Spirit in Action

World War 2 Conscientious Objectors

WW2 was a "popular war" and it so it took greater conviction to be a conscientious objector to that war. We have the privilege of talking to 2 of the surviving CO's of that war, George Watson, 91 years old, and Jack Phillips, now 86. Their experience in confronting the draft and in serving in the Civilian Public Service had a profound effect on the remainding 60+ years of their lives.

Broadcast on:: 17 Feb 2008
Audio Format:: other

I have no hands but yours to tend my sheep No handkerchief but yours to dry the eyes of those who weep I have no arms but yours with which to hold The ones grown weary from the struggle and weak from growing old I have no hands but yours with which to see To let my children know that I am up and up is everything I have no way to feed the hungry souls No clothes to give and make, give the ragged and the morn So be my heart, my hand, my tongue Through you I will be done Fingers, have I none to help undone The tangled knots and twisted chains that strangle fearful minds Welcome to Spirit in Action, my name is Mark Helpsmead Each week I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives a fruitful service of peace, community, compassion, creative action and progressive efforts I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service Above all, I'll seek out light, love and helping hands being shared between our many neighbors on this planet Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life World War II was a popular war and so it took greater conviction to be a conscientious objector to that war We have the privilege of talking to two of the surviving conscientious objectors of that war George Watson, 91 years old, and Jack Phillips, now 86 Their experience in confronting the draft and in serving in the civilian public service had a profound effect on the remaining 60-plus years of their lives Both Jack and George grew up Methodist, a relative hotbed of pacifist convictions in some places at that time George had already become a Quaker by the time the US entered into World War II While Jack, supported by his Methodist Church, served about five years of alternative service, finding a home in the religious society of friends along the way Both currently reside in the Twin Cities Jack is a member of Twin Cities Friends Meeting while George is a member of Minneapolis Friends Meeting I want to welcome the two of you to Spirit in Action, Jack and George, it's very fine to join you here in Minneapolis I want to invite both of you to start out right away by talking about what led you to become conscientious objectors during World War II Jack? Well Mark, in my case it began very young When I was a boy, my father had been fighting in World War I, that was before I was born But he once, at the dinner table, told me a story about being on the battlefield after a battle in France And they were walking around in the evening and there were dead bodies, both German and American and French And some of his buddies were taking things off the dead bodies and he said he didn't want to do that But one of them came up to him and said, "Look at this" And it was a German belt and the buckle, a big brass buckle, said, "Got me it once" I sort of knew what that meant, but my father said, "That means of course, God with us" And that was a shock to me, as a boy, eight or ten years old Because I had pretty much imbibed the view that the Germans were the bad guys and they knew they were the bad guys And so, the idea that they thought God was on their side just started me thinking, even as a boy A little later, I saw all quiet on a Western Front, that very powerful anti-war movie from the German point of view The story about the belt buckle made me think, and this movie sort of convinced me right then and there That war is pointless, that was the point of the movie, that was a pointless war A little later, I read the autobiography of Gandhi What that taught me is that there are alternatives to war Gandhi had succeeded in achieving victory and conflict with odd violence And so that was a big step in my thinking This was all before I got to college The idea that there were alternatives to war led me into reading other things like Richard B. Gregg's classic, "The Power of Nonviolence" So when I got to college at Northwestern University, I was already ready to join the peace movement And between the two world wars, there was a big peace movement, big on the college campuses and also in the general public We tried to work to keep this country out of World War II And so, I was active in the peace movement there I was in a Methodist church at that time, in which the pastor was Ernest Freeman Tittle, who was a well-known pacifist The result of his preaching and guidance was that 30 young men in that church chose to be conscientious objectors In that Methodist church in Evanston, Illinois It means nothing, my age it means less And the country I come from is called the Midwest Was brought up and taught there the law to abide And that the land that I live in has got on its side All the history boots tell it, and they tell it so well The cavalry's charged and the Indians fell The cavalry's charged and the Indians died All the country was young with God on its side For the Spanish American war had its been And the Civil War II assumed made a way And the names of the heroes I was taught to memorize With their guns in their hands and God on their side The World War I became and it went The reason for fighting I never did get But I learned to accept it and accept it with pride Oh, you don't count the day when God's on your side Second World War I became to an end We forgave the Germans and call them our friends Though they killed six million in the ovens they brought The