thought I would in an emergency be more useful in some form of constructive national service by which the people would benefit than in my own immediate job, I would be willing to accept that sort of service, though I should hope that voluntarily I would find the best service for me to render. I would not be willing to make munitions, to dig trenches, or cut timber for trenches because of my conscientious objection. I hope you will understand that I am not speaking in defiance or for love of personal safety.

Senator BRADY. That is a very satisfactory explanation. Under no circumstances would your conscience permit you to go to war to defend your country? I am asking simply for information. Let us assume that Germany and a sufficient number of other monarchical countries would decide that they were going to destroy democracy in America; that they would come over here with their forces to conquer this country and establish a monarchical government. Under those circumstances would you take up arms to defend your country?

Dr. THOMAS. I would not. I recognize that the answer sounds disloyal to everything in which most men believe, and I do not believe that the committee has sufficient time to hear a statement of my reasons. May I say briefly that I think under circumstances you outline-circumstances which seem to be highly improbable—a united people using resistance, but not the organized and terrible resistance of war, could ultimately win surer victories for democracy and humanity than by the means of violence, and all the sacrifices of ethical principles war involves.

Senator BRADY. I simply desired to know your viewpoint.

Dr. THOMAS. If it is of any interest, to make it a little more plain I would be glad to leave this copy of a circular issued by the Friends' National Peace Committee, the American Union Against Militarism, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Senator BRADY. I would be glad to have you do that and to leave also any other information that you may have giving your position. (The circular referred to by Dr. Thomas is here printed in full, as follows:)

[Friends' National Peace Committee, 20 South Twelfth Street, Philadelphia, Pa.; American Union Against Militarism, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City; the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 125 East Twentyseventh Street, New York City.]

APRIL 16, 1917.

DEAR SIR: The President in his last address to Congress declared that America is entering the war not for self-interest but "for the principles that gave her birth," for "the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and obedience." This is a reassertion of that principle of freedom of conscience which has been not only a controlling ideal but part of the fundamental law of our land. "The people of the United States in order to secure the blessings of liberty" ordained and established the Federal Constitution and as part of that Constitution have decreed that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." No less a State paper than the constitution of Pennsylvania declares that "no human authority can in any case whatever control or interfere with the right of conscience."

It is with deep concern for these rights of conscience that we view the proposed "bill to authorize the President to increase temporarily the Military Establishment of the United States." We are for many reasons opposed to the conscription principle as applied to war, but that which we have most at heart is liberty of conscience. It is true that the proposed bill recognizes in a limited degree this vital principle when it exempts members "of any well-recognized religious sect or organization whose creed forbids its members to participate in war in any form." But we press upon your in all earnestness the conviction that this is not an adequate provision for the present situation. Outside of the membership of these designated organizations there are, we believe, thousands of men whose consciences forbid them to participate "in war in any form."

These men are in no sense unpatriotic. They are neither cowards nor "slackers." Many of them are engaged in constructive work for social progress and are among the Nation's most useful citizens. We earnestly request that their liberty of conscience be preserved from the rough hand of compulsion. If conscription for the ugly business of killing our fellow men must come, let it be with as little damage as possible to the moral life of the Nation. For this the primary request is strict regard for conscience, the life root of moral being.

The Society of Friends and other religious bodies included within the exemption clause as it now stands sincerely appreciate this provision for their benefit. But the underlying principle on account of which they have in the past sought and been granted immunity requires that the exemption be not limited to the members of a few comparatively small organizations. Conscience is personal and individual. It is too large to be contained in creeds, too variegated to be cassified by denominations. Liberty of conscience rightly belongs to all men and the principles of equality, justice, democracy and morality demand that it shall not be made dependent upon adherence to any creed or membership in any religious organization.

We can not acquiesce in the argument that it is necessary to confine exemption to members of recognized denomination in order to prevent shirkers from abusing the privilege by feigning conscientious objections. We believe that there are comparatively few who would attempt such action or who would be successful if they should. But apart from this we urge that the principle of free conscience is too sacred to be sacrificed to expediency.

In requesting this exemption for all conscientious objectors we are not asking something for which there is no precedent. In adpting conscription during the present war the British Parliament provided for the exemption of all conscientious objectors without regard to denomination or creed. For your information we inclose a copy of the exemption clause contained in the English act.

We, therefore, respectfully urge that the exemption clause in the proposed bill be amended so as to read: "And nothing in this act contained shall be construed to require or compel service in any of the forces herein provided for by any person who is conscientiously opposed to engaging in such service."

