Baltimore Four

  1. Home
  2. Wiki

The Baltimore Four were four Catholic peace activists who poured blood on draft files at the Baltimore Customs House to protest the Vietnam War on October 17, 1967.[1] This action was the immediate predecessor to and direct inspiration for The Catonsville Nine, both of which were led by Roman Catholic priest and peace activist Philip Berrigan.

The Four were (alphabetically):

Custom House Raid

[edit]

The four men raided the Baltimore City Custom House and poured blood on draft records.[2] They did this to protest the involuntary drafting of civilian young men in the Vietnam War.[3][4] Pouring blood was Berrigan's idea, later saying he was protesting "the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood in Indochina."[5] Tom Lewis told oral historian Rosalie Riegle that the blood dripping from draft files was meant to symbolize the blood on both sides of the conflict in Vietnam.[6] He called it "a Biblical symbol and a healing symbol."[7] Mengel donated blood, but he chose not to pour it. Instead he gave out copies of the New Testament.[8] Eberhardt also joined Mengel in handing out religious literature, and a clerk testified at their trial that she crumpled up the pamphlets and threw them back in the two mens' faces.[9]

Jonah House, which Berrigan co-founded in the early 1970s, thinks he may have been inspired by Barry Bondhus, a Minnesota peace activist who poured buckets of liquefied human waste on Selective Service files in February 1966.[10][11]

Aftermath and trial

[edit]

While the four were out on bond, Berrigan invited Eberhardt to participate in The Catonsville Nine, but Eberhardt declined because of his bond status. So did Jesuit priest and Georgetown University professor Richard McSorley SJ. who always said he regretted that decision.[12] Eventually Eberhardt did join Berrigan in breaking bond and going underground, however, along with George Mische and Mary Moylan of The Catonsville Nine.[13] Berrigan and Eberhardt publicly announced a rally in Manhattan at St. Gregory the Great Church that they titled "Up from Under."[14] Earlier that day they were hiding in a priests' closet rectory when the FBI raided the building and found them. They had publicly announced an appearance that evening, but the FBI timed the raid to pre-empt the public event.[15]

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and riots followed, the trial of the Baltimore Four had to be postponed. George Mische had been coming to every day of the trial, and staying throughout, and the trial gave him an idea. Writes Maggie Astor of The New York Times,

When a defense lawyer for the four asked why the government didn’t simply go into the Selective Service archives for duplicates of the files that had been covered with blood, an officer responded that there were no duplicates. Pressed by the defense, he acknowledged that if, for example, a draft file were burned, its subject would no longer exist in the eyes of the Selective Service. In the gallery, Mr. Mische recalled, he turned to his wife and said, 'We’re going to burn the goddamn things.'[16]

That was the origin of the Catonsville Nine decision to burn draft cards on a bonfire they started in the parking lot of the Selective Service office.

The Baltimore Four inspired subsequent actions, including most directly The Catonsville Nine, but also the Milwaukee 14, the D.C. Nine, the Silver Spring Three, the Chicago Eight, the Harrisburg Seven, and the Camden 28. Gradually the actions gave way to those of the closely related Plowshares movement, also led by Phil Berrigan and to a lesser extent his brother Dan. Both the Baltimore Four and the Catonsville Nine are featured in the 2013 documentary Hit & Stay.[17]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Ladd, Jenn (December 4, 2013). "The Baltimore Four and the Catonsville Nine would spark a series of similar, Catholic Left-led demonstrations". The Baltimore Sun.
  2. ^ Berrigan, Philip (1996). Fighting the Lamb's War : Skirmishes with the American Empire : The Autobiography of Philip Berrigan. Wilcox, Fred A. (Fred Allen). Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press. pp. 79, 89, 118, 119, 122, 228. ISBN 1567511007. OCLC 34547152.
  3. ^ Berrigan, Philip (1967). Prison Journals of a Priest Revolutionary. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. pp. 14, 18, 28. ISBN 9780030845130.
  4. ^ Nepstad, Sharon Erickson (2008). Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement. Cambridge University Press. p. 48. ISBN 9780521717670.
  5. ^ Kelly, Jacques; Schoettler, Carl (December 7, 2002). "Philip Berrigan, apostle of peace, dies at age 79". Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on October 19, 2017. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  6. ^ Riegle, Rosalie (1993). Voices from the Catholic Worker. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 43.
  7. ^ Sargent, Carole (2022). Transform Now Plowshares: Megan Rice, Gregory Boertje-Obed, and Michael Walli. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press. p. 37.
  8. ^ Nepstad, Sharon Erickson (2008). Religion and war resistance in the Plowshares Movement. Cambridge University Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-521-71767-0.
  9. ^ Geiselman Jr., A. W. (April 10, 1968). "Prosecution Rests in Berrigan Trial". National Catholic Reporter. Vol. 4, no. 24.
  10. ^ "Peacemaking: Images from Jonah House Archive 1967-1973". Jonah House.
  11. ^ Sadowski, Dennis (September 1, 2018). "After 50 years, draft board protesters insist what they did was right". National Catholic Reporter.
  12. ^ McSorley, Richard T. (1996). My Path to Peace and Justice : An Autobiography. Freeman, South Dakota: Fortkamp Publishing/Rose Hill Books. ISBN 9781879175198.
  13. ^ Nobile, Philip (June 28, 1970). "The Priest Who Stayed Out in the Cold". The New York Times.
  14. ^ "The Berrigans: Jail for the Christian Conscience". Time. May 4, 1970.
  15. ^ Massa, SJ, Mark S. (2010). The American Catholic Revolution: How the Sixties Changed the Church Forever. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 122. ISBN 9780199781386.
  16. ^ Astor, Maggie (May 19, 2018). "Their Protest Helped End the Draft. 50 Years Later, It's Still Controversial". The New York Times.
  17. ^ "Member of "Baltimore Four" reviews "Hit & Stay" on 45th anniversary of Catonsville Nine action". The Baltimore Sun. June 4, 2014.