dforneU Hmocraitg ffilbrara Stiiatu. ^tta f arh BOUOHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE FISKE ENDOWMENT FUND THE BEQUEST OF WILLARD FISKE . LIBRARIAN OF THE UNIVERSITY 1868-1883 1905 Cormll Unlvwslly Library UB343 .C95 olln 3 1924 030 734 622 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030734622 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE BY MAJOR GENERAL E. H. CROWDER U. S. ARMY PROVOST MARSHAL GENERAL NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1920 Copyright, 1920, by The Century Co. Published, Felruwry, 1920 DEDICATED IN DEEP APPRECIATION TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SELECTIVE SERVICK SYSTEM Whose loyal self-sacrifice and patriotic dcTotion made possible the Armies of America PREFACE When America turned her hand overnight from tasks of peace to those of war, she approached a discouraging undertaking. To build a fighting and an industrial army at one stroke and yet to erect the one without hindering the other was both a novel and apparently a hopeless task. How- ever, in eighteen months two million American sol- diers were in France, two million more were in the camps and cantonments in America, twenty-four million men had been registered and classified, and a working balance struck between military and in- dustrial man-power that would easily have pro- duced an army of eight million men without inter- ference with an accelerated war program for industry. Moreover, universal service, in the face of an initial and violent prejudice against it, had, in achieving these results, become a popular war measure. These things could never have come about had it not been for an army of men and women, nearly two hundred thousand strong, who made up the backbone of the Selective Service System. With a devotion to duty unsurpassed in the history of any nation, they espoused the administration of an viii PREFACE unpoptdarjaw, and not only achieved success in its execution, but popularized it as well. These men and women on the draft boards be- came in each community the center of war interest. Their aid had been solicited at the outset, and they gave in response not alone sincere and conscien- tious eifort, but a measure of enthusiasm and zeal that swept all antagonism before it. Their pres- ence in each community — and they were a part themselves of the community in which they worked — typified that cooperation among the Federal Government, the locality, and the individual which the Government had long sought, but which it never realized until the World War. And it was that cooperation of all classes, races, and creeds that made possible whatever success the draft achieved during the emergency. I am impressed by the results that might be brought about were it practicable to infuse into the national tasks of peace even a small part of that cooperative enthusiasm that made possible the accomplishments of the war. It has been just a 3'ear since the armistice was signed. America ought now to be well along the road to normal life. Yet, socially and industrially, it is safe to say that there have never existed conditions more chaotic. Is there to be no relief from the menace of social and industrial unrest? Is the readjustment to the normal ways of peace never to come about? Is it PREFACE ix not possible to bring to these disturbing, yes, dis- tressing, conflicts of peace that spirit of coopera- tion which in the administration of the draft welded the wills of all our people into a single, enthusiastic, national purpose? It has been mj' effort, in Part II of this book, to outline a plan whereby such an end may be attained. This is not a book designed for military pur- poses. It makes no appeal to the military man. Primarily, it is directed to those 193,117 loyal men and women who lent their labors to the adminis- tration of Selective Service. It is not a narrative of the draft, but is rather a summing up of the achievement of those men and women, an achieve- ment so unique and yet so pregnant with the pos- sibility, if elsewhere applied, of a newer and more perfect democracy, that it is my ardent hope that it may have at least a trial in broader fields. Certain officers connected with the National ad- ministration of the draft will recognize in parts of the text a continuation and amplification of dis- cussions begun by them and which found place in the two annual reports to the Secretary of War. I should like, in concluding this preface, to ac- knowledge by name the contributions of each of these oflScers. I am precluded from doing so be- cause I can not single out from many names with- out risking the charge of implied reflection on others. X PREFACE I must, however, acknowledge the services of Lieutenant Colonel John D. Langston and Major Jesse I. Miller, who continued in the service until a very recent date and whose service and assist- ance have made practicable the preparation and completion of this text at the early date it is given to the public. E. H. C. Washington, D. C, November 11, 1919. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAKT I CHAFTEB PAOK I. America Elects 3 II. Feeding the God op Wae 25 III. The Volunteee System in America . . 59 IV. Pride of Tradition Versus Common-Sense Patriotism 93 V. Universal Service in America .... 115 VI. Selective Service in America .... 136 VII. How England Achieved Selective Service 176 VIII. The Spirit of the Draft 221 PART II IX. The Tasks that Lie Ahead 241 X. The Permaitenct of the Selective Serv- ice Idea 260 XI. The Preservation op Americanism . . 291 XII. A Plan op Action 307 XIII. The Old Guard 335 Appendix 351 PART I THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE CHAPTEE I AMERICA ELECTS ON June 28, 1914, an assassin's bullet, finding its mark in an Austrian archduke, touched the match to the tinder-pile of a world war. In little more than a month, forty years of hate and preparation, conserved against "the day," had been loosed upon a peaceful, startled Europe. A fortnight later, ravished Belgium and stricken France attested the thoroughness and the pre- meditation of the onslaught. The whole world stood aghast at the cataclysm. Though horrified at the spectacle of peaceful states already steeped in blood and misery, America at once declared neutrality. Every consideration of policy and tradition prompted such a course. America was the melt- ing-pot of the world. To her had come the sons of all Europe. The traditions of England im- 4 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE planted on her shores three hundred years before were strong, and ties of blood and a common tongue are often the strongest chains that link one people to another. Bleeding France awakened the memories of the day when the United Colonies, struggling for a freer expression of a newly con- ceived liberty, saw her strong arm reach across the Atlantic with sustaining strength. The burn- ing homes and ruined fields of Belgium, her neu- trality shamelessly violated, aroused the passions and the sympathy of the Western World. But there were other ties. The Central em- pires had sent thousands of their sons and daugh- ters to America. Industrious, frugal, intelligent as a class, they had come, taking a place in Amer- ican life, rearing their families, and accepting the customs, the thought, and the ideals of America. But bonds of blood and the memories of youth are strong. Many of them had left be- hind friends and families, ties of blood and af- fection that even two generations could not destroy. The cold-blooded efficiency of Germany and the cynical philosophy of her priesthood of scholars were repugnant to many; to many others, the warmth and industry of her people, their enthusi- astic devotion to the empire and its contributions to science and the fine arts were equally attractive. To many Germany typified the military autoc- AMERICA ELECTS 5 racy, bent upon conquest, careless of its cost in blood and treasure. To others Eussia stood for oppression and heartless greed, which in centuries of misgovernment had crushed its people and now sought to use them in plans of selfish aggrandize- ment. So it was that on the one hand were those who saw in the outrageous demands of Austria-Hun- gary upon Serbia a pretext for embroiling Europe ; on the other, those who pictured the Cen- tral powers ringed about by enemies, struggling for existence. Thus ran the more shallow thought in America in the summer of 1914. It is undoubtedly true that the thought was shallow. Perhaps it could not have been otherwise. Stunned at the out- break, too close upon the events accurately to as- sess them, the reaction came to the individual person as his own prejudices and leanings had prepared him. The deeper significance of the struggle had not yet become apparent. But whatever may have been the individual thought of America, its collective impulses were those of sympathy and horror. Sympathy for the great masses of people suddenly snatched from their peace-time pursuits for the bloody struggles of monstrous war; sympathy for the wives and mothers of men already locked in the death struggle in France, in Belgium, in East 6 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE Prussia, and in Serbia; sympathy for children about to be made fatherless and about to endure the privation and suffering of the dreadful con- test to which they were not party; horror that upon a peaceful world there should descend over- night the awful threat of self-destruction. Where lay the blame for this crime against humanity? America reserved its judgment and declared neutrality. But her people, unanimous only in sympathy, stood ready to condemn with an equal unanimity the perpetrators of this co- lossal crime when once their guilt was definitely fixed, r But, after all, the struggle was for Europe and of Europe, ran American thought. It was not America's battle. Had she not for more than a hundred years kept clear of entangling alliances, ^secure in the isolation of the Western continent? And had she not nearly a century before drawn the dead-line for European aggression, reserving for the Western Hemisphere the solution of its own problems and freedom of action divorced from all European interference? America would pour out her sympathy for the stricken people of Europe and her gold to alleviate their sufferings, but the quarrel was their own. America had no part or interest in it. Had she? The world had grown smaller since the days of Washington and Monroe. Each sue- AMERICA ELECTS 7 ceeding agency that destroyed time and distance linked the world with a closer bond. The far- away people of yesterday had become the neigh- bors of to-day. Commerce brought about not only an interchange of goods, but an interplay of ideas that worked a clearer understanding among peoples and nations. The cross currents of economic development gave impetus to new and growing interests that were no longer na- tional, but international. America had begun to know better, and to see the world with a broader vision. The field of American activity was no' longer America, but the world. She had taken a new place in the family of nations, and had be- come a world factor, whose activities were bounded only by the limits of the world. -> Neither nations nor individual persons can live and work with one another without a code of con- duct. Broadly stated, the ideal code is that which allows the greatest freedom to the individual person, with the least interference to other indi- vidual persons. But every right thus acquired has its reciprocal obligation. The individual per- son cannot expect to enjoy his own property in se- curity unless he concedes the same right to every one else. He cannot expect to live free from attacks upon his person unless he will abstain from assaulting the person of his neighbor. In these common advantages, each of which carries 8 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE its common obligation, is found the basis of all human society. Men cannot acquire and hold property or build homes or rear families or pursue the arts of peace if their possessions are to be taken or their personal safety imperiled at the will of their neighbors. It has taken a long time for men to learn this lesson. Some of them have not yet learned it. But the overwhelming consensus of world opinion is that among human beings there are certain fundamentals to be maintained if human society is to exist. Society among individual persons finds its counterpart in the intercourse of nations. Na- tions cannot be secure in the possession or enjoy- ment of their lands if those possessions are to be subjected to the arbitrary will of their neighbor nations. People cannot follow the ways of peace and progress if they are constantly to be in dread of assaults from neighbor peoples. International commerce cannot exist if one nation can seize the goods of another in transit. Interchange of ideas must cease when the traveler is afforded no pro- tection in a foreign land. Nations have known this for many centuries. The mutual rights and obligations of nations, as such, are the basis of all international society. If these obligations are not recognized, international intercourse becomes at once impossible, and all the slow progress of AMERICA ELECTS 9 the world that centuries have evolved becomes lost, and future advancement impossible. There are, therefore, in the society of nations, no less than in the society of individual persons, certain fundamentals that must be recognized and main- tained if society is to exist. The man or woman who breaks the laws of social conduct becomes at once a social outcast and a criminal ; the nation that ignores or violates in- ternational obligations becomes an international pariah and an outlaw. That is just. If it were not so, all society and all intercourse would cease to be. , War, if a calamity, has nevertheless been the only instrument that nations have yet been able to use effectively in the settlement of international differences when amicable agreement is impos- sible. But the common sense, no less than the common humanity of nations, has recognized the horror of war and has sought to avoid it or to re- duce its attendant suffering to the minimum. So it has resulted that the ancient cruelties that made civilian populations and women and children the victims of their practice gradually gave place, by common consent, to a more humane philosophy. The greatest thought of civilization has been the recognition of the rights of humanity. And as nations recognized reciprocal advan- tages among themselves and the obligations to 10 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE humanity in making war upon other nations, so also did they come to recognize, by common agree- ment, the rights of neutral nations in time of war. With the growth of commerce and the freer inter- course of nations, it came about that the interests of states became so interwoven that war between several states might affect the welfare of the world. Ought the quarrels of one nation with another to ruin the industry and the commerce of a third that had no interest in the quarrel? Or ought the lives and property of citizens of neu- tral states to be endangered or destroyed for the sole reason that warring nations were seeking to settle their own disputes by force? The world answered in the negative. The seas are the great highways of the world. Linking the continents, they unite the peoples of the world in trade, in the interchange of ideas, and in common aspirations. Over them move the life, the thought, and the progress of the world. So it has been since men first put out to sea in ships. Freedom of the seas is the fundamental principle of world progress. Without it, nations remain forever provincial. The common sense of nations has recognized this truth as the bed-rock of international intercourse and world advance- ment. In the summer of 1914 the law of the sea, in its fundamentals, was well settled. It was the crys- AMERICA ELECTS 11 tallization of certain clearly recognized principles of human right and international justice, which depended for enforcement upon the honor of na- tions, and the destruction of which carried with it the doctrines that civilization had evolved after centuries of conflict. So it was that America was stunned when on February 4, 1915, six months after the world war had begun, the German Admiralty, acting under the direction of the Imperial Government, issued a proclamation declaring that on and after February 18 all the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole of the English Channel, would constitute a war zone, that every enemy merchant ship found within it would be destroyed, and that even neutral ves- sels, their passengers, and crews would be ex- posed to the common peril. Perhaps never in modem times had a more hideous policy been announced. The right to blockade enemy ports was undoubted, and a war- ring nation might by lawful blockade prevent the entry and departure of all shipping to or from enemy ports. But here there was no question of blockade involved. The order defined an area of the high seas as prohibited, and decreed the com- mon destruction of all shipping that entered it. The rights and duties of Germany upon the high seas were clear. She had the right to seize 12 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE all enemy shipping, and she had the right to pre- vent the shipment to her enemy in neutral ves- sels of contraband of war. But she had no right to close the high seas to the world. What were her motives ? A belligerent has the right to seize and destroy certain ships and cer- tain cargoes. But certain ships and certain car- goes it can neither lawfully seize nor destroy. Therefore, a belligerent's action must be deter- mined by the nationality of the vessel and the nature of its cargo. Such a determination in- volves investigation, and the investigation is con- ducted according to international law by visit and search of the vessel and its papers. If the visit and search reveal that the vessel or its cargo is liable to capture and destruction, the passengers and the crew cannot be likewise destroyed, but must be afforded an opportunity to reach a place of safety. Of course, if the vessel attempts to resist or to escape, the rule is modified to meet the necessities of the occasion. There is nothing abstruse about these princi- ples; the rule is simply one that looks to the safety of innocent shipping and the protection of innocent lives. It is merely the declaration of a generally recognized doctrine that the purposes of war are to destroy the enemy, but not to destroy the world. But Germany had been driven from the surface AMERICA ELECTS 18 of the sea. She had brought forward the sub- marine as her answer to that defeat. The sub- marine was ill adapted to arresting vessels at sea or to visiting and searching them. Compar- atively small in size, with only limited armament, it might be attacked and destroyed by hostile craft if it remained upon the surface long enough to determine the nature of its prey. To abide by the rules of civilized warfare in- volved a risk that Germany did not care to take. She selected, therefore, to eliminate that risk at any cost. The cost was her national honor. Once for all, she took the stand that rules of in- ternational conduct, principles of humanity, and her own solemn treaty obligations were nothing if they stood between her and the accomplishment of her end. She sought to avoid a risk, and did not hesitate to destroy friend and foe alike in its avoidance. The sense of fair play is the strongest attribute of America. To play the game, — to play it to the last atom of vitality, but to play it fairly, — that is the spirit of America. So it was shocked when the neutrality of Belgium was violated; it shud- dered when the open towns of England were shelled and when women and children were slain and violated or carried into exile. The game was not played that way. It was not fair. It was not right. Still, it was a European game, after 14 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE all. But America had already sensed in the con- temptuous disregard of human rights an ar- rogance that imperiled ci%'ilization and the safety of the world, even though it did not touch America directly. But on February 4, American rights themselves began seriously to be affected. The American Government entered a vigorous protest. To de- clare or exorcise a right to attack and destroy any vessel entering a prescribed area of the high seas without first certainly determining its belligerent nationality and the contraband character of its Tcargo, was an act so unprecedented in naval war- fare that the American people were reluctant to believe that the German Government really con- ^templated it. Its execution meant the destruction of American vessels and American lives in flag- rant violation of international law, of treaty rights, and the rights of humanity. It so advised the German Government on Feb- ruary 10. The German Government would be held to a "strict accountability" for any violation of American rights, and the United States would "take any steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and American property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoy- ment of their acknowledged rights on the high seas." But the hope of America was expressed that the German Government would not molest AMERICA ELECTS 15 American citizens or their vessels, otherwise than by visit and search, although Americans or their vessels might be traveling the sea areas defined in the German proclamation of February 4. On February 16 the German Minister for For- eign Affairs replied to the American Government that his Government contemplated only the de- struction of enemy merchant vessels found within the prescribed area and not the destruction of neutral shipping, "as the American Government appear to have erroneously understood." Thus the German Government disclaimed any intention of destroying neutral vessels, but failed to state its intention as to enemy merchant vessels. These it had no right to destroy without extending to them the right of visit and search and the safety of their passengers and crews. American citizens had an unquestioned right to take passage upon such vessels, secure in the belief that their lives would not be taken and that they would be allowed an opportunity to reach a place of safety before any vessel was destroyed. So while America breathed a sigh of relief that the German Government had abandoned its inten- tion to destroy American vessels, there still re- mained the apprehension that in its unlawful at- tacks upon enemy vessels it would endanger or destroy American lives. Those fears were not unfounded. Within six weeks the British pas- 16 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE senger steamer Falaha was sunk and an American citizen drowned. On April 28 the American ves- sel Gushing was attacked by a German aeroplane, and on May 1, the American vessel, Gulflight, was torpedoed by German submarines, two American citizens losing their lives. Thus, within ten weeks after the solemn assurance that American vessels would not be destroyed, two American ships had been sunk, two American lives lost, a British steamer destroyed, and, with it, an American citi- zen. Did the German Government intend deliberately to violate its solemn promises, and did it intend to persist in the ruthless destruction of all ves- sels and the indiscriminate murder of Americans ? The answer was not long forthcoming, for six days later the British liner Lusitania was sunk without warning off the Irish coast, and more than one thousand souls, including one hundred Amer- ican citizens, perished with it. The whole world stood horrified at the act. Never in the history of modem warfare had there been committed so deliberate, so malicious, so wanton an assassination, absolutely contrary to the rules, the practice, and the spirit of modem warfare, and with so ruthless a disregard of the principles of humanity. America was ready for war. But so incon- ceivable was the wantonness of the conduct of AMERICA ELECTS 17 the Imperial German Government that the American Government was slow to believe that such an act could have had its sanction or that there could be a repetition of it. And in conse- quence, the judgment of the Government wavered in its decision as to what was the wiser course to pursue, whether to obey an al most universal impulse to enter the conflict, or to reserve action until the German Government could have an op- portunity formally to disavow the premeditation of the act. But while the German Government hastily dis- claimed the intentional destruction of the Amer- ican steamers Cushing and Gulflight, it was still unwilling to forego further attacks upon enemy vessels. In August, while the Lusitania catastro- phe was still a matter of popular agitation and diplomatic correspondence, the British liner Arabic was torpedoed and three American lives lost in the disaster. It was long past the time for a definite declaration on the part of the German Government as to its future policy. Finally forced to a decision by the demands of the American Government, the German Government announced on September 1 that in the future lin- ers would not be sunk by its submarines without warning and without safety to all lives of non- combatants, provided the liners did not try to escape or offer resistance. Thus, after four 18 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE months of exasperating delay, Germany yielded on paper to America's demands. It was not a concession ; it was only a partial promise to play the game according to the rules and the first prin- ciples of humanity. The promise was as false as it was grudgingly given. On November 9, the Italian ship Ancona was torpedoed without warning by an Austrian submarine, and seven American lives were lost; on December 30, the British liner Persia was sunk in the same cowardly fashion, and two Americans destroyed. On March 24, 1916, the unarmed, French cross-channel ferry Sussex was attacked in the English Channel without warning, with a frightful loss of innocent passengers, including many American citizens, and on March 27 the British ship Englishmen was likewise torpedoed, and six American lives lost. The sinking of the Sussex had been particularly horrifying, but it did not stand alone. It was only one, even though exceedingly wanton, in- stance of deliberate and indiscriminate destruc- tion of merchant vessels of all sorts, nationalities, and destinations; it was only one instance of a settled policy of malicious destruction which sought to efface the shipping of the world from the seas. It was time for settlement. So it was that on April 18 the United States advised the German AMERICA ELECTS 19 Government that unless there was an immediate cessation of indiscriminate submarine warfare and an adherence to the recognized principles of the law of nations, diplomatic relations with the German Government would be severed. Convinced for the time that her interests would best be served by an adherence to lawful methods, Germany on May 4 informed the American Gov- ernment that it had decided to conduct its sub- marine warfare only in accordance with the prin- ciples of international law, and that thereafter no merchant vessels would be sunk without first securing the lives of their passengers and crews. How insincere was that promise and how slightly bound Germany held herself in making it, was later abundantly proved. But for the ensuing period of nine months she adhered, with few viola- tions, to her promise of May 4. Yet when the time arrived she broke it as easily as she had broken her other covenants in the past. Meanwhile the issues of the war were becom- ing clearer in other directions. From the viola- tion of Belgian neutrality the German Govern- ment had waged war on land with reckless dis- regard of law and the common dictates of hu- manity. It is needless to recite her derelictions, crimes that roused the wrath and sympathy of the world and steeled the Entente powers to struggle to the end. But it was not only in her crime 20 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE upon her enemy, not only in