UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA BULLETIN THE 'HT OF IHt APR 12 1220 8JNJV£RSJTy OF IL;j?jC UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING A' DEBATE BULLETIN J. W. SCROGGS, Editor This bulletin is prepared for the Oklahoma High School Debating League. The Extension Division of the University never sends out materials on only one side of a question; it must furnish information on both sides or none; it will not be a propaganda for anything, not even the Multiplication Table; its sole purpose is to furnish information impartially to citizens of the State who are in need of it. PUBLIC INFORMATION AND WELFARE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA EXTENSION DIVISION FOREWORD A new feature introduced in this bulletin is a number of questions the object of which is to aid in getting at the essential issues. No attempt has been made to arrange them in any logical order; in fact such an order has been avoided in order to keep from prejudicing the reader for or against either side of the question. The sole object of the questions is to compel full investigation of both sides of the subject, and to bring out more clearly the main issues and chief clashes of opinion. The student is especially advised against one-sided study of a question. Even if the purpose of the study reaches no farther than merely winning the debate, it is best to know and do full justice to both sides. Debating should not develop partizanship. The debater should first of all be fair. He should scorn to use an argument which he believes to be un- true. To press arguments which you believe to be false not only reacts upon your own moral nature but must weaken your power to talk convincingly. To acquire facility in simu- lating conviction which you do not have is making you a skill- ful hypocrite, even if it be of some minor advantage. Be- lieving that the arguments on the opposite side are superior to those for the side you are appointed on does not perclude your stating yours with all possible clearness and force. Knowing both sides may make you less a partizan, but a better debater. University of Oklahoma J. W. SCROGGS , Extension Division Dept. Public Information and Welfare QUESTION ADOPTED BY THE OKLAHOMA HIGH SCHOOL DEBATING LEAGUE FOR 1919-20 Resolved: — That Universial Military Training should he adopted in the United States. THE EFFECT ON AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS OF A POWERFUL MILITARY AND NAVAL ESTABLISHMENT BY HERBERT CROLY, Editor, The New Republic, New York City Of ail the novel and perplexing problems which have been fastened on the American nation by the proposal to make a very arge increase m its military and naval armament, there is none which mstles with more difficulties than the subject on which I am addressing you this morning. What will be the effect on American domestic life and institutions of a more efficient, expensive, and powerful military and naval establishment? Americans who are opposing “preparedness” are basing their opposition largely upon the havoc which it is expected to work in our traditional internal order. Americans who are advocating preparedness are basing their approval larg^ily upon the better lertnl '^h T '™Pose upon our time-honored in- ternal chaos. Americans who are hesitating are basing their hesitation largely upon misgivings as to the wisdom of exposing American institutions and life to the corrosive effect of such f Wrk " n" ' .i™°vation. These are the questions which ^ erican public opinion is considering most anxiously and with the smallest prospect of future agreement. The country is not ' inking so much about what we can and should do with a larger army and navy. It is thinking rather about what a larger army and navy may or will do to us. “ Preoccupation with the domestic effects of military prepared- ^ss presided at its official birth. Last summer when Resident Wilson decided to include in the legislative program of the admin- i^ration provision for a large army he ordered his Secretary of War to make the plans for an increase conforming to the ebst- clear. He had decided that more soldiers must be enlisted and rained presumably because they might be needed for certain chwi” "“f*" *’‘‘''‘"8 i-cached this decision, he was chiefly occupied, not with the number and kind of soldiers de- manded by these practical needs, but with the effect of any increase upon the opinions and traditions of his fellow-countrymen 4 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA He knew his proposals would meet with lively opposition based chiefly on the presumptive un-Americanism of large armies, and he preferred to bestow on the plans of the administration not so much the positive merit of careful adaption to the practical need as the negative merit of conformity to a prevailing tradition. In order to make them politically acceptable the administration plans should look unoffensive and not too unfamiliar. The American aimy had always been the creature of domestic political policy and so it must remain. In adopting this course, President Wilson was behaving like a shrewd and cautious political leader. It was the course cal- culated to effect a certain result with the smallest friction. He has been rewarded by the practical collapse of the opposition to his program. It has been an adroit achievement and an important success. But the fullest possible