Loud Dissent

War is much too important a business to be left to the soldiers.--Clemenceau

President Roosevelt served notice last week that he would ask Congress to pass a postwar compulsory universal service law this winter. Franklin Roosevelt carefully avoided the word "military," suggested that training might be along the lines of the old Civilian Conservation Corps. Nevertheless the President's words were the signal that a long-threatening battle was finally being joined.

Sure enough, out charged the National Guard Association.

The politically potent Association, distrustful of the professionals in the Regular Army, has been a determined dissenter to the theory that regulars should dictate a national military policy. The National Guard Association is in favor of compulsory military training. But it has made it clear that it will fight any effort to ram legislation through before the end of the war.

Said the Association's grey-haired, pugnacious president Major General Ellard A. Walsh : "They say we must pass it now or never pass it. But if you put anything over on the American people during a period of war hysteria it is likely to be repealed. Prohibition was an example of that."

On that front the Association had powerful allies. The day before the President casually blew his challenge, the archbishops and bishops of the Catholic Church joined with Protestant leaders and U.S. educators in opposing any action before war's end. Many labor leaders, so far silent, are also known to be opposed.

No Place for the Guards. But the roused Association was also ready to fight the War Department on other, broader lines. The Association saw the coming battle as one of self-preservation. Rightly or wrongly, General Walsh expressed the feelings of his angry colleagues when he said: "The War Department has never overlooked an opportunity to destroy the National Guard or any part of it when the opportunity afforded." This, they said, might be the Army's opportunity.

They stated the grounds for their fears. To guarantee the nation's future security the Army plans a large standing army (TIME, Oct. 9, Nov. 20), supplemented by an annual crop of some half a million trainees and a reservoir of ex-trainees, but in the federal setup there was no visible place for the Guard; the President had indicated his doubts that the Guard could be used in the training program.

The National Guard Association argued:

P: The Army's plan would impose too great a financial burden on the people. State militias, supervised by the Army and adequately equipped, would keep costs down, at the same time provide most of the first-line reserve strength immediately necessary if war should come again.

P: The Guard system set up by the National Defense Act would be adequate if the War Department would utilize it to the full, which it has not done in the past. On this score Guardsmen quoted General John J. Pershing, who said after World War I: "The National Guard never received the wholehearted support of the Regular Army during the World War."

P: The National Guard has a long and honorable tradition. Records of some regiments go back to the Indian wars before the Revolution. The Blue-Grey Division, the Yankee Division, the Rainbow Division are a few among many National Guard outfits known to fame.

P: The National Guard has an excellent wartime record. In 1917 it gave 18 infantry divisions to the nation--a force of half a million men. Guardsmen comprised 37% of all U.S. troops killed in France, 41% of all wounded. In 1940 the Guard gave the nation 19 infantry divisions of 300,000 men; 20,920 of these were officers, 85% of whom are still in active service. One National Guardsman--Raymond S. McLain--now commands a corps. Guardsmen, 3.75% of the Army's strength, have won eight of 61 Congressional medals awarded the Army in this war.

P: Citizen armies have always fought the nation's wars. State militias are a cornerstone of U.S. democracy.

On this last point the Guardsmen were willing to rest their case before a nation which instinctively shies from total centralization and hates militarization even more. To U.S. citizens they trumpeted the warning of the founding fathers. James Madison wrote in 1788: "On the smallest scale a standing military force has its inconveniences. On an extensive scale its consequences may be fatal . . . inauspicious to [the nation's] liberties."

On the Army would lie the burden of proof that a system 157 years old, and constantly improved, is not a good one to build on.

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