Acts of Conscience

During World War II, my father was a conscientious objector. He later served in China and then later in Malay as a missionary under the China Inland Mission. He was present at the creation of two nations-- the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and Malaysia in 1952. My parents finished their missionary service helping the Vietnamese “boat people” in 1982.

My father refused to accept either combatant or non-combatant service in the military. Social ostracism was intense, universal, and unrelenting. “I had the opportunity to do some visiting with some army boys going back to the service,” Dad wrote to my aunt Elsie Wik Johnson 1941 from Dennison, Iowa. “They had been drinking and were feeling good and talkative. They wanted to know who I was and where I was going. When they found that I was a CO, we got into a little discussion that warmed up a bit. One of the boys led me to the back seat and gave me a lecture. We parted company without regrets.” And COs were not exempt from physical hazard. Among Dad’s letters is a 1943 publication by the National Service Board for Religious Objectors that mentions guinea pig experiments with COs, including the effects of starvation and malaria inoculations. In Dennison, Iowa, my father worked for four months at a Civilian Public Service Camp under Mennonite Central Committee direction. He then spent a year at a Wisconsin diary farm. The Mennonites accepted him for overseas relief work, but Congress passed legislation barring conscientious objectors from serving overseas. Dad was reassigned to camps in Indiana and also did fire prevention work in Santa Barbara, California. His next assignment was to work as a hospital attendant from three to eleven p.m. at the Philadelphia State Mental Hospital (Byberry), in the male incontinent building. The building was completely staffed by COs. On May 6, 1946, Life published an article by Albert Maisel titled, “Bedlam 1946: Most U.S. Mental Hospitals are a Shame and a Disgrace” that referenced some of what my father witnessed.

Dr. Steven J. Taylor, Director of the Center on Human Policy at Syracuse University, is publishing Acts of Conscience this Spring touches on my father’s experiences during World War II. this Spring that will touch on my father’s experiences during World War II.

Here is a description from the Spring 2009 catalog

In the mid- to late 1940s, a group of young men rattled the psychiatric establishment by beaming a public spotlight on the squalid conditions and brutality in our nation’s mental hospitals and training schools for people with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities.

In the mid- to late 1940s, a group of young men rattled the psychiatric establishment by beaming a public spotlight on the squalid conditions and brutality in our nation’s mental hospitals and training schools for people with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities. Bringing the abuses to the attention of newspapers and magazines across the country, they led a reform effort to change public attitudes and to improve the training and status of institutional staff. Prominent Americans, including Eleanor Roosevelt, ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, author Pearl S. Buck, actress Helen Hayes, and African-American activist Mary McLeod Bethune, supported the efforts of the young men.

These young men were among the 12,000 World War II conscientious objectors who chose to perform civilian public service as an alternative to fighting in what is widely regarded as America’s "good war." Three thousand of these men volunteered to work at state institutions, where they found conditions appalling. Acting on conscience a second time, they challenged America’s treatment of its citizens with severe disabilities. Acts of Conscience brings to light the extraordinary efforts of these courageous men, drawing upon extensive archival research, interviews, and personal correspondence.

The World War II conscientious objectors were not the first to expose public institutions, and they would not be the last. What distinguishes them from reformers of other eras is that their activities have faded from professional and popular memory. Steven J. Taylor’s moving account is an indispensable contribution to the historical record.