Mrs. DINGMAN. No; I would have increased the world statesmanship to remove grievances and to stand together, that is the thing— stand together. Mr. ARENDS. In other words, you would not have strengthened the Army and Navy? Mrs. DINGMAN. I wouldn't say we might not have, but I wouldn't have done it by military conscription. Mr. ARENDS. It would have been a minimum effort on your part, as far as you are concerned? Mrs. DINGMAN. In the light of the world, you see, in cooperation with the pooling of all of the military strength, that is where my big emphasis lies. Chairman WOODRUM. Thank you very, Mrs. Dingman. Mrs. DINGMAN. Thank you, sir. Chairman WOODRUM. Mrs. Charles D. Rockel. STATEMENT OF MRS. CHARLES D. ROCKEL, ROYERSFORD, PA. Mrs. ROCKEL. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am very appreciative of this opportunity to come before you this morning. I am a minister's wife in a small town of 3,700 population, and am national educational chairman of the Women's Guild of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, formerly president and now vice president of the Philadelphia Synodical Women's Guild, a member of the Commission on Marriage, and the Home of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, chairman of the international relations' committee of the Royersford Woman's Club, and former supervisor of the elementary grades of the public school. I want to talk to you about the attitude of church women on peacetime conscription, since I come in contact with them all over the country, and I find that they are deeply concerned about this regimentation of our youth, in a prism of peacetime conscription. In the last 75 years the nations who have conscription as a national policy have suffered the most humiliating military defeats. We believe that this is due to the fact that any long-range program of conscription destroys the individual initiative and the sense of freedom upon which democracies depend both for normal national existence and safety in a crisis. The military defeats of the nations who have long-range conscription should warn us that conscription instead of being a protection to a nation may in fact become a menace by producing an abnormal sense of security which cannot in reality be established by conscription. The ruin of Europe clearly demonstrates that the safety of a nation does not lie in conscription for it can assure neither victory in war nor protection from its destruction. The passage of a peacetime conscription law, especially at this time, is regarded by hosts of churchwomen as a definite menace to the future security and safety of our country. As churchwomen we are also concerned about the morale of our young people which we feel would be seriously endangered by removing vast numbers of our young men from the influence of their homes and communities at one of the most impressionable periods of their lives, as conscription contemplates doing. There is no doubt of the 73951-45-pt. 1——19 serious moral problems which the loss of family restraint has brought upon the 18-year-old boys drafted into the Army and Navy because of their immaturity and this in turn had a bad effect upon our girls and upon our general community standards. The figures of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service of the United States for the fiscal year of 1941 show an alarming condition concerning venereal diseases among the armed service of the country. According to these figures for the year 1939 in incidence per 1,000 of venereal diseases among civilians was 5.1 while in the Army it was 29.6, and in the Navy 85.87. Here are figures that should give us cause for serious concern, if we plan to expose all our young men from 18 to 21 or 22 years of age to the temptations that will come to them in any program of peacetime conscription. For the sake of argument we grant that our youth need some program of discipline but from these figures of the Surgeon General, it is clear they do not need the kind of moral discipline which conscription would give. The need of America is for moral and spiritual discipline which conscription clearly does not provide, but which, because of the very necessity of the conditions it would impose upon immature young men would even tend to destroy. Prophylactic treatment for the prevention of venereal disease can never be a substitute for the moral and spiritual discipline which selfrestraint and continence reinforced by deep religious conviction nurtured by the home and church can produce. The home, the school, and the church alone can give the discipline needed for the development of strong moral character. Conscription as we see it, and as it has been shown in the countries that have had it destroys the very values upon which a sound morality and religion rest. The church and Christianity have suffered serious eclipse in all the countries that have had long range programs of conscription and there is no doubt it would soon have the same effect upon the church and Christianity in our country. In the light of experience as revealed in the results which have followed conscription in other countries we feel that we have a duty to oppose the passage of such a measure in our own country. Besides, conscription is contrary to the democratic principles that have made our country great. To pass such a law is to import into this country the very system against which we say we are fighting now. Conscription is a method of totalitarianism and the tool of dictators. It has recently been