her assassinations alike of friend and foe upon the high seas, but likewise in America, German perfidy be- gan to assume a boldness amounting to open contempt. Gradually it became clear that the hospitality that neutral America extended to the diplomatic representatives of the Cen- tral powers was being abused with the same shameless disregard of right and decency that characterized their actions elsewhere. Neu- tral America was being used by German officers to foment revolution in India; to organize efforts to wreck bridges and destroy industry in Canada ; to prepare bombs and sink Allied vessels lying in American harbors ; to cripple and destroy mu- nition industries in the United States, and to in- cite lawless, anti-American outbreaks in Mexico. But if this was not enough to convince America of the utter immorality of the German Govern- ment, it was soon to be disillusioned. The first of the year 1917 found President Wil- son engaged in an earnest effort to effect a peace among the warring nations. Even as he labored, Germany was directing an insidious plot to unite Japan and Mexico with her in war against America. Protesting her desire for peace and ac- cepting the aid of America in the attempted ac- complishment, she was at the very moment plan- ning the most wanton policy of history, and plot- AMERICA ELECTS 21 ting to destroy America in the process. For the strugghng nations of Europe there could be no peace with such a power; nor longer for America. America had been very patient. She had suf- fered and endured the arrogance and the insin- cerity of the German Government for thirty months. She had seen her citizens murdered, their vessels destroyed, and their commerce ruined. But on January 31, 1917, the German Ambassa- dor to the United States presented to the secre- tary of state a communication from his Govern- ment declaring that from and after February 1 all sea traffic would be stopped with every avail- able weapon and without further notice, in the waters around Great Britain, France, and Italy, and in the eastern Mediterranean. The procla- mation made it impossible for any American ship, upon whatever business or mission it was bound, to sail to or from any part of the British Isles, Bel- gium, France, or Italy. After entering the Medi- terranean Sea and passing the coast of Spain, America and all other neutral nations were pro- hibited from traffic in the Mediterranean except within a twenty-mile channel leading to Greece. All other parts of the Mediterranean were closed to the neutral world. American and other neu- tral vessels could trade with Holland, Denmark, 22 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE Norway, and Sweden only by sailing along a far northern route, and approaching those countries through narrow sea channels surrounding their coasts. By its decree the German Government appropriated absolutely and barred from all navi- gation, neutral or otherwise, an area of the At- lantic Ocean fourteen hundred miles in length and one thousand miles in breadth, as well as virtu- ally the entire Mediterranean Sea. It denied ab- solutely to neutral nations the right to sail upon an area of the high seas through which was car- ried nearly three fourths of the entire foreign commerce of the world. It not only violated the principles of international law, but was in direct contravention of the treaty entered into between the United States and the Kingdom of Prussia; and it violated the treaty of Constantinople of 1888, providing that the Suez Canal should be open to merchant vessels in time of war as well as in time of peace; it was in violation of the solemn assurance of the German Government made to the United States as late as May, 1916. It was an act of arrogance and perfidy unprec- edented in the history of nations. The mask had fallen. The hideous policy of the German Government, until then ill-concealed, but half-suppressed, now stood revealed. All that was right or just or humane ; law, faith, honor, all were to be surrendered to more efficient assassina- AMERICA ELECTS 23 tion and to the ruthless accomplishment of an end. There was no longer any choice. Immediate action was the demand of the American people. On February 3, America severed diplomatic re- lations with the German Empire. As if delib- erately to heap on added insult, the Housatonic was sunk the same day. Armed neutrality was ineffectual. Before April 2, six American vessels were destroyed. Reconciliation was neither pos- sible nor desired. The time had come to meet force with force, to oppose the sinister threat of the Central powers with the righteous strength of America. On March 15 the Russian people arose and threw off the yoke of centuries of oppression. At last the contest assumed its true proportions. On the one hand were the free nations of the world struggling for existence; on the other, the lustful, greed-driven autocracies of Europe, seek- ing to impose their will upon them, unmindful of the means and careless of the instrumentalities. The war was no longer a struggle of armies or of nations. It had become a contest of ideals of government. It had become a struggle of de- mocracy against autocracy ; of international honor against international perfidy ; of international jus- tice against international tyranny; of altruism against avarice; of civilization against chaos. 24 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE On April 6, Congress declared a state of war to exist with the German Empire. America had accepted the challenge impudently flung to civili- zation, and elected to cast her lot with the free nations of Europe to save the world for decency and democracy. CHAPTER II FEEDING THE GOD OF WAB THE obligation to contribute military service in defense of the common safety is as old as the law of self-preservation. History cannot hark back to its inception. The incentive to service in defense of the state finds its parallel in the pack that presents a united front to the com- mon enemy and in the covey facing in an outward circle, each unit a sentinel to sound the alarm against approaching danger. The democracy of danger is the oldest state. Fundamentally man is no less democratic than the lower animal. To the demonstration of that truth it is not necessary to scan the pages of his- tory. Contemporary tribal life furnishes a re- plica to-day of the Aryan tribes of five thousand years ago. The East Indian or the African tribesman of the twentieth century is both a hunter and a warrior. But the progress of civilization often imposes artificialities that in time become so real that one is prone to think the artificial, real and the 25 26 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE real, artificial. So faulty does the perspective often become that one sometimes really thinks the world was made only yesterday and that what exists to-day has always been ; not only that it has always been, but that it must be best merely be- cause it exists. In 1917 universal service in America was a strange and unfamiliar thing. Yet not only is it as old as the social pact, but all the great de- mocracies of the past have known it. Their his- tory is often inextricably bound up in it. With them democracy was kept fresh in so far as uni- versal service flourished, and declined and died as the universal obligation waned and passed away. What is the relation of an army to a people? To the casual reader of the chronicles of the past, armies appear to be only the agencies of battle. Seldom does one look deeper and glimpse in them the real character and stamina of the people whose battles they waged. From Egypt came no small part of the culture of Greece. There is found historically recorded the first instances of an organized army. Mili- tary service in Egypt was a privilege no less than an obligation. It could be performed only by those who owned not less than six acres of land. The theocracy of the Jew was not without divine sanction of the universal obligation to pre- FEEDING "THE GOD OP WAR 27 serve the state with arms. The first chapter of Numbers says : Jehova spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, take ye the sum of all the congrega- tion of the children of Israel by their families, by their father's houses, according to the numbers of the names, every male by their polls from twenty years old and up- wards, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel, thou and Aaron shall number them by their hosts. — So all that were numbered of the children of Israel by their father's houses, from twenty years and upward, all that were able to go forth to war in Israel were six hundred thousand, and three thousand and five hundred and fifty. It is, however, in the history of the city states of Greece that the initial demonstration of the vital connection between the character of armies and the quality of governments is found. The citizen militia of early Athens and Sparta formed the Nation in Arms. Periclean Athens was a city of but thirty-six thousand males of military age, yet it possessed a citizen army of twenty-eight thousand. The Athenian youth began his mili- tary training at an early age. He gave two to three years of his young manhood to the service of the state, and remained liable to continue his obligation until he reached the age of forty. Mar- athon was a victory of citizen soldiers of a free democracy over the professional army of a Persian despot. 28 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE The -n hole Spartan community lived the life of a regiment. The profession of arms was the ac- cepted career of every full citizen. But in both Athens and Sparta it was only to free men that the privilege of service was allowed. The Greek states grew as imperialistic schemes bore fruit. Slaves and provincials mingled in their populations. The citizen soldier, eager for the summer campaigns on the borders of his nar- row territory, became unwilling to serve on more distant fields. Wealth came and with it the en- slaving luxuries that his sturdier fathers never knew. Eeluctant to sustain the rigors of the army, the wealthier Greeks at first avoided the obligation of service by the employment of paid substitutes. This failing, the final step was the foreign mercenary. Thus, the fine-spirited na- tional forces of Greece, which laid the foundation of her greatness and sustained her democracy, "gave way to the professional soldier, who soon became the willing tool of the military autocrat. It is a far cry from Miltiades at Marathon to Philip of Macedon, the despot of all Greeks; yet the gap accurately measures the loss of that sense of national obligation which made possible the citizen army of earlier days. Weakening with the insidious rot that relax- ation from duty engenders, the Athenian state was toppling. Yet there was at least one who did not FEEDING THE GOD OF WAE 29 fear boldly to proclaim the danger and to preach the remedy. Thmidering in his impatient wrath, Demosthenes harangued: There is one source, Athenians, of all your defeats. It is that your citizens have ceased to be soldiers. Yet, you have time. Even now you may avoid the catas- trophe. Recruit your armies, man your fleets, not with the offscourings of Hellas and Asia, but with the best of your free-bom citizens, and you may yet conquer. Or failing, you shall not have disgraced your past; you shall not have disgraced those Athenians who at Salamis and Marathon were the foremost of men in the race for freedom and deathless renown. Rome, like Greece, raised her early armies on the principle of universal obligation of all citizens. The service was without pay, and the citizen furnished his own equipment. Defense of the slat&^was a privilege, not a burden; annuSttevles made for the campaigns that laid the foundation of the Roman Empire called together citizen hosts between seventeen and sixty. They were re- quired to give from ten to sixteen years of service. The citizen without property was not enrolled, for, having nothing to lose, his patriotism was held to be negligible. The Roman soldier, being always a free-born, unpaid citizen, was accorded those special rights and privileges to which his high calling entitled him. Such was the army, based upon compulsory 30 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE military service of all citizens, that conquered the Italian Peninsula and brought Rome face to face with Carthage. But under the prolonged strain of the Punic Wars the organization broke down. As with Athens, distant campaigns required long periods of continued service and ever-increasing numbers. Levies of citizens were continually made, but the soldier was sometimes paid for his service and, in the face of defeat, even slaves were requisitioned to stem the tide. After Cannae, Rome armed nearly one tenth of her total popula- tion in the effort to check the onslaughts of Han- nibal. Such a levy upon the population of the United States to-day would mean an army of ten million men. With the downfall of Carthage, Rome assumed imperial proportions. Increasing wealth and luxury weakened the high ideals of defense of the state as a duty and privilege. The citizen army decayed as plans of conquest grew and there was less patriotism than actuated the earlier Roman forces. From Marius onward, the voluntary sys- tem of recruiting oame to be the accepted means for raising the substantial portions of Rome's fighting forces. The career of a soldier was held out as an ideal business venture for men of the poorer classes. This change hastened rapidly the evolution of a citizen militia into a long-service, professional army. Military service was left FEEDING THE GOD OF WAE 31 more and more to the poorer man, who adopted it as a profession, and served as long as he was fit for the campaign. This system diminished the necessity for compulsion, which, whUe not fully abolished, became easier of evasion. Thus the Roman Army soon settled down into the regular professional type upon which professional armies of the future were all based. But the Roman Armies, irresistible against Rome's enemies in time of national danger, soon proved equally dangerous to the state itself. It was inevitable that they should fall more and more under the domination of ambitious leaders. Sulla fought Marius; Caesar, Pompey; Octavius, Antony; and to the victor belonged the republic. Soldiers lost all relation to civil life and to the Roman state, and recognized allegiance only to their commanders. So it came about that the nation in arms that had overthrown the kings gave place to professional armies that overthrew the republic. The advent of the Empire marked the total abandonment of universal compulsory service. Herodian, with the perspective of nearly three hundred years io guide the accuracy of his state- ment, summarizes it thus : So long as the Roman state had been a democracy, all the Italians were armed; but from the time when Augustus became sole leader, he relieved the Italians of 32 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE their burden and disarmed them; pushing camps and garrisons nearer to the front of the empire and estab- lishing hired troops at fixed rates of pay. The great bulk of citizens was removed from contact with the army, spread out on the frontiers, and lacking ideals of freedom, they accepted with supineness both the benefits of peace and the des- potism of their emperors. Thus it was that when the barbaric hordes finally broke the barrier long maintained by the imperial legions there existed no reserve of trained citizenry to defend the Eoman state. The military history of Athens found in its salient features a close parallel on a vaster scale in the chronicles of Rome. Responsibility for na- tional defense rested at first upon the shoulders of self-governed citizens. When national defense ceased to be the purpose of their armies and vast plans of conquest became their end, control of the state finally came to be centered first in the hands of a professional army and then in the power of military despots. Relief from the gen- eral obligation of service was accompanied by the fall of democracy and the rise of the despot and the dynasty. Following the downfall of Rome, /the history of Europe entered upon centuries of confused strife and disorganization. Powerful states emerged from time to time from the chaos, but their ex- FEEDING THE GOD OF WAE 33 istence was short-lived and their military systems ill-defined. The state and citizenship were, to a large measure, lost, and feudalism came to take their places upon the continent of Europe. When feudalism and its companion, knight-errantry, flourished, democracy was non-existent, and a national army unthinkable. The reason is not far to seek. Feudalism was based upon the personal allegiance of the lowest ranks of society to their lords, who, in turn, owed fealty to overlords, the underlings of higher authority. The basis of the system repelled every idea of a common liability to a common state. Its lowest members, little re- moved from slavery, enjoyed the use of land upon the payment of feudal dues, which included the rendering of annual military service for a period fixed by the will of the lord. The lord himself, being, in turn, bound personally to the service of his overlord, looked to the villain to supply the annual armed contingent, his obligation to the superior authority. Thus it was that the soldier- serfs did not come to arms in the service of a common cause, but in payment of a debt of fealty to which they were not party. But the sovereign's hold upon his underlords was always doubtful, depending as it did upon their promptness in turning over annual quotas of fighting men, who, when forthcoming, might be of doubtful loyalty and, therefore, of doubtful worth. 34 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE To emancipate themselves from such uncertain fealty, the stronger lords drew about them inde- pendent forces of armed men, whom they hired themselves, and who were responsible to them only. To raise the funds necessary to the main- tenance of such independent retainers, the custom grew of remitting the obligation of personal serv- ice or the furnishing of a quota on the payment of an annual fine or scutage. From such a begin- ning sprang a system of taxation whereby the monarch rid himself of a precarious reliance upon his underlords, and secured the means for the employment of powerful, mercenary armies re- sponsible only and directly to himself. Thus, from the medley of dukedoms, cities, and principalities of feudal continental Europe arose the beginnings of modern states, conceived and fostered by powerful soldier kings, who, stimulat- ing the slumbering spirit of nationalism through prolonged periods of peace, made possible the growth of commerce, industry, art, and education that finally worked their own downfall. But while the national consciousness took form under the protection of absolutism, the army re- mained a tool in the hands of the monarch. More and more the soldier became a professional type, distinct from the farmer, the artisan, and the tradesman. His barbarities did much to accen- tuate his individuality. The civilian population FEEDING THE GOD OP WAR 35 came to dread the approach of armed men, and the profession of arms fell into disrepute and con- tempt. The dregs of society were in the ranks of the warrior kings of France, of Spain, of Austria, and of Prussia. Soldiers of fortune invested their money in organizing bands of mercenaries, and hawked them about Europe as business en- terprises. Far from basing their military policy on the general liability of every citizen to aid in the de- fense of the state, the absolutists showed an actual dread of citizen armies reminiscent of the fears of the Roman emperors a thousand years before. And those fears were not unfounded. More than once when a hard-pressed sovereign was by the course of unpropitious events forced to resort to a popular levy, the conscript soldier, unwill- ingly drawn to arms, was equally unwilling to lay them down until some popular reform or privilege had been obtained from a reluctant monarch. Thus it was the Middle Ages saw a few strong soldier rulers gain control of the revenues of state, gain a resulting grasp upon the national forces, and erect the despotism based upon the rule of might. But while the growth of absolutism in the Dark Ages saw the suffocation of general liability to service, it is significant to note that in a few isolated instances of free states that emerged 36 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE from time to time the citizen-soldier came into his own. In the thirteenth century the North Italian communes closely approached pure democracies. In these city- republics of medieval Italy is found the resort to citizen levies intimately associated with free government. Such levies won liberty for the Lombard Communes in 1176. In Milan, as in ancient Athens, every able-bodied citizen was called out in time of national emergency. The Pisans and the Genoese enforced the same general liability to service. How long these city- states, sustained in the strength of their pa- triotism, might have survived had not internecine strife laid them low and brought ithem under the sway of the despot can only be conjectured. But it is enlightening to observe that they, who, free in the thirteenth century, relied upon the citizen- soldier and universal compulsory service, saw the returning despot dissolve their citizen armies and govern with a mercenary force, the usual policy of an absolute government. Ghent, Bruges and Ypres, the great free cities of the Low Countries, present the same phe- nomena. Civic militia vouchsafed their inde- pendence; their free government, finally broken down by the counts of Flanders, disappeared, and with its disappearance came the autocratic rule of the military tyrant supported by a strong pro- fessional army. FEEDING THE GOD OF WAR 37 Nor can the lesson of the early Swiss cantons be overlooked. While owing allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire in the thirteenth century and sup- porting it loyally against their common Austrian enemy, the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unter- walden were real democracies, governed by as- semblies of all male citizens devoted to democracy as an institution. It was in 1291 that these three cantons entered into the first combination for mutual support and defense. For centuries there- after the history of Switzerland is a record of constant warfare maintained against odds that were often overwhelming. In 1386 at Sempach, the tyranny of Austria was thrown off only to be reasserted when, taking advantage of temporary internal dissensions, Austria, with the aid of France, outnumbered the Swiss armies thirty to one and defeated them. But the courage of their patriotism was not to be denied. Regularly out- numbered, their indomitable fighting qualities were reasserted time after time. At Morat in 1476, fifteen hundred Swiss successfully opposed an army of twenty-five thousand. At Giornico in 1478 six hundred Swiss defeated fifteen thousand Milanese. Finally, complete independence from Austria, the Holy Roman Empire, and France was achieved early in the sixteenth century. In 1513, the league, begun in 1291, comprised fifteen can- tons, and the beginning of a central federalized 38 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE government appeared. All the while it was a sturdy democracy compelling universal service of its citizens that sustained the confederacy and made possible the maintenance of its independ- ence and the success of its armies. The league of 1291 made no compromise on the question of universal obligation to perform mili- tary service. All citizens above the age of sixteen years were liable ; those physically unable to per- form the duty were obliged to pay a tax in lieu of it. The evader was severely punished and became ■a social outcast. This conception of duty to the state survived throughout the centuries, and made possible the continuity of Swiss independence, which, begun in 1291, endures to-day in the form of pure democracy enforcing a universal obliga- tion to military service. But to revert. The warfare of the soldier bands of the Middle Ages, led by militant mon- archs, in no true sense typified national struggles. But the Renaissance gave impetus to the nascent social consciousness. Ensuing military strug- gles rejected it. The wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries assumed a more national character and, drawing to them larger issues, de- manded larger efforts and greater armies. Mer- cenary and professional troops were not to be had in sufficient numbers. Never seriously contem- plating a true levee en masse, dreading, as they did, FEEDING THE GOD OF WAE 39 the results to themselves, the continental mon- archs were nevertheless forced to a variety of compulsory methods embodying conscription without the saving grace of universal service. Louis XrV and Frederick the Great acknowl- edged no masters. Conscription with them and their type was purely an instrument of tyranny; it was never associated with the lofty duty of the citizen to defend the state. The system of Fred- erick the Great approached more nearly a uni- versal liability than any of those existing con- currently with it. Yet even he exempted whole towns and districts, snatched the peasant from the field and the artisan from work of destruction. G^angs of rufSans patrolled the streets, pedestrians were held up and robbed, houses broken into and looted, and negroes 90 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE beaten to death or hanged. Even the receipt, on the third day, of word from Washington that the draft in New York had been suspended tempo- rarily had no effect on the mob. Peace and quiet were restored only by the arrival from Pennsyl- vania of several regiments of New York state troops, which had been sent to G-ettysburg to stem the tide of Lee's advance. Thus ended the most flagrant violation of law that the city of New York ever witnessed. As a result of the rioting three hundred persons were killed, many more wounded, and property valued at more than two million dollars destroyed. So was the draft received with riot and protest. In the two years of its operation it added to the Union forces a little over 1,300,000 men. But the great bulk of this number were coerced volunteers and substitutes, whose service in bounties alone cost the Government more than half a billion dol- lars. The number actually drafted into the army was but 46,347 men. The lesson of the Civil War is plain. The ex- periences of 1863 established once for all that in a war of major magnitude, when the fighting man- power of the nation must undergo a long con- tinued strain, the volunteer system will not meet the test. But it also revealed that America would not ungrudgingly espouse a measure that was un- fair or unjust or unAmerican. Universal service VOLUNTEER SYSTEM IN AJVIERICA 91 is a democratic measure, but it must be demo- cratically administered. Sympathy, common un- derstanding, and equal obligation alone can bring about unqualified success. The Spanish War has no real lesson. Only two hundred thousand men were called for, and the war was over long before the nation felt its drain. The men who volunteered barely scratched the surface of American man-power. There was no test of raising maximum armies involved. When war with Germany arrived, America was not lacking in historical warnings of the dangers of the volunteer system. The Revolution had lasted seven years; the War of 1812, three years; the Mexican War, two years; and the Civil War four years. No one could doubt but that eadh of these contests might have ended in one half the time, with a corresponding saving in blood and treasure, had the full fighting strength of America ibeen instantly brought into the struggle. But with Germany there was no option. To waste lives and money in frittering away the national man-power would mean not only a long war, but a lost one. The full fighting strength must be marshaled forthwith. The volunteer sys- tem was unequal to the task. Only another and more effective way could save the world. But the raising of an army was not the