with his sister.   While there, those that were concerned with his continued safety managed to help get him secure a lecturing position in New York at the Union Theological Seminary.   He left for New York on June 4 but stayed only briefly feeling that he had abandoned his country at a time of desperate need.  He returned to Germany on July 7.

Even in the face of the terrible events that gripped Germany, the nation’s churches remained silent including the confessing churches.  This became a turning point for Bonhoeffer; for, he made the momentous decision to become actively involved in the German resistance.  He was introduced to several army generals and Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris who were well entrenched within the resistance movement.  Canaris was the head of Abwehr, Germany’s intelligence service, and led the opposition to Hitler’s rule.  He was ultimately executed at Flossenburg concentration camp for his efforts.

World War II began on September 1, 1939 when Germany attacked Poland on a pretext in which German troops, disguised as Polish soldiers, attacked a German radio station on the Germany-Poland border.  In this alleged attack a Jew wearing a German uniform was killed.  Using this sham as a reason for retaliation, Hitler launched the massive German war machine on its unsuspecting neighbor.  In response, England, Australia, France and New Zealand declared war upon Germany.

It was also in September of that year that the Nazi’s were contemplating the mass extermination of the Jews.  Between 1936 and 1939, doctors were required to register all children with birth defects.  By edict, all these children became wards of the State.   They were subsequently killed by poison gas or lethal injection.  Between 1939 and 1941, more than 70,000 children and disabled adults were murdered in this way.  The experience gained from this “study” was used to perfect the machinery for mass extermination.  Bonhoeffer followed these developments very closely.  He ultimately was enlisted as a spy for the resistance using his position as a minister to travel freely and gather information.

The situation worsened for the resistance when on June 17, 1940, France surrendered to Germany.  This was soon followed by the surrender of Belgium and Holland.   Bonhoeffer was effectively leading a double life and between 1941 and 1943 he was constantly on the move.  No one knew of his involvement in the resistance.

In the meantime, the situation for Germany’s Jews grew progressively worse.  Jews were required to wear yellow stars to signify their ancestry.   It was not long before their forcible removal to concentration camps became a matter of national policy.  In July of 1942, Nazi party officials and the Gestapo collaborated to formulate the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.  General Heydrich proposed that all the remaining Jews in Europe and Germany be deported to special death camps in Germany.   Just prior to this, Bonhoeffer got involved with a surreptitious activity called Operation 7 that was engineered to safely get Jews out of Germany with the help of Admiral Canaris.  The plan succeeded over the short term; however, the Gestapo would ultimately uncover the plot and its conspirators by following the trail of money that was used to finance the operation.

With Germany’s situation worsening and drawing to its disastrous conclusion, with the Russians making inroads on the Eastern front and with the mass extermination of Jews well under way, the resistance was primed to move quickly.  In March of 1943, two attempts were made to assassinate Hitler and a final attempt was made on July 20, 1944.  All of these attempts failed.  Although Bonhoeffer was not directly involved in these plots, he was aware of them.  His rationale for this involvement was that the death of Hitler would lead to the saving of millions of lives.

On April 5, 1944, Bonhoeffer was arrested for his involvement in the conspiracy.  During his time in prison, he had an opportunity to think, pray and meditate.  It was within this period of incarceration that he came up with the concept of what he called, “religion-less Christianity.”  A collection of his prison letters was ultimately published.   The following are excerpts from some of these communications -

“The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts.  For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts.”

“Subservience and self-sacrifice could be exploited for evil ends.”

“Civil courage, in fact, can grow only out of the free responsibility of free men.”

 “We must take our responsibility for the molding of history in every situation and at every moment.”

“Folly – moral rather than intellectual defeat.”

“Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves.”

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do and more in the light of what they suffer.”

On April 9, 1945, Bonhoeffer was executed.  He lived a remarkable life.  He ultimately sacrificed his life for the sake of his strongly held beliefs at a time when the world was enshrouded in such inexplicable darkness.

Henry Wallace

Henry Wallace was born on October 1888 and would ultimately play an important role in American politics during the destabilizing impact of the Great Depression (1929-1938) and the Second World War (1939-1945) – a global catastrophe that would ultimately claim the lives of 50 million human beings.

In spite of the devastating impact that these events exerted on the individual human psyche, Wallace remained optimistic about the future.  He had a vision of a human world at peace that he expressed in the following way, “The day will come when this world will be more secure, when people who ask only to live a good life here and make a living will not be driven to meanness and to littleness, to a calculated denial of the highest capabilities and to hate.  We live by these ancient standards of withdrawal and denial in a world bursting with potential abundance.  The fears, coupled with the narrowness and hatred of our forefathers, are embodied in our political and educational institutions and bred in our bones.  It will only be a little at a time that we can work ourselves free.”

He envisioned a future society that he referred to as a cooperative commonwealth where use and need would drive the economic engine rather than capitalism and its inherent striving for profit.  It was societal model that took the intermediate path between capitalism and socialism.  In addition, his vision included a predominant role for science and technology in shaping a more humane society.  He denounced the excesses of imperialism, yet encouraged the expansion of international trade.  Wallace maintained a democratic ideal in that he was convinced that profound social change would necessarily come to fruition when individuals voluntarily changed their thinking.  Within this ideological framework, he was convinced that science and technology would play a fundamental role in this transition ultimately leading to the development of what he referred to as a “new man.” 

Wallace was the grandson of a Presbyterian minister and grew up in a farm family at a time in the nation’s history when technological changes were having a profound impact on individuals’ lives and livelihoods.  He was a descendent of Scottish Protestants who settled in Ireland around 1690.  His predecessors immigrated to Western Pennsylvania in 1823; they arrived penniless.  His paternal grandfather had an adventurous spirit and became a prosperous farmer.  Wallace’s father, Henry Cantwell Wallace, was a teacher, journalist and farmer who married in 1887 and his son, Henry Agard Wallace, was born in 1888.  Shortly after his birth, the nation experienced a serious economic depression in 1890 that had a deleterious impact on the family’s income.  As a result, his father moved with his family to Des Moines, Iowa.  In this new location, he started a farm newspaper entitled, Wallace’s Farmer. 

