BIO: Rufus Jones, Quaker mystic and social activist (16 Jun 1948) RUFUS JONES, QUAKER MYSTIC AND SOCIAL ACTIVIST (16 JUN 1948) This series includes biographical sketches of about ten Quakers. Most sketches are accompanied by sections on various topics related to the Quaker movement. A Table of contents, enabling the reader to find material on various Quakers and various aspects of Quakerism, can be reached by clicking . A reading list, sorted according to topic, can be reached by clicking . $$$ RUFUS JONES One of the best known and most admired Quakers of this century is Rufus Matthew Jones, who died 16 June 1948. He is the author of many books, and the principal author (four and a half volumes) of the seven-volume series that is considered the standard history of Quakerism. Jones exemplifies two sides of the Quaker ideal. On the one hand, he was very much a mystic, upholding the Quaker principle of listening to the Spirit, being guided by the Inner Light of Christ, and disciplining oneself to be always more and more alert to hear that voice and to follow where it leads. He has written extensively (see the Reading List below) on the history of Christian mysticism and spirituality. On the other hand, he was concerned with the practical day-to-day task of doing good to one's neighbor, of working to avoid conflicts in a positive manner, of undertaking to reform the social realm to reflect the love of God for the entire human family. In 1917 he became co-founder and first president of the American Friends Service Committee, a group organized at first for work in France, rebuilding after the destruction of war, by conscientious objectors to the war. The Friends Service Council is a similar but older British group. In 1947, the two groups jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize. Jones died the following year, 16 June 1948. The mysticism of Jones is discussed in the section on Quakerism and Christianity appended to the BIO of Joseph John Gurney (4 Jan). Here we discuss his other legacy to Quakerism and to the world, the American Friends Service Committee. $$$ THE AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE Historian J William Frost of Swarthmore College is at work on a comprehensive AFSC history. HOW IS AFSC ORGANIZED? An AFSC pamphlet says: The AFSC is organized as a not-for-profit corporation, consisting of 180 Quakers from 23 yearly meetings of North American Friends. The AFSC Board of Directors, drawn from the membership of the Corporation, governs the policies, programs, and administration of the AFSC. Numerous committees oversee AFSC's operations and consult with more than 400 women and men who make up the staff. HOW DID AFSC BEGIN? An organized effort for the relief of widespread suffering was begun in the Irish famine in the 1840's, continued by giving help to distressed Finns after the war with Russia in 1854-7, and culminated with the establishment of the Friends War Victims Relief Committee to help civilian distress in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1. It used as its symbol a black four-pointed star with one point pointing up, and with an angle of a little less than 45 degrees at the point ends, on this superimposed a red star of the same shape but rotated 45 degrees, and with linear dimensions about 70 percent those of the black star. When the Friends Service Council and the American Friends Service Committee began field work in 1917 and needed an identifying symbol, they received permission to use the Star, and have done so ever since. EXAMPLES OF PAST WORK OF THE AFSC Brayshaw writes: In Holland the Belgian refugees were enabled to make portable houses transferred to Belgium after the war, and in Poland, horses were provided for the villagers to bring from the forests their ration of timber for house building. The horses, which were purchased from the Army authorities on very favorable terms and let in rotation to village after village, enabled the peasants in one year alone to bring into cultivation 24,000 acres rendered derelict by the war. Marvin Weisbord, writing in 1968, says: It seems impossible to list everything the Service Committee has done or is doing.... The Committee helps migratory farm workers, runs halfway houses for prisoners in California and a community center in East Harlem. For years it has worked on school desegregation, merit employment, and open housing, not just in the South, but in the North, the East, and the West. In half a dozen world capitals it sponsors informal seminars where diplomats and journalists from many countries come to know each other. It is the only group I know that has paid a man to travel back and forth between East and West Germany talking to officials on each side who, trapped in the Cold War, couldn't and wouldn't talk to each other. There are Service Committee people in Algeria, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Vietnam, and Zambia, helping others who need help to help themselves. AFSC has work camps in city ghettos and on Indian reservations. It sends American high school students overseas to study and brings foreign students here. All this--and much more--AFSC does, incredibly, on a budget much smaller than that of the school district of Lower Merion Township, where I live. Weisbord then goes on to discuss several past projects at length. In France, in 1917, the Quakers set up a field hospital run by Dr. James Babbitt. He performed more than a thousand operations. In one typical week, according to his log, he operated on patients suffering from a harelip, a club foot, cancer, an abcessed hip, tonsils, adenoids, and several broken bones; and performed a salpingo-o”phorectomy (removal of the ovaries and Fallopian tubes), cholecystostomy (removal of the gallbladder), and paracentesis tympani (inserting a fine hollow needle through the eardrum to draw off fluid from the middle ear). He spoke no French and his patients no English, but he communicated by a string of French nouns and a lot of pointing and arm-waving. After the war, the Quakers noticed that the Army had five dumps with hammers, axes, lumber, nails, pipes, cement mixers, and the like, simply piled up. To ship them home would cost more than they were worth. The Quakers bought the lot for $50,000, and began to use it to rebuild. They got permission to recruit volunteers from among German prisoners who were languishing in internment camps. The prison volunteers were fed well, they worked hard, and none attempted to escape. The French would not permit the prisoners to be paid, but the Quakers kept records, and sent a small wage to the men's families. Meanwhile, they sold farm implements and tools at bargain prices, but still made a handsome profit, which they used to build a hospital. They also planted 25,000 fruit trees, and fed more than a million hungry children in Germany. During WWII, many pacifists worked in mental hospitals. One result was the Mental Health Project, which worked with the American Bar Association to draw up legal guidelines for the commitment of patients to mental hospitals. It also took photographs documenting the appalling conditions in many hospitals. The photos were published in a book by Frank Wright, Jr, called OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND. The book roused those who read it, but not many read it. So an AFSC fund-raiser arranged a meeting with LIFE magazine, and LIFE ran an illustrated article that was reprinted by READER'S DIGEST, and there followed far-reaching reforms. In 1921, drought caused severe famines on the Russian steppes, and the Soviet government, suspicious of foreigners, waited a long time to admit the problem and accept help. But they finally let the Quakers in, trusting them not to have ulterior motives. In December 1921, Herbert Hoover (then Secretary of Commerce, having previously been head of the Belgian Relief Fund)) persuaded Congress to appropriate $20,000,000 for food, and the food was distributed on the local level chiefly by AFSC people. Typhus was endemic, and some AFSC people died of it. Many hungry people were saved. Many others were not. Weisbord goes on to describe an attempt to establish a furniture-building industry in West Virginia mining country, when the mines closed down and it appeared that no other jobs were available. It succeeded after a fashion, but was discontinued when World War II began and the men could get better-paying jobs in factories. Nonetheless, while it lasted, it gave the workers a choice other than emigration or the dole, and gave them self-respect and high morale. In a southern location, the AFSC had established a summer camp where volunteer youths paid their own way to construct needed buildings for a school. In the summer of 1951 a black youth was included in the program, and many of the locals resented this, but the tensions were successfully defused. In California, in 1956, an unincorporated community (Teviston) of agricultural workers had no water supply. They had to haul all their water in cans from a source two-and-a-half miles away. An AFSC representative talked with them about their options, and after holding a few meetings, they organized, and slogged their way through the complex business of forming a water district and satisfying state law. They then got permission to sell bonds, and ultimately dug a well, purchased pumps, and installed water mains and water pipes in the individual houses. It took four years, but they got the water supply they wanted. Their AFSC guide exerted no authority--some would say, no leadership. He was there to answer their questions and to point out possibilities. Two AFSC pamphlets give long lists of past projects, one line for each. Click or . <<<================FOOTNOTE ONE==========================>>> HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE'S WORK 1917 Provided war-time care and medical service for civilian sufferers in France. 