freedom of the human spirit. But it is the holiest and highest thing in the world to those who recognize it, and in the defense of the rights of that inner voice there is nothing so sacred as to be compared with it.

I understand that the proponent of this bill is attempting to defend that most precious possession of the human race; and I am here because as a religious man I resent tremendously what I consider the invention of the rights of the domain of the spirit within a man. I say, you may call it God. Some people that I know, who do not take the name of God as seriously as I do, would call it by some other name. But however you describe it, it is the thing that has made man worth while down the ages.

I am here primarily to speak for that thing, and to go on record as being in favor of this bill, which seems to me to fend for the rights of that divinest part of man; and to say that first, as a man of religion, a man with deep religious convictions, I resent the thought that my country would ever set up a standard for admission to citizenship which would automatically exclude from America citizenship the character in all history whose presence in our country would do most to honor it and to glorify it. It seems to me that it is an almost intolerable indignity and affront to the spirit of the religious man for a standard to be set up which would automatically exclude that character from American citizenship.

But even apart from religion, if I were not a religious man, I would have the same feeling. I would call that spirit within me by some other name. But it would to all intents and purposes be the same. And that spirit is something against which Congress, the Supreme Court, all the power that organized government in the United States or in the world could bring to bear, could make no headway whatever. Organized government could crush me, but it could not crush the spirit in me that cries out against its assumption of tyrannical power.

Now, what is within me is deeply within a great majority of my fellow citizens. And I think when a bureau of our Government tilts against that spirit-as question 24 tilts against that spirit-in the long run the Government that upholds that bureau is riding for a fall.

I resent a question like that 24. I have no objection to the oath; none whatever. But I resent that question because it is a good long step toward the establishment of an inquisition in the United States. If it is permissible to probe into the mind with regard to war, as the justice who wrote the opinion in the Macintosh case held, it is permissible to probe into the mind with regard to prohibition; it is permissible to probe into the mind with regard to the fifteenth amendment. And, if Congress dared, as Congress has never dared, to probe into the minds of men who come from my section of the country-I was born in Mississippi and spent many years of my life in San Antonio, which I call my home town.

Bishop James S. Johnston, known all up and down the Rio Grande for 40 years, is my father. Congress has never dared to put through a force bill with regard to the fifteenth amendment since the reconstruction days, because it would have raised up such powerful resentment as to more than overcome any good that could be done.

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You can not probe into the minds of the South too deeply even to-day on the subject of the fifteenth amendment And if you were to probe into the minds of Congressmen with regard to the eighteenth amendment, my God, what would you find? We know. We know perfectly well what we would find. I am not going to squeal," but I know.

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So why probe into the minds of prospective citizens so deeply? Take the oath and let it go at that. Do not attempt to put a person like Doctor Macintosh through an inquisition with the result of excluding a person of his type, and letting into the country people who are by no means up to his standard of citizenship.

I only wanted to get before you gentlemen the viewpoint of an American citizen like myself. I want you to see how deeply I feel about it. I tell you frankly that I feel so deeply about this thing that in my solemn opinion for the Government to uphold the Labor Department in re question No. 24, and to go down that line very far would be infinitely worse for the peace of the United States and the people of the United States than if all the aliens sought to be excluded were allowed to come in here and become American citizens. I don't believe religious America will tolerate it. I don't believe they will. I would only tolerate it because the mountain happened to be a little bigger than the man. But the man would resent the mountain's tyranny. It is because of such human resentment recorded in human history that that history is infinitely more worth while than the history of mountains.

There is a tremendous volcano of feeling along that subject, and here I am, a person whose family has figured in every walk of life in this country for the past 200 years, and has never failed.

I want to tell you about the war. I beat our boys over there. Although I was 48 years of age, I could not be kept at home.

I went over there and took all the medicine the boche could give, and it was plenty.

But here I am, just as deeply resenting this invasion of a thing that to me is higher and holier than the country for which I would die, and have risked to the very limit of dying for it, and yet this other thing, which the restriction now places on all, I am against, and tremendously so, so that I would be an irreconcilable foe of the tendency to establish that sort of thing in the United States.

