To Train or Not to Train?

The Administration, backed by the Army & Navy, last week put before the U.S. public its conviction that all sound and able-bodied U.S. young men, in peace as well as in war, must be trained to bear arms.

In a highceilinged, austerely white caucus room the House Select Committee on Postwar Military Policy began hearings which might well upset the U.S. tradition against peacetime conscription.

Expecting a crowd, tall, white-haired Committee Chairman Clifton Alexander Woodrum, a shrewd Virginia Democrat who has wangled many a military appropriation through the House, installed a public address system in the spacious chamber, had a small regiment of usherettes on duty.

The crowd did not come. At the first session, the room was less than one-fourth filled; at another session only four of the committee's 23 members were present. Was this a true test of the public's attitude? Did indifference mean that the U.S. public, except for vocal minorities, was completely sold on the idea? Opinion polls have shown that most U.S. citizens now--while the war is still on--favor compulsory peacetime training.

Things as They Are. Under Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew keynoted the supporting arguments. Said he: ". . . In the world of things as they are, our international policy, to be effective, must have strength behind it." He added that the U.S. must be prepared to provide its complement of troops to a United Nations peace-policing pool.

From the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars came unstinted support. From the National Guard Association's pugnacious president Major General Ellard A. Walsh, came a headline-raising question: "If Russia finds it imperative [to train boys of 15 and 16], then how can the people of this nation ignore the issue?"

Things as They Might Be. The opposition came from those who have always stood against peacetime training: the clergy, educators, labor unions. Their arguments were traditional: that 1) instead of building new military strength, the U.S. should concentrate on limitation and reduction of arms at war's end, as a "demonstration of good faith"; 2) a large standing army with an active bureaucracy and a permanent conscription system must ultimately undermine democracy. To these they added another, more contemporary plea: that those now in the Army & Navy be given an opportunity to express their views.

This week the Army & Navy prepared to move up their heavy artillery. Scheduled to testify were War Secretary Stimson, Navy Secretary Forrestal, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, and probably many of the generals recently returned from Europe. To spearhead its argument, the Administration will depend on General of the Army George Catlett Marshall, the man who, although hating war, raised and trained the army which is helping to win World War II. General Marshall's often-expressed views on peacetime conscription are adamant: he is for it with no reservations.

Last week General Marshall was photographed at the circus with his three-year-old step-grandson, Jimmy Winn (see cut). Citizen-Soldier George Marshall believes that Jimmy will have to know how to do a soldier's job.

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