Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1915-04-12
THE MILITARY BILL.

Nincty-niX hours a year OF instruction III tn
art of handling Il rife 80 that Il man won t shoe
/ himself; in personal hygiene which Inrlud"
so terrible thing a. bath; in first aid--whc1
. has to do with aiding the other fellow to iV
instead of to die; and in field rooking-wIich i
. designed to diminish instead Of increase cur
. rent mortality statistics nin"ty->iN hour>
year of this j. not exactly our idea oi mill
tarism.''
House Bill l4S has raised hue and cry
vivid, crimson hue Of Indignation and a cry 0
opposit0n--to "PruSsiansm, " "mlitarisIm,
transcription" and 1t few other things.
We believe the opponents of the bill are jus
as sincere as its advocates. We expect the op
poncntS likewise to admit in fairness that The
advocates are as sincere as they arc.
The Star Bulletin does not entirely agree
with the provisions of House Bill 14S. W.
think the military training which it proposes
should be definitely limited, instead of depend
ing largely upon future orders and rules of tho
governor, or others in authority. But we dc
not agree with the avowed opponents of the
bill that the whole thing is wrong, that it has
no merit.
The Star-Bulletin believes in a reasonable
amount of training of exactly the kind House
Bill 148 aims to provide. 1t is useless to close
the eyes to national and international history
America has suffered from lack Of prepared
ness for war and sacrificed thousands of lives
needlessly because volunteer armies did not al
first know how to fight. The pages of Ameri
can history and the testimony of experts prove
this beyond question.
No. &C kbak4 bo hoe q
rich and territoriallysafflue nation can afford
to be weak. Look across the Pacific, at China
There nation of 100000 people is yielding
to the demands of nation of 5000 000-be
cause the nation of 100000 is bound to pos
sess itself of the4rastfy greater nation = mar
kets. Even assuming that .Japans aim is to
safeguard the Orient, the fact remains that
China must yield to japanese dominance be-
cause China in a military sense is unprepared
The unprepared nation cannot be sure of gov
erning itself.
There is good deal said about the moral
protection the United States affords the Central
end South American countries through the
Monroe doctrine. Does anyone doubt that this
moral protection would cease to exist were some
aggressive and brutal-minded foreign power to
covet one of these countries and the United
States be unable to make protest based on
strength as well as on justice7
The opponents of compulsory military train
ing are called un-American. In the first place.
"un-A American" as thus applied is an entirely
Indefinite term. No two men will exactly agree
on it But, in the second place, what is the
american educational attitude on military
trainingi +
It takes gonlyEa brief examination to realize
that a large number of state universities re-
quire military drill. These universities are the
representative educational institutions of their
states. Us it "un-American" for them to re-
quire military drill!
The Star Bulletin has said before and desires
to say again that this proposed drill should
emphasize the physical training. Furthermore,
the territory should see that the instructors are
competent to, and require that they should, en-
phasize upon the youths the fact that the train
ing is for preparedness to defend national
honor and integrity, to uphold the weak, not
for aggression; they should be taught that war
is wrong unless it be for justice With mill
tary training should go talks and lectures that
mean moral and ethical training.
Tt seems to us wise also that House Bill 149
should be amended to limit rather rightly the
maximum number of hours of this training re-
ouired Only a minimum is now mentioned
With such amendments as these precautions
require, we do not fear that the bill will start
the youths of Hawaii on the red road to war.
-rT ,ou vNIr