1918: Supplied farmers with seeds and small livestock, repaired machinery, planter 25,000 fruit trees in post-war reconstruction work in France. 1919: Fed one million starving children in Germany and Austria. 1920: Established feeding stations and worked in reconstructing war-devastated Poland. Bought 1,000 army horses from Polish government to lend to farmers for plowing. 1921: Distributed milk, food, and medicine for famine relief in Russia. 1925: Worked in settlement houses, reform schools, and schools for Indians, Blacks, and isolated mountain children. 1929: Helped striking textile workers in North Carolina survive the winter. 1931: Distributed food for 40,000 children of unemployed coal miners in Appalachia. 1933: Helped for homestead projects, cooperatives, and home industry programs. 1934: Organized first volunteer work camps in Appalachia. 1936: Helped sharecroppers in Arkansas improve farming methods. In West Virginia, founded first rural birth control clinic in United States. 1937: Provided refugee relief to both sides of Spanish Civil War. 1938: Arranged emigration for Jewish families in Nazi Germany. Assisted them with resettlement in Europe and the United States. Sent delegation to Germany to remonstrate with the Gestapo. 1941: Provided medical help to civilians in China on both sides of the civil war. 1942: Provided alternative service for conscientious objectors in mental hospitals, conservation programs, and training schools. Aided Japanese-Americans in relocation. 1943: Sent food to relieve severe famine in India. 1944: Joined in post-war relief and reconstruction in Europe, including milk stations, and food to orphanages, prisons, refugee camps, and homes for elderly people. 1947: Received Nobel Prize with [the Friends Service Council, the British counterpart of the AFSC]. 1949: Provided relief for displaced Arabs in Gaza Strip at UN's request. 1952: Helped in war relief efforts in Korea, including reconstructing hospitals and homes and emergency feeding for children. 1955: Published SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER, a study of pacifist alternatives to the arms race. 1958: Established home for parolees in Los Angeles, Calif., as part of continuing work on prison issues. 1959: Opened Hong Kong community center for refugees from Chinese mainland. 1961: Sent young volunteers to work in developing countries. Assisted in VISA program, forerunner to Peace Corps. 1962: Established in Algeria following cease-fire agreement: garden and poultry projects, milk-feeding stations, and clinics to treat malnutrition and related disease. 1965: Helped place 7,000 black children in previously all-white southern schools; started long-term concern for school desegregation. 1966: Offered medical aid to civilians in North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and National Liberation Front areas. 1970: Counseled draft-age U.S. citizens by the thousands. Provided assistance in relief and reconstruction for both sides of Nigeria/Biafra Civil War. 1971: Provided daily meals to 16,000 malnourished children in Bangladesh. Started self-help housing program for urban squatters in Zambia. Organized resettlement program in Mail for nomads who lost family members and livestock in drought. 1972: Provided farm equipment to refugees resettling in Laos. Addressed immigration and unemployment issues on Mexico-U.S. border. Sent delegation to Soviet Union to propose disarmament initiatives. 1980: Aided postwar Zimbabwe in setting up schools and cooperatives. 1980-81: Sent nearly $2 million in relief and rehabilitation supplies to war-stricken Kampuchea. Initiated A Call to Halt the Arms Race, beginning the Nuclear Freeze Campaign. 1982: Published A COMPASSIONATE PEACE, a study of the Middle East. Started work in Lebanon on war-relief, reconstruction, and agriculture. 1983: Worked against deployment of missiles in Europe and the Pacific. Supported Native Americans in their fishing and other treaty rights, in their efforts to end pollution of land and water, to establish better health for their people, and to publish more accurate school texts. 1984: Expanded food aid and development assistance in drought-stricken African countries. 1985: Shipped clothing, medical, and school supplies to refugees in Honduras and Nicaragua. 1986: Produced the film, WITNESS TO WAR, which won an Oscar and other international awards and documented war in El Salvador. 1987: Addressed problems of homeless people in California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts. 1989: Rebuilt health clinics in earthquake-devastated Armenia. 1991: Helped with relief and reconstruction to Gulf War victims in the Middle East. Offered counseling to military resisters in the United States. 1992: Fed 2,200 people in Somalia; providing medical services, food, and fuel to two orphanages; and distributed 15,000 pounds of clothing. Finished a 26-unit housing complex in association with an organization of homeless and formerly homeless people in Oakland, California. 1993: Organized health and safety training for maquiladora workers in Mexico, who are routinely exposed to dangerous chemicals. Established an information network for gay, lesbian, and transgender youth and those who work with them. 1994: Shipped hay to Midwestern farmers to feed their livestock after their crops were devastated by floods. Sent observers to monitor elections in South Africa and a delegation of young people to Japan to prepare for the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 1995: Initiated a start-up fund of $10,000 for flood relief in North Korea and raised additional money for the fund. 1996: Challenged the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States with the "No Human Being is Illegal" campaign. 1997: [22 entries in the 4-page Annual Report.] <<<================FOOTNOTE TWO==========================>>> 1917: In France, Russia, and Serbia, thousands of refugees were without adequate clothing, food, and shelter. Relief shipments were organized, and by the end of the first year of operation, 80,000 garments had been shipped. 1920-25: Food and clothing were distributed in war-ravaged Poland. 1921-22: In response to a request from the American Relief Administration Chairman, Herbert Hoover, the AFSC organized the daily feeding of over one million German children suffering from the devastation of World War I. 1937-39: Humanitarian aid was given to war victims, both Loyalists and Nationalists, during the Spanish Civil War. 1920s and 30s: Food and clothing were supplied to the children of destitute miners in the coal fields of West-Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. 1943: The clothing program found an avenue of service in the U.S. during wartime. More than 1,000 layettes were sent to mothers in the relocation centers to which West Coast Japanese-Americans had been confined. At Christmas time the AFSC sent 24,000 toys to the children in these camps, not in answer to need, but as an expression of our kinship. 1948: AFSC has been providing assistance to the thousands of Palestinians who have been living in eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip for over forty years. Aid goes to those refugees and to the children in AFSC-supported kindergartens in the camps. 1947-50: As Part of the post World War II reconstruction, over 75 million pounds of surplus food, clothing, textiles and other relief supplies were distributed by the AFSC to war shattered countries throughout Europe. 1956: During the Hungarian emergency, thousands of civilians were displaced. In Philadelphia the Material Aids workroom remained open long hours every day as hundreds of volunteers came to sort and pack tons of relief donations which poured in. 1960-68: After the cease-fire in war-torn Algeria, large shipments of AFSC materials were sent to aid clinics, schools, and Quaker Service community development programs. 