only task. True, it was the pressing and the immedi- 92 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE ate problem. But industry, likewise, had to be preserved and industrial man-power redistributed. Armies could not fight effectively if industry did not function efiSciently. The volunteer system destroyed all calculation. It took its toll from all classes and from all walks of life. It had no eye for the industrial life to be maintained behind the armies, without which those armies could not live. It envisioned war as a struggle of arms, not as a struggle of whole na- tions. It was not fitted for a modern war. It could not organize the nation; it could not even organize its armies. So it was that on April 5 the President, leav- ing his ofiSce in the Executive Mansion, crossed to the office of the Secretary of War, and before his assembled advisers committed America to selec- tive service. CHAPTER IV PEIDE OF TRADITION VEBSI7S COMMON-SENSE PATRIOTISM PROGRESS has her eyes fixed upon the future, but her heart yearns for the past. The liv- ing holds out before her temptingly visions of the things that are to be. But ever as she stretches forth to grasp the golden dawn, the memory of the dead raises its warning fingor and points with sad- ness to the grave of yesterday. Trembling, she halts between her hopes and fears, the battles rag- ing in her breast. At last the conflict ends. Who is the victor? Time alone can answer, for though the one lies wounded and bleeding at the foot of his adversary, who can tell that the dawn of the to-morrow holds greater promise than the sunset of the yesterday. The past and the future are both immortal, and mark well that the past will rise again, and ever and anon give battle at the strategic points along life's battle-front. Man has no words of scorn for the glorious past. He uncovers his head in veneration as he looks in pride and wonder upon the things she has wrought. He sees in her the protecting mother 93 94 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE of the things that are and the illustrious ancestor of the things that are to be; and if he lifts his head in fulsome pride in the presence of a new dawn, it is but a tribute to the greatness of de- parted days, which have made possible the erec- tion of a fitting monument to those who have gone before, "a monument not made with hands." This monument erected in the hearts of the grate- ful sons of those who have made their sacrifice for posterity is a living thing. Growing as the hearts of men expand, it keeps pace with the march of progress, casting continually its shadow about the world toilers as if to protect them from the evil spirits of the adventure world. And what is man without his past? Merely a lonely mark in a broad expanse of desert, a com- panionless star in a twilight hour, a wayfarer in an unknown land, with neither beacon nor pillar to guide him, looking back across arid plains whence no man has come, and into parched wastes of no- man's-land, with its terrifying silence, where the foot of man has not trod. The relics of the past and our childhood recol- lections themselves often exercise a directing force in the shaping of our points of view and our activities. The homestead still echoes to the creaking of the old oaken bucket. Dickens and Thackeray and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and the literary products of other days stnl hold TRADITION VERSUS PATRIOTISM 95 their place on the top shelf of the bookcase against all comers. Washington, the father of his coun- try, has lost nothing in the hearts of our citizenry by the lapse of time, and no man dare dispute his place. Thomas Jefferson is still the watchword of Western democracy ; Benedict Arnold, still the symbol of treachery ; Benjamin Franklin, still the wizard of intellect. Nor is this trend of mind confined to the hero- worship of individual persons. The ideas, politi- cal, social, religious, economic, of other days are still the criterion of our progress, and none dare advance until he has first considered, "What would our fathers have thought and done?" We glory in the records of our illustrious an- cestors ; we have the deepest affection for the very- earth that was their abode and that gives to them a resting-place; we have a laudable pride in the laws, institutions, and government, creations of the intellect of those who have passed; we read with ever-increasing delight the chronicles of our ancient warriors and of our leaders both in the political life and in the realms of finance, science, letters, and art. The love we bear toward them is distinct and in addition to the devotion that one has to a cause. It is rather a pride of pos- session, a feeling that this is our own heritage. There may be siome weakness, but it is ours; it may lead us far afield, but it is ours. 96 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE And we would not have it otherwise. We can- not shed the past as easily as the crab sheds its shell, and if we could, we would still follow in part the wisdom of the crab, and nestle closely beside the past until we had tested the strength of our new covering. For we are American citi- zens, born of an ancestry that soug'ht in a new world freedom from tyranny and persecution, and having found a safe haven in which we could for a time worship under our own vine and fig-tree, we are unwilling to launch forth again into an unknown land without due regard to the wisdom and experience of those who have passed through the grim process of nation-building. As stabilizing influences, the greatest respect should be accorded the wisdom and experience of other days. No greater folly can be conceived than the mad chase after each newfangled idea that comes to light. The lure of novelty is as dangerous as it is fascinating. At the same time nothing so tends to impair individual or national efficiency and growth so much as a blind faith in mortals who, like ourselves, are prone to error. Government and the regulation of society would be a simple matter were it not for the ever-chang- ing conditions in human affairs, which preclude the adoption of a fixed rule, an invariable law of conduct as a perpetual guide. But, it is impos- TRADITION VERSUS PATRIOTISM 97 sible to live by fixed rules, however wise they may he for the times in whidh they are first applied. Social progress is a process of evolution by which the unnecessary and immaterial parts are cast aside and new ones taken in. It is the off- spring of liberalism and sane conservatism, par- taking of the stronger qualities and attributes of tht' two. The one is the stabilizer of the admix- ture. It is the unwritten constitution of the in- dividual person that restrains his action. The high- water mark of progress will never be reached so long as the mind of man lives. The continual fight of mankind is against the ebb of the tide. There is no slack water in human affairs. Man may go with the ebb to destruction, or he may seek with the flood the uncertainty that may be destruction or an infinite growth, but he will not stagnate. Sane conservatism attempts to translate the wisdom of the past. But there is a type of con- servatism that has never been able to interpret properly the thought or conduct of the builders of this nation, and which, blindly shutting its eyes to the conditions of to-day, as blindly seeks to apply the misinterpreted wisdom of the fathers to the troubles of the sons. Many people worship their conservatism or their radicalism as the heathen worships his god. With some it is a religion; 98 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE with others it is a hobby. They parade it with as much pride as the Pharisee exhibited in his daily public prayer. Both so-called conservatism and radicalism are abortions of the mind. One is a repressive pose, the other a distressing hypocrisy. The two are as remotely separated from the spirit of real de- mocracy as the poles are from each other. There appears to exist in the minds of a great many people to-day an idea that political wisdom con- sists in thinking as our fathers thought, acting as our fathers acted, merely because they thought and acted along certain lines. There would be more reason for such a course of action if we could be sure that our fathers thought and acted as our fathers' fathers thought and acted, and so on down through the centuries, because then it would appear that there was established a prec- edent of centuries of stable thought and action without variation, which would be strong evidence of the wisdom of such a course. But when one looks back through the developments of history and social progress, and sees that the ideas of Washington and Jefferson were utterly inconsist- ent and opposed to the ideas of their forefathers, and were projected by them as a protest against the line of conduct of their forefathers, material changes in conditions having developed ; and when one further contemplates the fact that a century TRADITION VERSUS PATRIOTISM 99 of progress under a democratic form of govern- ment has brought about conditions vastly different from the conditions under which Washington and Jefferson lived, one is constrained to think, even at the risk of being considered revolutionary, that a change of thought to-day is as necessary for the preservation of true democracy as the so-called revolutionary thought of a century ago, and that advanced ideas of to-day, with proper avoidance of extreme radicalism, will in the course of events and the passage of time, on account of the changed conditions that we must face in the future, become the very essence of that conservatism which we now decry. I am convinced that were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson alive at this hour the very spirit that prompted them to lead a suffering people against the tyranny of the past would rise up in them and make them to-day leaders of an advanced civilization. Did those two immortal leaders in the trying days preceding the Revolu- tion give due consideration and respect to the ex- periences of their fathers? No doubt they did. Yet with a sublime faith in the justice of their cause and confidence in the wisdom of their own views, they took the step that meant the birth of a free nation. Were they alive to-day and ac- tively participating in the political life of their country, it would be as impossible for them to 100 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE subscribe to the views they entertained in those early days, as applicable to present conditions, as it was impossible for them to subscribe to the tenets of the councilors of King George III. Theirs was not the spirit of radicalism. Theirs was the spirit of true democracy, the same kind of spirit that in the early days of the Great World War surged through every real American citizen. Theirs was the spirit of progress backed by sound common sense. The past was as dear to them as it is to us to-day. They drew the same lessons from it as we do to-day. And yet in accordance with their own views they met the needs of their day. I have full faith and confidence, along with those who boast of their conservatism, in the wise judgment and discretion of those who have in former years guided the ship of state across the turbulent seas. I can trust to their compass to guide me, but since the great white sails of the good old ship have yielded to the great engines that drive the ship into the head of the gale, I am not to be censured if I insist that the man who understands the engines shall keep his hand upon the throttle. But what is man with only his past to guide him? Merely a pillar of salt in the pathway of progress to a better land, a pale corpse from which the spirit has departed, retaining only the out- TRADITION VERSUS PATRIOTISM 101 ward resemblance of the thing called man. No hope, no ambition, the present dark, and the fu- ture ever fading, not even a pleasing dream to give the touch of life to his deathlike slumber. The war with Germany was on. No earthly power could be interposed to stay the conflict. It was to be a fight to the finish. Would the policies of the past sufiice to meet the crying needs of the hour when human beings were moving on the continent of Europe in masses of millions, and the blood of over five million men shed in defense of world freedom was plaintively calling? In the forum of the American mind and conscience during the days following the declara- tion of war there was being waged the greatest conflict of all history. No burning words of elo- quence marked the progress of this gigantic inner struggle and yet the logic of all the great masters of speech were there, transformed to meet the^ needs of the mental conflict. Should the country wait to see whether its citizens were so imbued with a desire to serve that they would as one man volunteer for military service, or should it pro- ceed upon that faith in the integrity and pa- triotism of its citizens that recognized not only a willingness to serve where their services might best be used, but at the time when their country might say go? Should the individual wishes of^ the people be pressed into the background or 102 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE should the safety of this nation and of the world be made to depend upon the chance that men's pa- triotism and their judgment would operate equally to insure the volunteering of enough men of the right kind at the right time, so that while war might progress the wheels of industry might not be stayed? Should America commit itself to uni- versal military service or should it rely, as it had in the past, upon a system of volunteer recruit- ment for the raising of its armies 1 The question had passed beyond the reason for war. The prac- tical American citizen was now faced with the gigantic task of winning the war. The whole political and social cauldron was in a foment on the question of how to raise an army. There was no middle ground. Here one portion of the press, sensing with real vision the world menace, issued in clarion tones the call to arms in defense of an imperiled freedom, calling upon people of all parties, all factions, all races who owed allegiance to this country, to face the enemy with a united front, beseeching them to throw their entire resources into the fight, and accept the judgment of the administration upon the ques- tion of universal service and upon all other war policies. Other factions of the press still sought to keep alive the fears of a large portion of the people that there was grave danger of our being committed to plans and policies not only foreign TRADITION VERSUS PATRIOTISil 103 to our ideas, but destructive of the very founda- tions of our government. The temper of the public mind during this period, when the question of compulsory military service was being presented, was not unlike that of the people during the Civil War when the same question arose. From that time until the outj: break of the Great World War no further effort had been made to renew the experiment. But en- gulfed as we were in the greatest struggle of all history, it was evident that the force we could bring into the contest by normal means would be hopelessly inadequate. The mind of the consci- entious pacifist, as well as the strongest advocate of militarism, was centered on the all-important question of how the war could be most quickly won. The experience of England in the first two years of the war had strikingly revealed the futil- ity of any attempt to raise by volunteering a fighting force of sufficient magnitude to cope with an enemy whose entire citizenry had been trained in arms. In January, 1917, a plan for universal military training had been prepared by the Gen- eral Staff of the army. At that time, however, while on the brink of war, this country was not actually involved in the struggle. This plan fol- lowed, to a large extent, the plan adopted in the Civil War, which had been so intensely unpopular in its enforcement as to result in practical failure. 104 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE That plan was deemed impracticable because it provided for such a centralization of power that it would have immediately aroused the intense opposition of those who were trying to promote harmonious relations between the Federal Gov- ernment and the states and to preserve at the same time the tradition of states' rights. But on April 5 the nation had made its choice. It had determined that the fair, the efficient, and patriotic way to raise its armies was by the ap- plication of universal service. Accordingly, the President, sensing the ultimate will of America and satisfied that nothing short of universal service could enable the nation to meet its obliga- tion to the world, committed the administration to that doctrine for the prosecution of the war, the declaration of which awaited only the formal sanction of the assembled Congress. The bill technically entitled, "An Act to Authorize the President to Increase Temporarily the Military Establishment of the United States," but gener- ally known to the public as "The Selective Service Law," had already been drawn, and on April 7, 1917, was laid before the Congress by the Secre- tary of War, and hearings on it immediately be- gan. Again throughout the country, in the committee hearings, and in Congress, were waged some of the bitterest fights in our political history. A TRADITION VERSUS PATRIOTISM 105 large portion of the pacifist element still believed that, notwithstanding the declaration of war, the dread specter of war might be kept away. They descended upon Congress like an avalanche, armed with thousands of petitions praying that the sons of the land should not be made to carry arms unwillingly and should not be sent across the water to fight upon foreign soil. There was still a not inconsiderable portion of our people, who, willing to assume the full measure of the military obligation, wore antagonistic to committing America to the doctrine of compulsory service. For days while the Selective Sorviee Bill was" before Congress there took place debates in Congress greater than almost any since the years immediately precedini^ the Civil War. The lib- erties of the country were at stake, but at the same time there was involved in their protection a program that to the minds of many of our po- litical leaders meant the complete overthrow of all those sacred political relics of a glorious past. It was as though the very tombs of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Monroe, and other great men indissolubly linked with the achievement of free- dom, and the maintenance of national rights were being grossly violated. Representatives of the North, South, East, and West, mindful of the bit- ter experiences of both sides in the Civil War in their efforts to acquire the necessary man-power. 106 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE and cherishing the traditions so interwoven in the national life, thundered forth their angry pro- tests in the hope of averting what to their eyes seemed a nation's mad plunge into the vortex of militarism, that hated thing which had turned Europe into a slaughter-house. But if the attack was strong, in like proportion was the strength of the defense. In imagination one could see the shades of departed orators of all ages gathered in the galleries to listen to the chal- lenges of the old against the new, Demosthenes, Cicero, Antony, Burke, Fox, Gladstone, Henry, Jefferson, Adams, Calhoun, Clay, Webster, gravely looking on from the spirit world and measuring the progress of the ages. Logic, sophistry, wit, humor, ridicule, pathos, eloquence, arrayed themselves on each side, ac- cording to the judgment of the parties. Politics and partisan motives were completely cast aside in facing the larger issue. The American people recognized the fact that there were only two methods for raising armies; volunteer recruitment or a system that would put into effect the universal obligation to serve. / rrhere was no argument in the minds of the Ameri- ''^ can people as to the duty of every citizen to serve 'Ty his country. The objection was to a system that ,,. would, in their judgment, cast a doubt upon the patriotism of the people. Why should America TRADITION VERSUS PATRIOTISM 107 at this hour, when men realized that the national liberty as well as the liberty of the world was at stake, be compelled to resort to legislation forcing men to defend the mother-country? Had not the traditional system of marshaling the man-power of the nation for defensive purposes always been by volunteering? Were they not volunteers who won our freedom in 1776? Did we have to rely upon conscription to force back the alien enemy in the War of 1 812 ? Were not the decisive battles in the Civil War won by volunteers rather than by unwilling men who had been forced from their homes to defend the cause tliey cared not for? Had not the proud Mexican been humbled by vol- unteers, who, outnumbered ten to one, forced their way into the very heart of the enemy country, compelling its surrender? Did the country have to rely upon forcing men into the ranks in the war with Spain? Indeed, had it ever been neces- sary in the history of any democratic country for men to be forced to fight for a cause that they knew was just. And if there was a hesitancy in the minds of a substantial portion of the people against offering their lives and their property in the defense of a cause, would that not, in itself, be sufficient to give rise to a reasonable doubt as to the justice of that cause? Had not the conscrip- tion system been tried out in Europe and resulted finally in a world conflagration? Had experience 108 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTI\'E SERVICE not shown that troops could be raised more quickly by a volunteer system than by any system of conscription? Even in the present war had not the volunteers from Canada and Australia been the very backbone at the battle-front in Europe? Were not the interests backing conscription the interests of big business and finance, who "dreamed vicious dreams of world conquest and exploitation," and "are the natural enemies of democracy"? Had there ever been a failure of volunteering if the soldiers knew what they were fighting for, and knew they were fighting for na- tional defense? Was not conscription an implica- tion against the courage and patriotism of the people ? Was it not * ' equal to a charge that they are selfish and unworthy"? Was it not "a con- fession on the part of the conscriptionists that the war is not a popular war and the heart of the people is not in the war"? Was not conscription the very essence of un- Americanism ? So ran the argument of the opponents of Selective Service. The pulpit was divided on the subject, the pro- fessions arrayed in opposing groups; the finance of the country was uncertain, dreading to take a course so foreign to American tradition; the schools of the country were centers of debates; labor was afraid lest the adoption of a new scheme of military policy should put in the hand of capital 3, whip that would mean the undoing of all the TRADITION VERSUS PATRIOTISM 109 reforms accomplished for the laboring classes. But the greatest debate was in the mind of the individual person himself. He was patriotic. He wanted to win. He had to win. How could victory best be achieved? How could he go into this fight and get through with it as quickly as possible and get back to his usual business? If he was patriotic he was also practical. Common horse-sense was one of his greatest attributes. Common sense told him that he was no better than the other man, that he owed a common duty to serve his country, that he might as well face the situation squarely and determine which plan of universal obligation to serve would be the fairer way, the more efficient and the more democratic way. If he could be convinced that compulsory military service was the faii-est way to raise an army, then, indeed, would he readily put aside time-honored customs and devotion to the past, and throw himself wholeheartedly into the new scheme ; however repugnant it might be to his be- loved traditions and preconceived ideas. For if there is one thing the real American loves better than anything else in the world it is a square deal. Convince him that a square deal has not been given and he will wade through blood to rig'ht the wrong. And let him once be satisfied that he has it within his power to mete out even- handed justice, and he will bend his every effort 110 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE and sacrifice his every resource, even to life itself, to accomplish it. It is upon this recognized char- acteristic of Americans that the lives of political parties depend. It is to them both a platform and a creed, a principle and a religion. It rocks the foundation of our social fabric whenever it is grossly violated. Upon it hinges the success of business, big or little. It has ever been the very essence of Americanism. It was perhaps more widely voiced by the late Theodore Roosevelt than any other leader in American political life, and no doubt accounts for the strong hold he had upon the hearts of the American people. He epitomized it thus : ' ' Rich and poor must feel alike that on the one hand they are protected by law, and that on the other hand they are responsible to the law ; for each is fairly entitled to be fairly dealt with by his neighbor and by the state; and if we, as citizens of this nation, are true to ourselves and to the traditions of our forefathers, such fair measures of justice shall always be dealt to each man, so that as far as we can bring it about, each shall receive his dues, each shall be given a chance to show the stuff that is in him, shall be secured against wrong, and in turn prevented from wrong- ing others. More than this no man is entitled to, and less than this no man shall have." Common sense and reflection satisfied the public that regardless of other objections to that form of TRADITION VERSUS PATRIOTISM 111 compulsory service represented by the Selective Service Law, it was based on the idea of the square deal which Roosevelt had so strenuously in- sisted upon. And the same hard common sense of Americans realized that the war could not be won against an enemy equipped with all the para- phernalia of war and trained for half a century in arms by the same process that had been tried out before and that had resulted in the slaughter of over a million of our best blood. At the same time that spirit of patriotic fervor that has been a heritage since the days of Valley Forge demanded the enemy's defeat. Such was the problem. Should we cast aside the traditions of the past and launch forth into an experiment? As soon as common sense began to assert itself the problem was virtually solved as far as the recognition of universal liability to serve was con- cerned. The citizen did not recede from his origi- nal views about volunteering, but if there was any doubt about its calling out the full man-power of the nation at a time when he realized the full power was necessary, he was willing to make a concession of principle to insure speedy victory. He still had some doubt about the success of the new plan, because, although he had satisfied him- self of the fairness of the law, he was still uncer- tain whether it would be fairly administered. He still resented the idea of being drafted, and it is 112 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE for that reason that when Congress finally acceded to the wishes of the administration for the pas- sage of the Selective Service Law it was with the understanding that for the time being men. should be given the opportunity to enlist. How near this came to defeating the real purpose of the Selective Service Law will be shown in a succeed- ing chapter. When the average American citizen had weighed all the facts and all the arguments, he realized that however much he hated parting with those traditions of the past that were associated with every endeavor he had theretofore under- taken, he was now confronted with a task the mag- nitude of which was beyond the dreams of those who had builded upon tradition, and that it was beyond