civilians for early syphilis on the basis of morbidity reports, applying these reports to the male population between the ages of 21 to 35. This method gives a rate of 7.3 per 1,000 per annum or essentially the same incidence as that calculated from selective service data. It is estimated that approximately 5 to 7 times as much gonorrhea occurs in a given year as does primary or secondary syphilis. The civilian gonorrhea rate can therefore be estimated at 5 times 6 or approximately 30 per 1,000 per annum. The United States Army gonorrhea rate since 1939 has averaged about 27 per 1,000 per annum. It is my considered opinion that the Army's intensive venereal-disease control program has not only resulted in an incidence of venereal disease among military personnel at least as low as that in a comparable civilian population but has also exercised a salutary effect upon civilian incidence by its unequivocal support of civilian control efforts. Sincerely yours, Hon. CLIFFORD WOODRUM, NORMAN T. KIRK, WASHINGTON, D. C., June 19, 1945. House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN WOODRUM: During the hearings on universal training Mrs. Charles D. Rockel, of Royersford, Pa., appeared before your committee and gave certain testimony concerning veneral-disease rates in the armed services, comparing them to rates in civil life. I feel it my duty to call to your attention the injustice of such a comparison. Mrs. Rockel stated: "According to these figures for the year 1939 the 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." Mrs. Rockel failed to state, however, that the 5.1 per thousand rate covered the entire population of the United States. It is obvious that a very large number of our population is not in the susceptible age group. Her testimony would seem to support the theory that universal military training would break down the moral stature of our young people and increase venereal disease in those who would perform that service. In 1939 the over-all rate in the Navy is given at 85.87 per thousand. One reason why this was so high was that a great number of Navy personnel was on duty on the Asiatic station and other parts of the Tropics. The Navy venereal disease control program was instituted and in 1940 the rate had been reduced to 38 per thousand. By the end of 1944 the Navy had reduced its overall figures to 26 per thousand. These new figures will disprove Mrs. Rockel's theory for during this period several million men were inducted into the naval service. In contrast to the assertion of Mrs. Rockel that compulsory training "destroys the very values upon which a sound morality and religion rest" it would appear that military training, insofar as venereal disease is concerned, would posses the following assets: (a) Probably an over-all reduction of venereal-disease infection among the most susceptible population group as the result of a coordinated program, including environmental control and the availability of prompt and adequate treatment of cases when they develop. The rate of infection among college students has been traditionally very low. The physical circumstances of compulsory training would approximate both of these instances to some considerable degree. (b) Involved in the control program, it may be expected, would be far more adequate education in sex hygiene and venereal-disease information than is currently available to the average young man. The value of a frank and honest approach of these subjects must of necessity have a beneficial moral effect. (c) The influence of compulsory training would go beyond mere academic education in these particular matters of sex hygiene and would extend as a matter of experience into broader fields of personnel and group cooperation, discipline, and common effort for the common good. In light of the fact that both the Public Health Service and the Army are presenting material dealing specifically with the statistical implication of the testimony, only the particular points which give a misleading impression of the status of our program have been noted. Sincerely, Ross T McINTIRE, Vice Admiral, Medical Corps, Surgeon General, United States Navy. Chairman WOODRUM. The other witness for the Women's Committee to Oppose Conscription is Mrs. Johanna M. Lindǝlf. Mrs. Lindolf, will you come forward, please. STATEMENT OF MRS. JOHANNA M. LINDLOF, MEMBER, WOMEN'S COMMITTEE TO OPPOSE CONSCRIPTION Mrs. LINDLOF. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am very grateful for this opportunity to be able to speak against compulsory military conscription of our youth. Why is it that in a world where new methods and new inventions are almost of momentary occurrence that some of us still wish to go back and use the methods which time and again have proven their uselessness? Our country was settled by people who had fled from the Old World practices both in the curtailment of religious freedom and compulsory military training. Some of our statesmen claim that we must have compulsory military training because only through such training will we be able to convince some future would-be aggressor that we could overcome him and thus deter him from attacking us. How is it that now only a few weeks after the defeat of Germany, we speak of the need of compulsory military training? Did not Germany have the mightiest military machine on earth? Yet, she lies beaten at our feet. Did not France after World War I bend every effort to make herself the strongest military power in Europe? How much did this military preparedness help France? I am sure that the downfall of France so early in the history of World War II should give us pause to think before we embark on compulsory military