recognition of the achievement should not blind us to the disadvantages of the method. The suc- cess was purchased by a lack of thoroughness in framing the de- tails of the plans and by a lack of frankness in explaining their meaning and consequences. The technical obstacles to adequate preparation and its political penalties .and dangers have been under- estimated and evaded rather than courageously confronted and definitely overcome. As a result the American people are acting in a grave national crisis without any sufficient understanding of the bearing of the new policy on their past and its probable effects on their future. The American tradition of military organization and policy which President Wilson wisht to preserve was not on its merits worth so much anxious solicitude. It called for a small standing professional army which was really no more than a national police force. Its members, organization and equipment were not adjusted to a foreign policy or an international condition. Invasion was not considered a danger against which any elaborate precautions needed to be taken. In the event of war the navy would act as a screen, be- hind which could be trained around a nucleus furnished by the state militia a volunteer citizen’s navy. The aspect of this sys- tem which Mr. Wilson probably considered most precious was its underlying and almost complete civilianism. It included a pro- fessional army, to be sure, but only in insignificant numbers. The United States depended ultimately for its soldiers upon its citizens and it had consequently no reason to fear the corruption of its democratic institutions and ideals by a military caste or spirit. All this is true, but it is also true that the system was a tissue of inadequacies and contradictions. It evaded every difficulty and UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING 5 ignored every serious responsibility involved by military prepar- edness. A democracy should depend ultimately for its soldiers on its citizens ; but our traditional system only pretended to create an armed citizenry. Its trained soldiers were prevented from being citizens ; its citizens were never sufficiently trained to be good soldiers. The American people had no reason to fear their army, but neither had the possible enemies of the American people. It was not intended to be dangerous to anybody but a few foreign or domestic marauders. Congress always refused to incorporate in it a coherent formative idea. It was partly professional and partly amateur, partly under national and partly under state jurisdiction, partly based upon the idea of service and partly upon an appeal to mercenary motives. But above all it was wholly and inten- tionally innocuous. It was essentially an attempt to assure civilian control over the military machine less by making the civil authority strong, clear-sighted, able and worthy, than by making the army feeble and incompetent. If, as President Wilson decided last summer, the American democracy was finally faced by the necessity of seriously preparing during peace for the possibility of war, this national tradition in military organization needed to be radically modified rather than loyally cherished and preserved. The traditional military sys- tem can be fairly characterized as organized unpreparedness. Am- ericans had believed themiselves immune from the grim necessity of anticipating and providing either against social evils at home or the defense of national policies abroad. America was the promised land precisely because it was delivered from such moral and phy- sical stresses and from the structural reenforcement, necessary to withstand j them. Some years ago, one-half of these expectations began to be abandoned. It became only too apparent that American domestic economy is not a stream which purified in the running. It had developed the same social disorders as the older European societies and similar precautions must be taken against them. The decision to increase the army and navy means the abandonment also of the other half. The organized unpreparedness of our military system had been based upon a conception of interna,tional relationships and of ensuing American dangers, opportunities and responsibilities which had ceased to be true. The indispensable condition of any effective military preparation was a declaration of war against an essential aspect of the very tradition which the President was seeking so sedulously to preserve. In so far as the American tradition in military organization 6 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA consisted in the strict and absolute subordination of the military and naval machines to ultimate civilian control and their employ- ment for valid political purposes, everygood American will at- tach the utmost importance to its preservation. But in so far as the civilian control was obtained by paralyzing the army rather than by organizing the nation, strengthening its government and clarifying its policy, the existing tradition manifestly constitutes an insuperable obstacle to effective military preparation. The larger army and navy must be intended and made ready for actual definite service. In so far as it is ready for specific service, the army must be a dangerous weapon. It must be dangerous to the possible enemies of the United States ; and it must be dangerous to our traditional internal equilibrium. Unless the