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“The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight
It”
see http://www.pbs.org/itvs/thegoodwar/
Saturday January 26, 2002 – 01:00pm on 'GBH 44
Also Monday, January 21, 2002
(Word document typed by L. Smith from archive at PBS.org.)
This program tells the story of the conscientious objectors (C.O.'s)
who refused to fight in World War II. As medical guinea pigs, fire
jumpers, attendants in mental institutions and participants in church-sponsored
Civil Public Service Work Camps, 12,000 C.O.'s performed alternative
service during the war. Six thousand C.O.'s spent the war years
in prison and used hunger strikes to integrate the federal prison
system. Their experience prepared a generation of nonviolent activists
to change American society in ways that we are only beginning to
appreciate.
Contents:
The Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
World War II Pacifists. . . . . . .
The Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
American Pacifism . . . . . . . . .
Post-war Contributions . . . . .
Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Talkback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Millions of American soldiers fought for the liberation of Europe
from Hitler’s fascist grip during World War II.
Yet 40,000 Americans refused to shoulder weapons in “the good war”
because their consciences would not allow them to kill another human
being.
In the face of criticism and scorn, these men challenged the limits
of democracy in wartime. Many participated in the social movements
that transformed America in the years that followed. This their
story.
THE STORY
http://www.pbs.org/itvs/thegoodwar/story.html
“THE GOOD WAR and Those Who Refused To Fight It” sheds light on
a previously ignored part of the World War II saga—the story of
American conscientious objectors who refused to fight "the good
war.” It is a story of personal courage, idealism and nonconformity
based on both ethical and religious beliefs—about men whose love
of country could not extend to killing their fellow man.
“THE GOOD WAR and Those Who Refused To Fight It” tells its story
through the memories of several remarkable men who went against
the tide of the most popular and justifiable war of the 20th century.
Many were Quakers or others whose religious beliefs interpreted
the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" to include war; others were
passionate pacifists who felt morally incapable of cooperating with
a violent conflict, no matter how worthy the cause.
Like today, during WWII many Americans felt that being opposed to
war was cowardly and unpatriotic. In order to prove their patriotism
while maintaining their principles, many of these World War II conscientious
objectors risked their lives as fire jumpers and medical guinea
pigs. In the film, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop recalls
working with COs as a young doctor in these dangerous and sometimes
deadly experiments. Thousands of other COs volunteered to work in
mental institutions and helped transform them from places of filth
and degradation to the more humane institutions of today. All of
these efforts took place under Civilian Public Service, a national
system of work camps administered and paid for by the "peace" churches
- the Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren.
Thousands, however, refused to cooperate with the war effort and
spent the war years in prison, where they used hunger strikes to
integrate the federal prison system.
All lived with the scorn of a nation, and often family and friends
as well. While it has been more than half a century since WWII,
this particular war story has been almost entirely lost to history
until now.
WORLD WAR II PACIFISTS
On my way hitchhiking back to Waldport, I was standing alongside
the road near Medford, Oregon, looking at the beautiful volcanoes
there and putting my thumb out when cars went by. Pretty soon a
car with a sailor and a girl stopped and they let me in. “Are you
in the military?” they asked. “No, I’m a conscientious objector.
I don’t believe in killing.” “You mean to say you wouldn’t go and
kill the enemy and help your fellow man?” “No. I have philosophical
reasons for that and religious ones too.” “Well then,” he said,
“you get out right here!” So I got out of the car and started hitchhiking
again. Well he turned around and went off the road trying to run
me over. The headlights beamed in my eyes and I fell down in the
gutter on the roadside and just missed being run over. --CO Adrian
Wilson
The vast majority of Americans supported World War II after Pearl
Harbor was bombed, recognizing a fascist threat to Western democracy.
Over the years, it has come to be known as "the good war," a term
that refers to the rare sense of unity that characterized America
during the war years. But even in that extreme case of "good" versus
"evil," there were men whose religious, ethical and political principles
did not allow them to participate in killing other human beings.
These conscientious objectors included both religious and secular
objectors.
Religious objectors were mostly members of the traditional peace
churches, Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren. Some Muslims, Catholics,
Jews and others were also COs, as well as Jehovah's Witnesses. Secular
objectors acted from various political, philosophical, ethical and
humanitarian principles. Like combat soldiers, many conscientious
objectors were willing to sacrifice themselves for their country.
However, they were simply unwilling to kill for it.