Wallace’s father was a leader of the progressive movement of that era and was vehemently opposed to the Bryant-Populist Alliance of 1896. This so-called alliance represented the narrow views of white and poor cotton farmers in the South – a worldview that was decidedly anti-elitist.  At that time, there was a strong farmer-laborer movement that actively protested against what was seen as the New Industrialism.   Wallace’s political philosophy was, in effect, greatly influenced by his family that had a long tradition of progressive activism.

Wallace, following his father’s example, became enamored of journalism and the intricacies and implications of national policy.  Given this progressive mindset, it is not surprising that he became a “New Dealer” – the New Deal represented that set of public policies that became the political trademark of the presidential administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR).  Wallace was not without contradiction in terms of finding a balance between the liberal ideal in regards to individual life and the social conformity and the more rigid structures required to accommodate capitalist expansion.  In this regard, he embraced the social liberalism in Europe where capitalism was held in check through the active intervention of the State in the national economy for the purpose of protecting the general welfare.  He also became an advocate of organized labor as a means to constrain corporate power.

After two devastating world wars that dominated the twentieth century, a means was sought to manage the momentum of capitalism – social liberalism was a means to accomplish this as an alternative to socialism.  Within this worldview, the corporate revolution of the nineteenth century had undermined the equality of opportunity and individual freedom as exemplified by the nature of industrial production - especially in regards to factory work where the worker relinquished his freedom during the time of his employ in return for wages. 

In response to the impact of expansionist capitalism, Wallace envisioned a society in which the State would become the mediator - finding a middle ground between laissez faire on one hand and socialism on the other.  This role of government is paradoxical in nature; for, it attempts to condemn social injustice while embracing capitalism as its economic paradigm.  It was Wallace’s hope that the ineluctable advancement of scientific knowledge and its application through technology would necessarily exert a humanizing influence upon the economic system and the general welfare.

In essence, Wallace was an influential advocate for the role of science in society, a devout Christian and was a proponent of a more progressive form of capitalism.   He derived much of the inspiration for his thinking from his religious background.  He had a deep and abiding passion for the Old Testament and saw in the visionary teachings of Jesus Christ a belief in the destiny of humanity to establish a commonwealth of the common man.  A more practical influence for Wallace was the writings of the British economist and thinker John Maynard Keynes – a contemporary of Wallace (1883-1921), who established the principles of modern macroeconomics.  It was these two seemingly disparate influences that steered him in the direction of American liberalism.

Wallace attended Iowa State College in 1906 where he studied plant genetics, agricultural economics and quantitative analysis, demonstrating his interest in science, technology and their application in the field of agriculture.  Wallace became convinced of the essential role of science and technology within the framework of human progress.  In this regard, he was especially interested in the writings of William James who espoused a pragmatic philosophy and view of life.  Another important influence on the thinking of the young Wallace was the work of the economist Thorsten Veblen who wrote the highly influential books, entitled, The Theory of the Leisure Class and The Theory of the Business Cycle and emphasized the need for the use of statistics in defining, quantifying and ultimately resolving economic issues. 

As Wallace’s thinking evolved he came to believe that economic and social institutions failed to keep pace with the ever-advancing technology and that a highly specialized and elite engineering class was required to help direct the progress of humanity.  Within this overarching view he conceived of a unique role for production engineers and statistical economists.  Philosophically, his conceptions may be defined as an evolutionary positivism where progressive social change naturally occurs as more information is made available and society is able to make rational judgments regarding communal problems based on this ever-expanding knowledge base.  Wallace became convinced that with access to technology and sufficient data, humanity would build a cooperative and productive society that he defined as a “cooperative commonwealth.”  He envisioned such a commonwealth as a result of the union of reason and technology.

Wallace’s overall worldview helped determine his political affiliations.  He was contemptuous of President Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) and concluded that agriculture fared poorly in the administrations of Presidents Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) and Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929).  These conclusions came in direct conflict with his family’s Republican Party affiliation.  In fact, his father had served as Secretary of Agriculture under both the Harding and Coolidge administrations.

He supported, with some reservations, the candidacy of Al Smith for President, who ran in the 1928 general election.   Wallace enthusiastically embraced the ideas of John Dewey who spoke of the “new individualism” and professed the idea that economic security was a necessary component of true freedom.

With the onslaught of the Great Depression (1929-1938) Wallace characterized the 30’s as representing, “days of great despair.”  As a consequence, he sought implementation of public policies within the political context of social liberalism and advocated for programs calling for public works legislation and currency and credit inflation.

Wallace had a strong desire to seek national office; for, he had confidence that his political ideology had resonance with national aspirations and he felt his message was compelling.  He became a registered Democrat.  Due to his close association with and support of FDR during the general election of 1932, he secured the cabinet post of Secretary of Agriculture and held that post from 1933 through 1940.  In this position, he called for the solidarity of the agricultural and labor interests.   This abiding support of agriculture is not surprising given his upbringing. 

 In his book entitled, New Frontiers (1934), he portrayed Roosevelt’s New Deal as a populist movement striving for economic democracy.  Wallace saw his role in the New Deal as mediating between the extremes of total security and total freedom.

Wallace threw his support to the nomination of FDR to a controversial third term as President – at that time there were no legal limitations upon the number of consecutive terms an individual could serve as President.  The current limitation of two consecutive terms in office for the presidency was set by the 22nd amendment to the Constitution that was ratified in 1947.  FDR threatened to withdraw his candidacy if Wallace was not chosen as his Vice-Presidential running mate and within his formal letter he wrote, “Until the Democratic party made clear its overwhelming stand in support of liberalism and shakes off all the shackles of conservatism and reaction, it will not continue it march to victory.”

Ultimately, it was America’s entry into World War II that ended the Great Depression.  Due to the extraordinary nature of the political and economic climate during that time, Wallace was given unusual authority and responsibility as Vice-President.  He became Chairman of the Board of Economic Welfare (BEW) and a member of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB).  Both of these posts were especially important for a country soon to be on a wartime footing.  He also served as national emissary to Latin America and China.

