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Letter from Alfred Partridge to Caleb Foote

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@ University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Partridge, Alfred

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Disputes Foote's claim that Lapine was just an organization of radicals with a planned method of action and group-accepted tenets: "So far as I know this was never the case." Describes experiences at Lapine with others who had been transferred there from Mancos, Colo., unified only by that background and the administration's missteps. Many were non-cooperators, but "Many of the did not cooperate for the same reasons which caused me not to cooperate. The work was dull and stupid, it had no inherent interest, the attitude of the foreman and director was one of antagonism and dictation. This provoked us. When we were told we had to do something and threatened with punishment if we refused, we had an all too human reaction and said virtually, 'I'll show you that you can't make me.' Thus it was that we became more and more non-cooperative..." Since Foote is a believer in organization, he believed the Lapine men were "a planned and organized pressure group." Lengthy discussion of his perspective as people as individuals and not organizations. Much has been accomplished by the non-cooperators in the past year. "We have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that SSS can't make slave labor accomplish anything (that I am sure is why they have ceased trying to force us to work here). e have learned individually a good deal about the evils of conscription and have made such evils glaringly evident to others, by deliberately removing the sugar coating (they have done everything...
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