TRIAL ARGUMENT
Mr. Nearing's closing argument in his own defense at his trial under the provisions of the so-called Espionage Law;
On trial for Attempting to Impede U.S. participation in WW I by his publishing of THE GREAT MADNESS.
I told the District Attorney on the stand that I was opposed to all wars. I regard war as a social disease, something that afflicts society, that curses people. I do not suppose three people in a hundred like war. 1 do not suppose that three people in a hundred want war. There are some people who are pugnacious, and who love to fight, for the sake of a fight, and they might like war, but I do not believe there are three people in a hundred, certainly not five in a hundred, that do.
I believe the great majority of people agree with me that war is a curse, an unmitigated curse. All the things that come out of war come out in spite of war and not because of it.
The democracy that has come into Europe, whatever it is called, has come in spite of the war and not because of it. That would have come out in any case, and we would have had it without the expenditure of twenty million lives and a hundred and eighty billions of wealth.
I regard war as a social disease, a social curse, and I believe that we should stamp war out. To my mind the great curse of war is not that people are killed and injured, not that property is destroyed. That happens every day in peace times as well as in war times. To my mind the -great curse of war is that it is built on fear and hate.
Now fear and hate are primitive passions; the savages in the woods are intimidated by fear and hate. They do not belong in civilized society. In civilized society, for fear and hate we substitute constructive purposes and love. It is their positive virtues. When we fear things, we draw back from them. When we hate things, we want to destroy them.
In civilized society, instead of drawing away from things, and wanting to destroy them, we want to pull things together and build them up. Fear and hate are negatives. Peace and love are positives, and form the forces upon which civilization is built. And where we have collectively fear and hate, it is a means of menace to the order of the world.
Furthermore, during war, we ask people to go out and deliberately injure their fellows. We ask a man to go out and maim or kill another man against whom he has not a solitary thing in the world--a man who may be a good farmer, a good husband, a good son, and a good worker, and a good citizen. Another man comes out and shoots him down; that is, he goes out and raises his hand against his neighbor to do his neighbor damage. That is the way society is destroyed. Whenever you go out to pull things to pieces, whenever you go out to injure anybody, you are going out to destroy society. Society can never be built up unless you go out to help your neighbors.
The principle, "each for all and all for each," is the fundamental social principle. People must work together if they are going to get anywhere. War teaches people to go out and destroy other people and to destroy other people's property.
And when Sherman said that war was hell, I believe that he meant, or at least to me that means, that war creates a hell inside of a man who goes to war. He is going to work himself up into a passion of hatred against somebody else, and that is hell.
The destruction of life and property is incidental. The destructive forces that puts into a man's soul are fundamental. That is why I am opposed to all wars, just as I am opposed to all violence. I don't believe in any man having the right to go out and use violence against another man. That is not the right of one human being to have against the other, that is not the way you get brotherhood. That is the reason I told the District Attorney on the stand that I was against all wars. I am against dueling; I am against all violence of man against man, and war is one of those methods of violence.
I believe war is barbaric, I believe it is primitive, I believe it is a relic of a bygone age; I believe that society will be destroyed if built up that way. That is, I believe that they that take the sword must perish by the sword; just as they that set out to assist their neighbors are bound to build up a strong, cohesive united society. That is the field over which I went in my direct testimony and in the cross-examination.
I have been a student of public affairs. I am a Socialist. I am a pacifist. But I am not charged with any of these things as offenses. On the other hand I believe that as an American citizen I have a right to discuss public questions. I think the Judge will charge you so. I have a right to oppose the passage of a law. I think the judge will charge you so. I have a right under the law, after the law is passed, to agitate for a development of public sentiment that will result in a repeal of that law. I think the judge will charge you so.
In other words, as I said in the beginning, in a democracy, if we are to have a democracy, as a student of public affairs and as a Socialist and as a pacifist, I have a right to express my opinions. I may be wrong, utterly wrong, and nobody listen to me, nobody pay any attention to me. I have a right to express my opinions.
Gentlemen, I have been throughout my life as consistent as I could be. I have spoken and written for years, honestly and frankly. I went on the stand and I spoke to you as honestly as I knew how. I answered the District Attorney's questions as honestly and as frankly as I could. I stand before you today as an advocate of economic justice and world brotherhood, and peace among all men.
And I wrote this pamphlet in the attempt to further those ends.
I desire to say just one more thing: this is America in which I am on trial, and America's proudest tradition is her tradition of liberty. For three hundred years people have been coming to America: Puritans, Pilgrims, Huguenots, Quakers, came over and formed the Colonies.
Later, the Irish, the Scotch, the Germans, the Russians, the Italians, the Syrians came here, not because of the hills and valleys, not because of the climate, not because of the language, but because of the liberty of America; and the men who came here and the women who came here in 1914, came here just as sincerely in search of that liberty as the men and women who came here in 1620.
For three hundred years the world has been looking to America, and coming to America for liberty. That is the choicest and the greatest heritage, that which Americans love.
What was it that these people sought to escape in Europe? They sought to escape hunger, hardship, misery, suffering, and poverty. They came over here because they thought that the resources of America would yield enough food and clothing and shelter to feed and clothe and house every human being decently and comfortably.
