AM I SUBVERSIVE?
Hinshaw, Cecil E.
Am I Subversive? By Cecil E. Hinshaw With A Reply by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Page 17 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE — the open refusal to obey a law one believes to be evil—has been the bane of tyrants since...
...If dictatorship ever comes to our country, it will surely come in the name of an "Americanism" that requires slavish, unquestioning obedience to the government in order to protect "our way of life...
...President Bevis wrote: "We will permit no one to speak who is known to be disloyal to our government...
...I was barred from speaking on the Ohio State campus...
...Tyranny thrives only in the soil of passive, uncritical cooperation of the masses...
...3. The difficulty that inevitably arises when two incompatible systems are merged...
...But I believe in the principle of law...
...Of the two issues in this affair— the principle of gag rule at Ohio State and my position on civil disobedience in relation to the draft law—I propose to discuss here only the latter...
...Out of the experience of Quakers with Indians (as well as with the British authorities and the Puritans), out of the experience of Gandhi and his followers in South Africa and India, and out of the experience of various other groups and individuals who have lived and taught non-violent resistance comes the conviction that evil can be resisted bravely, effectively, and morally without resort to guns and napalm bombs and atomic hell...
...Yet all of these were insufficient authority to command Woolman's loyalty and allegiance...
...If the government does not wish to prosecute conscientious objectors who disobey the conscription law (and such refusal to prosecute, or negligence, is something of an admission that the government fears the impact upon society if pacifists are imprisoned or persecuted), the only alternative I know is for the authorities to let such CO's live their lives without any strictures being placed upon them...
...There is a long history of various attempts by governments to develop some tolerable arrangement by which pacifists are given legal status and some type of exemption...
...Reporting on this statement, the Columbus Citizen headlined its article, "Banned Speakers Get 'Disloyal' Tag," thus drawing the obvious inference that I was banned because President Bevis considered me disloyal...
...And it is this higher loyalty that I hold to be the very essence of patriotism for my country, the foundation of the liberties and values that our government was created to protect...
...Therefore I recognize my obligation to disobey a bad law openly in order that my disobedience may test whether that law is properly a part of the government for myself and my fellow citizens...
...Beyond that, we shall not impose any predetermined pattern of thinking nor expect uniformity of view...
...And, according to Webster, to be disloyal is to be "false where allegiance is due...
...And his quiet testimony raised against slavery was the herald of new growth in the conscience of all mankind...
...And I publicly admit I am trying to change it, though I propose no violence and will participate in no violence in such a change...
...I was the first speaker "screened" under a gag rule imposed shortly before by the trustees...
...Rather, I am concerned to point out that there is a practical and moral alternative to the present military madness...
...Even a small measure of proper humility demands the greatest of caution before a man defies history and his own age...
...For those who accept such a thesis, disloyalty is easily defined as refusal to cooperate with the established law of the nation...
...ruin utterly...
...I hold no brief for those who disobey laws covertly and seek to escape the penalties the law exacts for such offenses...
...For the function of law is to create the conditions most conducive to the development of virtue and freedom...
...The batting average for new ideas is discouragingly low...
...Hinshaw . . . advocated that young men should not register for the draft, and if they had registered, not to pay any attention to CECIL E. HINSHAW travels the country as lecturer for the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the American Friends Service Committee...
...I recognize that such a policy would endanger the whole draft system, for it can hardly be expected that other men will continue to submit to conscription when it is publicly known that one segment of the population is being completely freed of the demands of the conscription law...
...Ought I obey a law I believe morally wrong and pragmatically indefensible...
...This I cannot say, either by word or by cooperation with the Selective Service Act through my registration...
...Apparently my point of view is considered subversive, even by some of those who opposed the gag rule...
...My ancestors were among those who manned the "Underground Railroad," asserting their right and obligation to help free slaves, even though such action meant defiance of the authority of the government and the risk of severe fines and prison sentences...
...Law properly exists in order to defend the ideals and values to be found in the Declaration of Independence, in the preamble to the Constitution of our country, in the historic statements of the great religious faiths, and in the yet unborn insights of prophets to come...
...So this leads me to a consideration of the meaning of subversiveness and disloyalty in relation to the issue of civil disobedience, especially as it applies to the Selective Service Act...
...Refusal to obey the Fugitive Slave Law arose from regard for true law...
...But registration as a CO says in effect that I recognize the right of the government to have such a program for other men if it will allow me to serve in some civilian capacity...
...Yet there are few among us today who would not speak with approval of the "Underground Railroad...
...In a note to the deans of the university...
...Significantly, no one ever claims a conscript army can be democratic...
...Civil disobedience as I have here described it must be openly practiced, realizing it may be punished by the government...
...but I will obey God rather than you...
...He insisted that, he should obey his government even if he knew his government was wrong...
