New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-04-12
Consumption

basis by the adoption of system OF con-
scription is sound and wise, and The Trib-
une believes it is the duty Of all Repuo-
leans in Congress to support the President
as a matter of patriotic duty.
There has been-and there Will be-a
great deal of confusion on the subject OF
CONSUMPTION; some of it honest; some OF
it purposeful. To understand the real
question it is necessary to think of 1t not
as a question of meeting an emergency
of war but as a question Of placing the
United States permanently on SOUND
basis in the matter of national defence.
Conceivably there could be raised at the
nresent time 8 great volunteer army, an
army greater than could be equipped or
used Just now. Conceivably, the United
States could always in a great crisis raise
volunteers enough and in eighteen months
after the outbreak of hostilities could put
n great army in the field which in another
year would become effective. Such was
the experience of England measured by the
battles of the Somme and of Arras. But
had England been under CONSUMPTION in
the years before the outbreak of the pres
ent war she would have been able to put in
the field not less than two million men,
equipped and trained, in August, 1914.
The result would have been that Germany
would not have invaded Belgium or that
the defeat of the Marine would have taken
place at the French frontier and would
have been decisive.
Under CONSUMPTION, the United States
would annually call up to the colors up
ward of a million of young men between
twenty and twenty-one. 1t is inconcelv-
able that we should ever have to call more
than four or five classes in any war; GER
tainly not more than five million men. 1t
is unlikely that we should have to ask
more than one years service with the
colors, and we should thus use only the
young men before they have married and
before they have become highly trained
and productive instruments.
To-day we shall have to have recourse
to volunteering and take men between
twenty and thirty out of our national in
dustries, away from their homes and their
families. because we have made no prepa-
ration on a proper basis in the years that
have gone by.
The outbreak Of war under consumption,
supposing that we should have it for ten
years, would supply us with a reservoir of
trained officers and of trained men who
could take the field, not in two years, but in
two months at the outside, and we should
not be faced with the necessity of improvis-
ing vast machine after the fact of war.
National service, which we call cOnscrip-
ton, means calling upon every young man
to give a year or two years to training IN
the army. 1t means that when war comes
we shall not only have trained men, but
that we shall not follow the unfortunate
example of the English and sacrifice our
best and bravest in the early period Of
learning. There is no tragedy in all the
English story, splendid as are many of its
pages, greater than the tragedy of the I'M
told thousands Of the best, the bravest and
the most promising Of the English young
men who were sacrificed to national mex
perience in all the battles that lie between
Ypres and the early stages of the Somme.
1t is fact well recognized that call
for volunteers brings instant response
from all that is best in the manhood OF
nation, and finds its coolest response from
those who are least fitted to survive and
whose survival is Of least value TO the
nation. CONSUMPTION takes every one. 1t
does not make a hecatomb of the best.
Volunteering takes the best and leaves it
for CONSUMPTION, which always comes after
ward, to bring up the least desirable.
A great deal is made by the opponents
of CONSUMPTION of Great Britain's expert
ence. II is true that the British have
made an army. 1t is true that to-day,
thirty-two months after the outbreak of
the war, the new English army is demon
strating its capacity to win battles from
the German conscripts. But no one in
England would deny the wastefulness of
the method by which Britain's army has
been constructed nor would he deny the
fact that it was the conscript armies Of
France which held the Germans for the
two years while British volunteer armies
were training after the brave, but tiny,
British regular army had been destroyed
in the campaign from Mons to Ypres. No
one denies that men will volunteer. No one
denies that volunteers can be trained into
soldiers, but what all thoughtful propo-
nents of CONSUMPTION urge is that no nation
can afford to wait two years while volun-
teer armies are being trained.
1t may be that in our future wars we
shall have an ally like France TO hold
the line for US until we come up, as the
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