1969-72: Material aid shipments helped to boost the economy and health of Biafra and Nigeria and included supplies for the Quaker medical work and village rehabilitation projects. High protein baby food, clothing and layettes and vaccine to innoculate children were sent by air freight. Six thousand bags of school kits were assembled by children in the U.S. for their counterparts in schools and orphanages. 1973-75: In response to an appeal for medical supplies for civilian war casualties at the Quaker Service Rehabilitation Center in Quang Ngai, Vietnam, several American pharmaceutical firms contributed drugs, vitamins, bandages and other items for shipment and distribution by the AFSC. 1975: As Vietnamese families assessed the destruction of their land and lives after twenty years of assault by the French and American militaries, in Quaker Meetings, in classrooms, and neighborhoods throughout the U.S., volunteers raised money, bought yarn and knitted sweaters so that Vietnamese children could have at least one small gift of love from Americans. 1982: Thousands of shovels were shipped to rural areas of Laos so farmers could safely clear land of bombs before planting their crops. The common practice of chopping the soil with a hoe easily detonated the anti-personnel mines which lay just below the surface and caused numerous deaths and amputations. 1983: Over 57,000 pounds of aid to Salvadoran refugees in camps in Honduras supported them in their determination to become self-sufficient. 1984-86: Supplies were sent to hospitals and clothes, books, and toys to schools in Guinea-Bissau, one of the six poorest countries in the world. In the rural north of Nicaragua, where the Contra twice destroyed a tiny one-room school, a teacher considered the forty eager faces before him, and wondered how he would teach them reading, writing, and math without pencils, paper, or chalk. In Juneau, Alaska, a Friends Meeting learned about the AFSC Nicaragua School Supplies Campaign and members gathered the needed supplies to prepare one of the hundreds of kits sent as part of this project. 1987: In response to terrible destruction and suffering caused by civil war in Mozambique, Material Aids shipped clothing, blankets, and medicines to cooperatives around the capital city of Maputo and to rural Inhambane Province where AFSC staff worked with women and children. 1991: Refugee and transit camps were established for the thousands who fled from the war in the Persian Gulf. Material Aids issued an appeal for children's clothing, personal hygiene supplies, money for shipping, and extra volunteers to prepare urgent shipments. <<<================END FOOTNOTE==========================>>> The Committee is concerned not only with concrete assistance to those who need it, but also with upholding Quaker principles and developing an articulate expression, analysis, and defense of them. One example follows. Gerald Jonas (ON DOING GOOD) writes: Although most of the efforts of the AFSC Peace Education Division are focused on specific issues which also attract a broad range of non-pacifist support, the Service Committee has periodically tried to relate these issues to the traditional Quaker peace testimony. The most ambitious attempt in recent years was the publication in 1967 of a pamphlet entitled "In Place of War: An Inquiry into Nonviolent National Defense." The purpose of the pamphlet, prepared by a ten-man working party under the auspices of the Peace Education Division, is to offer a pacifist alternative to all the usual concepts of disarmament.... Citing a number of widely scattered historical precedents and drawing heavily upon the theoretical work of a group of English pacifists, the authors of the pamphlet propose a course of action known as "transarmament," whereby a major power like the United States gradually junks its war machine while simultaneously creating a system of "civilian defense," based on the thorough grounding of a large part of its population in the techniques of nonviolent resistance.... they contend that a nation with such a ready-made resistance movement would, in fact, be highly immune to invasion, since a potential aggressor would find the logistics of occupation almost prohibitive. Meacham, who was a member of the working party that produced "In Place of War," admits,... "I know I would feel reluctant to sit down and argue nonviolent resistance with the black militants, for instance. They've had more life experience in it than I have. Their most articulate spokesmen were boldly nonviolent a few years ago, and they got their heads beat." $$$ THE AFSC AND SOME RECENT CONCERNS Of the professional staff who run the organizational headquarters of AFSC, fewer than 25 per cent are Quakers. Some Quakers have expressed concern that the AFSC is in danger of losing its Quaker identity. They point to various Quaker colleges that opened up their boards to non-Quakers and are no longer distinctively Quaker. Swarthmore College, for example, now has only three Quakers on its faculty. (Other denominations have sometimes encountered similar transformations. Most Ivy League colleges were originally founded by churches.) Since its founding, the AFSC has significantly altered its composition and its view of its mission. Some Quakers and others have expressed concern that it has drifted from its Quaker moorings. Douglas Gwyn, a prominent Quaker writer, writes (in THE COVENANT CRUCIFIED, p. 378): Friends are also in a time of redefinition in relation to the American Friends Service Committee. British and American Friends formed Service Committees in 1917 to respond to the refugees in Europe after World War I. Both organizations have grown over the years to become standing bureaucratic institutions, educating and organizing action for a wide variety of causes--pacifism, racial equality, women's rights, trade unionization, Native American rights, and many more. Over time, what began as an outlet for short-term service by Friends and others has evolved into an institution involving many career activists and non-Quaker supporters, with diminished connection to the Society of Friends. These trends have created a crisis of ownership for Friends. "Our" AFSC is now an entity whose admirable traits of issue expertise, affirmative-action hiring, and multicultural perspective have made it more para-Quaker than Quaker. Many Friends are alienated by this transformation and its implications. For example, it has become harder for Friends to serve as AFSC staff; and some AFSC affirmative-action policies and political positions have scandalized sectors of the Society of Friends. Friends face the challenge of redefining their relationship to an organization that has come into its own right. How much can AFSC speak for Friends? How much can Friends speak for AFSC? While some Quaker bodies have renounced AFSC and no longer support its work, others see the possibility of a more dialogical relationship. Henceforth, Friends will have to make their case for the value of Quaker decision-making processes and the spiritual grounding of political action to a staff that no longer understands that tradition or feels obligated to respect it. Likewise AFSC, especially as long as it retains the name of "Friends," must make its case to Friends for the programs and priorities generated by its multicultural identity and mission. Related concerns are expressed in four articles by H Larry Ingle, Professor of History, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and a member of the AFSC Corporation, the legal owners of the AFSC. (AFSC is owned, under the laws of Pennsylvania, by a Corporation of about 150 members. They appoint the 30-member (approximately) Board that used to meet monthly but now meets five times a year to set policy and supervise the professional staff.) Professor Ingle has written an article in the January 1998 issue of the quarterly PEACE AND CHANGE, "The American Friends Service Committee, 1947-1949: The Cold War's effect." It deals with the decision by the Board in 1947 that it regarded lobbying for its social and political program as its primary activity, rather than feeding the hungry, etc. PEACE AND CHANGE is not cheap to buy or easy to find, but a large college library is a reasonably likely source. Three other articles by the same author are to be found in the CHRISTIAN CENTURY for 14 October 1981, 17 April 1985, and 19 April 1995. The severest criticism I know of the AFSC is found in the book PEACE AND REVOLUTION: THE MORAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN PACIFISM, by Guenter Lewy, a non-Quaker writer. He discusses four traditional American Pacifist groups: The American Friends Service Committee, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the