training for our youth. England who never instituted military training for her young men in peacetime was able to hold off the invader and the United States who started it only a short time before the beginning of the war, trained an army of unsurpassed skill in record short time. It has been reliably stated in this present war that the citizen soldier has proven himself a much more resourceful soldier than those who had received long training. For the sake of argument, let's assume that compulsory military training will be needed. Why, then, this haste to enact such a law? The Selective Service Act can meet all the manpower needs of our armed forces. We are engaged in a serious attempt to form a world organization of nations to prevent war, or, to put it more consecutively, to plan an organization of nations dedicated to the maintenance of peace, and the settlement of all disputes between nations by peaceful methods. Surely, if we are sincere in this purpose, we would not have our country reverse its age-long policy on this question which would only be an indication to the rest of the world that we have no faith in the structure we propose to build. Let us give this new method of world cooperation for peace a chance to show its worth. Now, if ever, is not the time to enact compulsory military training. Let us take time to discuss it fully. Let our returning soldiers and our growing youth and all our citizens examine it thoroughly and after due deliberation make their decision. Why not urge all nations to make the reduction and finally abandonment of all compulsory military training a part of the peace treaty we make. It is our view that compulsory military training should be a required part of the education of all American men. The values claimed for it are health and physical fitness, loyal discipline and patriotic citizenship, and vocational training. In answer to that, or to those claims of health and physical fitness, let me quote from the educational policies commission report on compulsory military training: It is often argued that universal peacetime military training would be a good way to increase substantially the physical fitness of a nation, wholesome food, vigorous exercise and outdoor activity usually accompany military life. These are undoubtedly of value in the physical conditioning of men. However, men in the Army and Navy are those selected because they can meet physical standards and are hospitalized and discharged from the armed services for a wide variety of physical and mental diseases and injuries, other than those sustained in combat or resulting directly from military operations. A year of Army life is not a guarantee of lasting health and fitness, and no evidence has been produced to show that discharged soldiers live longer or have less illness than men without military training. More important, a year of military training cannot overcome years of inadequate health education, bad health practices, and poor environment. We must start long before the eighteenth or twenty-first birthday and we must have methods different from the Army's requirements if we really want to build a healthy nation. These statistics, however, are not totally irrelevant as an argument for universal military training at 18 or older. National wellbeing, as well as military preparedness would undoubtedly be advanced by better food and nutrition for all children, beginning in infancy by better health and education programs in our schools, with periodic medical and dental examinations by public and private health services, and care from birth onward by expanded recreation and physical facilities for adults. No amount of compulsory military training can make good to the individual or to the Nation the losses suffered by lack of these health services during infancy, childhood, or early adolescence, by suitable Federal legislation, a national-health program could easily be the most important single manpower factor in a comprehensive plan for the national preparedness. By such action this country could achieve a mental and physical fitness effective in the pursuits of peace as well as for the possible requirements of war. Finally, any effort to make a case for compulsory military service on health grounds is forced to face the fact that it ignores considerably more than half the population since it would provide no health service or education for women, or for men rejected because their physical capacities are lower or seriously deficient or for men discharged because their health was impaired during their military service. The Army requires instant obedience to higher authority. Education seeks to make creative, independent, socially conscious citizens whose discipline comes from their convictions. Such citizens will do their own thinking and can be relied upon to act intelligently and subject themselves to the necessary military discipline, should the need arise. Should vocational training schools be given a fraction of the money which a year of military service would require they could do a far better job of vocational guidance and training for civilian pursuits. What we must have is a program of education carried out to meet the needs of our country. Our legislators, both national and local, must be made aware that it is their duty to provide decent and adequate housing facilities for every man, woman and child in our land. This is to be done by Federal, State, or city subsidies and/or by private enterprise with limited dividends. Health education and medical care, from infancy on, Federal aid for education without Federal control for all public schools, education is the basis of our democracy. Without it, we can do nothing. My point