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The Catonsville Nine


On May 17, 1968, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Marjorie and Thomas Melville, David Darst, John Hogan, Mary Moylan, George Mische, and Thomas Lewis entered the Selective Service office in Catonsville, Maryland, removed three hundred and seventy eight 1-A draft files, and burned them with home-made napalm in the parking lot. They took this action in protest of the Vietnam War; of the senseless killing our country carries out throughout the world. Thirty-five years later their actions and words are still as urgent as ever.

What follows are sections from The Catonsville Nine, a play written by Daniel Berrigan from the transcript of the court trial.

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Phillip Berrigan:

Neither at the Customs House nor at Catonsville do I wish my actions reduced to a question of acquittal or conviction. Rather I, and all of us, desire to communicate with the bench, with the prosecution, with our country. We have already made it clear our dissent runs counter to more than the war, which is but one instance of American power in the world. Latin America is another instance. So is the Near East. This trial is yet another. From those in power we have met little understanding, much silence; much scorn and punishment.

We have been accused of arrogance. But what of the fantastic arrogance of our leaders? What of their crimes against the people, the poor and powerless? Still no court will try them, no jail will receive them. They live in righteousness. They will die in honor. For them we have one message, for those in whose manicured hands the power of the land lies, we say to them- Lead us. Lead us in justice and there will be no need to break the law. Let the president do what his predecessors failed to do. Let him obey the rich less and the people more. Let him think less of the privileged and more of the poor. Less of America and more of the world. Let lawmakers, judges, and lawyers think less of the law, and more of justice; less of legal ritual, more of human rights.

To our bishops and superiors we say- Learn something about the gospel and something about illegitimate power. When you do, you will liquidate your investments, take a house in the slums, or even join us in jail.

To lawyers we say- Defend draft resisters, ask no fees, insist on justice, risk contempt of court, go to jail with your clients. To the prosecution we say- Refuse to indict opponents of the war, prefer to resign, practice in private. To Federal judges, we say- Give anti-war people suspended sentences to work for justice and peace, or resign your posts.

You men of power, I also have a dream- Federal Judges, District Attorneys, Marshals Against the War. You men of power, you have told us your system is reformable. Reform it then, and we will help with all our conviction and energy in jail or out.


David Darst: I saw many little children who did not have enough to eat. This is an astonishing thing, that our country cannot command the energy to give bread and milk to children. Yet, it can rain fire and death on people ten thousand miles away for reasons that are unclear to thoughtful people.


Defense: After the conviction, and while you were awaiting sentence, you also engaged in the Catonsville action, did you not?


Thomas Lewis: Yes, it was the response of a man standing for humanity, a man, a Christian, a human being seeing what was happening not only in Vietnam, but beyond Vietnam. There was a difference in my mind between the two protests. The draft records on which we poured blood were records of the inner city, the ghetto areas. Part of the protest was to dramatize that the war is taking more cannon fodder from the poor areas than from the more affluent areas. The symbolism was perhaps clearer in the second case. We used a contemporary symbol, napalm, to destroy draft records which are potential death certificates. They stand for the death of the people they represent; people who are put in the situation where they have to kill. But beyond this, napalm manufactured in the United States is part of our foreign aid. We supply weaponry to more than 80 countries. We have troops in more than 40 countries. These troops are backed up with our weaponry. So I was speaking not only of Vietnam, I was speaking of other parts of the world. The fact is the American system can flourish only if we expand our economy in these other countries. The fact is, we produce more goods then we are capable of consuming. We must have new markets. We must bring our industries, our way of life, into Vietnam and Latin America. We must protect our interests there. But we asked at Catonsville, ‘Whose interests are these?’ Who represents the interests of Latin America? Who represents the interests of Vietnam? I was well aware that in civil disobedience you take an action, you stand, you are arrested, you attempt to express your views, you are prepared to take the consequences. The consequence to me was a six-year sentence for pouring blood.

I am aware too that if I became involved in Catonsville I would be summoned once more for trial. This is the trial, and a greater sentence may follow. I was fully aware of this at the time. It was a very thoughtful time. In a sense, it was a choice between life and death. It was a choice between saving one’s soul and losing it. I was saving my soul.


Prosecution: Were you aware that it was against the law to take records from the Selective Service, and burn them?


Thomas Lewis: I wasn’t concerned with the law. I wasn’t even thinking about the law. I was thinking of what those records meant. I wasn’t concerned with the law. I was concerned with the lives of innocent people. I went in there with the intent of stopping what the files justify. The young men whose files we destroyed have not yet been drafted, may not be drafted, may not be sent to Vietnam for cannon fodder. My intent in going there was to save lives. A person may break the law to save lives.


Marjorie Melville: I did not want to bring hurt upon myself, but there comes a moment when you decide that some things should not be. Then you have to act to try and stop those things. On my return, I was very happy when I found other people in this country concerned as I was. I know that burning draft files is not an effective way to stop a war, but who has found a way of stopping this war? I have racked my brain. I have talked to all kinds of people. What can you do? They say yes, yes, but there is no answer, no stopping it, the horror continues.


Thomas Melville: I hear our President confuse greatness with strength, riches with goodness, fear with respect, hopelessness and passivity with peace. The clichés of our leaders pay tribute to property and indifference to suffering. We long for a hand of friendship and succor and that hand clenches into a fist. I wonder how long we can endure.


Mary Moylan: To pour napalm on pieces of paper is certainly preferable to using napalm on human beings. By pouring napalm on draft files, I wish to celebrate life, not engage in a dance of death.


George Mische: The violence continues. I felt that the crisis this country is in needed something drastic, something people could see. But the act had to be nonviolent. We were not out to destroy life. There is a higher law we are commanded to obey. It takes precedence over human laws. My intent was to follow the higher law. My intent was to save lives. Vietnamese lives, North and South American lives. To stop the madness. That was my intent.


Defense: If there were, Mr. Hogan, one phrase on which you could sum up your intent in going to Catonsville, how would you express it?


John Hogan: I just want to let people live. That is all.


Daniel Berrigan: Some ten or twelve of us (the number is still uncertain) will, if all goes well (ill?), take our religious bodies during this week to a draft center in or near Baltimore. There we shall, of purpose and forethought, remove the 1-A draft files, sprinkles them in the public street with home-made napalm, and set them afire. For which act we shall, beyond doubt, be placed behind bars for some portion of our natural lives. In consequence of our ability to live and die content in the plagued city- to say ‘peace peace’ when there is no peace; to keep the poor, poor; the thirsty and hungry, thirsty and hungry. Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children, the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the charnel house. We could not, so help us God, do otherwise. For we are sick at heart, our hearts give us no rest for thinking of the Land of Burning Children.

We say: killing is disorder. Life and gentleness and community and unselfishness is the only order we recognize. For the sake of that order, we risk our liberty, our good name. The time is past when good men may be silent, when obedience can segregate men from public risk, when the poor can die without defense. How many indeed must die before our voices are heard; how many must be tortured, dislocated, starved, maddened? How long must the world’s resources be raped in the service of legalized murder? When, at what point, will you say no to this war? We have chosen to say, with the gift of our liberty, if necessary, our lives: the violence stops here; the death stops here; the suppression of the truth stops here; this war stops here. Redeem the times! The times are inexpressibly evil. Christians pay conscious, indeed religious tribute to Caesar and Mars by the approval of overkill tactics, by brinkmanship, by nuclear liturgies, by racism, by support of genocide. They embrace their society with all their heart and abandon the cross. They pay lip service to Christ, and military service to the powers of death.