Dorothy Hyatt, Kathryn McGee, and Murray Morgan -- "the right to follow conscience"

In 1967 during the Vietnam War, Howard Scott lost his teaching position when it became known that he had been a conscientious objector during World War II and that he was involved in alternative service counseling with draft age men.

Howard Scott with the violin he made in prison: Chris Willard

Scott was a lifelong pacifist who registered as a conscientious objector prior to World War II. Assigned to alternative service as a firefighter at a Civilian Public Service camp, he left that position in protest of the Japanese internment following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He was redrafted, arrested, and served a year and a half at McNeil Island Penitentiary. After some years as a Snohomish County dairy farmer after the war, he returned to college and earned a teaching certificate. Scott, his wife, Ruane, and their four children moved to Pierce County 1960s and both parents taught at schools in Puyallup and Tacoma.

Kathryn McGee, a close friend of the Scotts in Tacoma, recalled in 2000 that "the school board and some citizens complained to Judge E. A. Morrison that Howard should be fired ... I didn't know what to do to to help, and then I called Murray and told him of the incident, of our long friendship with the Scotts, and of Howard's dedicated beliefs as a Quaker and a pacifist. The next day I heard that Murray had, in his radio program, spoken of Howard and defended him. Words could never say how I valued Murray's trust that Howard was (and is) a man of conviction."

Murray's defense was not successful. As McGee wrote, "school boards are notorious, if not downright infamous for not wanting to displease any of the public." He did strike a nerve with Dorothy Hyatt, a conservative activist in Puyallup, which prompted this exchange of letters

(Howard and Ruanes' lives are summarized in Margaret Riddle's excellent essay at HistoryLink.org: https://historylink.org/File/20485)