We also urge that provision be made for the appointment by other than military authority of properly qualified civilian boards to pass upon such exemptions and that appeals be allowed from the decisions of such boards to the United States district

courts.

Respectfully yours,

FRIENDS' NATIONAL PEACE COMMITTEE.
AMERICAN UNION AGAINST MILITARISM.
THE FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION.

NOTE. In joining in the foregoing letter the American Union Against Militarism desires to make it entirely clear that it is definitely and strongly opposed to conscription for war in principle and practice. This is not to imply that the two other organizations named above in any way acquiesce in conscription.

EXEMPTION CLAUSES OF THE BRITISH MILITARY SERVICE ACT OF JANUARY 27, 1916.

CHAPTER 104—2.-2. (1) An application may be made at any time before the appointed date to the local tribunal established under this act by or in respect of any man for the issue to him of a certificate of exemption from the provisions of this act (a) On the ground that it is expedient in the national interests that he should, instead of being employed in the military service, be engaged in other work in which he is habitually engaged or in which he wishes to be engaged or if he is being educated or trained for any work that he should continue to be so educated or trained;

(b) On the ground that serious hardship would ensue if the man were called up for army service, owing to his exceptional financial or business obligations or domestic position; or

(c) On the ground of ill health or infirmity; or

(d) On the ground of conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant service, and the local tribunal if they consider the grounds of the application established shall grant such a certificate.

2. (3) Any certificate of exemption may be absolute, conditional, or temporary, as the authority by whom it was granted think best suited to the case, and also in the case of an application on conscientious grounds, may take the form of an exemption from combatant service only, or may be conditional on the applicant being engaged in some work which in the opinion of the tribunal dealing with the case is of national importance.

The CHAIRMAN. Miss Freeman, who is the next speaker who desires to address the committee?

Miss FREEMAN. Mr. Joseph D. Cannon, of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, New York City, will next address the committee.

The CHAIRMAN, Very well. Proceed, Mr. Cannon.

STATEMENT OF MR. JOSEPH D. CANNON, ORGANIZER, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF MINE, MILL, AND SMELTER WORKERS, NEW YORK CITY.

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the purpose which brings us here is to enter a protest against conscription, and not only against conscription but against this so-called selective conscription.

We oppose conscription because it must be conceded, after examining the world's history and the development of the different peoples, that conscription is not for free men, and this Nation that has been built up to try to get something different than they have had in other nations was built up upon a basis that the people of this country should be free men, should have their own destinies in their own hands, should guide themselves as the people themselves thought best. A government of that kind is based upon freedom of choice, freedom of individuality, and if we get away from that we are going back to the kind of conditions that prompted our forefathers to leave Europe and come here, and we are bringing the evils of the foreign system into our own Government. Hence we are against conscription, and we are against selective conscription, because it leaves an opening to help out or encourage to some extent some favored few at the expense of the many.

Now, the system of selective conscription will work out not as intended by the committee, not as intended by those who champion it necessarily in an executive or parliamentary body here, but it will work out as those desire in whose interests it can be made to work. We can send a hundred thousand, a million, or two or three million troops abroad, perhaps; the country can engage in a life and death struggle; but the interests at home who have the handling of the necessities of life are going to exploit all that it is possible for them to exploit. The cost of living is going to get higher and higher. The conditions are going to become so heavy that strikes are going to be forced. The laborer is going to be compelled to endeavor to get more for his products in order to live. And when that is done the selective conscription can be used to take the active men of labor and put them into the Army, and strikes can be and would be defeated in that way. Not because the President may want it, and not because our Congressmen or Senators may want it, but every time there is labor trouble and troops are brought into the field they work not for justice but under the instructions of the employers. I am sorry to have to say that as an American citizen, but I have been in those battles, and I know how the psychology works out. Labor is going to be oppressed more by a selective conscription even than by universal conscription. We do not want this selective conscription, because it is an evil. It is against every ideal for which our forefathers contended. It is against every purpose for which the Revolutionary War was fought. It is against every ideal of American

democracy and American liberty. Hence we do not want this conscription.

