C.O.s

In Minneapolis, 35 C.O.s (conscientious objectors) have been voluntarily starving for six months. Under the watchful eyes of four religious service committees (Brethren, Quaker, Mennonite and Unitarian), these "human guinea pigs" of some ten denominations have lived in the South Tower of the University of Minnesota stadium, undergoing scientific experiments in semistarvation. This week they were starting a three-month buildup, the final stage in a year's program. Purpose: to determine the physical and mental effects of starvation on normally healthy men from 19 to 33, and to find ways of best utilizing food from the limited resources available for the starving populations of war-stricken countries.

To Save Lives. The Minnesota study is one of several experiments being performed with C.O.s under the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development and the U.S. Surgeon General's Office. Over 300 other C.O.s have volunteered for a wide variety of special projects "to help science save lives." In New Hampshire a group of 35 did road work for three-week stretches in louse-infested clothes, to permit studies which played a part in the development of DDT, the powder which saved bombed Naples from a typhus epidemic (TIME, Jan. 10, June 12, 1944). Five other C.O.s spent days on a life raft off Cape Cod, to determine, among other things, the effects of drinking sea water under shipwreck conditions.

Conscientious objection (refusal to participate in war) is nothing new in the U.S. There were C.O.s in both the Revolution and the Civil War, when members of Christian groups like the Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren, in the belief that Christ commanded Christians not to kill, refused to fight in armies. In World War II the attitude toward C.O.s and their treatment has been enlightened. The Selective Service Act makes only two conditions for conscientious objection: 1) the C.O. must be opposed to "participation in war in any form"; 2) his scruples must come from "religious training and belief."

Following careful hearings, Selective Service has assigned many thousands of C.O.s (including Cinemactor Lew Ayres) to noncombatant service in the Army (Class 1-A-O), 8,426 to Civilian Public Service camps and special service projects (to do "work of national importance under civilian direction"[Class 4-E]), and some 5,000 to prison (including penicillin-research chemist Donald Charles DeVault, who refused to do the work assigned to him in a C.O. camp).

In Mental Hospitals. The guinea-pig experiments represent only a small part of the overall program of Civilian Public Service camps and special service units. Over 4,000 men from C.P.S. are engaged in other special projects, the most effective of which is work with inmates of public mental hospitals. C.O.s not in special service are assigned to regular C.P.S. camps, where they dig ponds, build roads and trails.

Administration of C.P.S. activity is directed and largely supported by the three traditional pacifist sects (Quaker, Mennonite, Brethren), but it is under the military supervision of the Selective Service System. Some sectarians wonder: should men obeying a religious authority which to them is superior to that of the state place themselves under such Government control? Others ask: should the Government accept the labor of these men without paying them?*

But the question that nearly every C.O. asked last week was: with the war over in Europe, will Congress release C.O.s for foreign relief work? Most of them would welcome the chance.

*The U.S. does not pay C.O.s for services rendered, does not grant insurance for those injured or killed at work, does not provide for dependents.

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