SHALL CONSCRIPTION CONTINUE?
Holmes, John Haynes
Shall Conscription Continue? By JOHN HAYNES HOLMES Holmes AS THE WAR sweeps on to the impending debacle of the enemy, public thought turns more and more to discussion of conditions after the war....
...Agitation in favor of continuance has already begun, as witness the recent speech by Arthur H. Sulzberger, editor and owner of the New York Times...
...The Dishonesty Involved Yet right along with this assurance, as though the world after, the war were going to be no different from the world before the war, plans are being laid for the indefinite continuance of universal military conscription...
...Why, only one thing...
...We are given assurance that our dead this time are not going to die in vain...
...From this point of view, it is not improper to raise the question as to whether conscription shall be carried over into the post-war period...
...Which is a nice prospect for those who are giving their sons and their money and their own sacrificial service in this second World War for the sake of having done with this abomination forever...
...And we are told to be of good cheer...
...And the way to begin is to begin—and the time to begin is when this war is over...
...Those who are really in the "know" take no stock in it at all...
...And conscription is the means at hand for this job...
...Here are we fighting to conquer our enemies not merely as an end in itself, but more particularly as a means of ridding the world of war...
...The "lead" thus referred to should be given now...
...But can it not be understood that conscription itself ia an incentive to war...
...It is interesting to note that the proportion approving conscription as a permanent policy showed a steady rise with income, while young people were markedly less in favor than older people...
...And if anything can defeat this principle, it is the keeping of mankind in the straitjacket of conscription—the rearing of a new generation, to take the place of the one maimed and slaughtered in this war, which shall be trained and thus inured to compulsory military service...
...If they are planning to hold on to conscription, it must be because they feel that after Germany has been defeated and Japan annihilated, they will still need soldiers...
...That will bring man to a kind of final despair...
...No matter how wise the plans and purposes of the victors, the world will have to be held for an indefinite time in order, lest war break out again...
...If any lesson has been surely taught during the last two generations, it is that great armaments constitute one of the direct causes that lead to war...
...And fighting is war...
...An Incentive To War If conscription is going to be continued into the indefinite future, then all this peace-planning is only so much shadow-boxing...
...We have had enough of this war business...
...So after this war is over, we are going to have further wars...
...Once more the people are being fooled...
...We want a peace after the holocaust that will endure—an organization of society which will hold together and therewith stabilize our civilization in terms of security from violence and bloodshed...
...Which is a spectacle to chill the heart...
...The government mind seems to be made up upon this point...
...We have got to begin sometime to live as though-peace and not war were the stable condition of our lives...
...The Time Is Now If, while keeping a reasonable number of men under arms to handle the havoc wrought by war itself, they move at once to lift the yoke of conscription, then we will know that peace is at least a prospect...
...That those who talk loudest of the durable peace to be established after the war have no confidence in their own predictions...
...It will be impossible to return to peace conditions all at once...
...The whole world, outside of the deflated Axis' powers, is to stand perpetually under arms...
...If any one principle more than another is definitely agreed upon by peace-planners, it is that of the universal disarming of the nations...
...But if they proceed to lock the yoke tighter than ever, then we will know that World War III has already begun...
...This is as true in England as here in the United States, and without doubt in Soviet Russia...
...If this is the state of publie opinion now," runs editorial comment in an English journal, "it is not too optimistic to hope that, given a lead in the right direction, public opinion after the war will condemn conscription...
...The worst feature of it all is the dishonesty involved —the sheer hypocrisy of those who prate about peace in a "brave new world," and yet go right ahead in policy and practice as though the post-victory world were to be the same old miserable mess which precipitated us into the present horror...
...Opposition to the continuance of conscription should be organized now...
...It has no place in peace, nor in the work of -preparation for peace...
...Steadily as our boys come to their 18 or 20th year they are to be drafted into the Army, or the Navy and Air Forces, and there trained for the armed service of the nation, and for an allotted period of time actually provide this service...
...Happily there are already heartening indications that such opposition may be successful...
...Yet nothing could be more arbitrary or inconsistent...
...Once Hitler follows Mussolini, and Tojo Hitler, we can with confidence beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning-hooks, for we shall have need of arms no more...
...Whereas 55 per cent of the men questioned approved, only 40 per cent of the women questioned approved...
...Conscription is at worst slavery, at best enforced discipline and training for the grim business of war...
...It is argued, to be sure, that resort to conscription, as a military measure after the war, is only a temporary expedient made necessary by the vast confusions and perils that will follow upon this dreadful conflict...
...And if they feel that they will still need soldiers, it must be because they feel that there will still be some fighting to do...
...A poll taken in England, which is under greater stress and strain than this country, showed that only 48 per cent approved the post-war continuance of military conscription, while 35 per cent disapproved and 17 per cent were undecided...
...If the terms of peace agreed upon after the next armistice are no more enduring than the terms agreed upon after the last armistice, then we shall have lost another peace...
...It is to prevent such an unmitigated calamity that the best brains we have are now devoted to working out this problem of getting rid of war...
...For what does all this mean...
...That conscription is a part of the war system, and must inevitably therefore tend to perpetuate this system...
...The real test as to whether we are going to get anything out of this war will be found in what the United Nations do with conscription after the fighting is done...
Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 44
