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And I deduct that opinion may be also gathered from the statements of the distinguished gentleman from Illinois who just testified, Mr. Everett Dirksen.

The Secretary of War says:

No matter how dearly we may desire to preserve our way of life by peaceful persuasion alone, no matter how earnestly we may deplore the resort by other nations to aggressive force to gain their ends, these attitudes of peaceful persuasion can never be a substitute for the physical means of our own selfpreservation, certainly not in such a world as that we now live in.

Well, either we believe or we don't believe in a charter of the comity of nations. We must have faith or skepticism. To say that "attitudes of peaceful persuasion can never be a substitute for the physical means of our own self-preservation" is approaching the problem of international peace on the wrong foot.

It is like a groom who views with suspicion his bride before the nuptials. Such a union is headed for the rocks. So is such a charter as Henry Stimson or Dirksen contemplates.

Throughout all the Secretary's testimony there is an echo of the old defeatist attitude of "War is inevitable." Contrary to Mr. Stimson's interpretation, I feel that if we do adopt peacetime conscription we are starting off in the direction of distrust and suspicion, and we can never establish a successful comity of nations on that basis.

The generals and admirals and Cabinet officers may voice their views, but the lips of 12,000,000 soldiers and sailors are sealed. Revised Army Regulations provide that—

* *

Except as authorized by the War Department, efforts by any person in the active service of the United States * * to procure or oppose or in any manner influence legislation affecting the Army are forbidden. There has been a recent amendment. The amendment is that a committee of Congress may call or summon any member of the armed forces, officer or noncom, before it, and then his lips are unsealed.

It is rather anomalous that high-ranking officers are free to express themselves willy-nilly, but the citizen soldiery is deprived of its rights to express itself on a peacetime measure which affects not only the lives of our soldiers after demobilization, but the lives of their sons. Let the boys who participated in the invasion of Normany, the Forest of Ardennes, who fought in Okinawa and Iwo Jima, on the beaches of Anzio and on Luzon, have their say. They have a vital stake in this legislation.

Let it not be said that we in Congress put something over on them when they were away from home fighting for their country. Let us wait at least until Johnny comes marching home with his buddies. Yesterday General Eisenhower spoke eloquently of the American soldier. He said:

"The American soldier never faltered."

Let that soldier have a say in this matter.

Why the rush? We have 12,000,000 men in arms. With discharge on points of noncoms in the Army, we will still have millions trained for combat for a long time, even after VJ-day. Add to these seasoned soldiers the annual quota of 18-year-old lads.

Furthermore, under section 3, subdivision (c), of the Selective Service and Training Act, all inductees continue in the Army and

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Navy Reserves for 10 years after induction and are subject to additional training and service. We shall thus have plenty of soldiers ready for action for years to come.

Certainly there is no immediate need for a decision.

We dare not allow ourselves to be stampeded by glittering speeches by colorful characters. Screened by the dry light of reason, the glitter may fade and the hues may seem, in time, far less roseate. Against what enemy are we arming our peacetime Army

Germany is kaput. Japan faces a setting sun. With what imaginary windmill do we tilt?

It has been stated that there are those even in high places who seem to look upon Russia, if not as an actual enemy, as a potential one. I believe some of the discussions concerning Russia have been most unfortunate.

We are not perfect on our side. We cannot therefore demand perfection in Russia. I remember distinctly Wilson sending an expeditionary force into Mexico, and the seizure of Vera Cruz. I recall Teddy Roosevelt's "big stick" policy and his seizure of Panama. That is not any different than some of the things Russia has been doing. Russia has given us plenty of ground for suspicion. We have and Britain has and other United Nations have likewise given her plenty of ground for suspicion. Consider the many years during which we refused her diplomatic recognition and treated her as a parish. Consider the "cordon sanitaire" England and others sought to erect about Russia.

I hold no brief for Russia. I want no truck with communism. Russia feels that its kind of ideology is what can serve the best interests of the Russians. But thank God for our democracy.

And I inveigh with all the verve that is in me against communism.