revealed that the first point in Hitler's program was "universal conscription of youth"; the same has been true in Russia. To adopt the systems of conscription is to open our country to the militaristic poison of Europe that has brought such suffering and destruction to Europe and the world. The regimentation of such vast numbers of our youth, the unnatural life of barracks, the early removal of young men from the influence of their homes, all tend to encourage the moral indiscretions that strike at the home and sacredness of the marriage bond. When the future fathers of the Nation, and very few would be exempted from the operation of conscription, indulge in extra marital sex relations which result in a large percentage of venereal disease as the figures of the Surgeon General reveal and from which prophylactic treatment does not save them, we are facing a problem of staggering proportions. The cost of conscription in terms of sacrificing moral values is too great for our country to pay. If the homes of our country are undermined by large scale immorality the whole future of our democracy and western civilization are threatened and conscription makes this much more than a hypothetical possibility. The best place for our 18-year-old boys is in their homes where the spiritual impact of the family, school, the church and home communities will provide a far more healthy atmosphere for their highest moral development of each personality which Christianity has taught us to regard as the most sacred thing in the universe. We church women feel that military training imposed upon young men against their will submerges the individual in the mass and sets them in a common form which is borne out by the blind and supine conduct of both the German and Japanese soldiers as reported in the press. Regimentation on the large scale contemplated by peacetime conscription replaces individual initiative with blind unquestioning obedience but it cripples both the powers of reason and judgment. It produces servility but destroys the spontaneity we have always associated with a free people. One complaint heard again and again by servicemen is that the unthinking obedience which they are expected to render at all times crushes their initiative. The initiative of their previous freedom carries over in the hope that they will soon be free from the cramping limitations of military discipline. But when we train whole generations in their most plastic period in the regimentation of conscription we will soon have servility. When unthinking obedience is demanded for a long time it tends to become permanent and thus destroy the spontaneity of initiative so much needed in democratic communities. Are we planning in the name of democracy to destroy our democracy and the destruction of the fine values of individuality which have been the rich heritage of our Nation if conscription becomes the long range program of our country? As churchwomen we are deeply concerned about the effect the enactment of a peacetime conscription law at this time will have upon the effort now being made to bring the nations together in some world organization through which all the nations can function peacefully in the settlement of international disputes. At this time the world needs a demonstration of mutual faith and confidence and we feel that passing a peace-time conscription law now will release a flow of suspicion and fear throughout the world that may well result in a third world war. If it was unwise to debate the issue of peacetime conscription while the San Francisco Conference was in session, as the newspapers reported the State Department stated, is it not equally unwise to pass a law before the machinery set up at San Francisco can be given a fair trial? Such a law passed at this time would serve notice upon all the people of the world that the most powerful nation in the world has no confidence in what its own statesmen have tried to accomplish at San Francisco and that it will go its own way in the game of power politics. Surely to do so is to invite disaster for our country. History proves that sooner or later nations get what they prepare for. Peacetime conscription would serve notice upon all the world that we are preparing for war, and it would serve this notice upon the nations before they have an opportunity to try the machinery of the United Nations. To do so will certainly loose upon the world a tide of fear and suspicion that will drive a combination of nations against us and we can be sure that allies of today will be found in the camp of the enemy then. To serve notice on the world that we are preparing for war by passing a peacetime conscription law now will certainly help to bring upon us the fate of Germany and Japan. According to the papers the maximum army that we will be asked to supply to the United Nations for world security will be between three hundred and four hundred thousand men. Out of the over 8,000,000 that we have under arms we can surely obtain by voluntary recruitment, more than that number just as we did for the Army of Occupation after the last war. Peacetime conscription then has no place in the program of world security. If we will expend the the same energy, money, and thought upon finding ways to live with our fellowmen as we would spend on peacetime conscription we will be assured of the successful operation of the machinery of the United Nations. So it would seem to the vast majority of churchwomen that to forsake the democratic traditions of