...Then it becomes the duty of loyal men and women to part company with the law, even to oppose it by cheerfully accepting imprisonment if need be...
...At such a time the truly patriotic man will boldly and unashamedly stand against the government, no matter what the consequences, calling for that independence of thought and action without which no democracy can survive and with which no dictatorship can live...
...I stand in open opposition to the Selective Service Act and I will not knowingly cooperate in any manner with it...
...Conscription of men for military purposes is, I firmly believe, unalterably evil...
...Obviously I have an obligation to work against it on the legislative level...
...Ill Inevitably this means torment for the sensitive soul, torn between the imperative of the voice within and the pressure from society to conform...
...If the present Selective Service Act is made the object of allegiance, then I plead guilty to being disloyal...
...We recognize no inalienable right to any freedom which has for its purpose the destruction of our government...
...The burden of what I would have said at Ohio State and what I do say elsewhere in my public lectures does not deal at all with civil disobedience...
...Since I have no Communist connections and openly disapprove of most Communist goals and methods, there remained only one reasonable deduction—I was banned because President Bevis considers my acknowledged pacifist convictions to be a threat to "the basic liberties of America," a subversive influence threatening "the destruction of our government...
...Such reasoning immediately confronts us with the problem of authority...
...II When I believe a law threatens the foundations of freedom in my country, what attitude should I take toward it...
...For the government that can require and secure unquestioning and slavish obedience to its commands, regardless of their merit, rules not by law but by dictatorship...
...And in the last analysis he can step out in solitary opposition only when he is driven by what Jeremiah called "a fire in my bones...
...He studied at Friends University,, Wichita, Kan., the Iliff School of Theology, Denver, and Harvard...
...Apparently most people in our country give an affirmative answer, as did an FBI investigator when I put this same question to him...
...Because this belief is supported by evidence I regard as irrefutable I dare to hope that my fellow countrymen will increasingly come to see not only the futility of military defense but also the persuasive logic of non-violent resistance to evil...
...And we must expect to be met by a babble of voices crying that the State, or the Bible, or an ecclesiastical hierarchy must define for the individual what he cannot hope to establish for himself—the values and principles for which he ought to live and the means by which he should hope to achieve his goals...
...This same principle was recognized by the World Council of Churches, meeting in Amsterdam, in words that deserve to be remembered: "The deepest root of that disorder [the present world disorder] is the refusal of men to see and admit that their responsibility to God stands over and above their loyalty to any earthly community and their obedience to any worldly power...
...Rather, most of us find sooner or later that our personal ideas, when they are at variance with society, are usually proven wrong in the forge of human experience...
...Therefore I assert with Black-stone, "No laws are binding on the individual subject that assault the person or violate the conscience," and with Thomas Aquinas, "It would seem that human law does not bind a man in conscience," and with Thoreau, "If the law is of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law...
...W^hen the law moves toward the destruction of such values, the law itself has become subversive...
...I see no convincing evidence that such arrangements can ever be satisfactory...
...But this only points up again the fact that any cooperation with the military draft is a means of helping it to succeed...
...He devoted seven years to pastoral work, three years to the teaching of religion and philosophy at Friends University, and five years as president of William Penn College in Iowa...
...Immediately one is faced with the question of what is to be overturned, overthrown, and ruined utterly, and what it is to which allegiance is due...
...I disapprove of the law entirely and I do not believe my government or any government ought to have such a law...
...Although Judge Gorman's statement is inaccurate and misleading (I have never advocated disobedience of the draft law except for those who are "inwardly prepared" to take such a position "under divine compulsion," fully aware of the consequences of such action and prepared to pay the price of civil disobedience), it did make evident that the basis of the ban was probably my attitude toward the Selective Service Act...
...And willingness to obey that law, an evil law, struck at the very heart of democracy...
...Dictatorships are watered by the pleas from the leaders to be "loyal" and "obey" the laws, as well as by threats' of punishment if the laws are disobeyed...
...Many other people have taken up the struggle on behalf of freedom of speech at Ohio State and as a result the rule has been drastically modified...
...If the development of new insights were as easy as the foregoing seems to make it, doubtless we would not today be faced with this curtailing of the spirit of free inquiry and this oppressive magnification, almost deification, of the State...
...By such registration, even as a conscientious objector, I therefore take an essential step in helping to administer what I believe to be an unwise and evil law...
...Partly because of this doubt that there is any solution to the problem of fitting conscientious objections into the conscription pattern, here is an increase of pacifists who, like myself, are no longer willing to cooperate in any way with the military program...
...For he had heard an inner voice speak to him so clearly he could not deny it without sacrificing his integrity...
...their draft cards...
...Truth has never been advanced without such abandonment of some of the paths of belief and conduct sanctioned by the great majority of the human race...
