For a number of years we have engaged in relief work. More recently this program has taken on large proportions. Already during the war our work of sevice to the needy began, and we distributed large quantities of food and clothing in various areas of the Far East, the Near East, on the European Continent, and in South America. In the years when this service was at its peak our churches contributed more than $3,000,000 annually in money and in gifts in kind. For the distribution of these gifts and for further ministration to the needy there were stationed more than 300 or our young people who were giving 1, 2, or more years of service. They distributed food and clothing, operated child-feeding programs, took care of children's homes, orphanages, and refugee centers, and in other ways. served "in the name of Christ" as the label on every package indicated. This same "love of Christ which constraineth us" to relieve suffering and to minister to the needy is also the same constraining power which will not permit us to take part in military training, preparation for war, or participation in war. In addition to our relief program abroad, we also operate a number of voluntary service projects within the North American Continent. Here young people of the church perform service in needy institutions and communities for terms varying from several weeks to a year or more. This work includes: (a) Public health and sanitation, home welfare and rehabilitation in the community of Gulfport, Miss.; (b) attendant work at Skillman State Village for Epileptics, Skillman, N. J.; Richmond State Hospital, Richmond, Ind.; and St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D. C.; (c) nursing and public-health work at Cuauhtemoc in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico; (d) service in connection with various mission stations among our own American Indians; and other projects of a similar nature. Therefore, we respectifully declare that further extension of the power of the state over the lives of men through military training is not desirable, and that history in our experience is a clear warning against this policy. Mr. Chairman, we therefore are opposed to any form of military training or service. We appreciate the consideration we have received from our Government on grounds of conscience in former years, and especially during the trying days and the crisis of World War II. Attached to this is a statement containing the relevant parts of our testimony before the President's Advisory Commission on Universal Military Training, April 10, 1947. This will clarify our reaction to our experience under conscription. Finally, we are also attaching a statement made to the House Select Committee on Postwar Military Policy, June 11, 1945, to reveal the continuity of our testimony in Washington. Mr. Chairman, while registering our resolute convictions we want to affirm our good will toward the United States Government and our desire to be loyal, useful citizens as we maintain our allegiance to the supreme law of Christian love. Respectfully submitted. Mr. J. NELSON TRIBBY, Akron, Pa., Peace Section Staff, AGUDAS ACHIM SYNAGOGUE, Chief Clerk, Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. TRIBBY: May I trouble you to bring to the attention of the Committee on Armed Services now considering the extension of the draft, the enclosed statements of the Rabbinical Assembly of America with regard to CO provisions and of the Jewish Peace Fellowship with regard to conscription. Regrettably there will be no witness to testify on behalf of these organizations at the hearings on Monday. But we did want the committee to have the benefit of our point of view. Sincerely yours, NATHAN GAYNOR. The Rabbinical Assembly of America while not approving of the extension of the Selective Service Act of 1948, is particularly concerned that if the draft should be extended there be adequate provision for conscientious objectors. We urge that there be provision for alternative service completely under civilian direction for conscientious objectors as well as total exemption for those conscientious objectors whose conscience prevents them from doing alternative service. The definition of conscientious objection should be broadened so that it may be based on humanitarian grounds as well as religious belief. The Jewish Peace Fellowship strongly opposes the extension of the National Selective Service Act. Conscription in peacetime is contrary to our democratic way of life and leads us in totalitarian directions. Conscription has repeatedly failed to bring security to nations which have adopted it. It would increase the likelihood of war, because it would be regarded in many quarters as indicating the belief that war is inevitable or at least probable. As Albert Einstein has stated: "The idea of achieving security through national armament is, at the present state of military technique, a disastrous illusion. The first problem is to do away with mutual fear and distrust. Solemn renunciation of violence (not only with respect to means of mass destruction) is undoubtedly necessary." The Jewish Peace Fellowship believes that only constructive efforts toward international reconciliation can ease the present world tension rather than recurrent appeals to force and fear which conscription embodies. We would recommend that a vigorous attempt be made along such positive lines as the Quaker proposals for better relations between the U. S. A. and the U. S. S. R. J. NELSON TRIBBY, WAR RESISTERS LEAGUE, Senate Committee on Armed Services, DEAR MR. TRIBBY: Thank you for your letter of May 24 replying to my telegram of May 23. Unfortunately, no representative of our organization will be able to be in Washington to testify on June 5. I am therefore submitting to you with this letter copies of the position of our organization with regard to the proposed extension of the draft law. We hope you will be so kind as to enter this into the record. Extra copies are enclosed so that members of the Armed Services Committee can examine our testimony. Sincerely yours, ROY C. KEPLER, Executive Secretary. TESTIMONY OF THE WAR RESISTERS LEAGUE IN OPPOSITION TO THE EXTENSION OF THE SELECTIVE ACT OF 1948 SENT TO THE ARMED SERVICE COMMITTEE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE IN JUNE 1950 The War Resisters League is an affiliated section of the War Resisters International, which has its headquarters in England and affiliated sections in many countries of the world. Members of the War Resisters League, being convinced that war is a crime against humanity, are opposed to war in any form and are determined not to support any kind of war, civil, or