The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-08-30
NATIONAL DEFENSE

Judging by the occasional utter
ances of the Tines Union, that solid
hut sometimes stolid newspaper wants
this country to return to condition of
homeless and slushy lack of defense as
fast as possible. 1t doesn't want but
corporaPs guard of an army, is
against universal training, and wants
to principally rely on the national
guard.
The Star is strong for the national
guard, but it does look like anybody
with the experiences of the last four
years in their memories should realize
that the national guard can't possibly
he anything but the second line to a
regular army, that the first line must
be of considerable strength or both it
and the second line will be butchered.
The Times-Union's objections to
universal training is that it will come
at time when it will interfere with
the business life of young men in their
nineteenth year, and that it will Prus-
sianize them. Well, which is the worst
to take a boy out of his avocatfon
at that time, in order that he may re.
ccive six months of useful training,
and help make his country safe, or
take chance of jerking him out of his
business and possibly out of his family
half dozen years later and learn les
sons that he could have learned with
half the trouble when he was nine
teen? Very few of our boys are en-
gagged at that age in business that
can't spare them for six months, ana
to which they could all go back to
| much better qualified to attend to it.
| AS for the "Prussianizing" them, that
is the milldamdest foolishness that was
ever expressed in words. You can't
"Prussianize" an American boy in six
months. If you could, the thousands
of boys trained in military colleges
and academies would have developed
line of "Prussians" in America by
this time. Universal training has not
"Prussianized" France, but saved
France, and several other countries,
yet French boys must serve not six
months but three years.
If we have universal training, our
boys, at the very time in their lives
when they can best learn, will go not
into the army but into training camps,
where their bodies and minds will be
taught not only military tactics but
other useful things. If they all go,
it will not break up business arrange
ments nor anything else. When a
hoy goes to training camp, his place
will be taken probably few months
by a younger boy. When he comes
back, he will resume his work, and
the boy that held his place will go to
take his training. All this will be reg
ular and easy to provide for if it is
customary. The Times-Union talks
like a cross between a pacifist
and a labor agitator. A pacifist
doesn't want a man to be a soldier
for fear he will hurt somebody. The
idea that the soldier may protect
somebody never enters the. pacifst's
head. The labor agitator doesn't
want a man to be a soldier because
labor agitators are afraid of soldiers
| The labor agitator can beat up the
peaceful citizen and often by stand
ing in with the political boss render
the policeman helpless, but when the
soldier appears on the scene the agi-
tator realizes that his fun is over
Many labor unions expel any of their
members who join the national guard
and they hate the regular army like
a dog hates hickory. Of course they
are against universal training, as the
average boy who is in service six
months gets something of loyalty tt
the nation in his soul that all the
j forces of evil never get out.
The Star does not believe in a big
standing army, though the force the
war department is now asking for viii
probably be needed until this troubled
world settles down. 1t is better t.
keep half a million men under arm:
when we don't need them than neeC
them and not have them. We dom
want any more war, and a strong
army is the best guarantee of peace
When peace is assured-when thu
world gets somewhere near it's norm
al condition, the United States SHOULD
; have universal training and stand