THE PRESIDENT'S PRAYERS
Mayer, Milton
The President's Prayers by MILTON MAYER The Quakers put great store by prayer. They believe that there is One—"thou Ear," as John Donne says—who listens and responds to the solicitation of the...
...One young Derby Liner called out, "Quakers are wierdos," and went on, and another called out, "Welcome, Quakers," and stayed...
...5:43/44 (Matt...
...And when, on the bridge, they turned their contributions over to the Canadians, the amount was $2,793, mirabile dictu...
...And on their way back from the international bridge—where the Canadians had given them each a daffodil—they informed the officials that they had done what they intended to do and the officials smiled and waved them on...
...Customs House at Derby Line, their number (including, as usual, as many non-Quakers as Quakers) was rising seventy, mira-bile visu...
...They believe that there is One—"thou Ear," as John Donne says—who listens and responds to the solicitation of the brimming heart...
...When they approached the U.S...
...Under the U.S...
...There was nothing for it but prayer, in both high and low places...
...Schwartz directed their attention to Sees...
...They were sore troubled, and they thought that his prayers might be efficacious...
...And a third told them, afterward, that he had never heard of the Quakers, "but we've got a Jew in town...
...Margaret W. Schwartz, Director of Foreign Assets Control of the Treasury Department, to answer for him—which she did, by Registered Mail, Return Receipt Requested...
...Some of them had the ten years to spend, but not the $10,000...
...We of course hope," she wrote,"that you will decide not to engage in this illegal transaction...
...They did not want to disobey Sees...
...But the few sore troubled Quakers were even sorer troubled by the eternal penalty than they were by the temporal...
...They informed the officials at the Customs House of their intention, and the officials smiled and waved them on...
...The President asked Mrs...
...But without the license, those who crossed the border would be in violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act and subject to a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment of not more than ten years, or both...
...Perhaps President Johnson had prayed for them and his prayers had been answered—a possibility that is not excluded if (like the Quakers) you believe that prayers are answered and that the One who answers them does so in His way, not in ours...
...So they were sore troubled, and they besought the President's prayers...
...Then they gathered in the public park for silent prayer of thanksgiving, and many Derby Liners gathered to watch them...
...500.201 and 500.701 of the Regulations, which visited criminal prosecution on any person transferring goods in any form to North Vietnam directly or indirectly...
...and 25:21 (Prov...
...At the same time, they did not want to disappoint Mrs...
...Then the unheard-of Quakers and their fellow-travelers got into their cars and wound their way homeward, marveling at what had, and hadn't, happened to them...
...Trading with the Enemy Act, a license from the Government for this purpose was required, and many organizations had applied for such license and had been refused...
...In the end they thought that they had to go, and they told all and sundry, and all and sundry gave them money to turn over to the Canadians, who have no inhibitions against Trading with the American enemy...
...of the Regulations ' of the Lord God Jehovah...
...His most recent book, "What Can a Man Do?," includes numerous articles originally published in The Progressive...
...They were sore troubled because they found themselves moved to cross the Canadian border at Derby Line, Vermont, to deliver into the hands of the Canadian Friends Service Committee the means of medical aid to Vietnam, North and South without distinction...
...So a few weeks ago a few Quakers around Amherst, Massachusetts, wrote to President Johnson asking him to pray for them...
...MILTON MAYER is a professor of English af the University of Massachusetts...
...Quakers do not think that they should have to get a Government license to love their enemies...
...Schwartz's hope that they would not engage in the free exercise of their religion...
...An earlier book, "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45," was recently republished as a paperback by the University of Chicago Press...
Vol. 31 • July 1967 • No. 7
