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57 CHAPTER FOUR Summer and Fall 1942: Confrontations As summer approached, CPS #21 saw many changes. Men continued to arrive, increasing the size of the camp, but others left, including two assignees who were staff members, and some camp leaders. For example, in late April, twenty-six men, mainly Mennonites, including Wendell Harmon, editor of The Columbian, and business manager Frank Neufeld, were transferred to the new Mennonite Camp in Placerville, California. The same week, twenty-nine new men arrived. On May 22, 1942, the Mennonite Central Committee withdrew from joint administration of the camp, leaving it entirely in the hands of the Brethren Service Committee. The two churches had originally set up several joint camps, but this arrangement proved to be administratively inconvenient, so an agreement was worked out in which the BSC administered CPS #21 and the MCC took sole control of the camp at Marietta, OH. Mennonites at Cascade Locks were given the opportunity to transfer to Mennonite camps if they preferred. Many took that opportunity, and the overall composition of the camp became increasingly religiously diverse. Within a few months, Assistant Director Albert Bohrer would also leave Cascade Locks, completing the transition to Brethren control. Recognizing that Brethren and Mennonites had become a minority in the camp, Mark Schrock was careful to choose new staff members from other religious backgrounds. After the war, Wendell Harmon edited a volume of memoirs by men from the Brethren in Christ who served in CPS entitled They Also Serve.1 He earned a Ph.D. in history at UCLA, writing a dissertation on the prohibition movement in California, and taught history at Upland College, a small college associated with the Brethren in Christ, until that college closed for financial reasons in 1963 and merged with Messiah College in Pennsylvania. After Upland closed, Harmon taught at Mt. San Antonio Community College until retirement. Many COs were frustrated by their Forest Service work. Not only did it not seem to be “work of national importance,” it also failed to make use of their talents and education. Men with college degrees were building stone walls or felling snags; men who had grown up 58 Refusing War, Affirming Peace as farmers were building roads or fire lookout towers at a time when agricultural labor was in short supply. An alternative that had been identified by Selective Service was work in hospitals, particularly mental hospitals. As more and more men entered the military and the supply of labor decreased, it became difficult to recruit workers for low-paying jobs such as hospital attendants. War-related industries were paying premium wages. During the spring of 1942, Mark Schrock began to investigate possibilities for such “detached service” in mental hospitals for the men of CPS #21. In May, Schrock and three campers, Alan McRae, George Wells and Charlie Davis, made an all-day visit to the Oregon State mental hospital in Salem to explore the possibility of establishing a detached unit there. Up to forty men could be assigned there to work with the patients in the wards as attendants, to work in the laboratory, and to do supervisory work on the farm associated with the hospital. Two other hospital units were also under consideration: Eastern Oregon State Hospital at Pendleton and Western State Hospital at Fort Steilacoom, WA.2 The Salem hospital project ran into local opposition. The board of the Salem Trade and Labor council failed to recommend that the CO unit be formed, even though a letter had been sent assuring the council that the men were eager to cooperate with labor. Apparently, the council feared that having unpaid COs at the hospital would perpetuate poor labor conditions. The local American Legion also protested the formation of the unit, even though conferences were held to inform the members of the Legion of the serious labor shortages at the hospital. The protests appear to have been precipitated by the news that Salem’s Willamette University President Carl Sumner Knopf had registered with Selective Service as a conscientious objector.3 The Salem and Pendleton units were never formed, but a group of CPS #21 men went to Fort Steilacoom in September 1942 to establish a permanent CPS unit (CPS #51). By spring of 1942, the Wyeth camp was organized and running smoothly, and special interest groups began to form. Many men at Cascade Locks, more than thirty according to The Columbian, were members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), perhaps the largest pacifist organization in the...

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