The Politics of Conscience: The Historic Peace Churches and America at War, 1917-1955 (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews45 all, it is important to note that Wharton came from a well-to-do Hicksite family in which both parents followed the vocation of the ministry. He was raised by parents generous in both their wealth and their time, and he admired those parents, particularly his mother, Deborah. Still, Wharton's own positions on issues often appear to be expedient. His family were strong abolitionists; Joseph deplored slavery but the position he adopted as a youth, of allowing southerners to make up their own minds about the morality of their slave system, allowed him to continue to sell his nickel and zinc in southern states. He appears to have had few pacifist leanings, so nothing deterred him from major expansion in his zinc works in order to feed the military expansion of the north. "He would make zinc for shells; use the profits to buy bonds; and contribute money to the support of soldiers and their families" (p. 110) even when this distressed his mother, who was a pacifist. Yates makes the valuable point that Wharton did not believe in the morality of making money from the mere manipulation of stocks and bonds, which distinguished him from other industrialists of his day. He was charitable at home and at large, if prone to administer advice in large doses along with his gifts. All of these are admirable qualities but do they mark Wharton as uniquely a member of the Religious Society of Friends? Only marginally so. Yates's equation of Protestantism and success at capitalist enterprise appears to be the major reason for labelling Wharton as a Quaker industrial pioneer. His thrift, hard work, and dogged energy in his business enterprises mark him as a man of his age, certainly, but where the Quaker values espoused by his own family warred with his business interests, Wharton chose business. Haverford CollegeSusan Mosher Stuard The Politics of Conscience: The Historic Peace Churches and America at War, 1917-1955. By Albert N. Keim and Grant M. Stolzfus. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1988. 176 pp. $14.95. This book recounts the joint efforts of Mennonites, Friends, and Brethren to establish legal recognition of conscientious objectors to war service, and their struggle to implement alternative service for them in World War I and World War II under the 1948 Selective Service Act and its revision during the Korean War 1950-51 . 1 am delighted with the fresh perspective and new insights which the Mennonite point of view of these two authors brings. The Selective Training Act passed by Congress in May 1917 recognized the "privilege" of conscientious objection by inducting such religious objectors into the armed forces but assigning them to non-combatant duty. In March 1918 Congress passed an act which permitted men to be furloughed out of the armed forces "during harvest and planting time ... to assist in agricultural production" (p. 48). Following a series of Historic Peace Churches conferences in the 1930's, Mennonites , Friends, and Brethren reached a joint consensus on what they desired for alternative service for conscientious objectors as World War II became imminent , and persuaded the U.S. Congress to include "work of national importance under civilian direction" as alternative service for conscientious objectors in the Draft Act of 1940. Keim and Stolzfus laconically describe the outcome: "A unique partnership between the Historic Peace Churches and the Selective Service System was born" (p. 114). This meant that while the Peace Churches managed the camps and had to raise the money to maintain the men 46Quaker History in them, Selective Service controlled and supervised the whole operation. The 1940 Selective Service Act died with the end of World War II but was succeeded by a new one passed in 1948. Curiously, this one provided for the simple deferment of conscientious objectors. The entrance of the United States into the Korean War in 1950 brought a revision of the Selective Service Act and the requirement that conscientious objectors do two years of alternative service. After favorable court rulings men who objected to military service on "economic" or "social" grounds, rather than because of "religious training and belief," were permitted to do alternative service. Many Mennonites, Friends, Brethren, and...