Germans now too have gone on their side Oh, I learned to hate Russians all through my whole life If another war starts it's them we must fight To hate them and fear them to run into heart And accept it all brave with God on my side And now we got weapons of the chemical dust We fight and we're forced to them fire than we must One push of the burden we've shot the World War And you never ask questions when God's on his side For many long weeks I've thought about this That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss I can't do it for you, you've got to decide Whether Judas is scarier, that God on his side And now as I'm leaving, I'm weary as hell The confusion I feel, no tongue can tell The words fill my head and they fall to the floor If God is on our side, he'll stop the next war Jack, I believe you were born in 1920, so that means that when war was declared When the US entered into World War II, you would have been just about 21 Was it hard? Wasn't there a lot of pressure for you to Be a great warrior for the United States and to protect our country? Didn't you have to fight with those feelings too? Yes, it's a choice and there are two sides to every choice So, of course, I did think about the other side And I didn't experience a great deal of difficult pressure Partly because I guess I was in this church where there was so much support However, my father was a problem, he never attacked me or denounced me He had been a patriotic fighter in World War I And I know very well that he would have very much had liked to see his son In the uniform, fighting for his country in World War II It just made him sad and I was aware that one reason he was sad was that When his colleagues, he was in business, would ask him, "What's that son of yours doing?" He was not at all happy to have to tell them what I had done We had some talks and I tried to help him see my point of view but still That was some pressure on me just knowing how hard it was on him One reconciliation we had, one I did volunteer later, getting ahead of the story To be a guinea pig in vitamin experiments in Minnesota He came up to see me and when he saw what I was doing That I was after getting an experimental berry berry He said, "Well, Jack, I might have known that you would do something like this But that's about as far as that went" He wasn't saying you were a fussy eater or something, was he? George, your experience would be a little bit different Because you're a little bit older, five years older, being born in 1915 How did you get involved in becoming a conscience subjector? During this immensely popular war, from one point of view at least That we really were the white hats Well, to start again at an early age, I grew up in a very peaceable family Not pacifist, that was not expressly stated at any point And my father had tried to volunteer in World War I But he was a high school principal and so he wasn't allowed to But for instance, any thought that I might be fighting was my school mates Would bring a great pain to my parents and I was aware of that While their Methodist background was not as strongly piece-oriented as a Quaker background might be They still were very strongly in favor of peace This, I think, shaped my own behavior The Methodist Church, in which I also grew up And a big Methodist Church in suburban Cleveland Taught me to be a pacifist because that was very much the orientation of their youth program When I was in junior high school and high school A very radical program, which was very exciting to me But I became disillusioned when the Church fired the two young pastors or the leaders of the movement They were fired for being too radical So that really disillusioned me with the Church But the teaching stuck So as I left the Church, I went on to other activities that were related to peace I joined the Socialist Party In the 1932 elections, I canvassed my neighborhood for the Socialist candidate for Governor of Ohio Who was the pastor of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, up to the street from where I lived All of this was background of attitudes and essentially a belief of what a Christian life called for And then, as I went on into college, I became a political scientist, majoring in political science Became more and more disillusioned about war as I read more about it I also had seen, all quiet on the Western Front and I'd read all the appropriate anti-war and pacifist literature It all ended up to me to a complete readiness To take the position of conscience, subjector This crystallized for me and my senior year in college When Bishop Paul Jones, who was a noted national pacifist leader Came to the campus of Miami University where I was a student Gave a series of lectures in Easter week and while he was there, he organized a chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation The general religious pacifist organization, and I was a member of it along with my fiancé Elizabeth Who had a strong commitment to Gandhi to reinforce this kind of attitude So, in effect, I became certain that I was a conscience objector at that time I learned a great deal that helped to reinforce my ideas in my professional studies But also, in 1937, and Elizabeth and I were both graduate students at the University of Chicago We were married in the summer of '37 We began attending the 57th Street Meeting of Friends on the University of Chicago campus And this helped strongly to reinforce all of my feelings and attitudes and beliefs And to read a great deal and to become reasonably sophisticated about the spiritual and practical grounds of anti-war position After that, I started teaching. My first job was at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Illinois I was teaching there at the time the draft act was passed in 1940 