It is not surprising that Wallace would be vociferously opposed to Hitler’s fascistic vision of the future given his political perspective.  He also took exception to Henry Luce’s conception of the so-called “American Century.”  This term characterized the 20th century as being wholly dominated by America in the spheres of politics, economics and culture.  This conception was first enunciated by Henry Luce, publisher of Time magazine.  Luce was the son of a missionary and was steeped in conservative religious values.  In an editorial that appeared in the Feb. 17, 1941 edition of Life magazine, in which he first referred to the American Century, he wrote that America’s role in international affairs was, “to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." 

Wallace had a contrary notion – he envisioned the 20th century being the century of the Common Man.  He outlined this idea in a speech – and later in a book with same title - he made on May 8, 1942 to the Free World Association.  He foresaw a post-war world embracing prosperity devoid of colonialism and economic exploitation.  It was an idealistic vision that was not well-received amongst the economic and political elite.

Wallace inevitably found himself at odds with some of his peers in government.  This situation became so adversarial that FDR reduced some of Wallace’s official responsibilities, and Wallace ultimately lost the nomination for Vice President to Harry S. Truman during the 1944 general election.  During FDR’s final administration, he offered Wallace the cabinet post of Secretary of Commerce and on April 12, 1945 FDR died leaving Truman as the president.   In September of the following year, Wallace was “relieved” of his cabinet position due in large part to his ongoing disagreement with Truman regarding the new president’s policies directed against the Soviet Union.

In civilian life, Wallace became editor of the New Republic magazine.  In this capacity, he took the opportunity to openly criticize Truman’s handling of foreign policy especially the Truman Doctrine – a doctrine that represented the beginnings of what would be eventually referred to as the Cold War.  Unable to stay away from possibility of reentering public life and countering what he saw as the disastrous policies of Truman, Wallace became the presidential nominee for the Progressive Party during the general election of 1948.  The salient aspects of his party’s platform included friendly relations with the Soviet Union; an end to what Wallace considered to be the politics of fear, an end to segregation, full voting rights for Blacks, and universal government health insurance.  As an expression of his convictions, he adamantly refused to campaign in front of segregated audiences or frequent segregated businesses.  Furthermore, he did not object to the endorsement of the Communist Party for his candidacy.  Taking such positions was deleterious to his chances and he ultimately received a paltry 2.4% of the popular vote.

This last defeat represented his final exit from the public arena.   He subsequently devoted his efforts to farming and made some significant contributions to agricultural science including a new breed of chicken.  In fact, the Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland bears his name.  In looking back at his political career he honestly assessed where he made some errors in judgment especially regarding his naive trust in the nature of Joseph Stalin’s leadership and of his initial views regarding Communism.

Finally, in 1964 he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  He died on November 18, 1965.  In the final analysis, Wallace had made considerable and lasting contributions to the progressive movement in the United States especially in regard to economic democracy at a time when the nation was in the midst of a severe and debilitating series of grave national issues.

Bernard Kouchner - One of the Founding Members of Doctors Without Borders

Bernard Kouchner was one of the co-founders of Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) – Doctors without Borders - and Médecins du Monde – Doctors of the World.  The doctors involved in these globally-based organizations have done outstanding work in bringing medical knowledge, procedures and services - that the inhabitants of economically advanced nations take for granted - to parts of the world where the medical infrastructure is inadequate or entirely absent.  Kouchner has led an amazing life that reflects his deep and abiding passion for social justice.

Kouchner was born on November 1, 1939 in Avignon France.  His father was Jewish and his paternal grandparents perished in the Nazi German concentration camps during World War II.  It was the realization of the enormity of the Holocaust that inspired Kouchner to dedicate his energies to humanitarian efforts.  As a young man, he had an abiding interest in medicine, and chose gastroenterology as his specialty.

In regards to his personal life, Kouchner has three children, Julie, Camille and Antoine, by his first wife, Évelyne Pisier, a professor of law, and one child, Alexandre, by his current wife Christine Ockrent, a television journalist.

He has been involved throughout his adult life with issues of social justice and has functioned in leadership capacities not only within the medical profession but also in politics and government.  Kouchner has never shied away from controversy when issues that reflected his principles were at stake.

He was an outspoken member of the French Communist Party (FCP) while in his twenties and was expelled from the party in 1966 when he attempted to radically transform the party’s leadership.  During the political turmoil in France in 1968 earmarked by student-led revolts, Kouchner headed the medical faculty strike committee at the University of the Sorbonne in Paris.

In that same year he worked as a physician for the Red Cross in Biafra in the midst of the devastating civil war that engulfed Nigeria.  His experiences there had such a profound effect upon him that he was motivated to help bring into being the MSF – it was founded on December 20, 1971.   The inspiration for the creation of the MSF came from the frustration of the doctors who volunteered their services to treat the victims of two horrendous global events – the Civil War in Biafra as mentioned previously and the tidal wave that decimated the people of what is now the country of Bangladesh.  The groups responding to these catastrophes were frustrated by the shortcomings of international aid as it was configured. They also felt that by bending to the will of individual nations, their efforts to provide medical relief in a timely fashion were often thwarted.   The organization, Doctors of the World was subsequently founded in 1980.

Kouchner also voluntarily offered his services and expertise during the siege of the Naba refugee camp in East Beirut Lebanon during that country’s Civil War (1975-1990).  He took great risks to his own personal safety and worked closely with Shia cleric Imam Musa al-Sadr.

Kouchner has had a remarkable political career in France.  His political experience is briefly enumerated below –

•      In 1988, he became Secretary of State for Humanitarian Action. 

•      During the Presidency of Francois Mitterrand (1981-1995), he served as Minister of Health (1992).

•      Between 1993 and 1997, he was a member of the European Parliament.

•      In 1997, while Lionel Jospin was Prime Minister, he was again chosen for the post of Minister of Health.

•      From 2007 until 2010 he served as the French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs during the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy.

On account of his considerable experience not only in government, but most importantly in regard to his humanitarian efforts around the world, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan nominated Kouchner as the second UN Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).  In this position, he provided the leadership to guide UN efforts to rebuild the civil and economic infrastructure in Kosovo following the devastating aftermath of a protracted and devastating conflict.  His efforts proved invaluable; he was ultimately replaced on 21 January 2001 by Danish Social Democrat Hans Hækkerup.

