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

Introduction

1 Introduction One may differ, as I do, with the views that led these young men to take up a difficult and unpopular position against service in the armed forces. But one cannot help but recognize their honesty and sincerity in reporting upon the conditions they found in the hospitals to which they were assigned. —albert q. maisel, “Bedlam, 1946: Most U.S. Mental Hospitals Are a Shame and a Disgrace” 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. They brought about exposés reported in newspapers across the country and major carriers of popular culture and led a reform effort to change public attitudes, revise institutional commitment laws, and improve the pay, status, and training of institutional staff. Their efforts prompted major psychiatric and mental hygiene organizations to acknowledge the failures and deficiencies in how states cared for the “mentally ill” and “mental defectives.” These young men were among the 11,996 World War II conscientious objectors assigned to the Civilian Public Service as an alternative to serving in the military. The CPS was an outgrowth of the efforts of the “historical peace churches”—the Mennonites, Brethren, and Friends or Quakers—to enable their members to act on their pacifist beliefs by conducting “work of national importance under civilian direction.” Once the CPS was established, it attracted men from more than 120 religions. The majority of CPS men were Mennonites, Brethren, Friends, and Methodists, but their ranks also included Catholics, Jews, and African American Muslims, in addition to some secular objectors. The CPS was jointly operated by church committees, the Selective Service (SS), and administrative agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Soil Conservation Service. Men were initially assigned to government work camps, where they maintained parks and nurseries; constructed roads, bridges, and truck trails; dug ditches; fought forest fires; and engaged in other public works projects. The men were not paid for their work, and church 2   |   Acts of Conscience committees paid for their living expenses. Owing to the desires of many men to perform more humanitarian public service and pressing labor shortages caused by the war, the Selective Service eventually approved the assignment of CPS men to “detached units,” where they worked on alternative projects. A number of men volunteered to work on dairy farms or public health projects in the rural South. Some served as “human guinea pigs” in medical experiments conducted at some of the nation’s leading universities and medical centers and were infected with hepatitis, malaria, or pneumonia; exposed to parasites; and subjected to extreme temperatures, high and low altitudes, or semistarvation diets. Approximately 3,000 men served at state mental hospitals and training schools, where they worked as attendants or performed other jobs. Conditions at public institutions for people with psychiatric or intellectual disabilities were far from ideal prior to World War II. The war had a devastating impact on the institutions. Many male staff members were drafted, and both male and female workers left the institutions for jobs in higher-paying defense industries. The institutions were left with few workers, sometimes 1 attendant on duty for as many as more than 140 patients. Of those staff members who were left, many were drifters who oversaw institutional wards with a closed fist, or worse—clubs and hoses filled with buckshot. The use of straitjackets and other forms of restraining devices was commonplace. Clothing, cleaning materials, and other essentials were usually in short supply. For most CPS men, work at the mental hospitals and training schools was difficult and stressful. Ten-hour workdays were commonplace. As few as 1 to 3 men were in charge of as many as 350 patients, including those individuals with the most severe disabilities. The harsh and sometimes brutal treatment of patients by regular attendants challenged the humanitarian and pacifist beliefs of many of the young COs. On terribly understaffed and overcrowded wards, the COs often had to resort to physical restraints and coercion to keep patients safe and to maintain control and order. The COs often debated among themselves the appropriateness and morality of using force to protect themselves or the patients under their care. Shocked by institutional conditions and the treatment of patients, some COs brought complaints to the attention of local community leaders, public officials...