to Europe to visit the future battlefieldsnand cemeteries of their putative husbands.nIn addition, women of childbearingnage would receive a pension of fiftyndollars a month until the war came.nThe pension would continue for thosenwho lost their husbands, with a doublenpension for those whose spouses werendisabled. A woman who did not lose hernhusband would spend the years after thenwar working to pay off the debt incurrednby the pre- and postwar pensions. Nongreat debt would accrue. “The war willnprobably be upon us in a year or so andnthen we shall be in a position to startnretiring the debt created by paying thenpensions now,” said Gorin.nThere were many details to work out.n”Although our uniforms have not yetnbeen chosen, we do have a hand salutenwhich developed out of the obsoletenfascist salute devised by Mussolini. Thenonly change we make is that one’s armnmust be held parallel to the ground andnthat the palm be turned upward receptively.”nThe future veterans’ highestnaward was the Croix de Guerre withnPalm (outstretched). They had a shortnway with dissenters. “We suggest that allnveterans of future wars who are conscientiousnobjectors to a bonus be incarceratednin concentration camps for thenduration of the peace. There is really nonother way to dispose of them.”nThe idea caught on like wildfire.nBefore March was over there werennearly five hundred chapters on variousncampuses with almost six thousand paidnmembers. The numbers continued tongrow. “In this connection,” Gorinncommented, “Mr. Hanford MacNider,nat that time National Commander ofnthe American Legion, remarked: ‘It isnan interesting fact, and one that I thinknyou [a House committee on bonuses]nwill be glad to hear, that 10 years afternthe Civil War the Grand Army of thenRepublic had only 20,000 members.nThree years after the [Great] war wenhave over 1,000,000.’ According to thisnreasoning think what a stir it will createnin Congress when we go before ancommittee and announce that somenyears before the war we already count anmembership of about five million.”nGorin’s best-selling manifesto. PatriotismnPrepaid, attracted favorable reviewsnfrom the New York Times andnHerald Tribune, the Saturday Reviewnand the Christian Science Monitor.nStories about the future veterans takenup nearly a full column in the NewnYork Times index for 1936. NationalnCommander Van Zandt of the othernVFW, the Veterans of Foreign Wars,ndenounced his rivals for congressionalnlargess and was challenged to a radiondebate by Gorin. Van Zandt at firstnaccepted and then, no doubt wisely,nbacked down. Congressman Fuller ofnAlabama announced that the futurenveterans “were unworthy of public noticenand should be attacked by everyntrue American.” In distant 1936, Congressmennguilty of perpetrating nonnsequiturs were mocked. The FBI investigatednto see if the future veteransnwere a subversive organization. OnenG^man asked my father, FredericknLouis Kopfl-Jr., Princeton ’36, whethernhe saw a contradiction in his belongingnto the Princeton ROTC and thenVeterans of Future Wars. “No” wasnthe answer. “My membership in bothnorganizations is linked by an Aristoteliannlogic.” Gorin indignantly deniednthat the future veterans were lackeys ofneither Moscow or Wall Street. “Fortunatelynwe are neither, merely membersnof a Great Patriotic Organizationnwhose primary purpose, as with allnGreat Patriotic Organizations, is toncollect a bonus from the government.”nBy this time you are thinking tonyourself, hold on a minute here. If thenVeterans of Future Wars even existed,nlet alone was a major news story inn1936, how come I never heard of it?nHistory is written by victors. The battlento keep America a republic and fromnbecoming an empire was lost. Thesenvictors are no Homers, to glorify thenHectors who fought on the other side.nThey even deny there was a battle. Youndo not know who John Hay and HenrynStimson were. You think William JenningsnBryan spent his life fightingnevolution and Charies Austin Beardnwrote one obsolete book on the Constitution.nYou do not know that theynfought their bravest batries against imperialismnand for our republic, for thensame reason you cannot read the lostnhistory of Cremutius Cordus, whomnTiberius drove to suicide for callingnBrutus and Cassius “the last of thenRomans.”nImagine, then, not as history, but asnfiction, the day in March 1936 whennthe New York Times printed a report ofna new national organization formed bynPrinceton University students to deridennn”the fallacies of Democracy,” which isnwhat the Times article reported. No,nyou cannot even imagine it, becausenyou have never experienced such ancountry, where men and women,nyoung and old, could talk in jest and innearnest, but freely. Our fathers, however,nknew of such a country. What isnmore, they lived in it. They were thenlast of the Romans. Like Tacitus andnJuvenal, looking back at their republicnfrom an empire, we often feel anger,nsaeva indignatio. If we can sometimensmile when we look back at our fathers’nbattles, then we owe something tonLewis Gorin, the Princeton class ofn’36, and the Veterans of Future Wars.nE. Christian Kopff teaches Greek andnLatin at the University of Colorado innBoulder.nThe Link Linenby John B. ThompsonnThe Art of IndoctrinationnThe University of Wisconsin’s mainncampus in Madison has relished,nat least since the anti-war movement ofnthe 1960’s, its image as one of the mostnradical and leftist colleges in America.nIn order to cement that status well intonthe next century, the university is nownselling and nationally distributing anpackage of “Health-Line” audio cassettesn”addressing concerns of the body,nemotions and intellect.” Warning: thesenDECEMBER 1991/43n