...When the accumulated wisdom of the ages and the consensus of the great majority of one's fellow men all stand in opposition, a man is a naive fool to fail to understand the tremendous risk of error he assumes in blazing a new path...
...For, such reasoning goes, our government-—has generously recognized the CO by giving him status under the law and no compromise of conscience need be involved in such cooperation with the law...
...2. Registering, even as a CO, gives tacit approval to the right of the government to have such a law...
...The laws protected slavery, religious institutions and authorities sanctified it, and an overwhelming majority of the people approved it...
...They are disloyal who refuse to give allegiance to these values that transcend all human laws...
...There yet remains the question often asked by those who believe that I, as a conscientious objector, am recognized by the Selective Service Act and ought then to comply with the law, registering under it as a CO...
...Am I subversive, then, for believing and advocating these convictions...
...But the issue of civil disobedience remains almost untouched and unconsidered...
...and as long as I have breath and strength I will not cease from philosophy and from exhorting you, and declaring the truth to every one of you whom I meet...
...All that I have said about my position would be incomplete unless I suggested the nature of an alternative program...
...If I am, I trust it is because I choose to be loyal to a greater kingdom than this land I love, to a wiser Ruler than the government I would serve...
...And, by the same reasoning, I contend that those who obey all laws without discriminating between good and bad ones are contributing to the decay and death of law itself...
...But what should be my attitude while it is the law of the land...
...A later statement by the trustees after pressure had been put on them to revoke their gag rule reaffirmed the earlier position,- insisting that the facilities of Ohio State University would "not be made available to known Communists or members of other subversive groups who seek to undermine the basic liberties of America...
...Military conscription is the antithesis of this elevation of conscience above governmental commands...
...By Cecil E. Hinshaw With A Reply by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Page 17 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE — the open refusal to obey a law one believes to be evil—has been the bane of tyrants since the furore raised in Athens when Socrates declared, "Athenians, I hold you in the highest regard and love...
...But the fact cannot be dodged that each individual's conscience does not always lead to new truth...
...It is always so much easier to understand and appreciate the constructive value of civil disobedience when it occurred a century ago and the cause then despised and perseucted has since become popular...
...In an attempt to show why I ought to be considered subversive, Judge Robert Gorman, vice-chairman of the Ohio trustees, said he had found that "Dr...
...Such opposition to have an obligation to work against the Selective Service Act I have steadily expressed...
...Attempts to get an explanation and defense of my position printed met with almost no response, even from that part of the press that had previously been eager to defend my right to speak at Ohio State...
...But my great admiration of Socrates, William Penn, Thoreau, and other champions of the sanctity of conscience had not resulted in civil disobedience being much more than a theoretical matter for me until I became the center of a small storm at Ohio State University some months ago...
...Now I see that this perplexing problem of the limits of governmental authority in dealing with conscience, an issue seldom mentioned in polite society, is at the core of our American way of life...
...Only when one knows that failure to obey the inward voice means the sacrifice of integrity— man's most precious value—is there really justification for civil disobedience...
...But I deny that loyalty is properly defined in terms of obedience to this law...
...IV The foundation of totalitarianism is the willingnes of the people in a state to abdicate from the right and obligation to place the individual conscience above the government...
...The principle of law I thus uphold by my disobedience of what I believe to be a bad law...
...But true democracy grows best in the fertile fields of unlimited, free inquiry and it is watered by the challenge to obey God rather than the laws of the state, if there be conflict between them...
...A clean break is better than a compromise arrangement...
...So I may be tragically wrong in my opposition to the military policy of our country...
...overthrow...
...The society that would avoid stagnation must prize this individual conscience— this womb of insight—and protect it from the heavy hand of a law that would enforce conformity with the past...
...Against this nascent totalitarianism I place the lone voice of John Woolman in the 18th Century crying out against slavery when all organizations and states and institutions in all the world, including his own religious group—the Quakers —asserted either by definite statement or by silence the right of men to own other men as property...
...Our nation has in its grasp the opportunity to build a new national policy on the only method that offers reasonable hope of defeating the evils of Communism without at the same time succumbing to the evils against which we fight...
...I hold that they are rightly called subversive who seek to overturn, overthrow, or ruin utterly these ideals of freedom and of obedience of the law of God...
...To this my reply is threefold: 1. Registration under the Selective Service Act is cooperation with the very foundation of the conscription program, a compliance without which such a military program could not exist...
...Apparently this would justify the actions some of the Nazis tried at Nurnberg who acted, they claimed, under the authority and command of the government and consequently had no choice but to do what they knew to be wrong...
...According to Webster's dictionary, to be subversive is to "overturn...
...Because it demands obedience regardless of all scruples of conscience, any program of military conscription strikes at the heart of true law and endangers real freedom...
Vol. 17 • May 1953 • No. 5
