Conscience: Two Soldiers, Two Pacifists, One Family–a Test of Will and Faith in World War I(ISBN=)

　　Conscience moves from the gothic buildings of
Princeton to the tenements of New York City, from the West Wing of
the White House to the battlefields of France, tracking how four
young men navigated a period of great uncertainty and upheaval. A
Thomas family member herself (Norman was Louisa’s great
grandfather), Thomas proposes that there is something we might
recover from the brothers’ debates about conscience: a way of
talking about personal liberty and social obligation, about being
true to oneself and to one another.

　　Two became soldiers. Ralph enlisted right away, heeding
President Woodrow Wilson’s call to fight for freedom. A captain in
the Army Corps of Engineers, he was ultimately wounded in France.
Arthur, the youngest, was less certain about the righteousness of
the cause but sensitive to his obligation as a citizen-and like so
many men eager to have a chance to prove himself. The other two
were pacifists. Evan became a conscientious objector, protesting
con*ion; when the truce was signed on November 11, 1918, he
was in solitary confinement. Norman left his ministry in the
tenements of East Harlem, New York, and began down the course he
would follow for the rest of his life, fighting for civil
liberties, social justice, and greater equality, and against
violence as a method of change. Conscience reveals the
tension among responsibilities, beliefs, and desires, between ideas
and actions-and, sometimes, between brothers.

　　Louisa Thomas has written for the New York
Times Book Review, Vogue, Newsweek, and other places. She lives
in New York.