the power of the traditional instrumen- talities to cope with such a task. It was then but natural that he should adopt the real spirit of his forefathers and place the success of the under- taking ahead of his pride of the past. ' ^ I am constrained to think that the American public gradually worked its mind into such chan- nels of thought; that such an evolution of mind was necessary to bring men devoted to the tradi- tions of the past to that state of mind where they would accept, though unwillingly, a military policy so contrary to their preconceived ideas of service to their country. TRADITION VERSUS PATRIOTISM 113 For over a month Congress, trying to sense properly the trend of the mental processes of the public, wavered in its consideration of the Selec- tive Service Bill. At times administration lead- ers became seriously alarmed lest it fail of pas- sage. The first vote on the bill in the Military Affairs Committee of the Senate was nine to eight against it. In the House Committee there was also great, though not such violent, opposition. \\'licn the bill was finally voted out of the Con- gressional Committees and its consideration upon the floors of Congress was begun, it became again the target of violent attack. In contrast with the reception given every other war measure pro- posed by the administration in the early days of the war, — they were passed in nearly every in- stance without debate, — the bitter opposition to the Selective Service Bill indicated how deeply the measure cut into the cherished traditions of the nation. All the power and influence of the President was needed to bring about its passage. Yet the fact that the final vote was overwhelm- ingly in favor of the bill is ample proof that Con- gress and the American nation had finally realized the necessity for its enactment. _ On the eighteenth day of May, 1917, the Selec- tive Service Bill was passed by both Houses of Congress, signed by the President, and became a law. 114 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE It now remained to be seen whether it would ac- complish the things claimed for it by its advocates. Would the unpopularity that had attended its pas- sage continue through its operation? Could it be possible that the administration of an unpopular law would result in the popularizing of the law itself? Unless that could be accomplished, Con- gress had indeed done a vain and foolish thing. That "compulsion of spirit" joined hands with compulsion of law in the accomplishment of the great task imposed upon the people is both the pride and marvel of the entire citizenship. The fight was won, that inner fight upon the outcome of which depended the destiny of a great nation, perhaps the destiny of all the people of the earth. From this conflict within ourselves emerged a full-gro'vvn Americanism, a faith in the nation and its purposes, that spelled victory even before a single transport began its dangerous pas- sage across the Atlantic. CHAPTER V UNIYEESAL SERVICE IN AMERICA THE Selective Service Act became a law on May 18, 1917. But six weeks before its en- actment, upon the assumption that the Selective Service Bill would becomf a law, the plans for its execution had been formulated in minute detail. The only precedent was the Civil War draft act. But that act, while affordina: emphatic warnings of things to be avoided, was worth little as a guide. In the execution of the Civil War draft, the states had been ignored. A complete federal military machine had been erected, with federal enrolling boards in every federal district, and enrolling officers in every precinct. Two months had been required for the appointment of the boards. The registration had not begun until these boards had been erected, and four months had been insufficient to complete it. The enroll- ing officers went from house to house making their canvass; practice proved that they went at the peril of their lives. Some were killed and many were injured. The enrollment was very incom- plete and far from accurate. The Civil War plan 116 116 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE proved to be very slow, very expensive, and in- tensely unpopular. If it had anything to recom- mend it, it was the military control and the power behind it for enforcement. [ But this very aspect of the Civil War Draft was the key to the explanation of its unpopularity and ill success. The whole plan advertised and confessed a lack of faith in popular support and participation. It was completely foreign to the intrinsic ideas of popular and local self-govern- ment upon which the American nation was builded. It was centralized, slow, and cumber- some. It did not offer to the state or to the in- dividual person a chance or opportunity to coop- erate in the stupendous task that the federal gov- ernment took upon itself. It thrust a strange and unfamiliar federal agency upon each community for the performance of a duty that violated both the tradition and the spirit of American govern- ment. . For America is essentially a nation founded upon local self-government. It would be so for geographical reasons alone were it not funda- mentally so politically. Yet it is a remarkable fact that until the advent of the world war the Federal Government had ignored the existence of the states in the execution of every function it was called upon to exercise. Under our dual sys- tem, we had everywhere, side by side, two systems, UNIVERSAL SERVICE IN AMERICA 117 state and federal, and two centers of interest, of loyalty, of obligation, and devotion. The Fed- eral Government was a thing apart and of itself; the State, in its relation to the central government was likewise separate and distinct. It is one of man's common characteristics to trust the things he knows intimately and of which he is a part. It is a no less common attribute to be suspicious and distrustful of the unfamiliar. Perliaps those common attributes have been among the things that have always caused the American people to look askance at a strong cen- tral government. The Federal Government was removed, distant in its relation to the individual person, and, being unfamiliar, was either feared or little understood. In the Civil War cooperation was not sought. The draft was a federal measure, and it demanded a federal execution. Eeaching out into the states, it placed its unfamiliar hand upon the citizen, and he distrusted, resented, and resisted it. It was not local self-government and it was not Amer- ican. But in the spring of 1917 the nation was again presented with the duty of enforcing a measure of compulsory service. It likewise had to be a federal measure, for nothing short of this could shape the nation's plans with uniformity. But was it not possible to conceive a federal 118 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE measure, directed by a national aim and shaped by a national policy, that could be intrusted to the states for execution under federal guidance? Was it not possible so to integrate the machinery of state and local government with the larger mechanism of the nation as to execute a federal measure with the states as agencies of adminis- tration? If that were possible, there would be achieved a national solidarity based upon the co- operation of local communities and the preserva- tion of the democratic ideal of local self-govern- ment, while executing a measure of purely federal significance. Such a measure would at once chal- lenge the interest and cooperation of the states, it would unite the states and the nation in a common purpose, and would at a single stroke achieve both efficiency and popularity. It was while the various schemes for registra- tion were still under discussion, and the whole gen- eral policy of administering the draft in chaotic outline, that the happy solution came to light. A member of Congress was discussing informally with me the scheme for registration. At that time it had been virtually determined to enroll the manhood of the nation at the various post- offices, convenient federal agencies that already existed. "Why," he said, "cannot the registra- tion be conducted in the voting-precincts through- out the country?" UNIVERSAL SERVICE IN AMERICA 119 It was a simple inquiry bom of a casual thought. But the thought was pregnant with the germ of a new idea in government. Why not? As an in- cident of elections, and in those elections them- selves, the American people had long been prac- tised in presenting themselves at accustomed vot- ing-places to be polled for one purpose or another by the agencies of the states. The methods em- ployed in these enumerations were admirably adapted to the accomplishment of a national reg- istration, for in every state was found a mechanism for roi^istration and a people accus- tomed to its use. The details of local instrumen- talities might differ. In slight respects they did differ. But all existed for a single purpose, and that was the accomplishment of the very thing that was prerequisite to the draft — a registration. But the thought could not stop there. The precinct was the sub-unit of elections, but the county was the real unit. If the precincts were used as llie basis of enrollment for the draft, why might not the county be made the administrative unit of registration? And once the county or- ganization had been effected, it was a simple and obvious step to the organization of all counties within a state under the supervision of some state agency directed and controlled by the governor. But the idea projected itself even further. There were to be two phases to Selective Service, 120 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE the one, enrollment, the other selection. Could not the county enrollment board, having completed its functions, take up immediately the task of se- lection? And might not the state organization, having supervised the registration, assume a like supervision of the selection of its man-power for the army 1 Then, having erected in each county and state the agencies for enrollment and selection, it would be a simple step to bring the state agencies under the directing sway of a national headquarters, which might govern the whole with a guiding influence and bring about a uniformity of ad- ministration in every state. The scheme commended itself in countless ways. It would put the administration of the draft into the hands of the friends and neighbors of the men to be affected; it would operate through familiar, well-known instrumentalities ; it would be speedy ; it would be easily controlled ; it would be fair, and it would instantly invite the aid and cooperation of every local community throughout the land. Finally, it was the enunciation of the true demo- cratic doctrine of local self-government, yet withal, a local administration the guiding star of which was a uniform national policy, nationally defined and nationally directed. ^ Thus was the germ of supervised decentraliza- tion impregnated in the delibera.tions of early UNIVERSAL SERVICE IX AMERICA 121 April and thus it came to full life in the system of administration that the nation came to know well. County and, in the larger cities, city su- pervisory enrollment boards, were to be estab- lished, and these boards later were to become the selection agencies that were to choose the army of America and to strike a working balance be- tween its fighting and its industrial man-power. The scheme could not fail in America, for it was the very embodiment of American ideals in a prac- tical working plan. It would secure uniformity of administration and cooperative enthusiasm in a great federal undertaking to be executed by the agencies of the states. It was a new thought in American government, the integration of state and federal agencies in a national enterprise. All that was needed was the legal measure to authorize the President to utilize the instru- mentalities of the state, and this authority might easily be incorporated into the pending bill. And BO it was. The whole plan, as outlined, was communicated to the governors of all the states in a confidential letter dated April 2.3, 1917, nearly a month before the Selective Service Bill became a law. Their cooperation was invited in the newly conceived procedure. Their responses were without a single exception nothing less than inspiring. Thus it was that with renewed assurance the bill 122 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE was hastened into law. But while it was still pending in Congress and while my name was un- der consideration as the officer to be detailed to its execution, — since I had given a directing turn to its drafting, — there occurred an incident that so markedly typified the fears and misgivings of the nation that I cannot forbear to mention it. A friend, a member of Congress, deeply con- cerned in my own welfare, came to me and in- quired whether I intended to accept the con- templated assignment as provost marshal general. I told him that I did. "Crowder," he said, "de- cline it. If you accept the responsibility of ex- ecuting the draft act, your name will become the most odious in America in connection with the war. ' ' Perhaps there was foundation for his fears. The Civil War draft had been generally despised and hated, and in April, 1917, there was by no means a popular support of the proposed con- scription measure. But he did not know. He did not guess the mighty force of popular enthusiasm, latent then, but soon to burst forth when once the cooperation of all classes was invited and engaged in the ac- complishment of the task. Four days after the passage of the Selective Service Law I was detailed as provost marshal general in charge of its execution. The title UNIVERSAL SERVICE IN AMERICA 123 provost marshal general was somewhat anoma- lous. A provost marshal is primarily a police-of- ficer of the army. Before the passage of the En- rollment Act of 1863, provost marshals were scat- tered throughout the county, charged with the duty, among others, of apprehending and arrest- ing deserters from the Union armies. At the head of these provost marshals, was a provost marshal general, whose duties were to supervise their ac- tivities. The Enrollment Act of 1863 established the office of provost marshal general and charged him with a double duty. One was the apprehen- sion and arrest of all deserters, the other the ad- ministration of the draft. But primarily his title was derived from his duties as a police-officer. The Selective Service Law designated neither an office nor an officer to direct its execution. So by analogy, taking the cue from Civil War days, the President appointed a provost marshal gen- eral to administer the Selective Service Law. The title was a misnomer. So the law was passed and its administration provided. The law was unequivocal in its terms. It boldly recited the military obligation of the citizenry. There was to be no substitution, no purchase of discharge. Every citizen was to be held in full measure of his duty. It vested the President with the most plenary power of pre- scribing regulations that would strike a balance 124 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE between the industrial, agricultural, and economic needs of the nation on the one hand and its mili- tary needs on the other, and would summon men for service in the places that should best suit the common good to caU them. It provided for a registration, for the cooperation of state, county, and municipal officials, and for the creation of local agencies to pass upon and determine the relative rights of citizens affected by the terms of the act. Preparation for the execution of the registra- /tion had been carried forward with such rapidity in anticipation of the enactment of the law that on the day of its approval the whole system was vir- tually completed. Preliminary drafts of the regulations governing registration, lacking only the authorization of the statute itself, had been distributed to all registration officials. The com- plete supply of forty-five million blank forms had been so thoroughly distributed that every regis- tration board was provided with all the necessary paraphernalia. Had it not been for the fact that it was necessary to give wide publicity and dis- tribution to the President's proclamation, fixing June 5, 1917, as registration day, the registration could have been as well consummated on May 23, one week after the bill became a law, as it was on June 5, the day fi:xed by the President. In short, the registration machinery had been completely UXn^ERSAL SERVICE IN AMERICA 125 provided before the law was enacted, so that all there remained to do was to make a few minor adjustments and to wait, not without some ap- prehension, the response of the American people to the first considerable demand of the war. But those fears were unfounded. June 5 is destined to become one of the most significant days in American history. Between sunrise and midnight of that day virtually the entire male population of the United States between the ages of twenty-one and thirty had appeared for en- rollment for service. Within forty-eight hours the returns in the city of Washington were ninety per cent, complete. Seemingly insurmountable difficulties had been approached and overcome. The patriotic ingenuity and endeavor of the na- tion had united in the accomplishment of the first response to the call of national necessity with a unison that removed all doubt of the solidarity and devotion of the American people. Thence- forth the outcome of the war with Germany was never for a moment dubious. Conscription in America was not to be a draft- ing of the unwilling, for the total of her able man- hood had volunteered en masse. The Federal Government would not invade the state and snatch away its citizens. The citizens themselves had willingly come forward and pledged their service. Within two months from the declaration of war 126 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE a vast and complex machme had been erected, which, driven by a popular enthusiasm, enrolled a vast potential army in a single day. With the registration accomplished, it then be- came necessary to provide for the selection. It had originally been proposed that the registra- tion boards, appointed by the governors and may- ors, would become the selection agencies. But a slight modification in the terms of the law made it necessary that the boards be reappointed by the President. Nominated by the governor, the personnel of these boards was soon determined, and the appointments were made. But the adjustment to the selection of the ad- ministrative mechanism already erected for the registration was of subsidiary importance to the task that now confronted the office of the provost marshal general, the formulation of the regula- tions that should govern the selection. Ten million men were to be affected, and the execution of the Selective Service Law was certain to in- vade, with more or less direct effect, almost every American home. In the most sacred sentiment of family life the execution of the law was to have a very direct bearing, and in the more practical economic aspect a discriminating administration was of vital importance. The important and emergent problem was to make the withdrawals from civil life ia such a way UNIVERSAL SERVICE IN AMERICA 127 as to bring about the least possible disturbance in the normal composition of peace-time industrial life. The obvious way to accomplish this was to frame the regulations so that from the whole ten million registrants rendered liable to military service there should be skimmed away the exact number of the first draft that could be spared with the least interference to the various indus- tries of the nation. But upon the slightest re- flection it was evident that to accomplish this re- sult an examination into the circumstances of each of the ten million registrants would be neces- sary. This was obviously impossible. There was an urgent duty to produce men at once as rapidly as that could be accomplished and they could be absorbed by the army. And the information then available disclosed that the army would be pre- pared to receive half a million men during the month of September, 1917. To inquire with dis- criminating deliberation into the cases of ten million registrants within that time was simply out of the question. Reserving, therefore, the right to make other disposition as soon as it could be fairly done, the initial problem was to evolve an expedient stop- gap, which would produce the first contingent for the army within the time allowed. The first draft was to be for 687,000 men ; and after careful com- putation it was estimated that about three million 128 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE cases could be examined by the local boards within the time allowed. The problem, therefore, was to gauge the regulations to those conditions, and to evolve a set of rules just stringent enough to select 687,000 men from among the three million who stood earliest in the order of liability. Even under such a resolution as this, the prepa- ration of regulations which would be capable of administration by men not necessarily skilled in legal formalisms was an intricate and difficult task. The formulation of these regulations was accomplished with the utmost expedition. On June 30 they were promulgated to the nation. On that date the process of selection was introduced throughout continental and contiguous United States. Thus, within six weeks from the passage of the Selective Service Law a complete registration ma- chine had been erected, ten million men enrolled for service, the agencies for their selection es- tablished, and the regulations governing that task disseminated. The great work of mobilizing American man-power was ready to begin. But first it was necessary to determine the or- der of liability in which the registrants would be called for examination and service. It is always a most difficult task to determine from among a mass of men whose obligations before the law are equal, the relative order of their liability. UNIVERSAL SERVICE IN AMERICA 129 The problem is not new. History abounds with examples. Decimation or the arbitrary selec- tion of every tenth man is not an infrequent method; but there is an atavistic appeal in the wager of hazard, which springs perhaps from some lurking idea of divine intervention. The problem was solved during the Civil War by local application of the jury-wheel system. But charges of manipulation and fraud were at that time plentiful. A different method had to be adopted. Thoroughly imbued with the ideal of fair play, the American citizen is willing to play the game to the end if the game is fair. But once let him believe that equal treatment is not accorded to all, his prejudices are aroused and he is never afterwards in sympathy with the undertaking. It was necessary, vitally necessary, that the determination of liability to the draft be~ made in such a way that there could be no question or suggestion of favoritism or unfair dealing. If that effect could be produced it would win the in- stant approbation of America. If a contrary ef- fect arose, aU the spontaneous enthusiasm that the first two months of the war had engendered, would instantly be lo«t, never again to be re- covered. It was therefore decided that in determining the liability of registrants one central lottery should be fairly arranged, in circumstances ad- 130 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE mitting of no suggestion of favoritism, and insuring a square deal to every registrant in America. The circumstances were readily adaptable to the idea. Four separate plans for determining the order of liability were worked out to the last detail. It had been decided to adopt the single drawing of one thousand numbers, leaving three other plans of drawing in case of emergency. The details of the proposed plan of drawing were kept secret not because any fraudulent manipula- tion was possible, but to guard against even a suggestion of such a possibility. But on the evening of Thursday, July 19, the 'day before the national drawing, it was discovered that in one state instructions had been miscon- strued and the registrants so arranged that an ad- herence to the drawing, as contemplated, would result in localizing the draft in a single voting precinct of each local board in the state, to the exclusion of all other precincts within the juris- diction of the same local board. This required a change overnight in the plan for the drawing. But with the precautions that had been taken it was only necessary to advert to one of the other fully prepared plans, so that without the slightest delay or disturbance the drawing was held upon the following day. What an event in American history that epi- UNIVERSAL SERVICE IN AMERICA 131 sode, which began at noon in the pnblic hearing room of the Senate Office Building on Friday, July 20 ! From the moment that the Secretary of War drew from the bowl the first fateful fig^ire until the last of the ten thousand five hundred capsules had been abstracted, the nation paused in the busy bustle of war-time preparation to await with bated breath the close of the greatest lottery that history ever knew. For as each number left the bowl it sent its call to more than forty-five hundred young men scattered through- out America, fixing upon each his place in the great army of volunteers that had responded six weeks before. Into every home the fateful mes- sage went. The banker took a moment from his all-alluring task; the merchant paused an instant in his busy mart ; the farmer rested on the handles of his plow; the laborer left his daily work un- finished, and the idle youth saw in life a new and keener interest. All eyes turned to iix their gaze upon the crowded room where ten million des- tinies hung suspended. The nation glimpsed a common interest, sensed a common understand- ing, in a thing that lifted to a single level class and race and creed and color and social status, and fused the spirit of a people in a single as- piration and the hope of a common success. Here again was the appealing contrast. In the Civil War enrollment had been attended by as- 132 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE sassination and bloodshed born of protest ; in 1917 volunteer registration had been a demonstration of popular enthusiasm and cooperative endeavor. And, while the Civil War lotteries resulted in riot and murder, which at their height reduced New York City to a state of anarchy, so in the summer of 1917 a great national drawing was the occasion of patriotic demonstration and united interest. Meanwhile the process of calculation and ap- portionment of quotas had been proceeding. On July 12 the national quota sheet was promulgated, apportioning among the states and territories their respective quotas of men to be furnished under the first draft of 687,000 men. It then be- came the duty of the state headquarters to ap- portion their respective state quotas among the several subdivisions of the state. This done, each local board was advised of the number of men it was expected to furnish for the new national armies soon to be assembled. The stage was set for action. The army expected to absorb its first increments of the national forces by September first and by the end of that month to have received virtually the entire levy of 687,000 men. Registration had been accomplished, the order of liability of each registrant determined, and the quota of each board fixed and certified. Could the local and district boards now examine and dispose of suf- UNIVERSAL SERVICE IN AMERICA 133 ficient men within the limit of time set to meet the nation's call? It was a stupendous task that confronted them. It meant the careful weeding from heterogeneous groups of registrants the men who could best be spared from the industrial and economic life of the nation for service in the fighting forces. It meant discriminating examination into the per- sonal, industrial, and physical status of three million men. It meant the execution of a task under a procedure that was new and unfamiliar. But it meant more than that. It meant the in- vasion of the home, the laying bare of personal pride and