Following these involvements, he was chosen to be the French Minister of Health for the third time in his career; until, the 2002 elections in France led to his displacement.  He also was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Pristina for his services to Kosovo.

Kouchner has spoken out repeatedly against social injustice wherever it was evident.  In early 2003, he argued for the removal of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, but he made it clear that he did not advocate using war to unseat him claiming that the welfare of the people of Iraq should be the primary focus.  He detailed his arguments in an editorial that appeared in the Le Monde in February 2003.  He proposed that Hussein should be removed via a UN action using diplomatic means.

In regards to the current impasse over Iran’s nuclear program, Kouchner published his comments and responded to an interview in September of 2007 in which he stated, “We will negotiate until the end.”  Although he went on to warn of the possibility of war, he claimed later that he was not advocating armed conflict.

Kouchner has dedicated his adult life to serving those in need.  His major contribution to the world is not only through his direct involvement as a caring physician to those in dire circumstances but also through his participation in the creation of the MSF whose humanitarian efforts have saved countless lives across the globe and assisted countless survivors of both natural and human-caused disasters.

An Earnest Plea

Humanity remains beset by seemingly intractable problems including war, disease, famine and the unconscionable living conditions endured by hundreds of millions of individuals throughout the world.  The wondrous wealth of natural resources that exist on this very fragile planet continues to be ruthlessly exploited and the growing reality of the enormity of climate change is becoming ever more apparent. 

In spite of these daunting realities, there is no visible concerted effort on the part of the community of nations to correct these frightful wrongs.  The nagging and haunting question remains as to why so many human beings continue to endure such extreme and needless suffering while the remedies to their plight are so readily available.  There are many possible explanations for why so many live under such terrible conditions in both the undeveloped and developed nations.  These reasons include the following –

• The continued unabated growth of the human population that exerts a significant strain on natural resources
• The pursuit of national self-interest by so many nation states in a way that exacerbates international tensions and often leads to conflict
• The dramatically inequitable distribution of economic wealth and resources that results in a rather small population of haves In comparison to the have-nots who represent the overwhelming majority of humans on the planet
• The enormous gap that exists between the advances made by science especially in regard to climate change and the effective application of this knowledge to prevent the ultimate catastrophe for humanity that looms on the horizon.

These considerations contribute to the overall understanding of the current state of humanity; however, I believe that the fundamental and underlying reason is that individuals have not yet evolved sufficiently to accept the essential reality that all members of the human race are rightful members of the human family and worthy of the same respect, compassion, care and concern that we gladly extend to our own immediate families.

 

Humanity has not yet encompassed the necessity to find non-violent and equitable solutions to conflict.  Humans are, in many ways, mired in essentially tribal relationships and have inherited a culturally accepted and narrowly-focused mentality.  This kind of highly constrained and constricted outlook may have proved efficacious when human populations were much smaller, more isolated and independent; this worldview is no longer viable in the modern era.  The widespread issues of poverty, hunger, disease, political turmoil, conflict and the ineluctable degradation of the natural environment - that sustains all of life - require reasoned cooperation and collective action on the part of all nations.

In spite of these disheartening realities, there has, nonetheless, been considerable progress made in quite the opposite direction.  There is, in reality, a significant move by many within diverse organizations that seek to shatter the restrictive boundaries between people that retard real human progress.  Hope for a more equitable and sustainable future for all of humanity is not yet moribund.  It is up to us and our collective endeavor to use that hope to inspire concerted action in order to mold this dream into a tangible reality.

Ida B. Wells - Courageous Pioneer for the Cause of Civil Rights

Ida B. Wells has been described in many different ways as a militant, courageous, determined, impassioned and aggressive.  Wells was born into slavery; her parents were slaves.  Her pace of birth was Holly Springs, Mississippi in the year 1862.  Her mother was a deeply religious woman and her father was of an intense independent spirit and welcomed full independence as a result of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. 

In the 1830’s, Holly Springs had an abundance of cotton plantations.  In the post-civil war era its economic base shifted from agriculture and became the home of an iron foundry and the main office of the Mississippi Central Railroad.  This change was, in part, a result of the fact that Confederate forces had set the town ablaze during its occupation by the Union army.

Ida grew up in a house built by her father; she was the eldest daughter with seven other siblings.  Her father was a skilled carpenter and was well employed in helping to rebuild the town in the aftermath of its destruction.  He was also a member of the first board of directors of Rust College – formerly called Shaw University.  Wells’ parents were strong advocates of education and she attended Rust College during her childhood.  She also was an avid reader of the bible.

In 1878, the town of Holly Springs was struck by an epidemic of Yellow Fever.  This created such a panic that 2000 of the 3000 residents fled their.  Of those who stayed behind seventy- five percent succumbed to the disease.  As a result, Wells lost both parents and three of her siblings including the youngest, Stanley, only 10 months old.  This was, of course, a substantial blow to the remaining family and especially Wells, 16 years old and the oldest, for it fell upon her to take care of her siblings.   Thankfully, her father left behind money and the Masons – of which her father was a member – served as guardians for the family.

Wells became a teacher and two of her brothers became carpenters like their father.  In 1882, Wells accepted a job as a teacher in Memphis, Tennessee.  In order to fill a requirement for this new position, she commuted to a school in Woodstock, Tennessee to obtain her teacher’s certification.  In May of the year 1884, a momentous incidence happened to the young Wells – an event that would make a lasting impression upon her and helped shape her worldview.  She was traveling to Woodstock, Tennessee on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, when she was informed that as a “colored” person she was forced to ride in the smoking car.  Believing this was totally unjustified, she was adamant in her refusal.  When attempts were made to forcefully move her, she left the train, returned to Memphis and immediately began litigation proceedings against the railroad.  Her case received media attention on account of the fact that Tennessee law clearly stated that accommodations for people of color must be separate but equal – an example of the prevalence of Jim Crow.  However, the smoking car that she was commanded to move to was not commensurate with first class passenger service.  On account of the strength of this legal argument, Wells actually won the case; she was awarded $500 in damages.  It is interesting that this event is closely analogous to Mahatma Gandhi’s incident on a train in South Africa during the era of Apartheid.  It was this occurrence that awakened the young Gandhi to the real nature and pernicious character of racial prejudice and convinced the neophyte lawyer to instigate reform.