is this-had we had the proper education, even if only from the time of the last war, we would not need to have had a war today, we must not attempt to blame the lack of compulsory military training on the fact that we are now at war. Perhaps if our people had been trained to not put greed for wealth as a primary consideration, our citizens would not have sold scrap iron to Japan which permitted her to arm herself so successfully. We must provide well-paid teachers inspired with ideals of service and of building of character that will withstand any and all attempts at indirection or influences harmful to our Nation. Only by developing a youth and universal belief in the ideals of our country can we get a citizenry equipped to defend it. May I state in closing that it seems to me that when we consider the cost which is stated to be in billions, each year, a billion or a billion and a half each year for 1 year of military training for our youth, then we should pause and consider the constructive uses which could be made with that money, the money that is withheld today from the needs which are so apparent all about us. Gentlemen, I urge that you take time to think this over, that you allow our citizens to have time to consider, and to make their wishes known to you by giving you time-I should say, by you giving us time allowing our soldiers to return and to discuss this matter with us carefully. And, in the end, I hope to put this on the shelf and never let it come out again. Chairman WOODRUM. Thank you very much, Mrs. Lindlof. Mrs. LINDLOF. Thank you, sir. Chairman WOODRUM. Mrs. Annie B. Whitner, of Roanoke, Va. Will you come around, please, Mrs. Whitner? Mrs. Whitner comes from my home district and we are very glad to have you with us today. Won't you have a seat? STATEMENT OF MRS. ANNIE B. WHITNER, ROANOKE, VA. Mrs. WHITNER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I appreciate the privilege of coming before this body of earnest, conscientious men whom I know have the interest of our country at heart. By way of preface to my remarks, I want to remind you of a quotation from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, with which I am sure all of you are familiar. He said: There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. Gentlemen, the deepest conviction of my soul is that this period now is the floodtide of America's destiny, and it does behoove us to look long and well and carefully before we take this step into an unknown venture. It does so happen, gentlemen, that your chairman and I come from the same congressional district, down in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and in that district there are thousands of people in all walks of life, principally church people and clubwomen who are bitterly opposed to peacetime conscription. All these people are deeply patriotic; and because of their deep love for their country, they don't want to see it adopt militarism as a national policy, and that's what this compulsory youth training would bring us to. I am here to warn you of the dangers of this conscription plan, and if recommendations from this committee should induce the Members of Congress to pass this peacetime conscription bill, then we may bid farewell to our free democratic form of government. The principal argument I shall bring you today is a concrete example. I lived more than a year in Berlin, and for that reason feel that I can speak with some authority. I saw there the iniquitous working of this militaristic thought. I found it rampant in every phase of the life of the German people. The caste system that it created is unbelievable. It stands next to the caste system of India. The average citizen bows down to uniforms and brass buttons, and fairly licks the boots of the military officers. God forbid that this military caste should ever get a hold on our free democratic country. I regret to say that there is a touch of it here already. I could entertain you an hour with examples, but why should I dwell on it? We all know that it is the militaristic complex of the German people that brought on this horrible war that has already taken its toll of 40,000,000 men, and the war is presumably only half over. And yet there are short-sighted people who would have us follow the technique of Hitler and his followers by piling Ossa upon Pelion in the way of strong military force-militarism over all that was Hitler's technique. I stop to grieve over the fate of the nation that once was the world's center of music, poetry, and art. This idea of building up stronger and stronger war machinery-other nations will follow suit-and where will it end? If this bill should become a law of our land, you will see the democratic processes, to which we owe our greatness, start on a decline, and someone in the future will write the "Rise and Fall" of the United States of America. Dick Byrd says, "If we don't stop this war business, another period of the Dark Ages will set in ;" and there is such a thing as the suicide of a nation. That happened to Greece after the Peloponnesian Wars. Please remember that there has always been an antimilitarist tradition in our glorious America. It started with the founders of our Republic with such men as George Washington, Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster, and Thomas Jefferson, who said-I quot Jefferson: I am not for a standing army in time of peace which may overawe public sentiment; nor for a navy which, by its own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public burdens and sink us under them. If we are worthy of those forefathers of ours, we will not take this backward step in the onward march of our country. It has been my |