Carbondale was a small town of about 7,500 people in Southern Illinois And the college had about 2,000 students at that time, although it was beginning to grow to be a great university And I found that there was no one else in town who was prepared to advise students who wanted to be conscientious objectors So even though I was about the same age as some of them, I still felt I had to take that on I had an established position I knew what it meant to be a conscientious objector, how you provided a rational argument for it I also, as a political scientist, understood the law and how you proceeded in relation to the draft law And so I undertook to advise young people who thought they might want to be conscientious objectors and helped them decide whether that was what they really believed Because I didn't want to sell them on it, I wanted to help them make up their own minds As a result, the draft board came to know me well because I often represented students there When the time came that I might be drafted, they were quite happy to do so I think the two of you faced your draft boards at different points in the war For Jack, I think it was quite a bit earlier What was your experience with the draft board? Was it smooth sailing? You went in and they said, "Oh yeah, you're a good religious boy." Did you have to spell out why you believed this? What were the beliefs that you held up to and what was your experience with your draft board? Jack? There's considerable paperwork before you appear before the draft board You give your reasoning on paper and so I used arguments about Gandhi arguments from Richard B. Gregg about the effectiveness of nonviolence as an alternative Since the law required that it not be a personal ethical decision but a religious decision I did write into it my religious beliefs But they did not give me that gave me classification 1A Which is top physical condition and qualification and that was it for them So I had to ask for a hearing on my application as a CO This is a long time ago, Mark, I probably don't remember as much as I should But Ernest Freeman Tittle, my pastor, was willing to go with me to the hearing They pretty much listened, they didn't argue I remember one thing which is probably be interesting although I feel a little conflicted about it I guess one of the board members said, "Well, what would you do if Nazi or German or some criminal attacked your girlfriend?" What I said was, "Well, my girlfriend and I have talked this over And we have agreed that I should protect her so far as I can in a non-violent way By reasoning and pleading and my girlfriend agreed with that That caused a little consternation among people there but Ernest Freeman Tittle thought it was a good answer Anyway, that's about all I remember and I did hear in the US mail later That I was granted the consensus objective classification in 4E What was your experience, George? Well, even though I'm the older my experience was several years after Jack's Because I had started on my career, started having a family We had three children by the time the drafting really got seriously underway There was a rule in the selective service system providing deferment for all the fathers of three children Automatically, so that I was able to go ahead to work during most of the war without the danger being drafted But after the Battle of the Bulge, which as I recall was in December of 1944 In which the German army staged a very strong counter-offensive Everybody in Washington became anxious So they wiped out this rule about fathers of three children draft boards all over the country refused draft the fathers of three children But my draft board in Carbondale and at that time you still were attached to the one where you first registered My draft board does I think was quite glad to get me So my experience was somewhat parallel to Jack's I was sent a notice that I was classified 1A But I had been a Quaker for seven years And had held this past position for nine years and I had thought it through and articulated it strongly And so I wrote a letter Restating my position that asking for a hearing with the board They could see that my case was so strong that it was no point denying it So as with Jack they sent me the 4E classification And so I went into civilian public service But not until march of 1945 when the war was nearly over I wonder if either of you can provide other stories of your experience with the attitude of people in the united states I think that it was a fairly popular war that is to say People really thought we had to be there and maybe they thought even more when they saw the pictures Of the people from the concentration camps who were freed Did you experience conflicts? Did you have people around you who were very conflicted about why you were shirking your duty Jack Well, the nearest thing I can come to answering that question mark is um I'd like to just go back to that hearing because that question they asked me What would you do with a criminal attacked your girlfriend? I think everybody realized this is a tough question and I've read a lot of theologians who are open-minded Who say that no one can be sure about what they would do in a situation like that and other answers? I did feel conflicted about the answer I gave and I felt not too composed about that answer afterwards But as for the public and general mark, you know, there was a big difference between world war one and world war two And world war one most of the american churches lined up behind the military or behind the war There was much preaching in the churches backing our cause and denouncing the Germans in between the two world wars Since world war one was such a disaster and one argument I like to make is there might not have been a hitler And a world war two