STATEMENt of don e. SMUCKER, MENNONITE CENTRAL COMMITTEE, PASTOR, THE BETHEL MENNONITE CHURCH, LANCASTER, PA.

Dr. SMUCKER. My name is Don E. Smucker. I am pastor of the Bethel Mennonite Church in Lancaster, Pa., and I am also speaking for the Mennonite Central Committee, which is an inter-Mennonite organization representing all the Mennonites and the Amish people of this country.

That would include about 125,000 adult members of various groups. The Mennonites, the Amish, and also another little group, the Brethren of Christ, have been in this country since 1683, having their origin in Holland and Switzerland. I think most of you have heard of some of our colorful ways, and particularly our contribution in the agricultural regions.

For example, Lancaster County is usually thought of as ideal farm land which has developed under their frugal and disciplined living.

I think one aspect of the Mennonite tradition which enters into our view of this bill is the plight of our fellow Mennonites in Europe. Not all of our people came to this country. I think our forefathers who did come made the right decision, but those who tarried in Europe have had a very bad time of it, especially since the largest group of Mennonites who remained in Europe were in Russia; and as the Czarist regime lessened their liberties in 1870, a great group came to this country, and then, of course, those that got under the Bolsheviks were wrong at every point.

They were Christians. They were pacifists. They were wealthy farmers, or at least moderately wealthy.

Just now we have some Mennonites who actually got out of the Soviet Union. You may have read in Time Magazine of the group that got to Paraguay, and all through our history our people have been fleeing across the face of the earth just to find the one precious commodity of freedom.

Most Mennonites now feel that this great land of America is the really great citadel of freedom, and also, I might say, of food.

Our Mennonite Central Committee is actively engaged not only in working with displaced persons but in the field of relief work. Mr. GOSSETT. How many of your group are in the DP camps, that you know of?

Dr. SMUCKER. I wish I had the exact statistics. I know that in the group that went to Paraguay, there were about 3,000, and there are a great many of those people in the displaced persons' camps in Europe, in Denmark, Holland and other parts of Europe.

It is said that one-half of those Russian Mennonites who did get out of Russia have disappeared through some technique or other that has been used to get them away.

Mr. GOSSETT. You say there are relatively few in the DP camps in the American zone of Germany and Austria?

Dr. SMUCKER. Yes. I wish I had the exact statistics. I am not a professional member of the secretariat of the committee. I am just an active pastor, and I apologize for not having those statistics.

But that whole story is very much in the hearts of the American Mennonites who are in it financially and functionally. I know that the chartering of this one ship to go from Europe to Paraguay was

probably the most dramatic single exodus of refugees in the history of Mennonites.

We have had little groups that have gone on ships, but this is the first time that a whole shipload of them left under much duress.

These people, I think would be depressed no end if they felt that this land would slam the door shut in advance on that type of person, whose contributions to the common life of each country they have lived in, by way of being hard-working, thrifty, agricultural, Godfearing and Christian people, I think, have earned them the respect of most nations they have lived in, even though they have been conscientious objectors.

I might say just a personal word, that in my church in Lancaster just a few weeks ago, I had a man in the congregation who left the Soviet Union in 1943, and if you could see the joy and the radiance of his face as he had the full rights of religious liberty, you would appreciate what that means to that type of man.

This is still a land of hope for those people, even though very few are in our country.

In coming here, I went on the assumption that this bill as it is now written does close the doors to citizenship. This "if required" discussion, on the whole, was over my head. But I assume that that meant nothing more nor less than that a CO was not to be a citizen.

And if, as Mr. Cornell has suggested, that could be clarified in order not to be ambiguous, that would help us to know what the real issue is. I think also that the Mennonites as a whole would feel that this would reverse the basic tradition of the American people in this connection. My own forefathers came to Pennsylvania 200 years ago, and I know that they were given citizenship; and broadly speaking, that has worked out with variations and changes through these 200

years.

I believe that this would be a particularly unfortunate time for the leading democratic nation of the earth to turn out the lights of liberty at this point. I believe that this possibility of citizenship in America means more than just letting this or that person in. It is a symbol of hope to people, even those who may never get here.