American people arc willing and ready to create a powerful weapon, which if misused would prove to be harmful to them no less than their possible enemies, the money and energy spent on military preparations will continue to be a colossal waste. As a matter of fact the American people proved more willing to create a powerful weapon than its chosen leaders imagined. The original program of the administra- tion was indeed framed to look innocuous rather than dangerous. It was based chiefly upon the principle of amplifying our defici- encies. But the original program has been radically modified, and every modification has tended to make it less innocuous and more dangerous. A reluctant Democratic administration and Congress, which had every disposition to keep down the scope and cost of military “preparedness”, have been forced by the logic of their owii decision to build very much more than they intended. The final legislation is likely to provide for a really formidable fighting force — one which will be measurably adjusted in size, training and equipment to the probable needs of national policy. The outstanding fact in the proposed military re-organiza- tion is the increase in the professional standing army. In the original plan little attempt was made to convert the regular army into a force which was capable of defending the territory of the United States against invasion or promoting its policies abroad. That task was reserved for a body of national militia which was subsequently modified by the House Committee into a body of “federalized” state militia. But the more these bodies of militia were examined the more untrustworthy they looked ; and the more .public opinion came to favor an increase in the regular army as the one really dependable military force. The regular army is being increased until, with its own automatically created reserve, it may, if it can be recruited, afford a sufficient protec- U N I V E R S A L M I L I T A R Y T R A I N I N G tion against invasion, and protection against invasion is what the public and the military experts have on the tops of their minds. lUit merely as a consequence of organizing an effective army for defense Congress has done very much more. It has organized an army which may also constitute a formidable aggressive force. Instead of creating as the President and the Democratic leaders intended, a safe and sane army, they are being driven to create a really dangerous army — a professional force, as far as possible removed from the conception of an armed citizenry. The new American army will be unsafe for two reasons. An army of this kind is really adapted chiefly to service abroad and consequently to something more than a defensive foreign policy. It is also the kind of an army which will have a profound re- action on American domestic life, because as a consequence of its in- creased size and authority, it will be constantly making imperative demands upon the civil authorities which they will be reluctant to grant and which will raise the issue between civil and military control over American policy. These are prescisely the questions which the President wished to avoid, as they have been avoided in the past, but from now on they will wax increasingly troublesome. The new army could not be made serviceable, without becoming unsafe, because in the opinion of too many American citizens, a safe army meant an imperiled country. In truth there was no way in which the domestic life and institutions of the nation could be guaranteed against far-reaching modifications as a consequence of substituting organized preparedness for organized unprepared- ness. An efficient new military and naval establishment is bound in the end to do something important to the American people, and the certainty of a drastic result should be recognized in advance. Con- fident prophecies are being made as to what this drastic result will be. Many good Americans predict that our democracy will be ruined by their new and dangerous servant. Others predict with equal confidence that a more powerful army and widespread mili- tary training is necessary not merely to save the nation from its possible foreign enemies but to preserve it from its domestic infirmities. Neither of these predictions need to be taken too seriously. They are the expression of fears and hopes rather than a disinterested estimate of the action of social forces. Al- though drastic result will certainly follow, what that result will be is by no means so certain. It will depend less upon the size and organization of the army and the navy than upon the way in which the nation decides to use them. At present the American people have not made up their 8 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA mind how they will use their new army and navy, and anti- militarists are insisting that the creation of the larger army and navy should be postponed until they do. I cannot agree with them. We shall have to take the risk of preparing first and of deciding later just what we are preparing for. To have refused to prepare would under the circumstances have been an indication of inertia and weakness. To have begun to prepare is on the whole a symptom of self-confidence. It indicated that the country is not afraid to plunge forward even though somewhat blidndly and to risk the assumption of a perilous and costly responsibility which before it is redeemed