War Resisters' League, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. He says that all four once held that all war is bad, and that the right stand is refusal to participate; but that during the Vietnam War, control of all four organizations passed to those who say that those who are fighting against capitalist oppression must not be criticized. Thus, as one critic puts it: "They are not against the war in Vietnam. They are against half of it the non-Communist half!" A more nuanced analysis is that found in a book edited by Charles E Fager (or Chuck Fager), QUAKER SERVICE AT THE CROSSROADS, largely in response to Lewy's indictment. It is a collection of essays by Quaker writers who hold differing views of the AFSC, and offers a look at both sides of several issues. If a non-Quaker like myself could get away with telling Quakers what to read about their own affairs, I would say that QUAKER SERVICE AT THE CROSSROADS should be on the reading list of every Quaker who cares what happens to the AFSC. Lewy disagrees with the AFSC on the Vietnam War, where he thinks the American cause just and American involvement a good thing. Here the panelists are pretty much unanimous in disagreeing. However, Lewy also makes the point that AFSC spokesmen have ignored or excused atrocities by the Communists in Southeast Asia and elsewhere on the grounds that their cause is just and must not be hampered by criticism about means. And here he has some solid support from some panelists whose pacifist credentials are impeccable. A third issue, raised more by the panelists than by Lewy, is that the AFSC was originally founded to enable Quakers to do work, and has now become largely a political lobbying group, whose workers are not volunteers going into a disaster area to administer typhus shots or rebuild homes destroyed by floods, but professional manipulators of legislators and media outlets "spin doctors." A fourth issue, again more a concern of the panelists than of Lewy, is that the professional staff, and the Board that oversees them on a daily basis, are no longer accountable to the Corporation or to the Yearly Meetings, that they are no longer predominantly composed of Quakers, and that their policies and ways of thinking no longer reflect Quaker traditions and principles. In an introductory article, Fager writes (in what follows, page numbers are given in angle brackets): <14f > [Lewy thinks that the Marxists have cunningly taken over the AFSC.] My own sense is that rather than the infiltration-subversion model, what we have seen in AFSC over the past generation is the rise of a new establishment, made up largely of former 1960s radicals of various stripes, who have, rather than operating as a conspiracy, more or less backed into becoming a distinct, careerist constituency which I call the "organizers' subculture." ... Over time, and with artful application of their organizing skills, an kind of informal network of professional activists with similar histories formed, concerned to protect and advance its members much like those of any other such network. <16> Rather, the key concern of most writers here is threefold: First, whether the American Friends Service Committee can still be considered an authentic QUAKER agency; Second, whether its work over the past generation is on the whole of a quality and direction that Quakers can be proud of; and Third, what can or should be done to remedy any shortcomings revealed by these two inquiries. <17> [Examples of good work are] the AFSC's two books on the Arab-Israeli conflict, Search For Peace in the Middle East (AFSC, 1970) and A Compassionate Peace (Hill & Wang, 1982). ... In Their company I would also put In Place of War (Grossman, 1967), which brilliantly made the case for considering a nonviolent approach to national defense. <18f > A great many Friends once bore witness in many places through various kinds of service under AFSC auspices. ... But how many Friends under thirty today could tell similar stories? Not many, unfortunately. Much of this is due to the virtual disappearance of certain programs, especially the now legendary Quaker youth programs centered around work camps. With their elimination was also lost an important service, that of giving many young Friends a "hands on" exposure to Quaker faith in action, for which AFSC was once principal provider. ... Unfortunately, disdain for the work camp approach has become institutionalized in AFSC. Its response to the many calls from concerned Friends, among them not a few chastened ex-1960s radicals, for the reconstruction of a meaningful program of this sort has been token and grudging. This hurts both the AFSC and the Society of Friends. <20f> ...the AFSC today [1988] does not now operate in any meaningful sense "on behalf of" any other Quaker body. One measure of this reality is financing: The vast majority of its $20,000,000 annual budget comes from non-Quaker sources. Another measure is its make-up: In 1985, only fifteen percent of the staff was Quaker; in 1988 the proportion of Friends was even lower. No doubt most of the non-Quaker AFSC staffers are dedicated and smart, but it is not reasonable to expect them also to be guardians and devotees of a religious tradition which they do not share. Yet in any such institution, as the direct involvement of the parent constituency declines, at some point the founding tradition becomes simply a relic, a vestigial organ with no real meaning. If it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when this threshold is reached, there is little doubt that it exists. This was starkly illustrated by the recent case of the YMCA in Beverly Hills, California, which protested an advisory group's recommendation that, as a religious organization, it no be given space in a proposed city-owned building. As reported in the WASHINGTON POST of September 3, 1988, the YMCA officials insisted that it was NOT a religious body, despite the fact that the C in its name means Christian, and the Y's statement of purpose describes it as a "fellowship united by a common loyalty to Jesus Christ for the purpose of developing Christian personality and building a Christian society." Beverly Hills mayor Robert Tannenbaum, who is also president of the Y's board, told a reporter that he regards the purpose statement as "institutional rhetoric that acknowledges the historical roots of the association and in no way mandates a religious commitment on the part of the Beverly Hills Family Y." He also pointed out that two-thirds of its board members were Jewish. No doubt Mayor Tannenbaum is right, and one suspects the Beverly Hills Y will eventually gain its niche in the new city building. But in light of this incident, and the fact that the proposition of non-Quaker AFSC staff is considerably more than two-thirds, it would be fair to ask, on this basis alone, just how much longer the F in AFSC's name will carry any more meaning than the C in the YMCA. <21f> This uncertainty is increased by the fact that the spectrum of Quakerism represented among the Friends still in AFSC is a very narrow one. Among the various streams of Quaker religious thinking, it is the major outpost of what was once called "progressive Quakerism," which essentially melded liberal Quaker forms with an individualist-rationalist Unitarian theology. ... This marginalization has been increased by the fact that in recent years the Cadbury "progressive Quakerism" ethos has been in broad retreat within FGC circles, swept back by a quiet but unmistakable resurgence of mystical/religious seeking AND finding as the basis for witness. This resurgence owes far more to Rufus Jones and even programmed Friends such as Elton Trueblood and Wilmer Cooper's work at the Earlham School of Religion. <23f > The AFSC's formal link to the Society of Friends is through its Corporation, to which various American Yearly Meetings send representatives, and from which the AFSC Board of Directors is selected. Theoretically the Corporation selects the Board Members; in fact the members, who meet once a year for a few hours, simply rubberstamp am officially-selected slate. This is not surprising, since a body which meets so infrequently and briefly can hardly be expected to achieve much in the way of real oversight or policymaking. Nor, I gather, is it supposed to. But as if to guarantee the Corporation's pliability, more than half its members are appointed not by Yearly Meetings but "at large," by AFSC's own nominating committee; and almost all the Board candidates in recent times have been drawn from this inside "at large" pool. Thus it is even an understatement to say that the range of Quaker viewpoints represented in AFSC's councils is rather a limited one; it runs the gamut from A to B. But that is not all. As Lewy's research shows, the overwhelmingly