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{
    "localId": "4708727",
    "label": "Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Harry S. Truman accompanied by a letter from Abraham Muste to Eleanor Roosevelt",
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{
    "id": "4708727",
    "sourceUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/4708727",
    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Harry S. Truman accompanied by a letter from Abraham Muste to Eleanor Roosevelt",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/4708727",
    "identifierLocal": "hst19480627",
    "collections": [
        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
        "Personal Files"
    ],
    "subjects": [
        "Fellowship of Reconciliation (U.S.)",
        "Muste, Abraham John, 1885-1967",
        "World War, 1939-1945",
        "Conscientious objectors"
    ],
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 27,
            "logicalDate": "1948-06-27",
            "month": 6,
            "year": 1948
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{
    "seq": 2,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/27/7087/4708727/content/arcmedia/nlhst/eleanor/hst06-27-1948_02_a.jpg",
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    "ocrText": "moR-\nTHE FELLOWSHIP of RECONCILIATION\n2929 BROADWAY . NEW YORK 25, NEW YORK . UNIVERSITY 4-2670\nA - MUSTL SECRITARY\nJune 21, 1948\nCHARLES .\n-\nA TREASUREE\nTHEN\nNr. Franklia D. Roosevelt\n29 Vashington Square, West\n-\nNew York 11, New York\nsouver\ndear Mrs. Roosevelt:\nFirst of all, I vant to thank you very beartily for communicating with the President\nabout the matter of amnesty for Selective Service violators.am for transmitting\nto us the President's letter to you of May 25, 1948 and the Department of Justice\nmenorandum dated May 20, 1948.\nIt would be possible to write at gest length in commenting on the memorandum;\nand the Committee for Ammesty has material dealing with all the details, which ve\nshould be glad to place before you if you wished. However, I vant to take up as\nlittle of your valuable time as possible and - confining =yself therefore to\ncommenting on the chief fallacy, as it seems to us, of the report of the Roberts\nBoard and the President's action on that report, and the issue which consequently\nsrises.\nThe Department of Justice memorandum dated May 20, 1948, bears out the contention of\nthe Committee for Ammesty that the Roberts Board did not propose and the President\ndid not grant sn ammesty at all. Not only vas there no ammesty for Selective\nService violators in general but admittedly nome has been extended even to ackmow)-\nedged conscientious objectors, provided their convictions vere on other grounds\nthan \"religious belief,\" or to Jehovah's Mitnesses.\nThe Roberts Board, according to the May 20 menorandum, conceived it to be its duty\nto enforce the provisione of the Solective Service Act - to do otherwise would\nhean \"to flaunt the express provisions of the Act. This is surely a most unumual\ninterpretation of the duty of a body charged with comsidering \"amnesty\" or perdona.\nThe presumption surely is that the agencies of government charged with enforcement\nof the Act have dome their duty. It does not need to be done for them e second time\nby en Ammesty Board. The men im question vere all sentenced and in the case of\nconscientious objectors and Jehovah's Witnesses completed their sentences. The\nquestion nov before the people and their governmental representatives is whether their\ncivil rights, including in many instances entry into the professions, are to remain\nseriously abridged.\nThe argument advanced for refusing to act upon this issue is that \"to have gose\nsuch lengthe at such an early date when the metion continues officially in - state\nof war would establieh a dangerous precedent.\" This declaration of the Administration's\npolicy is the crux of the whole matter. Prectically all the leading charch, farm and\nlabor bodies in the mation are on record as favoring en ampesty at least for all the\nvarious types of conscientions objectors, including Jehownh's Witnesses. Since hund-\nreds of thousands, if not millions, of Germans and Japenese who fought agmint the\narmed forces of this country have been granted amnesty. as vell as draft evaders with"
}