The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-03-04
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1920.
UNIVERSAL TRAINING AGAIN.

There are indications that the Re
publican leaders of the house Of rep
resentatives may not be allowed to Law
aside the question of military training
so easily as they planned The New
York Times says that the men OF the
American Legion are going to take off
their coats and work for the discarded
remedy for unpreparedness. General
| Pershing on the return of his tour of
inspection of military posts says there
is n strong sentiment throughout the
! United States in favor of universal
service of some kind based on rec
ognition of the benefits of the train
ing to the men themselves, also on ac-
count of the fear that "we might not
| have allies to hold the line for us in
the next war" Major General Wood
in public addresses is strongly advo-
eating universal training. Evidently
the sentiment for universal training is
stronger than the politicians realized.
General Wood presents universal
training as something to be desired
rather than feared. In a speech at De
troit he says the trained man is no
more liable to be called into service
than men of draft age in any event
| ut simply means that his training
would render him in the event that
the call should come, better prepared
to do his duty and with better chance
of returning alive''
| We must make not only good sol
| der, but we must make a good citizen
| We must take the boys, and for a
| period of from four to six months we
must inculcate in them habits of dis
| cipline, on the one hand, ability to
| work in cooperation with the mass,
| and on the other hand preserve their
individuality and their initiative While
we are doing this we must build up in
them an appreciative and sound under
standing of citizenship, obligations and
duties. We must teach respect for
authority, for law and order, for the
| flag, for the rights of others, and for
government under the constitution. We
| must teach them all we can of person
| al and general sanitation. we must
teach directness, truthfulness, straight
| forwardness.
All this came in the old teaching
when it was properly handled, but in
addition to all this we want to return
to the community a more useful pro-
Queer, better producing factor than
the man was when he came to us.
| We do not believe in large stand
! inc army We do NOT mod II IUa
need one large enough for the police
and mobile needs of the nation, and we
want it to be as good an army as we
can make it. We want it to be free
| from any faint of Prussianism. We
want it to be differed by officers who
understand the basic qualities which
| characterize a really good officer and
those basic qualities are summed up in
the single expression, '',IIe must be a
| good man who always looks after the
| best interest of his men, When you
have discipline founded upon fear it
is discipline founded upon hate, which
IS very dangerous discipline in a
pinch.
To the desirability of this kind of
training and preparation for citizenship
there should be added the statement
that universal training probably can
not be established at less cost than
right now. The government owns more
military posts and training grounds
than ever and it has an immense stock
of arms, munitions and clothing that
could be utilized in equipping the nee
essary training camps All this ma
terial could be turned over at much
less cost than selling it and purchas-
| ing new material when universal train