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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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June 2, 2006
by Gordon Francis Corbett
Of all famous Americans of the twentieth Century, few have excited such adulation and controversy as did Colonel Charles Augustus Lindbergh. The adulation came from his famous first solo flight from New York to Paris in 1927. The controversy resulted from his opposing President Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts to have the United States join Great Britain in its war with Germany. Lindbergh made many speeches before the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor, but the one that generated the greatest hatred was his address at Des Moines, Iowa, on 11 September 1941. Although interesting and exciting, and containing important facts and truths, this speech included some bad mistakes. Colonel Lindbergh asserted, "if it were not for her hope that she can make us responsible for the war financially as well as militarily, I believe that England would have negotiated a peace in Europe many months ago, and be better off for doing so." Wrong. If, in 1939, Britain could have declared war on the Kaiser's German Empire or the Weimar Republic, making peace in 1940 or 1941 might have been smart; but the Munich Pact's aftermath had shown that trusting Adolf Hitler was stupid. Colonel Lindbergh said that Jews dominated our news and entertainment media, but Lindbergh biographer A. Scott Berg showed that Jews' membership on communications companies' boards of directors was far too small to permit such control. These errors were bad, but they pale into insignificance alongside two others: a philosophical mistake and a forensic gaffe. Take the philosophical mistake. About the powerful few urging American intervention, Colonel Lindbergh asserted, "...these war agitators comprise only a small amount of our people..." who had "...marshalled the power of their propaganda, their money, [and] their patronage..." "...against the determination of the American people to stay out of war." In other words, because the interventionists were few, their using their power was wrong; and, implicitly, because the non-interventionists were many, their reluctance was right. This statement illustrates a fallacy called, "majoritarianism." Majoritarianism says that public support legitimates an ethical position. The truth is that in ethics, even if ninety-nine point nine nine per cent favor an ethically incorrect idea, it will remain wrong. During a lynch-mob's rampage, the one dissenting vote is still right. The forensic gaffe was that in naming "war agitators," Lindbergh recommended frustrating advocates of victims. Hitler's war was unjustifiable, and its separate acts formed a roll of crimes practically infinite in length. Everybody listening to Lindbergh knew those facts. Even avid non-interventionists sympathized with Hitler's victims, and the wrongheadedness and insensitivity of Lindbergh's arguments reminded even his fans that they rejected appeals from human beings who needed help. Part of the debate between Roosevelt and Lindbergh centered around rights, which both men believed collective entities could own. Roosevelt asserted that saving Britain would protect "us"; Lindbergh said that strengthening our Armed Forces would protect "us." Too, both discussed collective need. Roosevelt said that "we" had a moral duty to rescue Hitler's victims. Lindbergh replied that "we" had no such duty, and that "we" should look after ourselves. These arguments gave Americans two unpleasant choices: following Roosevelt to a war alien to their interests, or following Lindbergh to "save their own skins." The result was confusion. Most Americans favored giving Britain "Lend-Lease" war goods, but no more than twenty per cent wanted to send soldiers, sailors, and airmen. As such, collective entities have no rights; but, individuals do. Every human being has exactly the same as every other. It is those rights that our Constitution was written to defend, and its unqualified strictures forbid our public guardians' violating them to ensure their security. How well did they keep their oaths of office? Here is an argument addressing that topic from individual's rights. Consider one individual American. So that they could protect his rights, he allowed his public guardians to tax him. Their accepting his money constituted a promise to supply that protection. Supposedly to give their protection teeth, they took more of his money to buy weapons and to hire men to use them. Instead, his Congress and his president used some of his money for "Lend-Lease": to help one foreign power fight another with which our country was not at war. Worse, despite the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition of conscription, they used more of his money to draft him. They trashed his rights; and when they did, they trashed their oaths, the Constitution, and the rights of every American. If, on 11 September 1941, Colonel Lindbergh had delivered an argument like this one, he would have persuaded more Americans to oppose intervention, and he would have built their confidence in America First. He would have broadcast ideas that his listeners could have used on their Representatives, their Senators, and even President Roosevelt. It is tantalizing to wonder what they might have achieved. I regret Colonel Lindbergh's post-war political metamorphosis. Lindbergh biographer A. Scott Berg hypothesized that it resulted from seeing the horror of Hitler's crimes, and from knowing that our joining Britain sooner might have saved some of Hitler's victims. Berg may be wrong. Dr. Wayne S. Cole says that in a post-war interview, Lindbergh reiterated the rightness of our abstention from the European war. The true cause may have been the Colonel's belief in collectively owned rights. We must not let the mistakes Lindbergh made on 11 September 1941 distort our perspective. Bad though they were, they cannot negate the overall good that he did in his other speeches and studio radio addresses. He rallied our people as practically no one else could have done. He said what most people thought, but were afraid to say. He drew them to their feet and opened their mouths. Colonel Lindbergh's pre-war learning was in medical engineering and aeronautics, not philosophy. Nevertheless, he defied men of immense academic prowess to defend Americans' rights as he saw them. If we had lived in those scary days before Pearl Harbor, we could scarcely have asked more of him, or of ourselves. I thank him for having done his best.
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