shortcomings, the severance of ties of love and affection, and the breaching of a deep- rooted American tradition. It was a task so all- important and yet so delicate that it required the most painstaking care, the most scrupulous in- tegrity and the most exact justice. But there was a further demand, equally as imperative. The battle-fields of France sent forth an appealing call. If aid were to be given, it must be had at once or not at all. The army could not wait; its needs were inunediate, and September was the month when those needs must be met. Administrative history offers few instances of such unselfish or patriotic devotion or of such efficiency in a newly erected and untried system as was displayed by members of the local and 134 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE district boards in the month of August, 1917. In- spired by the appeal that had been made to them, based upon the apparent instant need of the army, the members of these boards addressed themselves to the task before them with absolute self-abnega- tion. Working from early morning until the late hours of the night, ignoring the days of rest, and, in large measure, claiming no compensation for their labor, the local and district boards through- out the country, between July 20 and August 25, heard and disposed of almost one million cases, or an average of seventy cases by each board each day. By September first complete success was vouchsafed. When that day arrived the Selective Service system had procured more men than the army could absorb. Thenceforth, there was never any question of success. But while the selective draft was ready with its offering, the army program lagged behind its schedule. By December 15 it had been able to accept but 516,000 selected men, a number that was promptly furnished by the boards from an ample supply. Here it is well to pause a moment and look back. A peace-loving people, unprepared and unorgan- ized for war, traditionally opposed to compulsion in any form, had in three and one half months accepted and executed with unparalleled vigor a universal service law. The mechanism for the UNIVERSAL SERVICE IN AMERICA 135 vast task of registration had been organized from the uncoordinated political systems of the several states in a fortnight. The more compact organi- zation for selection had been erected in only a lit- tle longer time, and the great sifting process was assured of full success within a month after it had begun. Six months from the passage of the law that gave it birth, the Selective Service system had placed half a million men in c;mips and had stabilized an organization for the performance of unlimited future tasks. Starting on an un- chartered course in the execution of an unpopular principle, it had achieved undreamed success and universal approbation. Proceeding now only upon a trust and confi- dence in a loyal people, but with future success insured by past accomplishments. Selective Service entered into broader and more varied fields. CHAPTER VI SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA WHEN the breathless haste of the first six months of the war had subsided and half a million selected men had been safely lodged in camp, there came a pause. Winter was coming on; it was inadvisable to crowd the cantonments with men fresh from the softening ways of civil life at the approach of the rigors of a season that as early as December gave promise of unusual severity. The camps, not yet expanded to the capacity that they later attained, were well filled, and the flow of men overseas had not yet begun to assume large proportions. Events conspired to bring about a halt in the mobilization of se- lected men. It was well that such was the case. It was time for the Selective Service system, having achieved a great success in its initial efforts, to pause an instant and take stock. It is true that three million registrants had been examined, that a million had been certified for service, and that half a million were already with the colors. But 136 SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 137 the regulations under which they had been selected had been, of necessity, hastily drawn to meet the exigencies of the early days of June. That they were faulty in many ways is undoubted. They had accomplished the end for which they had been designed, but that end had been the hurried selec- tion of the first increment of the national army. A more comprehensive and scientific course was indispensable. The first regulations had been framed to net 687,000 ni(>n in sixty days. They had done so. It is true that they offered some protection to in- dustry, to agriculture, and to the domestic ties of the nation. But they had an eye first and always to the raising of an army, they were designed to skim away from the fewest registrants first in or- der of liability, the number necessary for the army's needs. They had not envisioned the whole field of available resources to the end that a com- plete survey might be had of all that it embraced and that a true balance might be struck between the industrial, the economic, and the military as- sets of the nation. But now, looking back upon the organization that had been erected in those strenuous days, the nation saw a system well adapted to approach a graver and more intricate duty with a certain step and a confidence born of past achievement. It saw in each community a local board composed 138 THE SPIKIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE of honest, fearless, and intelligent citizens, fa- miliar with the life and thought and habit of their neighbors. Their past efforts had been fair ; their decisions had been just and even, and they had established themselves in the confidence of their fellow-citizens. With their hands upon the pulse of the community and imbued with a lofty sense of their responsibility, these boards were now ready to interpret the needs of their neighbors and to examine into the domestic status of each regis- trant within their respective jurisdictions with a sympathy and understanding springing from in- timate contact and association. The nation saw also the district boards, upon which sat men of unquestioned integrity and ca- pacity, in close touch with the industrial, the economic, and the agricultural interests of their districts, ready to safeguard the vital enterprises that had to be maintained while the war continued. The same men had demonstrated their ability in the past six months; they could now approach with renewed assurance the larger duties that might be imposed upon them. Above the boards, the nation saw within each state a state headquarters, in direct contact with the boards, stimulating their endeavors, if indeed stimulation were necessary, supervising their ef- forts, and lending moral support in the onerous labors that had to be performed. SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 139 Finally, above them all were the national head- quarters, guiding from a national point of view all activities, framing policies with a national vision, and lending its suggestions in accomplish- ing a uniformity of execution and endeavor. So there was at hand a smoothly running mechanism peculiarly fitted to inquire into the domestic status of ten million men, and to de- termine and provide for the industrial and eco- nomic needs of the nation at war. Guided by a uniform national policy, the local agencies could function with that in view, yet with a feeling, regard, and understanding for local needs, local habits, and the preservation of local community life. Six months of intimate contact with their neighbors had given the members of the local agencies a clearer insight into local life than they had ever had before. And the same period of time had placed them in peculiar esteem with those whom their activities affected. And in those same six months a remarkable spirit of cooperation had sprung up among the administrative agencies themselves. The cause is not far to seek. Suggestions, information, ad- vice, were sought and solicited from the local agencies by the state and national headquarters. Every member of the growing personnel felt that he had a personal interest in the achievement of the task. And he had. So it resulted that in- 140 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE terest had not slackened, but had grown ; coopera- tion had not weakened, but had gained in em- phasis; an esprit de corps had sprung up that, once established, never died. So it was that early December foimd an or- ganization closely knit in common purpose and common interest, with an unflagging zeal and in- dustry that made possible the accomplishment of any task that might be thrust upon it. The task was clear, but no clearer than it was difficult and intricate. It would tax the loyalty, the devotion, and the spirit of the system. But it did not fail. It could not fail. The first six months of the war had seen the en- forcement of universal military service. But though imiversal service had been applied, and applied so fairly as to win universal approba- tion, true Selective Service had not yet been in- voked. The time had now arrived to take the final step. What is Selective Service? The man-power of any nation is not an inexhaustible quantity. It is limited not only in numbers but in capacities. In every nation there are just so many carpen- ters, so many bankers, so many butchers, so many unskilled laborers. And among every people there is a determinable number of men physically qualified for the hardships of the battle-line, a de- terminable number who are qualified for the less SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 141 rigorous duties of army life, and a determinable number who are totally unfitted for service with the fighting forces. When a nation goes to war and, as America did, adopts a measure of universal service, all the as- sets of man-power are made available for the purpose of war. In a modem war upon the larg- est scale those purposes are clearly defined. The nation must raise and maintain the largest army that its fighting man-power will produce, limited only by the ability of its industrial man-power to sustain it. So there is involved a double duty of raising an army and maintaining behind it a high- geared industrial machine, without which the army cannot function. In short, it is not only an army, but a nation, that must be mobilized and mobilized in the most effective way. When the supply of man-power is first touched, the task is not difficult. There is an abundance of men for every purpose. But foresight recognizes the limitations of man-power. It realizes that as time goes on and the steady drain for the battle- line continues there will be not only a decreasing number of men left in civilian occupations, but the output of certain wartime industries must be doubled and tripled. And as war progresses and man-power shrinks the nation is confronted with the necessity of continually scrutinizing and re- adjusting its social, industrial, and economic life. U2 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE Its task becomes a constant combing process, wMcli concerns itself with the elimination of non- essential pursuits, the up-building of the more im- portant war-time industries, and the slow and careful selection of fighting men from the indus- trial ffroups. And as the available field decreases, the task becomes more and more difficult, and the necessity for accuracy of information and control increases proportionally. There are two ways only in which a nation com- mitted to universal service can meet the neces- sities of war-time military-^industrial readjust- ment. The one is to draw upon its man-power for the army from time to time as necessity de- mands, dipping into the reservoir here and there as the calls come. That is the blind way. That is the way the selective draft operated during the rush and hurry days of the first six months of war. This method of procedure does very well in the beginning, because it is not only initially the speediest, but no serious consequences can result at once, since an abundant supply of man-power is available for every purpose. But there are serious, perhaps fatal, disad- vantages involved if the plan is long continued. There may be an adequate number of fighting men to-day and a sufficiency of industrial man-power, but who can tell the number and kind of each that remain available? Here was a group of ten SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 143 million men all obligated to service. From that group half a million fighting men had been taken. But what remained? It is true, the process of selection might have continued as it had begun. The entire group of ten million might have been examined and the a\'ailable fighting men separated from those who ought to be retained in civil life. This would have struck a balance between military and in- dustrial man-power, but there it would have stopped short. If the war lasted long enough, and no one could guess its duration, the time might soon come when the men selected for military duty were exhausted and the nation would be confronted once more with the task of reexamin- ing every man who had been deferred, in the hope of weeding out a new supply for the army. What fatal delays might result in such a case! But there was more involved than mere delay. The necessities of the nation required not only that a balance be struck at once between its mili- tary ami industrial assets, but, glancing ahead and visualizing the stress and strain that would fall upon certain indispensable industries, it saw an equal need of controlling the distribution of man- power within the civil industries themselves. iViid as the strain increased and the call for fight- ing men grew louder, it would have to be met by weeding out from the less essential industries the 144 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE man-power they employed for more useful service in the fighting forces. It was a delicate and an intricate task, but no less delicate or intricate than it was vital to the nation's success. Success depended upon an in- telligent and understanding conservation of the national man-power. It would not do to chance to luck or to build a blind procedure. It was im- perative that the most scientific course be at once adopted and speedily put into execution. How was that to be accomplished? The very facts themselves gave immediate answer. Here was a heterogeneous group of men capable of un- limited tasks and achievements if it was only pos- sible to find the proper place for each man. And here was a nation with a great mass of potential energy waiting to put that force to use. But what was the force? And to what use could it best be put? It meant something more than ten million men. It meant blacksmiths and chemists and me- chanics and carpenters and bookkeepers and pho- tographers and watchmakers and timbermen; it meant unskilled laborers and highly trained ex- perts ; it meant stalwart fighting men and unfor- tunate weaklings ; it meant men with families de- pendent upon them and those who had no restrain- ing ties; it meant the industrial expert, his less highly trained assistants, and the man who might be spared without a loss to industry; it meant SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 145 men of all races and colors and physical condi- tions; it meant citizens and aliens, friends and enemies. But how many of each were there ? And where were they? IIow many were available for the army? How many for industry? Unless these facts were known, it would be an idle task to plan ahead, because all plans would be guess-work and all results uncertain. But if it was once possible to secure an accurate survey of the whole and then to group the nation's man-power in the order of its military and industrial importance, the whole uncertain and unknown resources of the nation would turn, as if by magic touch, into a well-or- dered, well-defined array of assets, capable of facile control, and possible of any nice adjust- ments to which the necessities of war might force it. So America had to stop a moment and make an inventory. In the wild rush of war the nation had to sit down to the prosaic task of taking stock. But was the task prosaic? Never in the history of the world had a people overnight turned their hand to such an enormous public enterprise as that which was placed before them for execution on December 15, 1917, when the first questionnaire was mailed by the local boards. Early in the autumn the work of reframing the Selective Service regulations, with the view to 146 THE SPIEIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE introducing true selection, had begun. Expe- rience, accumulated in the summer months, had taught the shortcomings of the old system. De- fects could now be corrected and a comprehensive plan capable of meeting any emergency and cal- culated to make possible a scientific administra- tion could now be brought forward. On Novem- ber 15, 1917, the new regulations were promul- gated, and they became effective one month later. The local boards then turned their energies to the vast task of classifying the nation's man- power. The life histories and the most intimate relations of ten million men had to be carefully examined and their future status adjudicated. It was a tremendous undertaking, but it was ap- proached with a determined enthusiasm that would brook no failure. In little more than sixty days the total of enrolled man-power had been classified. Events are still too fresh and vivid in the public mind to need recounting. It would be useless to describe the questionnaire because it has become a household word in America. How it elicited de- tailed information from every registrant, how that information became the basis of local board de- Liberation, resulting in the classification of the registraiit in one of the five great groups of avail- ability; how physical examinations proceeded apace with the classification in Class I, eventually SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 147 evolving a group of registrants physically quali- fied for the military forces and easily spared from industrial and domestic relations ; these things are still so fresh in mind that they need no recitation. At the end of two months the labor was virtu- ally completed. What had theretofore been a conglomerate mass of man-power now stood ar- rayed in five great classes. Class I represented the men available for the army, Class V, the le- gally exempt, and the intervening classes con- tained in the inverse order of their industrial and domestic importance the remainin-g groups of men. The survey had been made and the balance struck. Henceforth selection could proceed to the duty of mobilizing the nation with a more certain step. The demands alone had been known; now the supply was also known. It was then for the first time possible to fit the latter to the former with an eye to the end to be attained and the final effectiveness of the distribution. All that was necessary was to retain control of the man-power thus inventoried to insure its ef- fective distribution. How that control was al- most lost and the effectiveness of Selective Service nearly destroyed at a later date because of the operation of the volunteer system is an incident that will be elaborated later. But at this point there must again be mentioned 148 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE the remarkable cooperation that Selective Service attracted to itself. Starting out on its unchar- tered course, relying solely upon the popular sup- port that it could secure, the end of six months had more than justified the faith of its proponents. But when the new regulations of November, 1917, were promulgated and the accomplishment of nearly ten million questionnaires was made neces- sary and several million physical examinations were about to be made, it became evident that the personnel of the organization was insufficient to meet the new requirements. The questionnaire was complicated, certainly so to the ignorant, and the grave injustice that might result to registrants who were not properly ad- vised made it imperative that they be safeguarded to the fullest extent. There was one solution at hand. That was to call upon the legal profession and to solicit the support of its members in achiev- ing a just administration of this tremendous task. The response of the profession was nothing less than inspiring. Virtually the entire bar of America came forward and tendered its services willingly and gratuitously. Without this aid the task could never have been successfully per- formed; with it, it was a speedy and unqualified success. The legal advisory boards, set up in every community, aided by the associate members, whose numbers were in the most cases limited only SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 149 by the number at the bar, performed a task so unique in American history that it takes its place among the most striking incidents of Selective Service. No one act of the legal profession has ever brought it into a closer or more sympathetic relation with the great masses of American people. Nothing that the bar had ever done had brought about a better understanding between it and the average American citizen than its un- selfish cooperation during the war. The asser- tion is ventured that henceforth the lawyer will occupy a new place in the mind of America. Nor was the medical profession less generous in its offering. The medical advisory boards, made necessary by the increasing number and complex- ity of physical examinations, were promptly filled, and the best of the profession that had not al- ready gone to the colors, lent their aid in the no less vital work behind the army. It required only this response of the professional class, added to the efforts of the laymen, to make cooperation in Selective Service complete. It was well that the groundwork had been so firmly laid. In the early months of 1918 the caU for men was not great. But the return of the spring brought with it the long-expected German drive. The Allies met the initial onslaughts with cool confidence. The Plun could not advance, the lines would surely hold. But they did not hold. 150 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE On swept the German hordes, pausing only for renewed and greater efforts. Paris was under fire, the channel ports were threatened, and the whole Allied cause hung for a fateful moment in a trembling balance. Frantic calls came to America from the western front. Men must be had, and had at once. America must furnish them and in numbers far beyond the wildest dreams of a year before. Food was vital, munitions and supplies were indispensable, but all must give way to the imperative call for men. For it was men alone that could stem the tide and save the world from the German onslaught. And it was to Selec- tive Service that America turned its eyes. Never can the nation forget the day in May when, at the height of German success, it was re- ported that Cambrai had fallen. One. British army had been crushed and destroyed. The whole western front appeared to be breaking, and appalling disaster threatened. America had planned an army of two millions. Now it became necessary overnight to pitch the old plans into the discard and to frame a new program based upon the impending coUapse on the western front. WhUe Selective Service had been assured that its supply of men in Class I would be ample to meet the army's needs, in an instant it was presented with a program that meant not only the exhaus- tion of Class I within a few weeks, but the deple- SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 151 tion of Class II and the rapid invasicxn of Class III. It meant the recasting of its schedule, the ref raming of its poUcies, and redoubled efforts on the part of every member of the system. It was indeed fortunate for America and for the world that the spirit of Selective Service made any task possible. In the first tltirteen months of the war and the first eleven months of Selective Service less than one million selected men had been called for by the army and placed in camps. In the succeeding three months the army demanded and Selective Service furnished without delay over one million selected men. Launching into an emergent pro- gram in May, in that single month the local boards mobilized 373,000 men. It was a tremendous test, for in the preceding six months the greatest number that had been mobolized in any thirty days had been lee's than 200,000. But mobiliza- tion was rapidly accomplished and on time. To- ward the end of that month trouble seemed im- minent on the Mexican border. It was imperative that an additional 50,000 men be mobilized at once. Within a wepk the calls for these men had been made and they were on their way to camp. With- out pause, the boards, during jMay, June, and July, had sent to service one million and seventy-five thousand men. Perhaps the task would not have been so oner- 152 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE ous if it had proceeded without the interruption of other duties. But the enormously increased de- mands that the army was making upon the na- tion's man-power brought the country squarely up against a new decision. If the demands of the army were to be supplied, one of two courses was necessary. Either Selective Service must invade the deferred classes and disorganize the industrial life that it had with so much anxious planning sought to preserve, or else there would have to be added to the available supply of man-power an additional reservoir of men. A decision was not diflScult. The Selective Service Law had ren- dered liable to military service all men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty on June 5, 1917. Nearly a year had now elapsed since the original registration. A new class of young manhood had reached maturity. There was no sound reason why they should not be made subject to military service. They would add nearly a million men to the numbers available, and the addition would de- lay, if not prevent, an invasion of the deferred classes of registrants enrolled a year before. There was every reason to enr'oU the new class of registrants. There was a most powerful argu- ment against the invasion of the deferred classes — a step that would have threatened, if not ruined, the industrial life of the nation. So it was that on May 20, Congress amended the Selec- SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 153 tive Service Law by declaring liable to military service the youths who had come of age after the initial registration on June 5, 1917. So in the midst of the most onerous tasks of mobilizing a million men in ninety days the local boards had to face another registration and the burden of classifying a new group of registrants. But this was not the only task that confronted the boards, the accomplishment of which had to proceed concurrently with the duties of mobiliza- tion. Before the Selective draft had been in op- eration a year the need of forcing industrial re- adjustment had become apparent. It is true that the Selective Service Law was itself a purely military measure. But there was not lacking in the minds of the proponents of the measure and of the Congress that enacted it an appreciation of the broader industrial problems to which Selec- tive Service might offer an effective solution. So it had resulted that the act and the regulations made in aid of its execution looked toward liberal deferments and exemptions because of depend- ency and occupation, and to a military and eco- nomic classification that would not only affect the deferment of the economically useful, but would also furnish a ready means for diverting their talents into civil pursuits most directly contribut- ing to the effective maintenance of the military establishment- 154 THE SPIEIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE One aspect of the industrial problem had been emphatically revealed by the experience of the draft almost from the time of the first mobiliza- tion. It often happened that a contingent of se- lectives, taken by the incidence of the draft order numbers from