Bisbee daily review., 1918-12-15
TAPS SOUND FOR VOLUNTEER ARMY,
 THINKS CROWDER
Says American Experience in Great War Has Proven Benefit of System of Select i've Draft
1nv Review Leased wirel

NEW YORK, Dec. 14.-"Taps' to the volunteer system of raising armies in war time by the United States was sounded here tonight by Maj. Gen. Enoch H. Crowder, provost marshal general. in an address to the retiring members of 1S9 New York draft boards. He earnestly advocated that the selective service system should become the permanent method of rais- ing American armies in the future.
 General Crowder said that the selec- tive service law had enabled the gov ernment in this war to register 23,- TAG, ,000 Americans, put into the field nearly 3,000,000 fighters and to have in readiness to entrain on November II, when the armistice was signed, 2,000, 900 more soldiers, all within a period of IS months. It would be a calamity" he said, for the United States to revert to the volunteer sys- tenn in view of such a successful test of selective service, adding that the men selected had shown the valor, az gressiveness and initiative of the most seasoned troops.
 What of the army you have raised?" ask General Crowder, refer ring to the drafted men who had been sent overseas The answer comes back from France in no un- certain terms. These men you have sent to the colors have proved them selves the equals in aggressive fight ing and soldierly bearing of the veter- ans of France and England"
 General Crowderls speech was an exposition of the successful work of the selective service law, which, he said, had responded, 50 smoothly and so well to our dual form of state gov ernment and national control that it would be calamitous if it should not become a recognized part of our gov ernmental system for the raising of armies in time of war"
 The provost marshal general con trasted the draft methods of the Uni ted States with those of England and showed how this country had profited by the mistakes made by the British, who, after three years of trial with the volunteer system and the disor- ganization of industry, were obliged to adopt conscription.
 Pointing out that when Germany hurled her challenge to the democra- cies of the earth it became necessary for those democracies, for self-preser- vation, to organize their resources as she had done and make every man a soldier" active or reserve. General Crowder declared this test had been
 IA fn tho efforts Inf Lord Kitchener to raise an army and of the first gallant 100000 who were sent across the Eiglish channel, knowing how to die, but little else in the awful carnage. that awaited them"
 He touched briefly upon the great drain upon the flower of England's manhood and how, after the factories. schools. offices, farms and mines had been depleted of their best, the fu- tility of trying to raise the required number of volunteers became appar- ent
 After r months of war had wit messed the disastrous fighting at Gal lipol, Mesopotamia, the Balkans and the deadlock on the western front" !" he declared, the new army of Eng land was 100000 short of its then authorized strength" The volunteer system was abandoned, he went on. after ''it had throttled the industrial life of the nation. and undermined the whole economic structure"
 When the United States war de- partment, in its effort to heed the les son learned by England, sought the enactment of the selective service act, General Crowder said that the tradi- tional method of raising armies by the volunteer system was so strong with the American people that it was deemed expedient in the very bill the war department presented to congress for enactment to provide that limited volunteering might go on" He re- called the great opposition to the draft and how through the insist ence of the president, ably support ed by the senate under the aggressive leadership of Senator Chamberlain and Representative Kahn in the re- spective houses, the day houses"
 Referring to the selective service system as "the very essence of de- mocracy," the general appraised the faults of the volunteer system.
 Tn its very nature it is an indi- vidualistic system dependent for its existence upon the spontaeous fervor of the people" he said. Tt is a sys- tenn which has an eye only to the raising of armies. Under it the test l----------------------