They came over from Europe to escape ignorance and escape the darkness in which Europe had been kept by these rulers. They came over here for enlightenment--opportunity. Many of them came over here because it gave them the only chance that the world offered to express the truth, as they saw it. They left Europe because they wanted to escape prejudice, bigotry, class antagonism and race hatred. They came over here because they thought that here they would find brotherhood among men, because they thought that here all peoples were welcome to sit down together and enjoy the opportunities that America offered. They left Europe because of its military service, its wars, and the fear and hatred of war, that is, that war engendered. They thought to come over here and find peace and plenty. They left Europe because of tyranny and despotism; the tyranny of the landlord, the despotism of aristocracy and the owners of the sources of life.
They came over here because they thought that here they would find that every man had equal opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They came here seeking that liberty of the body, the liberty of the mind and the liberty of their heart and soul, and Socialist liberty. That is the background of the country in which we are living.
That is the thing of which America is proud and for which America has stood; that is the thing for which I believe America will stand today.
There is nothing unique in our wealth. Other nations have wealth. There is nothing unique in our material possessions. Other nations have material possessions. But there was something unique in our liberty.
As I said to you on the witness stand, I am an American, my ancestors have been Americans for more than two hundred years. As an American I have certain rights and certain duties. Among my rights under the first amendment to the Constitution are the rights of free speech and the free press; the right to speak and print the convictions that I have. It was for those rights that our ancestors left Europe and came here. It is for those rights that some of us are contending today.
I care not for the prosperity of this country if we are going to have gag laws. I care not for the wealth of this country if we are going to be forbidden to have free speech, and an opportunity for expressing our minds and expressing our opinions and discussing the great issues that are before us.
In the old times of the Czar, we did not protest against Russia because she lacked wealth; we protested against her because she lacked liberty.
What was it that we found was lacking, or what was it that we found against the Kaiser in Germany? Was it that he was not a good business man? He was an excellent business man. Was it because he was not a good organizer? He was an excellent organizer. What we had against this man was the fact that he was a tyrant, that he trampled on the rights of other people. They had wealth in Russia, they had prosperity in Germany. In America we want liberty. And I believe that as an American citizen, that is the dearest possession for which I can contend. That is my right constitutionally and legally. But if there were no constitution and no law, it would be my right as a member of a democratic society.
Furthermore, as a citizen, I have certain duties. Citizenship involves duties as well as rights. If I saw that your house were on fire, it would be my duty to warn you and to try to put it out, that is, put out the fire, and if I could not put out the fire, to save as much of your goods and such of your family as I could save. That would be my duty as a neighbor.
I have been a student of public affairs in this country for many years. I believe this country is in danger, in dire peril. On the one hand I see imperialism, militarism and war ahead of us. In our policy toward Mexico, in the policy that we are developing under the direction of preparedness advocates about which I spoke last Friday, I see ahead of us imperialism and militarism and war.
This is not the last war, there is another war, and it will be a war between this nation and the nation that succeeds in the present contention in Europe.
On the other hand, I see ahead of us in our industrial life, exploitation, widespread, by the masters of those who work for them. I see that exercised with increasing tyranny, and I see ahead of us revolt. In other words, to my mind, the outlook in America is not bright, and I am upheld in that view by Senators, by business men, by labor leaders, by all of the responsible authorities who are speaking today for America's future.
There are clouds on the horizon. I believe America is in peril and I believe that she is in peril from internal disturbances; I believe that the danger lurks within. And I believe it rests primarily in our unfair and unjust system of distribution of wealth, and the income of the country.
As I said a moment ago, that if your house were on fire, it would be my duty as a neighbor to warn you and to try to help you save your property. I say to you now, that when I believe this nation is in danger, when I believe that our country is in danger, our common life and our common liberties are in peril, then it is my duty to warn you, it is my duty to speak out and to continue to speak out as long as I have an opportunity to do so.
You will say, if you went into my house and saved my goods, you might burn your hands, you might injure your clothes. True. It would still be my duty to risk my clothing and my hands in your service.
You will say if you speak out today against these perils in the land, you may lose your job, you may lose your liberty. And I answer you again that as a citizen it is my sole obligation to speak out when I see peril ahead, and stand the loss of position or of liberty or any other loss that may be entailed in issuing the necessary warning.
Gentlemen, I want to say to you that I want to see America free. I want to see liberty, opportunity and democracy here, as well as in every other country on earth. As long as America is not free, you are not free and I am not free. As long as any of us are in chains in this land, we are all in chains. As long as any are in ignorance in the land, we are in ignorance to that extent. As long as anybody starves in the land, we starve. As long as anybody suffers from despotism and tyranny, we are all suffering from despotism and tyranny. We belong to the body of this citizenship, and we suffer in common with it, and we benefit in common with it.
As I said a moment ago, the only principle upon which society can ever be built is the principle of each for all, and all for each. The principle of union, the principle of joint co-operative action for the benefit and the service of all.
I believe that action is the action of the people, the action of the masses, of mankind, and that sooner or later they will insist upon their rights.
As Lincoln said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
The peoples all over the world are coming into their own, they are going to come into their own more and -more as the years go by. They are going to come into their own in the United States, and what happens to one of 'us is incidental to the great question of what happens to all of us.
I have expressed my hopes, my ideals, my ambitions for liberty in America, and for brotherhood and peace among all people of the world. I have done what I could, and for the time being the matter is in your hands.