Askov American., 1943-11-25
A Test OF Peace


scription of the youth of the
world for military training as a
simple test for the excellence of
any peace which might end the
present conflict has been advo-
Gated and approved by the Post
War World Council.
Security can not be guaranteed
by vast armamentS and conScrip-
ton of armies, the Council as
serted. Armed might would only
lead to distrust and, eventually,
World War III. A peace aim now
of abolition of conscription will
go far in bringing about condi-
tionS necessary to a free and
happy group of nations in the
postwar world.
The Postwar World Council
article follows:
There is simple test for the eX-
cellence of any peace which may end
the Second World War
It is that it will permit, or rather
require, the end of military con-
scription of youth in every land and
with it end heavy aggressive arma-
ment.
Of course that will be impossible
as a single plank program of peace.
Logically, conscription might be end
ed without ending great armaments
and large professional armies. Prac-
tically and psychologically, militac-
ism, war and the growth of totali-
tarianism are so tied up with con-
scription that to abolish it will de-
stroy the foundations of the new
fascism and the new aggression.
Conversely if Congress should soon
adopt a postwar policy of military
conscription by passing the Gurney-
Wadsworth bill now before it, or
if the United States should make
deal with Great Britain and U. S.
S. R. which openly or tacitly should
seek to guarantee security by the
vast ornaments and conscript armies
of an uneasy postwar alliance, then
the peace will be lost, or at best
placed in enormous jeopardy, before
the war is won.
The danger is greater because so
far the public is oblivious to it, or
actually misled by specious argu-
ments into supporting or condoning
postwar military conscription.
The case against it is overwhelm-
ingly strong. These statements about
it must appear, after little thought,
to be self evident:
l. No nation will support conscrip-
ton and its attendant armament with
out the pressure of great fear of a
specific potential enemy. Those who
want conscription and armaments
will see to it that there is such an
enemy.
2. Every nation will believe that
its own militarism and conscription
are for 'defense"; no other nation
will believe it of its neighbors. Out
of such suspicious and the rival
ornaments that they support, new
wars will arise as they always have
in the past.
g. Every European nation involved
in the present conflict had high
degree of pre-war conscription ex-
cept Great Britain, Norway and Den
mark. Conscription saved none of
them. 1t never can make a little
nation equal a big one. In future
decades, it cannot even make Amer
lea equal Russia or China. Switzer-
land is no exception. Its militia in
a country, incapable of an aggressive
role, is in no way parrellel to a vast
army of conscript youth in great
nation, and not so much its citizens
militia, as the strategic situation of
Switzerland has saved it in two
world wars.
4. Special classes and interests
have much to gain from enormous
conscript armies and immense arma-
ments; the officer class, the arma-
ment makers, and other manufacture
ers and sellers of supplies to vast
armies. Their advocasy of it will be
anything but disinterested.
S. Conscription and militarism
are in an economic sense waste -
the worst form of boondoggling and
leaf raking. But if the masses will
accept them, conservatives and fas-
cists will use them to evade a funda-
mental attack of joblessness and pow
erty in order to keep their own
power and property. That's how Eu-
ropean fascism was born.
6. So long as men are preoccupied
by militarism, and are willing to
make the surrender of liberty to the