if it had it not been for world war one which was such a pointless destructive conflict Meanwhile then the churches had thought of through between the wars and decided that they had been mistaken To line up with one side militarily in world war one and they would not do that again And you would hear preaching saying things like well god doesn't take sides in these wars War is god's judgment upon us. We shouldn't be fighting them and we shouldn't drag god into it in a partisan way That was a widespread view among the churches and I think it probably had an effect on the public So that they didn't agree with us co's but they tolerated us on those grounds That was my feeling certainly in my church and in evanston It was probably a toleration and a willingness to say well, that's their point of view They have a right to it. I suppose So I have to say mark that I was never sworn at or cussed out by anybody or called a yellow belly in my presence What was your experience charge? Pretty much the same I spent most of the war in urban centers, which were not the places where I think that kind of nastiness was most likely to occur The fact that I was a Quaker and a fairly prominent Quaker by the time I was drafted meant that people understood that I belonged to a group that had this odd belief And kind of accepted it as natural I guess so that I observed in general that members of the traditional peace churches the friends the president and the mennonites Were kind of recognized as a sort of a legitimate exception to the high-powered military patriotism that was widespread in the country At least I never had any unpleasant experiences and instead Experience quite a lot of support for instance in the second world war Conscience objectors had no pay and no money at all for dependence So that when I was drafted my family's income was cut off completely Elizabeth and I had lived in a settlement house in chicago a smaller place much like hall house During one of the years of graduate school and the head resident of that settlement house Called Elizabeth when he heard about the drafting of fathers of three children and said is george going to be drafted And Elizabeth said well, I guess he is he said well you come back here Work for me We'll provide housing and meals for you and the children There'll be a free well baby clinic And there's a lana mac nursery that was a heavily subsidized nursery school to encourage women to do war work lana mac nursery that the children could go to So that we had this kind of support structure offered to us Outside our own families outside the religious society of friends In addition to support we got from those sources One issue of this sort that really got raised I didn't know it until after the war, but Elizabeth told me that my mother had talked to her Very seriously Trying to urge her to persuade me to change my position Not because she thought it was wrong, but because she thought it would ruin my life career And since Elizabeth and I were very sure of our complete agreement on this subject it didn't create any real problem except my mother That was really the only example I faced of someone saying I shouldn't do it Certainly internally it was a hard kind of choice As hard as such a choice could be I think because after all a war against hitler was about as What shall I say as virtuous a war as one could imagine I frequently got annoyed with some people I knew who refused to believe how bad hitler and the nazis were Because that made it harder to be a pacifist if you admitted what was going on Well, I didn't have that problem. My position was very strong I believed that if you do the right thing in the long run, it's better for the world than if you do the wrong thing regardless of what the evil is that's being done by somebody else And so I didn't find it so difficult for myself after I thought it through But I think it was very difficult for a lot of people to be a pacifist in the war against hitler Jack A little more on that question mark When I was at camp in merrim indiana doing soil conservation One of the men there was a musician and he organized not quartets, but octets and we went around He got invitations from churches and for several years there the men at merrim indiana I was in one of those octets. We would go to a church country church and we would sing as part of the program I was a little surprised that the good reception we got We were never challenged on our position. We were never threatened or made to feel that we were unwelcome So that's just some data there for your question Of course The fact that the co's who were drafted were putting on pressure for other kinds of work besides soil conservation Where they could do some humanitarian work? This was happening and there were more and more camps and units set up doing hospital work and mental hospitals or other kinds of medical work And I think this was known and the fact that co's were doing humanitarian work was probably part of the favorable attitude toward us George One other evidence of this sort that occurs to me Big flats was as I said very close to the town of elmira where elmira college a women's college was located Most of the men in camp with me were much younger than I was they were students Unmarried just arrived at draft age and the girls from the college Fraternized quite freely with the men from our camp There didn't seem to be any problems arising in their attitudes or in the college authorities attitudes as far as I could learn I want to ask you shortly about the alternative to military service that you performed But I think I want to ask you just one or two more questions You became conscious objectors you expressed yourself as that way and you certainly had some track history behind each of you to justify that