Yet this democratic country makes no such provision for those who will not commit murder at the behest of the war profiteers. That issue is the Prussianizing of America so as to destroy whatever few liberties the people have achieved through an incessant struggle of many years. Already all labor protective laws have been abrogated, which means that while husbands, fathers and sons are butchered on the battlefield, the women and children will be exploited in our industrial bastiles to the heart's content of the American patriots for gain and power. Freedom of speech, of press and assembly is about to be thrown upon the dungheap of political guarantees. But crime of all crimes, the flower of the country is to be forced into murder whether or not they believe in war or in the efficacy of saving democracy in Europe by the destruction of democracy at home.
Liberty of conscience is the most fundamental of all human rights, the pivot of all progress.
No man may be deprived of it without losing every vestige of freedom of thought and action. We will resist conscription by every means in our power, and we will sustain those who, for similar reasons, refuse to be conscripted. We are not unmindful of the difficulties in our way. But we have resolved to go ahead and spare no effort to make the voice of protest a moral force in the life of this country. The initial efforts of the conscientious objectors in England were fraught with many hardships and danger, but finally the government of Great Britain was forced to give heed to the steadily increasing volume of public protest against the coercion of conscientious objectors.