Wells’ victory, however, was short-lived; for, it was ultimately reversed by the Supreme Court in April of 1887 - ruling that the smoking car was in fact equivalent to first class accommodations when provided to people of color.  Wells was so upset by this decision that she wrote, “…I felt so disappointed because I had hoped such great things from my suit for my people generally.  I have firmly believed all along that the law on our side and would, when we appealed to it, give us justice.  I feel shorn of that belief and utterly discouraged, and just now, if it were possible, would gather my race in my arms and fly away with them.  O God, is there no redress, no peace, no justice in this land for us?  Thou hast always fought the battles of the weak and oppressed.  Come to my aid at this moment and teach me what to do, for I am sorely, bitterly disappointed. Show us the way, eve as Thou led the children of Israel out of bondage into the promised land.”

Life was difficult for Wells in the post-reconstruction era in the South on account of her race.  In spite of the many obstacles she faced, Wells had developed superb journalistic skills and became a part owner of the Free Speech and Headlight newspaper.  In 1891, she lost her position as a teacher on account of her outspoken views.  She ultimately renamed her publication and called it simply Free Speech.

In March of 1892 a horrendous event occurred in the city of Memphis that would shape Wells’ future.  Three young Black businessmen were lynched by a mob in Memphis.  Incensed, Wells utilized her journalistic acumen to both report on the event and relentlessly attack this kind of extreme violent behavior directed against Blacks.   

She wrote the following in her publication, Free Speech -

“The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms. The white mob could help itself to ammunition without pay, but the order is rigidly enforced against the selling of guns to Negroes. There is therefore only one thing left to do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons.”

This outspokenness within such a hostile and threatening environment certainly revealed her courage, strength of character and determination.  Her words had immediate impact – many members of the Black community in Memphis left town and others organized a boycott against white business owners.   As a result, Wells’ newspaper office was destroyed for it was seen as a threat to white-dominated society.  Her life was in such jeopardy that she moved to Chicago but continued her journalistic campaign against the extrajudicial practice of lynching of black men that had become quite common.

For this reason, Wells decided not to return home after attending a convention in Philadelphia.  Wells, however, would not let fear silence her.  Instead, she continued her anti-lynching campaign in which she pointed out the existence of such a horrific practice in the Northeast as well.  At that time, Wells presented her point of view in the New York Age – an influential black newspaper that was published between 1887 and 1953.

This reporting also captured the interest of reporters from abroad.  As a consequence, she was invited to tell her story in England, Scotland and Wales.   While there, Wells was impressed by the progressive activities of women in the UK.  She carried these impressions back with her to the States and stressed the importance of women’s organized civic clubs.   Notable among these was the Women’s Era Club of Boston, Massachusetts presided over by President Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin.

Racial prejudice was so pervasive at that time that Blacks were prevented from participation in the World’s Columbian Exhibition held in Chicago celebrating the 400^th anniversary of Christopher Columbus landing in America. Included in the list of those prohibited from participating were such notable representatives as Ferdinand L Barnett and Frederick Douglas.  Barnett was an attorney, writer and lecturer; he was instrumental in founding one of Chicago’s first black newspapers, The Chicago Conservator and would later become Wells’ husband.  Douglass was a famed abolitionist who was born into slavery in Maryland. He became one of the most famous intellectuals of his time; he was so admired and respected that served as the advisor to presidents.    

In spite of this pernicious environment and her horrific experiences and probably because of them, Wells lectured throughout the North and organized anti-lynching committees.  As a direct consequence of her journalistic investigation of lynching, Wells authored a book entitled, The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States: 1892, 1893, and 1894.  In the book entitled, On Lynching: Southern Horrors, A Red Record and A Mob Rule in New Orleans – a compendium of her most valued works - she wrote, “The Afro-American is not a bestial race. If this work can contribute in any way toward proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and punishment by law for the lawless, I shall feel I have done my race a service. Other considerations are of minor importance.”

In regards to Wells’ personal life, she had a long relationship with Attorney Ferdinand L. Bennett.  They were married in 1895 and she gave birth to two sons – the eldest being born in 1897.  Her children became targets of race violence from the notorious Thirty-First Street gang in Chicago and for reasons of personal safety for herself and her children she carried a pistol. 

From 1898 to 1902 Wells served as secretary of the National Afro-American Council and in 1910 she founded and became the first president of the Negro Fellowship Leagues; its stated purpose was to aid blacks newly emigrated from the American South.  She was militantly opposed to racial prejudice in all its forms both locally in Chicago and throughout the nation.  In Chicago she also was instrumental in establishing numerous African-American organizations dedicated to reform and she remained undaunted in the opposition to lynchings that was eloquently expressed in her writing especially one entitled, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.  In addition, she became involved the burgeoning issue of women’s suffrage and participated in the 1913 march for suffrage in Washington D.C.  In this regard, she joined forces with Jane Addams and managed to help prevent the establishment of officially-sanctioned segregation in the Chicago school system.

In 1906, she joined forces with William W.E.B. Dubois and others and in 1909, she was one of the two women signatories to a document that called for the creation of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois (1868 –1963) was an American sociologist and historian.  He became renowned as a civil rights activist.  He was the first African American to earn a doctorate.  Her outspokenness even amongst her peers, however, had made her controversial and was subsequently marginalized from any position of power within the leadership.  Wells became thoroughly disheartened by her diminished role with the leadership of the NAACP.  As a result, she decided to enter politics.  In 1930, she ran for office in the Illinois State Legislature.  A year later, she died.

Ida B. Wells was a woman who possessed immense moral courage and an unshakable conviction for the cause of social justice.  Her boldness and unflinching insistence on equality and justice left an indelible mark on history of civil rights movement in America and was undoubtedly an inspiration for those who followed.

