Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-03
AN AMATEUR MlLlTARlSM
THE NEWEST SENATE FAD
Compulsory Military Training Bill Cheer
fully offers the Country a Billion
Dollar Delusion

| 10 lOSJ unfortunate lndl ltlC NIL
nority report of the Senate military
committee, just submitted in opposition
to the majority's billion-dollar compul
sorry military training bill, reads terribly
like a speech. Because it reads like
a speech it will fall fiat in a country that
has been speeched at until it is weary.
That is regrettable, because the com
pulsory' training bill, as it stands, runs
counter to logic and COMMON sense. All
the lessons of costly experience show that
the scheme to drill the youth of the land
for two weeks each year would be waste
full, futile. inefficient. What the senators
are dreaming of is sort of pacifist war
machine.
We are not even asked to be militar-
istc. We are asked to be dabbing dill
ettantes in a sort of white washed Ger
manSm.
The minority in the Senate military
committee therefore had a good case
which it didn't know how to plead, 1t
wrung its hands and cried out in breath
! less passion against what it called the
danger of military dcspotism-and sat
down. 1t forgot to say that the plan it
attacks would be costly dclusion and
snare.
There is no possibility of a military
despotism in this country. There is
probability, however, that the Senate
| military scheme would cost not one bill
lion but two. and that if it, were made
actually dependable and kept in trim it
might cost five or six.
A training system that didn't train
would be worse than useless. 1t would be
in everybody's way. If circumstances
! force the United States to be in constant
readiness for war we shall have to have
| the other sort, and a billion dollars will
only be drop in a very large bucket.
The simple fact of the matter is that
! until the Senate accepts or rejects the
| peace treaty, until the fluid politics of
| Europe settles into recognizable forms
/ and trends no one can know what will be
necessary in the way of a military estab-
! lishment.
The prospect of enforced reliance upon
| military organizations is still present in
! America.
But we cannot prepare until we know
| what we are preparing for.
Definite assurances and guarantees of
| long peace may vet emerge from the
disorder of world affairs. New perils
! may loom suddenly. No one knows. But
| if there is to be a revival of militarism in
! any elaborate form we. like all other
| people in the world. will have to shoulder
! staggering burdens of taxation.
If the majority of the Senate commit
tee is optimistic about the probable costs
of its military scheme, it is because it has
learned none of the conspicuous lessons
of the war. What the committee seems
to see is an army of millions of youths
drilling in camps with ritles-or perhaps
with the wooden models of rifles that
were doled out in the first rush of the
training camps.
But rifles count for little nowadays.
They have been superseded very largely
by hand-grenades. Hand grenades and
rifles are only the small change of mod
ern warfare. 1t is with lOngrange artil-
lery. air machines, flying torpedoes and
the amazingly expensive instruments of
chemical warfare that future armies will
train if they are to be fit for a fight. You
cannot make an artillerist of a man in a
few weeks. Airmen who remain inactive
for a wear even now find themselves
ignorant and stale because of the speed
with which aviation science is progress
ing. Air gunnery is science III itself.
Soldiers nowadays must be technicians
They cannot be trained without elaborate
equipment of costly and perishable sort
that NAV become obsolete before it is de
livered to the field. One modern tanl
costs from $4,000 to 100000. Long
range field guns are even more expensive
1t is with the cost of such implement!
that the Senate committee will have tt
deal in any rational estimates, becaus'
these devices will he necessary to train
ing and they will be necessary in vas
! quantities.
Lord Bryce saw the question Who'll
! when he suggested that in any futur
/ | state of an elaborated militarism grea
, part of the normal energy and resource
T of even the richest countries would b
? necessary to sustain big armies. Con
press. and particularly those men in Cor
press who sneer at Mr.. Wilson's hope
for peace, are not yet ready to admit
this. Congress is never eager to look
5 ugly and threatening fact squarely in tn
= face. If 1t were we should not have bill
e such as that Just framed by the majorit
o in the Senate military committee. Th
n Senate military committee has slmpl
q dodged-with a large gesture
= Even now congress Is denying Ihe Ddi
: necessities of life to the military a
It forces. And it is worth rememberin
s.. that until we were almost ready to ente
e the war money was not made availab
e for the work of bringing American ore
nance up to the standard of efficiency n
l. ouired in modern battle.
les Congressional committees seemed
u u suppose that you had only to give ordel
II to the steel people and have guns deli
!e cred They seem to have known lit
'r less than nothing of the unbelievable +
a. finements of modern fighting machine
'c of the applied science involved in guns
of the intricacy of problems that have
be met and solved by the men who ha
b,yo !,