Seek to Ban Einstein on Coast for Pacifist Speech

A suggestion that action be taken to prevent Professor Albert Einstein from visiting in California, because of his speech in New York in which he urged men of military age to refuse to fight as a means of preventing war, was made yesterday at a meeting of the Los Angeles branch of the American Legion. Prof. Einstein’s views on pacifism were attacked by Dr. A. D. Houghton, one of the organizers of the American Legion. At the close of Dr. Houghton’s speech some legionaires applauded, while others booed.

Prof. Einstein’s pacifist speech is also criticized in an editorial in yesterday’s New York Herald-Tribune, which says:

“All accounts agree that he advocated that 2 per cent of the population of military countries could stop war because the jails are not large enough to hold 2 per cent of the population. To comment on this nostrum is unnecessary and could only be unkind. The Einstein speech must be set down as a slightly undignified and rather turgid baying at the moon. The ‘monarch of the modern mind’ would do well to stay on his relativistic throne. It begins to totter when he leaves it”.

Pacifist and Socialist organizations of New York have on the other hand expressed praise for Einstein’s anti-war utterances. The War Resisters’ League of which the Rev. John Haynes Holmes is chairman, sent a message to Einstein which declared:

“The War Resisters’ League, the existing organization for militant pacifism in this country, which at heavy cost has been sustaining the ideals expressed by you, enthusiastically applauds your speech before the New History Society last night. We welcome your advocacy of war resistance, and refusal of military service, and earnestly solicit your endorsement of our work”.

A similar message to Dr. Einstein was sent by Marx Lewis, executive secretary of the Socialist Party, New York District, who also endorsed Prof. Einstein’s proposal for the creation of a “war resistance fund”.