Statement

In reference to the turning in of draft cards next Monday
there are a few things I think which need to be stressed.

The men turning in their draft cards cannot be called draft-
dodgers. Most of them are students, and as students they have deferments
or even, in the case of seminarians, exemptions. So when these men turn in
their draft cards they are really turning in their deferments, their exemptions.
They are turning in the dodge the draft system provides for them as students.
It is therefore not a cowardly but a very courageous act.

Secondly, when we worry about the illegality of what they are
doing we need to worry also about who broke what law first. For instance,
I am worried over the fact that half a million American boys are now fighting
in Viet Nam without a declaration of war, even though the United States
Constitution clearly says that war waging is the prerogative of the United
States Senate. I don't see that the Tonkin Resolution is a substitute for
the United States Constitution.

Then I am worried that in Thailand we have fifty thousand men
on a landlocked aircraft carrier and not so much as a treaty signed by the
Senate. Once again, what has happened to the United States Constitution?

Abraham Lincoln, then a Congressman, said of President Polk
"The President has unconstitutionally and unnecessarily commenced this war."
I am worried that these words now apply to our own President.

And finally, what worries me is the conduct of this war, that we
are systematically violated solemn laws of war which we have signed. The systematic
removal of entire villages, the use of noxious gases, the turning over of Viet Namese
to be tortured by the ARVN--all these are in violation of the laws of war and Army
Manual 27-10 says "Anyone who violates a law of war is guilty of a war crime."

Thirdly, we must stress the fact that these men who turn in their
draft cards are not anarchists, are not revolutionaries. They are willing to accept
the legal punishment, and when a man accepts the legal punishment he is in fact
upholding and not subverting the legal order.

Statement--2.

And finally, let me say that on Monday a few of us will be
accepting draft cards at their hands. This means that we are "conduits";
that we are aiding and abetting them. Therefore if any of them are arrested
for violating a law that violates their conscience then we too must be arrested
for in the sight of that law we are now as guilty as they. To arrest them and
not to arrest us is to make a mockery of American justice. It is not an easy
thing to do, but we are prepared to stand by these men because we believe they
are right and conscientious in what they are doing, and we because we believe
as clergymen and educators that we cannot raise men of conscience only to
abandon them in their hour of conscience.