But it is well for the present bitter Russian baiters to remember what Archibald MacLeish, Assistant Secretary of State, said on May 25, 1945, speaking from San Francisco on the radio, as follows:

Certain commentators have even spoken openly of an inevitable conflict of interest between the Russians and ourselves and have debated the question whether Russia, our present ally, is our enemy or friend-a curious debate, one would think, with our soldiers living side by side in conquered Germany, and our common dead but freshly buried.

He points out further:

The vital interests of the United States and the Soviet Union conflict at no point on the earth's surface. There is no necessary reason, in other words, in the logic of geography or the logic of economics, or in the logic of national objectives, why the United States and the Soviet Union should ever find themselves in conflict with each other, let alone in the kind of conflict reckless and irresponsible men have begun now to suggest.

Acting Secretary of State Grew reemphasized these views of amity and accord, saying that there was no part of the world where the United States and Russia were in basic conflict.

Furthermore, it is well to point out that Russia pins down on the Manchurian border over 500,000 Jap troops. She has disavowed her antiagression pact with Japan.

I am quite certain she made an agreement at Yalta with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill that she would go into the war against Japan. But when? That we do not know.

Certainly all this irresponsible talk we hear will make Stalin prolong the time before he goes into the war.

It is hoped Russia will come into the war soon and thereby save countless thousands of priceless American lives. My dear ones are in the Pacific and I want them to be saved and brought back. We should make many sacrifices to get Russia into this war.

Chairman WOODRUM. Thank you very much, Mr. Celler.

At this point I would like to insert in the record a statement by Hon. Jerry Voorhis, Representative from the State of California: STATEMENT OF HON. JERRY VOORHIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

I am not opposed to military training for young men in peacetime. But I do believe there are right and wrong ways to provide it, and I believe that along with the adoption of any such program by the United States must go a continuous effort on the part of our country to bring about world-wide reduction of military expenditures in all

nations of the earth.

I am opposed to the adoption of a program of general compulsory peacetime military conscription of all America's young men and the consequent drafting of them into the Army for a year's time or longer.

Especially, I can find no logical reason why Congress should be called upon to act on this question in the midst of the present war, unless it is a belief on the part of the proponents of the legislation that it could not be passed at any other time. If this is true, it means that in a calmer moment, neither the majority of the American people, nor a majority of their representatives would support peacetime conscription. And if in turn that is true, then certainly we ought not to violate the basic principle of democracy by passing such a measure under these circumstances.

I cannot refrain from pointing out in this connection that as long as the war lasts high-ranking officials of the Army and Navy, both civilian and military, are free to speak their minds in support of the legislation. Whereas every enlisted man is forbidden by the War and Navy Departments to express his opinion to a Member of Congress on any legislation which affects military matters. Let us at least wait until this distinction between the general and the private has been removed. I cannot refrain from quoting what one soldier wrote to me, warning me repeatedly in his letter not to reveal his

name.

I have talked with quite a few GI's on the question of military training after the war, and among those having opinions there seems to be a feeling of hostility toward the proposal. At the very least, it is felt that we who are fighting this war should have some voice in deciding the issue, and that congressional action now would be tremendously unfair to those who are most directly concerned. We all concur in the belief that compulsory training would not only violate basic American traditions but would not even achieve the military purposes for which presumably it would be instituted. We have the feeling that the usual kind of garrison training is of extremely dubious value. I sometimes feel that a successful military program will require a tremendous rise in the level of competence of those holding commissions. This is simply a general observation.

In the second place, whatever arguments may be advanced in favor af peacetime conscription, it is my profound conviction that we could not institute such a system without profoundly changing the point of view of our country-particularly the point of view of its youth. It would deliver over into the hands of the Government, through the Army, complete control of the bodies and minds and thinking of every young man in America for one or more years at one of the most formative periods of their lives. It is hardly necessary for me to point out that the influences which would be brought to bear upon them could not in the nature of the case be those of such exemplary and sterling personalities as General Marshall or General Eisenhower. Those influences would come from men in immediate command over boys who were absolutely under their control and who, if the military tradition were to be followed, would be taught unquestioned obedience as the primary virtue.

