Burning of draft board records by Philip and Daniel Berrigan and others, May 17, 1968: an interview with Mary E. Murphy given on November 2, 1972

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Collection: Friends of Catonsville Library Date: 1972-11-02 Date of Digitization: 2004-03-29 Source: Catonsville Library Original Dimensions: 28 x 22 cm Creator: Murphy, Mary E.

Notes:
This a transcript of a recorded interview with Mrs. Mary E. Murphy who was the Chief Clerk at the Draft Board office no. 33 at the time of the event of the forceful removing and burning of the draft cards by the Catonsville Nine group.

Transcription:

influenced them a great deal.

Father Phillip Berrigan spoke at Cardinal Gibbons High School here.  He spoke at
Catonsville Community College.  I'm not positive but I think he spoke at the 
Catonsville High School.  Leaflets were given out urging the children to revolt. 
It just excited these children, excited these young people - really to overthrow 
the government.  That is what they really wanted to do.  To my way of thinking, 
this is anarchy - that's all I can think of."

 (Interviewer:  Did either of your children get in touch with the Berrigans at all?) 
"Yes, actually my daughter wrote to the Berrigans - I suppose after much thought. 
I know she felt very hurt because of what Phillip Berrigan had written about me. 
I suppose she felt that she should do something  in my defense.  She wrote to 
Phillip Berrigan and she wrote to Tom Lewis while they were in prison, and, they 
both answered.  Father Phillip, in his letter, gives an explanation to her about his 
background, about how he had been in World War II.  He was an enlisted man and 
finally rose through the ranks and was discharged as a Captain.  Also, about the 
fact that he has a nephew in Vietnam and that the boy has volunteered to go back 
twice.  His family,  in the past,  has been everything that you could imagine a 
patriotic, American family would be.  Phillip Berrigan thought that they were 
wrong.  Tom Lewis took the  same  line of reasoning.

At one  time,  my two children toyed with the idea of suing Phillip Berrigan for 
some of the malicious (slander, really) things that he has published about me 
personally.  But, I would never have allowed them to do this because, first of 
all,  I felt that just because he did this to me was no reason for me to do that 
to him.  I had gone through enough with the trial, the County trial and the Federal 
trial, and all the other incidents deriving from the fear, the constant fear, that 
we lived and worked under at the Draft Board.  I certainly would never take anything 
like that on myself."

(Interviewer:  Has your daughter's attitude changed at all because of this whole 
thing?)   "I think,  because she has gotten older, yes.  She was just on the  fringe, 
She was raised at a time - she went to college just at the beginning of the time 
when young people were starting to think and act differently, questioning,  throwing 
out the old standards. She was a "Do Gooder", definitely.  She had gone, when she 
graduated from St.  Joseph's College, in Emmitsburg, to New Mexico.  She had worked 
for two years, without any pay,  as a teacher in a poor school.  She was constantly