Military Training?
SHUSTER, GEORGE N.
Military Training? A Symposium By George N. Shuster President Hunter College • When the war ende, Us people of the United Statu will find thenseelvea face to face with a human society is which...
...However, 1 must emphatically fipfio.r listening upon America either a huge standing army with its excessive costs snd tax bur den...
...How much chance such a bill would have, I do not know...
...Principal, Samuel J. Tilden High School EDUCATION seeks a balanced, self-sustaining personality whose thinking is constructive, critical and •ocial...
...Conscientious objectors are exempted...
...As a good physical condition is of prune importance to a soldier, and cannot be developed in a short time, Secretary Stimson does not endorse the proposal to replace physical education by military training or drill...
...Till chief advocates of postwar military conscription, apart from professional military men, would seem to be those wljo openly or privately desire this country to play a major imperial role in the postwar world...
...s By James Rorty Author of "Hit Maeter't Voice...
...If our ruling class is not Intent on some imperislist program and if it is not dissimulating about its Good Neighbor Policy, it is difficult to see what would be done with 6,000,000 soldiers, conscript or otherwise, except to put down domestic "disorders...
...Our rapidly developing America,* Fascism needs ex big army far adventure* abroad ami regimentation at heme...
...The alternatives to military service include the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Civil • Aeronautics Authority, the National Youth Administration, the Public Health Service, Soil Conservation Service, the Coast Guard, the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Forest Service, and good-will missions and service temps in Latin America...
...A mere enumeration of the scope of our present health education program indicates how unwise it would be to replace this well-balanced, comprehensive program by military training...
...Let us have none of it...
...Therefore, I favor the Swiss system but believe that service should begin at the age ef eighteen...
...I am against this program because It accumulate* ' not only tinanrial deficits but social, psychologies...
...removal of remedial defects...
...By Dr...
...John W. Studebake*, U. S. Commissioner of Education, Henry I...
...s By Jerry Voorhia Congireeeman from California In answer to the inquiry of The New Leader about compulsory military training, 1 am enclosing a copy ef a bill of mine, introduced in the 77th Congress, II U. 182, which was intended then and still is valid, 1 believe, as a substitute for universal military training...
...To take 600,000 men out of education and industry each year would be to revert to the worst features ef the European military system- and, in all probability, to inamse that our history would in the long run reveal the same undemocratic and imperialistic features that have marred the progress of not one, hut several, European states...
...Stimson, our Secretary of War, states that the Army is better able to give needed military training or drill under the most productive circumstances after induction...
...I am opposed to any plan of conscription which would take young men out for a year at a time...
...If we are to judge by the experience of other nations, there is little or no reason for supposing that universal military training either improves the health, morals or social discipline of a nation...
...corrective exercises where needed...
...The alternative to this is a socialized or mixed economy of plenty which csn be achieved only if we succeed in building an effective new party with a labor and farmer base and substantial middle class participation...
...Both types ofjnental reaction have their place in a world crazy enough to •elect statesmen who create or tolerate conditions that Blake war possible or even inevitable...
...proper hygiene and diet, etc...
...Each shall designate a first, second, and third choice as to what type of service is preferred...
...Providing as it does for constructive work and training for American youth who prefer civilian to military service, the bill is supported by many liberals opposed , to compulsory military training for everyone...
...Hence educators should oppose a type of training Ant tends to defeat our basic objective...
...Education cannot achieve its basic objectives if critical thinking is undermined by a contrary tendency to blind obedience—the ••sence of military training...
...Surely, educators can hardly be less intelligent on this question than our Secretary of War...
...In the case of invasion or attempted invasion, such a small, highly trained army can repel anything any nation throws at us...
...term health checks...
...It seems to me that this military service should be organised by states under federal law, but thai the officers, above the rank of Captain, should be appointed by tha General Staff without regard to place) of residence...
...1 certainly am not in favor of taking hoys as young as 17 years and requiring military service of them...
...This would'aaean relatively limited but recurrent periods of training for the men and lower officers, but intensive professional training for the General Staff and the officers attached thereunto...
...This program seems to me the third postdated check issued by the Koosevelt Administration, the first bring the relief economy of the thirties, and the second being our present war economy, each one canceling the one before...
...competitive sports, with emphasis upon those sports which carry over into adult life...
...Despite the fact that America Is in the midst of global war to preserve its democratic civilization, in a letter to Dr...
...An army of 5.00(1,000 is entirely unnecessary, considering the increasing mechanization of modern war-fire, and the now completely established fact that the United Stales by virtue of its incomparable industrial machine, plus its native resourcefulness, ingenuity and adaptability, is impregnable...
...On the other hand, I do believe that the geueral principle of service to the nation of some character could well be emphasized more than it has been in the past...
...According to our leading specialists in health education, military training for seventeen-year-elds er children of secondary school age is not the best method of achieving the mental and physical health of the adolescent...
