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| Jane Addams, Front Row Second from Left (April 1915) En Route to the Hague Conference |
After World War I began in 1914, Chicago-based, internationally recognized social reformer Jane Addams (1860-1935), called for mediation instead of battle, and formed peace groups in Chicago. With the assistance of overseas female activists, Addams convened a women’s conference in Washington, D.C. in January, 1915 to gather international support for opposing the war. Three thousand women attended from numerous countries; others were turned away. They created the Woman’s Peace Party (WPP), made Addams the chair and Chicago its headquarters.
Three months later, Addams was asked to preside over a Spring 1915 meeting of 1,200 peace activists from 12 nations at the International Congress of Women at The Hague. Their goal was to stop World War I and future wars. On 7 May 1915, as most of the delegates were heading back to their home countries, an event occurred that undermined their pacifistic hopes and ambitions. The sinking the liner RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat outraged the world. In Addams's home county, itset off a loud call to begin preparing to enter the conflict if necessary. When this "Preparedness Movement" showed growth and staying power, Jane Addams concluded she needed to mobilize opposition.
In fall 1915, Addams questioned President Wilson’s recent upgrading of U.S. defenses, and shared her concerns in a letter to him. Shortly afterward, she made more public statement of her views through a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune. In January 1916, she reiterated and expanded her anti-preparedness position in testimony before the United States Congress. Collectively, these helped build a substantial although small following for her anti-preparedness and antiwar efforts. By the time of the Armistice she had become known as "the most dangerous woman in America".
The Sinking That Launched the Preparedness Movement
Jane Addams Letter to President Woodrow Wilson, 29 October 1915
Feeling sure that you wish to get from all sources the sense of the American people in regard to great national questions, officers (1422) of the Women’s Peace Party venture to call to your attention certain views which they have reason to believe are widespread, although finding no adequate expression in the press.
We believe in real defense against real dangers, but not in a preposterous “preparedness” against hypothetical dangers. If an exhausted Europe could be an increased menace to our rich, resourceful republic, protected by two oceans, it must be a still greater menace to every other nation.
Whatever increase of war preparedness we may make would compel poorer nations to imitate us. These preparations would create rivalry, suspicion and taxation in every country. At this crisis of the world, to establish a “citizen soldiery” and enormously to increase our fighting equipment would inevitably make all other nations fear instead of trust us.
It has been the proud hope of American citizens who love their kind, a hope nobly expressed in several of your own messages, that to the United States might be granted the unique privilege not only of helping the war-worn world to a lasting peace, but of aiding toward a gradual and proportional lessening of that vast burden of armament which has crushed to poverty the peoples of the old world.
Most important of all, it is obvious that increased war preparations in the United States would tend to disqualify our National Executive from rendering the epochal service which this world crisis offers for the establishment of permanent peace.
Jane Addams the Editor of the Chicago Tribune, 17 November 1915
In an informal discussion following my address at the Social Service club last Monday evening, I was asked to define my opposition on the question of preparedness, and to give some reasons for it. I gave the following five reasons which I had written out the day before for another purpose, and which I am therefore able to recall quite accurately.
1. The moment of panic is a bad time to decide any matter, and whatever danger of attack to America, none could be anticipated at the present time when al here hypothetical enemies are exhausting their resources elsewhere.
2. When the results of this war are studied they will probably greatly modify the type of defense which will be employed in the future—submarines vs. dreadnaughts, etc. At the moment, the expenditure of enormous sums of money upon dreadnaughts of the old fashioned type is, to say the least, a premature decision.
3. It is hoped by many people in Europe and America that one result of this way may be the proportionate reduction of armaments. At this moment, to have America so markedly increasing her "defense" would make it impossible for her to enter such a plane with clean hands. By taking action now she assumes that any such plan is impracticable.
4. There is no doubt that if the United States yields to pan at this moment and largely increases her army and navy, other nations will feel that they must also do this. The action of the United States will have a profound influence upon the governments of South America and those in Asia, increasing tremendously the expenditure of the people's taxes for military purposes.
5. The fact the United States is preparing against even a hypothetical enemy will make it much more difficult for her to act as a mediator in ending the war.
I beg to differ with your statement that the policy of preparedness is a matter of "military technique." On the contrary, it seems to me to be a matter of affecting the general policy of a nation, whose very foundations rest upon the convictions of its citizens and free discussion.
It is certainly the prerogative of a citizen to urge the postponement of the entire matter until international affairs have returned to a normal condition
Some additional points Jane Addams raised with Congress in January 1916
A. Unlike European nations, the United States faced no definitive, predictable enemy and possessed ample geographic warning of any imminent homeland threat.
B. Quoting a member of the French Chamber of Deputies, Addams warned Congress that adopting a preparedness program meant the U.S. risked becoming "infected with the militaristic spirit,"
C. She warned that expanding the U.S. military would empower a domestic "military and naval caste," undermining American civil democracy
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| Nobel Prize Medal, 1931 |
The Overall Impact of Jane Addams Opposition to the Preparedness Movement
Opposition to the Preparedness Movement was largely ineffective at halting American war preparations, though it temporarily slowed down early legislative efforts and shaped initial political compromises. President Woodrow Wilson was initially opposed and was openly hostile to the military preparedness movement, advocating instead for strict neutrality and an unarmed or limited "armed neutrality".
The President, though, in response to events such as escalating German submarine warfare, the political fallout from the Pancho Villa raid in 1916, and mounting political pressure ahead of his 1916 reelection campaign ,eventually reversed his stance and backed major pro-preparedness legislative bills. Congress passed Wilson's National Defense Act of 1916, which significantly expanded the size of the U.S. Army and National Guard, and the Naval Act of 1916, which launched a massive fleet-expansion program.
Jane Addams was vilified during this period, and more so after America's entry into the War in April 1918, as she expanded her antiwar activities, staunchly refusing to support the nation's war effort even after its official entry into the conflict in April 1917. Her popular reputation gained some redemption, however, in 1931 when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the level of the war's sacrifices were being reconsidered.
Sources: Articles from NPR and Priscilla Roberts in the Encyclopedia of World War I, 2007, Letter from the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, News account from Digital Jane Addams
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