Whizz-Bang - Bertrand Russell, Britain's Foremost Pacifist

Not everyone was in the throes of patriotic fervor in the summer of 1914. Many felt the coming war was unnecessary, bad for business, irreligious, morally wrong, and a continuation of the broken aristocratic European system. As the clouds of war loomed and then tore asunder over the Continent, conscientious objectors everywhere found themselves in the unenviable position of having to choose between a hated war or prison, which often meant labor or the front anyways. From the beginning, one man spoke up and spoke his mind, one of the great thinkers of the 20th century - Bertrand Russell. Russell, a brilliant polymath, philosopher, linguist, and historian, among many other things, was imprisoned for his continued objection to the First World War in 1916. In the latter half of the century, he would again spend time behind bars for his vociferous anti-nuclear war stance. In this letter to a newspaper we can see the beginnings of a long career spent thoughtfully trying to convince the world that violence is not the way.