reinforcements are being moved into strategic locations as part of a new strategy in this frustrating war. this is not a force -- this is not to force a showdown with the reds but 80 chance to show that the u.s. wants to contain the war. air squadrons are transferred leaders of both parties united behind the president to carry out our commitments to defeppedz worlddefeppedz -- to defend world responsibilities. >> it is our responsibility to render military action to force whose military strength who is as vast and awesome as those of

the united states of america. it is my considered conviction shared through our government that is inactionible for detective inaccessible for peace. it will always be measured. its nation is peace. >> history bookshelf features popular writers and airs every weekend at this time. next louisa thomas recounts the life of her great grand forenorman thomas. theythe thomas brothers had

conflicting views of the war raging from soldiers in the war to pacifist norman. the author discusses her family's history with jonathan meacham. this summer marks the 100th anniversary of the start of world war i. >> thank you to the museum, which has in a relatively short time has become such an important part in the city. you hear about it in the south and they are instrughted that not everything is tenement so they can look and see what it used to be like. congratulations to louisa who has written, i think, a wonderful book. a deeply researched and engagely

written account of her own family, which is not always an ease thing to do. i want to start with specific questions and we're going to read a couple of things and then there will be socialist jeopardy to keep her going. we'll start with why this book now? >> as you mentioned, it is a family story but it is also a story about an american family and a time at war and a time when the country was going through major cultural, picture call social, economic uphelve. theupuphere heaval. it looks different than today than it did in the beginning. during the war -- when world war

i began americans associated it with going to the post office. four years later -- the united states enters the war and suddenly millions of men are being drafted millions of men see their government in a much different light and they were forced to reckon with what is their obligation to their country is, what are sons and daughters obligations to their parents are, in a way they hadn't 20 years before. of course, these questions didn't just arise on a day. they were planted in a few decades that had come before. you know, i think it is hard for us to realize just how striking

were the changes in the beginning of the 20th century. at the same time, we face these questions all the time. we are also a country at war. we are also debating these questions of, you know, to what extent should we be committing our resources and our citizens' lives and our money and our time and faith, not only to the government but to our fellow citizens. the way -- because change is so extreme and the transition was so violent literally and figuratively, they had to reconcile these questions. in looking at how hay did that, we can see how these questions

in our own life. >> when you think of the era through t.r. through wilson, so the start of the turn of the century, ever more rapid industrialization. the movement that gives the resolution that is ratified and increased by the new deal. you have, as you say selective service system that engaged the broader population when conflict came up. would you say that might be the most striking difference in terms of the issue that got all four of these brothers involved? it was as though today we get to choose whether or not we're interested in serving. then it was not so much a choice and you were confronted much

more directly with a decision do you fight? do you not fight? do you find alternative ways to serve? is the cause just? do you think these brothers given some other choice if they have been out of the context would have dealt with the same issues? >> i think that is an excellent question. the fact that the draft did xises at that time was a fun thing for the brothers to reckon with the conflict that they don't have to. >> today? >> yeah, today. i never wondered if i was going to have to go toward to war for my country. it is not something that crossed my mind. i think that saw that war was very real and it required a kind

of engagement and commitment that surpassed what they have to do or didn't want they have to do. norman thomas was older than the draft age. he was a clergyman, he had a large family who depended on him. he did haven't to engage in a process that tested whether or not this country should be doing what it is doing. he chose to. but he chose to because so many people didn't have the choice. he thought there was something odd about that. there is an interesting story behind the fact to call the selective story. there was some debate over whether or not there was the draft. there was some debate if if they

would send soldiers to europe. after a war declaration when a congressmen -- they were testifying in front of congress on what resources they would need. they said they will need soldiers and he said my, god you're not going to send soldiers to europe and nobody corrected him. congress was rejecting the draft as a measure. there was a man who was a journalist who was one of the first people wilson called after his decision to go toward. he set up an organization called the committee and public