non-Quaker staff, as a result of the upheavals of the late 1960sand early 1970s, has become a very influential, perhaps dominant force in much of AFSC's policymaking and governance. In many sections the staff has gained a virtual veto over the selection of their supervisors; as a practical matter they determine the direction and content of most decision-making in both program committees and the Board, and little happens in either of which they disapprove. Given that this essentially non-Quaker staff, only tamely supervised by a Quaker Board which in any case represents only a very narrow slice of Quaker thinking, does not take its agenda from the Society of Friends, where do its initiatives come from? Lewy speaks generally of a leftist peace movement constituency tainted by the involvement of Communist-oriented groups. I think it would be more accurate to look again at the "organizers' subculture." ... Personally I agree with many (though not all!) of the current positions of this "organizers' subculture. My concern here is simply that its relationship to the Society of Friends, even to the Society's more liberal wing, is strictly incidental; and its colonization of the AFSC staff and decision-making has steadily reinforced the group's secularization, its move out of the Quaker orbit. This secularization is a familiar feature of the history of religiously-founded institutions. It has been perhaps best known in the case of colleges, going as far back in the United States as, when Yale was started as a more orthodox alternative to Harvard's,galloping Unitarianism. Most Quaker colleges have trod a similar path; a glossy 1989,admissions brochure for Bryn Mawr College indicated how far one,school has gone. It was originally opened in 1885 to give women a,"guarded education" in the Orthodox Quaker mode; but nowhere in the,brochure, not even in its summary of Bryn Mawr's history, were the,terms Quaker or Friends mentioned. <27> ...most Quakers in the world are now nonwhite and "Third World": There are tens of thousands of black African Quakers, and numerous shades of Friends in Central and South America. Among them are undoubtedly numbers of bright and dedicated Quaker men and women who would jump at opportunities to witness to their faith through service in the world in a Quaker Agency. The problem with such real "Third World" Friends, of course, is that they are mostly not politically or theologically "correct" according to the prejudices of the organizers' subculture. To recruit among them would require AFSC to broaden its religious and especially political outlook beyond these limits, and this, I think it can safely be said, those now in control of AFSC are determined not to do. If the AFSC must choose between Quakerism and the shibboleths of the "organizers' subculture", there is no contest. <28> ...a cover article in THE NEW REPUBLIC, "With Friends Like These," Stephen Chapman, June 9, 1979. ....it happened in the spring of 1972, not long after AFSC's Philadelphia Peace Division staff staged a strike in March against the appointment of a Peace Secretary unsatisfactory to them, in one of the key battles to establish hegemony over such appointments. I wrote an article about this incident and a parallel case in the New England Regional Office in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The article was actually quite complimentary to AFSC; but when the Philadelphia office got wind of it, national staffers, who had not even read it, nevertheless intervened directly to get it killed by two publications to which I had submitted it. This response deeply shocked me; in all my journalistic career, the AFSC is one of only two subjects who had any success in suppressing my work. ... The piece finally appeared in WIN magazine ("New Morning af AFSC,: WIN, May 15, 1972). Tucker writes: <50> In QUAKER RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, XII, 2 (Spring 1970), pp 19 and 20, Lewis Benson has succinctly set forth the ways in which AFSC literature, often produced anonymously by functionaries who may not even be Friends, has "exerted a much greater influence on Quaker faith and thought than anything emanating from the Society itself." Lewis Benson is speaking of the direct teaching of doctrine, and he concludes his comment with this observation: "Anonymity implies the sanction of the whole organization, while reducing the hazards of critical challenge." ============================================================== QUAKER SERVICE AT THE CROSSROADS Chuck Fager, Introduction, pp 7-35 [Chuck Fager is a writer and editor, publisher since 1981 of the monthly A FRIENDLY LETTER.] 8 J William Frost of Swarthmore is writing a history of AFSC. 11 Lewy notes that the AFSC abandoned in the 1960s its prohibition on coalitions with Marxists. He thinks this was fatal. 13 Lewy identifies pacifism with non-resistance (Amish and Mennonite model). Most Quakers do not, and historically have not. 15 The 1960s produced a group of professional activists who now need jobs, who have found themselves a niche in the AFSC, and who network and look out for each other, and are protecting their niche. Call them "the organizers' subculture." 16 It is unclear that the AFSC is still a Quaker agency. 17 Outstanding papers by the AFSC include two on the Arab-Israeli conflict, SEARCH FOR PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST (AFSC,1970) and A COMPASSIONATE PEACE (Hill & Wang, 1982). Another is IN PLACE OF WAR (Grossman, 1967), on a non-violent approach to national defense. 18 The AFSC used to sponsor youth work camps, and many Quaker youths found such camps a valuable and memorable experience. But the current AFSC leadership considers such camps a waste of time. 20 The budget of AFSC comes chiefly from non-Quaker sources. The staff was only 15% Quaker in 1985, and the fraction has dropped since. A non-Quaker staff cannot act as the guardians of a Quaker tradition and heritage. 20 The Beverly Hills YMCA has declared that it is not a religious organization. Two thirds of its Board members are Jewish. 22 There has been a resurgence in FGC circles of mystical/religious seeking--and finding. [ASK FAGER FOR REFS!!] 23 The Corporation has Yearly Meeting delegates, outnumbered by the at-large members. It elects the Board, which supervises the staff. 24 Harvard, Yale, Bryn Mawr, and Swarthmore were once religious colleges, but look at them now! 25 Roy Howard Beck, ON THIN ICE (Bristol Books, 1988) describes the similar history of the Methodist Church's Board of Global Ministries. 26 In the name of diversification and affirmative action, the staff of the AFSC has been de-Quakerized. There are many Third World Quakers who could have been hired, but most of them are not politically correct. 27 In March of 1977, Kenneth Boulding picketed AFSC headquarters to protest its turning a blind eye to postwar developments in Vietnam. 28 Stephen Chapman wrote "With Friends Like These," THE NEW REPUBLIC, 9 June 1979. 28 In the spring of 1972, the ASFC Philadelphia Peace Division staff struck to protest the appointment of an unsatisfactory director. Chuck Fager wrote an article, which AFSC staffers managed to have killed. >>>R W Tucker, Structural Incongruities in Quaker Service, pp 49-66 [R W Tucker is a Quaker, writer, counselor, and teacher who once worked with Norman Thomas.] 50 Lewis Benson, QUAKER RELIGIOUS THOUGHT XXI, 2 (Spring 1970) deplores the influence of AFSC literature on Quaker faith and thought. 54 Traditional Quaker procedure is that a Quaker has a concern and takes it to his meeting, or a meeting has a concern, and takes it to a particular Quaker with the relevant qualifications, and if there is agreement, he is "released" to pursue the concern, with endorsement and assistance, financial and otherwise, from the meeting. The non-Quaker approach is to hire a functionary and tell him what to do. The AFSC has largely adopted the non-Quaker approach, and this has undercut the Quaker way of doing things in the meetings themselves. >>>Elise Boulding, Reflections on Guenter Lewy's PEACE AND REVOLUTION, pp 101-108 [Elise Boulding is retired head of the Sociology Department at Dartmouth. She has been active in the development of peace research as a recognized scholarly field. She is the widow of Kenneth Boulding (see below).] 103 How do we deal with groups that feel oppressed, and turn to violence? "Often the solution is to uphold nonviolence as the key action principle of the organization (AFSC), and firmly and clearly to withhold ASSISTANCE in the practice of violence, but to choose to STAY IN RELATIONSHIP with the group in question. This is easy to misinterpret, and is a difficult path to choose." >>>Jack Powelson, "The Truth" and "The Truth": communicating with the AFSC, pp 117-136 [John Powelson is Professor of Economics at the University of Colorado, and a member of Boulder Meeting.] 