A pastor, a president, and the Liberty Bonds

Mark Bushnell records an interesting vignette  on which I have relied for some of the facts in this post.

Windsor, Vermont, prospered in 1917 as the First World War provided a market for its machine tool factory’s products, and prosperity breeds loyalty in troubled times.

Perhaps President Woodrow Wilson’s opportunism tuned in on burgeoning patriotism and counted on it to push his war bonds, the so-called Liberty Bonds. President Wilson declared October 21, 1917, Liberty Loan Sunday. The President expected the nation’s pastors to preach patriotism that day, and to urge their congregants to buy Liberty Bonds to fund the war.

Pastor Clarence Waldron of First Baptist Church of Windsor, was a Pentecostal Baptist minister with pacifist convictions. He preached the Gospel on Liberty Loan Sunday, and made no mention of Liberty Bonds. It was too bad for Liberty loans, because Pastor Waldron drew crowds when he preached.

There was a heated confrontation; Pastor Waldron’s patriotism was questioned. This was not a good thing in the political environment of the day. The Espionage Act had been passed that June, and one of its broad provisions was to make it a crime to “promote the success” of the enemies of the United States. Conviction under this provision could bring a penalty of death or up to 30 years’ imprisonment. Another provision was “to cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or to wilfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States.” This provision was punishable with a fine and up to 20 years’ imprisonment.

Pastor Waldron’s anti-war sentiments fueled some already leaping flames; his Pentecostalism didn’t sit well with many Baptists. Perhaps his lack of war fervor spurred the momentum for his church’s board to fire him for doctrinal causes. He continued to hold meetings in his home.

The wheels of justice turned more swiftly in those days. On December 21, 1917, a grand jury indicted Pastor Waldron under the Espionage Act, citing testimony from parishioners that he had made unpatriotic statements and tried to dissuade some young men of the church from enlisting in the Armed Forces. In his defense, Pastor Waldron said he had made such comments before the United States entered the war, prior to passage of the Espionage Act.

Two trials ensued. The jury in the first failed to reach a verdict. The judge in the second excluded testimony referring to religious differences. The judge sentenced Waldron to 15 years in prison.

 Apparently Pastor Waldron believed that all killing violated the Sixth Commandment, and that war was no exception. Many of us would find this misguided and unscriptural.  In any case, God’s mercy prevailed, and Pastor Waldron was pardoned by President Wilson after serving one year of his sentence, the war having already ended.

Did President Wilson’s Liberty Bonds bring victory and peace to the world? The five total issues, four of Liberty Bonds and a final Victory Bond, raised over $19 billion, according to an analysis by Hugh Rockoff (see p. 30). 

Rockoff points out that the real motive of the bonds was to promote citizen involvement in the war, and the fact that “everyone was doing it” (Ibid., p.25). Germany and Britain were issuing war bonds.  Commentators agree that it wasn’t about the money; it was about making America “war-minded.”

“World War I, President Wilson and his Treasury Secretary, William McAdoo, made a major effort not only to increase taxes, which they did, but had the wartime bond drive they called Liberty Bond drive to get people engaged. And they had bonds that were very small denominations. So it wasn’t so much about the money, although they obviously had to raise a lot, it was to get the average American, including school children with these stamps that they would buy and they’d stick them in a book and they’d buy a bond after they’ve got $5.

“Clearly it is about raising money, because in a war you need a lot of money to pay the troops and get equipment and supplies. But it’s about something else, and it’s about engaging Americans in the war effort; calling upon them to make some sacrifices, calling on them to suffer some degree of economic inconvenience, in a way. In a curious sense that brings people into the war effort. It makes the country more war-minded, or at least more supportive of the troops abroad.” Source: Larry Korb, Fellow of the Center for American Progress.

Pastor Waldron was one of more than 900 Americans convicted under the Espionage Act. Whether the Act was Constitutionally overbroad is as irrelevant today as whether the Patriot Act is Constitutionally overbroad: it was the law.

And the law of the day made it possible for a court to find Pastor Waldron guilty of not being war-minded.