OPENING THE ROAD TO MILITARISM HERE

...But there is a confusion of thought here...

...What has happened in this war is that politics has been eliminated, in the choice of generals, in the selection and training of troops, and in supplying them...

...Dewey Made A Mistake As the New York Times points out, Governer Dewey made a great mistake in his acceptance speech in not only approving of this statement quoted above in the Republican platform, but going on to say that "if there is not now any civilian interference with the military and naval commands, a change in Administration will not alter that status...

...Actually the sentence turns over to the Army and Navy the whole con-duet and planning of the war...

...The worst example of political misuse of an army was afforded us in the Spanish-American War, which was miserably and inefficiently run by politicians and incompetent officers and our men slaughtered, not by the enemy, but by the ravages of typhus fever and illness due to the so-called "embalmed beef" furnished to the men in the field...

...It adds that "under our system of government it is not only proper but vitally necessary that there should be constant and systematic 'interference' by the President with the Army and the Navy...

...Moreover, the soldiers in planning a campaign, let us say in Burma or Siam, do not think about political considerations—considerations which must be kept in mind since psychological warfare can be even more important than the military movements, and because a given strategy might commit us to international policies calling for grave involvement lasting perhaps many years...

...Secretary Knox was all wrong when he took the position on being appointed to his office that all he had to do was to listen to the admirals and find out what they wanted, and then do his uttermost to supply their needs...

...That is a most dangerous doctrine, and one as unjust to the Army and Navy as to the rest of this country...

...This is the clearest proof that he has not thought the matter through nor studied the true story of the relationship between the Government and the military in our previous wars...

...As the Times also points out, the Constitution makes the President Commander-in-Chief...

...To Hold The Scales Even Now I well know that many people believe that just because Mr...

...Anyone who advocates a different course not only opens the road to militarism, but urges a break with the American tradition of the separation of governmental powers under one head...

...But that is not what is covered by this plank in the Republican platform...

...Roosevelt has given the generals and admirals a free hand we are fighting the most efficient and on the whole the most successful war in our history, with a maximum military effectiveness...

...It then specifies that it means by interference that the President alone has authority to decide whether the military leaders are the right men and to change them if they are not, and to determine whether the major plans of the services are "consistent with the foreign policy of the United States and with the broad interests, the resources, and the ability of the American people...

...If there is civilian interference, the new Administration will put a stop to it forthwith...

...This is absolutely contrary t(5 historic American tradition from the Revolution down...

...The very narrowness of the services, the prejudices and class consciousness of the regular officers in both of them, would alone call for a highly capable civilian executive free from those prejudices, to hold the scales even...

...Once the strategic lines have been laid down and the campaign decided on, of course there should be no civilian interference...

...What it is to be presumed the platform-makers meant was that there was to be no civilian interference with the conduct of a campaign after it had been decided upon and the strategy outlined...

...Yet there must continue to be supervision by the President, the Cabinet, and the Secretary of War...

...It reads that there shall be "all-out support of our armies and the maintenance of our Navy under the competent and trained direction of our General Staff and Office of Naval Operations without civilian interference...

...Actually, however, there is a constant conflict going on behind the scenes in this war between civilian authorities, such as the War Production Board, and the Army and Navy, which are ever reaching out for more and more power and are undertaking to tell the civilian authorities what they shall let the American economy produce and how much they may do for the civilians...

...They have always been trained to execute the orders of the President and the Cabinet...

...On the necessity for common honesty and thoroughly capable handling of the troops everybody is agreed, and everybody reprobates the few blunders thus far reported in this war, such as the sending of troops from desert maneuvers in Summer clothing to the horrible fogs and bitter cold and snow of the Aleutian Islands...

...It is essential to the safety of the Republic that the Army and Navy be dominated by civilian authority, if only because the military and naval men are obviously not fitted by training or temperament to outline national and international policies...

...But in the larger field it is, I repeat, absolutely essential that there should be civilian control of policies, national and international, and a rigid subordination of the Army and the Navy...

...It is a policy which was never followed in any of our wars, and it opens wide the door to military and naval aggression upon the civilian functions of the Government...

...I know that many readers will think that we never could be in danger in the United States from the Army and Navy, and that it is a gross injustice to the services to say that they must be watched...