CPS Unit Number 038-01

CPS Unit Number 038-01

Camp: 38

Unit ID: 1

Title: Salem Hospital

Operating agency: BSC

Opened: unknown

Closed: unknown

Summary:
Camp No. 38, a hospital unit planned for Salem Oregon under the operation of the Brethren Service Committee, did not open due to significant local opposition from local American Legion and trade union groups. Rev. Mark Y. Schrock, Director of CPS Camp No. 21at Cascade Locks, was eager to provide detached service opportunities in mental hospitals for CPS men. In May 1942, he and three men from the camp made an all-day visit to the Oregon State mental hospital in Salem to explore this possibility. Up to forty men could be assigned there to work as attendants and perform other tasks. The project encountered significant local opposition. The local American Legion protested and the Salem Labor and Trade council failed to recommend that the unit be formed. The Labor and Trade council feared that having unpaid CPS men in the hospital would lead to poor working conditions. The protests appear to have been stimulated by the news that the President of Willamette University in Salem, Carl Sumner Knopf, had registered with Selective Service as a conscientious objector.
Location:
Salem, Oregon, United States
Resources:

For further information see Jeffrey Kovac, Refusing War, Affirming Peace: A History of Civilian Public Service Camp #21 at Cascade Locks. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2009.