STATEMENT OF HON. EMANUEL CELLER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. CELLER. Mr. Chairman, a Congressman faces considerable difficulty in arguing against a peacetime draft when testimony favorable to such a draft has been given by such celebrities as Generals Eisenhower and Marshall, Admirals King, Halsey, and Nimitz, and Secretaries Stimson and Forrestal.

I feel like the offstage trumpeter in a certain orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra. Leopold Stokowski, the director, gave the cue, as was exemplified in the score, for the offstage trumpeter to play. He gave the cue once and heard no music. He gave it a second time and the off-stage trumpeter was still silent.

After the last note was struck, he went out and found the offstage trumpeter in the arms of a burly watchman who was saying, "Don't you know you can't blow that dam thing out here? There's a concert going on inside."

I thus feel I might be invading a concert of rare wit and intelligence as shown by the generals and admirals who testified.

Nevertheless a cat may look at a king, and I am not overawed by the greatness of the array of witnesses.

I hate, in view of my deference to his military genius, to speak out in difference to General Eisenhower on compulsory peacetime training. But knowing his penchant for simple and direct speech, his tolerance and forbearance, I think he would want all Congressmen to express their views, even though in opposition.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that this is a peacetime proposal. These great men who have testified are now concerned with war; they are experts on war.

It is a time-honored tradition of this country that the military authorities keep their hands off lawmaking which controls peacetime living.

A great American, President Wilson, emphasized this truth in the following words:

A very fundamental principle of our institution is that the military power is subordinate to the civil.

The armed forces of the country must be instruments of civilian authority which determines the Nation's policies, and this was the idea of the framers of the Constitution.

The Congress, and not the War or Navy Department, controls the country's destiny, especially in peacetime.

We are told that peacetime military conscription will be an enrichment in education.

A year's military training is not education in the accepted sense of the term. It is sheer, unabashed indoctrination for military purposes. No broad cultural base in education is provided, as I understand it; only knowledge that will have a direct bearing on the brutal business of fighting is to be included in the curriculum.

I cannot be confused on that point, because the War Department, in a recently distributed circular, states:

There will be no place in a sound universal military training program for activities that are nonessential to the task of preparing our young men for combat.

Secretary of Navy Forrestal says:

The basic purpose is training for military service.

Military training is uniquely remote from aducation in its cultural and humanistic implications.

As proposed by the War Department, it is not even vocational education or training. The type of mechanical proficiency required to repair a howitzer does not necessarily qualify a man to repair an automobile. Assembling and dissembling a Garand rifle will not enhance one's knowledge of the intricacies of a radio set. Knowledge as to the operation of a 150-millimeter gun, its artillery range, its fire control, its damage potentiality, is useless except in defensive or offensive action in a war.

It is further stated that when this year of military training has been completed, the training is ended.

Maj. George Fielding Eliot, a recognized military authority, told the House Military Affairs Committee recently that 2 years of service would be absolutely the minimum in order to train the modern soldier. No one of equal of higher authority has arisen to contradict him; at least, not to my knowledge.

I believe Major General Drum urged before your committee that it would be necessary to hold a lad intermittently for 5 years.

Major General Eliot's statement is understandable. Judging by the rapidity with which destructive mechanical devices are being planned and perfected, a brief and limited period of training, for 1 year, as proposed, could not be effective. It would be manda

tory to retrain men to use the new weapons.

As the educators of our country know well, more than a year's interruption in the normal progress of study, assuming that period will be required, must result in a marked decrease in attendance at higher institutions of learning. Take a lad away from his school for 1 year at the age suggested, and then mark his reluctance to return.

We are warned that the safety of the United States should never again be imperiled by defenses extemporized in the shadow of imminent danger. I presume the "imminent danger" is that which culminates in the so-called sneak or sudden attack.

Of all the misnomers in military history, the "sudden attack” stands supreme.

The technique of modern war requires years of preparation. The conversion of peacetime manufacture and the diversion of raw materials for war purposes all take time.

Our American resources were so great, the conversion was comparatively rapid, and we had a foothold as a result of the lend-lease program.

But both Germany and Japan gave the powers that be ample notice of their intent. Hitler did not sneak up on France or the other countries. The whole world knew about his attempts to establish ersatz rubber for military purposes, and it was no secret that Messerschmitts and Dorniers were rolling off the assembly line.

We heard about the conversion of automobile factories to the manufacture of tanks and the change-over from fertilizers to explosives. Intelligent appraisals of the exports and imports of a suspect nation and of its manufactured products will reveal any inimical plans. A

war can be stopped in the making-before the deaths on the battlefields-if we have the international peace structure dedicated to that purpose, alert, and aware that in this area war does not come overnight.

War is one coming event that casts its shadow before. This one lesson we have dearly bought.

Judging from the important men that have been suddenly bunched together to testify before this Select Committee on Postwar Military Policy, one would conclude that the Nation is to be stampeded into adopting this legislation. There seems to be a crusade engineered by the military to spread the idea that Congress cannot be trusted to act wisely after the stress and strains of war.

The War, Navy, and State Departments have brought up their most powerful panzer divisions, as it were.

One of two conclusions forces itself upon us: First, that the case for peacetime draft is so weak that glittering personalities had to be brought in to bolster it. Or, the opposition that came from the churches, labor, schools and colleges, and so forth, was so powerful that appeals from colorful persons were necessary.

General Marshall said:

The problem of the maintenance of the future peace of the world directly involves the problem of the postwar military policy of the United States.

That is an absolutely truthful statement. No one could take the slightest objection to it.

What is the postwar military policy of the United States? Do any of you gentlemen know? Does any Member of Congress know as yet? Assuredly we should have no peacetime draft until we know what that policy is.