Land Reform in India

The following story is taken from a report by Jull Carr-Harris that appeared in the Oct. – Dec. 2013 issue of Peace Magazine.

On October 11, 2012, a momentous event occurred for landless poor people who inhabit the area around Agra, the city that is home to the Taj Mahal.  On that day, the government of India issued a ten-point program that included land reform measures.   Jah Ram Ramesh, the Minister of Land Reform, presented this proposal to a crowd of 50,000 landless poor people who were in the midst of a non-violent protest heading for New Delhi.

This policy came as somewhat of a surprise; since, it represented an apparent turnaround from previous government action in the area of land use.   This apparent awakening on the part of government of India to the plight of the poor and landless was precipitated by the effectiveness of the land reform movement.  The culminating event, the Jan Satyagraha – Satyagraha means truth force - march, was fashioned after Gandhi’s use of non-violent protest to draw attention to a particularly grievous issue.   One Hundred thousand people were mobilized for the effort.  Each villager saved one rupee and one handful of rice each day for three years prior to the mobilization. 

Both the young and women played an instrumental part in the leadership surrounding this mass action.  The role of women was particularly important; since, it helped focus on gender-related issues in a culture where women have traditionally assumed a markedly inferior role in society.

The success of this movement is meaningful for a number of reasons.  It clearly establishes the power of the seemingly powerless when they act in an organized way to demonstrate categorically for reform.   It also shows that non-violent action needs to play a fundamental role in such demonstrations lest they be construed with fear and suspicion.  

Lucy Stone - A Key Player in the Woman's Suffrage Movement

The woman’s suffragist movement took over seventy years from the inception of feminine activism until the passage of the 19th amendment to the Constitution in 1920 granting women the right to vote.  The well-known leaders of this movement were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.   There was another leader who played a substantial role in this regard for well over forty years, and yet who has not received nearly as much recognition as she deserves.  That woman is Lucy Stone.

She became an exceedingly eloquent spokesperson for equal rights for women and for woman’s suffrage.    She was a woman of firsts –

• First woman to speak full-time as a relentless advocate for woman’s rights

• First woman in Massachusetts to earn a college degree

• First woman to keep her birth name after marriage.

Stone was known for her remarkable organizing ability, adept skill at lobbying lawmakers and especially for the power of her intellect and her natural charisma.

Stone was born on August 13, 1818.  After her birth her mother was reported to say, “I’m sorry it’s a girl.  A woman’s lot is so hard.”    She grew up on a subsistence farm and lived in a clapboard farmhouse.   She was the sixth child born to Hannah Stone and the day before Lucy was born, her mother had milked eight cows.  In the 19th century, women had few options besides being a wife and mother.  There were a limited number of professions open for women, including nursing and teaching.  It was part of the plight of women in that era to “suffer and be still.”  Paradoxically, this period in history was rife with social, moral and technological upheaval. 

 

Stone describes her growing up in the following way, “It was so hard and so difficult that if I had been at the foot of the loftiest peak of the Rocky Mountains with a jackknife in hand and had been told, “Hew your way up” it would have been pristine compared to my task.”  In fact, many aspects of her personality that would typify her behavior throughout her adult life have been shown to be common among abused children.

Her father was Francis Stone; he was hard working, had a problem with alcohol abuse and was quick to anger.  He saw himself as the undisputed head of the household.   Growing up in such a male-dominated and repressive environment had a lasting impact upon the young and impressionable Stone. She was variously described as extremely intelligent, rebellious and stubborn. 

 

In regards to her ancestry, Gregory Stone left England in 1635 and immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Historically, of the sixty men who stood at Lexington Commons on the morning of April 19, 1775 during an event what would represent the first armed resistance of the revolutionary war, twenty-five were related to Gregory Stone.   Stone’s grandfather, Francis Stone, led a tumultuous life – he fought during the French and Indian Wars and was involved in the farmer-led Shay’s rebellion of 1786.

In a speech Stone delivered in 1855 in support of woman’s equality, she describes herself in the follow way -“From the first years to which my memory stretches, I have been a disappointed woman…In education, in marriage, in religion, in everything, disappointment is the lot of woman.  It shall be the business of my life to deepen the disappointment in every woman’s heart until she bows down to it no longer .”

When Stone was thirteen years old, she heard of series of lectures regarding woman’s rights that was touring Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York.  The woman who was leading these discussions was Frances Wright.  In these talks Wright called for equal educational opportunities for women and insisted that women have the right to control their own property after marriage.  Although Stone probably did not personally attend these talks, she heard of them and was influenced by their content.  She was so upset when she learned of the inequities that women had to endure when married that she vowed at a young age that she would never marry in spite of the fact that during that era marriage seemed to be the only economically viable option for women.  Stone was determined to go to college - in 1837 Oberlin College had initiated a college degree program for women.  Oberlin was founded in 1833 by evangelical reformers; it rapidly became a center for the abolitionist movement.  Its agenda was focused on the education of women and its mission was to instill in women a “moral perfectionism.”

The political climate during the time she was a young woman was tumultuous and was indicative of a culture in flux.  It was earmarked by the populism espoused by President Andrew Jackson.  It was also an era driven by industrialization, the fever of national expansion and the romanticism of the Transcendental Movement.   Stone had the opportunity to read and hear women speak publicly about such issues as slavery and woman’s equality.  She was particularly taken by the women who had the moral courage to speak out about such controversial issues.  Stone describe her experiences in the following way, “I was young enough then so that my indignation blazed.”

Stone left home at Coy’s Hill in August of 1843 at the age of twenty-five to attend Oberlin College and escape the confining and oppressive environment of family life.  She would, however, return to her place of origin periodically to find some degree of solace from her frenzied existence.   Within the nourishing environment of college life, Stone matured rapidly.  Ultimately, however, her evolving ideas regarding a woman’s right to vote, run for office, have access to a professional life commensurate with men and the content of her public speaking became problematic for the college.  She worked long days in pursuit of her studies and during the spring of her second year, she wrote for the biweekly paper, The Plain Speaker.  In addition, she published articles and letters in reform-minded publications.  Also, she began to help organize young women’s debating teams.  These activities would certainly presage her long and eventful career of public speaking.  Stone would express her feelings during this formative time of her life in the following way, “Women will not always be a thing.  The signs of the times indicate a change.  I see it in the coming events whose shadows are cast before them, and in the steady growth of those great principles which lie at the foundations of all our relations.  I hear it in the inward march of freedom’s host and feel it deep in my inner being.”

