Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-05
AN UNSOLvED DRAFT PROBLEM

Mo ORDER recently issued from Wash
ington is more praiseworthy than that
in which the War Department brusquely
refused the request of New Jersey farmers
who sought soldier aid from Camp Dix
for the harvest season. Farmers and
even other employers of labor in various
parts of the country have been hoping
for the services of the training battalions"
at the different cantonments in their
Vicinities. And any one who has been
able to observe the problem presented by
these training battalions will be relieved
to know that they have hoped in vain.
The man in training battalion at one
of the big camps often is victim of con.
ditions which still puzzle army officers in
Washington as well as at the canton
ments. Men who are obviously unfit for
military service have been sent to the
camps in thousands because of the refusal
of draft boards to be responsible for their
rejection. Camp surgeons pass them in
the hope that they may be reclaimed" or
"rehabilitated" and made fit for some sort
of service in the ranks Great numbers
of men who will never have any actua!
part in the war or even in a maneuver
are held at Cantonments everywhere.
They occupy their own barracks drill
seldom or never and are burdened with
much of the menial work of the camp.
The unfit men are detailed in other
words, to the graceless and disagreeable
tasks usually performed in every other
army and army division by fully qualified
soldiers on occasional assignment. The
war for them holds neither glory nor ad.
II, L.. 10 81,
War Department members of training bat
talions were described as being at work on
buildings and ping lumber in company
with civilian workers who drew as much
as seven or eight dollars day on the job
The selective service is intended to
create an army. Every army in the field
or at home has been able to operate and
exist and perform it's functions and win
victories without conscript labor. Service
with the colors should be a service of
pride 1t should not at any time or under
any circumstances involve conditions
humiliatng to the man in uniform. There
are enough able e-bodied men in the United
States to give the army any strength it
needs and the army will be ideal in or
ganization only when It performs all its
own work, as armies always have done
automatically, without the addition Of
isolated working groups reminiscent of
ancient Rome or modern Germany.
The whole problem is likely to become
larger and more irritating when the new
man.power bill becomes operative. If the
Senators and Representatives in Wash.
ington actually have a patriotic rather
than a party motive in their periodical
attacks on Secretary Baker they will
busy themselves in efforts to force a
solution of the problem of the unfit man.
That solution should be easy There should
be no really unfit men in the army. They
should he at home in civil occupations.
Conscription was not instituted TO provide
special labor for camps and farms or fac
tories 1t will not be tolerated for that
purpose General Hugh /. Scott. the COM
mandant at Camp Dix, is said actually to
have favored the employment of the unfit
soldiers in a pseudo-voluntary service on
the farms. He wished, we are told, to
| make the cantonment a benefit to the
nearby countryside" That is peculiar
point of view for a military commander,
who should have known that his respon-
sibiities, like his authority end at the
| limits of his cantonment.