Non-Compulsory Military Training

...And ure n h) assume that the Indonesians are ItM human and less deserving of freedom tasa sre the Estonians, Latvians, l.itliu-inians and Poles whose enslavement by Soviet imperialism The New Leader has protested most strenuously...

...But what docs he say about them...

...Villard is one of the few progressives who has made himself an expert on military matters...

...so *<*»* do not send it any more...

...However small the number of Hitler's readers may have been in those years, the number who read the Ta'naka Memorial, giving Japan's plan for world conquest, was certainly much smaller...

...It is no valuable, valid argument against adopting universal training at this time that there are now million* of trained veterans of this war...

...this little booklet packs millions of murders in 06 pages...

...A veteran Ighter for civil liberties and for all ef the (deals and great traditions ef tree liberalism, Mr...

...country by country and region by region...

...That is to go on indefinitely— un'il Congress stops it...

...And upon this utterance the Congress is e« pected to break with our historic past and break with the American concept of personal freedom and that dignity of the individual and his right to life, liberty snd the pursuit of happiness, for which we have been told ye fought this warl...

...Congress acts ami the army then seeks to bring together, presumably by a selective service system, some ten or twelve millions of reserves scattered all over the country, probably not even listed by the War Department, since they are not to be a part of the regular army in any way, to organize and officer them, transport them to camps and then give them hastily refresher courses in boot training, "electronic', aei'pn-.utics...

...Remember that they will not be in any way a part of the army or navy—the 1,200,000 youths who will have to be trained each year...

...We plan a debate on the Bevin-Tniniaii declaration and Zionism We do not consider the British I.aliot leaders as sacred rows...

...I don't know how many Americans will read this issue of Din Netr Leader, but however many tens of thousunds that number may be, it is a pretty safe guess that the number will be greater than the number of Americans who read Hitler's Meiu Kamp) in the years before Munich...

...That is where the whole training proposal bresks down...

...Naturally, after those "few months," the disqualified would immediately enter Torts shops for the special tmining for technical jobs...

...Well, Truman will at least provide plenty for them to do...

...All Europe and Asia would be better off if they followed the Russian system...

...Wt If Russia did such a thing for their "h*, wouldn't there be a terrible «srl...

...hnr country is also interested in the *"* thing, and so we have practically ^hed up the wrong parties all through *>r...

...We may herd millions of men into Ses-bees, labor forces, ordnance' depots, and innumerable other behind-the-line activities, but it will surely take just us long to drill and organize a million unorganized reserves for battle as it did to train I he men we drafted in the last war...

...It simply does not make military sense or offer the slightest hope of any immediate protection in time of war, especially in the atomic age...

...but Russia is not trying to force their system on anyone, and all the countries that they have invaded are lietter off for the experience...

...An organized reserve must be organized lo be of any military value, and not unorganized...

...Vet we know from Ibis war Unit fully 50 percent of Hie drafted men weir disqualified for front line service...

...Hut if this is the case, and if Atilee an I Bevin are merely puppets, forced to acquiesce in the actions of the old Colonial Office bureaucracy, then the question arises whether their clinging lo their posts ia not doing an irreparable harm to the reputation of democratic Socialism, which wonld mean so much 111oie grist to the mill of Communist totalitarianism...

...I do not want it now...

...Lenin said: ''It would not matter a jut if three-quarters of the human race perished...

...And Mr...

...The countries that Russia has absorbed voted themselves in, and Russis does not want it any other way...

...Whose work-shops...

...But: "We can rely upon a comparatively small regular army, navy and Air Force supported by well-trained citizens, who in time of emergency could be quickly mobilized...

...I would mail it out also if it was fair to Russia...

...The first mentioned, incidentally, constitutes an endorsement of the tindings of that conference held at...

...Next, let us look at the military side ef the President's proposal, Here we have some more beautiful word painting: "Never again can we count on the luxury of time with which to arm ourselves...

...No fair-minded person would suggest thst we continue to rely indefinitely upon those veterans...

...and UNO" and "The Sitdown Against Genuine Bargaining...

...IJfotiee by a late issue of "In Fact" the State Department plans a JMW.OOO free enterprise propaganda...

