Resolution from Mrs. W. J. Hicks to President Harry S. Truman

5. Conscientions objectors X8-10-49 # W Suggested Resolution on Amnesty To the President of the United States: III WHEREAS, the Presidential Pardon Proclamation of December, 1947, pardoned only 1,523 or ten per cent of the total number of violators of the Selective Service Act, and previous to this date only 618 others who entered the army were pardoned; and WHEREAS, the report of the President's Amnesty Board on which these few pardons were based was stated to be a final report although amnesty is by definition a general pardon to a whole group suffering disabilities because of a common offense; and WHEREAS, this leaves several hundred men still in prison and over 13,000 deprived of vital civil and economic rights, including in most states the right to vote and to enter many forms of employment; and WHEREAS, this report by its narrow definition of conscience, its discrimination against humanitarian objectors on the one hand, and against Jehovah's Witnesses, on the other hand, has offended the basic American principle of religious freedom; and WHEREAS, this report also specifically discriminated against conscientious objec- tors who protested against forced labor in Civilian Public Service camps, or against segregation and other injustices in the prison system; and against political objectors including Negroes, Puerto Rican nationalists and Hopi and other Indians; and WHEREAS, the war, which occasioned the passage of Solective Service and these violations by men who opposed war and conscription, has been over for nearly three years, and the Selective Service Act has expired; and WHEREAS, American military governments in both Germany and Jupan have granted amnesties to hundreds of thousands of former enemies including avowed fascists; and WHEREAS, the continued penalizing of men who have already been punished for their offense by heavy prison sentences is both unnecessary and a reflection on the strength of American democracy; BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED, that we urge upon the President of the United States the immediate granting of a general amnesty to all violators of the Selective Service Act. I Leartity approx optin Resolution I shink still it quite a aragnace to this Combay that these dneu are (Thrs. in prior Nick) finarely your Light If Hicks, x n.g. are Landomne Ca.