...It must bait ita absurd policy of "rewarding friends and punishing enemies" whose bankruptcy is now revealed in the current choice between two neo-Fascists to head up the elite during the postwar years...
...Universal military service inevitably leads to regimentation in every walk of life and feeds the false god of political patriotism with all its tiresome mummery, and worse, places) a powerful weapon in the hands of ambitious politicians with visions of Manifest Destiny...
...It provides for the registration of all citizens between 18 and 24 years of age, to become available for a year's service under national service agencies to be created...
...They wanted their children in school Instead of rhssing across ¦elds in mock warfsre at the texpeyers' expense...
...first aid...
...It is apparent, therefore, that the auvocates of postwar conscription want it as a link In a larger program, the other elements of which are stabilization of monopoly capitalism, continuing government .expenditures jn a permanent war economy, and the Imperialist exploitation of market)', cheap labor and natural resources wherever they can he found...
...The essence of compulsory military training is prompt and unthinking obedience...
...The freedom and resourcefulness of the American soldier on the fighting frontH of the world—whose development has never been hindered by military training—is yielding dividends t» the allied cause and to victory...
...special work for the atypical including even the spastica...
...or s military clique with its trends toward imperialism and the almost inevitable militarization of American life...
...commando training...
...Not to be strongly armed la such a period would be calamitous...
...I am not prepared to discuss adult military training, even the periodic type embodied in an KOTC program...
...Editor's Note:—Jerry Voorhis' Bill establishes the principle that "all male citizens shall engage in some farm of service to the nation for a period of 12 months...
...against all its elementa—imperialism, a permanent war economy, postwar conscription...
...Has not organized labor in Britain stood firm for the British Empire...
...On the ether band, careful thought must be taken to sea that the military security obtained through training does not ojsdaisjai our political institutions or vitiate our international outlook...
...1 am against this program, although, like Norman Thomas if I understand correctly his comment in your April I issue on John Flynn's book—I am afraid that organized lalior in this country will be for it...
...A powerful modem state needs an army of professional soldier-mechanics, but it does not need 6,000.000 and not even 1,000,000...
...In a modern secondary school the present constructive and well-balanced program of health education involves periodic health examinations...
...1 am against it, of course...
...A Symposium By George N. Shuster President Hunter College • When the war ende, Us people of the United Statu will find thenseelvea face to face with a human society is which th«* occupy a position of leadership, but by (ha bitternesses, hatred and confusions of which they will in ail certainty be appalled...
...Abraham Lefkowitz Legielaiivo Repietentative of the Teurhrre Guild...
...but I think so far as the military training is concerned, it would be far better to provide for it through the educational system of the nation and by / something resembling the Swiss Militia System than it would to require boys of 17 to spend a whole year in an Army Military Camp...
...Every country in Europe and many elsewhere have had universal military service for decades, and yet thi dreamiest optimist will not contend that they are better countries than those in which the system of voluntary enlistment with a small group of professional commissioned and non-commissioned officers obtains...
...Those choosing military training shall receive $30 a month and maintenance...
...Finally, let us not forget that It waa to —cape conscription (sisvery to the elate i.e., political elite) thst liberals snd intelligent workers Bed from Europe to the United States...
...partial or total excuses for the sick or heart cases...
...In the first place, this is unnecessary, granted the conditions outlined, if we maintain a Navy and Air Force at levels which ate adequate It seems to me that the problem basically is that of the adequacy of these Sei vices...
...those who choose other forms of service shall get $25 and maintenance...
...Now, having brought Europeans over here in search of freedom, some Americaas want to bring Europeaaism over here to enalave those who sought lo be free...
...Otherwise, conscription would not be necessary, even to supply an American quota in an international police force...
...But ss long as there are cartels, trusts and vast aggregations of i finance capital with an economic interest in the subjugation of militarily weaker peoples, a small professional standing amy will net prove sufficient...
...In fact, to be effective, an international |Milice force would require the elimination of large national armies...
...The Baruch plan gives us the shape of things to come: a return to the economy of scarcity, huge unemployment, a permanent economic crisis, for which relief will be sought in government military expenditures and the withdrawal of a conscripted army of 5,000,000 from the labor market...
...Why, then, should America adopt the system that ha* plsgued Europe snd played so dominant a role in bringing By George S. Schuyler Columnist, Pit libit i gh Courier, Rutinem Manager, The Crilit I AM not'in favor of a system of postwar military ronsriiption, because it does not prevent wars but may help to foment them...
...Labor can only combat this manses by establishing •a strong political party committed to public ownership ef all the industrial and financial resources that foment wars for selfish interests...
...and moral deficits, for which the eventual receivership must inevitsbly be fssclsm snd snothrr war,, worse than the present war...
...American Medicine Mohilizee, etc...
...Once conscription* is permanent lv established, it ran be used ss a weapon against organized labor simply by declaring the existence of s national emergency in case of widespread strikes, mobilizing the workers as soldiers, snd thus "restoring order...
Vol. 27 • August 1944 • No. 35
