Religious COs who accept the IV-E classification and older pacifists
who advocate this course have also to consider the non-religious CO.
Under United States Law it is the so-called religious CO who is eligible
for this classification; the so-called non-religious CO, though he
may by unanimous consent be equally sincere, is not. The latter has
no choice except the army or jail. The fact that he is only 18 years
old does not alter that. Nothing in this entire field of pacifist
policy and behavior is, frankly, harder for me to understand than how
religious COs and many of the leaders of the peace churches and of
the Fellowship of Reconciliation, can acquiesce in this situation and
accept what is regarded as an advantage, a preferred position, under
it. The white CO who accepted conscript alternative service when the
Negro CO was automatically forced to choose the army or prison would be
in an invidious position. So would the Gentile when his Jewish comrade
was thus discriminated against. But in my mind the case is far more
deplorable when it is the religious and the supposedly non-religious man
who are involved. The white man or the Gentile might actually believe in
discrimination or not regard it too seriously when the discrimination is
in his favor. But for the religious man it should surely be a central and
indispensable part of his faith that discrimination, most of all where
two men acting in obedience to conscience are involved, is unthinkable
and that if there is discrimination, he cannot be the beneficiary of it.
At any rate, the argument that there must be alternative service
because _immature_ 18-year-olds must by no means be subjected to prison
experience seems to me to become completely impotent in the mouths
of those religious pacifists who acquiesce in the arrangement under
discussion and enable it to work—unless indeed they mean to contend that
the average religious CO has less stamina than the non-religious CO and
that, therefore, the former should be given gentler treatment.
Advocacy of alternative service for the teen-age CO is based on
considerations relating to the future of the pacifist movement, as well
as on the effect on the COs themselves. It is argued that if the only
choice young pacifists have is the army or jail, there will be very few
pacifists. This argument was not, however, first advanced when the draft
age was lowered. It was often heard during World War II when most COs
were older and more seasoned. It has always impressed me as a dubious
argument and I wonder where it leads us. What, for example, is the
relationship of this argument to the one which is also advanced—sometimes
by the same person—that the IV-E position is very meaningful and perhaps
to be preferred to the more “absolutist” one, because it is the IV-E man
who gives a glorious demonstration of the spirit of selfless service
which is the essence of pacifism at its best? These two concepts cannot
very well be harnessed together as a team. We can hardly contend in one
and the same breath that we want alternative service because most young
pacifists are not ready to follow a stronger and more sacrificial course
_and_ that we want it because it is the strongest and most meaningful
course pacifists can follow. It seems to me we have to decide whether our
problem is to find shelter for COs or whether it is to find freedom and
the opportunity for self-expression and service, even though the price be
high.
To consider the matter for a moment from the tactical viewpoint, it seems
quite certain that the number of 18-year-olds who take either the IV-E
or the non-registrant position (perhaps even the I-A-O position might be
included) will at least at the outset be small. The draft now gets the
young man at the very age when it is most difficult for him to stand out
in any way from the mass of his fellows. Even if he is intellectually
pretty well convinced of the pacifist position, he is not emotionally
mature enough to take it. It is a fair guess that the accessions to
the pacifist movement, if military service and/or training becomes
universal, will in the future come mainly from young people who have gone
through the experience of life in the armed forces. In other words, the
additional number of pacifists recruited because alternative service is
provided may turn out to be very small. If so, the numerical advantage
from the adoption of a less uncompromising pacifism is illusory.
There is one other factor which may be mentioned in this context, that we
live in an age when the role of minorities is an increasingly difficult
one. The pressures and the actual persecution to which they are subjected
are severe. The trend is still partially obscured in the United States
but if we pause to reflect that not a single bomb has as yet fallen on
this country, we shall realize that this country is not an exception to
the trend toward greater conformity and regimentation. As the New York
_Times_ editorialized some time ago in commenting on some features of the
McCarran Act, if we are already resorting to such repressive measures,
what will we do when a real crisis comes? In other words, while we spend
a good deal of time arguing that COs should have some choice other than
the army or jail, we are probably moving into a time when that will
essentially be the only choice that members of minorities, including
pacifists, have. It would seem then that our thought and energy should be
devoted to two issues: whether and how this trend toward totalitarianism
can be halted and how we may prepare and discipline ourselves to meet the
tests which our fellow-pacifists in some other lands have already had to
meet?