Are you of the same opinion today? If you had to do over again, would you do just the same thing? And having had another 60 years of experience in your life Have you seen wars where you think you maybe should have participated or maybe would have liked to have participated because it was the lesser of the evils Can either of you speak about how your beliefs have changed or maybe stayed the same since then George I think they have matured, but they haven't changed There has not been any war that I would have been willing to participate in Under any circumstances that I can conceive of because I do believe that that participation in a war would help to turn the human race On a downhill course instead on a pill course In particular circumstances of any war involving the prejudice of one side against another and terrible behavior by one side or both Still don't justify abandoning that position So I have not found any reason to change my mind in any degree and Continuing to study war to teach about war or some extent to participate in all kinds of anti-war demonstrations has Strengthened rather than weakened my position Jack I've certainly as everyone has experienced horrendous situations like me lie like abugraib and hiroshima Where these almost prove the thesis that war is hell Another way in which war is hell of course is what it does to not only the victims But the men who have to be the perpetrators of these horrendous atrocities It took me a while to learn that you always hear that soldiers coming back the more I don't want to talk about it And I assume that was because the horrible things they had seen which is probably true But even more so it may be the things that they found themselves doing or felt compelled to do Which they had a very hard time living with which is not a way of saying war is hell And so uh those experiences are so overpowering that if I ever see a reason for having a war those facts pretty much bring me back to reality Back when both of you were facing the draft the draft law was written very clearly in terms of religious words religious affiliation religious beliefs It isn't so now it's expressed as a wider moral framework that one has to adhere to I haven't heard either one of you say I couldn't participate in war because Jesus said love your enemies Did you have those ideas at that time? Was it strongly allied with christian faith? I've heard both of you mentioned stuff about gondi for instance How important was christian faith and teaching and the background of methodist church in your beliefs or how much is it from wider sources George I think I would have to say that the older I have become the wider the sources are That certainly gondi had a very strong impact when I was young enough to be courting my wife Because she was already strongly committed to gondi and therefore strengthened my own interest in gondi and my willingness to pay attention To what he had said and done Yet as I have grown older I find so many people who find in buddhism Exactly the same kind of thing that I believe in and try to practice So that I think it is not exclusively christian. It's certainly not exclusively Quaker or melanite or anything of the sort It seems to me that it is essentially an inherent part of all religions That religions get distorted by the political systems in which they are embedded And that the denial of this fundamental truth has come from those political imperatives Rather than from the religious beliefs So while i'm very much impressed by what jesus said and did That's far from the only thing that I find to be important in supporting my own commitment to non-violence and to create peaceful solutions of problems Jack Yes, I would certainly personally be willing to cite Jesus as a pacifist and an anti-war teacher as gondi Clear to me that he was a believer in non-violence And his sense of the worth of every person as a child of god Would not allow him to use a sword or a spear and certainly not a machine gun I'm very puzzled by these conservative christians who think that they are being christian and taking sides in a war and becoming soldiers and bombers And wielders or machine guns can they visualize jesus doing any of those things? So yes, jesus is an influence on me I did make the appeal to that in my hearing and also to the commandment of shall not kill I'd like to ask you both a bit about your experience I think the laws are much different now In terms of what happens with as co or with a person who wants to object to participation in more During world war two, it was the first time there was the classification that both of you I think entered into and they set up civilian public service camps It was kind of a training ground for anti-war activists. I think I think that they chose instead during viet now more and have machinery now that could be put into place Which isolates people if you're a conscience subjector you don't get put with other conscience subjectors So could you tell me what your experience was with cps and other programs for conscience subjectors during world war two Jack There was a term second miler. It was used at mare miniana By some co's against others because there were divisions among us There were those who were not particularly religious and were very not only anti-military but Anti-state and to the extent that they thought the very act of conscription Was a violation of fundamental human rights For those of us who had come from religious traditions and had a motivation to be a good example and maybe do humanitarian work Or even sort of conservation in such a way as to earn respect From the population in general. We were called second milers Maybe someone said well, Jesus said go the second mile if a man commands you to go a mile So there were those differences among