ustxtxb_obs_1961_05_06_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

body else in the country thinks otherwise . . . “In order to keep our self-respect, we must act according to our convictions, taking the position which, if followed by all men, would lead to the goal which we seek . . . “Those of us who feel most deeply must be the first to stand up and be counted. The wealthy and politically powerful, if they’re shown the way at all, will be shown only by our example \(and 14 . my duty to life is greater than my duty to raise the standard of living.” Last April 5, McGaw wrote Dr. Phillip G. Hoffman, vice president at the University of Houston, resigning because of “my unwillingness to continue to pay an income tax to be used primarily for war-related purposes.” That same day he sent the sum of his net tax due for 1960 to the four organizations in equal quarters. On April 13, he wrote his mother and other members of his family in Nashville: “I know it will be difficult for anyone, even members of my own family to understand the position that I’m taking, since they have not been keeping up with the literature on pacifism, taxrefusal,. etc. Maybe the enclosed material will help a little. In any event, I think Thoreau was right even if practically everybody else at the time thought he was foolish.” He told them he is prepared to go to jail “if it should come to that,” but that it never has in the U.S. in such a case, and the worst the government would do would be to collect the tax plus interest and a fine. He concluded to his family: . . the government doesn’t like to take action that will result in publicity for anti-military protests. Actually this puts me in a position where I can’t lose. If I’m left alone, I’m free to speak out against preparation for war. If I’m imprisoned, that very imprisonment becomes an eloquent witness. “So don’t be upset. I’m doing what my intelligence and my humanity say is right for me, and I feel free and at peace with myself and the world.” Four days later, he wrote Joe Weingarten, the proprietor of a chain of grocery stores in Houston, inquiring about any openings with Weingarten’s proposed World University for World Peace, provided no tax would be withheld and there would be no connection with the military. If there were none, McGaw wrote Weingarten, “it may be that some part-time work is available from time to time in one or more of your stores. I can type, write letters, use office machines, and I have even had a year of experience as a grocery clerk. Since the government makes it hard for a man to earn a living outside of the withholding arrangement, some way for . me to work at a job where groceries could be had at a discount would be desirable.” R.D. Good Music .. . Good Times .. . Good Beer & Set-ups at the BOX Soloists JOHN BURKE and CLYDE HAGER Also Stereo . . Presenting Classical and Show Music and Folk Songs 2703 S. Shepherd, Houston Grady Price and John Burke Owners The Business of Mankind Is to Abolish War’ is war, and the first business of mankind is to abolish it .. . Mad Race “Practically all nations justify their past wars and proclaim that their armaments today are solely for ‘defense.’ But the race towards World War III goes steadily, madly on,. the superior fighting potential of one country serving only as an excuse for renewed ‘defense’ efforts on the part of its ‘enemy.’ Any talk of disarmament is regarded as unrealistic, and, by some, even unpatriotic. But if the governments of the world do not disarm, the mounting tensions and fears will almost surely erupt into a terrible holocaust. . . . “All of the federal tax money goes into a common treasury, and almost three quarters of it today is drained off for military and defense-related purposes . . . “Because I am beyond the age of those who are subject to the draft, the government is not requiring me to bear arms, but it is demanding, through the income-tax law, that I help pay for our bombs, missiles, and other instruments of death and destruction. “In the words of Thoreau, however, ‘I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance,’ and I refuse at this point to cooperate with the government. The urgency of the world situation forces me to deny the right of the government to tax me for war purposes \(or ‘defense’ purhas come for me to exert my entire influences \(‘to clog with my tarism that threatens to destroy us all,” McGaw continued. “The Nuremberg trials, following World War H, established the principle that a person acting pursuant to an order of his government or of a superior officer is not thereby relieved of personal responsibility under international law. “If World War III should develop, and if I have helped, however unwillingly, to finance its preparation, I could not conscientiously disclaim a certain measure of accountability for it. In accordance with the Nuremburg principle, then, as a member of human society, I must refuse participation in a process that, if continued, may mean the end of civilization. “It would be a great satisfaction to me,” McGaw said, “to read or hear about a Russian citizen who refused to cooperate in paying for the armaments program of his government because he didn’t want to be responsible for a war in which my own children might be killed. “To stand up against his government, however, is much more difficult for the Russion than it is for me. I must take the first step, therefore, by refusing to help prepare for a war that might result in the death of the Russian’s children,” McGaw concluded. McGaw was born in Nashville, Tenn., and there received his B.A. in English from Vanderbilt in 1933. After teaching in a high school, he received his M.A. in education and his bachelor of science in library science from George Peabody College in 1941. He studied at Chicago and Columbia universities, obtaining his Ed.D. from Columbia in 1950. Free Hand He was head librarian at Memphis State College and at a Chicago junior college from 1940 to 1943, and then as a conscientious objector served in civilian public THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 8 May 6, 1961 service camps on forest fire and public health tasks. After the war he resumed his professional life as head librarian at Ohio Wesleyan U.; in 1950 he came to the University of Housto’n as director of libraries, and in 1953 he also became professor of library science at U.H. He is a member of the Bibliographical Society of America, the American, Texas, and Southwest Library Associations. National Education Assn., American Civil Liberties Union, American Friends Service Committee, American Humanist Assn., and American Ethical Union. He was one of two nominees for vice-chairman and chairman-elect of the Association of College and Research Libraries, the division of the A.L.A. for college and university libraries, but in view of his resignation frOm U.H. has written