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A conscientious objector was someone who refused to fight due to either their personal moral values or due to religious beliefs. Some of the people who refused included Jehova's Witnesses, Menonites, or Quakers. They were not forced to participate in any of the fighting the occured during the war but the government did not just leave them alone either. I originally thought they would just be given a free-pass to just be able to go on with their normal lives but sadly many of them were not allowed to!
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If one was a conscientious objectors, their faith would be decided by a tribunal. Some were even forced to go to combat zones to partake in many non-combat jobs including being a medic or a cook. They were not neccesarily respected by the fighters but they had to do these jobs anyway. If they refused to do what the tribunal told them to, there were actually big time consequences for them. Other jobs they were coerced into doing actually did allow them to stay at home but they were forced to do many labor intense jobs including farming and mining to make up for the people that actually left their jobs to fight. Some of the jobs they had were quite creative!
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If an objector refused to do what the tribunal asked them to, they ran the risk of being sent to jail. I read a single article from a newspaper and it described how 45 Menonites who could not bear arms were sent to prison for life for refusing their position. Their sentence was reduced to 25 later but I still think that is a crazy ammount of time! This happened in San Antonio but miles and miles away in Brooklyn, seven Russelites were sentenced to a mere 20 years. These people followed the teachings of the Pastor Russel and apparently could not take part in combat either. Another thing they could have gone through was public shaming or being sent away to difference specialized camps for the objectors only. Oh and I forgot to mention, not following the Selective Service Act was just a misdemeanor.
The general opinion on these objectors varied! Many though of them as spineless as selfish people who would not help their own country out. I read a lot about the hatred they would recieve from others and was surprised to hear that some people actually respected them. In the same article I mentioned earlier I founed a little quote that I thought was nice, "A man who is willing to die or go to prisoin for his conscience has some respect from Anglo-Saxons." I thought this was quite a nice gesture to the group getting so much hate from everywhere they turned.
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I even found a few President's opinions on these people and was quite surprised. It seems like neither Roosevelt nor Truman was a big fan of them. Truman claimed that the majority of the ones that he met were big cowards and some could say that Roosevelt's reaction was worse. Roosevelt literally bullied many objectors during his speeches. He said he would rather them be forced to the front of enemy lines to dig trenches and such and then "watch what his conscience would do." I personally thought that that was crazy harsh. Maybe if he put himself in their shoes he would have been able to understand more. It was important to them and what they believe and I am quite surprised he did not accept that.
Ebsco- Harry Truman and the Issue of Amnesty for Conscinetious Objectors - Though this journal was more about WWII, it had a few points about WWI. I also got a little bit of Truman's opinion on conscientious objectors due to his experience with them in WWI.
First World War- This was an article all about conscientious objectors on a website dedicated to World War One. It only gave basic information about them really but I still found some useful infomation on there.
Liberty Magazine- This article provided a lot of good information on some of the groups and how they were looked due to their objection of participating in the war. I found some good quotes from people, including Roosevelt, and it told about how many people percieved this group of people.
Swarthmore Library- Conscientious Objectors- This article is where I found two of my pictures. It was full of good information and though it had just a little section about World War I, I still found it quite useful.
New York Tribune - Library Of Congress- This was a primary source I found. Since it was a newspaper, it had information about the court martials and arrests of some of the conscientious objectors that was happening right then. This was a great source.
USDA- This is an article by the USDA on one of the jobs they could have been forced to do. It's quite interesting and I found a picture from here as well!
