The story recounted in this book is the attempt of the historic peace churches (Friends, Mennonites, and the Church of the Brethren) to gain alternative service for conscientious objectors to war from 1917 to 1955 in the United States. The primary focus is on the forty-year effort to establish an historic peace church conscientious machinery of the American warfare state. This is the first book to attempt to fully reconstruct that effort.

Those who value freedom of conscience owe a great deal of debt to the historic peace churches. They have lived out a remarkably faithful witness to their understanding of the Lord's command, 'Do not resist on who is evil.'

The historic peace churches have kept the vision of a world without war. They have kept the vision of a nation in which those who refuse to take up arms would be respected for their sincere convictions and would be allowed to contribute to the common good without violating those convictions. It has been the not-always-adequately-appreciated gift of peace churches to keep before us this vision that might lead us beyond the self-defeating toils of enmity to a better way."

All Americans should be grateful."

From the foreword by Dean M. Kelley, National Council of Churches