Clarence Dykstra defined for me what is the real difference between a dictatorship and a democracy. He said that it is the difference in consideration given to minorities.

Now, you have suggested that that raises painful dilemmas for those of you in the majority, and we would assume that Pennsylvania thinks that way, because minorities can be difficult and raise a lot of dilemmas for a nation.

Nevertheless, I think the fact remains that that is a very precious part of our tradition.

Then I would like to suggest that it seems to set up a stricter standard for these aliens than it does for the rest of us who are conscientious objectors. And while perhaps greater caution is needed with aliens, yet our American system seems to protect our type of citizens and interpretations of our rights.

Already, mention has been made about the contribution made during the last war by these CO's in various ways, and I believe that the confidence which this Government in its moment of crisis in the war put in these CO's was thoroughly justified.

I think that many of us Mennonites feel that we now have a bigger conception of citizenship than we used to. Our weakness has been

that we retreated in these peculiar colonies and perhaps worked hard in raising food, and that is about all.

Now, I think that even though we are pacifists, we feel that we have an obligation to our country to do something for it.

Mr. FELLOWS. How do you define a "pacifist"?

Dr. SMUCKER. There are literally dozens of definitions of it.

Mr. FELLOWS. What would be your choice?

Dr. SMUCKER. I think the minimum definition would be a person who refused to bear arms; and, personally, as a Christian, I would find the real sense of that in my allegiance to Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures.

In other words, we feel that it is a truth of our Christian conviction. Where we get into differences, of course, is the basis on which we have this conviction.

Mr. FELLOWS. I have great respect for people of that sort. I am not attempting, as I indicated, any disrespect to anyone.

But let us take one of your people. If he should be attacked on the street by someone, would he defend himself?

Dr. SMUCKER. Frankly, I think there would be a difference of opinion on that. I think that, broadly speaking, most Mennonites and most CO's consider war to be a unique question as over against the problem of personal violence.

I think we do have people, including very rugged, virile men with a lot of muscle who could enter into that picture, who would feel that as Christians they should be thoroughly nonresistant in every situation. Mr. FELLOWs. Let us assume that some member of the family of a Mennonite is attacked. Would he stand behind and let them beat up his child?

Dr. SMUCKER. I do not really know how every Mennonite would react in that situation. I think the desire of all of them would be not to use any weapons that would bring about the death of the assailant.

Mr. FELLOWs. That would be the law, of course. You are not supposed to use any more force than is necessary under the circumstances.

But don't you think that most of them would defend, up to that point, their own child, if that child were attacked?

Dr. SMUCKER. I really doubt if most of them would use any violence. These people, of course, have a very radical faith in divine guidance and deliverance, and that enters, of course, into this action. Mr. GOSSETT. Do they administer punishment to their own children?

Dr. SMUCKER. I think they do.

Mr. GOSSETT. I spank mine frequently. I have a strap that I hang behind the door.

Dr. SMUCKER. I do not know that strapping is a standard procedure, and I doubt that many Mennonites do that. Probably it is the oldfashioned hand spanking.

Mr. FELLOWS. It is pretty generally agreed, I think, that Japan made a deliberate assault upon us.

Dr. SMUCKER. I do not think there is full agreement on that; is there?

Mr. FELLOWS. I will ask you to interpret that.

Dr. SMUCKER. I read the report of this commission appointed by the President.

Mr. FELLOWS. You would recognize there is such a thing as an attack made by one nation upon another?

Dr. SMUCKER. Yes.

Mr. FELLOWS. Assuming that is true, if you will assume that that is true in the case of Japan, don't you think we should defend ourselves?

Dr. SMUCKER. For those who believe that taking this course is Christian and valid, I think they should. But it is simply a question of faith and starting points.

If you do believe that God wants you to take the sword as a citizen and a good citizen, then there is not much else for you to do. But if you read the Gospel differently-and, of course, this is not a matter of argument, but just a matter of faith-then our argument is logical. It is down here at the starting point that we establish it.

Mr. FELLOWs. I see.

