Comments (8)

• Brad

  Twain was a supporter of the Spanish-American War because he could not think anything nobler than to sacrifice/die for the freedom of another.

  Please.

  And I equate Schurz with Joseph Weydemeier, perhaps not as toasty communist, but cut from the same 1848 cloth. And his wife started the first kindergarten in the US (in Wisconsin) and which was one seed of the educational meritocracy we live under today in this fair state.

  I have little regard for anti-imperialists who would use war for prosecuting Good, as a policeman of the world, or those who despise building empire abroad but adore socialism internally. In fact, if people are invigorated to beat someone over the head, I'd rather it be someone else wither, and not in my neighborhood or house.

  Published: December 15, 2006 3:52 PM

• N. Joseph Potts

  On the matter of warmongering=patriotism, I'm fond of declaiming, "It's not YOUR flag just because YOU started shooting under it."

  Of course, it impressed the people to whom it's addressed not at all. And that's an advantage they have over their opponents: they're shooting, and we're not. If they shoot us, they win.

  At least until someone shoots THEM. And that's usually pretty soon, in the usual scheme of things.

  Published: December 16, 2006 7:42 PM

• Kenneth R. Gregg

  The role of the classical liberals was mixed, and it is not quite so simple as describing them all in one camp throughout their respective careers. I'm presently at work on Newton D. Baker. Originally a Gold Democrat and involved in the Cleveland administration, he would follow, like many others strongly influenced by Henry George, another Gold Democrat and then-President of Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson, into his administration to become Wilson's Secretary of War. Up until this time, Baker was known nationally for his anti-war activities and was an example, to the general public, that Wilson's intent was to avoid actions leading to any involvement in war-like activities.

  Of course, as we know now, this the reverse of the evolving situation at that time. Baker lived on constant fear during the entire period, if his later statements are to be believed. Fear of war, fear soldiers dying on his watch, fear that he was a traitor to his former friends in the anti-war movement. Emma Goldman wrote of the treachery of the great classical liberal, Louis F. Post, and that of Baker in a very honest manner. As Goldman said:

  "To my amazement I learned that the official who had signed the order for our deportation was Louis F. Post, Assistant Secretary of Labor. It seemed incredible. Louis F. Post, ardent single-taxer, champion of free speech and press, former editor of the Public, a fearless liberal weekly, the man who had flayed the authorities for their brutal methods during the McKinley panic, who had defended me, and who had insisted that even Leon Czolgosz should be safeguarded in his constitutional rights -- he now a champion of deportation? The radical who had offered to preside at a meeting arranged after my release in connexion with the McKinley tragedy, now favouring such methods? I had been a guest at his home and entertained by him and Mrs. Post. We had discussed anarchism and he had admitted its idealist values, though he had doubted the practicability of their application. He had assisted us in various free-speech fights and he had vigorously protested by pen and voice against John Turner's deportation. And he, Louis F. Post, had now signed the first order for deporting radicals!

  "Some of my friends suggested that Louis F. Post, being an official of the Federal Government, could not go back on his oath to support the mandates of the law. They failed to consider that in accepting office and taking the oath he had gone back on the ideals he had professed and worked for during all his previous years. If he were a man of integrity, Louis F. Post should have remained true to himself and should have resigned when Wilson forced the country into war. He should have resigned at least when he found himself compelled to order the deportation of people for the opinions they entertained. I felt that Post had covered himself with ignominy.

  "The lack of stamina and backbone on the part of such American radicals was tragic. But why expect a braver stand from Louis F. Post than from his teacher Henry George, the father of single-tax, who had failed my Chicago comrades at the eleventh hour? His voice carried great weight at the time and he could have helped to save the men in whose innocence he had believed. But political ambition proved stronger than his sense of justice. Louis F. Post was now following in the footsteps of his admired single-tax apostle.

  "I sought comfort in the thought that there still were some single-taxers of integrity and moral strength. Bolton Hall, Harry Weinberger, Frank Stephens (my comrades in many free-speech fights), Daniel Kiefer, and scores of others had stood their ground -- against war and the new despotism.

  "Frank Stephens, arrested as a conscientious objector, had in protest even declined to accept bail. Daniel Kiefer was another libertarian of true metal. Liberty was a living force in his private life as in his public activities. He was one of the first single-taxers to take an active part against America's entry into the war and against the "selective" draft. He heartily abhorred renegades of the type of Mitchell Palmer, Newton D. Baker, and other weak-kneed Quakers and pacifists. Nor did he spare his friend Louis F. Post for his betrayal."
  --from Goldman's "Living My Life", Vol. 2, Chapter 51.

  Following WWI, Baker would continue as an important figure in the Democratic Party and one of the leading Cleveland Democrats, but the rift between the moderate classical liberals and the more radical libertarians had become permanent. What the classical liberal assault on the state should have been under Wilson was a continuation of the frugal, noninterventionist ideals regrettably crushed by the mistaken foreign policy that Wilson believed would end war for all time.

  Just a thought.
  Just Ken
  kgregglv@cox.net
  http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com/

  Published: December 17, 2006 8:00 PM

• Tim

  How come they don't teach this in school? Anti-Imperialist or not, at least this information seems to hold more substance than the propaganda that permeates the current Big Brother environment. Great Piece!

  Published: December 19, 2006 2:49 AM

• J D

  "How come they don't teach this in school?"

  St. Ludwig has the answer - page 876, Human Action:

  " 5. General Education and Economics

  In countries which are not harassed by struggles between various linguistic groups public education can work if it is limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic. With bright children it is even possible to add elementary notions of geometry, the natural sciences, and the valid laws of the country. But as soon as one wants to go farther, serious difficulties appear. Teaching at the elementary level necessarily turns into indoctrination. It is not feasible to represent to adolescents all the aspects of a problem and to let them choose between dissenting views. It is no less impossible to find teachers who could hand down opinions of which they themselves disapprove in such a way as to satisfy those who hold these opinions. The party that operates the schools is in a position to propagandize its tenets and to disparage those of other parties."

  Party in the last sentence does not refer to Democrats or Republicans but to the elites who have determined the High School Graduate must not think for herself.

  Published: December 19, 2006 12:15 PM

• Saturdaynightspecial

  Twain opposed the war.

  "No ones life, liberty, or property are safe when the legislature are in session." Who said that?

  Americans believe anything their commander-in-chief says. The Press usually reinforces him.

  Imagine the result when he lies.

  What would America be like if at least half of all newspapers were libertarian ?

  Published: December 19, 2006 2:01 PM

• Doug M

  After reading this article, I left it on the table in a restaurant that I frequent for the waitress to dispose of. Instead, she read it and later told me that she found it fascinating. Perhaps this is another example of unintended consequences.

  Published: December 20, 2006 9:25 AM

• David K. Meller

  Maybe we can revive the Anti-imperialist League now that it is really needed. Lord knows, the UN and (in the USA),the Democrats are worthless when they aren't evil, and evil when they aren't being worthless!!

  It is long past the time when almost 80% of the Americans who oppose the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, who want an ending to them as soon as possible, cultivate a nonpartisan public voice dedicated to the restoration of the AMERICAN REPUBLIC, and an end to empire in all of its forms.

  Maybe Mises.org or LewRockwell.com can play a part in such a revival.

  An anti-Imperialist League for the 21st century.

  PEACE AND FREEDOM!
  

  Published: December 23, 2006 12:42 PM