organization. he was brilliant. >> he does not sound like one. >> one of the things that he suggested doing was calling it selective service because selective, you know, appeals to the kind of sincible lead sincible -- sensible lead. wilson gave a speech early on when he announced the draft date that said this is no way of a subscription of the unwilling. it is rather -- i think i don't remember the exact phrase but it is the decision of people who have volunteered. the fact when they decided to implement the draft they put up

posters that said you can enlist, you can join a group that will be called up later or you will be deemed to have enlisted. >> let's talk about the brothers. put them in context at the beginning of your story. who are they? where are they? what is going on? >> there are four thomas brothers. norman thomas is the oldest. all four brothers went to princeton. they were a son of a press presbyterian minister. norman went to princeton where he loved debates. he knew woodrow wilson there and took every class he would with woodrow wilson. he went to work in spring

street, across the island where he was exposed to extreme degradation. that is not what radicalized him. there was some movement at the time called a social gospel movement, which held the point that christianity was not just to enter heaven but to establish a kingdom of god on earth. this is mainline protestant thinking. so tons of young men coming out of the middle class and extremists and they were obligated to make this world a better place. pretty liberal seminary at the request of his father. he goes to work at a very fancy

church on fifth avenue, marries a social socialite. looks like he is heading towards to living a comfortable life. they decide to move to east harlem and work with the hung investigatorhungarians. the country is just coming off its explosion of immigrants that have come into the country. i think a third of the tourists at the time were second generation americans. that's when he sort of started to see that the way the country was organized was not sustainable or justice and things needed to change. he started down that path and the war is what pushed him over. ralph, the second brother also went to princeton.

he became an engineer, quite conservative. very happy to, you know, live a good life and be fair to others and, you know, he was one of the late victorian young men. when he enlisted he came a captain in the army. the third brother was much more tortured. there was a lot of hypocritical self satisfaction involved. when the war broke out in europe he went to study in scotland. he came back over to when the

united states entered the war and constantly had to push the boundary of what was acceptable to show what he was true to himself and fighting for freedom and keeping some kind of life for liberty life. the youngest, arthur, was less sure of what to do. struggled in princeton. didn't know what he wanted to do. thought about being a missionary. >> you have these three mighty oaks in front of you, it is hard to get out of bed in the morning. [laughter] >> his mother sent hill a letter saying why do you think there is no place in princeton for a boy such as you? he was not sure of the world but he was not ready to go to prison

to protect it. he is a lot more like most of us. >> there must have been a mama. >> there was. she was pretty exor extraordinary. she grew up in sigh siam. she went on to marry a minister and had a conventional life in ohio with a big brood of kids and involved until church causes. she was maybe the most interesting person to me in some ways. she struggled to negotiate between our children as her views were being challenged by them. >> so talk about norman in -- walk us through the real crisis that the brothers faced as a

question of surfaced. >> norman became a pacifist at the end of 1916, so right before the united states entered the war. he became involved in some organizations, american union against militarism was the most prominent one. that was -- [unintelligible]. he sort of working and they went through political channels and grass root organizations. evan didn't believe in politics. he was more level headed and he just wanted to -- i mean, he had a martyr streak in him. he decided to come back to the united states and take a stand.

ralph believed he was fighting the call for the fight for freedom. arthur went back and forth whether he wanted to enlist and become an officer. he wanted to be a fighter pilot. he was adventurous. he wanted to prove himself too. >> arthur was my favorite. i relate the most with him. why don't you read this? >> ok. conflict can be a problematic notion. it is easy to see how it becoming dangerous. a group of right-wing germans the nazi party. it can create egotism and who

said to thy self be true. it can create responsibility, which means doing what is possible even though it is not perfectly light. >> how did that wonderful definition of conscious play out for norman? >> it is funny. after norman established himself as a leader in social party daniel bell wrote an essay about him. there are famous distinctions between ethics of responsibility. the problem with thomas is he lived his life -- he thought the state should have an ethics of conscious. i don't think that is fair. i think he is more alert to the

compromises that a government is supposed to make. i think the story of the brothers does illustrate the limits and dangers of thinking too much about how to be true to yourself instead of what obligations you have to other people. that was something that norman was left with at the time. after a hunger strike, he wrote evan a letter in which he said no man listens to himself. the real challenge is to live among other people and to fight for might and to make sure they have the opportunities that you have so they,, too, can be true to themselves. he basically had -- he was coming out of the, you know,