Now, just by way of coming back, I happen to have in my hand, because I do want you to get me, that I have never been afraid of the rough side of what is called patriotism. I happen to hold in my hand a picture taken during the war, of my little hole up on the front, where I had carried the flag. We were not supposed to put the flag out for observation, but the commanding officer of that section thought that this little hole in the ground-cave in the ground-where I lived for a month, was so interesting that he sent the movie men over there to take the pictures, and when they got over there they said, the commander says, "Put your flag out too." So they took a movie of me and my hut, and that was shown all over the United States for the purpose of encouraging enlistment, getting men to join in the pleasant time we were having over in France.

I would there were more time to quote you from two books, one called The Exaltation of the Flag-one of the greatest demonstra

tions in behalf of the American flag ever made out of America, in which I took a leading part, and which carries what I said on that occasion.

Mr. JOHNSON. Written by whom?

Mr. JOHNSTON. It is a compilation of the sentiments that took place in Manila in August, 1907, and it resulted in passing the flag laws in the Philippine Islands. I was, some people thought, a superheated patriot in Manila in those days, and was exceeding jealous for the flag, and practically all of the Americans in Manila met in the National Theater to insist upon the Government's taking the proper steps to protect the sanctity of the flag on that occasion. If I had more time, I would read you a selection from what I said, and another book there, entitled Patriotism and Radicalism, which I published just before I left for France, and which contains an address made to the Sons of the American Revolution on October 18, 1917, called The American Spirit.

And if, after what I have said, anybody here doubts whether the juice of this thing we call patriotism is in this witness, I shall be very glad to send him a copy of my address on the American spirit, in this book.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. JOHNSTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Who is your next witness?

Mr. GRIFFIN. The next witness I want to introduce is Dr. S. M. Grubb, the editor of the Mennonite.

STATEMENT OF S. M. GRUBB, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Mr. GRUBB. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: Under the present situation, Mennonites, seeking naturalization, have imposed upon them a process by which, according to the decision of the Supreme Court, they must do violence to their consciences. The fact that the court was divided and three of its members dissented would indicate that there are weighty reasons why there should be congressional relief from what amounts to persecution of those who take it that the teachings of Jesus Christ are to be taken seriously and sincerely.

Mennonites everywhere hold that conscience is above state in matters of belief and the whole past history of our Nation shows that we are but a small minority of the body of Christians everywhere who agree with us in this particular. Carried to its logical conclusion, if there is to continue a law of the land which conscripts conscience in the event of another war, the interpretation and execution of this law will be in the hands of the military authorities, from whom nothing is to be expected but a massacre of pacifist men and women in the interest of military expediency.

The CHAIRMAN. Pardon me, but is that a long statement?
Mr. GRUBB. No; five minutes.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, we have had that argument very much advanced to-day, and I thought that you might come down to the important part of your statement.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, the witness just made a statement that they were going to kill all pacifists. Will you read that last sentence?

Mr. GRUBB. Mennonites everywhere hold that conscience is above state in matters of belief and the whole past history of our Nation shows that we are but a small minority of the body of Christians everywhere who agree with us in this particular. Carried to its logical conclusion, if there is to be a law of the land that conscripts conscience, in the event of another war, the interpretation and execution of this law will be in the hands of the military authorities from whom nothing is to be expected but a massacre of pacifist men and women in the interest of military expediency.

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you believe that?

Mr. GRUBB. I say, carried to its logical conclusion.
Mr. JOHNSON. Do you believe it?

Mr. GRUBB. I believe if this is carried to its logical conclusion, the military authorities, that is.

Mr. JOHNSON. Not as a hypothetical matter, but do you really believe what you have just said there, which you read from your paper? Do you believe that they are going to be killed off?

Mr. GRUBB. My people have furnished martyrs to this cause, and they are at this moment doing so in Russia.

Mr. JOHNSON. Go ahead.

