SOURCE: Gronowicz, Anthony. Introduction to Oswald Garrison Villard: The Dilemmas of the Absolute Pacifist in Two World Wars, edited by Anthony Gronowicz, pp. vii-xxi. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1983.

In the following essay, Gronowicz details how Villard used the pages of his newspapers to advance his own fundamental goals, especially that of pacificism.

Oswald Garrison Villard was owner and editor of the New York Evening Post and The Nation during the first half of the twentieth century. His career as a pacifist paralleled the buildup of the American military from a minor auxiliary of the state to the “military-industrial complex”¹ that dominates the economy of today.

The arms buildup began in the 1890's when private American enterprises encouraged government policymakers to develop a strong military, using the argument that national security required protection of foreign markets. Until that time, with the exception of the Civil War, the United...