WWII was the bloodiest conflict in human history. Thirty-five to
60 million people lost their lives on three continents. Conscientious
objectors were outcasts in a world convinced of the necessity, the
inevitability and the glory of war. Taking a stand against the popular
war could mean being ostracized by society, by family, friends,
in the workplace and often in the small towns near Civilian Public
Service (CPS) camps.
Many local residents resented having CPS camps in their area. “The
Lincoln County Times” in Oregon printed an editorial asking:
So why are these conscientious objectors with the jitterbug complex
allowed to go out, drink and publicly flaunt [sic] their draft status
in front of hundreds of people who have dear ones in the Uniform
of These United States?
CO Martin Ponch was trained as a firefighter at CPS camp in New
Hampshire: We woke up one morning to find out Plymouth had burned
down and they never called the men from the camp... They were willing
to let 1/3 of their town burn down rather than let those damn COs
come out.
Louise Brown's husband was in San Dimas CPS camp in Southern California:
When I looked for jobs they'd ask what my husband did and I'd say
he was a CO. I was literally cursed and kicked out the door. I learned
to say my husband worked for the Forest Service.
1. IN THE CAMPS
About the only thing these men have in common is their intense conviction
that it is wrong to kill a fellow man. And they are building for
themselves, in a Chinese Wall of the human spirit, what to most
American must seem a never-never land, an impossible mirage of peace
and brotherly love in a world of war and hate. --Saturday
Evening Post, 1940
Thirty-seven thousand conscientious objectors performed alternative
service during WWII. They volunteered for tasks that few others
were willing to perform. As medics on the battlefield, medical guinea
pigs, smoke jumpers, attendants in mental institutions and workers
in Civilian Public Service (CPS) camps, they served their country
in dramatic and dangerous ways.
CPS Camps Civilian Public Service was the product of a unique and
conflicted collaboration between the U.S. government's Selective
Service and the traditional peace churches: Mennonites, Church of
the Brethren and Quakers. It was a response to the first peacetime
draft in U.S. history, initiated more than a year before Pearl Harbor.
It was also the first time conscientious objectors to war were offered
legal alternative service under civilian command. The churches'
goal was to protect COs from the torture they suffered in WWI and
allow them to do "work of national importance" as an alternative
to military service. The government's interest was primarily to
keep the COs out of sight, so they would not have a negative impact
on wartime morale. CPS men were not limited to members of the peace
churches; they represented over 200 religious groups and others
without church affiliation. Their only shared philosophy was the
rejection of war.
Men who began arriving at the camps in 1941 expected to stay for
six months. Instead, they would stay in the camps for the duration
of the war, some serving six years, and were not released until
1947, two years after the end of the war. In CPS they would be required
to work nine-hour days, six days a week at hard labor, and were
expected to pay the government $35 a month for their room and board.
Those who could pay did. At great cost to their congregations, the
peace churches paid the fee for most of the COs and gave them $2.50
a month for expenses. There was no support for their families, many
of whom spent the war years in dire poverty. The work they were
assigned was often "make-work," and in camps, COs were most often
frustrated in their desire to do the "work of national importance"
they had been promised.
Church leaders held onto a belief that CPS was an opportunity to
create utopian pacifist communities, a spiritually-based "witness
to peace in a time of war.”
The clientele, the assignees, made the
place an absolute zoo. I mean, we had Ph.Ds, we had winners of Fulbright
prizes, we had guys who had a third-grade education, we had stockbrokers,
we had ballet dancers, we had atheists, we had fundamentalists...every
possible kind of human being was there....And that made it a fascinating
place to be. -- Steve Cary, WWII CO
World War II legal conscientious objectors had two choices: alternative
work in the Civilian Public Service camps or non-combatant service
in the Armed Forces. The CPS camps became incubators for many of
the techniques of non-violent resistance used later in the civil
rights and peace movements. Unsatisfied with the menial work assignments,
the lack of financial support and the poor treatment they received
in CPS camps, many men left the camps in protest and joined their
comrades behind bars.
2. ALTERNATIVE SERVICE
Photo caption: After a day of labor, COs relax in the barracks.
Photo: William Webb
Alternative Service The majority of men who performed alternative
service during the war were interned in 152 Civilian Public Service
camps across the country. Most men were housed in the barracks of
former Civilian Conservation Corps or Forest Service camps, where
they worked at hard labor planting trees, fighting fires, building
roads and constructing dams in remote locations. Others built sanitary
facilities for hookworm-ridden communities, ran medical clinics
in areas of rural poverty, cared for juvenile delinquents, conducted
agricultural experiments and worked on soil conservation projects.