protestant background in which certain amount was ultimate statement of ethics. it was a balancing act. how do you live according to your conscious? they talked about freedom of conscious. so the idea is that everyone has the freedom to act. you can't be a nazi, basically. it was something they were able to define and you can't. they could never solve some of the problems they faced but they thought you had to engage in them. >> would norman thomas' legacy be a culture of freedom of conscious or more specifically more towards of what we think of nonviolence and attempting to

make gentle the life of this world? it is avoiding violence at all costs. >> norman was not a pacifist his whole life. i don't think you have to make an either or or statement. what is force if not imposing your will on another person? >> there is defense. >> there is defense, too. >> that whole world war ii thing, you know. >> there is the whole world war ii thing. i also think that, yeah, he was a lone soul.

he was involved in a number of nuclear disarmaments and a number of causes that i spoke to speak to both sides of the issue. >> he became -- his pacifism was suspended after pearl harbor? >> yeah, it was a moot point at that point. he had seen too much of some kind of ugly leaders fascism in this country. he worried that in light of the great depression, that one, this country would lead to fascism here. we kind of hear that in can't believe it is the greatest generation. they would never -- fashion nism wouldfascismwould never occur here.

>> the one story i grew up knowing about norman thomas involves a conversation with franklin roosevelt. do you want to tell the story? >> sure. [laughter] >> you knew this was coming. >> i knew this was coming. so one of norman's causes in the 1930's was he was working on behalf of the sharecroppers who were being murdered and lynched. laws were being passed that they could not meet in groups and there was driveby shooting and when they tried to unionized it got worse. he lad been forced out of town

with men with shotguns and he was writing letter after letter saying you have to do something. he says roosevelt you have to do something. roosevelt looks across the desk and says you know what norman i'm a damn better politician than you are. i know the people and we have to wait. there are people who are doing great work down there and it is going to take time. norman was saying you can't wait. this is what, the you know, response of passist would say you can't wait. you can't let this go on. that was his response to what was happening in the south. ultimately things did change and it did take a lot of time but you can say maybe the climate in the 1930's and the

climate would not allow him to change things but a lot of bad things happened in the south. >> one of the things that f.d.r.'s own social conscious conscious was awakened and it was a farcy that they were able to project those values doe mostically. how do you -- where do you come out on the issue of the limits of politics but the demands of justice? no one would argue now that because of reconstruction, because of the institution of jim crow because of the robber barons in the north and the economic depression that many, many social reforms should have happened earlier.

many, many social reforms that should happen right now will not because there is another man in the white house who also believes he is a better politician than anyone who wanders in. that is an occupational hazard for people behind the desk. where do you come out? is this a moment in history or is it a point where individuals make this difference. >> she liked to say if she weren't married to the man in the what she would have -- white house she would have gone for norman thomas. maybe nor norman was too. he was pushing her and she was pushing him. i think it is much more organic than you can never point to

someone and say here's the difference. but i do think that politics is messy. we make painful compromises all the time. nothing works according to plan. everythingithey got into a fight with norman about politics. he said i don't understand the moves you're making. don't you understand that the state is going to respond to the president and democracy over responsibility according to the major. norman says we're not level headed. we're doing all sorts of things. you know, do i think that norman was an effective socialist?

o effective politician as a socialist? i think f.d.r. was a better politician than norman. i think there was a place for norman in the american political system yeah, absolutely. do i think there should be more of those, i think so. i think that the help of the democracy requires the open exchanges of the ideas and the kind of battles that he and norman and his friends about do you try to get a seat at the table? what is the best way to get your point across to do justice? we just maybe aren't as noisy about them as people want. >> that is a question i want to

ask you about generational responsibility. do you think your great grandfather's generation that the media and political landscape give him a bigger voice as a socialist candidate as a figure of almost always of descent than we are currently able to give voices outside the mainstream or does your generation that has created this thing called the inner web. is that going to open this up? >> well, that is a good point. the internet is opening up and also drowning it out. it is hard to say for sure. i do think that the american

