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men who volunteered for that special service after they had received the universal training at home, or the better part of it.

2. It would no longer be necessary to maintain any state militia; provided the governors were authorized to call on the national War Department for any troops they might need for local service. But if any state preferred to do so, it might maintain a local volunteer force made up of young men who had already served their first period (sixty to ninety days) in the national army.

3. The Nation would be always prepared for defensive combat with any military Power which might assail it for purposes of conquest or ransom; and, being prepared, would probably be safe from such attempts.

4. In case of rebellion or outbreak of any sort within the country itself, a national force could be promptly put into the field to subdue it.

5. All the able-bodied young men in the country would receive a training in the hard work of a soldier which would be of some service to them in any industry in which they might afterwards engage. They would have become accustomed to a discipline under which many men co-operate strenuously in the pursuit of common objects. They would have mastered the use of some instruments of precision; and would have learned much about personal and public hygiene, and the means of preserving bodily vigor and utilizing it to advantage.

6. The defense of the country would be always in charge of a Navy and Army neither feudal nor mercenary, neither drafted "for the war" nor professional in the sense that its members mean to spend their active lives in the service, but on the contrary composed of all the able-bodied youth of the Nation, acting under a universal sense of obligation or duty, but also willing to serve the country in a hearty co-operative spirit out of love of freedom, justice, and all that makes "home."

7. In case of war, large or small, long or short, the great waste of lives and money which has taken place at the beginning of every war in which the United States has been engaged since the Government was organized would be avoided; because the country would have at call any desired number of competent officers and well-trained men. In case of war alarms, the country would not be obliged to summon untrained militia, or to resort to such crude and unsound methods as Plattsburg camps and college regiments.

MORAL ADVANTAGES OF STRENGTH.

Some moral advantages would result to the United States from maintaining the second navy in the world and a numerous army always ready. A strong democracy, always prepared to defend itself against attacks from without or within, would be less exposed to intentional provocation by critical or jealous governments, and less liable to the occasional internal panics which are apt to cause wastes and other unnecessary evils. Some improvement in the character and efficiency of the American people itself might also be expected, especially in regard to cooperative discipline, self-reliance and self-control. To be always

ready to defend and to maintain American ideals of public justice and liberty would add to the self-respect of the people. If every able-bodied youth were well trained for service in the national army or navy at some serious sacrifice of his ease and earning time, and then held himself constantly in readiness to fight for his country, if it were in peril, until he became too old for soldier's work, the whole people would soon attain to a new sentiment of patriotic duty and self-sacrificing devotion to the country as the groundwork of home, kinship, and friendship, and the representative of public justice and liberty and of progressive hope for mankind. The entire Nation, without distinction of race or class, would be taught to think of itself as a unified and exalted power for good in the world-humane, unselfish, and aspiring.

THE NAVY.

The enlarged American Navy should in times of peace be an active school of practice for scouting, blockading, shooting and manoeuvring. The term of enlistment should be short, not exceeding in length whatever period will suffice to give an average young man a sufficient training. The officers would be in times of peace chiefly teachers, for the new men would be joining the Navy in large numbers at frequent intervals. These officers would be, as now, graduates of the Naval Academy, the cadets of the Academy, however, not being nominated by Congressmen, but being selected by their officers on board ship from the successive quotas of young men coming into the Navy. The Swiss rule that nobody shall be an officer in the army who has not served as a private and non-commissioned officer would be of high value in securing an American Navy of proper democratic spirit. The utmost pains should be taken to make the term of service in the Navy valuable to the enlisted man in respect to personal hygiene, manual skill, good mental habits, and character. Every man who serves in the Navy should come out of it a man more useful in the national industries than he would have been without that service, and also a better citizen.

THE ARMY.

The United States has found uses, since the war with Spain, for a fairly equipped Army of something less than one hundred thousand men; and a minority of the states have seen reason to maintain a volunteer militia, in the organizing of which no attention has been paid to the married or single state of the volunteers, and but little to their physical fitness for the duties of a soldier. The militia has also been poorly equipped, or sometimes hardly equipped at all for real work. The trouble between the United States and Mexico has revealed the fact that the Regular Army is in numbers insufficient to guard effectively the long border between the two countries-in addition to its other duties-and that the militia of the states is not only too imperfectly equipped to be rapidly mobilized, but also contains a large proportion of men whom it is not expedient to call upon for military service at a distance from their homes.

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IMPERFECTIONS OF THE MILITIA.

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The militia in all the states which maintain any militia was intended, so far as it had any functon beyond parades and vacation camps, to keep the peace and give aid during brief periods of local disturbance, like riots and the disorders which attend great catastrophes by earthquakes, fire, or flood. A state militia as a rule elects its officers, the privates electing the company officers, the company officers electing the regimental officers, the regimental officers electing the general. The qualities which win votes in such elections are not identical with those which make a good commander in camp, on the march, and on the battlefield. As a national force to be used in any part of the country, or beyond its borders, and for long periods during which the men are detached from their homes and their employments, the state militias are inappropriate. In war with a strong military Power, the militia would not be available for several months, or until all the units had been converted into national units and reofficered in large part. The present Democratic Administration and Congress have rendered a considerable service to the country by giving a clear demonstration to this effect.

Although the Regular Army of the United States is an efficient body of men, well selected, well officered, and possessing a fine esprit de corps, it is not a modern army in the European sense; and it is not the kind of army that a democratic people ought to maintain, having been essentially copied from the English army, which has always been-until "Kitchener's army" was created-an army officered from the upper classes and recruited by voluntary enlistment from the lower. It has never been a popular or national army in the sense of continental Europe, where conscription or universal military service has long prevailed.