international. They feel the obligation and responsibility therefore to strive for the removal of the causes of war. Our official organizational stand is that we are opposed to conscription and ask for nothing short of its abolition. While we would work to oppose any conscription in the United States, we urge our Government to propose to the United Nations, and to work for, its universal abolition. Conscription, especially as it has manifested itself in modern national states since the French Revolution, has shown itself to be an integral part of war. It is not simply an effect of modern war making but also a cause. Conscription, in our view, is not a peace measure but a measure which seeks to make men and women the instruments of the violent policies of the national state. It seeks to control their lives and to make all crucial decisions for them. Conscription in our time means not just the rigid control of the lives of young men for a period of military training, but ultimately the general control of population and natural resources, of what people say and even what they think. Human lives are used as means to the ends of the State, and are no longer considered ends in themselves. Human dignity and individual moral responsibility are not only degraded but assertion of individual moral choice may well be punished. There is a foreboding similarity, in kind if not in degree, between those who were put in concentration camps for resisting Hitler's militarism and aggression, to those incarcerated in Communist-controlled countries for conscience sake and because they will not conform, to those who were in American concentration camps in World War II because of their Japanese origin, to those young men imprisoned last year in the United States because they refused to be registered for the draft or for counseling with a son or friend. Members of this committee may question whether conscription, and war preparation in general, are morally and practically wrong, as our analysis would hold. On the contrary, many may feel that conscription is a real "need" given the present world situation. The assertion of the War Resisters League is that any organization of violence is antithetical to the process of peace. However well intentioned, the attempt to make "peace" by organizing violence is, in our view, and as Gandhi taught, a contradiction in terms; an impossibility. We hold that war preparation, conscription, militarism, etc., will not prevent war or preserve freedom. We recognize, however, that conscription, the rigid control of human lives and resources, is implicit in the present world situation wherein the power struggle is carried on against a background of fear, suspicion, hate, psychological warfare, hydrogen bombs, and totalitarian practices. In such a world those people who still place their ultimate reliance, however, reluctantly, upon the organization of fear and violence-upon war-and are caught up in their own dilemma, an unending vicious circle leading to more fear and greater violence to the totalitarian society. For if you still reluctantly place reliance upon organized violence, if you still accept war, you accept modern total war, bacterial and atomic war. To prepare for total war there must ultimately be total control over the lives of people, their labor, and the Nation's resources. In the process of organizing fear and violence, we tend to succumb to that which we would prevent, we begin to imitate that which we are preparing to defend ourselves against. Thus, in our own country we increasingly find the democratic process being laid aside in the name of top secrets, espionage, military necessity, national unity and conformity. He who questions high policy becomes suspect. In such a setting some may still have a few intellectual arguments against conscription, or arguments of expediency. They may feel that it isn't needed at this time, that it is too expensive, that volunteer recruits would be better soldiers, etc. But such persons are not really opposed to conscription, if they still accept war. Accepting modern total war, they of necessity are driven to accept the conscription principle. For the logic of war is the logic of conscription—as it is the logic which leads to the concentration camps, to the incinerators, to the Horishimas, and to hydrogen bombs. From this logic there is no escape ultimately, but only through a rejection of the fundamental premise. Conscription, militarism, tatalitarianism—all these will grow as long as men in our society are unable to break with the organization of fear and violence— with war itself. He who still accepts war, let him see the logic of his acceptance; he accepts also conscription, the concentration camp, the hydrogen bomb, the totalitarian society. The organization of violence is a self-destructive process. The War Resisters League and its members are able to oppose conscription, and to resist it, because they have rejected war itself. Yet they are aware of the powerful and subtle ties which hold men to war and conscription. They are aware that where men know of no final alternative to war, and where war preparation material and psychological is being carried on at a fever pace, that, as a last resort, men will fight. If society is unable to find moral or religious justification for such a modern total war, men will still fighteven if they have to give up their religion or morality at that point. For above all, men have to maintain within themselves some sense of integrity as men. They feel obliged to resist that which is wrong, to resist tyranny. If, therefore, they know of no other way to resist that which they believe to be wrong than through modern total war, then they will fight that war even if it destroys them utterly. The War Registers League believe firmly and deeply that there is another, a more mature, and a more excellent way to resist evil and tyranny. A way which is not self-defeating. A way that seeks not to destroy men but to win them. A way which is not safe, nor easy, but which requires high courage and a faith in the vitality of human values and the democratic method. There is a challenge for all of us in the life and example of Gandhi and the Indian people who dared to try a new and better method, and who have given the world new hope that there is a more excellent way. It is this challenge which you gentlemen of this committee, and the leaders and the people of the United States must face if we would wage peace and build a freer world community. For Gandhi said: "There is no escape from the impending docm save through a bold and unconditional acceptance of the nonviolent method. Democracy and violence go ill together. The states