ourselves and there was a very lively life of the mind argument about these issues also all kinds of study classes and reading and following the war and Demanding better opportunities to serve in projects like beginning big project. I was in and like hospital work Which jobs did you actually do as part of your service? I think you spent five years or so as a conscience subjector serving our country Well, my first job was to take a shovel and go out on a truck with other men and be dropped off in a field somewhere and make a ditch A drainage ditch for a soil conservation or a terrace When I was asked to go to North Dakota after nine months in the Indiana camp to Trenton Tom Potts was the director out there and he had decided that I would go and be the cook I don't know what gave him that idea, but I went and I had to get a crew and be the cook in the camp I felt a little unhappy about this because I had no particular skill. I did it So you asked my work. Well, I was a cook in Trenton, North Dakota and I learned on the job the first time I made a pie I made 30 pies after nine months at Trenton some recruiters came through from a project at the University of Minnesota where they were doing experiments with human nutrition And I volunteered and they chose me to go there and be a guinea pig in vitamin deprivations for eight months Our diets were controlled and we were on four different levels. We didn't notice at the time It was a double-blind experiment, but we were all deprived of vitamin D at some level I found later that I was on the lowest level and I contracted experimental berry berry Which means that I had a hard time walking. I would come to a curb and I couldn't lift my foot up to the curb That was the effect on me of the experimental berry berry. I was thinking to myself. Oh, well I guess I'm contributing here by by enduring this kind of disadvantage and suffering After that experiment was over at mark They decided that my condition was such that they didn't want to release me They wanted to keep me around for observation So they gave me a job for the next experiment, which was the famous experiment of guinea pigs at minnesota Where 36 young men volunteers would be starved It's my belief that this project was instigated by the co's who were there at the time. I was there Harold gets go who was an older drafty who was a psychologist Conceived the idea that you could be starving guinea pigs And we would perform this service as a way of helping Recuperation the rehabilitation of the starving people of europe as a result of the war and then the bocades And both world war one and world war two that were blockades and starvation So 36 volunteers were brought in from all over the country to be starved Ted was raised in Ohio where brave men regularly grow He wasn't surprised to get a ladder Calling him to the wall He was most polite and he wanted to do right. So he wrote right back and said I've learned from my people that I must not fight but I'd like to work instead Oh, I'm not afraid to go folks. I'm not afraid to die I've just got something else in mind that I would like to try Give me a shovel instead of a gun I'll say so long for now If I die I'll die making something instead of tearing something down He said goodbye to those he loved wiped his mother's tears Don't fret folks. I know what I'm doing. I'll be back in a couple of years He licked a pissack and he didn't look back. He bravely left for the war Took a Bible and a shovel and a lot of hope He knew what he was going for one Not afraid to go Mother, I'm not afraid to die I just don't want to be the one to make another son's mother cry Give me a shovel instead of a gun Say so long for now If I die I'll die making something instead of tearing something down He worked among the people of that far-off Asian land Many who'd be the enemy became the friend of the brave young man He helped in the crops and he worked in the shops and talked whenever he could Of how he dreamed of a peaceful world My life would be sweet, I'm good Oh, I'm not afraid to be here for it I'm not afraid to die I just can't shake this feeling inside We can live together if we try Give me a shovel instead of a gun And lend me a hand for now If we die, we'll die making something instead of tearing something down He fell in love with the brave young woman Took her to be his bride She shared his dream of a world going right Worked right by his side But the war got to the love so low I pulled it left the young grown dead And heard tears of grief The bride heard a gentle voice that I'd said Tell him I wasn't afraid to go my love I wasn't afraid to die I just didn't want to be the man To make another man's warm and cry Put my shop beside my grave Maybe someone else would find To be brave enough to die Make it something instead of tearing something down Put my shop beside my grave I'll save so long for now Don't worry my love We're gonna make it I know we're gonna make it Saw my house [Music] And what did you do during your service George? Well my service was relatively short since I went in late in the war I had three months at what was at that time called an intake camp You would go initially to a camp for three months While they were deciding where to send you for a longer term And the one I went to was called big flats It was in New York State in a state forest And it was a project using access to clear out the forest in winter And then of nursing the beds of seedling trees during the summer That eventually grew up to be planted in new forests But at the end of the three months I was transferred to the National Service Board for Religious Objectors Which was the administrative office That coordinated the work of the Quakers and the brethren and the Mennonites That administered the camps And it was also