Lovecraft did more than merely write about the war. On 16 May 1917, he himself applied for enlistment with the Rhode Island National Guard. What has not been observed by commentators is that this entire episode with the R.I.N.G. occurred before President Wilson’s signing of the draft bill (18 May 1917), and well before the institution of the draft itself. Lovecraft must have felt that, with the declaration of war in April, it was now appropriate for him to attempt to enter the hostilities himself as a matter of patriotic duty.
It is difficult to conceive of Lovecraft making this decision. He had been saying repeatedly since at least 1915 that he was an ‘invalid’ who could scarcely muster enough strength to get out of the house. But consider his most detailed account of his attempt at enlistment in the R.I.N.G.:
Some time ago, impressed by my entire uselessness in the world, I resolved to attempt enlistment despite my almost invalid condition. I argued that if I chose a regiment soon to depart for France; my sheer nervous force, which is not inconsiderable, might sustain me till a bullet or piece of shrapnel could more conclusively & effectively dispose of me. Accordingly I presented myself at the recruiting station of the R.I. National Guard & applied for entry into whichever unit should first proceed to the front. On account of my lack of technical or special training, I was told that I could not enter the Field Artillery, which leaves first; but was given a blank of application for the Coast Artillery, which will go after a short preliminary period of defence service at one of the forts of Narragansett Bay. The questions asked me were childishly inadequate, & so far as physical requirements are concerned, would have admitted a chronic invalid. The only diseases brought into discussion were specific ailments from which I had never suffered, & of some of which I had scarcely ever heard. The medical examination related only to major organic troubles, of which I have none, & I soon found myself (as I thought) a duly enrolled private in the 9th Co. R.I.N.G.!16
This tells us a number of important things. First, Lovecraft, if he had actually become a member of the R.I.N.G., would probably not have been sent overseas into actual combat, but instead would have been merely stationed near home (a later letter declares that the 9th Coast Artillery was stationed at Fort Standish in Boston Harbour17) in an auxiliary capacity. Second, Lovecraft took an actual physical examination which, however cursory, revealed no major physical ailments. If Lovecraft passed the examination, how was it that he was not serving in the R.I.N.G.? Let him tell the story:
As you may have deduced, I embarked upon this desperate venture without informing my mother; & as you may also have deduced, the sensation created at home was far from slight. In fact, my mother was almost prostrated with the news, since she knew that only by rare chance could a weakling like myself survive the rigorous routine of camp life. Her activities soon brought my military career to a close for the present. It required but a few words from our family physician regarding my nervous condition to annul the enlistment, though the army surgeon declared that such an annulment was highly unusual & almost against the regulations of the service … my final status is that of a man ‘Rejected for physical disability.’18
This account too is full of interest. One wonders what exactly Susie and Lovecraft’s physician told the R.I.N.G. officials. Some have speculated that the latter might have revealed the fact of Winfield Lovecraft’s paretic condition. The connection between paresis and syphilis had been established in 1911, and it is likely that both Susie and the physician now had a pretty good idea of the true cause of Winfield’s death. But the physical examination had presumably indicated that Lovecraft himself was not afflicted with paresis or syphilis, so it is not clear what effect the information about Winfield would have had. I think it is safer to concur with Lovecraft’s own testimony and assume that the physician’s account of Lovecraft’s ‘nervous condition’ caused the annulment.
Psychologically, Lovecraft confessed to a feeling of depression and disappointment: ‘I am feeling desolate and lonely indeed as a civilian. Practically all my personal acquaintances are now in some branch of the service, mostly Plattsburg or R.I.N.G. … it is disheartening to be the one non-combatant among a profusion of proud recruits.’19 Here was one more indication, for Lovecraft, of his being left behind in life: having failed to finish high school and enter college, he had seen his boyhood friends go on to gain good jobs in journalism, trade, and law enforcement. Now he saw them go off to war while he remained behind to write for the amateur press.
Lovecraft did in fact register for the draft on 5 June; indeed, he was legally obliged to do so. He gave his occupation as ‘Writer’. ‘I am told that it is possible I may be used even though I fail to pass the physical test for active military service.’20 Clearly Lovecraft was not so used. His draft record, if it survives, has not come to light.
Another sociopolitical interest that emerged in the earliest part of Lovecraft’s amateur journalism phase was temperance. This had, indeed, been an enthusiasm of remarkably early development: so early as 1896 he had read a work by John B. Gough, Sunlight and Shadow (1880), on the subject. The fact that this volume was in the Phillips family library is by no means a surprise: recall that the town of Delavan, Illinois, was founded by Lovecraft’s maternal ancestors as a temperance town. We have seen that Whipple Phillips spent at least a year there as a young man in the 1850s.
Lovecraft himself did not get a chance to say anything in public on the subject until about 1915. About this time he discovered in the amateur world an ardent colleague in the fight against the demon rum—Andrew Francis Lockhart of Milbank, South Dakota. An article entitled ‘More Chain Lightning’ (United Official Quarterly, October 1915) is a paean to Lockhart’s efforts in the cause of temperance.
In spite of the fact that prohibition was very unpopular in Rhode Island, it is not at all surprising that Lovecraft would have become converted to temperance, for the movement had strong class- and race-conscious overtones; as one historian notes, it was led by ‘old stock, Protestant middle-class Americans’21 who were repelled by what they considered the excessive drinking habits of immigrants, particularly Germans and Italians.
One has to wonder why Lovecraft became so obsessed with temperance. He himself was fond of declaring that ‘I have never tasted intoxicating liquor, and never intend to’.22 When he remarks that ‘I am nauseated by even the distant stink of any alcoholic liquor’,23 one is reminded of his extreme aversion to seafood, and cannot help wondering whether some event in infancy or boyhood triggered this severe physiological and psychological response. We know nothing of the drinking habits of Lovecraft’s immediate family; even for his father, whatever other sins he may have committed, we have no evidence of any inclination toward imbibing. It would, therefore, be irresponsible and unjust to make any conjectures on the subject. What must be said is that the cause of temperance is the only aspect of social reform for which Lovecraft showed any enthusiasm in his earlier years—an enthusiasm seemingly out of keeping with the ‘cosmic’ philosophy he had already evolved, which led him outwardly to maintain a perfect indifference to the fate of the ‘flyspeck-inhabiting lice’24 on this globe.
Lovecraft himself claimed that among the great benefits he derived from amateurdom was the association of sympathetic and likeminded (or contrary-minded) individuals. For one who had been a virtual recluse during the 1908–13 period, amateur journalism allowed Lovecraft a gradual exposure to human society—initially in an indirect manner (via correspondence or discussions in amateur papers), then by direct contact. It would take several years for him to become comfortable as even a limited member of human society, but the transformation did indeed take place; and some of his early amateur associates remained for the rest of his life his closest friends.