may diminish many prescriptive rights, damage many vested interests and perhaps change the whole outlook of the American democracy. The American nation needs the tonic of a serious moral adven- ture. It has been too safe, too comfortable, too complacent and too relaxed. Its besetting weakness is the prevalence of individual and collective irresponsibility, based on the expectation of ac- complishing without effort. Living as it did in a favored land which was not exposed to attack from without and which of- fered to good Americans surpassing opportunities to satisfy their own special and individual purposes, our democracy has not been required to pull itself together. It has depended for its cohesion upon loyaltc’ to an achieved and essentially complete con- stitutional system, and upon a suppositious harmony between indi- vidual or local, and public or national interests. Unlike European countries, it could afford to leave the satisfaction of many public objects to the results of an accidental concern among individuals, groups of individuals, or local political units. It has been reluc- tant to create powerful political or economic organs for the ac- complishment of its national purposes, and when instruments of this kind came into existence as the result of automatic and poli- tical forces, the instinct of the democracy was to dissolve rather than to discipline its unmanageable servants. It has not liked the responsibility af turning such potentially dangerous agents as a centralized administration, an authoritative legislature, an efficient army or any concentrated embodiment of industrial power to beneficial public use. The European war has proved sufficiently the impossibility of seriously preparing for a possible war without calling upon the whole industrial system for assistance. If the American industrial system is not prepared to render that assistance promptly and com- pletely, the country would be unprepared for serious military or naval operations — no matter how well its soldiers were trained and UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING 0 equipped. Of even more importance to adequate preparedness than these measures of political, financial and industrial reorganization is an effective method of securing for the new military and naval pro- gram the support of the wage-earners. In the event of a war which involved the national safety they could be counted on to volunteer in sufficient numbers ; but that is not the question. Assuming that the United States is to have an army, which even in the timics of peace will require of an increasing proportion of the wage- earners of the country a certain share of their time and labor, how can they be induced to give what is needed? It is the answer to this question which will arouse in the near future the most lively controversy, and upon the way it is answered will largely depend the reaction of a larger military and naval establishment upon .Am.erican dom.estic institutions and life. In the past the govern- ment has relied for the recruits to the army and the navy upoii the expedient of tempting men to volunteer, but if this expedient is to succeed in the future, the temptation will have to be very much increased. It is doubtful whether the new army can be re- cruited, save at an excessive cost. For this and for many other reasons an aggressive and insistent element in public opinion is demanding the substitution of compulsion for the volunteer prin- ciple. The agitation for compulsory military service bears parti- cularly hard on the subject under discussion, because the argu- ments in favor of compulsion are derived from social and pobticil rather than military sources. It is not pretended that the nation needs the military serivee of all the young men of America; !an it is claimed that the young men of America need the benefit of military service. Instead of as at present paying some young men to enter an essentially public occupation, they wish the burden an 1 the opportunity of the cmploym.ent to be imposed on all alikg without fear and without favor. That is the way really to demo- cratize the American arniy. Universal service raises American citi- zens of all classes and sections, if not of both sexes, to the level of an irksome common obligation ; and this obligation brings with it to an extent which political and social obligations do not, the oc- casion for com.mon association. The experience would enable the young soldier to realize how far he is a member of a community and how m.uch fellowship in the community means. It is tlie real solution of the ideal in an armed citizenry. The nation would obtain soldiers who were citizens and citizens who were soldiers. The argument of those Americans, vrho are seeking to give a 10 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA positive social value to the military system and convert it into a source of national unity, culminates in the foregoing contention. Instead of consdering the army as a troublesome excresence on American life, they propose to work it into the very fabric of the nation. It is to be made the heroic remedy for the insidious dis- ease of national incoherence. By being universalized, military service is converted into a most effective form of compulsory national education. American citizens will be pulled together by the force of active comradeship in common labor and genuine sacrifices