General Lewis B. Hershey and Conscientious Objection during World War II

Chapter 3: History and Demands of Manpower and Conscientious Objection

Chapter 3´ ´ ´ ´ History and Demands of Manpower and Conscientious Objection The United States has a long-standing history of conscientious objection to military service. Its earliest roots come from the Quakers, who arrived in Britain’s North American colonies in the midseventeenth century. Although conscientious objection has been a part of the American military experience from the colonial era, the lack of uniformity in dealing with COs meant that there was no firm precedent in 1940 for how to treat objectors with the advent of peacetime conscription . This had to do partly with the changing nature of warfare and the differing needs of the military from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries and partly with the changes in federal power during that time and the state’s abilities to muster armed services in wartime. The localized dynamics of the colonial era and the Revolution meant that laws differed from colony to colony, though all colonies had some sort of provision for COs. Commutation and the practice of hiring substitutes in the Civil War offered COs methods to avoid conscription, but those methods were problematic for some members of the Peace Churches. World War I saw the first truly national draft intended to raise an army through conscription, but there was no precedent for dealing with COs in a conscripted army, and the result was a disaster. As a result, by World War II, there was no frame of reference for the treatment of and provisions for conscientious objection as a matter of federal policy. While the 26 27 Manpower and Conscientious Objection federal government made some accommodations prior to World War II, they differed over time and were not firmly established as federal law. Furthermore, many of those accommodations were problematic for the Historic Peace Churches, who did not wish to compromise their beliefs. This is why World War II and General Hershey’s role in developing and supporting the legislation for conscientious objection and alternative service are so important. Indeed, Hershey’s actions during the war represented the first systematized institutional effort to provide an alternative form of service for religious objectors as the government sought to avoid repeating the mistakes of World War I. It is impossible to understand conscientious objection during the colonial era of United States military history without a working knowledge of the militia tradition, because, as military historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski state, “The most important response to the dangerous military realities was the creation of a militia system in each colony.”1 The militia emerged in the American colonies for a number of reasons. In the English tradition, it was part of a legacy that hearkened back to the late-twelfth-century reign of Henry II and was then further cemented with the Instructions for General Muster in 1572 during the Elizabethan Era.2 The many dangers of the frontier, including the constant threat of attack by natives, combined with the expense of maintaining a professional fighting force made the militia an attractive option for defense in all of the American colonies. While it was a diverse institution and varied from colony to colony, each militia shared a number of similar traits.3 The militia laid the foundation for the tradition of the citizen soldier in American history. While that particular dynamic did not really emerge until the early national period in the United States, some trappings reach all the way back to the early colonial era. A militia-based defense force assumed that all able-bodied males in the settlement held the responsibility of defense. With the exception of Pennsylvania, where Quaker control did not require military service, every British colony instituted some form of a militia early in their settlement. It was common practice for a colony to declare that all able-bodied men within a certain age range were responsible for service. The range was usually from sixteen to sixty, but there were always exceptions. In some places the upper age limit dropped to forty-five, while in others, the lowest age might be eighteen or twenty-one. In keeping with the theme of individual responsibility for defense, members of the militia were responsible for arming themselves .4 Because of its structure and purpose, the militia was most definitely a community-based organization. The earliest militias defended their own 28 Lewis B. Hershey and Conscientious Objection areas and could not aid their neighbors without opening themselves to...