The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-04-27

llTSl year Ol lue wal. Hc Shilot- ment was "over-subscribed; and l Secretary of War Stanton sent out a notice that he had more volunteers | than he wanted. Later on, when he | asked for further enlistment, the | bottom of the proposition had drop ped out. The public could not be | persuaded that Stanton really need | ed more men.
 In '63, Lincoln endorsed compul- l sion, but even as he did so, he real | ized that it was slavery, and de tended it only on the ground of the North's desperate situation and be- cause the South was using the same system. In letter to the Governor of New York. he frankly damned the draft while he justified it. He said: We are contending with all enemy, who. as I understand, drives every able bodied man he can reach into his ranks, very much as butcher drives bullocks into slaughterpen."
 But the draft was a tragic failure. It filled the prisons with men, who were outraged by it's attack on liber- ty and conscience, and it only actu- ally raised 61,947 men for the Un- ion army This was 2.3 per cent. of the total forces used by the North in the whole war, or 4.5 of the forces raised after the draft was authorized If We add to these men actually drafted, the number of volunteer substitutes who took the place of drafted men, we find that. under the most favorable inter- pretation, compuision only produced i one-tenth of the recruits raised by the North after the passage of the compulsion act.
 It is an insult to Amercan man. hood for Wall Street or the Security League to maintain that men will l not rush to the defense of their country in time of need. If the country needed a million men to- morrow they would volunteer, as | the Canadians did. If the govern ment needs recruits now for the pre- sent crisis, the Presidents call will
 bring them. And the fact that they
 volunteered, instead of being driven into the ranks "as butcher
 drives bullocks into a slaught-
 er-pen," will make them cer,
 tainly no less efficient anc
 loyal. If it is not the present but future emergencies we are wor
 rying about, let us at once enlarge
 our regular army and make our mi litia fit for real service.
 But make no mistake about it; i
 is not the present crisis, or the coun
 trys military position of the future
 that the interests behind conscrip
 tion have in mind. Germany's ar
 mics are surrounded, her navie
 bottled up. She could not ship re
 gimant to America if we invited he
 to. No. conscription is great com
 mercial policy; a carefully devised
 weapon that the exploiters are forg
 ing for their own protection a
 home, and in the interest of Amer
 ican financial imperialism abroad
 Behind their statements about tn physical advantages of militar,
 training. (which the best authoritie
 deny); behind all this sentimenta
 talk about the democracy of hay
 ing the workman and the million aire sleep in the same dog ten
 (which doesn't, as matter of fac' happen, and wouldn't, to my mind
 amount to anything if 1t dld); be hind this glorification of the Swis Army. (which, in reality, is brett feudal and undemocratic army, use
 consistently to crush organized la
 bor): Lehind the claim, that com
 pulsory service. is the only demo . cratic service. because it calls ever 5 body to the colors at the same tim
 in case of war. Gan arrangemen that is economically and humanl unjust, because those on whor : others depend should, as a matte ; of right, not go to war until ther is real necessity, while the inde l pendent, footloose should go to wal and do, as a matter of fact, vOlun teer whenever there is calD an | back of tho cry that America mus . have compulsory service or perisf is a clearly thought-out and heavil 3 backed project toi mould the Unite