117f In 1977, an AFSC team visited Vietnam. Wendy Grant, of Friends of Children of Vietnam, told me that some of her contacts in Vietnam had "disappeared," and gave me a list of names. I gave this list to a member of the delegation, and asked that inquiries be made. When they returned, the member told me that because of the "friendly" nature of the visit, it seemed out of place to ask such questions. Instead, the delegation announced that it had been assured by the Vietnamese government that reports of repression were false. 120ff In 1976 I was asked to comment on a preliminary draft of a proposed AFSC paper, THE UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA TODAY. The paper stated that Latin America's troubles were due to a fall in the relative prices of the raw materials it exports. I protested, with charts, that said prices had risen steadily from 1937 to an all-time high in 1950-54, then fallen till 1965-67, then risen to a new all-time high in 1974. If Latin America was not better off in the 1970s than ever before, falling prices were not the reason. I had a dialogue with the framers of the paper, and their position was that the statement was true in principle (falling prices are the SORT OF THING that happens to Third World countries) and that therefore whether the prices had in fact fallen was an irrelevant, nit-picking question. The factual inaccuracies I had complained of were not corrected, and were repeated in later publications. 123f I believe that the AFSC views social revolutionaries (Castro Cubans, Allende Chileans, Sandinista Nicaraguans, Salvadoran rebels, Maoist Chinese, Vietnamese government, and guerillas in southern Africa) as forces for social justice and liberation from oppression. My own belief, which a colleague and I have documented for over 20 Third World countries (John P Powelson and Richard Stock, 1987, THE PEASANT BETRAYED: AGRICULTURE AND LAND REFORM IN THE THIRD WORLD, ISBN 0-9327-9074-7, Amazon Books $20), is that the revolutionaries intend to benefit the poor, but do not trust the poor to make their own decisions, and so impose their own plans on the poor, leaving them worse off than before. 132 I have written two paperbacks addressed to Quakers on this question: FACING SOCIAL REVOLUTION and DIALOG WITH FRIENDS, (Horizon Society Pub, Suite 301, 45 Bellevue Drive, Boulder, CO 80302) 129 The double standard of the ASFC has been noted by: Stephen Chapman, "Shot from Guns: The Lost Pacifism of American Quakers," THE NEW REPUBLIC, 9 Jan 1979 Stephen Morris, "The Left's Selective Moral Outrage," WALL STREET JOURNAL, 15 Aug 1981 Isaac and Isaac, THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR, June 1982. 131 The AFSC writes ("Talking Sense about Nicaragua"): In dealing with LA PRENSA the Sandinista government has tried to maintain a balance between free expression and protecting the revolution. But LA PRENSA was not closed down for revealing military secrets. It was closed for criticizing the policies of the Sandinista government. >>>Daniel A Seeger, A Reflection on Guenter Lewy's Book, pp 137-149 [Daniel Seeger is Executive Secretary of the AFSC's New York Metropolitan Regional Office. In 1964 he won the Supreme Court case US vs Seeger, which expanded the legal definition of a conscientious objector.] 147 The New York office of AFSC has launched the YSOP (Youth Service Opportunities Project), now an independent organization, to give young volunteers opportunities for service in an atmosphere informed by Quaker principles. 148 During the 1960s and 1970s, the Quaker tradition of making decisions by consensus rather than by majority vote was largely ignored by the ASFC under the pressure of events. This is regrettable. Michael J Sheeran, BEYOND MAJORITY RULE: VOTELESS DECISIONS IN THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. >>>Arthur O. Roberts, A Critique of GL's P&R, pp 151-158 [Arthur Roberts was Professor of Philosophy and Religion at George Fox College, and is now Professor at Large there. He is co-pastor of Redwood Friends Church in Portland, Oregon.] 154 The AFSC is not directly accountable to the yearly meetings or to any group of them, such as the Friends General Conference, the Friends United Meeting, or the Evangelical Friends Alliance. AFSC depends on solicited membership, and reporting. 154 Some yearly meetings, looking for service opportunities for their youth, or opportunities to finance programs for the relief of poverty and need, have turned from the AFSC to Christian-oriented agencies such as the Mennonite Central Committee. Meanwhile, the AFSC is increasingly a secular agency promoting social change. Though it can be righteous to seek some changes, the AFSC risks losing a spiritual basis for commitment to righteousness. >>>Sam Levering, What Future for the AFSC? pp 159-169 [Sam Levering, orchard grower, is an official of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and a member of the Corporation from the North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM).] 159 I write this chapter for QUAKER SERVICE AT THE CROSSROADS with pride in the AFSC's glorious past which I have loved so much, and with approval of some things the AFSC is doing now. I write with sorrow at its present drawing away from its Quaker spiritual roots. I write with fear that its present course will seriously damage the AFSC and the Society of Friends. From twenty years experience I have come to the conclusion that attempts to make necessary changes from within are futile, and that speaking openly and publicly is the only course with any possibility of success. 161 ...the late 1960s, when I was nominated by North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM) to the AFSC Corporation, and served there until 1972. ... At one annual meeting of the Corporation, I proposed that Yearly Meeting NOMINEES to the Corporation (requiring approval at Philadelphia) be changed to Yearly Meeting APPOINTEES to the Corporation. I was stopped in the hall by an AFSC Assistant Secretary who said, "Sam, you don't know what you are doing. If the Quakers control the AFSC, we couldn't even pass out a glass of milk." My reply was, "If you have that little confidence in the Society of Friends, then should you not drop FRIENDS and make it the 'American Service Committee'?" Regardless of his point of view, my proposal was adopted. 162 The Yearly Meeting Appointees to the AFSC Corporation have little or no part in making decisions on AFSC policies or programs. All important decisions are left to the AFSC Board, which includes very few of the Yearly Meeting appointees. A good example is the proposed agenda for the 1988 AFSC Corporation meeting. This is from 9:15 am to 12:00 noon on a Thursday in November. It consists of an introduction by Chairperson Stephen Cary; minutes; "State of the AFSC Report" by Executive Secretary Asia Bennett; approval of temporary nominating committee; approval of the standing nominating committee, and approval of their nominees to the Corporation Board (there are no other nominees); report of ad hoc committee to appoint standing nominating committee; annual report of treasurer; and Corporation Committee report. In the afternoon, issues of U.S. Immigration policy will be discussed. A statement is made that the AFSC intends to oppose this policy. Corporation members have been supplied no advance material on this, nor their views solicited. They will be in a poor position to decide on alternative policies, if any such are offered. Thus will end the 1988 AFSC Corporation meeting. Corporation members will have had little influence on any AFSC policies or programs. No time is given to discuss or express disapproval of any present policies or programs. All important decisions are left to the AFSC Board, where the Corporation members appointed by the Yearly Meetings are notable for their absence. The next AFSC Board of 40 will contain only two YMAs (Yearly Meeting Appointees) to the Corporation, along with 32 nominating committee nominations and five regional representatives. One of the YMAs is a regional representative. This means that YMAs are virtually excluded from Board membership. The AFSC Board will contain no YMAs, and only 3 at-large members, from YMs which belong to the Friends United Meeting only. None of the top AFSC executive positions are now filled by Friends from YMs belonging solely to FUM, or from Evangelical Friends Meetings. In earlier days, major AFSC programs were directed by outstanding Quakers who took leave of their normal occupations for this purpose. Now this practice is rare. Career AFSC personnel are usually selected. The content of AFSC programs has largely changed from meeting human needs to political issues. In this connection, the Corporation's irrelevance is underlined by the absence from its sessions of any review of the AFSC's twenty-million dollar budget. In early 1988 I wrote as a Corporation member to Executive Secretary Asia Bennett, requesting a breakdown of expenditures by the Philadelphia office by types of programs. As this is written in October of 1988, I have received no response. 