“I know you are brave and unselfish people, making sacrifices for a great principle but I cannot join you.”

Letter to the "Anti-Enlistment League" organized by Jessie Wallace Hughan (20 September 1915)
Context: I know you are brave and unselfish people, making sacrifices for a great principle but I cannot join you. I believe in the present effort which the allies are making to suppress German militarism. I would approve of America going to their assistance. I would enlist to that end, if ever there be a situation where I believe I could do more with my hands than I could with my pen.

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Upton Sinclair 50
American novelist, writer, journalist, political activist 1878–1968

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