Other nations have relied upon peacetime conscription as a means of national defense. America never has done so. America has never lost a war. Every nation on the globe that has relied upon peacetime conscription has lost one or more wars, generally with disastrous consequences.

I think there are sound reasons for this.

We have heard from every imaginable source, including the generals af our own armies, the highest praise for our present American Army. It is well to remember that that Army was raised and trained without compulsory peacetime conscription; that it consists of men who never knew the experience of compulsory peacetime conscription, of young men expecting, God willing, to return to a country where such institutions would not be present. It is my firm conviction that the resourcefulness, the spirit, and the heroism of American soldiers is at least in large part due to the fact that they feel they have a free nation to return to, that their country is better than other countries because it does not partake of some of the institutions which have been established in those other countries. One of those foreign institutions is peacetime military conscription.

On this point I should like to quote from the November 11, 1944, issue of America, one of America's great Catholic publications. It says of a system of peacetime conscription:

It is no mere technique for raising an army. It is an institution with a philosophy and a history. For more than a century it has been the core of power politics which has produced two world wars.

Our nation was settled largely by people seeking to escape from European conscription systems. May it not be that the soul of America, an essentially free soul, is her greatest strength in time of national danger and in time of war? Is it not possible that there may be some great hidden values in the traditional American way-the way of absence of governmental compulsion, the way of seeking peace among all nations, the way of true freedom which strengthens a people and gives it a united will when war comes-that is of more value than any other single factor in bringing victory? I repeat, the United States has never had peacetime conscription and has never lost a war. Surely these facts should counsel us to at least wait until after this conflict is over before we change fundamentally our American traditions.

The drafting of every young man into the Army for 1 year or more would break right in the middle of the life plans of every one of these young men. It seems to me quite inevitable that large numbers of them never would return to their education again and that even larger numbers of them would refrain from making any important plans for their life's work until after they had performed their year of compulsory military service. The loss to our country from these factors might indeed be staggering.

To argue that compulsory military training is necessary in building up the health, the morals, or the patriotic spirit of America's young men, or in contributing to their education, is tantamount in my opinion to charging the moral bankruptcy of every fundamental institution in our country, including the home, the school, the church, and every character-building agency, except only the Army. I cannot subscribe to that philosophy. Does anyone believe that a year's life in a military camp in peacetime could really be made an enterprise which would contribute to these values? Remember the inspiration of the sacrifice and conflict of war would be absent. It would be almost a miracle if the whole thing did not in the course of time degenerate into a routine and unimaginative program scarcely calculated to call forth what is best in American youth. Meanwhile, adoption of such a system might well militate against efforts to improve our school system and to enlarge and make more effective the character-building agencies of our country. There might well develop a tendency to say, "Why worry about these things? The Army will take care of it all when the boy goes to military camp." The fact that America's schools, homes, and churches may not have done as good a job in all respects as they should have done in the past is all the more reason for every single American to do all in his power to try to imprve them and strengthen them. It is no reason for attributing virtues to life of conscripted 18-year-olds in army camps which simply cannot be there.

Some people have argued that a peacetime draft should be adopted as a means of working against unemployment. The very voicing of this argument is the cause of some of my greatest fears about the system. For if we were to say that the unemployment problem had in any degree been solved by putting all young men into the Army for 1 year, then in time of depression the easy and lazy thing to do would be simply to extend the period of their military service so as to keep more of them in the Army. The worse the depression became the bigger the Army would become. Meanwhile fundamental solutions would be neglected. Furthermore, there would be inevitably a lobby of those people who through the years have made a profit out of selling supplies to the Army who would be untiring in their efforts to try to get just such a dangerous and utterly unsound answer to unemployment woven into the fabric of what once was a free America. The false charge that American youth is lacking in worth-while qualities was used extravagantly in the years just before this war broke out. Every one of those charges has been proven a vicious falsehood on every battlefield of the world. American youth is sound. It is not only sound, it is heroic. It has been made so by the institutions of our country, one of which has never been a peacetime draft or the militarization of our Nation.

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