...When Drew Pearson reported that President Truman had rein iked that "maybe we can get world government in a thousand years or so," I felt more sorry than ever that a man of such narrow and provincial ideas had been elected Vice-President in 1044 Instead of Wallace...

...Does any sane person believe that if war should come again and our cities were not all destroyed at once these men would not insist upon being mustered in and the government Insi* upon their tinning out...

...Unlike the usual "whodunit" which saves the solution for the very last page, the solution to this mystery thriller is found on page K8, in these words: "the establishment of a world dictatorship of the proletariat, of a world union of Soviet Socialist Republics...

...AM getting your paper and it seems *st someone must have had it sent to...

...I subscribed to it once, but was so '•gnsted with it on account of your ¦•tile attitude towards Russia that I ¦ not renew...

...Not only is it a well-thought-out plan, but it it ua official plan, adopted at the 46th Session of the 0th World Congress of the Communist International on Sept...

...Colonial Slave Holders, Unite" from Max NOMAD MAY 1 not, as constant reader of, ^ in occasional contrihutoi to fn« !tfy Leader express my concern o...

...Many of them will then be in key manufacture ing positions from which they cannot be withdrawn...

...Why, it will be simply impossible to keep our youth form stampeding out of-high schools to all the recruiting stations if we just give them Harry's picture of what they will have gratis, free, for nothing...

...Trnman vows, be "quickly mobilized"_by the army before the atom bomb hits us...

...to become the new slogan •I the Second International...

...All the rest were supply troops, technical soldiers, work battalions, etc...

...Worse still, Ihe British masses themselves seem to be giving their cynical approval lo all the imperialist ventures never may be at the helm...

...But they will, as Mr...

...We w heing flooded with an abundance, and the profit system cannot distribute an abundance, only a scarcity...

...A dozen murders make for pretty good excitement in the average detective thriller...

...What was the White House staff thinking about to send Out as lined it ci I s speech as this...

...Lest, however, anybody should think that the Navy or the War Departments or the White House could call him back to the colors during the six years, or the indefinite period of membership in the secondary reserve, the President assures us thut the reserve "would have no ob-ligation to serve, either in this country or abroad, unless and until called to the service by act of Congress" — precisely as the men were drafted for this war...

...Finally, medical examinations of the trainees will "do much toward removing some of the minor disabilities which caused the rejection of so many men during this war by the Selective Service System...

...Is "Colonial slave-holders of the ¦arid, unite...

...It is well worth 10< of anybody's money...

...One World Government from HEME ftT M. MMftlLL To the Editor: i^GAlN congratulations on two, splendid editorials...

...Still, as the President says, this has nothing to do with the army and they will be "no closer to membership in the armed forces than if they had no training...

...They composed the best army in the world...

...All this crowded into these glorious twelve months of non-voluntary, but also non-compulsory, service...

...Many others will doubtle** join the National Guard, if it is built up a* the President say* it must he, without, however, giving a single stutement as to how this will be done or what It will cost — indeed, the cost of the whole scheme is always carefully suppressed by both the President and General Mai-shall, the latter contrasting it only with our outlays for amusements or cigarettes...

...Lalmr politicians to carry out certain reforms that will s.abil'ze the existing social fabric, but remains adamant on all questions pertaining to its overseas jio -sessions...

...a wijwi that seems'to have been carefully ,(»i4ed by the editors of my favorite .ttkly...

...He look an opposite view on our entrance into Ihe war le that ef Thr \es» Lemdtr, but oar differing opinions never affected our high regard for his unimpeachable integrity and keen intelligence...

...So, the trainee is not to be drafted...

...realise that by writing these lines I m placing myself in very undesirable tv*u*ny, but neither do 1 feel very Mppy if occasionally I see O'Donnell roicinr my sentiments about the Comniu-¦Ista...

...For the first time there is this reference to our returned veterans...

...Military Training President's statement for which he deserves credit, and that is his reference to the fact that we shall have about 11,000,000 of Ihe best trained reserves in the world as soon as we get them all back from shroud...

