The No Conscription League in the United States was founded by anarchist Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman in 1917 in response to the draft in World War I. It was enforced by the Selective Service Act of 1917, which granted the federal government the right to raise a national army. It was viewed as a destroyer of the freedom to ethical and political choice granted by the constitution of the United States. The members of this league strongly opposed government enforced conscription; they saw it as a violation of the liberty of American people. This oppression was justified by Woodrow Wilson's Espionage Act, which prohibited any action that interferes with the US military or government affairs. Many were prosecuted under this act, including those in the no conscription league. Those charged were fined a maximum of 10,000 dollars and were sentenced to up to 20 years of imprisonment.
Read more about No Conscription League: Manifesto, Gatherings, Government Responds
Famous quotes containing the words conscription and/or league:
“We have our difficulties, true; but we are a wiser and a tougher nation than we were in 1932. Never have there been six years of such far flung internal preparedness in all of history. And this has been done without any dictator’s power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of the Bill of Rights.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)