Chairman WOODRUM. Yes. Dr. MORRISON. And, therefore, anything I shall say or even had intended to say is in the nature of a consideration of the general principle of peacetime consideration. I oppose it because, in the first place, I am not in sympathy with the claim made for it on the ground of it providing special physical training for the youth who would come within the orbit of such a measure. Physical training in my judgement, is something that our colleges and high schools are amply providing on the sandlots and in the schoolyards and in the gymnasiums of these educational institutions, and I can see no advantage at all in such a measure as may be proposed on behalf of peacetime conscription as contributing to the physical training of the youth. I think that claim is very much exaggerated. In the second place I do not regard the adoption of such a policy as falling within the scope of what in America we concede as education. It is in a fashion an education, has an educational function within a specific framework of the miltary scene, under the auspices of military control. But, to call that education in any large and adequate sense seems to be quite aside, to me, and a departure from the conception of education which has traditionally obtained in the United States. To take out of your educational system 1,000,000 man-years every year and commit these men to the type of education, so-called, which this plan would involve seems to me to be rather a disadvantage to their educational experience and process than a positive contribution to it. In the third place, I would object to the claim that such peacetime conscription is of significant military advantage to the American people and to our American Nation. It is not, in my judgment, militarily effective, particularly in view of the fact that weapons are changing, strategies are changing, and the operation of warfare is due to change as it has always changed, and at a time when these conscripts will be available for military service will be at a time when their education, so-called, in military tactics and the use of weapons, and so forth, will have become obsolete in all probability. Then, in the fourth place, the effect of such peacetime conscription will, in my judgment, be largely psychological and harmfully so to the national spirit. It will have the psychological effect, but the psychological effect is not good. It is not compatible with the American tradition to regiment the mind of the Nation in a military framework, and in the long run that is precisely what the taking out of a million men a year or so will mean. It will mean a militaristic psychology in our American life. Now, Mr. Chairman, I would add that the churches of the United States, Protestant churches, and I think largely Roman Catholic churches so far as they have spoken, are uniformly opposed to the adoption of military conscription in peacetime. I am in a position as editor of a journal which has as its constituency practically the entire church public of the United States, and I do not mean that the entire church public constitutes the reading constituency of the Christian Century, but I am in position where the leadership and sentiment of these churches is constantly being registered in the office where I sit, and in the pages of the paper of which I am the editor. I am able to say with every assurance that the preponderant, almost unexceptionable, sentiment of the churches of this country is very distinctly, definitely, and strongly opposed to the adoption of the peacetime conscription policy. In the next place, I am perfectly well satisfied, as I study public opinion in the United States in general, that the American people are not wanting such a radical departure from our tradition as would be involved in the adoption of peacetime conscription. Labor does not want it, the farmers do not want it, the cultural and educational institutions do not want it. I have no statistics with which to document this statement, but I believe you gentlemen, members of this committee, and Congress generally is pretty well informed on that fact, that the rank and file. public opinion of the United States would regard such a measure as a violent departure from the traditional policy of the United States. Now, in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would say that this is not the time, if there is a time, and I am ready to contemplate the possibility that the time might come when some form of conscription might be desirable, might be almost inevitable, but now is not that time to enact so radical measure as that which is now contemplated. In my judgment, there is ample time after the war is over for us to discover just what is the shape of the world in which the United States will continue to live. As the end of the war approaches we are unable to envisage an enemy against whom such a measure as this is likely to be directed. Who is our enemy? Certainly we cannot say that Germany is our enemy. Germany is crushed, and crushed for many, many years to come. I think there can be no question about that. Japan is likewise to be crushed when the end of our war comes, beyond any recovery on a military basis for many years to come. Who, then, is our enemy? The enemy that is assumed in the discussion of those who are advocating a conscription law is very