The perils of a public intellectual - George W. Hartmann - Experts in the Service of Social Reform: SPSSI, Psychology, and Society, 1936-1996

Journal of Social Issues, Spring, 1998 by Benjamin Harris

In many ways, Hartmann seemed the perfect choice to lead this group and convey its demand that the Allied governments negotiate a peace with Germany and Japan. As a propagandist, he was at his best exposing the hypocrisy of his opponents. During World War II, that was not difficult, given the political compromises required for the war's pursuit. As Hartmann pointed out, the Allies were not fighting for a set of principles (e.g., anti-fascism, national liberation) as much as for a single goal: to defeat their enemy. This provided pacifists and the PNM much to decry within the war effort, from the racial segregation of the U.S. military to the colonial ambitions of Britain and its European allies (Hartmann, 1942d).

As he had done as a Socialist candidate in New York, Hartmann articulated this message in concise, hard-hitting speeches, pamphlets, and press releases. In both his rhetoric and speaking style he conveyed the same moral imperative that had marked his work in the Socialist Party, SPSSI, and the progressive education movement. The result, according to the FBI and U.S. military intelligence, was that he "[emerged] as the dominant leader of the peace propagandists in the United States and has become their most effective spokesman. . . . On the platform he is artful and often dramatic. . . . He has a forceful, impressive personality and is affable and quick-witted" (U.S. Army, 1944, pp. 1-2). As pacifist Rosika Schwimmer-Lloyd (1944) exclaimed to a friend, "It is a thousand pities that the Campaign for World Government never had the funds to employ a man like this. His sincere enthusiasm, his physical appearance - have you ever met him? - I think over 6 feet, a picture of health, with a booming voice and a window shaking laughter; his oratorical ability!" (p. 1).

Unfortunately for Hartmann, his Peace Now campaigning suffered from three essential weaknesses. First, to the non-pacifist, non-socialist public, his professorial style would soon become a liability. Where before he had used it to distance himself from the personalities and pettiness of urban politics, most people now viewed the U.S. war effort as neither petty nor personalized. As a result, his dispassionate, social scientist approach was easily caricatured as ivory-tower abstentionism in a time of moral peril. Before, Hartmann's wire-rimmed glasses, honest suit, and upright posture contrasted with the image of the shifty-eyed politician skulking around in flashy clothes. Now a hostile press could use Hartmann's professorial demeanor and credentials to make him look bookish, aloof, and obstinately impractical.

Second, Hartmann's call for a negotiated peace enraged militarists and pacifists alike. Militarists knew that the Allies were united only by the goal of defeating the Axis, rather than agreeing to a political program to be furthered by a limited engagement. As a result, they correctly saw Hartmann's slogan of "negotiated peace" as a threat to the entire war effort. Though Hartmann understood that intellectually, he was unprepared for the result: a united front of pro-war forces - from Communists to conservative Republicans - created for the single goal of destroying the Peace Now Movement.