for the national welfare. The idea of making the military system contribute something of positive value in the domestic life of the country is sound, but it breaks down when worked as hard as it is by the advocates of com.pulsory service. They are following the bad example of the traditional American dem.ocrats in insisting that the size of the military establishmient should be determined by its expected re- action on American domestic life. The traditional democrats w^ere reluctant to let the nation have as many soldiers or as much military training as might be needed, because they presupposed a necessary antagonism between demiocracy and military prepara- tion. The contem.porary advocates of universal service seek the enlistment and training of more soldiers than are needed, because they believe that the .American who has undergone m litary train- ing will constitute a better rather than a w'orse citizen. Both of them are falling into the mistake so common to golf players of keeping their eye too mmeh upon the hole and not enough upon the ball. The former have more fear of military training than they have confidence in democracy ; the latter have more confidence in military training than they have confidence in democracy. Both need to understand that an army is one thing and a democracy is another. An army is a delicate and dangerous instrument which may be called upon to perform the terrible work of killing and submitting to being killed and which needs to be adjusted to the probable nature and amount of this w^ork. A democracy is a form of political and social organization, which, because it fas- tens on the whole people ultim.ate responsibility for the public wel- fare, depends for its fulfillment upon the ability of men to rise to higher opportunities. The two are not divided by any necessary incompatibility, and it would be a timid and rudimentary democracy which tied itself to a policy of mis-armament merely because it is afraid to let enough of its citizens become properly trained sol- diers. But if the two are not divided by an incompatibility neither are they tied together hy mutual dependence. While a democracy UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING 11 may obtain incidental educational benefits from universal military training, only an impoverished democracy would rely upon com- pulsory military training service for the education of its citizens in the essentials of citizenship. The American army will never be brought into wholesome relations with the American democracy until we cease to consider it either as a bogey or as a vehicle of civic grace. It is primarily a machine, planned and prepared to accomplish some desperately important and extremely hazardous practical work. The usual explanation that the United States is preparing only for defense, which is a policy on which all good citizens can agree, merely begs the question. A nation like Switzerland may arm purely for defense, because a sm^all nation even if armed to the teeth is incapable of aggression, and because it cannot have an enemy of any size, which would not be large enough to threaten its independence ; but, in the case of a wealthy, populous and geo- graphically isolated nation like the United States no sharp line can he drawn between defensive and aggressive armament. As has been frequently pointed out, the new army and navy will be re- qu'red to defend a policy rather than merely a coast line. If the United States is invaded the invasion will originate not in a wanton attack from a strong military and naval power, but in a clash with a similar power over a difference of opinion about neutral rights at sea, the Open Door in China or the Monroe Doc-, trine in South Amierica. In the event of such a quarrel there is really little difference between fighting to defend a policy and fighting to promote it. The Monroe Doctrine and the Open Door are from certain points of view aggressi\e policies, about the meaning and justice of which v/ide differences of opinion may ex- ist both in this and inother countries. Hence what we need most of all to understand is the nature and scope of the policies in the interest of which we shall organize an efficient and dangerous army and navy. Until this is known not only can we not cauculate how many and what kind of sailors and soldiers we may need and what sacrifices the American people m.ay fairly be asked to make for them, but we shall be equally at a loss to estimate the moral and political reaction of the military preparations upon American domestic life. Thus the dubious aspect of the existing situation does not con- sist in the fact or in the cost of preparedness but in the am- biguity of its underlying purposes. The American people are being asked to pay heavily in labor and money for a new army and navy as a weapon of self-defence, because only in this way can con- 12 thp: university of Oklahoma tcntious matters be avoided and a sufficiently general measure of popular support be frightened into existence. Vet there is a very real probably that the new army and navy will be used chiefly for positive and for aggressive as opposed to merely de- fensive purposes. These positive purposes can be m.ade in my Opinion even more justifiable than a negative defensive policy, but their value and meaning is obscured because they are not frankly admitted, fully discussed and sufficiently defined. As long as lh