John Reed, “The Unpopular War,” Seven Arts, August 1917, interviewing a group of Council of National Defense officials about the US involvement in an ensuing unpopular World War:
The aviation enthusiast spoke up, lying on his back and blowing expensive cigar smoke at the ceiling.
“Do you know what is needed? Only one thing–the same that did the trick for England. Casualties. At first it was impossible to interest the English masses in the war; they could not be made to see that it was their affair. But when the lists of the dead, wounded, mutilated, began to come back–and, by the way, England ought to be grateful for the German atrocities–then hatred of the Germans began to soak into the whole people from the families of the wounded and the dead. This social anger is patriotism–for war purposes.
‘If I had the job of popularizing this war, I would begin by sending three or four thousand American soldiers to certain death. That would wake the country up.’
It is safe to say that this is the same caliber of people as those who running America’s govt a century later.
