Acts of Conscience: World War II, Mental Institutions, and Religious Objectors

9. “They Asked for a Hard Job”

174 9 “They Asked for a Hard Job” Frank Olmstead was fieldwork director of the War Resisters League and a frequent critic of the Civilian Public Service, the National Service Board for Religious Objectors, and the church committees administering camps and units. He had visited many CPS work camps and written a critical report in November 1942 describing the dissatisfaction of CPS men and questioning the meaningfulness of the work at the camps.1 Olmstead then spent several weeks visiting mental hospital units to see if the work there was more significant. He spent a week working as an attendant at the first institution he visited and wrote an article that was published in Fellowship in November 1943 based on his time there.2 On Olmstead’s first day at the mental hospital, he was given a quick tour of the incontinent building and then led into a locked ward: “First there was the odor. Outdoors it had been decidedly disagreeable; inside the front door it had become nauseating, but when we stepped into that room the unadulterated stench was overpowering.” Two attendants were on the ward. One of the attendants told Olmstead that the institution was short-staffed and asked him if he would mind being left alone in charge for a while. Right after the two attendants left, Olmstead reflected on the scene in front of him: “I have been in storms at sea, in train wrecks, and in Moscow during the Bolshevik revolution, but I have never had quite the feeling that I had when I turned from that locked door to face three hundred insane incontinents.”3 Olmstead went on to describe observations during his time at the mental hospital that were similar to the assertions later published in Out of Sight, Out of Mind: mass nudity, filth, and herding. He wrote about the pacifist techniques used by the COs, contrasting them with how regular attendants treated the patients under their charge, and speculated on whether they would make a lasting difference at the institutions. The title of Olmstead’s article was “They Asked for a Hard Job.” ◆ ◆ ◆ Soon after the establishment of the first CPS mental hospital unit by the American Friends Service Committee at Williamsburg, Virginia, in June 1942, mental “They Asked for a Hard Job”   |   175 hospital units were opened by the Mennonite Central Committee at Staunton, Virginia; Brethren Service Committee at Sykesville, Maryland; and the AFSC at Philadelphia in August.4 Before the end of the CPS, there would be forty-three units at state mental hospitals and one mental health unit at a veterans’ hospital at Lyons, New Jersey. Most of these units were administered by the MCC, AFSC, or BSC, although the Disciples of Christ, the Evangelical and Reformed Church, and the Methodist Commission on World Peace would also administer one each. The first CPS unit at a training school for people with intellectual disabilities— the “mentally defective,” “feebleminded,” or “mentally deficient”—was opened by the MCC at Vineland, New Jersey, in April 1943. Eventually, there were fourteen CPS units at state training schools for the feebleminded, in addition to Vineland , a private institution. The AFSC administered five, the MCC five, and the BSC three, with the Association of Catholic Conscientious Objectors and the American Baptist Home Mission Society administering one each. Throughout the CPS, the phrases mental hospital program and mental hospital units generally referred to units at both mental hospitals and training schools. The idea of CPS mental hospital units came from COs at two AFSC Forest Service camps in Massachusetts who wanted to do more socially significant work. They approached the secretary of a local YMCA, who put them in contact with the superintendent of Gardner State Hospital in Massachusetts. The superintendent brought the idea of having a CPS unit at the mental hospital to the state mental health commissioner. After the commissioner and the Selective Service had approved the idea, the AFSC agreed to open a unit in April 1942. Shortly 21. CPS Unit no. 49, Philadelphia State Hospital (Byberry), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania) 176   |   “A Lasting Contribution in the Field” before the unit was opened, the Massachusetts American Legion learned about it and condemned the assignment of COs at the mental hospital as “un-American.”5 The unit was canceled. Massachusetts would be the only New England state that did not have a mental hospital or training school unit...