our Nation as expressed in the fear which the founding fathers had of military control by passing a peacetime conscription law is to invite not only the destruction of our democracy but the deterioration and ultimate destruction of our Nation. We cannot betray the faith of those who founded and built our Nation and who fled from the very system of conscription which we are now considering to make our national policy without placing a deadly sword at the heart of our Nation. Let us not in haste and under the stress of the passion of war take this fatal step. Let us wait and in cool and considered regard weigh carefully the future welfare of our Nation in the light of the tragedy which the policy of conscription has brought upon the world. Chairman WOODRUM. Thank you, Mrs. Rockel. Mr. Allen, did you want to ask a question? Mr. ALLEN. Yes. You have mentioned something about morals in regard to youth. Mrs. ROCKEL. Yes. Mr. ALLEN. Now, you come from a small town in your State, with a population of 3.700 people? Mrs. ROCKEL. Yes. Mr. ALLEN. Well, you have seen many of these fine young men from 18 to 19 years of age go away from your town? Mrs. ROCKEL. Yes. Mr. ALLEN. You know their mothers, undoubtedly. Mr. ALLEN. Would you be willing to go on record as saying that those young boys who have left your town, every town-would you be willing to go on record as saying that those boys are morally lower than when they went away? Mrs. ROCKEL. Your statistics here prove it. Mr. ALLEN. Would you be willing to go on record as saying that, that the boys from your home town who left, from 18 to 19 years of age-you probably know many of them-would you say that their morals have been lowered as a result of having been in the service? Mrs. ROCKEL. After every war it seems that the morals are lower than before, and I still go back to these statistics, and they are taken from your own Surgeon General's records. Mr. ALLEN. Well, I question that in regard to my little city. Mrs. ROCKEL. Why is it put up against the 5.1 civilian incident, you see it comes from the Surgeon General-it does not come from me, I am not in a position to get those figures together. Mr. ALLEN. Is that in regard to youth of 18 or 19? Mrs. ROCKEL. That was the general result. Mr. ALLEN. All ages? Mrs. ROCKEL. Yes, Mr. ALLEN. Have you the figures on the 18- and 19-year-old boys? Mrs. ROCKEL. We have never segregated them before-we have never done the things we are going to do, and we are taking those children away from the homes and communities and schools where they are getting their daily inspiration, and the Army cannot give them that, it is not interested in that sort of thing, that is not the work of the Army, the moral upbuilding is the work of the church, the home, and the school-they are the moral agencies, not your army. Chairman WOODRUM. Thank you very much, Mrs. Rockel. Mrs. ROCKEL. Thank you, sir. Chairman WOODRUM. In connection with the preceding testimony, I am in receipt of letters from Maj. Gen. Norman T. Kirk, the Surgeon General of the Army, and Vice Admiral Ross T McIntire, the Surgeon General of the Navy, with reference to the occurrence of venereal disease in the Army and Navy, which I would like to insert in the record at this point. (The letters referred to are as follows:) Hon. CLIFTON A. WOODRUM, ARMY SERVICE FORCES, Chairman, House Select Committee on Postwar Military Policy, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. WOODRUM: In accordance with your request to the War Department for information concerning the Army's venereal disease control program with specific reference to the testimony of Mrs. Charles D. Rockel before your committee, the following is submitted. The venereal disease rates in the Army in the zone of the interior during the present war are the lowest in the Army's history, and are the result of an intensive control program based upon education, prophylaxis, case finding and treatment, the assignment of specially trained commissioned and noncommissioned officers, the securing of contact information from infected soldiers, and the improvement of moral and health conditions surrounding military establishments through appropriate civilian agencies. The Army and civilian venereal disease rates for 1939 quoted by Mrs. Rockel are technically correct but are not comparable. The 1939 rate of 5.1 for civilians represents the number of venereal disease morbidity reports submitted to the United States Public Health Service by State health departments applied to the total United States population. Such a rate is not comparable with the United States Army venereal disease rate since it is based upon inadequate reporting and is calculated for the total male and female population including all ages in contrast with the Army rate which is calculated for an adult, male, susceptible population and is derived from reasonably complete case finding. A rough comparison between Army and civilian syphilis rates can be made by comparing the rate per 1,000 per annum for primary and secondary syphilis observed among the first 2,000,000 Selective Service registrants with the Army syphilis rate. On the basis of statistical calculation it appears that the annual rate per 1,000 registrants for primary and secondary syphilis is approximately 6. The annual rate per 1,000 for syphilis in the Army has varied from 6.5 in 1939 to 4.2 in 1944, giving rates which are somewhat lower than those observed among selective service registrants. It is also possible to calculate a rate for |