The men wanted more meaningful work, the "work of national importance"
they had been promised by law. After several years in the camps
they were finally allowed detached service as attendants in mental
hospitals, guinea pigs in medical experiments and smoke jumpers
fighting fires in national parks.
Mental Health Reform Perhaps the most significant long-term contribution
of COs to the national welfare was their work in 41 mental institutions
in 20 states, and at 17 training schools for "mental deficients"
in 12 states. By 1942, most of the employees in mental facilities
had left for better-paying jobs in war industries. Their jobs were
filled by 3,000 COs. In response to the draconian conditions they
found in these institutions, CO's introduced nonviolent methods
of patient care, won a lawsuit against the state of Virginia for
humane treatment of patients, founded an organization that became
the National Mental Health Foundation and in 1946 brought national
attention to the issue with a shocking “Life Magazine” exposé.
Conscientious Objector Girls COs were joined in the hospitals by
many women, including wives of COs and nearly 300 pacifist co-eds
who call themselves "Conscientious Objector Girls" (COGs). The COGs
helped change Eleanor Roosevelt's opinion of Civilian Public Service.
Previously, she had written in her newspaper column, "The conscientious
objector is not performing any service for the country.” After a
visit with the COGs, Eleanor wrote that the COs working in the mental
hospitals improved standards dramatically. Roosevelt's contacts
with the COGs led her to work with members of the historical peace
churches and sponsor the new National Mental Health Foundation in
the postwar years.
Human Guinea Pigs Nearly 500 COs competed to volunteer as guinea
pigs in dangerous and life-threatening medical experiments seeking
cures for malaria, infectious hepatitis, atypical pneumonia and
typhus. Some CO subjects were inoculated with live hepatitis virus.
We were very concerned of course that we had been called all kinds
of names, yellow bellies, and things like that. I had volunteered
for an ambulance driver and got turned down, American Field Service,
they said they didn't want any more COs, they had too many, but
I was young and I wanted to show that I was not a coward, so when
they offered me this chance of being a guinea pig, it fit right
in with my scheme of things of proving that I was willing to take
risks on my own body, but I just did not want to kill someone else.
- CO Neil Hartman
Neil Hartman served as a human guinea pig and was repeatedly injected
with live hepatitis virus. Former Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop,
then a medical resident performed two biopsies on Hartman.
Other CO volunteers were covered with lice and sprayed with DDT,
or subjected to high altitudes, extreme temperatures and lengthy
periods of immobility. The starvation experiments conducted at the
University of Minnesota were among the most dramatic test for the
COs. Healthy, young men committed to the cause were reduced to angry
and emaciated skeletons. The dramatic results of the experiments
were so severe and long-term that they helped to inspire the Marshall
Plan which, as a keystone of U.S. foreign policy, set a precedent
for helping countries combat poverty, disease and malnutrition after
the war.
CO Lester Glick kept a diary while participating in the starvation
experiments. Read a selection from his diary entries.
a. Starvation Diary—Entries by Lester Glick (Caption: Before and
after photos of CO William Anderson, participant in University of
Minnesota starvation experiment)
November 19, 1944 We live in the basement of the U. of Minnesota
football stadium. Our dorm consists of 46 beds lined up in two rows
in an unfinished concrete dungeon-like arena with no windows. The
experiment has 3 phases:
1) three months of standardization;
2) six months of semi-starvation; and
3) three months of rehabilitation.
So for the next year there will be no furloughs, no snacks, no leaving
Stadium South Tower overnight.
February 11, 1945
Tomorrow we start our semi-starvation diet. Frankly, I'm scared!
This is the first time ever that a sustained six month human semi-starvation
experiment has been attempted in a laboratory.
March 16, 1945
Wow! My clothes look sloppy! My belt buckle is in the last notch
- a decrease of three notches since the starvation began. I bought
suspenders to keep my pants in place. I can wear a size 32 coat
instead of the 37 I had when I came to Minneapolis. An in-house
joke making the rounds: The neighbors are beginning to fence their
lawns to keep the guinea pigs [COs who volunteered for the starvation
experiment] out; they've taken to consuming grass as a substitute
for real food.
