What Kind of America?

If the U.S. people and their leaders had not made up their minds about what kind of Europe they wanted, did they at least know what kind of a U.S. they would like to see? For one thing, should the U.S. raise its boys to be soldiers?

Almost everybody except hardshell pacifists agreed that the U.S. must be stronger than before World War II. But what kind of military strength should the U.S. have? Was universal military training an indispensable part of this strength?

Last week, people with their ears close to the ground could hear a shifting of forces on the question of U.M.T. The moral objectors to U.M.T. were getting some unexpected, underground support.

The moral objectors were already out in the open. They were labor leaders, church leaders, many educators (but not all), Military Analyst Hanson Baldwin, Physicist Albert Einstein, and such groups as the National Council Against Conscription. The council, in a pamphlet endorsed by Einstein, argued that U.M.T. would further a military influence which they saw already creeping into too many phases of U.S. life, including even the Boy Scouts of America. U.M.T., they argued, ran counter to the nation's traditions and expressed ideals. U.M.T. would be interpreted by the world as a warlike threat.*

Towards this outspoken group, for very different reasons, moved certain close-mouthed airmen of the Air Force and the Navy. They remained close-mouthed because their views were not the official views of their superiors. But this subsurface movement would sooner or later come into the open.

Worthless, Valueless. The airmen's objections were practical. They came down to the fact that there is a limit to what can be spent on national defense. It would cost many millions to set up U.M.T. Harry Truman figured on $400 million just to get it started. This was probably a ridiculously low estimate. Some Air Force officers figured that it would cost close to $400 million to set up Air Force training stations alone. The cost of operating U.M.T. in the three services would run anywhere from $1.75 billion to $3 billion a year.

The airmen contended that those trained under U.M.T. would be practically worthless as combatants in a technological war. To this, many a Ground Force and Navy officer would say amen. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, although he has never said so publicly, has been quoted as saying that the six-month basic training period contemplated under U.M.T. would be valuable chiefly as a character and health builder; that as training for a modern war it would be largely valueless. The airmen contended that the money, time and effort could much better be spent on combat aircraft and in the training of regulars for the Air Force and the Navy's air arm.

Advocates of U.M.T. stuck to their guns.

They included President Truman, Defense Secretary Forrestal, Secretary of State Marshall, Air Secretary Symington, Army Chief of Staff Eisenhower, Chief of Naval Operations Louis Denfeld, Chief of the Air Force Carl Spaatz, Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch. They included every leading presidential candidate with the exception of Robert Taft (who called U.M.T. "militaristic" and "intolerable") and Henry Wallace (who called it a "manifestation" of fascism). A recent Gallup poll indicated that 65% of the people believed in U.M.T. A Purdue opinion poll of 10,000 of the nation's high-school students, who would be most personally affected, was for U.M.T. by an overwhelming 82%.

"Absolutely Essential." U.M.T.'s advocates maintained that it would provide an immediately available force of some 850,000 men, at least partly trained, who would be ready to jump into a crisis. It would set up a reservoir of millions of men who understand military organization and discipline and have in addition certain technical skills. It would also be cheaper than a big Regular Army and would regenerate the whole dwindling military establishment.

Echoing George Marshall, who found the present system "inadequate and ruinously expensive," Secretary Forrestal declared that U.M.T. was "the only effective democratic means of providing the necessary trained and ready reserves . . . absolutely essential to our national safety."

Not Feasible. Obviously, such an important and compelling issue deserved serious debate. But Congress did not want to debate it. There was a U.M.T. bill before the Senate Armed Services Committee, but it faced the stubborn bulk of G.O.P. Leader Taft. There was a U.M.T. bill in the House, whose advocates tried vainly to get it out on the floor. Congressman Leo Allen, obedient to G.O.P. leaders' orders, kept it bottled up in his Rules Committee. New York's wise old James Wadsworth, who probably should have known better, said plaintively: "I can't conceive that the leadership will persist in denying the House the opportunity to express itself."

But that was exactly what the leadership intended to do. Such G.O.P. leaders as Speaker Joe Martin were not necessarily opposed to U.M.T., but, as practitioners of "the art of the possible," they did not think it feasible to act on such a heated question in an election year. Only a sudden incident in Europe, or the pressure of public opinion, could bring it to the fore.

*Almost every nation in the world has compulsory military service except the U.S., Australia, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Eire, India, Pakistan, Burma and New Zealand.

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