farms and factories and marched for entrainment down the streets of the home town, passed crowds of sturdy idlers and loafers standing on the street comers and complacently contemplating their own immunity. The spectacle had never been a pleasing one to any right-minded citizen. It demanded direct measure. What gave those idlers their immunity? They were in Class I, but they chanced to receive high order numbers in the drawing and had thus become im- mune until their order numbers might be reached. The remedy for this was simple. It was to per- mit no man who was idle to be deferred in the draft merely because his order number had not yet been reached ; to require him to go promptly to work or to cancel his high order number and to induct him immediately into the military service. The army and navy were taking men who were best able physically to do the fighting. But fight- ing in the trenches was only one part of the na- tion's task in the war. The other part, the part that fell on the other men, was to set free the men who were needed in the ranks of the army. Every SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 155 man who helped to set free a fighting man was helping to fight and to win the war. And it was every man's duty to give that share of help. That duty to work and to work eifec- tively was the foundation of the new measure that Selective Service evolved. "Work or Fight"; there was no other alternative. Another class of non-productive immunes was represented by those who had obtained deferment on grounds of dependency, but who were not en- gaged in productive industries. The deferred classes were meant to protect domestic relations and also economic interests. But many thou- sands, if not hundreds of thousands, of men thus deferred for dependency wore obviously em- ployed in occupations that, if not actually harmful, certainly did not contribute in any way to the effective prosecution of the war. Their deferment thus served no useful economic war purpose. If they were to retain their im- munity they should transfer into useful and ef- fective occupations or else forfeit that immunity of deferment. The alternative was a fair one. The nation should now force them to make their choice. IIow was this to be accomplished? It was a simple measure that speedily brought about the desired result. To the idlers and to the men de- 156 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE ferred for dependency but not effectively em- ployed, the nation gave a choice between im- mediate military service and effective employ- ment. Every man within the draft age had to become either an effective producer or a soldier. But the execution of the work-or-fight regula- tions, which were promulgated on May 17, 1918, just one year less a day after the passage of the Selective Service Law, required strenuous efforts on the part of local boards. The status of many registrants had to be examined in the execution of the regulations, and this task came at the very time when the rush of mobilization had just be- gun, at the moment when the local boards were at the peak of their load. But that was not all. It had become necessary for many reasons to reexamine the classifications of registrants who had been examined in the early months of the year. Classification had not been uniform in all the states. Since quotas were based upon the number of men in Class I, it became necessary to level, as far as possible, the percentage of registrants placed in that class. Moreover, the increased de- mands of the army, following rapidly upon Ger- man successes, demanded that more and more men be thrown into Class I and made available for the fighting forces. Finally, the time had ar- SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 157 rived to scrutinize more carefully the claims of industrial and domestic necessity, and to cast out from the deferred classes the men who might best be spared from them and made available for the army. So a reexamination became necessary-, and the campaign to bring it about was inaugurated late in May. It was a nerve-racking task for the boards, because it took away from many regis- trants the deferments upon which they had thought to rely. But the exigencies of war made it imperative. So the overworked boards were called upon at the time of greatest stress not only to mobilize in- creased numbers of men, but at the same time to execute a work-or-fight regulation to eliminate idlers and non-productives, to examine and classify ai^ain their registrants, and to enroll, clas- sify, and examine the new class of men of twenty- one made liable to serve by the act of May 20, 1918. The registration of the latter group was set for June 5, just twelve months to the day after the initial registration had been held. But this was now a familiar undertaking. So accustomed had the nation become to performing unique and her- culean tasks that it scarcely caused a ripple in affairs when on that day 723,000 men voluntarily presented themselves and were enrolled. An- other lottery was held in July; their order of li- 158 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE ability was determined, and the work of classify- ing them was speedily concluded. The work of the local boards in the summer of 1917 had been strenuous and exhausting, but those demands faded into insignificance when compared with the tasks that were set for them in the sum- mer of 1918. Then they had been called upon to examine three million men; now they were ex- pected not only to mobilize a million men, but at the same time to root out idleness, destroy non- productiveness, examine and classify their origi- nal registrants, and enroll, classify, and examine three quarters of a million newly enrolled men. These were but the more onerous of the burdens that faced the boards in their task of mobiliza- tion in the early summer. But they were burdens that could be overcome by dint of untiring effort and application. They were nobly met and mas- tered, though they tried the very spirit of the boards. But difficult as these incidental obligations made the task of supplying fighting men, there was a final handicap that nearly wrecked the system and nearly destroyed all the devoted labors of the Selective Service personnel. That handicap was the volunteer system. It has already been seen how the initial step in the process of Selective Service was taken. The available field of man-power had been surveyed SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 159 and its resources placed in five great classes in the order of availability for military and indus- trial service. After that had been done the re- maining steps in the Selective plan were the re- tention of the control of man-power thus classified and its systematic and orderly distribution. But the nation, when it adopted Selective Service, had not been entirely ready to abandon its tradition of volunteering. Concurrently with the operation of the Selective draft, the army went ahead with its recruiting services. Men within the age limits prescribed by the Selective Service Law were permitted to volunteer if they did not come within the current quota of their respective boards, a procedure that continued until Decem- ber 15, 1917, when it became apparent that so far as the army was concerned it was highly inad- visable to supply its demands at the same time by the Selective draft and the volunteer system. On that day volunteering for the army, as far as it applied to men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty, was discontinued and never resumed. But continuously from the declaration of war until the summer of 1918 the army maintained its recruiting services for men who were not made liable to the Selective draft. But the Selective Service Law applied only to the raising of men for the army. It did not con- template the drafting of men for the navy or the 160 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE Marine Corps. As a result, those branches of the service continued, with slight limitations, from the very first to dip into the reservoir of man- power made available by the Selective Service Law for the army, and to withdraw from the supply the men needed for these services. Furthermore, the necessities of war demanded an emergent ship-building program, which re- quired thousands of men in its execution, and this gave rise to the Emergency Fleet Corporation. The Emergency Fleet Corporation insisted upon a measure that would insure the retention of suf- ficient man-power to perform its task. It was therefore provided in the regulations of Novem- ber, 1917, that men employed by the Emergency Fleet Corporation who were within the draftable ages would be temporarily exempted from mil- itary service. From the declaration of war to the summer of 1918 these various agencies, running counter to the Selective Service organization, withdrew from the field of available resources nearly twelve hun- dred thousand men. So it resulted that by the summer of 1918 five separate and distinct agencies had been exercising jurisdiction over the same amount of man-power, namely, the provost marshal general, who was the executive of the Selective Service plan, the army, the navy, the Marine Corps, and the Emergency SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 161 Fleet Corporation. The nation was presented with an anomalous situation. It had intrusted to the Selective Service system the conservation and distribution of ten million men, and at the same time this man-power had been made available to four other independent agencies, each authorized to withdraw from the fund without limitation by the other. It may be a difiScult task, because it is a novel one, to visualize the Selective Service system as the great bookkeeping agency of the nation's man- power. But such it was. The finances of the nation are intrusted to one executive head. Billions of dollars are appro- priated and expended annually by the several branches of the Government, but every dollar is passed through the same central ofiBcer, and must be accounted for to the last farthing. A great department of the Government concerns itself with nothing but the orderly accounting and dis- tribution of the nation's gold. Yet what account- ing could be made by the disbursing oflScer if his assets were made directly available to every de- partment of the Government and if each could help itself to the fund as its needs arose, without systematic disbursement through a single officer? Every branch of the Government must have funds with which to operate, and every branch is given funds in sufficiency. But no one would have 162 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE the temerity to suggest that the doors of the na- tion's treasury be thrown open to an indiscrimi- nate withdrawal by the several governmental agencies. It requires no argument to establish the fatal fallacy of such a course. But while the money of the nation is thus closely guarded, and its custody and disbursement care- fully intrusted to a great cabinet officer, the task of money disbursement is comparatively simple. By law the Secretary of the Treasury is directed as to the amounts and recipients of his disburse- ments, and the task becomes merely one of an ac- curate tally of his work. But in the summer of 1918 no such safeguards had been placed around the nation 's fund of man- power. The monetary wealth of the nation was incalculable. Its wealth of man-power was defi- nitely fixed. Money could be replaced ; men could not be. In their potential values no one could deny that man-power was infinitely more pre- cious than gold. The army had to be supplied with men, the navy had to be supplied, as did the ship-yard, the factory, and the mill. The demands of each were of equal importance, and all had to be replenished from the same national fund. There were two ways only of meeting these demands; either the various agencies expending man-power would have to be authorized independently to help themselves to the available fund as their needs SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 163 arose, or the fund would have to be distributed by a central authority with ability to keep an ac- curate account and adjustment of the disburse- ments. But the distribution and expenditure of man- power is not the simple matter of money disburse- ments. Whereas the latter requires only the pay- ment of predetermined sums to designated payees, the former is encumbered by many complications. The withdrawals cannot be determined in ad- vance ; priority of distribution among the several fields must be decided; contributions must be re- called and redisbursed, and actual shrinkage can- not be replaced. If the money of a nation were disbursed in a manner that would preclude an ex- act settlement of accounts, the system would be condemned at once as intolerable. Yet in the summer of 1918 such a scheme was countenanced in the disbursement of man-power. Having continued on such a course since the be- ginning of the war, the early summer months of 1918 bore its fruit. Wliat had been the result? "When the classifica- tion by the Selective Service authorities had been completed, a report of the men available for im- mediate military service was secured. On ]\Iay 1, 1918, this number amounted to 1,172,544 men. This was at least seven hundred thousand less than it should have been had the various avenues 164 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE of escape been closed. Upon the basis of this information the needs of the army had to be sup- plied. On July 1 there should still have been available for general military service nearly six hundred thousand men from which to supply the army's needs for July. On June 5, 1918, seven hundred and twenty-three thousand additional registrants had been added to the lists and their systematic classification and examination begun, with the view of making them immediately avail- able for service. Meanwhile, until these new reg- istrants had become available, the Selective Service machinery had to work upon a slender margin. However, without outside interference the task of Selective Service would have been simple. In its ledgers of availables were entered the quantities and location of supply, and all that remained was to call upon the local agencies to supply the demands. That was done. But when the calls came, the supply was no longer there to fill them. Where the orderly process of ac- counting had shown men to be available, those men were gone. The new class came on and approached a status of availability for service. This supply began to disappear faster than it could be produced. The time arrived for the mobilization of men. They were not forth- coming in the numbers or at the time desired. SELECTIVE SERVICE IX AMERICA 165 Impeding of the military program seemed im- minent. Why? During this period of transition, when the original supply of men enrolled in June, 1917, was nearly exhausted and the new supply was coming on, the agencies of the volunteer plan had dealt their vital blow. In this period, in the space of six weeks, the navy alone took eighty-one thou- sand men from those upon whom Selection had the right to rely. The Marine Corps and the Emergency Fleet speeded up their activities, and further depleted the rapidly shrinking sources of supply. New balances obtained from carefully compiled reports remained current for a day and then wore worthless. The whole remaining field of available man-power became for a brief instant a shifting, changing, shrinking mass of uncer- tainty. It was alarmingly apparent in the summer of 1918 that if the volunteer system continued to op- erate concurrently with the Selective plan, it would be impossible for the latter to perform its duty of keeping account of the nation's man- power and of properly mobilizing the men for whom the army called. But the volunteer system did more than de- stroy the ability of Selective Service to keep ac- count of man-power and to mobilize it promptly. 166 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE It destroyed all hope of accomplishing an effi- cient and effective distribution of that man- power. One illustration will demonstrate the utter in- consistency of the concurrent operation of the vol- unteer system with the Selective Service plan. In the early spring of 1918 the Selective Service organization knew that, without interference or the occurrence of unforeseen contingencies, its supply of man-power would be sufficient to meet the army's program for that year. It also knew the vital need for food. Therefore it was pro- vided that farmers necessary for the proper culti- vation of the nation's crops might be deferred tem- porarily to continue their agricultural pursuits. Great crops were planted and advanced to frui- tion. Meanwhile the navy began its intensive vol- unteer campaign. The city youth was attracted; the country lad, secure in his temporary defer- ment and a realization of his greater value on the farm, was not. For this reason the available class in. the city approached exhaustion in the early summer. By midsummer total depletion was at hand. The drain of the navy upon the cities continued and increased. Crops began to mature, and men for the army were demanded. There could be no choice if men were to be forth- coming. The farm must be invaded and the farmer called to the colors. The men were sup- SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 167 plied for the army, but farm labor was depleted in the harvest-time. In the early summer of 1918 there were in America thousands of youths idling their time upon the city streets, carried upon the navy's inactive list, while crops were rotting in the fields because the farmer boy had gone to camp. Un- garnered crops and blasted prospects had been the inevitable result of the volunteer system. It was, therefore, quite apparent that some- thing had to be done. The navy had to have suf- ficient men, as did the army, but it was an in- tolerable condition that permitted the one to lay up a supply which it could not put to present use while the other had immediate needs which could not be adequately supplied. Realizing the futility, if not the ruination, of a continued attempt to maintain the volunteer system, and finally envisioning the chaos that would result if it were not immediately abandoned, in early August all volunteer agencies in the army, navy, and Marine Corps were discontinued, and by the Act of August 31 all branches of the service wore relegated to the Selective draft in securing the man-power necessary for their purposes. Thus the nation finally conceived its fund of man- power as a single irreplaceable asset that could be intelligently conserved and distributed only by intrusting it to a single authority that would sup- 168 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE ply all demands. Thus complete coordination among the many agencies of the nation, industrial, militan-, and naval, was finally achieved, and the one insuperable obstacle to a scientific administra- tion of Selective Service finally removed. Hence- forth the nation was prepared for a war of any length, assured of the maximum of efficiency from its available man-power. There has thus been sparingly outlined the major difficulties that confronted the local boards in the summer of 1918, when the most urgent calls for men were being made upon them. To mobilize a million men in ninety days was an enormous task, but it was approached in the midst of a reclassification of nine million men, the execution of a work-or-fight order, the conducting of a new registration and original classification, and with the discouraging and embarrassing handicaps of the volunteer system, which almost undid every heartbreaking effort. But every handicap was overcome and every difficulty safely passed. It was no mean task. It tried the last ounce of energy and spirit. But it was achieved. However, the expanded military program that had become necessary sapped the military re- sources of the nation. As early as June it had become apparent that unless the age limits for men subject to the Selective draft were broadened, 9,n invasion of the deferred classes would in- SELECTIVE SERVICE IX AMERICA 169 evitably be forced. The nation was slow to be- lieve this. Indeed, many authorities high in the councils of the Government at first refused to take seriously the suggestion that the age limits would have to be changed to embrace all man-power be- tween the ages of eighteen and forty-five. But even the strongest opponents to a more comprehensive age limit could not long close their eyes to certain facts. Although a new registra- tion had been held on June 5, 1918, and nearly three quarters of a million additional registrants placed on the lists, the supply of fighting men had run so low before the first of August that a glance foretold its total depletion within three months. It was not diflBcult then to secure a decision. The nation realized that nothing short of the sum total of its fighting manhood should be enrolled, and Congress voiced this decision on August 31, when the Selective Service Act was amended, changing the age limits of those liable to service to embrace t'viT}- man between the ages of eighteen and forty- five. But the decision had been so long delayed that it was necessary on August 24 to conduct a third registration and to enroll for service the men who had attained the age of twenty-one since the last registration on June 5. So slender was the margin upon which the Selective Service sys- tem had been operating that, without the stop-gap of this emergent registration, the total supply of 170 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE fighting men would have been exhausted and mo- bilization cut short before the major registration under the Act of August 31 could have produced a single man. But with the passage of the Act of August 31 the nation finally committed itself unreservedly to the obligation of expending the last ounce of its resources of man-power in the world conflict. It is interesting to trace the gradual growth of America's military effort, born of an awakening ^consciousness of the struggle and the nation's proper part in it. In the early days of the war the country and the press talked of an army of half a million men. That was a tremendous army when compared with the military forces of America available when the war came. But the force was to be raised by voluntary enlistment, the traditional system of America. It took some weeks to convert the nation to universal service. But that conversion was only halfway ; the volun- teer system was to be retained to operate side by side with the selective draft in supplying the army. The navy retained it unaltered. But even the army was allowed to draw by Selective draft on only a limited portion of the nation's man- power. The limits of the draft would not extend beyond the age of twenty-one on the one hand and thirty on the other. Gradually, the army was forced to abandon its volunteer recruiting serv- SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 171 ices, first as to registrants, on December 15, 1917, finally as to all men in August, 1918. All the while it was becoming more vividly ap- parent that the navy and Marine Corps could not secure their necessary increments by the volunteer system without disrupting the whole Selective or- ganization, and after bitter struggle those branches of the service abandoned volunteering in August, 1918, and accepted the Selective draft as the proper agency for supplying their ranks, a policy that found legal sanction in the Act of August 31, 1918. P'inally, after having pledged a limited portion of its manhood to Selection and after having, in May, 1918, increased the field so as to include the youth attaining majority, on August .11, 1918, the nation took the ultimate step and made liable to universal service tlie total of its militant man- power. Thus, by gradual stages, the policy of volunteer- ing was abandoned under the goad of necessity, and a partial compulsory-servico law was made universal in its application. On August 31 the nation was fully committed to a doctrine offeree to the uttermost," and had taken the last step to carry it into practical effect. The legislation of August 31 made necessary a registration on a scale larger than any that had theretofore been attempted. But so accustomed 172 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE had the American people become to the operations of Selective Service that on September 12, 1918, more than thirteen million men were enrolled without the slightest difficulty or disturbance. That the nation accepted this last registration as a matter-of-fact occurrence of the Avar is the final and conclusive evidence of its absolute commit- ment to the principle of universal selective service. With the accomplishment of the final registra- tion, the remaining steps of the Selective Service system during the war were only incidents, tre- mendous in magnitude, it is true, but neverthe- less presenting nothing unfamiliar to the nation. Another great lottery was held, the order of li- ability of every new registrant determined, and the task of classifying them begun. The age group of men between nineteen and thirty-six was classified, and the classification of the remaining registrants was well imder way when the armistice of November 11 put a stop to all war labors and the Selective Service organization abandoned its constructive operations. The last registration, touching every phase of industrial and economic life in a way that no pre- ceding enrollment had done, had made it neces- sary that the existing regulations should be changed to meet the situation that arose when men between the ages of eighteen and forty- five were made liable to military service. It SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 173 is perhaps unfortunate that the Selective Serv- ice Law as originally enacted did not provide for a classification of labor upon industrial grounds as broad as industry itself. Yet the haste in which the Act of May 18, 1917, was pre- pared and the lack of precedent available at the time precluded the enactment of a more perfect measure. The Civil War draft act contained no provision for industrial deferment. The British Military Service Acts, complicated by antecedent war-labor policies, succeeded so little in system- atizing an industrial classification that the result, in the spring of 1fll7, was confusion rather than an orderly scheme for military-industrial correlation. The original Selective Ser\'ice Law, therefore, was an experiment so far as the scope of industrial classification was concerned. The amendment of August 31, 1918, broadened the field to the proper limits. There is no proper place in this discussion, with- out prolongins: it beyond all reasonable length, for dealing witli the various ramifications of in- duslrial classification, control, and distribution with which Selective Service concerned itself nor for the various novel departures that were in con- templation when the end of the war made them unnecessaiy. With a view to the elimination of all non-essential emplo^-ments, the augmentation of labor in the most essential industries, and the 174 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE most effective application and distribution of that labor within those industries, when the war came to an end there were pending, awaiting only the approval of the President, measures that would have tightened the control upon industrial man- power and have made possible the nicest adjust- ments of labor to industry. But the end came sooner than any had expected. On November 11, on the very day that an addi- tional quarter of a million men had begun to mo- bilize, the war was over, and Selective Service had accomplished its purpose. Looking back upon America in the early days of April, 1917, and casting an eye along the brief span of nineteen months to November, 1918, there appears an era of achievement unparalleled in the ' nation's history. Unorganized for war, opposed to compulsory service, unthinkingly despising it as an institution antagonistic to free government, in little more than a year and a half the