165 The AFSC and the FCNL (Friends Committee on National Legislation) are run very differently. FCNL decisions are made by Quaker consensus, often with 200 or more in attendance. Drafts of proposed position papers are sent out months in advance, with revisions made on the basis of feedback and the revised drafts sent out. The annual meeting lasts three and a half days, with issues studied by small committees and their reports then considered by the whole committee. If consensus cannot be reached, the paper is not adopted. This is done in the spirit of seeking guidance from the Lord, not forcing one's own choice on others. 165 The staff at AFSC Philadelphia headquarters is only 11 per cent Quaker, and the per cent is declining. Lewis Hoskins, former Executive Secretary of AFSC, says that the staff has taken over control of the AFSC, and that the Board has let them do it. Many Friends, including former Board Chairman Gilbert White, no longer wish to be associated with the AFSC. Apparently the guidelines given the Permanent Nominating Committee for nominations to the Board and at-large members of the Corporation require previous experience and service with the AFSC. This excludes those who do not agree with present policies and programs. The result is that the AFSC is run by an inner group, staff and others, who agree with present policies and programs, or have never questioned whether they should continue. >>>Kenneth Boulding, Why Marxism in the Peace Movement? pp 171-182 [The late Kenneth Boulding was Professor of Economics at the University of Colorado, and has headed the Institute for Peace Research and Conflict Resolution (see his BIO for exact title) at the University of Michigan.] 171 Guenter Lewy's study, PEACE AND REVOLUTION: THE MORAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN PACIFISM, is a carefully researched documentary study, especially from about 1960 on, of four major components of the American peace movement: the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the War Resisters' League, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and the American Friends Service Committee. It documents the extent to which these organizations were captured by Marxist ideologies of various kinds, to the point where the witness for peace itself was seriously undermined. Though Lewy's work has a strong emotional tone, more anti-Marxist than peace-loving, it is a significant scholarly contribution to the history of the period. 181 I was struck at the Friends General Conference in July of 1988 with the contrast between the report of the Canadian Friends Service Committee, which is really a committee of its yearly meeting and very close to Friends, and has a remarkable program with very small funds; and that of the AFSC, which is somehow remote. For more information on the Friends Association for Higher Education committee on Quaker Studies on Human Betterment, contact: Paul Barton-Kriese, Secretary, QSHB, 417 Kinsey Street, Richmond, Indiana 47374. >>>Ed Lazar, PEACE AND REVOLUTION, a Review pp 183-190 [Ed Lazar is Associate Director of Humanitas International Human Rights Committee, a group founded by Joan Baez. His involvement in non-violent direct action goes back to the 1950s, and includes study with the Gandhian movement in India. He served as Peace Secretary in the AFSC New England Regional Office from 1970-1977. He is a member of Cambridge Friends Meeting in Massachusetts.] 185 Professor Lewy details how pacifism is no longer even-handed in regard to violence in the world. Though this central aspect of his book will no doubt be debated at great length, my own experience makes me support this contention. Since the late sixties the Quaker peace testimony concept of being opposed to all wars and all violence whatever the cause, has been superseded by nationalist and other ideological considerations. Now it is all right to be opposed to the violence of the United States and governments of the right, but the major pacifist organizations are loathe to oppose the actions of governments of the left. It is all right to oppose rightist "liberation" movements, but wrong to oppose leftist "liberation" movements. If there is any criticism of violence of the left it is kept quiet or handled with extreme discretion. Any examination of pacifist organizational responses to events in Vietnam, before and after the NFL victory, will bear this out, as will the muted response to events in Afghanistan as contrasted with what is occurring in Central America. The post-Vietnam experience has been particularly illustrative of the harm of the retreat from pacifism. In the early 1970s pacifist organizations took up the cause of "third force" individuals and groups in Vietnam, those who both protested the actions of the Saigon government and didn't support the NFL. We said that they represented the majority of the people of South Vietnam, and we worked so that they would be given full status in the Paris peace accords. After the NFL military victory, the AFSC, FOR, and WRL turned their back on these same third force groups at a time when they had less freedom in "liberated" Vietnam than they did under the undemocratic former governments. Pacifist groups turned their backs on pacifist Buddhists and other former pacifist allies so that they could remain in the good graces of the prevailing socialist government. It is one thing to betray ideals, which has occurred. It is far more serious to betray living men and women who were and are our respected colleagues. A tragic feature of this lack of support for third world friends was that [it did not stop at withholding support]. AFSC and WRL staff people actively worked to undermine pacifist efforts such as the Richard Neuhaus and Jim Forest-initiated "Appeal to the Government of Vietnam" (1976) which expressed concern about the human rights of Buddhists and other third force people. It was disgraceful that John McAuliff of the AFSC and some others in the American peace movement helped spread the slander that Thich Nhat Hanh, a member of the Unified Buddhist Church and an international vice-president of the FOR, was a CIA agent. 187 I believe, here agreeing with Lewy, that the ideological justification of the turn in pacifism came from Jim Bristol's 1972 essay "Nonviolence not First for Export." Jim Bristol... presented the viewpoint that pacifist efforts should be directed towards our own violent and exploitative society, and not toward "oppressed revolutionaries", that we shouldn't preach non-violence to other societies. There is much in the essay to agree with, and "preaching" nonviolence is never useful. ...but I disagree with the overall message of the essay, and believe it had a serious negative impact on the pacifist work which followed. ...since the late sixties, less reflective people had developed an approach to social change in which pacifism was considered quaint, and the main AFSC consideration in organizational staffing was movement organizing ability and effectiveness. Some key AFSC people such as John MaAuliff had political goals to achieve, and if pacifist perspectives got in the way they were just seen as obstacles to be finessed. The overall result was to corrupt pacifist work, and to lead to the correct perception that pacifism was being applied selectively. 