Controversies - and casualties - of war

To the editor: Recently a number of letters for and against President Bush and the war in Iraq have appeared, expressing differing viewpoints. I thought it would be interesting to readers to hear a few items about past controversies and contributions of Warwick in other wars from the archives of the Albert Wisner Library and the Historical Society of the Town of Warwick. In the fall of 1941 we had not yet entered World War II as an active participant, and passions ran high on both sides of the fence - should we mind our own business, providing only humanitarian aid to Britain and avoid a potentially staggering financial cost, or get into the fight to wipe out a threat that could come to our very shores? Sound familiar? Our isolationist Representative to Congress, Hamilton Fish, was challenged to debate the issue here at Warwick on Sept. 19 by Dr. Renfrew Bradner and other Warwick citizens who wanted us to enter the war. The event drew national attention, with three articles running in the New York Times. More than 1,000 people attended, spilling out of the school auditorium and onto the street. Passions ran high, but at the end of the day the “applause meter” overwhelmingly supported entering the war and helping defeat Hitler. On Dec. 7 of that year ,Pearl Harbor was attacked, settling the question. Another forgotten event in Warwick’s history is the contribution and sacrifice of our own “weapons of mass destruction” expert in World War I, Lieut. Charles F. Hawkins. He grew up at Maplecroft on Pine Island Turnpike, excelling in his studies and going on as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in chemistry. When his country needed chemical experts, he entered the Chemical War Service at Washington in February 1918. While working on solutions to the horrifying use of chemical weaponry by our enemies in the war, an accident severely burned him; he recovered enough to make it home and died here that December. Warwick is no stranger to debating of differing viewpoints about war, and the contributions of our veterans are not lessened or dishonored by that exchange. Our traditions inform us that free expression of ideas should never be a casualty of any war. The local history department at the Albert Wisner Library is displaying copies of these documents this summer for those would like to learn more about these stories. Sue Gardner Albert Wisner Public Library