the buffer between them and the Selective Service System Which was run by the military And was often very difficult to deal with That did suit my training and background and interests And so I found that a satisfactory kind of work to do But of course I was frustrated during all the time I was in civilian public service That I could not contribute anything to support my wife and children There was no pay There was no dependence allowance at all for conscientious objectors I was given the barest subsistence when I was in camp I got a bunk and three meals a day And I think it was something like 35 cents a month for toothpaste and other things When I was in Washington What they did was to give me 65 dollars a month to live in wartime Washington So it was carefully calculated to leave absolutely nothing over For any other purpose except survival How did your time with conscience objectors during World War II Change or affect you Specifically I was wondering if spending time with these other groups of conscious objectors In the CPS camps or elsewhere If that reinforced your attitudes or affected you in other ways George Certainly a lot of my attitudes were reinforced I made quite a large number of strongly committed personal friends Whose friendship lasted lifelong some of them have already died In that sense it was not only something that was a benefit to me But it was of benefit to the Quakers And I'm sure it was to the other religious groups involved as well I was very active in the American Friends Service Committee and a number of other Quaker organizations During the years between then and now During the 25 years or so after the end of the war I saw a process by which a large proportion of the leadership of the religious society of friends Came from the men who had been in civilian public service Tied to one another by a series of connections That reinforced their beliefs and their willingness to work for the cause they believed in How did it go for you, Jack? During these years in camps and units I was close to Quakers And felt that that was my destiny and that decision to become Quaker came later when Mary and I my wife both made the decision There were many many people to admire These COs and these camps and units were well educated and highly motivated and highly critical spirits So I learned a lot from association with some of these thoughtful and critical minds And yes, and I made friends, as George says, which I've maintained ever since There are more individualistic and eccentric types than you find in the general population. So that made it interesting Jack, you were a Methodist going in and I guess you identified with Quakers going through the system Why didn't you get reinforced as a Methodist in there considering the number of Methodists that must have gone in Well, that's probably because although Methodists are not exactly dogmatic nevertheless They do recite the creed in every service and the idea that Quakers did not have a creed Made me feel that that's where I belong and of course my location was philosophy Although there are philosophers who recite a creed, it's a little hard for me to see why they would So I just felt more and more That a Quaker meeting for worship where people are gathered in silence and waiting for guidance spiritually was a better place for me What difference has this made in the path that you've chosen for yourself in the past 60 years? Um, I can't claim to have been much of a peace activist I have attended a lot of Quaker peace meetings and these programs. I've done some demonstration walks I have made it clear to my students what I think about nonviolence and war and I have all my life Tived at least that is to say donations to peace and justice organizations from our small income So maybe I've had as much effect by support of peace organizations and justice organizations financially than any other way And there's a program called alternatives to violence or the alternatives to violence program where you can take a training weekend And you can be taken through Not theoretically but practically how to be non-violent in situations and how to deal with confrontation And how to express in behavior the commitment that there's that of god in every person Certainly some of the leaders really impressed me They're a gentleness and their care for everyone in the program including me. So we all felt after the weekend that we were We had become more non-violent Jack one other thing I know about you is that you were or maybe are Active in what used to be called the friends committed the immunity with nature Which is now known as quaker earth care witness Is that part of or connected to your non-violent attitudes? Well, yes, it certainly is. I should have made that connection myself Yes, as a civilization we are trashing the earth in a very violent way This earth is such a unique precious thing in the cosmos The earth is unique. It is precious. It is beautiful. There ought to be another commandment There are a lot of candidates for the 11th commandment. I propose one which would go like this Treat the health and beauty and fitness of the earth as you would treat your own body health and fitness and beauty We are engaged in a war on the earth. It's very destructive The concept that war is hell applies to the way we treat the earth And I think about that a lot and I work with people who who feel the same way And I just hope that we will learn to value and cherish and respect the earth for the unique special gift It has come to us from the cosmos The word you say there I resonate with very strongly George You've had a lot of years 60 plus years since world war two in your service as conscience objector then How has your life been of a thread since that time Well, I would say that my experience