190 A few years ago I recommended to AFSC that it take the time to study and apply the insights of the Quaker Peace Testimony to the nuclear age, and issue a new publication, an update of its 1955 booklet, SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER, both to help set the priorities of AFSC peace efforts, and to empower nonviolently the great numbers of people concerned about the dangers of the nuclear age. Part of the response I received at the time was that the AFSC was too busy to undertake such a task. And that is part of the problem. All the "pacifist" organizations are so busy responding to every new madness in the world that they end up acting the part of traditional, liberal automatic-response machines. A mile wide and a quarter inch deep. >>>Jim Forest, A review of P&R pp 191-196 [Jim Forest is a longtime staff member of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, based in Holland. A Roman Catholic, he is the author of numerous books, including a biography of Dorothy Day. He spent a year in prison for burning draft files during the Vietnam War.] 193 ...I was involved in helping write, and gather signatures for, an appeal to the Hanoi government summarizing reports of post-war human rights violations and asking that the government invite Amnesty International or a UN human rights commission to visit Vietnamese prison and re-education camps. (The Vietnamese government's response was to condemn "the Forest Appeal" and those who had signed it, about a hundred people, mainly people prominent in the peace movement.) The criticism of the appeal, however, didn't come only from Hanoi. As secretary of the appeal, I was attacked by a number of people in the US peace movement.... One AFSC staff member wrote a letter suggesting that it would be a good thing if I were sent to a Vietnamese re-education camp. ... A few actually accused me of being a CIA agent, among them Sean MacBride, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. I wrote to him pointing out that, having recently spent a year in prison for burning draft records, I was an unlikely candidate for a spy agency. ... Happily, I had some defenders. Joan Baez--a signer of the appeal--said to MacBride, "Jim is much too nice, and in any event much too disorganized, to work for the CIA." She called me up to sing me a song during the worst part of the ruckus. A member of the AFSC national staff in Philadelphia yelled at me over the telephone, "This will cost you your career in the peace movement!" ... It was only at that moment that I realized that peace movement employment--I had thought of it as a vocation--could be considered a career. His use of the word illumined my understanding of what was going on. Certainly the caller wasn't, at least intentionally, risking his career. >>>Thomas N.N. Angell, AFSC--What is the Foundation, pp 197-202 [Thomas Angell is an attorney and a member of Bulls Head Meeting, Clinton Corners, New York. He is a representative from New York Yearly Meeting to the AFSC Corporation.] 197 During more recent years the AFSC has become increasingly alienated from the Religious Society of Friends and the principles and beliefs of its founding members. P&R by Guenter Lewy provides a careful and thorough critique of the excesses and missteps of the AFSC in recent years. Whether it is Guenter's description of the AFSC's toleration of staff members' support of the Vietcong during the Vietnam War or its efforts to silence and discredit former workers for peace who made public their concern about human rights violations in post-war Vietnam, the AFSC's stature and reputation as an independent agency of both compassion and principle has surely suffered. 197 For the past several years, I have been a member of the Corporation of the AFSC appointed by New York Yearly Meeting. ... I have heard many expressions of discomfort about the current state of affairs at the AFSC: the increasing sense of isolation that some Quaker staff members feel; the small number of Quakers who actually work for the AFSC; the inability of the AFSC, in some regions, to work with locel Meetings and other Quaker programs; the failure of the AFSC to adhere to the traditional peace testimony; the unresponsiveness of the AFSC to the concerns of various Yearly Meetings; the increasingly Marxist outlook of individual staff members; displeasure with the affirmative action program; and the failure to adhere to traditional Quaker testimonies regarding sexual morality. The litany could go on. >From east to west, north to south, liberal to evangelical, I have heard a sense of alienation, bewilderment, and exasperation from Friends. In short, many Friends do not feel that a channel of communication exists between them and the AFSC which allows their concerns to be really heard. That concludes the comments from (and about) the book QUAKER SERVICE AT THE CROSSROADS. The following paragraph is quoted from an AFSC brochure: The Peace Education Division of the AFSC has a director and, under him five directors of five programs: The Middle East Program, the Latin American/Caribbean Program, the Southern Africa Program, the East/West Program, and the Youth and Militarism Program. [The first two are headed by white females, and the last three by black males. The AFSC has an affirmative action policy for minority groups firmly in place.] The Youth and Militarism program is headed by Harold Jordan, a member of the Peace Education team since 1987. Harold has served as director of the Militarism Resource Project and is co-chairperson of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild. He has published articles on racism and sexual harassment in the military, gays and lesbians in the military, and military recruiting in high schools. In 1995,the program published MAKING SOLDIERS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARMY JROTC CURRICULUM, which raised serious questions about the supposed "benefits" of the military presence in our nation's high schools. Brayshaw 315: For many years the Society has gladly placed money, energy, buildings, and organization at the disposal of its members and others laboring in good causes, itself showing sympathetic interest in the fact of its power being used to turn their mills, but not all of them have repaid it by contribution of their own to its communal spiritual life. There is on the part of some a readiness to avail themselves of its resources, but to have no interest in it except as a source or generator of power (to which, as has been said, they themselves make no contribution) for the furtherance of some cause which they have at heart. From the Report of the American Commission, All-Friends' Conference (1920) vi. p. 11. Our Quaker Peace message is not a detached program of international comity, founded on economic or political expediency or idealism. It is one expression of our religious convictions and message. This makes it difficult for us to co-operate fully with other organizations and individuals engaged in Peace propaganda whose starting-point and goals are not exactly coincident with ours, and whose spirit and methods are often at variance with our own. Gerald Jonas, ON DOING GOOD, Charles Scribner's Sons, NY, 1971, SBN 684-10317-6. Portions of this book appeared originally in the NEW YORKER, in somewhat different form. Part I, "ROOTS," gives a history of the Quaker movement, with special attention to the colony of Pennsylvania, and its dealings with the Indians (better than most, but less than ideal). Part II, "CASES," relates the work of some AFSC representatives with the East Garfield Tenants' Union in a mostly black area in Chicago, and discusses problems relating to segregated and substandard housing. It also contains an extensive discussion of how the AFSC works, and how Quaker groups arrive at decisions. Part III, "COMMUNITY," deals with the Quaker "peace testimony," and the traditional Quaker refusal to countenance war or participate in it, regardless of the justice of the cause. The AFSC was organized to provide alternative service for conscientious objectors in World War I. But in the 1960s, some members argued that to accept CO status was an unacceptable compormise with evil that to allow the government to decide who was a sincere objector and who was a malingerer was to let the government be the arbiter of the conscience, and that to accept alternative service, or even to accept a jail sentence as an alternative to being drafted was wrong, just as it was wrong in the Civil War to get out of the draft by paying a $300 exemption fee. To take this position amounted to saying that the AFSC had been actively working hand in glove with the Devil from its inception. Not all AFSC members welcomed this insight. The AFSC Community Relations Division faced difficulties in 1967 and 1968 when a Black Power Caucus in the New England Division demanded that AFSC funds be turned over to black liberation groups with no strings attached. One Quaker responded that to ask him to furnish money that might well be used to buy guns was totally unacceptable, but opinion, and ultimately response, was divided. One leader said, "Our sympathy for black people as victims is so great that we go too far in blinding ourselves to their faults we romanticize their strength and vitality. I'd be inclined to criticize their violent words and actions and let the chips fall where they may. We made it a point of honor to challenge white violence and racism we used so much ingenuity to show that you COULD have a black person working in the suburbs when we were ASSURED that you couldn't.... I only hope we use the same ingenuity to show the Black Power people that they can work with whites." (Jonas, 158-164) During the Vietnam conflict, the AFSC sent drugs and other medical supplies to North Vietnam, sometimes in violation of Federal law. They normally would have sent representatives to supervise the distribution of the supplies, but the Hanoi government would not permit this, and the AFSC acquiesced. (Jonas 166-177) See the book, PACIFISM IN THE UNITED STATES, by Peter Brock (1968).