political system does not do it so easily. they did more so in norman's time because socialism was a viable idea actually in the 1912. now if someone calls themselves a socialist they would be, you know, be considered evil or a nazi or whatever. >> or the recipient of a wall street bailout. >> or the recipient of a wall street bail out. so yeah, i think there is a little bit more generational complacency than there was in his generation maybe because, we don't have to go toward, maybe because it was just a smaller world. you could get access to the

president. you could -- it was just easier. >> it was smaller but we now know the things you don't want out have a tendency to get out. why isn't there in this highly educated highly affluent generation a higher level of social engagement in a way that we would recognize as a level from early part of the century? >> i hear people say there is more than meets the eye. i think that you can make an argument that people are involved in kind of community projects to a degree but it might not be interesting to in

politics but they might be interested in starting companies that have renewable energy impacts or things like that, which have social ends. i think that you're -- one of your early questions is probably the answer that it is not a kind of demand upon my generation that there once was. there is no draft. even taxes are not very high. there is not much is asked of us. in a way we're reverting into a way that our own interaction is with the federal government is the d.m.v. or your passport. i don't think this is -- you know, i'm not saying we should do the draft again. >> i think we should. >> ok, that is a different

debate. it is an interesting debate, i think. there are compelling arguments made for it. i think we ask a lot of our servicemen and i think the recruitment process is kind of nagnarley. >> reading the book, i kept coming back to here are these brothers in a thoroughly engaged time and a president who had trouble with congress but managed to suspend civil liberties and get his way. does this sound somewhat familiar?

but one difference that kept coming back to my mind was because there is not a draft because there is not a possibility that the upper middle class can be in harm's way then it becomes slightly epidemic. if we had approaches of the vietnam era draft with all of the exceptions that you serve at home. that happened, is there anyone who believes that we would have been iraq passed 2004 or believes that we would still be in afghanistan? >> i think this is a debate we can actually have because you can make an argument but at the same time, it is the kind of epidemic question that i don't think it is going to happen.

>> your great grandfather would have to say we do have to have the academic arguments. >> don't go playing f.d.r. >> yeah, you know, i think one of the things to remember about the brothers a and why i think looking at the stories is valuable because they were working out how to answer the questions. there was an urgency because there are new questions. these are questions we don't feel the kind of tension between the responsibility as an individual, your responsibility as a citizen ethics versus morality. these are sound terms but when it came down to are you going to die for your country? are you going to change society in such a way that it is an as

equal and it is not as unjust. we have huge structural politics in this country. i think poverty in children is 22%, second to mexico. there are big things going on and they are not questions that we wake up and think about. i certainly don't and i don't have to. i'm lucky, you know, i'm lucky i get to live my life and pursue my opportunities and do what i want to do. it is not for everyone. >> i bring this up because i find the book compelling -- the book raises the issues in a compelling and difficult way which is a difficult thing to do.

i think people would find this resinating and unfolding around the news now and forever more. i'm going to ask you to read this and we'll take questions from you all. >> right or wrong, he loved his family? in 1941 while norman was speaking out against the united states entry into the world war ii, his son volunteered to drive ambulances for the british. just before he shipped out in november 1941, norman sent him a letter. in a cruel and ugly world you never made -- you made -- you have chosen one for you. more than i can tell you we should be missing you and loving you and wishing for the external good fortune.

despite our foleys that men are made for better things. it will be a great happiness to carry a watch until you return to claim it. he was my second grandfather and i have that watch now. it is a reminder of more than just a father's love for his family, it is a desire for a you know manage's fight for freedom. >> louisa thomas, thank you. [applause] now we have instructions, which you must follow. >> the people have questions they can come up here for them.