that are today nominally democratic will either have to become frankly totalitarian or, if they are to become truly democratic, they must become courageously nonviolent." Respectfully submitted. ROY C. KEPLER, Executive Secretary. WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM, Hon. MILLARD E. TYDINGS, Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR TYDINGS: Mrs. Alexander Stewart, president of the United States section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, who was to have been the witness for the league at the hearings of this committee on H R. 6826, telephoned the following message from Rochester, N. Y., this morning. She regrets that because she was unable to get a plane from Rochester, she will not be able to appear today to give her testimony in person. Her written statement will be submitted for the committee report. Very truly yours, DORIS SHAMLEFFER, Research Assistant. STATEMENT AGAINST EXTENSION OF THE DRAFT BY MRS. ALEXANDER STEWART IN BEHALF OF THE WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM The United States section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom has long supported a broad program comprehending both domestic and foreign affairs. Now more than ever it is apparent to us that a peace based on freedom and pursuit of a better life for all, both at home and abroad, will be realized only if all issues are met in a constructive way that will contribute to this goal. Our foreign policy cannot be developed as if it were unrelated to things at home; or our domestic policy as if its influence ended at our borders. The position and influence of the United States makes its every action important in world affairs. It is our fundamental concept that the progressive enrichment of life, and its enjoyment in peace and freedom, are incompatible with a state of war, or preparation for war. We believe that only democratic principles in action can remove dangerous tensions between nations and within nations, and effectively counter totalitarianisms and dictatorships. We believe that the most effective means by which free people may maintain free institutions lie in a positive program which will safeguard human rights, enrich human living, and utilize material resources for peace. We believe that the present armaments race must be checked, and that our domestic and foreign policy must be definitely oriented toward achieving and maintaining peace. A nation cannot pursue such a program while it prepares for war. We feel strongly that the emphasis being made at present, and the gigantic sums being appropriated, are more on preparation for war than on preparation for peace. The recent pronouncement of President Truman that if Congress had approved The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom recognizes the seriousness of the world situation and international tension. We do not minimize the problems which our leaders and those of other nations have to face. However, we would suggest that there is a seeming contradiction in the report of the House Armed Services Committee on the Selective Service Extension Act of 1950 and statements made by our leaders. The report says, "The committee interprets world conditions existing today as differing little from those which existed 2 years ago when the committee reported to the House that selective-service legislation is 'the necessary response of this Government to specific, aggressive, and dangerous actions on the part of the Government of the Soviet Union.' The actions of the Soviet Union, in the committee's view, are quite as menacing and truculent today as they were 2 years ago, if not more so. As stated to the committee by General Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on May 2, 1950, 'there has been no let-up in the aggressive extension of communism toward its goal of world domination." " Contrast this with Defense Secretary Johnson's statement made last Thursday, June 1, 1950, before this committee when he said, "I do not hesitate, however, to go on record that it (enactment of selective service) was one of the decisive factors in stopping the spread of communism in 1948." If the passage of the Selective Service Act in 1948 was so decisive in stopping communism, why do our leaders report, "world conditions existing today as differing little from those which existed 2 years ago?" We believe that one of the mistakes of militarism is that it tends to create the idea that conscription and gigantic armed strength will stop communism. The Secretary of State, Mr. Acheson, said at the House hearings, "It (failure to extend the Draft Act) would appear inconsistent both with the responsibility which we assumed under the North Atlantic Treaty and with our efforts to encourage the other members of the treaty to increase their individual and collective strength to resist aggression." Secretary Johnson has said that "failure to extend the draft would undermine the position of the miiltary establishments of the other signers of the North Atlantic Pact, who are maintaining mandatory national service over considerable political opposition within their own countries." We should not assume that it is a good thing for Europe to maintain a conscription system. It may well be that the continued military regimentation in Europe is one of the factors leading toward the kind of dissatisfatcion that breeds communism. Moreover, if Europeans who hate enforced military service are convinced that it is the United States and our inoperative draft law which keeps them in military servitude, their resentment will turn against us instead of against the Communists. May we call to your attention several articles written by responsible people which also question the effectiveness of conscription and armed strength? Claude Bourdet, a distinguished French journalist, speaking at the recent Conference on the Atomic Era planned by the Nation Associates, raised serious questions about the continuation of the cold war and arms race. He said, "From a military standpoint the Atlantic Pact policy combines in an equally unrealistic way the forces of countries whose military interests are different and possibilities of action contradictory. The inhabitants of the United States and Canada can face the prospect of world war III, imagining through optimism or ignorance that their countries may escape total destruction. But the people of France know that whatever happens in world war III they will be eradicated from the surface of the earth. Americans may rightly consider that they will be relatively united against an enemy. The French know they will be divided into two groups fighting each other with every possible weapon. |