nation ac- cepts Selective Service with universal acclaim and with it molds mighty combatant and industrial armies that bring to naught forty years of diaboli- cal military preparation. Stupendous tasks are approached and done, when accomplishment seems dubious and success impossible. In four days twenty-four million men are enrolled in vol- untary registrations; in fourteen months a se- lected army nearly three millions strong is mo- SELECTIVE SERVICE IN AMERICA 175 bilized, a million within the space of ninety days ; the vast group of the nation's militant manhood is classified and arranged in the order of its mil- itary and industrial importance; the domestic and economic life of the nation is preserved, war-time activities speeded and maintained in a status of maximum efficient production, and the way paved to a speedy return to the normal peace-time pur- suits while recruiting the full fighting strength of the nation. Entering the struggle at a time when the prospects are decidedly dismal, we witness German success advance to an almost over- whelming Allied defeat, until, throwing our hast- ily assembled forces into the balance, we see im- pending catastrophe turn into brilliant and de- cisive victory. It was the faith, the confidence, and the coopera- tion of the American people that made these things possible. No great national undertaking had ever been begun that depended so utterly for its execution, upon faith in a people and undoubt- edly no faith was ever more completely justified and no confidence more abundantly rewarded. The universal, voluntary, sympathetic coopera- tion of a great people smashed the vaunted ef- ficiency of an overbearing autocracy and made possible a tremendous national effort thatfsaved the world for democracyi CHAPTER VII HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED SELECTIVB SEEVIOE THE advent of war found America and Britain in similar situations. The military policy of the United States on April 1, 1917, was evi- denced by a small regular army numbering one hundred and twenty thousand men, and the sev- eral National Guard establishments, capable of federalization, amounting to a paper strength of one hundred and eighty-three thousand. The military scheme of Great Britain was not unlike our own. The Boer War had been fought and badly won with an organization closely paral- leled by that with which the United States was saddled in the spring of 1917. The Boer had taught the English people that their military scheme, embodying a small regular establishment for foreign service and a national militia for home duty, did not give them an organization capable of the ready expansion necessary even for a second- ary campaign overseas. Then the expansion had been effected by a third establishment, the Volun- teers. But this organization was, perforce, made 176 HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 177 up of raw and untrained recruits, and the necessity for their immediate presence in the theater of operations precluded an adequate or even a fair amount of training. The combined strength of the British Empire finally reduced to impotency a semi-guerrilla force that never exceeded ninety thousand men. The cost in blood and treasure taught a dear lesson. It was imperative that the military policy of the nation be altered so as to provide a trained and sufficient reserve speedily to augment the regular forces upon the declaration of a war of any con- siderable magnitude. We had learned the same lesson in the Civil War, the frightful, bloody truth that untrained levies made a shambles of a skirmish and a butch- ery of a battle. Up to the spring of 1917 we had profited nothing by our costly lesson. In the summer of 1914, England had profited almost as little. It is true that from 1907 to 1910 the whole of the British military machine had been torn down and reassemblod with a view to building up a large and effectively trained reserve force capable of expanding a small standing army into a power- ful defensive establishment. How little British statesmen seriously considered the possibility that within less than a decade the life of the empire would be staked upon the success of its land forces 178 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE on foreign soil is reflected in the organization of its armies on August 1, 1914. On that date its fight- ing forces, developed along the lines of the policy determined in 1907, were totally inadequate for the performance of the task that had to be ac- complished. The Regular Army, which was, under the law, the standing and only expeditionary force, num- bered 234,586 men, of which nearly one half were scattered throughout the vast expanse of the em- pire. Its members were bound by their enlistment to twelve years of duty, six to seven with the col- ors, five to six with the reserves. Twelve years of active service was authorized if the soldier's conduct had been faithful, and twenty-one years if he so desired. The Army Reserve was made up of the trained regular soldiers who had returned to civil life after service with the colors and who remained liable to be recalled to active duty. It was com- posed, first, of reservists who had been regularly furloughed after completing the ordinary term with the colors and who were liable to call only on a general mobilization; second, of those who had volunteered to serve not only on general mobiliza- tion, but in minor expeditions, and third, of those who, after completion of the prescribed twelve years with the colors and in the reserve, had re- enlisted in the reserve for a further term of four HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 179 years and who were available for general mobiliza- tion only. With so long a period of duty with the colors, it was natural that the Army Reserve would build up but slowly. On August 1, 1914, it numbered a little over 146,000. The militia had been abolished by the policy of 1907. In its place, to absorb its members and to carry out the determination of providing a larger trained reserve, which would be readily available for an overseas campaign, the Special Reserve had been established. The Siiecial Reserve con- sisted of seventy-four battalions, representing an allotment of one battalion to each battalion of the Regular Army and twenty-seven additional bat- talions to provide for fortress defense and the lines of communication. Its members were Uable for overseas service only in time of war, when the Special Reserve battalions became feeders for the Regular Army. The term of enlistment was six years. There was an initial course of training of from five to six months, and an annual training period each succeeding year of from three to four weeks. Its authorized strength was eighty thou- sand. When war was declared it was seventeen thousand short of establishment. Thus the first line of the army available for an overseas campaign consisted on August first of two hundred and thirty-four thousand in the Regular Army, one hundred and forty-six thou- 180 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE sand in the Army Reserve and sixty-three thou- sand in the Special Reserve, or a total of four hundred and forty-three thousand men. But half of the Regular Army was dissipated over the face of the globe, and the effectiveness of the Army Reserve and Special Reserve was a paper strength only. As a matter of fact, the initial Expedition- ary Force, the "contemptible British Army," numbered, after the most strenuous efforts to mobilize it, a bare sixty thousand men. The second line of defense was the Territorial Force, created when the militia was abolished. It corresponded roughly with our National Guard when federalized. Enlistment was for a period of four years. Every man was liable to attend camp at least eight days a year, unless excused, and to "make himself efficient" under the penalty of a fine. In the year preceding the war less than two thirds of the force undertook the prescribed train- ing. Territorials were liable only for service at home; the force could not be drafted for service overseas, but individual members might, by trans- fer, volunteer for first-line organizations. This force, which its dreaming creators envi- sioned as the Nation in Arms, a million well- trained men for home defense when invasion threatened, was curtailed by law to 315,000 and, when the war came, had a paper strength of 251,- 706 men. HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 181 Thus the outbreak of hostilities found England with a first-line paper strength of approximately four hundred and forty thousand men and a second line or home defense of two hundred and fifty thooisand men, a combined force of but little less than seven hundred thousand men on paper. Our own situation on April 1, 1917, was not so favorable. The total of our Regular Army and federalized National Guard was, on paper, three hundred thousand men, less than one half the paper etfectiveuoss of the British Empire. In proportion to the population of Great Britain and the United States, the military strength of the former was more than four times that of our own. Ingrained in the system of both governments was the recognition of the universal obligation of its citizens to perform military service. As firmly imbedded was the idea that such service should be voluntary and voluntary alone. Fortunately the bloody tide of the war washed away our prejudices. We entered the conflict with a declaration of universal liability to service and the means for the compulsory attainment of it. Not so fortunate was England. Imbued with our own heresy, she did not escape the deadly cost, which wc happily avoided. How she blindly struggled to maintain the volunteer doctrine ; how, 182 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE step by step, she receded from it, first through the importuning of her wiser leaders, then through an overwhehning national necessity ; how she yielded first in principle, then in partial practice, until the realization of the awful toll was thrust upon her, and she took the whole drastic step, this is a story no less of personal than of vital national interest. On August 6, 1914, two days after the declara- tion of war, Lord Kitchener was appointed Secre- tary of State for War. On the same day Parlia- ment authorized the enlistment of five hundred thousand men to be recruited as called for by the War Office. On August 7, Lord Kitchener issued a call for one hundred thousand men, the first increment of the additional strength authorized on the preceding day, fixing the age limits at from nineteen to thirty, and the term of service for three years or until the end of the war. How to absorb these men into the existing es- tablishment until such time as definite plans for expansion could be worked out in detail was the first problem that presented itself. The call for one hundred thousand men was not a call for re- cruits for the Regular Army, its Reserves, or the Territorial Force. They were to form the initial increment of the "new armies" that, as was al- ready seen, the vast scale of the war would de- mand. But while the new armies were being re- cruited, the expeditionary force, the Regular HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 18 J Army, must be maintained and augmented. In a measure this was accomplished by drafts upon the Army Reserve, the Special Reserve, and by the voluntary transfer of men from the Territorials to the Regular Army. Yet not a few of the first re- cruits for the new armies eventually found their way into the Regular Army. The increments of the new armies were organ- ized into "service battalions" and, still waiting definite expansion plans, were designated as addi- tional battalions of line regiments of the Regular Army. However, on September 11 announcement was made of the proposed organization of the first four "new armies," contemplating twenty-four new divisions. The fifth and sixth new armies were announced on January 2, 1915. Thereafter service battalions became theoretically feeders or recruits depots for the new armies in the field. This was the scheme in theory, the Special Re- serve feeding the Regular Army, the service bat- talions feeding the new armies. Of course no such distinction could long be strictly adhered to in practice. We had a not dissimilar idea of pre- servin.i^- technical distinctions in our forces. Men were recruited for the Regular Army and National Guard and drafted for the National Army. An effort was at first maintained to keep each separate and distinct, but practical diflSculties soon forced us to one army, the United States Army. 184 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE So much for the plan of reorganization and ex- pansion. But the first requisite was men. The one hundred thousand volunteers called for on August 7, did not respond as rapidly as might have been expected. Not until August 25 was the call filled. On August 28 the second increment of one hundred thousand was called for, the age limit raised to thirty-five, and the term of service "for the war." The second hundred thousand men came more readily, thanks to German atrocities and a clearer realization of the meaning of the stru.tci^le. In the meantime the members of the Territorial Force responded nobly. While their organization, as such, could not be drafted, the in- dividual members might volunteer for first-line or- ganizations. By September 10 the personnel of not less than sixty-nine of its battalions had of- fered for overseas service. Thus, on September 10 the prime minister was able to announce that 438,000 men in all had enlisted for the campaign. But it must not be assumed that this number was added to the military establishment exist- ing at the outbreak of the war, which, as has al- ready been seen, included 251,000 Territorials. About one half of the reported enlistments com- prised Territorials transferred to first-Hue or- ganizations. On September 10, Parliament was asked to in- crease the authorized strength of the new estab- HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 185 lishment by five hundred thousand, a total au- thorization of one million men. On September 15 enlistments had amounted to 501,530 men. Thus in the first six weeks of the war half a million men were secured. The initial rush was over; England was never again to see it repeated. But it was here that the advocates of small- peace strength and rapid voluntary expansion in war met their first rude awakening. "Magnifi- cent," said they, "has been the spontaneous rush to service." It was. But while the volunteer system had produced half a million men in six weeks, it could not produce in as short a time arms or clothing or shelter for them. The army was swamped with men, whom it could neither ade- quately care for nor train. Unfortunately, therefore, on September 11 it be- came necessary to place a check upon enlistments. On that day the height requirements were raised, in the hope that the number offering would be reduced. The action was ill-advised. It checked the flow of recruits, but the country assumed the step to mean that the crying need for men was past, that the war was already won. Hence, when a fortnight later vigorous recruiting efforts were again begun, the splendid rush of the first six weeks was gone. Then began the first of the frantic, fevered appeals for volunteers, whose re- sponse was to justify the ill-cherished theories of 186 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE the advocates of volunteerism. A parliamentary committee was appointed, and citizens' commit- tees flooded the country with posters, literature, and oratory. The age limit for recruits was raised from thirty-five to thirty-eight; the height requirement was reduced twice within a month. But the eight-weeks' effort from September 15, when the first half million was reported, to No- vember 15, netted but two hundred thousand men for the army. The hue and cry was raised again. House- holders were besought by personal appeals and otherwise to solicit members of their families to enlist. Every conceivable form of personal and patriotic appeal was made to English manhood through the press, the billboard, and the plat- fonn, through organizations, through committees, and throTigh individual solicitation. The first of the new year arrived, and the results were totaled. The six-weeks' effort from November 16 had netted one hundred and twenty thousand men. Five hundred thousand men in the first six weeks of war; two hundred thousand in the next eight weeks ; one hundred and twenty thousand in the next six weeks ; what a commentary on the vol- imteer system, what a solemn warning to its advo- cates, what an awful threat to the nation then locked in a deadly struggle for existence ! More than one million men were now in the Brit- HOW ENY;laND ACHIEVED 187 ish Armies. On November 16, Parliament had been asked for and had authorized an additional million, raising the authorized strength of the new armies to two million men. The withdrawal of so large a number from the industrial sphere, then in the throes of war-time readjustment, could not but play havoc with the economic life. When the first rush of enlistment had passed, steps were taken to preserve, so far as the ill-constructed machine could function, the industrial life of the nation. Recruiting sergeants, capable men for the clerical details of enlistment, were instructed to discour- age the enlistment of men necessary to industry. How well a recruiting sert^^eant, whose life had been spent in the service, could perform so deli- cate a duty as determining the economic value of an applicant for enlistment may well be imagined. The enUstment of key and pivotal men in industry and men for war plants, then springing up, was not sought by the various agencies combing the country for volunteers. But nothing resembling a systematic plan for the preservation or augmen- tation of industry was attempted. As a result the flower of English manhood rushed to the colors at the first summons. Before the beginning of 1915 the Itest of England had gone — gone from the fac- tory, gone from the school, gone from the office, gone to the carnage across the channel, leaving vacant places that could be filled but poorly by 188 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE those they left behind. Thus was the hard path to industrial readjustment made doubly difiBcult. The advocates of volunteerism were about to learn their second bitter lesson, that industry must be maintained efficiently if armies are to fight effect- ively. The opening of the new year found the recruit- ing campaigns still in operation, continuing the plea for men to serve for "King and Country." Recruits still came forward, the armies grew, but in uncertain numbers and by the greatest efforts. On May 19 an additional throe hundred thousand men were called and the age-limit for enlistment raised to forty. The strain upon the man-power was beginning to tell. The younger men were holding back. The raising of armies, constantly decimated in the field, was almost at a standstill. Could it be that the manhood of Great Britain had run out? Was it possible that the fine pa- triotic fervor of Eng'lishmen, upon which the champions of the volunteer system relied, had ceased to bum? The volunteerists were now to learn their third hard lesson, that not all men, that not the majority of citizens, are of the moral fiber that volunteers in time of war. The first two weeks of June disclosed the fact that if the three hundred thousand men were se- cured it would be by the greatest effort. The flow was daily decreasing ; the cry from France for men HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 189 and mnnitions was but feebly answered ; industry was not on its feet ; the army was checked ; the fu- ture uncertain. It is true, in comparison with other days, that a huge army, — an army of more than a million and a half had been gathered. But at what cost to England and the future of the em- pire ! And what of its success in the campaigns overseas? What was this "triumph" of the vol- unteer system of which its supporters prated? "The triumph of the volunteer system," cried one Englishman,* in the most able plea for com- pulsory service produced in the summer of 1915, "is a German triumph. It is the ruin of Belgium and the devastation of France." The time had come, if it had not passed, to stop and take count of the future. It was apparent that the war could not be won by continuing the existing methods. England must now take stock of her remaining man-power. The National Registration Act was passed on July 15, 1915. Its purpose was to provide an in- ventory of man-power yet available for the war, both in the armies and in the industries of the na- tion. Under its terms there was to be a national registration of all males and females, between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five, resident in Great Britain, cxcojiting Ireland, not then memliers of the military or naval establishments. On Au- 1 "Ordeal by Battle," F. S. Oliver, 1915. 190 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE gust 15 the work of registration was begun. Unlike the procedure adopted in the execution of the Selective Service Law, the registrant was not sum- moned to a central registration station, but was sought out by one hundred and fifty thousand vol- unteer registrars, who distributed among the homes of Great Britain blank cards to be filled out by every person subject to the registration. Upon these cards were collected the name, age, resi- dence, dependency, and martial status, occupation, name of employer, and nationality of every regis- trant. Distributed a week before August 15, these cards, filled out by the registrants, were collected in the ten-day period following that day. The data thus assembled were compiled by occupations and sex, and entered in ledgers de- signed to furnish npon consultation the industrial availability, male and female, of the nation. Refined to a most delicate degree, the industrial ledgers might have worked successfully despite superrefinement, if it had been possible to main- tain control of the registrants listed in them. It is, of course, highly desirable to know the present location of national man-power, but the informa- tion of to-day is worthless to-morrow if change of status is not accurately recorded. Nor is it pos- sible to keep count of change of status unless each change is controlled, or at least supervised, by the bookkeeper of man-power. This is a truism that HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 191 we ourselves learned in the administration of the American draft. With a far tighter grasp upon man-power than England ever attained, we found ourselves losing grip upon industrial control by reason of the inroads of the volunteer system. It is obvious that we cannot compute assets to-day upon the basis of what was had yesterday, unless we know the loss of yesterday. We had to stop entirely the little independent system of volun- teering which we sought to operate along with the draft. England sought to keep industrial balances in the face of a purely volunteer system. The task was hopeless from its beginning. In- deed, Sir Auckland Geddes, shortly after Minister of National Service, was forced to confess in July, 1917, in testifying before Parliament's Select Com- mittee on Military Service, that after fourteen months of the most arduous and painstaking ef- forts to straighten out the industrial ledgers, the task was still unfinished, and that not until the first of the year 1918 could he hope to have them reduced to a state of accuracy justifying an at- tempt to use them. So far as achieving a useful or accurate accounting of industrial man-power was concerned, the national registration was a failure. It never had the slightest chance of suc- cess. But while from an industrial point of view, 192 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE the registration was ineffective, it possessed a mili- tary value that the volunteerists, still uncon\dnced of the failure of their system, were not slow to per- ceive. The advocacy of compulsory universal military service was not new to England when war was declared. Since 1907, under the able leadership of Lord Roberts, the National Service League had pleaded with the nation ceaselessly for its adop- tion. "When the break came in 1914, the efforts of its supporters were redoubled, and never slackened until their ends were finally attained in the spring of 1916. But then it was less of able advocacy than dire military necessity that accomplished the result. In the summer of 1915 the adherents of the volunteer system were still unready to aban- don their blind course. The registration offered an easy means to the adoption of universal service. But England was not yet willing. So the national registration was made the basis of a renewed effort of the volun- teerists. From the data assembled in the registration were separated the cards of all men between the ages of nineteen and forty, both inclusive. These were the men yet available for military service. Their numbers, location, and occupation were now known. The efforts of the volunteer system were to be directed to a systematic campaign to induce HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 193 them to perform the plain duty that they had thus far continued to shirk. But all these men could not be spared from the industrial activities of the nation. England had erred in the beginning in stripping herself of skilled man-power; this mistake, at least, must not be repeated. So it was determined to separate from those whose ages made them available for the army, the men who were of greater worth in industry than in the fighting forces. With great care commit- tees got to work to set aside the men who must be retained at home, who must not be coerced into "voluntary" enlistment. Lists of trades and oc- cupations were prepared, containing the industries "reserved" as indispensable to the prosecution of the war. The registrants whose cards showed them to be engaged in "reserved" occupations were "starred"; they would not be solicited for enlistment. Thus after thirty days of untiring labor there were separated from the mass of regis- tration cards the cards of those unstarred men who were best available for the army. It was to these men that the efforts of the volunteer cam- paign were to be specifically directed. The data thus prepared were turned over to a Parliamentary recruiting Committee, which, with its citizens' auxiliary committees working in con- junction with the army recruiting service, began 194 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE anew the cry for volunteers. Again the country was placarded with posters, the homes flooded with literature, the public harangued by the recruit- ing orators. Parades, concerts, rallies, and the personal individual solicitation of the recruiter put the country in an uproar. The campaign was a failure; the patriot refused to function no mat- ter how great the noise. On September 30, in the face of definite failure, the War OfiBce directed its recruiting officers to take whatever steps were considered most effective to induce unstarred men to join the armies and to report the number of those who refused. The country went \vild. It would never submit to the press gang. When the temper of the nation became apparent, the order was rescinded, and the recruiting drive ended in a complete and dismal fiasco on October first. The new armies now numbered two million men ; their authorized strength was now three million, and the contemplated program, legalized the fol- lowing December, increased the authorization to four million. This number it was absolutely necessary to maintain if the war was to be waged to a successful conclusion; only half this number had been secured, and the utmost of pleading, harangue, and persuasion had netted failure. What recruits had been secured had been taken indiscriminately; paralyzed industry, struggling to recover, was not only unaided, but impeded in, HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 195 its effort. The vclunteerists were face to face with the cruel troth that the