April 24, 1945
I'm beginning to want to isolate myself from the other subjects
who are developing all kinds of weird behaviors. Everyone seems
to be losing their interpersonal skills. And the starvation is less
than half over!
May 10, 1945
My pervasive hunger.
My hunger has taken on new dimensions that I could never have imagined.
It seems that my bones, my muscles, my stomach and my mind have
united in their yearning for FOOD! How disgusting.
June 23, 1945
Social isolation.
Today it's four years since I was recruited into alternative service.
It's not a day to celebrate, but if it were, I'd have no one with
whom to celebrate, I feel alone and don't talk much. I'd rather
read recipe books. Last Saturday my favorite professor Doc Wittmer
from Goshen came to entertain me with a nature hike. What a bore
to identify plants when what I wanted to do was to eat them, not
name them.
June 25, 1945
Books on starvation tell us that hungry people eat clay, wood, bark,
unclean animals and often become cannibalistic. Yesterday I took
the lead out of a pencil and began chewing the wood. It tasted all
right. For some crazy reason I crave raw horseradish, sassafras
roots and rabbit meat. I think about how cannibalism is a terrible
option for a starving person, and try to put it out of my mind,
but I can't seem to stop thinking about it. People are a terrible
bore. I don't know what I'd do without my private room and my stack
of cookbooks.
July 6, 1945
Today Jim and I made a routine visit to a restaurant to watch people
eat. We bought our usual black coffee and directed our attention
to a well-dressed lady who had ordered a beautiful pork chop dinner.
She tinkered with the chop, eating less than half of that wonderful
looking tenderloin. She nibbled at the string beans, embellished
with nuts and bacon. Finally she ordered a fantastic coconut cream
pie, which appeared to us as God's prize creation. She pushed off
the wonderful whipped cream on the top, nibbled daintily at the
filling, leaving the crust untouched. What a stupid woman! She paid
her bill and left the restaurant, with Jim and I close behind. Jim
stopped her and proceeded to lecture her on world hunger and how
she was contributing to it. She shrieked an exclamation and took
off running.
July 8, 1945
The drive for survival. All body functions such as pulse rate, heart
size, respiration rate are reduced to optimally utilize those limited
calories which are available to sustain body functions. Cannibalism,
death through starvation, grass salads and eating garbage are more
than fleeting thoughts. We are told that we are starving so that
thousands of starving people might be fed. Such thoughts are fleeting,
and I'd give them up in a minute for a few slices of bread.
July 28, 1945
Personal appearance
One more day of anxiety, tension and starvation. This morning I
looked in the mirror and hated what I saw. My face is now emaciated,
sad and flecked with black dots, a condition called folliculosis.
July 21, 1945
I have a bad infection on my heel that started a week or so ago
with a little blister. It's puffed up and inflamed, and the doctor
tells me not to wear a shoe or hike for a few days. That's what
starvation does! You have a little injury and it won't heal. I suspect
that death from starvation is more probable because of low resistance
to disease and infection and that the health-restoring antibodies
are less functional.
July 29, 1945
Rehabilitation time at last! In college we anticipated an attractive
date; at Christmastime we looked forward to gifts and family gatherings;
in camp we anticipated furloughs. But none of these examples hold
a match to the anticipation of the first day of rehabilitation.
FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! At last the object of our dreams, our thoughts,
our conversation will be within reach.
September 20, 1945
We're seven weeks into rehabilitation and our starvation symptoms
have not abated significantly. Our look, our hunger, our minimal
weight gain all verify our minimal rehabilitation.
October 19, 1945
This day started out with anticipation; starvation and rehabilitation
are almost over. But tonight the ax fell. This evening Dr. Taylor
called me in to his office and told me I have developed a tuberculosis
lesion on the apex of my left lung. This announcement completely
destroys my dream of becoming a doctor, for Dr. Taylor says that
TB and studying medicine are totally incompatible.
Final Chapter
The next six months I was in bed rest at home under the supervision
of my mother, who had always been successful in satisfying my nutritional
needs. She fed me well, and in six months I gained 79 pounds. During
this time my appetite continued unabated; I apparently tried to
satisfy all my needs by eating. My tuberculosis lesion healed well,
but one year later, I developed a second lesion which also healed
relatively rapidly. I have had no recurring symptoms since.
Postscript
Survivors of the experiments living in Florida still meet regularly.
In 1991 Lester Glick and Charles Smith organized a 50th reunion
of the men from their starvation experiment. Sixteen of the 36 subjects
attended.
1991 |