as a conscience objector and my other experiences as a quaker in those early years Have deeply influenced my life ever since And that I have in a sense tried to make it a continuing projection of the values that I was absorbing during those years I have been almost continuously committee member of the american friend service committee I have served on some of the national committees including the committee that has oversight of the quaker program at the united nations office in new york And I have even though it's not my teaching specialty I have devoted a great deal of attention to peace and the political problems involved in peace and peacemaking Have served on peace committees have demonstrated in I think the two biggest peace walks that have been held One in central park in new york that probably had a million people And one subsequent to that in london that probably had a half million I have tried to use my opportunities and my Capacities in places where they would do some good continuous process in which almost all of my extracurricular activities beyond my work Have been directed toward peace in one way or another And one of the important ways has been in the area of race relations I think race relations in the united states is one of the most serious problems of world peace in chicago and subsequently in other places I have tried to be very much engaged in Finding solutions to the problems of living together in peace of appreciating one another's cultures And of supporting one another's rights I have picked my jobs in terms of their relation to these values as well And when I got out of civilian public service I went to teach at rosvelte university in chicago Which was a new institution founded in 1945 on principles of human equality The only university in the country at that time that did not have any quota system To limit the number of people of color or the number of jews Or of any other group who were in the student body or the faculty Most of my career was spent 26 years on the faculty and administration of that I think wonderful social experiment That has kind of almost outlived its usefulness because everybody else has followed suit in the time since When we had to leave chicago in 1972 because of alisabeth's health I went to friends world college a small experimental claker college on long island Where I was the leader of a three man presidency And friends world college is devoted to sending students Abroad to study the language and culture of other countries by living and working in those countries Under a carefully organized academic program that in my experience leaves them better educated than any other college graduates. I have known So yes, I would say that my experience in cps and the other experiences that surrounded it led up to it and reinforced it Has been one of the dominant motivations in my life ever since Jack and george you're now 86 and 91 years old Do you still have gatherings of people who were together conscience subjectors from world war two There are not many of us left and my friends meeting which has Around 250 members. I'm the only one left two years ago. There were three of us, but now i'm i'm the only one Is there any guidance you would like to offer to the young men and women who might be facing the draft or Who might be choosing to go in the military now is there anything that you can say to them? from your lifetime of experience Jack Well, the best I can advise is to think and become aware Become aware for example of the deception that may be involved in preparing wars and try to uh not be deceived Try to think about yourself and what kind of a heritage you want to leave You probably do know the atrocities that are done in war Which you might become a part of and how many wars seem to have been futile or caused more harm than good But it's for you to think through and to examine your commitments and values George do you have something to share? Well, I guess what I have to say really comes down to much the same thing essentially it seems to me that anyone facing the question Of participation in military service in war time And now it's not only men. It's women who they have to face this Anyone facing this should try to do several things In order to be ready. The first is to try to think through what it is you believe in What you think the world ought to be like and what ought to happen in order for the world to be like said What kind of person you think you would like to be in what you need to do in order to become that kind of person And then of course to study the consequences of war And in the end Follow your own conscience. That's what we all have to do I want to thank both of you for spending the time with me sharing your experience A very important part of your life that's now maybe 60 years in the past But I think In a lot of ways It's very much affecting the present day What you've lived through and what you've passed on to us. Thank you both jack and george Thank you for the opportunity Thank you mark. There's always leave much more that could be said. It's a very large topic You've been listening to an interview with george watson and jack phillips Both of them conscience subjectors during world war two music featured in this program has included with god on our side By john by us and brave man from ohio by andy and terry murray You can hear this program and others file my website northern spirit radio.org where you also find useful links related to these programs The theme music for spirit in action is i have no hands, but yours by carol jonson Thank you for listening. I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit You can email me at helps meet at usa.net May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is spirit in action I have no harm To love Enjoy