NARRATOR
Helen Keller is presented to American schoolchildren as an extraordinary person who overcame blindness and deafness and became internationally famous. What our schools do not say about Helen Keller is that she was a socialist, a radical, that she opposed war and militarism, that she walked on picket lines. But she had to deal with charges that she was incompetent to judge such issues because of her disabilities. The editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, who had once praised her lavishly, changed his mind when she declared herself a socialist. She wrote a letter to the newspaper in response, addressing it: “Poor blind Eagle….” Here she speaks in Carnegie Hall, on the eve of America’s entrance into World War I.
HELEN KELLER
We are facing a grave crisis in our national life. The few who profit from the labor of the masses want to organize the workers into an army which will protect the interests of the capitalists. You are urged to add to the heavy burdens you already bear the burden of a larger army and many additional warships. It is in your power to refuse….
We are not preparing to defend our country—we have no enemies foolhardy enough to attempt to invade the United States.
Yet, everywhere, we hear fear advanced as argument for armament.
Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors in Mexico, South America, China, and the Philippine Islands.
Every modern war has had its root in exploitation.
The preparedness propagandists have still another object, and a very important one. They want to give the people something to think about besides their own unhappy condition.
Every few days we are given a new war scare to lend realism to their propaganda.
They are taught that brave men die for their country’s honor. What a price to pay for an abstraction—the lives of millions of young men; other millions crippled and blinded for life; existence made hideous for still more millions of human beings; the achievement and inheritance of generations swept away in a moment—and nobody better off for all the misery!
Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.