Dr. SMUCKER. But I think that a minority like the Mennonites would not be so prone to quarrel with the majority as to say, "Would you just give the minority the freedom to carry this out?"

We have a little less political tradition, for example, than our good Quaker friends. We have many Mennonites who do not even vote because they think that they are not going to bear arms, and they are not going to get into that. That is, they are not a political group. They are nonpolitical. But some of us who have gone through the American school system find it a little hard to maintain that position.

Mr. FELLOWs. You see what I meant when I referred to the majority; that is, a group of people who do not seem to have anybody looking out for them specifically.

If, under our system, three or four of the minority groups unite, they become a majority, and yet they claim to be the minority. Dr. SMUCKER. Yes.

Mr. FELLOWS. You see, today we have to operate under a primary system. That means, this group organized and that group organized, and this third group and the fourth group--and they are the majority. And yet they choose to be classified as minority groups.

That is happening all the time. It has happened in many of our recent elections, where minority groups getting together have brought about a majority vote.

Is that right?

Mr. GOSSETT. That is right. Mr. FELLOWS. That man on Texas, and I come from Maine. true.

the right, Mr. Gossett, comes from And I find in my State that that is

Dr. SMUCKER. We sympathize with the plight of those of you at the center of our Government. But I think we also would read history aright if we said that thereby to conclude that a minority group should be suppressed would be a grievous mistake, both spiritually and politically.

Mr. FELLOWS. I am not advocating that, because I will be in the minority, perhaps, tomorrow.

But I hear this talk about minority groups, and I wonder, because the monority groups, some of them, are very strong. They are organized. And two or three of them agreeing for a short time on any one topic, of course, make a majority.

Dr. SMUCKER. Through all our history we have tried to put together two things. They sometimes conflict, but we have tried to

put them together, anyhow: The fact that as Christians we should be law-abiding and pray for our Government and pray for our rulers— Mr. FELLOWs. I think it needs it.

Dr. SMUCKER. And be responsible people, and also to say that in the final analysis, it is a political decision versus a Christian conviction. Then we must follow the Christian conviction.

If you would permit me, I should like to read this great statement of Chief Justice Hughes, that I think would be given a yea and amen by most of the Mennonites and similar people.

In the Macintosh case, he said:

Much has been said of the paramount duty to the state, a duty to be recognized it is urged, even though it conflicts with convictions of duty to God. Undoubtedly that duty to the state exists within the domain of power, for government may enforce obedience to laws regardless of scruples. When one's belief collides with the power of the state, the latter is supreme within its sphere, and submission or punishment follows. But in the forum of conscience, duty to a moral power higher than the state has always been maintained. The reservation of that supreme obligation, as a matter of principle, would unquestionably be made by many of our conscientious and law-abiding citizens. The essence of religion is belief in a relation to God involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation I think it is from that great principle that our people would derive their view of this bill and most of the issues that come before them. Mr. FELLOWS. What do you have to say about the provision that they must read English?

Dr. SMUCKER. I think the Jewish gentleman covered the point pretty well there. I think that that would disenfranchise some elderly people.

I think that that would be a rather cruel thing, because we are asking the impossible.

Mr. FELLOWS. But your specific objection is to the bearings of arms if required?

Dr. SMUCKER. Yes. Until that phrase is clarified to concretely and explicitly permit the conscientious objector to become a citizen, I think we would be against the bill.

I thank you.

Mr. FELLOWs. Thank you, sir.

Is there anyone else who wishes to be heard?

Mrs. STEWART. I should like to be heard for a moment.

Mr. FELLOWS. Very well.

Would you state your name and whom you represent?

STATEMENT OF MRS. ALEXANDER STEWART, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES SECTION, WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM

Mrs. STEWART. I am Mrs. Alexander Stewart. I am president of the United States section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

I was called on Thursday and given notice of this, but had to leave Washington and did not get back until midnight last night. So I was not sure that anyone was going to represent our organization.

I want particularly to speak for just a moment on this, because as president of the United States section, I went to Europe last summer to the International Congress of the Women's Interntaional League which was the first congress we had had since 1937, before the war.