AN EXPERT CITES FACTS ON PEACETIME CONSCRIPTION
An Expert Cites Facts On Peacetime Conscription COMPULSORY peacetime military conscription has been described by responsible American leaders as the "single most important issue before the American...
...Conscription legislation now in Congress has set off a national debate which shows signs of becoming one of the most serious and intense in the nation's history...
...It means the eventual breakdown, sooner or later, of our economic system...
...That job, he declares, is for the schools, the homes, the medical profession, and the state and Federal Governments...
...They are police forces, not schools...
...Discipline And Character "Of the 18-year-old group, those 'unfits' who have remediable defects are in a relatively small minority...
...He then turns to the argument that military training will strengthen the conscripts' discipline and character...
...there is n« time in one year of service to educate and to train...
...One year's training will not equip soldiers for the arduous task of policing foreign nations...
...Citing the Germans and Japanese as examples of how military training has failed in this field, Baldwin declares, "Intelligent and democratic discipline and emphasis on self-control rather than on control by rote or through fear should yield positive results...
...Written by Hanson Baldwin, Military Editor of the New York Times, graduate of the United States Naval Academy, and certainly one of the most, if not the most outstanding military analyst of this war, the article should be read by everyone pondering the proposed departure from the anti-militarist tradition of America...
...A Military Dynasty...
...For strictly defense purposes he sees no need for universal conscription...
...The Army can do nothing for these nnfit...
...only a widespread program in the schools and improvement in the home can do that...
...The most potent argument advanced by the con-scriptionists is that compulsory military training will be necessary after the war for proper defense of the country...
...The nation's moral health must be preserved and improved by the home, the school, and the church...
...Despite the great increase of range and power of the plane," he says, "we know that our geographical position is still our greatest defensive asset...
...This author has been too closely associated with our armed forces to believe that...
...Then there is the argument that conscription will educate, train men for leadership and better citizenship...
...The unfit in the older age groups could not and would not be drafted, and hence would not be affected...
...In his evaluation of this argument, Baldwin points out that either side may be right, but that a really definitive answer cannot be made until we know what kind of a world situation we face after the war...
...But "most dangerous and fallacious" of the arguments for conscription, as he sees it, is the theory that conscription will reduce or eliminate unemployment...
...Advocating a defense system of bases outside the United States with a large navy and airforce to knit them together, Baldwin thinks that such a system should be supported "by small but wellequipped and highly trained land garrisons and small amphibious forces...
...There is nothing in history to support this view, Baldwin declares, citing nations which were attacked though they have had conscription for many years...
...Instead of hasty, ill-considered action during wartime, Baldwin strongly recommends the creation of a civilian committee to study the problem as a whole and report back to Congress...
...It means the end of our political system as we know it...
...Baldwin warns against making a medical or health institution out of the Army...
...Military training requires fnll time effort...
...Baldwin sees the danger of increasing the "stature and authority of the military leaders as against the civil leaders," "the possibility of a military dynasty, or a professional hierarchy...
...What of the political effects of conscription...
...Conscription must do one or the other...
...The argument that we need conscription to provide a world police force can be quickly dismissed, says Baldwin...
...In his exhaustive analysis Baldwin takes up the arguments for conscription one by one and, though he believes it is yet too early to make a definite decision either way, his case against adoption of conscription now is overwhelming...
...There would be no time for educating and developing these traits, Baldwin asserts...
...Such a step for such a motive means the end of labor's gains in this country...
...Again, as in the case of physical health, it is a mistake to conceive of the services as reform schools, or as institutions for character building...
...We need no mass army in being at the start of a war (unless we intend to wage a war of aggression...
...the best soldiers in modern war are men who already hare been educated...
...What of the argument that conscription would be beneficial to the health of the nation ? Baldwin thinks little of that point...
...Our Best Defense Asset This will depend on the nature of the peace, the foreign policy followed by this country, and many other factors...
...The argument that conscription will be needed to implement the Dumbarton Oaks agreement he calls "specious," as he does the counter-argument of conscription opponents that Dumbarton Oaks obviates the need for conscription...
...it can't de both...
...but is not the kind of discipline, generally speaking, the Army has today...
...Conscription would not strike at the root of onr physical and mental deficiencies...
...The program suggested by the War Department is plainly a training program, not a service program...
...Perhaps the most notable contribution to the discussion thus far is found in the current issue of Harper's Magazine...
...By that age the basic troubles which cause rejection . . . are so definite and so far advanced that quick cure is impossible...
...The peacetime draft act would apply only to men between IS and 22 years of age...
...This cowardly evasion of a fundamental economic issue "is the very argument Hitler used," and "is a signpost to the primrose path of disaster, domestic and international...
...No great land army is needed for the defense of the continental United States, at least not in the initial year of war...
...This is particularly true today, because the great importance of the machine in modern war, with the tremendous industrial capacity of America to produce machines, makes it possible for the United States to buy a greater degree of security with a smaller investment of manpower than ever before...
...Another argument raised by proponents of conscription is that the program would be insurance against war...
...An Expert Cites Facts On Peacetime Conscription COMPULSORY peacetime military conscription has been described by responsible American leaders as the "single most important issue before the American people today...
Vol. 9 • March 1945 • No. 13
