Wisdom in Old Books

Shortly after writing about Sophie Gerson’s passing a few weeks ago, I was contacted by her grand-daughter Frieda and daughter Deborah. They’re cleaning out the family house in Bensonhurst and thought I might be interested in some of Si Gerson’s books. Would I! Si had a voluminous book collection on topics like socialism, the labor movement, election law and policy and New York City politics that stretched back decades.

There was an impressive diversity to Si’s collection, as it was not limited, like too many young leftists’ today, to those writers with whom he agreed. Si’s habit of underlining sections and scribbling exclamation points in the margin suggest his opinion of the material. My favorite so-far being the prominent question mark beside Norman Thomas’ preposterous claim, in “Socialism Re-Examined,” that Marx’s theory of surplus labor value could not account for automation (Marx, of course, devotes several chapters of “Capital Vol. 1” to the topic, and Thomas’ claim reveals the Socialist Party’s standard bearer as one who read Marx in order to claim that he read Marx and disagreed with him).

My selection’s from Si’s library suggest my own narrowness. I declined, for example a handsome, multi-volume set of Stalin’s writings, clearly preferring books on or by A.J. Muste, Norman Thomas and Morris Hillquit – heroes from “my” corner of “our” left. I was delighted to find five rare books from my favorite tragic hero, William Z. Foster, all inscribed “To Si Gerson, With Comradely greetings, from Bill Foster” (or something like it).

So, now I am the owner of a big box of historical socialist and labor books, and seeking “time enough at last” to read it all. Today I am reading Morris Hillquit’s “Loose Leaves From a Busy Life” and want to share a pearl of wisdom from it with you. Hillquit, for your possible edification, was a Jewish immigrant who was a leader of the strong socialist movement in the Lower East Side, centered around the garment unions, “The Daily Forward” and the Socialist Party from the 1890’s well into the 1930’s. A National Chairman of the Party and frequent candidate for political office, he lived long enough to become the leader of the “Old Guard” that was challenged by Norman Thomas.

In 1917, Hillquit was the Socialist Party’s candidate for Mayor of New York, running on an anti-war platform. The election was the first since the United States entered the World War and a Socialist victory, Hillquit challenged, would show that the people of the largest city in America wanted an immediate end to the war. The campaign attracted national attention and at one point Hillquit was ahead in the polls. In the end, Hillquit polled about 21% in a four-way contest, losing to Tammany Hall’s candidate, John F. Hylan. (Hillquit notes that he added about 110,000 votes to the previous election’s Socialist tally, and that a constitutional amendment extending voting rights to women – which had failed two years prior – passed by 100,000 votes – mostly from the Lower East Side.)

The Socialist Party, then a major force in U.S. politics, with a quarter million members and hundreds of elected Mayors, city councilmen, state assemblymen and even a Congressman, was opposed to the war and to U.S. entry into it, and huge demonstrations – not unlike the demonstrations that put millions of people in the streets marching against the current war back in 2002 and 2003 – were held across the country. Once the United States entered the war, Hillquit believed it was the role of Socialists to press for an immediate negotiated peace. And, here, from a stump speech in 1917, is your pearl of wisdom:

“A victory in arms would mean terms of peace imposed upon the vanquished. It would lead to rancor and striving for vengeance. It would not be a peace on firm foundation but one founded on quicksand and would lead to more war.”

It’s as fine a statement of pragmatic pacifism as I have ever read. Hillquit’s words were, regrettably, all too prophetic. The terms of the Versailles treaty were imposed upon Germany and did lead to a striving for vengeance that was harnessed by Hitler and the Nazi movement and led to more war. A typical challenge put to pacifists is what we would do about a Hitler. A pacifist position on the “good” war is not an easy or obvious one, but a continuation of the cycle of militarism should be obviously unwise. The history of the bloody 20th century should show what a vicious cycle it is.

As for our modern case, when public opinion has swung decidedly and emphatically against the war in Iraq and the presidential contenders hem and haw over a withdrawal of forces “with honor” and with our chosen government in place, heed Hillquit’s 90-year-old words. What each of the Democratic and Republican candidates for President propose are terms of “peace” to be imposed upon the Iraqi people. Such a peace could not last. Anything less than an unconditional withdrawal and offer to pay reparations to a government of their choosing will result in a dark day of reckoning for us in the future.