The citizen. [volume] (Berea, Ky.) 1899-1958, 1917-06-06
CONSUMPTION or Volunteering
Following Contributed by the National Board of
torical Services
him by law. That is CONSUMPTION
Selection by Volunteering

| him by law. That is CONSUMPTION.
Selection by Volunteering
Volunteering is just as selective
as CONSUMPTION. But it selects by
different means. That appeared
clearly in the response TO President
Lincoln's call Tor volunteers. We're
coming, Father Abraham, three
hundred thousand strong" they
sang. But there were three mil
lions then between twenty-one and
thirty years of age. All might have
volunteered. What forces COM
PEELED the three hundred thousand,
and not the two million seven hun
dred thousand when there were no
legal directions TO go by?
The Kind That Go
The first call for volunteers in q
great national emergency brings
out the adventurous and the de-
voted, who really want to fight.
Many Of them ought not to go.
They sacrifice their families and
perhaps leave positions where they
would be more useful than at the
front. When these fine and gener-
Gus spirits have gone-tOo often to
perish in the disaster that lack of
experience provides at the begin
ming Of each Wharf.-The process Of ir-
regular cOmpulsiOn begins. Orators
and preachers exhort to enlistment.
Sharp tongued old maids and sense
less girls, each anxious to do her
bit" at somebody else's expense,
poster equally those who should go
and those who should not. The law
affords no protection from such hor-
nets. In small communities espec-
tally. where everybody knows his
neighbOr's business and has an
opinion upon it, their bitter speech,
regardless Of family burdens or Of
the reticence that causes men to
conceal a physical disability, often
gains in force through endless rep
etition until IL acquires. for the
sensitive. the vain, and the cOnsci-
entiOus. a compelling power as great
as that Of the conscriptiOn law it
self. The fear of many a man, sub
iected to such persecution. that his
wife will not respect him has out
weighed all the arguments that in
telligence and duty could marshall
to keep him at home.
The Kind That Stay Behind
But the thick skinned resist such
coercion by their neighbors, and
Justify their obsunacy by arguments
that have no relation TO the merits
of the situation, but only TO their
own desires or fears. They are
twenty-seven and not all of twenty
two have gone. They are married
and there are some unmarried slack
ers. They voted against the war,
let those who voted for it go first.
Thus Volunteering places the burden
of military service not upon those
hest able to bear il, but upon those
least able to stand the gibes of 9TH
ers. In name and theory a system
of freedom, il becomes in practice a
system of petty tyranny.
The Wise Policy
In short, cOmpulsion of some sort
is necessary in military matters, it
is indeed the end and aim Of war.
To compel our enemies we must
first compel ourselves. BY volun-
teering we do ii meanly and unfair
ly: by CONSUMPTION we do it openly,
and reasonably. These differences,
based deep in human nature and
illustrated by our own history as
we'll as the history Of Europe, are
the fundamental reasons why Con-
gress decided for CONSUMPTION, and
why the country has accepted it.
He is a good American who accepts
CONSUMPTION as a wiser policy than