Pacifists often find solidarity in helping children. In his remarks, William Allen White addresses a tea of presumably wealthy New Yorkers to convince them to provide some form of contribution to his relief organization, The Spanish Child Welfare Association. The rhetoric of his message focuses upon delivering an emotional account of the destitute conditions of Spanish children and the similarities between the Spanish and American children. The nature of this appeal, and its racialized rhetoric, provides insight to the problematic race discourses of the early twentieth century. The pathos contained in this address frames Spain itself as a wounded, infantile, and helpless body of souls tormented by unparalleled suffering which may only be amended through the aid of philanthropic volunteers. This does not undermine the heroic efforts of their peace testimonies, although it does reveal something of the complicated nature of the way in which Northern Europe and the United States related to Spain in the 1930s.
The Nationalist aerial bombings during the Spanish Civil War displaced thousands of innocent civilians, creating a massive influx of refugees into the cities, resulting in severe food shortages for residents and refugees. This pamphlet, Winter in Spain, created by the Friends Service Council in England to raise funds for Spain, illustrates the Quakers’ attempt to neutrally alleviate Spanish suffering. They did so by providing essential goods and organizing food distribution canteens for both Republican and Nationalist areas. However, their mission was severely limited by funds. This pamphlet uses the pathos of innocent children to make readers empathize with Spain’s suffering, making them more likely to donate. The pamphlet illustrates their success, “More than 4,000 children are given a hot breakfast,” in order to assure the reader that their money makes a difference and is not wasted. These success claims are juxtaposed with the point that despite the success, there is still “no fuel in Madrid” and more relief could be provided, prompting the reader to donate.
Quakers from the United States and Britain assisted the relief work for children during the Spanish Civil War. This pamphlet, published in London in 1938 by the Friends Service Council, is one of the fund-raising propaganda leaflets sent to British populations. In order to provoke sympathy and a sense of responsibility from the British people, who were physically outside of the war and whose country had declared a “non-intervention” policy, this pamphlet includes statistics of how a small amount of donations could have a major impact, as well as photos of happy children benefiting from relief work. While the statistics reminded people of the value of their help and thus their responsibility to help, the hopeful eyes of the children in the photos leads both British audiences and contemporary readers in the United States alike to appreciate the real meanings of Quaker relief work: besides the material benefits, it is the invaluable warmth and love that brought hope to the war-ravaged nation.
The Spanish Civil War marked a new period of modern warfare, as we can see through observing the pamphlets that were used to spread awareness of the war and the actions the Quakers were taking to aid those suffering. This pamphlet, written by Dr. Richard Ellis, focuses on the everyday influence of war on Spanish society. This reading speaks to the notion of total war, a concept addressed by Paul Saint-Amour in Tense Future. His work is mainly concerned with exploring the definition of total war as war affecting “political, economic, and cultural domains.” Extending upon the purview outlined by Saint-Amour, the pamphlets are able to speak to the mentality of civilians once such merciless war had become the standard of life. Specifically, Dr. Ellis retells the comments of a refugee he had encountered. The refugee said that “the war... taught him you could be constantly cold in bright sunshine and feel tired before the day’s work had started.” His remarks highlight that the totality of war affected normal routines for extended periods of time, thereby extending and reshaping our understanding of absolute warfare. This is crucial to explore because for those lucky enough to live, total war wasn’t one passing moment of panic, but rather, in the case of Spain, three years of heavy mental and physical deterioration.
Can peace ever be stable when injustice exists, and is just violence even possible? This poster, created by the London Quaker Friends in 1938, propels us to the heart of such questions by instantly equating peace and justice. Yet the Quakers were not alone in making this association. Virginia Woolf connects these ideas by setting women’s rights (justice) as a precondition for preventing war (peace). Langston Hughes argues the inextricability of communism (which he views as the path to peace) and racial equality (justice). Muriel Rukeyser shows that giving war victims a voice (justice) is an ethical undertaking in her quest for peace in Spain. Like the Quakers, these authors all worked within a field now called “positive peace”: exploring how to construct a world not only free of war, but where societies and institutions actively promote justice for all, thus generating a lasting peace.
Northern Friends Peace Board and the Friends Peace Committee
World that Cried Woolf Curatorial Poster