The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1917-10-24
The Attitude Of Ouakers on Military Service

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Of all the decisions made by the Five Years
Meeting of Friends, which is the governing body
of the Quaker church in America, none was OF
greater interest to this community than its Of
fetal utterance on the topic of military service.
The telegram sent to Secretary of War Baker,
asking that all Quakers Of military age be trans
ferred from the training camps to the Friends
Foreign Service Committee for reconstruction
work in France, summarizes officially the stand
of this denomination.
Quakers want their young men exempt from
every service that is directly or indirectly con-
nected with the military. The service of these
young men is to be specifically that of recon-
struction work in France and Belgium.
The principle of non-resistance and the theory
that any kind of work about cantonment, such
as cooking, baking, police and sanitary work, is
military service because it assists the purpose of
an army, namely that of destruction, do not ap-
peal to the American citizens.
Why mere adherence to the Quaker belief
should exempt from military service, and faith
in the Catholic or the Methodist belief condemn
to service is a discrepancy that Quaker argument
has not explained.
Catholics, Quakers and members of Protest
ant denominations are citizens of the same repub-
does not pay higher tax rate than the Luther
an The Presbyterian enjoys no greater privi-
leges than the Quaker. If our privileges ire
spective of religious beliefs, are the same, then
our responsibilities are the same.
If Baptist who pays the same tax rate that
a Quaker does, must serve his country SOL
der, why should Friend, who pays no higher
tax rate and makes greater contribution to
the government, be excused from military serv-
ice?
Why should the young Quaker have the right,
merely by virtue of his religion, to say that he
will do nothing but reconstruction work?
Why must the Catholic, the Methodist the
Lutheran the United Brethren, the ATHEIST and
the agnostic explicitly obey the government and
suffer himself to be ordered about at the direc-
ton of his superior officers?
The answer of the Quaker is that tenet of
his church forbids military service, that he has
conscientious scruples against warfare, that the
founders of his church had revelation declar-
ing war Ubiquitous and that he accepts this prin.
ciple.
Neither the Catholic church nor the Protest
ant denominations accept the distinctive tenet Of
the Friends that it is wrong to fight in behalf Of
a good cause.
Certainly the Quaker church is not the only
religious body that has received divine revela
ton on the question of war.
Assuredly there are men of high religious Wis
ion and of great spiritual penetration in the othe
churches.
If the Quaker principle of non-resistance i
inspired, it is very strange, indeed, that divin
providence overlooked the other church bodie
when the message was flashed from on high.
Can it be that the Quaker church is the onl
church to whom God entrusted this principle
Have the other denominations in the face of thei
tremendous numerical growth, their externa
greatness and internal spirituality, been over