Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/65

CHAPTER 4. SOCIAL WORK 52 them behave." was my quick reply. I asked if either of them were Catholics and each one answered that he was Catholic. I asked if they would like to read what happened to me and the cops during the last war and they replied in the affirmative, so each one departed with a copy of the November CW which had a chapter of my life in Atlanta entitled "God's Coward." I sold papers all evening with no more disturbance. At this time some religious folks around the CW were loath to distribute the paper after Pearl Harbor. I good naturedly kidded them by calling their liturgy an excuse for lethargy.

The radical who is sympathetic to anarchism but who must vote for a "good man" in order to keep the bad men from running the country received an object lesson when Bob LaFollette voted for World War II. He was a "good" man and he knew better but the soft living in Washington must have deprived him of his moral strength. (An aftermath is the fact that LaFollette, who knew enough to see through the alibis of the Communist Party line and who asked for free speech for the Trotskyites also, was knifed by the CIO and Communists of Milwaukee for his renomination—and that is how Joe McCarthy got upon us.)

One evening there was a meeting of members of the leading peace organization of the country, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, to which I had belonged since World War I. It was held in a local church and the minister who had been Chairman of it for many years was present, along with other pacifist clergy. Somehow a reporter was present, so when the time came for election of Chairman for the ensuing year this cowardly follower of Christ gave a long talk about democracy being needed and moved that for the future we should elect a Chairman for each meeting and not for the year: thus his name could not be given publicity as a pacifist. This man had posed as an American, accepting appointments from the Mayor, when in fact he had been born in Canada and had neglected to apply for citizenship. If he applied now he would have to say he was a pacifist and thus be denied citizenship. So he did nothing.

In contrast to his attitude there was the unsolicited opinion of four leaders of thought in Milwaukee to me as they met me on the street. One of the chief men on a local capitalist paper whom I knew met me and asked if I was going to refuse to register for the draft when my time came. I replied that of course I wouldn't register.

"That is the true American spirit; we need men like you; don't let the government bluff you," he said.

Almost the same words were spoken to me by a leading officer of the armed forces whom I had met once. The first time I met him he said that the way of Jesus, Thoreau, Tolstoy and Gandhi was right, but people would not see it for another 2000 years; and meanwhile we needed an army and he was in the army. A city official who was not a Socialist told me that he agreed with my anti-war attitude and should take the same stand but he was a coward.

Years before I had visited the wealthy head of the Christian Science headquarters in Wisconsin and argued with him that he and his church were wrong in supporting war and capitalism; that among many unimportant utterances Mrs. Eddy had said to "follow me only insofar as I follow Christ and the Sermon on the Mount." And if one had a moral aim and sought to gain it by immoral