...Many thousand* of veterans—almost all the higher officers for example—are veterans of the first World War, and it is undeniable that the bulk of these new veterans will be physically available for service for at least ten years to come and many for twenty...

...He fails, however, to tell us what General Marshall brought out in his biennial report—that with all the 12,000,000 men we have raised for the army in this war only 1,500,000 men were actually frontline fighting troops...

...and lhat this old trinity, anxious In preserve the fiction of democracy, is permitting the...

...Since the human race, due to our release of atomic energy scarcely six years from the time Fermi and others first noticed that chain reaction in uranium 236, will either institute "one world" government or perish within a few decades from new, our President's remark was as silly as Hitler's "thousand years" of Nasi dominion...

...the important thing is that the remaining quarter should be Communists...

...We know what that teaching will be and how rapidly the illiteracy of the recruit returning to barracks after sn exhausting day of drill will vanish...

...How will the citizens' reserve aid us in any way whatsoever to pick the necessary 1,500,000 fighters when the atom bombs begin to explode...

...England will tremble in its boats at the thought of this terrible military force...

...I have read every argument in behalf of conscription that I could get my bunds on in order to see what the other side was saying...

...In this booklet under review, Lenin's disciple, Stalin, drawn the blueprint for his master's plan...

...Trainees [horrible word!] under this |>io|>osed legislation, however, would not be enrolled in any of the armed services...

...Even this does not exhaust the benefits the President's paradise offers to -our happy trainees...

...How far will the psysically unfit progress towards acquiring real skills with what is left of a year after "boot" training...

...When the President says that the the reserve will have no relation whatsoever to the regular army and will never be railed out except by set of Congress, he destroys a chief purpose of its enlistment from the military mans point of view...

...Here are the instructions for every Communist Party in the world...

...Schenectady, N. Y. A Communist Thriller fretm A. KOHLKKG To the Editor: The little volume, Program of the t'oinniuitiet later national (Workers Library Publishers, Inc., New York...

...A Tribute to Communism Pre* A. V. IMG6 '* the Editor...

...1, 1028, and never repudiated...

...Villard promises an article on another subject in the near future...

...Russia will see the hopelessness of opposing us in any way in the Balkans or anywhere else...

...Our geographical security is now gone—gone with the advent of the robot bomb, the rocket, aircraft carriers and modern air-borne armies...

...We must face the fact that peace must be built upon power, as well as upon good will and good deeds...

...All this and heaven, too...

...The "trainees," it appears, are to be compelled by the United States Government to take military training for one year and the President, in his address to Congress, declared that no one should be exempted save for "total physical disqualification...

...Which offers mighty little encouragement to those who si ill hope for a lietter world...

...Yes, indeed, the President repeats this: "The general reserve would be available for rapid mobilization in time of emergency...

...California...

...I am a true progressive and take various liberal periodicals, and extra copies of some, and I mail Hum out to a large mailing address that I have...

...But, bless his heart, the President isn't satisfied in providing all that training for his full-stuffed year...

...But if he should think that he will return completely free to civilian life, let him heed theae words of Mr...

...For example, under China it states: "The transition to the dictatorship of the proletariat" in China "will be possible only through a series of preparatory stages as the outcome of a whole pi.....I of transformation of bourgeois democratic revolution into Socialist revolution, while successful Socialist construction will be possible only If direct support is obtained from the countries in which the proletarian dictatorship is established...

...The lame and the halt, the psychiatrics, the cardiacs, the ruptured, one and all, will have to join the colors...

...I have never read so confused, illogical, superficial a statement from any President, except during the Administration of President Harding, as this one of President Truman's, or one couched in less worthy language...

...They would be civilians in training...

...Con-acription is compulsory service in the army or navy in time of peace or war...

...Willlain H. Chamberlin is more inter-ted in preserving the so-called "free l*srprise" system of the world than he real progress...

...Jn any future war, the heart of the United States would be the first target...

...Other articles, pro and contra, will appear in future issues...

...For fit and unfit alike "the moral and spiritual welfare of our young people should be a consideration of prime importance" — ttaeh them how to kill first and then uplift their ioul'1 And the President adds, with his eye on the Bible Belt, "of course facilities for worship in every faith should be available"—lots of nice jobs for young clergy to preach to the bored conscripts—beg pardon, recruits —in their nice, handsome uniforms on Sunday mornings...

