Practical Pacifists

Episcopalian Franklin Delano Roosevelt last week issued an executive order authorizing Selective Service Director Clarence Addison Dykstra (Dutch Reformed) to initiate a program of non-military work of "national importance" for conscientious objectors. But the most practical of all pacifist sects had beat him to the plowshare. Four days previously the American Friends Service Committee had already opened its second work camp for C. O.s in Patapsco State Forest near Baltimore. Soon the Quakers, the Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren will have ten camps set up for the 6,700 C. O.s so far turned up by the draft.

More than 500 C. O.s got U. S. prison sentences in 1917-18. In 1941 they are faring better. Those who are certified by their local draft boards and the national board in Washington as having proved scruples against armed service can enroll in work camps, will pay $30-$35 a month toward their keep (other churchmen will pay for it if they cannot), will work eight hours a day at reforestation, flood control, irrigation, control of soil erosion, other jobs of the C. C. C. type. The C. O.'s day, like the Army's, will begin about 5:30 a.m. But unlike the draftee he will have a few minutes after 6 a.m. breakfast for a group meditation based on the Quaker meeting. Evenings he will hear lectures on nonviolent methods of meeting problems and sociological issues.

In charge of the Friends' camps, as their director of Civilian Public Service, is grey-haired, robust Quaker Thomas Elsa Jones, who in December took a year's leave from his presidency of Fisk University. Besides Patapsco, he will supervise the Friends' camp for C. O.s already operating at Cooperstown, N. Y., others soon to open in California, Indiana, Ohio. Mennonites will also establish their camps at Colorado Springs, Grottoes, Va. and Bluffton, Ind., and the Church of the Brethren will start camps at Onekama, Wis. and Lagro, Ind. The three sects plan to open joint camps later in the Pacific Northwest, New England, Florida, Texas.

As practical pacifists, Quakers seek to overcome evil with good, not in isolated cases but in every way they can. They believe in tackling troubles at their root. In World War I this philosophy led them to start rebuilding ruined French villages even before the Armistice. Afterwards they fed starving children, stopped epidemics, restocked whole provinces with farm tools, seeds and livestock, left permanent centres for "international good will" in Berlin, Vienna, Geneva, Paris. Between wars they built schools in Mexico, helped Okies and jobless coal miners, ran hostels for refugees. Now they are busy once more in war-torn Europe. Last week Marshal Petain received Quaker Howard Kershner at Vichy, expressed "profound gratitude" for the work Quakers have done in occupied France.

Nearest thing the Friends have to an international spokesman is 78-year-old Philosopher Rufus Matthew Jones of Haverford, Pa. He helped organize the American Friends Service Committee in April 1917 to give U. S. Quakers something specific to do in World War I. He is still its chairman. Said he last week of the Quaker work camps:

"We hope to enable the conscientious objector to make a constructive contribution to national life, to clean up forests, to recover abandoned farms, to put his willingness to serve into tasks that will be contributions to the life of his people. In the last war he [sometimes] had to go to military camp or prison. . . . This time the U. S. will receive the benefit of his labor. . . . Should peace come and there be a constructive job to be done in Europe, he may again serve there."

In the name of patriotism and religious devotion, the United Church of Canada (Methodist, Congregational, Presbyterian) appealed to its 700,000 members to buy war savings stamps, give them to the church to pay off its $1,750,000 debt.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.