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The Catonsville Nine: an act of conscience
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| Collection: |
Dean Pappas |
| Date: |
1968 |
| Date of Digitization: |
2004-11-04 |
| Source: |
Dean Pappas |
| Original Dimensions: |
23 x 41 cm |
| Creator: |
Catonsville Nine Defense Committee |
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Notes:
An informational folding leaflet prepared by the Catonsville Defense Committee and dedicated to the Catonsville Nine and their struggle.
Transcription: The Catonsville Statement
Today, May 17, 1968, we enter Local Board No. 33 at
Cantonsville, Md., to seize the Selective Service records
and burn them outside with napalm manufactured by
ourselves from a recipe in the Special Forces Handbook,
published by the U.S. government.
We, American citizens, have worked with the poor in
the ghetto and abroad. In the course of our Christian
ministry we have watched our country produce more
victims than an army of us could console or restore. Two
of us face immediate sentencing for similar acts against
Selective Service. All of us identify with the victims of
American oppression all over the world. We submit vol-
untarily to their involuntary fate.
napalm and the draft
We use napalm on these draft records because napalm
has burned people to death in Vietnam, Guatemala and
Peru; and because it may be used on America's ghettos.
We destroy these draft records not only because they
represent misplaced power, concentrated in the ruling
class of America. Their power threatens the peace of the
world and is aloof from public dissent and parliamentary
process. The draft reduces young men to cost efficiency
items. The rulers of America want their global wars
fought as cheaply as possible.
Above all, our protest attempts to illustrate why our
country is torn at home and is harrassed abroad by ene-
mies of its own creation. America has become an empire
and history's richest nation. Representing only 6 per cent
of the world's people, America controls half of the world's
productive wealth and 60 per cent of its finance. The
U.S. holds North and South America in an economic vise.
In 10 years' time American industry in Europe will be
the third greatest industrial power in the world, with only
the United States and the Soviet Union being larger. U.S.
foreign profits run substantially higher than domestic
profits so industry flees abroad under government patron-
age and the protection of the CIA, military counter in-
surgency and conflict-management teams.
triumverate of power
The military supports the economic system by joining
with the business and political sectors to form the trium-
virate of power in this technocratic empire. With our
annual budget of $80 billion plus, the military now con-
trols over half of the federal property in the world (53
per cent or $183 billion). U.S. overkill capacity and con-
ventional weaponry exceeds that of the military might of
the entire world.
Peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese have be-
gun in Paris. Along with other Americans we hope a
settlement will be reached, thus sparing the Vietnamese a
useless prolongation of their suffering. However, this alone
will not solve America's problems. The Vietnam war
could end tomorrow and yet the quality of society and
America's role in the world virtually unchainged. Thai-
land, Laos and the Dominican Republic have already
been Vietnams. Guatemala, the Canal Zone, Bolivia and
Peru could be Vietnams overnight. Meanwhile, the col-
onies at home rise in rage and destructiveness. The black
people of America have concluded that after 360 years,
their acceptance as human beings is long overdue.
Injustice is the great catalyst of revolution. A nation
that found life through revolution has now become the
world's number one counterrevolutionary force, not be-
cause American people would have it that way, but be-
cause the rich choose to defend their power and wealth.
The masters of the trusts and corporate giants, along with
their representatives in Washington, must learn the hard
lessons of justice, or our country may be swept away and
humanity with it.
We believe some property has no right to exist. Hitler's
gas ovens, Stalin's concentration camps, atomic-bacterio-
logical-chemical weaponry, files of conscription and slum
properties are examples having no right to existence.
While people starve for bread and lack decent housing
the rich debase themselves with comfort paid for by the
misery of the poor.
We are Catholic Christians who take the Gospel of our
Faith seriously. We hail the recent papal encyclical, The
Development of Peoples. Quotes such as the following
give us hope:
23: "No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive
use what he does not need, when others lack necessities."
31: "A revolutionary uprising—save where there is
open manifest and long standing tyranny which does great
damage to fundamental personal rights and dangerous
harm to the common good of the country—produces new
injustices, throws more elements out of balance and
brings on new disasters."
development demands innovation
32: "We want to be clearly understood: the present
situation must be faced with courage, and the injustices
linked with it must be fought against and overcome. De-
velopment demands bold transformations, innovations
that go deep. Urgent reforms should be undertaken with-
out delay. It is for each one to take his share in them
with generosity, particularly those whose education, po-
sition and opportunities afford them wide scope of action."