...But as Truman hastens to explain, all this new universal military service, "is not intended to take the place of the present selective service system" — no, indeed...

...the standard of living of the British Isles as a whole depends upon the exploitation of the colonial peqples...

...There is, however, one passage in the • When Oswald Garrison Villard waa editor of The Sat Urn and ef The r—t, he made them America's outstanding liberal publics) ion...

...Villard contributes another in our series of discussions of Ihe vitally important question—should America have rompubiory peacetime conscription for military training...

...He correctly avers that it takes 'many mouth* for men to become skilled in electronics, aeronautics, ballistics, meteorology, and all the other sciences of modern war...

...for after all...

...balli«tie...

...General Marshall invariably ignores them, knowing full well that they constitute a very strong argument against any immediate introduction of conscription...

...Special rules and regulations would have to be adopted for their organization, discipline and welfare...

...Both the President and General Mar* shall insist that "we can insure . . . a peace only so long as we remain strong...

...Truman: "Upon completion of a year's training the trainee would become a member of the general reserve for six years...

...most of them have the special skills and knowledge of scientific effort* for which the President clamors as a necessary step to preparedness...

...If charged with offenses they will be tried by an army court-martial, and if guilty cojifined in an army prison...

...Does it sub— irribi to the cynical philosophy of Philip Sweden, Ramsay MacDonuld's fellow-"trayer of British Labor, to the effect ¦si s Labor Government's words and «t* sre necessarily different from the promises made by its leaders when they were in the opposition...

...And the strength which will impress the nations of the world with our power and compel them to keep the peace is this scattered citizens' reserve of some millions, never called back for refresher courses, not even in touch with the War Department, their addresses and habitats unknown...

...In other woids, the atom and the V-bomb of the enemy will kindly wait in the next war until the President tells Congress to Met...

...But why ? Many of these veterans will undoubtedly wish to enter the officers' reserve and will resent "being kept out...

...Why should the country calmly discard these millions of trained men as long as they are physically capable...

...So the world will tremble as they think of the Second Man of our citizens' reserve who won't have any guns to take from their walls and will have to sit down and write to the War Department when war comes to ask what they shall do since they will be in no way whatsoever a part of the regular army...

...Next, Truman assures us of another fact we had overlooked, that "modern war is fought by experts — from the atomic scientist in his laboratory to the fighting man with his intricate modern weapons," surely headline news...

...Well, now let us look at what Truman expects to accomplish by this non-regu-lur nrmy drafting...

...in other words, that the real power is si ill in the hands of the old capitalist and semi-feudal oligarchy and its bureaucratic and militaristic partners...

...To be sure, Attler and Bevin may be granted the extenuating circumstances that they are not the real rulers of the British Empire, because they are not quite certain of the loyalty of the commanding staff of the armed forces...

...True, they - will be trained by regular army officers, or reserve or National Guard officers, and army non-commissioned officers...

...The President reminds us eloquently that: "The day of minute man who sprang to the flintlock hanging on his wall is over" — a most useful reminder of facts that we have quite forgotten during this global war we hsve just fought with modern weapons and atom bombs...

...copyright 1020), was first published in that year and ran through second and third editions in 1033 and 1036, respectively...

...They would be no closer to membership in the armed forces than if they had no training...

...neither do we expect them to make drastic or revolutionary chanties overnight.—The Editor...

...They will wear regular army uniforms and shoes, be fed regular army food, sleep in regular army cantonments, be treated, if ill, by regular army doctors, use regular army tactics, and learn to know regular army weapons...

...The period of training," he declares, "could well be used to raise the physical standards of the nation's manpower, to lower its illiteracy rate and to develop in our young men the ideals of responsible American citizenship," education at the hands of barking first sergeants, callow reserve lieutenants and captains...

...Here is laid down the two-stage revolution for China as now pro plaimvd by Mao Tse-lung, the Communist leader, and also the necessity for direct aid from the USSR, now reportedly being given the Chinese Communists in Inner Mongolia and Manchuria...

