E. D. Morel, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

E. D. Morel

British politician

Date of Birth: 10-Jul-1873

Place of Birth: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Date of Death: 12-Nov-1924

Profession: writer, politician, human rights activist, journalist

Zodiac Sign: Cancer


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About E. D. Morel

  • Edmund Dene Morel (born Georges Eduard Pierre Achille Morel de Ville; 10 July 1873 – 12 November 1924) was a British journalist, author, pacifist, and politician. As a young official at the shipping company Elder Dempster, Morel observed a fortune in rubber returning from the Congo while only guns and manacles were being sent in return.
  • He correctly deduced that these resources were being extracted from the population by force and began to campaign to expose the abuses.
  • In collaboration with Roger Casement, Morel led a campaign against slavery in the Congo Free State, founding the Congo Reform Association and running the West African Mail.
  • With the help of celebrities such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Mark Twain, the movement successfully pressured the Belgian King Leopold II to turn over the Congo to the Belgian government, ending some of the human rights abuses perpetrated under his rule. Morel played a significant role in the British pacifist movement during the First World War, participating in the foundation of and becoming secretary of the Union of Democratic Control, at which point he broke with the Liberal Party.
  • In 1917, he was jailed for six months for his antiwar activism, which had a permanent effect on his health.
  • After the war, he edited the journal Foreign Affairs, through which he sharply criticized what he considered French aggression and mistreatment of the defeated Central Powers.
  • As part of his campaign against the French, he became the most important English proponent of the racist Black Shame campaign, which accused black French troops of outrages against the population of the occupied Rhineland. Morel was elected to Parliament in 1922 as a Labour candidate, defeating the incumbent Winston Churchill for his seat, and was reelected in 1924, dying in office.
  • Morel collaborated closely with future prime minister Ramsay MacDonald and was considered for the post of Foreign Secretary, though he ultimately acted only as an unofficial adviser to MacDonald's government.

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