47: "It is a question of building a world where every
man, no matter what his race, religion or nationality, can
live a fully human life, freed from slavery imposed on
him by other men or by natural forces; a world where
the poor man Lazarus can sit down at the same table
with the rich man."
80: "The hour for action has now sounded. At stake
are the survival of so many innocent children and for so
many families overcome by misery, the access to condi-
tions fit for human beings: at stake are the peace of the
world and the future of civilization."
we confront the churches
At the same time, we confront the Catholic Church,
other Christian bodies and the synagogues of America
with their silence and cowardice in face of our country's
crimes. We are convinced that the religious bureaucracy
in this country is racist, is an accomplice in war and is
hostile to the poor. In utter fidelity to our faith, we in-
dict the religious leaders and their followers for their
failure to serve our country and mankind.
Finally, we are appalled by the ruse of the American
ruling class invoking the cry for "Law and Order" to
mask and perpetuate injustice. Let our President and the
pillars of society speak of "Law and Justice," and back
up their words with deeds and there will be "Order." We
have pleaded, spoken, marched and nursed the victims of
their injustice. Now this injustice must be faced, and this
we intend to do, with whatever strength of mind, body
and grace that God will give us. May God have mercy on
our nation.
Catonsville, Md., is a community of 35,000 just outside of Baltimore. On May 17th nine opponents of the war
in Vietnam entered the local draft headquarters, emptied the 1-A files—800 in all—into wastebaskets and
took them outside to a parking lot where the records were burned with homemade napalm. The statement
of the Catonsville Nine appears on this page.
who are the nine?
FR. DANIEL BERRIGAN, S.J., 47 is a poet, theologian, editor
and lecturer, whose published works include They Call Us
Dead Men, No One Walks Waters, Consequences, Truth
and... and Love, Love at the End. He recently returned
from Hanoi with three U.S. pilots released into his cus-
tody by the North Vietnamese government.
FR. PHILIP BERRIGAN, S.J., 44, a chairman and founder
of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, is now serving a six-
year prison sentence for an earlier anti-war action. He is
the author of No More Strangers, a World War II infantry
veteran who received a battlefield commission while in
Europe and a long-time activist in the civil rights move-
ment.
DAVID DARST, 26, is a Christian Brother teaching at
Providence High School in St. Louis, Mo. He was recent-
ly awarded a two-year scholarship to the Harvard Divinity
School.
JOHN HOGAN, 33, served as a Maryknoll Brother in
Guatamala for seven years. He was expelled from the
country due to his expressions of sympathy with the guer-
rilla movement.
THOMAS LEWIS, 28, is an artist and art teacher who, with
Fr. Philip Berrigan, is serving a six-year sentence for war
resistance. He has studied in Italy and the United States,
been active in civil rights and was a founder of the Balti-
more Interfaith Peace Mission.
MARJORIE MELVILLE, 38, served 14 years in Guatamala
as a Maryknoll Sister with teaching and counselling duties.
She was a founder of a university student group,
CRATER, which is dedicated to labor organization and
literacy programs. She was expelled in December, 1967,
for involvement in the "internal politics" of Guatamala.
THOMAS MELVILLE, 37, served 11 years in Guatamala
as a Maryknoll Priest prior to expulsion in December. He
was particularly involved in the establishment of co-oper-
atives and was founder of the John 23rd Land Distribu-
tion Program.
GEORGE MISCHE, 30, an Army veteran now working as a
peace movement organizer, served from 1961 to 1964 with
the Alliance for Progress negotiating U.S. foreign aid pro-
grams with several Latin American governments. After
resigning in protest over American foreign policy, he
joined the U.S. staff of the Association for International
Development where he remained until 1967.
MARY MOYLAN, 32, is a registered nurse and certified
nurse-midwife at Mercy Hospital School of Nursing and
Johns Hopkins Hospital, both in Baltimore. She previously
had served in Uganda and was executive director of the
Women Volunteers Association.
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