herbert runacres??

In what connection? There may well be a bus driver in New Zealand or a fishmonger in Glasgow with that name, but i daresay this guy was famous for something or well known in some field or other. How did you get to hear of him?

I see from looking at your post history on here that you were asking about a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay called "Conscientious Objector", although you spelled the first word of the title wrongly thus "Contiencious". Believing that was the correct spelling would have made (eg) Google searching unproductive.

So maybe you meant the Herbert Runacres who was a British conscientious objector during the First World War? If so, he wrote,

?'There are two possible lines of action in the face of evil. There is the spirit of rigid moral rectitude - an attitude that has one overmastering motive, that of avoiding every action which might involve a compromise with evil. The other is that of meeting evil with well-doing in the sense of doing good to the evil man even while he is engaged in evil actions,'

He appears to have been involved in agitation for better conditions in the labour camps where COs were sent.

He is mentioned in Notes from the Gilbert Murray Archive at Oxford University, England, which come up in a Google search for "Herbert Runacres". (Enclose the name with quote marks)

"37. Copy of a letter sent by men at Wakefield Work Centre to the Secretary of State for Home Affairs 23/5/18 regarding recent disturbances. Signed by Page Arnot, GB Jeffry, Herbert Runacres:-

"Since October 1916, there has been on average about 600 men in the Work Centre. The position of so large a body of men holding unpopular views and concentrated together in a small town is fraught with artificial difficulties which would not arise under a more normal system of society. Nevertheless, we are of the opinion that the men may justly claim that they have made every effort to live peaceably with the townspeople and to avoid every source of active annoyance or offence. During the whole of the time that the men have been here no charge of insobriety or offence against public order has been brought against any one of them. It is true that statements have frequently appeared in the press that conscientious Objectors jeer at wounded men in the streets. Not the slightest evidence has ever been offered in support of these statements and the men indignantly repudiate them." Examples of the hostile atmosphere thus encountered. Sunday evening: "the atmosphere was distinctly hostile to the Conscientious Objectors. Knots of men were gathered about the streets. A fracas occurred in the principal Square, while a crowd gradually collected in Love Lane, the only way into the prison. Inmates of the work centre had to run the gauntlet of this crowd. All who came in after 9 o'clock were molested; a large number were assaulted: several were knocked down and while lying on the ground were kicked on the body and on the face. These had to be treated in hospital."

Then, on Monday. "From 6 till 9 very little more occurred than persistent molesting of inmates of the Work Centre by youths and women. But towards 9pm there assembled a large crowd whose attitude became steadily more and more threatening. Many of the members of the crowd has provided themselves with sticks and the atmosphere was definitely more purposeful than on the previous evening. From 9 o'clock onwards assaults similar to those committed on the previous evening took place, but as a whole on Monday evening they were of a more serious nature…it appears incontestable that except in a very few cases the police played the part of bystanders. It should be stated that the rioting extended to persons suspected of sympathy with the conscientious objectors. In one case, a Quaker family (the adult members of which are all women) found their house surrounded by a crowd, their windows smashed, their rooms broken into, and the furniture destroyed".

"It seems clear from these facts that no blame attaches to the conscientious objectors either collectively or individually for these disturbances: except in so far as their presence in large numbers in any locality where the press aims at stimulating the hostility or certain sections of the population must necessarily lead to friction". Role of the Wakefield Express in suggesting that the community might be led to imitate what occurred at Knutsford.