Biography
Harry L. Charles was a Quaker from Woodward County, Oklahoma — a member of the Religious Society of Friends since April 5, 1917 — who was drafted in 1917 and held as a conscientious objector at Camp Travis, Texas, and Camp Riley. At Camp Travis he and his fellow objectors made clear to the officers that any work they did was under protest, and they refused to drill or to work on Sundays; at one point 47 of 61 objectors refused to do any work under military control. On June 7, 1918 a general court-martial convened at Camp Travis to try Charles together with forty-one other conscientious objectors, all charged under the 64th Article of War with disobeying the order to wear the uniform. Charles spoke on behalf of the forty-one defendants. Though absolute in his refusal of military control, he expressed willingness to perform noncombatant relief work such as YMCA or American Friends Service Committee reconstruction. The proceedings of his court-martial are preserved in the Schowalter Oral History Collection (Henry J. Becker file) of the Mennonite Central Committee's Civilian Public Service archive.