Mr. GRUBB. Thousands of them. Knowing as we do, that discipline and not justice are the aims of military administration, we have little hope for consideration from that quarter. State-madeconscience, in times of public excitement, will surely seek victims. among those who can not be ruled by it, and not only the peace sects, but some of the major denominations may be exposed to dangerous persecution because they dissent. Differences between Catholics and Protestants may even lead to terrible ends, should radical parties of either side come into control of a government that would assume to define conscience according to its own plans.

It is significant that two of the outstanding individuals whose cases came to notice in the naturalization courts with reference to. their pacifist beliefs were women. It was demanded of them that they declare themselves ready to take up and use deadly arms and become a part of the active military establishment of the nation.. The humiliation of it all! Even a rabid pacifist would cry coward to those who would place their women between themselves and the enemy.

Mennonites are law abiding. By their industry they have always created wealth in their communities away out of proportion to their numbers. None of them ever become public charges. They accept without protest a share in providing more than an equal part of relief for the needy outside of their own communion. They lovetheir country and bring their children up to be useful and law-abiding citizens. They do not proselyte and do not engage in trying to force their peculiar beliefs upon others.

Mr. FREE. Pardon me there. Would you very briefly tell me what. you believe?

Mr. GRUBB. Like the Quakers, we are not resistful; like the Quakers, we do not take the oath; like them, we believe in separation of church and State; like them, we believe that the authority of the church is in the individual congregation.

Mr. FREE. Pardon me, but will you tell me why you affirm instead of taking an oath?

Mr. GRUBB. That shows, Mr. Congressman, that you have not been reading the New Testament. Jesus says, swear not at all.

Mr. FREE. Said what?

The CHAIRMAN. He said, "Jesus says, swear not at all."
Mr. JOHNSON. Now, you do not resist?

Mr. GRUBB. No, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON. And yet, you are afraid you are going to be killed off by the military authorities, as I get what you are saying; is that it?

Mr. GRUBB. Would not that be the consistent thing to expect?

Mr. JOHNSON. No; and I will tell you why. You will have the help of some of the rest of us, and we will not let that take place at all. This country is full of people that would protect people like you, and I wish, when you get the record, that you would read very carefully the statement of Mr. Johnston, the preceding witness, and note the strength of that, and get the fear out of your mind.

Mr. GRUBB. Would you permit me to finish, Mr. Chairman?
The CHAIRMAN. Go right ahead.

Mr. GRUBB. May I proceed, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed.

Mr. GRUBB. They are scattered over many countries and three continents. Time and again they have had to become wanderers upon the face of the earth for conscience sake, locating wherever they could; without bitterness in their hearts they have proceeded to prove their appreciation of the refuges in which they were permitted to abide by making the deserts bloom as the rose. The dispersion of the Huguenots, with its consequent loss to France and blessings to other nations, was insignificant compared to the one now taking place because of the bloody persecution carried on against Mennonites by the Soviet Russia. I might say that the first relief missions sent into Russia during the famine was a Mennonite mission. The youthful Clayton Kratz, who lead it, with the purpose of feeding starving Russian citizens, was seized by soviets and done to death. We have consistently maintained our pacifist position by not calling upon the United States Government to demand satisfaction.

During the last 250 years many Mennonites came to this country because it was the land of the free conscience. They became citizens as soon as the law permitted them to do so, and they have never, and never will, abuse the privilege. The hot-water rebellion in John Adams's administration, for which John Fries was condemned to be hanged, took place in a strong Mennonite community, but not a single Mennonite took part in it, or even sympathized with it. Those in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War remained loyal to the North, even though northern troops burned their barns and their houses over them.

Like other pacifists, Mennonites during the World War took their country in good faith and claimed the exemptions provided for them by law. The rowdy elements in the camps were not very severely dealt with by their superiors when they resorted to abusing them in a way which, in several instances, resulted in death. Should we find another war on our hands, the least to be expected by those whose consciences will not permit them to participate in military activities will be mob violence, and I am not so sure but what most of it will be winked at by unsympathetic authorities,