Conscience: Two Soldiers, Two Pacifists, One Family--a Test of Will and Faith in World War I [Hardcover]

Louisa Thomas (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 2, 2011

Norman Thomas and his brothers' upbringing prepared them for a life of service-but their calls to conscience threatened to tear them apart

Conscience is Louisa Thomas's beautifully written account of the remarkable Thomas brothers at the turn of the twentieth century. At a time of trial, each brother struggled to understand his obligation to his country, family, and faith. Centered around the story of the eldest, Norman Thomas (later the six-time Socialist candidate for president), the book explores the difficult decisions the four brothers faced with the advent of World War I. Sons of a Presbyterian minister and grandsons of missionaries, they shared a rigorous moral upbringing, a Princeton education, and a faith in the era's spirit of hope.

Two became soldiers. Ralph enlisted right away, heeding President Woodrow Wilson's call to fight for freedom. A captain in the Army Corps of Engineers, he was ultimately wounded in France. Arthur, the youngest, was less certain about the righteousness of the cause but sensitive to his obligation as a citizen-and like so many men eager to have a chance to prove himself. The other two were pacifists. Evan became a conscientious objector, protesting conscription; when the truce was signed on November 11, 1918, he was in solitary confinement. Norman left his ministry in the tenements of East Harlem, New York, and began down the course he would follow for the rest of his life, fighting for civil liberties, social justice, and greater equality, and against violence as a method of change. Conscience reveals the tension among responsibilities, beliefs, and desires, between ideas and actions-and, sometimes, between brothers.

Conscience moves from the gothic buildings of Princeton to the tenements of New York City, from the West Wing of the White House to the battlefields of France, tracking how four young men navigated a period of great uncertainty and upheaval. A Thomas family member herself (Norman was Louisa's great grandfather), Thomas proposes that there is something we might recover from the brothers' debates about conscience: a way of talking about personal liberty and social obligation, about being true to oneself and to one another.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Louisa Thomas on Conscience

A few years ago, a family friend found a history seminar paper that my father had written thirty years before. It had the curious title “Evan Thomas: A Case Study of a Conscientious Objector in the First World War”—curious because Evan Thomas is my father’s name, but I did not know about the conscientious objector. The paper opened with the arresting image of a young man—about my age, as it happened—standing in solitary confinement with his hands manacled to the bars, while outside the nation celebrated the armistice ending World War I. Evan was willing to go to prison to protest conscription, my father wrote, “for the most complex of simple reasons: to be true to himself.” That line made me pause. Even from the fragments of the letters my father quoted, Evan’s reasons did not seem simple, even complexly simple. He did use language like that—he wanted to be true to himself—but what that meant was just as troubling to him as it was to me. He understood that it had something to do with truth, faith, and courage. It had something to do with his family, country, and a willingness to die, but also a desire to be free. He often used the word conscience, and he said he fought for freedom of conscience. But what did it mean? One thing was clear: his conscience compelled him to do something different than it did his three brothers. Buried in my father’s paper was one line that seized me. While Evan was on a hunger strike protesting conscription, his brother, Ralph, an army captain, was wounded by a German shell in France. The Thomas family, my family, was divided.

Two brothers were pacifists, two soldiers. The oldest, Norman, a Presbyterian minister, was drawn toward politics and became a Socialist and an activist for pacifism and the defense of civil rights. The youngest, Arthur, joined the military and went to training camp to become a pilot. They had attended the same sermons delivered by their father, had the same hobbies, and went to the same schools. Yet when the United States entered World War I their lives diverged dramatically. Their choices were irreconcilable. To understand them I had to try to understand the times and places the brothers lived in, times and places that are now often overlooked or forgotten. Their letters, in archives and attics around the country, led me to the those of their father, a Presbyterian minister who resisted what he saw were assaults on religion; and those of their mother, who had grown up in Siam and then on an all-black college in the Reconstruction South, the daughters of missionaries. Their lives in turn led me to others—to the pugnacious evangelical preacher Billy Sunday; to Roger Baldwin, the force behind the nascent civil liberties movement during a time of repression; to Woodrow Wilson, who had been the brothers’ professor at Princeton, and who become President, and who led the nation into the First World War.

The oldest brother, Norman, who was my great-grandfather, emerged as the central figure in the story. It may seem strange that the making of a Socialist, a journey that took him to the margins of American history, might have something to say to us now, but it does. The debates (if not the answers) in which he was engaged are still at the center of the American experience: the responsibilities of the individual and the state, political versus economic liberties, pragmatism versus principle, the role of religion, war as an instrument, civil liberties, and dangerous enemies. Norman and his brothers spoke and acted with conviction, sympathy, anger, and humor, as well as a sense of adventure, that resonate across the space of a century. They had a moral lucidity that seems difficult to imagine in a more diverse, post-Freudian age, but one that should not be dismissed. There is something remarkable to me about the drama of their lives during those years, something worth recovering. They knew that something was at stake. The Great War was the greatest global struggle the world had so far seen, one that followed and precipitated social upheaval across the world. The Thomas brothers’ history is a part of that history, which is a part of our own.

--Louisa Thomas

Photo of Louisa Thomas © Joe Mikos

About the Author

Louisa Thomas has written for the New York Times Book Review, Newsweek, Vogue,  and other publications. She lives in New York. Norman Thomas was her great-grandfather.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin; 1st edition (June 2, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159420294X
• ISBN-13: 978-1594202940
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #722,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating book June 4, 2011

By Suzanne

Format:Hardcover

I started this book with little knowledge of this historical period and was immediately riveted. The book focuses primarily on a domestic drama--one that bears on one of the most pivotal events of the last century. It reminded me of Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club in the sense that it had a beautiful, narrative style--a small cast of players who emerge as fully-formed characters and as intellectual figures, deeply embedded in the questions of the time--and you leave the book with a visceral sense of the ethos of a particular era. What moved and impressed me most was the way that the author kept coming back to the ideal of belief--or, rather, the thing that precedes belief: the desire to believe. Evan Thomas is so desperate to believe in something--to do good, to make himself useful, to prove to himself that he has a conscience and can act on it--that he essentially removes himself from a society. It made me think about the blurry boundary between dedication to a cause and solipsism or vanity. When does social altruism become a form of self-preoccupation? The book is also very funny! Wonderful glimpses into early ivy culture and vivid, eloquent descriptions of the political leaders of the day.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Courage in diferent forms June 15, 2011

By Matthew K Martin

Format:Hardcover

I devoured this book. A great story of brothers taking very different paths but reflecting similar courage. You don't have to be a socialist or a pacifist to admire how these men stood up for what they believed in, despite their privileged background. I look forward to reading more from Ms. Thomas!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful June 8, 2011

By Anne E. Muratori

Format:Kindle Edition

A beautiful book. The political and spiritual field of pre WWI America comes alive through the experiences of four brothers. Thomas tracks the formation of the Socialist leader, her great grandfather, with honesty, subtlety and an uncommon insight into the power of our intimate relationships in forming public selves.