Norman Mattoon Thomas was an American Presbyterian minister who has achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. Thomas was initially as outspoken in opposing the Second World War as he had been with regard to the First World War. Upon returning from a European tour in 1937, he formed the Keep America Out of War Congress and spoke against the war. In testimony to Congress in January 1941, he opposed the proposed Lend-Lease program of sending military supplies to Great Britain, calling it “a bill to authorize the undeclared war in the name of peace, and dictatorship in the name of defending democracy”. The Norman Thomas High school in Manhattan and the Norman Thomas ’05 Library at Princeton University’s Forbes College are named after him.

Discover more: https://www.nytimes.com/1964/12/07/archives/man-in-the-news-preacher-of-dissent-norman-mattoon-thomas.html and https://www.britannica.com/biography/Norman-Mattoon-Thomas