The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-04-22

to call for volunteers. and upon the com pletion of the examination he has the complete power to decide whether he will take an army of volunteers or organize one by draft.
 '"The bill provides that organizations of all forces, other than the regular army, shall be composed of men who come from and of officers appointed from, the same state or locality as far as practicable. Both the volunteer and draft features of the bill authorize the President to refuse to accept either by enlistment or draft, the services of persons needed ir the industrial pursuits of the country"
 BAKERS PLEA | Secretary Bakers letter, included in the minority request, was written as a final plea from the military branch of the government in behalf of the administra. ton bill.
 T have deep conviction that any com promise of the principles governing the , bill submitted by the department for the raising of a new army would be attended | by unfortunate results,' he wrote. ''The bill as drawn preserves so much of the volunteer spirit as can be pre- served without embarking on the experi- ment of a mixed system of draft and volunteering. It makes place for sev- eral hundred thousand men above the age of 25, who may be moved to volun- teer. and by equalzing the terms and condition of service in the regular army, National Guard, and additional forces ] gives such volunteers entire equality with all others in the national forces" 'T have studied every report I can se- cure of the use of the volunteer sys- tenn abroad and in our own country, and l believe it to be true that in every place where it has been tried, whatever success it has had was due to the system of computations more harassng and al- most as drastic as the provision of law itself.
 With the greatest deference to the rights and independence of judgment of your committee and the House, I still feel obliged as Secretary of War, and there- fore, your responsible adviser on this sub ject, to urge the passage of the bill as drawn.
 ''I beg to assure you that I have no
 
 America. Militarism is a philosophy; ii is the designation given to a selfish or ambitious political nation which uses arms as a means or accomplishing it's objects. The mobilization and arming of common rights of the men in the world is an entirely different thing" Supplementing Secretary Bakers letter, the minority report says the members of the committee are laymen and adds: l "In this great crisis we deem it to be our patriotic duty in this matter of increasing temporarily the military estab- lishment of the United States Go follow the council of the commander in chief of our army and his expert advisers" 1 Of the place for volunteers in the ade- quate plan, the minority says:
 Some of those. who favor the volun- teer system pointed with pride to the fact | that 1000 volunteers are enlisting every day at the present time. According to a letter from the Secretary of War to the chairman of the committee, 72471S volunteers will be required for our regll- lar army and the National Guard organi- zations. Tt would, therefore, take 72i days, including Sundays, or about two l years, to get the voluntere forces required for these two branches alone of our mill tary establishment. Does that look very hopeful"