Acting Secretary of State Grew, testifying before this committee. gave us no inkling as to what that policy is. The State Department is strangely silent on that subject. We don't even know the terms of the armistice, nor has the peace treaty been written as yet. Our postwar policy as to Japan is far from definite.

Seek out the writings of Acting Secretary Grew and compare them with some of the statements of admirals of our fleet, and see how inconsistent they are-for example as to what we shall do with the Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

The charter at San Francisco is still in the discussion stage. The charter will certainly affect our military plans. As to postwar military policy, which certainly should be blueprinted before we break our traditional aversion to peacetime draft, we do not even know the military policy to be followed in occupied Germany.

General Eisenhower, Marshals Montgomery and Zhukov, and the French general having jurisdiction, have yet to integrate their plans and procedures for the separate zones of occupation.

How long shall the United States, France, and England, through the Allied Control Council, occupy Germany? Shall Germany again become a sovereign nation? If so, when?

Scores of questions on postwar military policy crowd for answer. Until we know the answers, let us not advocate the immediate passage of the peace draft.

The distinguished gentleman from North Carolina, Congressman Bulwinkle, asked General Marshall for his idea of the size of the

Regular Army after the war, and the General replied, "We can't determine that until we know the character of the peace."

Certainly if we cannot know the size of the Regular Army before we know the character of the peace, then, by the process of the same reasoning, how can we advocate a military draft in peacetime if we don't know the character of the peace?

General Marshall stated that a large standing army would be repugnant to the American people. Well, the plans for peacetime draft encompass forces larger than any Regular Army and, to my mind, will be just as repugnant to the American people.

It seems to me that we are trying to settle a momentous question with too many undecided and unknown factors, not to speak of the undetermined ones floating about.

General Marshall himself in his testimony stated:

Until the settlement of the terms of the peace, it will be impossible to determine the strength of the postwar military forces to be maintained on an active status. We shall not know until then just what our military obligations or requirements are to be.

Adopting a peacetime conscription now would be like sailing on a sea without a shore. We know not whither we are going.

To show how far afield the testimony before this distinguished group went, I would like to quote Admiral Halsey who wrote to your committee as follows:

I have one more point to offer, namely, the need for wise, trained men to administer the national policy. We need men who understand the causes of war and conflict, who understand the fundamentals of our aims and ideals, who understand the interrelation of international policies, internal policies, trade and finance, and the true significance of military power. The British Empire has such men, and our amateurs are rarely a match for them. Other countries are producing them-but few American names in that category come to my mind.

I can't conceive how peacetime military conscription would produce such men or how peacetime conscription could supply that rare wisdom and understanding that Admiral Halsey says is lacking in so many of our Americans.

The British Empire is praised by him for its possession of men of perspicacity and rare acumen, but the British have no military draft in peace time, and several of their dominions have not got it in wartime.

General Eisenhower, urging the peacetime draft, stated in a letter to the committee that, in spite of all technological devices, numbers were vitally important in war. And he adds:

Physical training will always have to be repeated after the war starts, but takes the least time.

The general, though a brilliant hero, thus eliminates one of the most potent arguments in favor of peacetime training. The boys would have to be retrained, training would have to be repeated. We would have to do exactly what we are doing now.

The general then adds:

Psychological indoctrination and moral training required the longest time, but fortunately it is never completely forgotten.

These terms are vague enough to mean anything. "Psychological indoctrination" may mean instantaneous response to military dicta

tion, a shelving of independent judgment in the obeying of orders. Is that desirable for peacetime, living in a democracy?

"Fortunately," he says, "it is never completely forgotten." Are we interested in developing slavish responses in our young?

"Psychological indoctrination" may mean patriotism as well. Is that not a function of our schools and our homes, and has our patriotism ever faltered without peacetime conscription?

Moreover, psychological indoctrination, to be effective, must be directed against a specific enemy, against a specific aggressor. Against whom are we arming, psychologically or otherwise? Certainly we need no peacetime draft to underscore our hatred of aggression or our proven love of liberty.

General Eisenhower, brilliant hero of the hour, necessarily speaks from the military point of view. We are talking about peacetime conscription. When it comes to peace, we are better guided by men of peace than by men of war.

The nature of our national policy in times of peace should be determined by Congress and the President, as representatives of the people.

Secretary of War Stimson testified likewise in favor of the peace draft. He said:

To advocate any Dumbarton plan and then shear ourselves of the power to carry out would be even worse than our refusal to join the attempt at world organization in 1919.

It must also follow that in order to keep our commitments in the new league, we must keep our factories and farms forever groomed for war.

Having the trained men, but with material and guns and transportation facilities lacking, is like trying to play the fiddle with three strings broken and only one intact. What would it avail us if we had troops ready for action but no tanks, jet-propelled planes, robot bombs, no jeeps, no attack transports, no PC's, no electronics, ersatz rubber, or radar?

These implements of war must be built, and that construction takes time. While they are being built, men can be trained as now.

Otherwise, to have the trained men and these armaments simultaneously, we would have to have a continual armed camp. We would be forever geared for war, with staggering taxes and a military regimentation that would bode ill for our democracy.

Keep this always in mind. A so-called citizen, peacetime conscripted army alone will not keep us prepared.

Does it not take less time to raise and train an army than it does to convert factories, process raw materials, shift manpower, and expand production?

Have we any idea of how many men are needed for our contribution to the policing force of the new League? How many are needed by the other of the United Nations? Nobody knows that yet. It is like buying a pig in a poke.

It follows from what many of the distinguished said that every member of the new League, in order to contribute to the maintenance of the peace, would have to stay armed to the teeth and every country turned into a huge military camp.