Stone graduated in 1847 and returned to Coy’s Hill.  At that time, the nation was in the midst of the Mexican War – General Zachery Taylor had advanced as far as Mexico City.   She gradually established herself as an effective orator.  People began to attend her talks in large numbers.  She had a remarkable gift for public speaking; she had the uncanny ability to incorporate plain prose and timely anecdotes in her presentations; her style was remarkably persuasive.  Stone became particularly involved in the abolitionist movement and, as a result, became close friends with William Lloyd Garrison.  She befriended such notables in the transcendentalist movement as Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Ascott.

Eventually her passion shifted towards woman’s rights.  At that time, she was the only woman making a career of lecturing on such a hot-button issue.  In 1848, there was a woman’s rights gathering at Seneca Falls, New York.  The culmination of this meeting was a Declaration of Rights and Sentiments crafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton – a feminist theoretician and Lucretia Mott – a Quaker abolitionist.  This declaration insisted upon equal equality for women and the right to vote (woman suffrage).  Momentum for the institution of these rights was growing and Stone was recruited to participate in a traveling tour in order to propel this cause forward.  Her talks drew crowds often numbering between two and three thousands.  Eventually, Stone began to charge a nominal fee upon admission; she did well. 

Although Stone’s focus was now clearly on woman’s suffrage and equality, she had not forgotten her abiding interest in the abolitionist cause.  The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, as a part of the Missouri Compromise, made it abundantly clear that slavery remained a divisive issue within the body politic.  Under this act, all slaves who fled their enforced servitude and were subsequently apprehended were subject to forceful return to their captors.  She toured New England, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Ottawa, Canada speaking out against slavery and advocating woman’s rights.   She also argued persuasively for divorce reform and for a woman to have control over her own body.

In this regard, Stone said the following, “We want to be something more than the appendages of Society; we want that Woman should be coequal and help-mate of Man in all the interests and perils and enjoyments of life.  We want that she should attain to the development of her nature and womanhood: we want that when she dies, it may not be written on gravestone that she was the “relict” of somebody.”

 

In regards to her personal life, Stone was courted from 1850 by Henry Blackwell a successful southern businessman who was committed to the reform movement and was one of the founders of the Republican Party.  They were finally married on May 1, 1855.  Given her past history of abuse at the hands of her often tyrannical father, Stone had serious misgivings regarding marriage and especially in the area of sexual relations.  Nonetheless, she relented.  Both Stone and Blackwell, however, issued on the day of their marriage what they referred to as a “Marriage Protest,” in which they stated that, “…we enter our protest against rules and customs which are unworthy of the name, since they violate justice, the essence of all law.”  Regarding her marriage Anthony charged Stone with, “defection from the woman’s rights cause.”  Their life together was not without problems in matters of intimacy and economics.

In 1861, the South attempted to secede from the Union creating what they referred to as the Confederacy.  President Lincoln found this wholly unacceptable and the nation entered a time of extreme strife and the Civil War ensued.   Near the end of the war Stone and Anthony presented a resolution to the New England anti-slavery society that specified that the anti-slavery and woman’s rights organizations combine efforts to secure political rights including suffrage for both women and the Blacks.  Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 decreeing that the slaves were free; although, this would have no reality until the war was over with the assumption that the Union forces would be victorious.

In April of 1865 the Confederate armies under General Robert E. Lee surrendered.  The Union was preserved at a terrible cost – 620,000 lives were lost and the nation was terribly wounded.  As a consequence, President Lincoln was assassinated in April of that year.

At this time in Stone’s life, she had a daughter, Alice, now eight years old and Blackwell was in the midst of serious financial difficulties.  Immediately after the war the nation entered a period of national Reconstruction.  At that time Lincoln was pushing for the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  The contents of this amendment are listed below –

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.  

This amendment was eventually ratified and passed due in large part to the impassioned persuasion of Senator Charles Sumner for Massachusetts who was well a known champion of the abolition of slavery.  In section 2, as shown above, it clearly states that any state that denied its male citizens twenty-one years of age the right to vote could have its representation in Congress reduced.  Stone lobbied to broaden the definition to include women.  This proved unsuccessful.

Nonetheless, Stone was determined to keep both Black and woman suffrage before the public.  She argued for what she regarded as, “natural justice.”  She stated that, “Women and Blacks need the ballot to secure equal means of education.”  These sentiments were not shared by either Anthony or Stanton.  In fact, the issue of race would divide the ranks of woman suffragists and retard the progress of the movement for more than 30 years.

Wendell Philips, a leading voice in the American anti-slavery society, was opposed to joining forces with the woman’s suffrage movement.  This represented a growing breech between the two movements.  According to Philips the, “Negro’s hour and the hour of women had not yet come. “  He refused to merge forces; for, he believed that such a merger would endanger the chances for full Black suffrage.  In addition, Stanton was attempting to win the support of the Democratic Party for women suffrage in spite of the fact that the party was on record as being in opposition to Black civil rights and Black suffrage.  Frederick Douglass strongly objected to this tactic.  Stone felt that this was an error in judgment on Stanton’s behalf; for, it risked the loss of allies in the anti-slavery movement.  She refused to separate the two causes being deeply passionate for both.

Stone was invited to address the Impartial Suffrage Convention in Topeka Kansas.  This proved to be a problematic event in regards to the history of woman suffrage movement.    At that time, the state of Kansas was in the midst of the divisive politics that resulted from the destabilizing effects of Reconstruction.   Kansas was a hotbed of mistrust and political corruption.  In addition, the Republican Party was dominant in the state and it was riven by factionalism.   Kansas Republicans had no interest in supporting woman suffrage; their focus was directed exclusively to Black suffrage.  To make matters worse, decidedly racist statements made by leading suffragists including Anthony and Stanton added to the developing controversy.  In fact, at the opening session of the American equal rights association (AERA) Anthony’s response to Frederick Douglass’ criticism of her reference to blacks as “Sambo” and “bootblacks” was the following, “If the “entire people” could not have suffrage , then it must go first to the most intelligent for if intelligence, justice and morality are to have precedence in the Government, let the question of woman be brought up first and that of the negro last.”   Stone was devastated by these and other comments made by her associates;  this was to represent a definite split within the suffrage leadership.

