Interview with Roland Smith

The following is taken from a questionnaire sent to CPS men by Paul A. Wilhelm and compiled in 1990. This excerpt is Roland F. Smith's response to the section asking the men to list major events from their CPS experience:

"The Cheltenham Maryland State juvenile deliquency institution for blacks was a very difficult assignment for me. There was little for my cottage boys, ages 10 to 12, to do; there was school for only a third of them, no recreation program, and disciplinary problems. I could not meet creatively and nonviolently the demands of the situation for recreational leadership. But on days off I visited a few boys who had been released back to the Baltimore slums. This assignment was my first encounter with the seamy side of race relations and almost my first contact with blacks (staff and boys). Feeling that I was not meeting the requirements of the job nor my personal standards, I asked for transfer back to base camp. I was there only five months, under great stress: but it was, in hindsight, a rich growing experience."

--Taken from Wilhelm, Paul A. Civilian Public Servants: A Report on 210 World War II Conscientious Objectors. Washington, D.C.: National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors, 1990.