Devere Allen Papers

Devere Allen was a writer by inclination and a reformer by conviction. Through his written and edited works pulsated social concern, expressed especially in socialism and pacifism. "With reiteration," he wrote in 1930 (The Fight for Peace), "I have borne down on the needs of a more drastic opposition to war, the war system, and its perpetrators." His devotion to this ideal makes Allen worthy of the serious consideration by students of the peace movement; his creative virtuosity, the range of his interests, make him a singularly delightful person to study.

Allen's "drastic opposition to war" began in 1917. Even before the declaration of war he founded and edited The Rational Patriot, a journal of some Oberlin College students who denied that soldiering was the highest form of patriotism, even in wartime. Although heckled by most students, Allen continud to put out his pacifist hournal until in 1918 with his wife, Marie Hollister Allen, he moved to New York to become secretary of a new organization, The Young Democracy, and the editor of its publication of that name. Many of his colleagues saw in The Young Democracy but another youth protest movement; Allen envisioned an international network of liberal youth organizations. He saw clearly that "with his finger on the pulse of a younger and more perceptive generation of trained leaders, the pacifist dares to predict the expansion of the minority concept of constructive peace into a comparatively speedy wold-wide acceptance." (A War-Time Credo). He saw as clearly that international harmony and domestic social reform were two facets of the same movement.

In 1921 Allen took these convictions to The World Tomorrow, a journal closely associated with the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He was managing editor until the fall of 1924, an editor until 1931, and from 1932 to 1933 (in 1932 he sojourned as editor of The Nation). Associated with John Nevin Sayre, Anna Rochester, Grace Hutchins, Kirby Page, and Reinhold Niebuhr, Allen was instrumental in makingThe World Tomorrow one of America's most vigorous "little magazines" of the nineteen-twenties. He wrote serious articles, humor, and poetry. His poems were sometimes tender, often sardonic. His various columns represented the crest of his literary powers. They were charged with both wit and social concern. Also in the twenties Allen began to analyze pacifism. He turned to its historical roots and in 1930 published a major history of the American Peace movement. But The Fight for Peace was more than history; it was an analysis of the peace crusade. It purported to show that radical pacifism is demanded to oppose war. His analysis also produced Pacifism in the Modern World (1929), a collection of articles which Allen edited to show the relevance of the pacifist approach to all social problms. From such analyses he projected

Allen urged upon pacifists the "assertive elements in their view of life --participation in the effort to solve social questions rather than withdrawal from them." ("How Practical is Pacifism?" The New Church Messenger, May 7, 1930). He insisted that pacifists be realists, that they recognize the fact of power struggle, the real threats of nationalism, Germany, and Russia, of evil. Only then could they assert morality and love in the real world. Allen was a radical pacifist but he thought in terms of concrete situations and believed that his position and day-to-day judgements not less but rather more difficult. Increasingly, too, Allen identified himself with idealistic socialists led by his friend, Norman Thomas. he sought to apply pacifism to industrial as well as international relations. He was a member of the board of directors of the League for Industrial Democracy. He joined Norman Thomas in opposing violence by labor. He withdrew from the American League Against War and Fascism when he found it impossible to cooperate with Communists even on international programs because of their unprincipled tactics. He was active in the councils on the national Socialist Party, and he invigorated the party in his state of Connecticut. He was a socialist candidate for United States Senator from Connecticut in 1932 and 1934. When in 1938 the party label was captured by the conservative mayor of Bridgeport, Jasper McLevy, Allen ran for governor on the Labor Party Ticket. But as the decade wore on, Allen was increasingly absorbed with international relations.

While withThe World TomorrowAllen had tried in vain to get a four page section carrying news of the world-wide peace movement. At the same time he had become aware of the need to pull together American peace organizations, to make them more aware of international developments, and to reach beyond the thirty thousand subscribers of the magazine. After a European trip in 1930-1931 and the assignment withThe Nation the following year, Devere and Marie Allen launched their No-Frontier News Service in November, 1933. The name was subsequently changed to Worldover Press in 1942. Worldover Press was a news service supplying by 1953 nearly seven hundred newspapers and magazines in sixty-two countries with international news and analysis. The Allens estimated that the total circulation of client papers using their material reached well over twelve million people. The used hundreds of periodicals to add to their perspctive of world events, but they relied upon forty regular overseas correspondents, and sixty special correspondents (sometimes reporters, often professors and writers) for their own news and analysis. Regular weekly bulletins and special reports were sent to religious, labor, peace, and private papers. A fortnightly newsletter, the World Interpreter, was sent to ministers, teachers, other individuals and libraries. In the crisis of 1939, the Allens themselves operated a European Bureau from Belgium; during the war they initiated a Latin American Bureau from Mexico, 1942-1944.

The news agency was not an organ of pacifism. It collected and distributed news of the peace movement, of social and cultural progress, as well as of conflict around the globe. Although it scooped regular news agencies upon occasion, it was not relied upon for everyday news. Although it reported about pacifists, it was not intended as propaganda. Although it indirectly reached millions, its influence on public opinion cannot be measured. Worldover Press was important to many people, however, for its insight into news treated only casually, if at all, in standard journals. It was vital to the peace movement which it put in contact with international events.

The tragedy of Devere Allen's life was that his creative powers were not loosed from the tasks of fundraising, administration, and reporting. He was ably served by a few assistants. But because he operated on such little capital, and because he was an indefatigable worker, Allen's hours were cramped by daily routine. Nevertheless, in those after hours he became humorist and satirist, folklorist, genealogist and historian; he even wrote poetry and fiction. Much of his work was published. But his virtuosity is revealed still more by unpublished and unfinished projects: his delightful and thorough genealogy of the Allen family; his collection of Rhode Island folklore (part of which was published serially in the Providence, Rhode Island, Sunday Journal Magazine); a projected article on early railroads; a collection of witty verse; serious poems and articles, and humorous stories. Intellectual curiosity, humor, and his love of nature relieved the tension of social concern and administrative tasks. Beyond these diversions, Allen pressed his analysis of internationalism and pacifism. There are indications that he had visions of making the Worldover Press an active agent in international relations as well as an educational influence. There remain, also, fragments of fresh analysis of contemporary pacifism. His sudden death in 1955 deprived the movement of re-interpretation which it needed. Certainly those who tried to continue the Worldover Press found that it had been but an extension of the vision and labor of Devere Allen.

Allen's friends and close associates included in the twenties those on The World Tomorrow, especially Nevin Sayre with whom Allen was active in the Fellowship of Reconciliation. In the thirties there were especially Norman Thomas, Clarence E. Pickett, and Ray Newton. From the war on he worked closely with E. Dixwell Chase, Philip Gray, Landrum Bolling, and Samuel Guy Inman. He had a long devoted friend in Albert Sprague Coolidge, and a dedicated associate in Alice Barry. Fully sharing his hopes and frustrations, his life and work, was his wife, Marie Allen.

A biography must be written before Devere Allen's influence can be measured even approximately. And much independent research remains to be done before a biography can be attempted. It is certain that he was one of the most articulate, analytical and imaginative pacifists. His books and articles and Worldover Press testify to that fact, as does his correspondence. He not only recorded and analyzed the peace movement, he also helped organize it. He created also an instrument for the international exchange of ideas. [See also: Devere Allen, Life and Writings, edited by Charles Chatfield. (New York : Garland Pub., 1976)]

Chronology of the Life of Devere Allen

Biography of Devere Allen