"The state troopers beat up a lot of people, but specifically avoided the Swarthmore kids. There was blood in the streets; it was so bad.... It demoralized the movement, and it was disillusioning for us because so many people got hurt.... I think it had a radicalizing effect on us.... It upset a lot of people in Philadelphia, who sent in a lot of money. Violence does that.... The incident made us a little suspicious of liberals: that it takes blood in the streets before they realize that conditions are bad."

After graduating from Swarthmore Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude in Greek, he came to Harvard in the fall of 1966 on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to major in modern English literature. Although still protected by his 2-S graduate deferment, Ferber decided then that his religious and non-violent beliefs had matured sufficiently for him to apply for a 1-O deferment as a conscientious objector. He started out strictly legally, "playing the game their way," but circumstances and his own morality soon compelled him to a position outside the law:

"My CO application was primarily religious. Being an unorthodox, kind of small letter 'c' christian--or Judeo-Christian--and officially being a Unitarian, it's not easy to answer simply 'yes' or 'no' to whether I believe in a Supreme Being. I tried to discuss something like a Supreme Being that is imminent rather than transcendent: a function or aspect of human experience. I could have quoted Hindu doctrine to make it fit, but I chose to write it in my own words. I wrote about the highest moments of perception and truth and reality, and the power of love, communion, and creativity....

"If someone came in off the street and asked me whether I believed in God, I would say, 'No, I'm an agnostic.' Because I know what most people mean when they say God. But if a theologian asked me, I'd say 'Yes and no, let's try to define it.' That's what I tried to do. I tried to define the religious dimension of man, which I think can exist with or without God. I think it makes perfect sense to describe this dimension as an experience of a Supreme Being. Whether it's your own being supreme, or an external thing that seems at the moment to be crucially important. I used Tillich's definition of religion as one's ultimate commitment or ultimate concern. On that kind of definition, I would stand."

Ferber's CO application also quoted Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. It included letters testifying to the sincerity of his beliefs from ten people (including two combat veterans), statements from his ministers, and a list of the 13 political demonstrations in which he took part--the first during his sophomore year in high school.

His application was turned down almost upon receipt; he suspects they didn't even read it. His local board in Buffalo reclassified him 1-A, despite the fact that he was still a full-time student. This was in May, 1967, before the new draft law abolishing graduate deferments was passed. The lawyer Ferber contacted told him that this was a blatantly illegal move, since there was no basis for stripping him of his 2-S.

"My religious beliefs were even more conservative than the ones that the Supreme Court accepted for CO in the Seeger decision. My hearing officer was totally unsympathetic. There was little I could do, unless I was a Quaker in the pious, conventional sense. They have an image of what a religious person is, and I'm not that. There's nothing wrong with my case. [Ferber's lawyer assured him they could win in court.] I had all my political and religious activities in it.

"I don't see a fundamental distinction between religion and politics. Religion and morality are the same, and politics is an extension of morality. I made that point very clear, but they didn't seem to see it. The very first question at my hearing was, 'Mr. Ferber, what are your political beliefs? They didn't take too kindly to the fact that I had caused all kinds of 'trouble' in high school and college and got arrested in Chester. I couldn't be religious and do that. Apparently, a religious guy just sits off in a corner and meditates. And a pacifist is a retiring sort, 'who resists not evil.' I think it's our business to resist evil."

The summer of '67 marked his move from dissent to resistance, as he spent the greater part of three months "hassling" with his local board in a vain attempt to be granted CO status or be reclassified 2-S. He made numerous trips to Buffalo and couldn't hold a regular summer job.

"I did the whole bit, played their game perfectly, just what they wanted. At first when you're doing this, you feel that you're doing something good: striking a blow against the system. Hah, you're going to make them read your file, have a big argument, a showdown, and then you're going to pass out leaflets at your physical.

"After a while, you realize that they're playing the game a lot better than you are. That you're becoming though. I don't know how I'll bear up."

Ferber is out of place in the list of five. All the other men--including Mitchell Goodman, a New York author, and Marcus Raskin, co-director of Washington's Institute for Policy Studies--are charged with sponsoring the nation-wide draft resistance program. Ferber isn't. All the other men, are ineligible for the draft; Ferber is the only one who is draft eligible and has turned in his card.

He sees the government's including one real draft resistor among the five as an attempt "to scare all the other kids." "The government is saying to the kids, 'No matter how many adults you bring in to bear the brunt, we're going to get you too.' I was just an easy, prominent target because of all my public speeches."

Howard Zinn, professor of Government at Boston University and a major anti-war figure, agrees: "It's the government's way of saying to all the ordinary people who have growing doubts about the war, 'You had better shut up!'"

Martyrdom