for them to withdraw his name. At the university, McGaw told the Observer, he has been free to do his work as he sees fit. Once he was approached with an admonition, perhaps because the late Hugh Roy Cullen was upset about his activities with the American Friends Service Committee, but he has posted such items as the UN Declaration of Human Rights in the library without difficulty, and his book selection policy “hasn’t been criticized.” He was not asked to resign; he decided to. “It wouldn’t have been cricket for me to take this position and expect to stay on at the university . . . where they have withholding and expect all staff and faculty to respect it,” and where a retired Army officer is president of the college, he said. “I don’t mean to be an anarchist. I want to obey just laws,” McGaw said. He began thinking about the implications of tax-paying when a wartime objector, he said. “By the time the war was over, we had nothing. I was glad to get my first job and become a part of society again.” But, he added, “It seemed to be inconsistent if I refused to be a soldier, to buy a gun for a soldier, to support him.” Nuclear war intensified his concern. Civil defense, he said, “makes no sense at all” with missiles that can cross the Atlantic in 15 minutes. “No matter what the Russians doSuppose I knew the Russians would blow us off the face of the earth. Our answer is, we’ll bomb them off the face of the earth. If they’re going to end civilization in this quarter of the globe, what satisfaction is there in ending it in that quarter? I’d rather be dead. I’m unwilling to participate in this program of retaliationthat’s no answer.” Help, Criticism He has, he said, received offers of part-time jobs, the use of a car, and other help from his friends. Under the law anyone earning $600 or more must pay a tax. McGaw figures that, as a city dweller, he must earn more than that, but he cannot work for employers involved in the tax withholding arrangement, since that would be paying taxes. “I can type, I can write, I can do almost any kind of clerical work, office work,” he says. One friend has asked him to catalogue a personal library. He has received little criticism for his stand, but he has received some “because of the way it affects my children,” he said. “Although they’re my children I love themI want them to love mebut they’re part of the human race, and if in order to have a little higher standard of living, I have to participate in killing all children–I just can’t do it,” McGaw said. This year, “caught” by withholding at U.H. in 1960, McGaw has sent the balance of his taxes due, in equal quarters, to the American Friends Service Committee, the War Resisters League, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the Peacemakers, “all In the business of opposing war and fighting for peace,” he says. How did he get taken up with the subject? In 1935, he said, he first read The Horror of It, Camera Records of War’s Gruesome Glories, by Frederick A. Barber. This is a picture record of World War I, especially of a blown-off hand lying on the open field, flies on bloated bodies, blown-away and twisted faces. He has been much moved by Gandhi and Thoreau, he said. On Howard McGaw Civil Disobedience “is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever read.” He drew forth from his bookshelf other books on pacifism, non-violence, and Christianity. He lives alone now \(he and his wife were divorced a few years ago, for one reason, he said, beapartment with his electric organ, books, hi-fi, and two parakeets. There is also a cage for his canary, but it died. Returning to his office at the college library, he recalled that “Peace Pilgrim” had visited him, making a deep impression on him, and that he recently gave a talk on “The Relevance of Pacifism in the Nuclear Age” to the Spring Branch fellowship of the Unitarian Church, so all the arguments became freshened in his mind. \(He is not a Unitarian, nor a member, now, of any church. He considers himself a humanHe had near his desk at the library, too, a 1955 pamphlet of the American Friends Service Committee, “Speak Truth to Power,” a statement for non-violence which concludes: “To risk all may be to gain all. . . . We call on all men to say ‘No’ to the war machine and to immoral claims of power wherever they exist and whatever the consequences may be.” This influenced him, he said. So did various other tracts of the pacifist and non-violent movements; he provided copies of articles by Milton Mayer and Ernest R. Bromley, among others. “I thought for a while maybe something could be worked out,” he said. “I’ve given my life to this profession. I’d like to stay on, maybe working on. here at greatly reduced income so I wouldn’t have to pay a tax. There wasn’t any way to handle it . . . and I still wouldn’t be free. I want to be free to speak my mind. Nothing else would do except a complete breakto resign and declare myself.” Eloquence Is he withdrawing by his act? “No, I am making as vigorous a protest as I can make,” he said. “Testimony that I can make as a university librarian speaking about pacifism and writing letters about it is just not enough. This refusal to pay the tax is as far as I can go. It makes me a much more eloquent witness, it seems to me.” If he had to, to defend his children, he would kill, he said, but this is quite different from agreeing in advance to participate in a war. “. . . I don’t commit myself to bombing innocent women and children . . . to nuclear war which might mean the end of civilization,” he said. “You commit your son to fly a plane to Moscow, or push a button and send an atomic bomb to Moscow with indescribable resultskilling hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. It’s insane! It’s insane!” Pacifists, McGaw said, do not pretend to offer a course without risks; but “look at the failure of militarism; look at the failure of war.” “Once war comes, there’s so much propaganda in favor of it, the press, the politicians, it’s almost impossible to think straight,” so pacifists speak up in peacetime. Weapons, he said, are “the greatest risk to our security” and ought to be destroyed. “We want multilateral universal disarmament, but if we can’t get it, somebody has to take the first stepwhy not the United States? “I want to take a position such that if others took it in sufficient quantity, it would make a real difference,” he said. “If war is about to reach us, we will be given all kinds of plausible reasons for defending ourselves. Every nation has always justified its wars. You have to have a break with it somewhere, someplace.” In January, 1949, McGaw, then at Ohio Wesleyan, wrote Atty. Gen. Tom Clark, also sending a copy to the student newspaper, identifying himself with draft non-registrants. He wrote: “It should be made perfectly clear that I am not an apologiSt dictatorship. But when we have