Evening star., 1940-08-14

commander at present. | have
handled several hundred men, all of
whom are of military and sooner or
later of conscription age. l have
heard so many boys state that they
would have preferred the Army to
the c. c. C. but the c. c. c. paid
more than the Army and also the
three-year enlistment period for the
Army was too long.
PERSONALLY. I am more than con-
vinced that if the Army pay were
the same as that of the c. c. c..
and if the enlistment were one year.
the Army could obtain all the re-
cruitS it could handle without con-
scription. I have just conducted
what I thought was a fair poll in
which each man had to reason out
his own answers and 166 men parti-
cipated in the poll. Here are the
results:
For conscription. 1875: against. Al
"If rate of pay for the Army were
the same as that for G. c. c., 81
men stated they would prefer the
Army and rs preferred the c. c. c..
This should be of interest inasmuch
as the c. c. C. has long waiting lists,
but the Army is unable to obtain
sufficient results.
Prefer Year Enlistment.
Exactly 1O8 men would at
tempt to enlist in the Army if the
c. c. C. were discontinued and the
enlistment period for the Army was
one year instead of three. Those
voting no were SO.
Exactly 152 men believe that c.
G. c. enrollees should be given mill
tary training. Those voting no were
IA. others not voting.
Undoubtedly. the voluntary sys-
tenn of recruiting has not failed-it
just never had a chance"
There are many persons inside
and outside of Congress who feel
that the volunteer system should
be tried Many young men would
enlist rather than be subject to a
later draft The principal argu-
ment for conscription is that the
Army can select "the right men"
out of the many millions who are
registered, and that the selection
is much more limited when the
volunteer system Is used.
Given c. c. c. Discipline.
There has. however, been no sys-
tematic effort to bring about volun-
tary enlistment for a large peace
time Army The period of enlist
ment, for one thing, has never been
attractive. and there are many hun
dreds of thousands of boys in the
c. c. G. who would join on VOL
unteer basis if the c. c. c. camps
were abolished or the same pay
given them in the Army as in the
c. G. c. These c. c. c. boys are
in physically fit condition and have
had certain amount Of discipline.
But the question of physical fit
ness is evidently not the main
reason for the Army's desire to
have the conscription bill passed by
Congress. The purpose is to be able
to select skilled mechanics for work
in connection with mechanical war
fare. 1t has not been made clear
just how far labor is to be con-
scripted for work of the same kind
that will be done for higher rates
of pay by workers in private life.
1t is not clear also how the Army
is going to keep workers from being
drafted who ought to be permitted
to remain on the job in private in
dustrieS.
Much Of the support for con-
scription is being given on the
theory that the principle of an
equally distributed burden of serv-
ice is sound, but it is significant that
the American Federation of Labor
and the c. I. o. are publicly against
conscription and are working hard
in the halls of the Capitol to defeat
the legislation. Why should they
be doing this if they do not feel
that the conscription bill is merely
a method of regimenting workers
to get jobs done that ought to be
done by civilians?
Hampered Industry.
There is no assurance that the
draft boards will pay any more at
tention this time than they did in
the last war to the employers need
for workers in private industry.
The general belief that conscrip-
ton was a SUCCESS in the last war
Is based only on the fact that a
certain number of men were draft
ed. But Americas industrial mo-
bllization was to no small extent
retarded as labor was abruptly with
drawn for the Army's needs. Such
situation may not be repeated
this time, allegedly because of the
surplus of labor, but this is not
true Of skilled mechanics Pres