>> this gentleman has been taking notes so that is never a good sign. >> can you talk about norman's inspiration at all by the work of john reed? >> sure, john reed is more -- john reed what we did not mention is there was a russian revolution in 1917. john reed like many liberals across the world was hugely inspired by this. so was walter whitman and woodrow wilson. in woodrow wilson's war address is how we treat russia will be a test of democracy. i think norman became -- norman was not kind of as inspired by

the utopian project as john reed was. i didn't consider it -- [unintelligible]. when he applied for the socialist party he wrote a letter explaining why he was really kind of not for the socialist party. he said try living in the midwest. i feel like the socialist party is not always respected in the liberties. i fear any state whether capitalist or socialist that claims to have any control over the work of men. it was returned to him because he had not filled out the other side. so i think he -- i actually --

if he knew john reed, i don't know at this point in time. he knew people who who we were socialists and part of that. reed started tragic in his own way and because norman started with a different path. >> to what extent that what has been going over in europe for three years. would that send a bad influence as opposed to what he thank you and arthur. >> sure, it was huge.

world war i was unbelievable. 1.8 million germans, 1.7 million russians, 1.4 million frenchmen i mean the deaths were astonishing. even in the u.s., the u.s. lost about 50,000 but really the fighting only lasted six months. they were losing 820 men a day. that is just unbelievable. evan was over in scotland and in london a little bit. he thought he saw men come home without limbs and things like that and also what it was like to be in london where the bombs are flying. but every man responds to violence and every culture responds to violence in

different ways. he was wounded on the front but he remained a proud of what he had done and did and thought it was the right thing until the end of the war. i think that they were well aware of how devastating the violence was but i don't think it drove them one way or the other. but the extremity of the violence is one of the reasons why they thought they had to be fighting for something greater. it would only be a just war and the loss of life would only be justified if something so great would emerge. that is also why, one of the reasons why it was so hard to give it up.

>> anything else? >> hey louisa. i want to jump off of what you just said. i'm curious how much the civil war was in the imagination of the brothers, especially the fact that the mother was if her own parents were ablow,ments and this is protestant of mortality within that protestant church. they would have been leading the brigades in certain ways. so your point, if this much violence is worth if there is a i here moral cause. they don't see that in world war i. do they talk about the civil war as a war that might have been in their consciousness at all?

the passist movement they drew heavy on the abolitionists. they were trying to eradicate war in the same way that slavery had been eradicated. they said it would be gradual and possible impossible. they said, look, it happens. war, too can be eradicated. the civil war is only a generation or two away in this time. he stood up over the debate on whether to go toward and he said i've seen war.

we cannot go toward i think there are certain historians that say every generation fights its own war. >> anything else? again, louisa, thank you. the book is "conscience"." >> on history bookshelf hear from the country's best known history writers from the past decade every saturday at 4:00 p.m. eastern. to watch these programs any time visit our website. you're watching american history tv all week, every weekend on c-span 3. >> each week american history tv's real america brings you archival films that help tell the story of the 20th century. next from the lyndon johnson's

presidential library a documentary produced by the office of economic opportunity. "the mexican american: a new focus on opportunity" depicts efforts to assist spanish-speaking americans as part of the war on poverty. the office of equal opportunity was established in 1964 and abolished in 1981 but many of the programs continue to the present day under many other federal agencies. >> ever since my teaching days in texas, i worked for the education and progress of the spanish-speaking people of this great country of ours. i knew many little boys just like juan. juan is a mexican american. you will notice i emphasize american. when i became president, i created the mexican affairs committee in 1967. that committee is made up of some of the ableist members of my cabinet. it is the highest level

committee that i could possibly name because the spanish-speaking people, i think need to get closer to their government and to get action from their government. >> we are bringing the government, so to speak, to the people than having the people come to the government. i have always felt that this was the better way. ♪ we're here for solutions and not just to have a sad report once again of the many, many problems. we're here to talk about opportunities and not just the

difficulties. this mexican american finds himself with an unemployment rate that has almost doubled the average for this area. that is not right. he suffers historic injustice. his children all too often attend segregated or semi segregated schools. they gather on the average five years less schooling than than southwestern children. our mexican americans have clearly determined that they will do whatever they must do to help themselves. there is one phrase and one word above all that characterizes america and what it means and what it stands for. not just freedom, not just liberty, not just wealth and power but the word that