Letter from William G. Boomhower to President Harry S. Truman

? The Parsonage St. Paul's Lutheran Church 306 Rodney Street Brooklyn 11, N. Y. 10 His Excellency, Harry S. Truman President of the United States The White House Washington D. C. 200 My dear Mr. President: This is an American letter, boldly and sincerely addressed to you in response to your ad- dress to the Nation on the subject of conscription for the sake of training the young men of the Country to make war. I am eager to receive the usual courtesy of a word from your office to the effect that this letter has been received and read and that it is in order to make it public and use it in the great effort ahead. It is not an unusual thing for a citizen or a group of citizens to oppose a measure recommended by their Chief Executive and I hope it is not unusual for such opposition to be carried forth in a constructive manner. In this opposition I represent myself particularly, but indirectly, in working against compulsory military train- ing I represent a great portion of our people, Christians and others, men who are now in the armed forces, men just coming out, other young men and their parents. And I note that great number of American people who agree with you. I may not offer you anything new on the subject but the arrangement and application of this material may provide some points worthy of a very thoro consideration. For this is a desperately important matter. And I offer this as coming from those whose consciences as Christians joined with their liberty as Americans, drive them into a struggle from whi which there is no turning. Something new and promising has happened of late in the unfolding of modern international history, something most relevant to this subject of compulsory military training in the United States. People in Europe are being adjudged guilty of crime even tho the wrong committed was done under the stern and inescapable orders of their superiors. This procedure in the building up of world ethics is doubtlessly right. But it must be law on this side of the Atlantic as well as on that. You cannot order people in the United States to do what they believe to be wrong without exposing them to punishment for obeying you. We are acting today with the eternal conscience as our monitor. Let the United States be the last Country to seek to justify compromises of the government by an ap- peal to 'interim ethics'. The God we are glad to hear you proclaim, - He only is our Judge in these matters and His will is becoming increasingly clear and imperative.