In 1947, the Religious Society of Friends was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. The Prize was awarded, for the first time, to an organization, rather than to an individual, when it was presented to Friends in recognition of a public stand for peace that is unfailing.

However, there were some questions about who would accept such an award on behalf of Friends. The question was resolved by awarding the Prize jointly to the British Friends Service Council and the American Friends Service Committee. Both of these organizations had been set up by Friends specifically to address the need for comfort during a time of war.

The following excerpts are from a book that details the life of the Friend most responsible for setting up the American Friends Service Committee - Rufus Jones. One of his closest aides was D. Robert Yarnall.

From David Hinshaw, "Rufus Jones: Master Quaker", G.P. Putnam's Sons New York, 1951

pg 286.

"Friends now had an opportunity to prove to themselves and the Christian world that their testimony against war and the hatred engendered by nationalism was more than a negative attitude, that it had its root in a belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, that a constructive faith led to constructive ends.

"In 1917 Rufus M. Jones rallied around himself a small group of young Friends in the Haverford College campus, where their training for relief service abroad began. Our generation has become accustomed to think of the American Friends Service Committee as a well established and most respectable organization of international standing. But this beginning at Haverford was small, and its future seemed quite insecure. Rufus Jones had to struggle with the military authorities to have it recognized as a service alternative to military duties. Slowly, and through the unselfish devotion of the participants, it established itself abroad and at home. The story of its courage and success is well known... By the grace of historic justice Rufus Jones was able to experience its crowning recognition in 1947, when the NOBEL PRIZE FOR PEACE was awarded to the London Yearly Meeting's Service Council and the American Friends Service Committee in the United States.

"Rufus Jones took an active interest in this work as long as his strength permitted. When disaster was overhanging the sky of Europe before the second World War in 1938, he undertook, together with ROBERT YARNALL and George A. Walton, to intervene with the Nazi authorities in Berlin on behalf of the persecuted Jews. There are no statistics available regarding any success of this step, but the moral protest made a deep impact upon those cold-blooded criminals... this trip to Berlin was of a truly ambassadorial character. As John Woolman made it a rule to appeal to those who were wrongdoers rather than to those who were suffering from the effect of wrongdoing, so Friends once more spoke without criticism and reproach to those whose sense of justice had become tragically perverted."

pp. 234-235. "No incident in Rufus Jones's life was more dramatic than the one that followed the German Government's refusal in November, 1938, of the American Friends Service Committee's offer to aid Nazi-persecuted Jews following Kristalnacht.

"When the Reich refused Rufus' offer, he and two of his Service Committee colleagues, George Walton and D. Robert Yarnall, went to Berlin and personally asked permission to provide aid for the destitute Jews. Jones told the head of the Gestapo: "We represent no governments, no international organizations, no sects, and we have no interest in propaganda in any form.... We do not ask who is to blame for the trouble which may exist; we do not come to judge or to criticize but to inquire whether there is anything we can do to promote human welfare and to relieve suffering."

"The statement of the philosophy and motivation of Quaker humanitarian service which he and his colleagues read to the Nazi officials was sufficiently convincing to prompt the Gestapo leader to say: " I shall telegraph tonight to every station in Germany that the Quakers are given full permission to investigate the suffering of Jews and to bring such relief as is necessary."

The full text of the request to the Gestapo, in English; pp. 280-281.

"We (the Quakers) came to Germany in the time of the blockade (after World War One), organized and directed the feeding of German children, reaching at the peak no less than a million two hundred thousand children per day. We were the first to arrive in Vienna after the war where we brought in eight hundred cows and supplied the children in the hospitals with milk, and brought in coal for the fires in the hospitals. After the different revolutions in Austria we gave relief to the families of those who suffered most in these collisions, always having permission from the existing government to do so. And at the time of the Anschluss we were distributing food to a large number of Nazi families.

"In all this work we have kept entirely free of party lines or party spirit. We have not used any propaganda, or aimed to make converts to our own views. We have simply, quietly, and in a friendly spirit endeavored to make life possible for those who were suffering. We do not ask who is to blame for the trouble which may exist or what has produced the sad situation. Our task is to support and save life and to suffer with those who are suffering.

"We have come now in the same spirit as in the past and we believe that all Germans who remember the past and who are familiar with our ways and methods and spirit will know that we do not come to judge or to criticize or to push ourselves in, but to inquire in the most friendly manner whether there is anything we can do to promote life and human welfare and to relieve suffering."

Gestapo Chief Heydrich withdrew to consider the statement, and granted the request.

"...the promise made to us was kept, and the door was opened for the extensive relief which followed our visit, including the emigration of many Jews."