Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1917-04-25
WEDNESDAY, APRIL %, 1917.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND TIE
PRESIDENT.
brooklyn Eagle. J

President Wilson i fighting foA the
army bill with all the energy and resource
fulness at his command. lie is Welding
nothing. lie is compromising nothing. Re
luctant TO plunge this country into the war
so long as a remote hope of an honorable
neutrality remained, he has resolved that
the United States, being in the war. shall
put forth every effort and accept every
sacrifice TO make victory sure. With this
end in view he is pushing against the OPP
position of timid. vacillating or obstinate
men the army bill providing for selective
conscription.
The president Is not given 10 making
quick decisions on vital issues. lie was
originally averse to conscription and his
conversion to it has been slow. He has
carefully and cautiously looked upon all
aspects of our military problems, and we
may be sure that when he finally made up
his mind to accept the advice of the ex-
perts on the general staff in regard to
compulsory service it was because he had
weighed all of the arguments on either
side and had convinced himself that the
selective plan was at once the surest, the
quickest and the most democratic method
of raising an army.
In this decision he is reinforced by the
best judgmet of the American people. 1t
would be in insult to the intelligence of
this great nation 10 assume that the ex-
perience of Great Britain with the volun-
teer system has not been observed and
studied. Great Britain clung TO the volun-
teer system for the same reason that many
sincere but mistaken people still cling TO
it IN this country-because the principle
of voluntary service was supposed TO be
one of democracy's most sacred posseNg
sions. For a long time it was impossible
to persuade the British people that an
emergency coul arise too great TO be met
by the volunteer system. The terrific
losses at Mons and Cambria, ut Loos. Fes-
tubert, Neuve Chappelle and Ypres argued
irresistibly for the abandonment of this
delusion and for the drafting Of every
man to do his duty. whether he wanted to
do it or not. And it was not merely the
bloody sacrifices of the battlefield that
converted the British government and the
British people to conscription: it was the
revelation that innumerable and w~asteful
errors had been made by detaching from
professions and from trades a large num-
Der of workers who could do the country
more valuable service behind the firing
lines, 'at home, than they could possibly
perform in the trenches.
The president Is determined we shall
profit by the experience of England. We
would be guilty of deliberate folly if we
refused to do so. We need a large, a well
trained and a we~ll-equipped army, even if
we never send a single battalion to aid our
allies on the stricken fields of France and
Flanders. And we need that that army
shall be built up ut once, not by the I'M
certain processes of the volunteering sys-
TEN, which will always he available to
those who are really eager to serve their
country, but by the intelligent selection Of
men who can most easily be spared from
our industrial life and who shall be put
into the ranks without favoritism to class
or wealth. This j. the idea embodied in
the army SAf,, and toward the acceptance
of this idea Woodrow Wilson i leading the
congress a. he has already led the coun-
try.
The Eagle is confident that the mass of
the American people are Loyalty behind the
president on this issue. We hope, how
ever. that those who stand with him will
not take too much for granted, that they
will not hastily assume that because he Is
standing firmly for the army bill all oppo-
o;,;op will immediately diSaDpear. In i inn
p~eratiye not only that the bill should pass,
but that it should pass quickly. Every
day, every hour of delay counts against
our efficient participation in the war. In
dividuals and organizations, thinking as
the president thinks on this matter, should
communicate their sympathy with the
presidents policy at once and directly t.
those who represent them in congress.