vague, I submit, Mr. Chairman. I cannot locate him. I cannot see just where the enemy is against whom our suspicions should be now directed with such force as would necessitate so great a change in our public life as the adoption of peacetime military conscription would imply. Mr. Chairman, I feel that those who are advocating this measure. are in the main those that advocated the intervention of the United States into this war. I am not a pacifist, Mr. Chairman. I take no doctrinary position against war as such. If I had been in the draft age at the beginning of this war or now I would accept conscription and I would bear my part in the waging of the actual war. But I feel so strongly on grounds of patriotism, on grounds of traditional cultural life of the United States, that we ought not to adopt any such measure as this at this time, and I can see very great difficulty in the execution of such a measure as this. I would feel very much more in sympathy with the advocates of this measure if I did not hear again from their lips the same arguments that they made to get the United States into this war. I was opposed to our entrance into this war, not on a pacifist ground but on a ground of calculated expectancy. I believed that the outcome of the war would not be satisfactory. I believed that it would be profoundly disappointing. I believed for the United States to go in the war at the outset, to be led into it step by step, was a procedure which was an instance of extreme irrationality inasmuch as Europe was a maelstrom of incalculable forces and we were in no position to calculate that a military victory was going to accomplish the things that our war aims said would be accomplished by the defeat of Hitler. We now have just that kind of situation on the doorsteps of the world, a situation in which our military victory has left the world in a mess that is as bad as it is possible for us to conceive, and it is loading the United States with responsibilities, responsibilities which will extend in the distant future. Therefore, when the arguments are now made, the same kind of argument that was made for America's entrance into this war, which has proved to be such a disappointment, I feel like challenging those arguments in the light of the kind of results which those arguments produced in the war that was actually fought on account of them. That is about all, Mr. Chairman, I have to say. I thank you for listening to my extemporized talk, which I know is not satisfactory to you. Chairman WOODRUM. I would like to ask you one question. Do you think America acted wisely or unwisely in declaring war? Dr. MORRISON. I think it was a situation which had been produced by a long process by which the foreign policy of the United States had committed this country in such a degree to the war in Europe, and had taken the strong stand with respect to Japan which made the entrance of the United States in the war against Japan inevitable. Chairman WOODRUM. Thank you. The committee will adjourn until 10 o'clock Monday morning. (Whereupon, at 12:10 p. m., the committee adjourned to Monday, June 11, 1945, at 10 a. m.) UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING MONDAY, JUNE 11, 1945 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT COMMITTEE ON POSTWAR MILITARY POLICY, Washington, D. C. The select committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., in the caucus room, Old House Office Building, Hon. Clifton A. Woodrum (chairman) presiding. Chairman WOODRUM. The committee will be in order. The Women's Committee to Oppose Conscription is scheduled for hearing, and we will now hear from Mrs. Mary Dingman. Mrs. Dingman, will you come around, please? We are very glad to have you here with us this morning, Mrs. Dingman. STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY DINGMAN, MEMBER, WOMEN'S COMMITTEE TO OPPOSE CONSCRIPTION Mrs. DINGMAN. Mr. Chairman, I want to make it clear that I am coming here individually, and not under the auspices of the Women's Committee to Oppose Conscription. My name is also associated with the Young Women's Christian Association, and coupled with other activities, but I am not representing either one of those groups today. I came home from Geneva in 1939, and have been home ever since, but before that time I had long international experience of something like 22 years. I want to make it very clear that I do believe in force under law, that is, to uphold the law. I am attacking the absolute Fascist position in this war because I have recognized the need of force in this important world in which we live, but I very strongly oppose the hasty passage of a peacetime military training bill at this time. I am going to try to confine my argument as I view the problem from the international experience which I have had, as I said, in 22 years, in 46 countries, 9 of them spent in Geneva, Switzerland, observing the League of Nations, as well as from studies I have made of other countries illuminate an impression I have that concerns military conscription-and that is that most of the victorious nations did not have it, our five major wars that we have engaged in, including World War I and World War II. These facts, it seems to me, deserve profound study. There must be deep-seated reasons for the victory of free nonmilitarized nations. 275 |