...There are to be no exemptions but, "after the first few months of training" — the "boot training" — those, suys the President, "who are not physically qualified for military service could he trained in certain skills to that if war came, they could take their places in shipyards, munitions factories and similar industrial plants...

...And small as the number of readers of the Tanaka Memorial may have been, the number of Americans who have read this Program of the Communist International, sometimes jocularly called "Stalin's Mein Kampf," is still smaller, in spite of the three editions this booklet has gone through...

...I have in mind the role played u the Attlee-Beyin regime—my type-writs* somehow balks at calling it a "Leb»r Government" just as it rei uses It call the USSR a "Workers' State'— • ith regard to Indonesia and Palestine...

...Or does the Vetu Leader hold that from the "dialectical" point of view such violations of the most elementary tenets of human decency are reprehensible only if committed by a Churchill, a Hitler or a Stalin hut are perfectly excusable if perpetrated by Labor politicians ? I am sorry if—not lw-inir a hundred percent Marxist—I am unable to swallow it...

...Where will they be trained after the useless "hoot" Booiiths...

...I refer, of course, to the ones entitled "The Atomic Bora...

...The backbone of our military force should be the trained citizen, who is first and foremost a civilian and who becomes a soldier or a sailor only in time of emergency...

...and that Bevin is ap-patently anxious even to out-Churchill tb^ereat Tory Superman by his efforts tegmvent the liquidation not only of the njnfa'h but even of the Dutch Empire as tel...

...From the scant editorial references . ants by The New Leader one would Uu-dly gat the idea that troops of a f»untry ruled by alleged democratic so-risiliats are shooting down colonial rebels m order to force them liack under is* »ld yoke...

...it is only by strength that we can impress the fact upon possible future aggressors that we will tolerate no threat to peace or liberty...

...May J add that if Truman is renominated , in 1048, the organization of a great third party, constituted of Labor, Socialists and Liberals, seems "imperative...

...Parochial and provincial beads of state ate manifestly unacceptable in an Atomic Power Age...

...I throw yours in the waste-paper liasket...

...The President forgets lo tell us...

...Tin Sew L*ade> has printed three editorials and various other material regarding the revolts in Indo-China and Indonesia, supporting the demand of the libels for self-government and eventual independence, and an editorial demanding that the doors of Palestine be opened to 100,000 Jews...

...As u thriller it rates with the best of A. Oman Doyle and Rex Stout...

...The most dangerous time in our history is due to come Within the next two years and Technocracy is the only organization that knows what to do about it...

...a true progressive and know lhat lj*»i* is the leading nation of the "rtdj they have solved their problems, *i as soon as they can enlarge their •chlelogy and machine age, they will **• * high standard of living...

...After that he shouli' be placed in a secondary reserve...

...Here in this booklet, prepared under the direction of Stalm in 1028 after he had assumed unquestioned power and had thrown out Trotsky, is a well-thought-out plan covering, in some detail, the conquest of the world...

...Dublin in my native state, New Hampshiie...

...Sor do»-s one get from The .V< w Leader a inking of the fact that the Labor favewment has shamefully betrayed the pnnoise.s which prior to the elections its •resent beads had made with regard to Palestine Does 77ie ,V< n» Lead ft lake it for granted that pre-election promises »» not have to be taken seriously—espe-rtsOy when mere Eastern ami Pales-tisisa Jews are concerned...

...We are therefore primarily fared with a question as to the meaning of certain words...

...No—tire rw* *f Indonesia is not comparable with Ust of Greece where British non-inter-rrencr would have meant annexation by Rust...

...Here are the President's words: "Universal militaiy training is not conscription...

...Kor the Red Navy hasn't got a facet of a chance of ever taking Java >nd the other islands...

...o tcor« ology, ami all the other sciences of niqd, tm war"—many of these veterans of a non-compulsory year's training will then have been out ten or twelve years, let us say, or longer and will have for* gotten, as all army officers well know, everything they ever learned and wilj be in far from good physical shape...

...toing n Technocrat, know that the "•a enterprise in our own country ia '*l"J*d to pass out of the picture...

...And thit ta XOT con-tcii/iliou...