I know that some will doubt this contention. A great many doubted me a year or two ago when I said we were going to have conscription if we did not wake up. A great many doubted when I told them we were going to get into this war. Now we are in the war. Now we are face to face with conscription. To demonstrate how this war psychology works out, I spoke at a great mass meeting. in Detroit about three weeks ago, one of the biggest outpourings have ever witnessed. There was a telegraph instrument put into the hall by the Postal Telegraph Co., and from that meeting 800 telegrams were sent to Washington. I am told this morning that there was not one of those telegrams delivered at Washington. Eight hundred protests sent to Washington and not one delivered, notwithstanding the telegraph company took the money and encouraged the audience to send telegrams. If these protests were not delivered in time of peace what are we going to do when actual war comes? We are going to come to riot, to bloodshed, not because I want it, not because I am going to like to see it when it does happen, but because the American people are going to rise up and protest. And if they can not have a hearing they are going to throw stones, and it means that in every community in the United States blood is going to flow on the streets; because that is the only outlet that is going to be left to the people under this conscription. The liberties for which our forefathers fought are practically going to cease to operate. We are going into the war to establish a democracy in Germany, and we are establishing autocracy in the United States. It is not out mission to carry democracy to any people by force. If they follow our prècepts and examples, all well and good, but we can, not force democracy on them, we can not force liberty or justice on them.

In behalf of the great mass of American workers who are organized and with whom I am coming in contact day after day, meeting them in conventions and in their local unions, I want to say that I know they are against conscription. If the issue is forced too far I am afraid that instead of having the liberty for which we live and about which we are taught in our schools, we are going to have oppression just as rank as any they have had in Europe.

Ever since our Nation has been established we have appealed to reason instead of force, to a peaceful settlement of disputes instead of violence. It has ever been the endeavor of organized labor to show the foreigner that the American way was the safe and sane

way.

Now, in order to engage in a foreign war so unpopular that the American man will not volunteer to fight it, we are about to resort to conscription, from freedom of choice, to enforced military service. And this young manhood which has heretofore been taught that reason was the method of settling disputes is now to be impressed with the idea that force is the method, and the only practical method, of settling disputes.

The result will be that the young manhood in settling internal disputes will resort to violence instead of reason. From a Nation

noted for its adherence to law and order we will develop into one feared by its own people on account of its riots and bloodshed. Instead of the ballot being the weapon of reform and change of

governmental institutions, bullets will be resorted to not because we wish it, but because that will be the inevitable result of the psychology that will be developed by militarism.

Miss FREEMAN. Mr. Chairman, the next speaker is Mrs. Glendower Evans, of Boston, who has many facts regarding the conscientious objectors in Great Britain.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. We will hear Mrs. Evans.

STATEMENT OF MRS. GLENDOWER EVANS, OF BOSTON, REPRESENTING THE LEAGUE FOR DEMOCRATIC CONTROL.

Mrs. EVANS. I have been somewhat intimately conversant with this conscientious objector movement in England, and have read letters from these men, the choicest spirits in England, who are languishing in English prisons during this war, and I have been enormously impressed with the fact that the thing that is happening in England now is the same thing that happened between Christian and pagan Rome; that the Government in England was turned into the persecutor. I do not want to see that thing happen in the United States. I think the danger to our armies from lack of men is negligible compared to the danger of our Government's arraigning itself as the dictator of this free conscience upon which our land is founded. I do not want to see our United States turned into a dark Russia, the kind of Russia that we are congratulating the world upon getting rid of. It is for the sake of freedom for my Government that do not want to see that struggle precipitated.

Now, the dangers and difficulties, of course, are very great, but I would rather let 20 slackers escape because they are slackers than I would to turn the Government into a persecutor of its own citizens. We are going to get men enough. Out of our millions of people we are not going to be short of men. In England it has been found that one great difficulty was that when the conscientious objectors were Socialists they ran counter to the prejudice of the hour. The Quakers, the Friends, apparently had gotten off very easily. They are recognized down through history, and if you are in good standing in a religious organization that has a conscientious objection against war, apparently that is easily settled in England; but if you are not lined up with an organization-and a great many of them are notand if they are not Socialists as well, there is a conflict on that is turning the English Government, as I say, into a regular persecutor of freedom of thought and action of its own choicest spirit, the kind that you want the world to be most hospitable to.

I shall be surprised if there does not develop a very serious objection to this thing as it is put in operation; certainly unless it is put in operation with very great moderation. Of course, this war is different from other wars in not being recognized by all of our people as a thing like an invasion, which nobody questions.

In Massachusetts we honored from colonial days the system-it is in our most ancient law-that the whole male population may be called to arms by proclamation in time of invasion; but, of course, the people in the Middle West have hardly found out there is a war It is not a popular war; it may become so, but at present it is not a war that is clamored for by the people or recognized as being a war for the people.

on.