 

In addition, Anthony enlisted the help of George Frances Train, a so-called Copperhead Republican and unabashed racist, and did not oppose accepting Train’s connection with AERA.   In fact, she traveled around Topeka with him.

These statements and affiliations cost the woman’s suffrage movement dearly.  They lost the support of William Lloyd Garrison who wrote a letter to Anthony proclaiming that she had, “departed so far from true self-respect as to be travelling companions and associate lecturers with that crack-brained harlequin and semi-lunatic, George Francis Train.”

On February 27, 1869 the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution was passed granting Blacks full voting rights.  Anthony and Stanton had published anti-fifteenth amendment articles hoping to prevent its final ratification to no avail.  This position did further damage to the cause.  Disheartened by these countervailing forces, Stone argued that,   “If one has a right to say that you cannot read and therefore cannot vote, then it may be  said that you are a woman and therefore cannot vote.  We are lost if we turn away from the middle principle and argue for one class…Woman has an ocean of wrongs too deep for any plummet, and the negro too has an ocean of wrongs that cannot be fathomed.  There are two great oceans; in the one is the black man, and in the other is the woman.  But I thank God for the Fifteenth Amendment and hope that it will be adopted in every State,  I will be thankful in my soul if anybody can get out of the terrible pit.”

Unfortunately, this was not the end of the controversy that besieged the suffrage movement.   Stanton, Anthony and others wove an insidious web of scandal that would provoke harsh criticism of not only them but the movement that they supported.  Among their ranks entered Victoria Woodhull who became a vociferous spokesperson for the suffrage movement and was embraced by Anthony and Stanton.  She was, in fact, an unabashed advocate of free love.  At thirty-three years of age she was a self-proclaimed prostitute, mesmerist, spiritualist – claiming Demosthenes as her medium, healer, blackmailer, extortionist, stockbroker and journalist.   Woodhull also became a presidential candidate of dubious distinction in 1871.  She also published an account of an alleged affair between the prominent minister Henry Ward Beecher and Elizabeth Tilton, who were prominent supporters of woman’s suffrage.  Stone had written to Anthony urging caution in regard to enlisting the support of Woodhull within the movement.  In the coming years, Stone began to despair regarding the cumulative damage done by all of these missteps.  Membership in Anthony and Stanton’s group, the national woman’s suffrage association (NWSA), had fallen off to the point that meetings had become “parlor-size.”   By 1882, the organization was all but dead.

Stone recognized, however, that there was also cause for optimism.  Woman’s suffrage proposals were under legislative consideration in nearly every northern and western state and women had been enfranchised in Utah and Wyoming.  In 1881, suffrage amendments were presented in Indiana, Nebraska and Oregon.  In addition, twelve states had passed laws granting women full access to all levels of education and women were working alongside men in professions from which they had been previously barred.

 

Even though Stone was tiring of her efforts and had been suffering bouts of illness and in spite of the fact that Blackwell was prone to serious depression, she did not shy away from making her views known.  From a book entitled, Sex in Education, the author, Dr Edward Hammond Clarke a Boston physician and a member of Harvard Medical School, proposed that a woman’s education needs to be adapted to her more delicate nature.  In it he states categorically that, “Women who tried to study ethics or metaphysics would suffer from menstrual irregularities; their energy would be physically weakened and subject to brain fever.”  This book was immensely popular; because, it gave credence to the prevailing notion regarding a woman’s role in society especially held among the male population.  Stone was persistent in her rebuttal to this assumption.

At a gala event in Boston in 1876 celebrating the Boston Tea Party, Stone gave a speech that was well received.  In it, she argued that women were still “held politically below the pardoned rebels, below the enfranchised slaves, and on the same level as idiots, lunatics and felons.”    It must be remembered that at that time, women had no legal rights to their own children.  They were legally prevented from selling their own land or leaving an estate to their descendants following their death.

The persistent sexual scandals centered around Woodhull, Anthony, Stanton and Beecher had significantly diminished the ranks of self-proclaimed suffragists and increased the difficulty of adding recruits in the 1870’s.   Tilton sued Beecher for the “alienation of his wife’s affections.”   Yet Stone persisted in urging that women organize and engage in political action, “in very town.”  Yet another factor that contributed to the apparent decline in interest among women regarding the suffragist movement was the Panic of 1873 that had a profound economic impact among the working class.

 

The rift between Stone and Stanton and Anthony continued to worsen during this time.  However, Stone continued to write, lecture and encourage women to demand equal rights for themselves.  A major conduit for the expression of her views was the Woman’s Journal.  This was a publication she was primarily responsible for and consumed considerable energy in keeping it going.   In this she was helped by her daughter, Alice, who eventually took complete responsibility for its publication.

In the meantime, Anthony and Stanton had published two volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage in which they made no mention of the Stone’s AWSA.  In spite of this, Stone refused to press for being given appropriate credit for her relentless efforts for the cause.  By 1887, her health steadily worsened ultimately impacting her joints, throat, heart and kidneys. 

A funeral was held for Stone on October 21, 1893 in Boston.  The funeral was described in the following way – “No woman in America had ever called out so general a tribute of public respect and esteem.”   Among her pallbearers were two sons of William Lloyd Garrison, the noted abolitionist. Tributes were offered not only throughout the nation but also around the world.  She left behind a remarkable legacy including scholarships and public buildings in her name.  Her most important contribution, however, was providing the momentum to keep the woman’s rights and woman’s suffrage movements moving forward to reach its ultimate goal almost forty years following her death with the passing of the nineteenth amendment  to the Constitution in 1920 granting women the unalienable right to vote.