FOR A DEMOCRATIC ARMY.

If the United States sees reason for maintaining any army at all, it will be wise for it to maintain a democratic army, in which all able-bodied young Americans should serve for several short periods, and then be held in reserve for a long period, its officers being selected from the ranks by their instructors and commanders during the prescribed periods of service, and educated as now at the Military Academy to serve for life as teachers of the successive levies of raw recruits, or held in reserve with liberty to follow civil occupations. A few thousand noncommissioned officers would also be kept in the service permanently, or for considerable periods, to serve as instructors to the raw levies and as non-commissioned officers of any force the country might need for sudden and sustained service.

The basic principle of universal service being adopted, and every able-bodied young man having received the elements of a military training, each individual's post of service in case of war will depend on the determination by a selective authority of the employment in which that individual can be most useful to the country. The men needed in munition factories will not be allowed to go to the trenches; and the men fitted to handle the complicated machinery of a battleship or submarine will not be

allowed to serve in the infantry on land. The reservists especially will be employed each in his most appropriate station, in order that no peculiar personal efficiency may be wasted. From motives of economy and efficiency, none but able-bodied men will be taken into the Navy or Army, and none but able-bodied men will be allowed to remain in the fighting force.

THE SWISS MILITARY SYSTEM.

The Swiss system produces an effective army for national defense with minimum demand on the time of the adult male worker; and this fact should commend it for American adoption. The length of service, as given in the report of Lieht.Col. George Bell, Jr., to the Army War College in 1911, is "from sixty to ninety days (according to the corps to which the recruit is assigned) in the first year of service, and from eleven to fourteen days in each of seven (cavalry eight) out of the eleven years following. Between thirty-two and forty the Swiss soldier attends one 'repetition course' of eleven days. There are special 'schools' of twenty to thirty-five days for, the training of noncommissioned officers. Commissioned officers are trained for the different corps in 'schools' which require attendance (according to corps) of from forty-five to one hundred and five (in two parts) days. Officers and non-commissioned officers are selected and promoted by their teachers and commanders for merit only, which must be proved in service and by appropriate tests and examinations."

The Australians, to be sure, are attempting to produce an effective army by a method which makes even a smaller claim upon the time of the male adult by utilizing for military drill some of the boy's time; but the Australian system has not been in force long enough to demonstrate that it is efficient. The Swiss system has repeatedly given abundant proof of remarkable efficiency.

The Swiss Republic resembles the American Republic in several important respects, although the two territories and situations are strikingly unlike. Switzerland is a federation of distinct political entities called cantons, in which four different languages severally prevail, part of the cantons being Catholic and part Protestant. Industrially the people are agricultural, pastoral, manufacturing, or commercial, but universally democratic in manners and customs. The federal legislation concerning education and taxation is more democratic than that of the United States. The country is annually invaded by large numbers of alien laborers. On the whole, the stout little republic is a safe guide for the United States in respect to the organization of a competent modern army.

AMERICA'S MILITARY NEEDS.

The answer, then, to the question at the head of this article is -the United States needs a navy modeled on the British navy, and an army modeled on the Swiss army; and in order to procure both it needs to adopt the principle of brief universal service in the Army or the Navy. The time lost by the young men from the productive industries and the service of the

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family will be a trifling loss compared with the gain from an increased feeling of devotion to the country in the hearts of multitudes, and a quickened sense of responsibility for its welfare. The slight loss of individual liberty will be more than compensated by experience of a strict, co-operative discipline, and by an enlarged sense of comradeship and community interest among the people.

FACING THE FACTS.

Despite the heterogeneous character of the people of the United States as respects race or stock, the masses of the people worship the same precious ideals of liberty, law, and public happiness. At heart they know that these ideals, so dear to them, will have to be protected and furthered by force for many a year to come, the world being what it is. Everybody hopes that the world is going to be very different hereafter from what it is in these grievous days of return to primitive savagery; but the conduct of the liberty-loving nations to-day and to-morrow must be determined by the hard, actual facts. They cannot organize now the perpetual defense of liberty under law; but they can provide promptly, through practicable alliances, securities which will last at least for one generation.

(World's Work, XXXIII, 28-34. (November, 1916.)

(e) [§248] Now Let Us Have Universal Military Training.

BY THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR.

It should be borne in mind that the selective draft bill, on which Congress is putting the finishing touches, is an emergency measure and does not provide a permanent military policy, such as this country needs. The enactment of the program now in conference should be supplemented by the adoption of a measure along the lines of the Chamberlain universal training bill.

The United States never again should be caught in the condition of unpreparedness with which we are facing the war with Germany. The way to make sure that we shall be ready when trouble comes is to keep ready. That can be done by adherence to the principle of universal obligation and insistence on universal military training for the young men of the nation. That will keep the United States ever in readiness to protect its rights against all comers.

The overwhelming sentiment throughout the country in favor of the selective draft system, as against the volunteer method of raising an army, shows that the people are taking a common sense instead of a sentimental view of military service. They are not frightened by the idle talk about the dangers of militarism in this free country. They realize that there can be no military autocracy in a land where the people are supreme. And the events of the last three years have made them realize as never before the folly of muddling along without preparedness and depending on the cumbersome and costly volunteer system, in case of emergency.

(Indianapolis Star, May 13, 1917.)