volunteer system not only kills industrial life, but is totally unequal to the task of raising maximum armies. The war had taught the world that success depended upon the mobilization and proper distribution of every atom of effectiveness ; that it was no less vital to place upon the field the full fighting strength of a nation than to sequester in the war-time indus- tries the maximum of industrial man-power. It is inconceivable that the total failure in the early fall of 1915 should not have brought Eng- land to a realization that the necessary end could never be attained by an adherence to the volunteer system. But even then the volunteerist would not concede the failure of his policy. But it was apparent to all alike that the volun- teer system was on its last legs. Yet it was to be given one more trial, and that failure was to mark its end. On October 5, Lord Derby was ap- pointed Director General of Recruiting. With his appointment came the announcement of the final volunteer scheme, the "Derby" plan. Briefly, it was this. All men of military age appearing in the national registration were to be divided into two groups, married and single. Each class was then to be subdivided into age groups, one group for each age. Thus there were to be twenty-three age groups of single men from 196 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE eight eon to forty-one and a like number of age groups of married men. All registrants were then to be invited to "attest," that is, to signify their willingness to enlist. Upon attestation each man would be enlisted and immediately furloughed to the reserve, provided he did not desire immediate active service. The new reserve thus to be cre- ated was designated Army Eeserve, Section B. This reserve then became available for active serv- ice as called. Four definito promises were made to the regis- trants by the Government in furtherance of the Derby plan. First, no married men who attested would be called until all save a negligible num- ber of unmarried men had been put into the serv- ice; second, men would be called in the order of their age groups, beginning with the nineteen- year-old group ; third, every man would be given an opportxmity to present to a local tribunal a claim for transfer to a more deferred age group, thereby making possible his temporary deferment from military service. Finally, it was stated that if the Derby plan failed to enlist the vol-untary service of the required number, compulsion would be adopted as the last resort of the Government to preserve the empire. The gist of the scheme was apparent. There were 5,011,441 men of military age in Great Britain, enrolled under the National Eegistration HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 197 Act, who had not yet entered the service. If compulsory service were adopted, it would auto- matically render these men liable to call to the colors. Without compulsory service they could not be involuntarily taken. The Derby plan, therefore, proposed to have these men, of their own free will, declare themselves liable to call, to enlist them in the reserve and to order them to duty as the need for them arose. Failing in its purpose, there was but one recourse, compulsion. An elaborate system of canvassers was again invoked, the advertising agencies again came for- ward, and with a great fanfare the final volun- teer campaign began on October 23. Confined at first to the unstarred single men, the activities of the solicitors soon extended to the starred single men and to married men. The local tribunals, which were to pass upon claims for group defer- ment based upon dependency, business connection, and necessity to industry, were established, and tlie system was ready to function. How voluntary were the enlistments sought in this campaign? The men solicited had refused for fourteen months to enter the service despite every plea and argument, despite dire national peril, despite all pressure brought to bear upon them. Social ostracism had been the lot to which the volunteerist sought to consign the slacker theretofore. Now he held before the regis- 198 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE trant the alternatives of enlistment or conscrip- tion. The spirit of the volunteer system had long been lost; now its advocates sought to maintain it in name by resort to outspoken threats. The volunteer system in the fall of 1915 was conscrip- tion in all save fairness, efficiency, and effective- ness. The campaign was to end on November 30, but wa-s extended until December 15. Registrants were given the option of enlisting either directly into the army or into the Section B. Reserve. During the campaign, which exceeded in scope and vigor any of the preceding ones, 215,400 men were enlisted for the army. As to those attesting for the reserve, the re- sults were as follows. When the campaign be- gan there were 5,011,441 men available for attesta- tion, 2,179,231 single and 2,832,210 married men. Of these numbers 840,000 single men and 1,343,- 979 married men attested, a total of 2,184,979. It was contemplated that the single men starred in the industrial ledgers would present to the local tribunals valid claims for group deferment. Of the 840,000 single men attesting, 527,933 were un- starred, and could, therefore, be assumed to have no claim for deferment. Of this number, allowing for physical rejections, there would be remaining , in Section B. Resei^e available for call 343,386 men. In other words, this number, supplemented HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 199 by the 251,000 who had enlisted directly into the army during the attestation campaign, or a total of 594,386 men, was the net number of single men produced by the campaign. After making all de- ductions for enlistment and for those rejected for physical disqualifications when offering to attest, there remained 1,029,231 single men unattested, and of this number 651,160 were unstarred. So the Derby plan produced 594,386 available fighting men, and left 1,029,231 single men unat- tested and, therefore, not available for a call to service. Since the pledge of the Government prohibited the taking of married men who had attested until all the single men had gone, none of the 1,344,974 married men attesting could be taken. The net gain of the whole campaign was, therefore, less than six hundred thousand men out of more than five million men of military age who appeared upon the registration books. More than one mil- lion single men were left untouched and could not be reached by any volunteer plan. The volunteer system had definitely and finally broken down. On December 20 groups two to five, that is, sin- gle men from nineteen to twenty-three who had attested and were now in the reserve, were called, and were ordered to report on January 20. In the interim the local tribunals, four thousand in number, began the work of hearing claims for 200 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE those who sought deferment. The committees that had worked upon the industrial ledgers dur- ing the preceding summer had already done the same work that the local tribunals were now forced to perform again. Meanwhile England was square!}' up against conscription. Up to the first of the year 101(5 about 2,300,000 men for the new armies had been raised by the volunteer plan. These were now 1,700,000 short of establishment. To fill the short- age there were available 343,386 unstarrcd single men in the Section B. Reserve. This was all ; the 1,344,979 married men who had attested could not be touched until the million-odd unmarried men who had not attested had been put into service. If conscription were not adopted, there would ex- ist a deficit of nearly one and one-half million men. Conscription had arrived, every avenue of escape was closed. But even now, instead of boldly adopting com- pulsory service as the strong remedy for the na- tional ill, instead of championing it for its intrinsic value, and firmly advocating it as the only just and sound doctrine for raising armies and maintaining industry, the Government brought forward its Conscription Act, rather as a plan to redeem its promise to the married men who had attested, that all unmarried men would be put into the armies before the married men were called to the service. HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 201 Like all measures that have but half-hearted sup- port, the first Conscription Act was but a half-way measure. The first Military Service Act was passed Jan- uary 24, 1916. It provided that all men who were single on August 15, 1915 (the date of the national registration), between the ages of eighteen and forty, both inclusive, should be deemed, from and after a date to be determined by the king, "to have been duly enlisted in his Majesty's Regular Forces for general service or in the Eeserve and to have been forthwith transferred to the Reserve." The date upon which the act was to become effective was later fixed by a proclamation as March 2. From and after that date all unmarried men not theretofore enlisted were automatically, by the terms of the act, placed in the service and made liable to call. Between the passing of the act and March 2 the Derby plan of group enlistment was again opened to unmarried men, and four hundred thousand of them attested in this period. After March 2 voluntary enlistment of unmarried men within the registration ages was over, since from that date all were automatically in the service. The law provided for an age classification simi- lar to the Derby plan, with the exception that men were to be divided into "classes" instead of "groups." Thus there were to be twenty-three age classes of single men between eighteen and 202 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE forty-one conscripted into service, as there were twenty-three groups of single men who had at- tested. As under the group plan, the classes were to be called in sequence of age, beginning with class two, the nineteen-year-olds. Eighteen-year- old men were not to be called until reaching the age of nineteen. The law provided for exemption by application to local tribunals, which were established for each registration district as defined in the National Eegistration Act of 1915. There were eighteen hundred of such tribunals. Exemptions were to be allowed on four grounds: first, expediency in national interest, retention in present work or other work desired, or continuance of education or training; second, hardship because of "business obligations" or "domestic position"; third, phys- ical disability; and fourth, conscientious objection. Exemptions might also be granted by any gov- ernment department to men or classes of men in the service of the department or employed or qual- ified for employment in any work certified by the department to be work of national importance. Certificates of exemption were provided for and furnished to the men exempted. These certifi- cates were of three kinds, absolute, conditional, or temporary, according to the nature of the exemp- tion. There were also provided certificates of ex- emption from combatant service for conscientious HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 203 objectors. All certificates granted on the ground of exceptional financial or business obligations or domestic position or on the ground of continuance of education were to be conditional or temporary only. Provision was made for the withdrawal of certificates by reason of change of status and also for the renewal of temporary certificates. Each local tribunal consisted of from five to twenty-five members. Appeal tribunals were to be appointed by the king, and to them appeals from decisions of the local tribunals would come. A Central Tribunal for Great Britain, to be ap- pointed by the king, was also authorized, and to this tribunal could be brought appeals from the appeal tribunals. Appeals might be taken either by the registrants or by the government agent au- thorized by the army council. Regulations gov- erning the constitution, function, and procedure of all tribunals were authorized by order in council. A registrant granted any form of exemption re- mained in his "class," but was not to be called with his class unless and until his exemption had expired or was revoked. The passing of the first Military Service Act marked the close of the first eighteen months of the war. Great Britain was maintaining in the field a force of 1,250,000 men and an almost equal number at home, many of whom would not be 204 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE available for service overseas until the fall of 1916. Her casualties had been over .550,000 ; the campaigns in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and the Balkans had been failures, and in France there was a deadlock due to insufficient men and muni- tions. There was no immediate prospect of being able to put fresh formations in the field, and no assurance of maintaining those there at the proper strength. Her system of recruitment had broken down and was abandoned, but not before it had throttled industrial life and undermined the whole economic structure. Man-power was disorganized, and no systematic plan had been evolved to bring order out of the existing chaos. It is not profitless at this point to examine briefly the results that had been attained in the United States at the expiration of a like period of war. In the first eighteen months we had con- ducted four registrations, two major and two minor, enrolling for service twenty-three million men between the ages of eighteen and forty -five; a comprehensive system of industrial and eco- nomic classification had been evolved; the whole available group of man-power had been surveyed, and had been systematically arranged into four great classes in the inverse order of industrial worth; through scientific selection, 2,541,635 men, least valuable to the economic life of the nation, had been withdrawn from civilian activities and HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 205 placed in the military forces; in addition, twelve hundred thousand had been secured by volunteer- ing. In all, a total of thirty-seven hundred thou- sand men had been added to the fighting forces; two million men were in the theater of operations, and seventeen hundred thousand in the camps and cantonments of the United States; and an addi- tional two million men were immediately available for call to the colors. Entering the war at a time when the outlook had been decidedly dismal, we had seen German success approach an overwhelm- ing Allied catastrophe until, throwing our speedily assembled forces into the balance, we had turned crushing defeat into brilliant and decisive victory. ]\Ieantime, while recruiting the full fighting strength of the nation, we had, in large measure, preserved peace-time industrial normality; had constructed and manned an ever-increasing mer- chant marine out of the thin air; had reached a war-time industrial readjustment and, withal, had kept Europe alive with food. In eighteen months, with its volunteer system, England had met with three major military reverses and a deadlock, had raised an insufficient aniiy, had crippled industry in the process, and had yet evolved no definite or comprehensive solution of the difficulties. In the same time, wo, under a system of scientific selec- tion, had within easy reach an army of five million men dra^\^l from the least essential walks of civil 206 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SEEVICB life, had preserved industry, had accomplished eco- nomic readjustment with a minimum of disturb- ances and a maximum of effectiveness, and had a clear-cut plan of operation to meet a war of indefi- nite duration. Fortunately, we had the benefit of the experience of our allies and had realized at the outset that the war bore a no less vital significance for the indus- tries of the nation than for its armies. England did not learn this truth until nearly two years of marking time brought her face to face with it. The remainder of the war she devoted largely to the undoing of her mistakes of the first two years. On January 20, 1916, the British War Office called out groups two to five. On February 8 groups six to nine were called; on February 29, groups ten to thirteen; on March 3, one day after the Conscription Act became effective, classes two to twelve ; on March 18 groups fourteen to twenty- three and classes thirteen to twenty-three were called. Thus by mid-March all the single men who had attested and who had been conscripted were called to the colors. The Government was now in a position to call out the married men who had attested under the Derby plan. On April 27 groups twenty-five to thirty-two, married men between the ages of nine- teen and twenty-seven, who had attested, were HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 207 called to the colors. Thus there were called by early spring virtually every man available under the various recruiting schemes of the Govern- ment. It should be observed that during this period, beginning March 2, there were three distinct meth- ods of recruitment in operation : compulsory serv- ice for single men between the ages of eighteen and forty, the Derby volunteer group plan for mar- ried men between the same ages, and the old volun- teer system for Ireland and for men above the age of forty. But despite these varied and diverse schemes for the recruitment of armies, the insatiable maw of the front had not been satisfied. Accordingly, on April 26, the Government proposed an immediate effort to obtain fifty thousand additional unat- tested married men by voluntary enlistment under the Derby plan, and, failing in four weeks to secure them, to extend the Conscription Act so as to in- clude married as well as single men. It did not take long to disclose that the men could not be had without conscription, and, accordingly, the second Military Service Act was passed on May 16, and became a law on May 25. The act provided that every male British sub- ject resident in Great Britain, excepting Ireland, who had attained the age of eighteen years and had not attained the age of forty-one years (ex- 208 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE cept men resident temporarily for education, those already in the service, ministers, men discharged from service, and men holding certificates of ex- emption) should be deemed after thirty days to be "enlisted in his Majesty's Regular Forces for general service with the colors or in the Reserve for the period of the war and to have been trans- ferred forthwith to the Reserve." The act also extended the time of men in service; recalled to service time-expired men under forty-one; re- quired a review of medical certificates of those re- jected since August 14, 1915 ; required a review of exemption certifilcates ; required the transfer of the Territorials, who had thus far been maintained as a home defense organization, into other corps or to the Regular Army without their consent ; and provided that the Army Council could transfer to the Reserve any member of the regular forces or temporarily demobilize any member of the Terri- torial Forces in any case where the transfer or de- mobilization should appear expedient for the na- tional interest. Thus England finally achieved a conscription measure affecting every male between the ages of eighteen and forty-one. But the end had been at- tained by such a piecemeal process that nearly two years of the war had elapsed before the Govern- ment had given itself the opportunity to control the whole field of man-power. It is not difficult to HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 209 see what comprehensive or systematic plans could be made or executed under this shifting and uncer- tain policy. As illustrative of the hotchpotch policy it is not without value to review briefly the diverse and often conflicting schemes with which England bur- dened herself up to this time in the field of ex- emptions and industrial deferment alone. In the initial recruiting campaigns of the first year of the war an attempt had been made to afford a feeble aid to industry by not soliciting for enlistment the more essential men in the industrial world. This was a negative measure that accomplished worse than negative results. When the national regis- tration was held in the summer of 1915, committees laboriously scanned the ledgers and starred the men engaged in occupations called necessary by the Reserved Occupations Committee. When the recruiting campaign of the fall of 1915 began, these starred men were again afforded the same negative protection that was offered in the preced- ing year. During all this time, in fact, since the very be- ginning, a system of badges had been inaugnirated for the purpose of relieving necessary industrials of the odium of non-enlistment. Necessary em- ployees were given badges signifying that they were willing to serve in the army, but that they were indispensable to industry. Later the badge 210 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE was supplemented by a certificate, and the certifi- cate by an exemption. It was very early apparent that certain trades must be maintained intact and augmented. Hence, in the early days of the war, a number of trade unions were authorized to issue trade cards to their members, the cards later becoming, ia ef- fect, exemptions. When the Derby scheme was invoked, provision was made for the deferment of attestors, and local tribunals were established to pass upon their claims. The determination of these claims in- volved, in a large measure, a redetermination of the same questions of industrial necessity that had been previously passed upon by the Reserved Oc- cupations Committee in preparing the industrial registers. When the first and second Military Service acts were passed, the local tribunals constituted under these acts were for the third time presented with the same claims by the same men whose status had theretofore been fixed, first by the Reserved Occu- pations Committee, and, second, by the local tri- bunals under the Derby plan. Finally, the vari- ous branches of the Government were authorized under the Military Service Acts to grant exemp- tion to such employees as were necessary to the respective departments, and large numbers of ex- emptions were thus disbursed. HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 211 Thus there had been no less than five separate and di.stinct agencies granting exemptions at one time or another, in many cases duplicating, in others reversing or modifying the efforts of one another. Without definite centralization or coor- dination, the single question of exemption had become a seemingly inextricable tangle. The industrial ledgers, begun when the national registration was accomplished, had been designed to record and to keep current the availability, in- dustrial and military, of every registrant. But registrants changed their employments, they en- listed in the armies, they died, they changed their place of residence, they were starred, they were exempted, they were badged, they were reclassified or re-grouped by incoordinating exemption agen- cies, and the upshot of it all was that by May, 1916, the industrial ledgers had become a mass of names valueless either as a directory or as a cat- alogue of industrial availability. But not only had industrial classification be- come hopelessly confused by reason of indiscrim- inate distribution of authority, but in the very in- stances in which an attempt was made to central- ize it, that is, in local tribunals, the basis of classi- fication had been fundamentally wrong. The clas- sification both under the Derby plan and the Mili- tary Service Acts had been an age classification first, and a marriage classification second. So far 212 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE as the age classification was concerned, the fallacy was historical. All the continental countries had adopted the same course, and all of them, includ- ing Germany, met the same set-backs and were forced to the same ultimate action. The age basis of classification can be properly applied only in a non-industrial state or in an in- dustrial state engaged in limited warfare. The reason is self-apparent. In a war of the magni- tude of the one just ended, where every atom of man-power must be utilized to the best advantage, it is vitally necessary that the industrial life of the nation be sustained in full vigor if the outcome is to be a success. The maintenance of industry, therefore, specially wartime industry, becomes a matter of prime importance. Obviously, age, of itself, is no criterion of industrial value. Many twenty-five-year-old men are vastly more impor- tant to industry than countless others of forty. In a short war the maintenance of industry is not a matter of the grave significance that it becomes in one that strains every sinew of the nation. Happily, our own classififcation scheme was an industrial and economic classification rather than an age one. England, as well as the other nations in the war, were ultimately forced so to adjust their schemes as to reach, in effect, the industrial grouping. But in the spring of 1916 England had not fully appreciated this lesson. HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 213 So, then, the passage of the second Military Service Act found England without any accurate survey of the man-power registered in the summer of 1915, without any appreciation of the vital im- portance of close coordination between industry and armies, and with a compulsory hold, acquired piecemeal, upon man-power between the ages of eighteen and forty-one. In short, England had achieved conscription, but had not attained scientific selection. Selection, as has already been seen, is the proc- ess of scientific distribution of man-power in time of war between the armies and the industries of a nation. To insure its successful administration, its executive must have the means (1) To survey all man-power and to group it according to military and industrial utility; (2) To retain a firm control upon the man- power thus surveyed and classified ; (3) To distribute it efiSciently and effectively between the military and industrial realms. It is, of course, impossible for any agency to function in the field of man-power until the field has been accurately surveyed. Without the sur- vey every action becomes blind and purposeless. So, also, is it idle to survey man-power if no means exist for keeping count of its distribution and disbursement. Finally, neither the survey nor the accounting is of any value if it does not accomplish 214 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE the most efficient distribution of man-power be- tween the military and industrial activities of the nation. Whatever measure of success was attained in the administration of selection in the United States was due to an instant recognition of and strict adherence to these principles. England had attempted a survey of man-power in the sununer of 1915. By May, 1916, the survey had become valueless for the reasons already dis- cussed. To correct the industrial ledgers so as to gain a fairly accurate inventory of man-power was the first task to which Sir Auckland Geddes, ap- pointed to the duty shortly after the enactment of the second Military Service Act, and later Minis- ter of National Service, directed his efforts. That this labor was not finally completed until the first of the year 1918 has already been stated. The firm control of man-power, never assumed until May, 1916, was attained, as to the man-power between the ages of eighteen and forty-one, with the passage of the second Military Service Act, which put an end to voluntary enlistment. Thus, in May, 1916, England had finally begun to remake an accurate survey of her man-power and had achieved the means of retaining control of it. For the first time was she in a position to take up the third and vital task of scientific selec- HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 215 tion, the efficient distribution of man-power be- tween industry and army. This task falls naturally into two parts: first, the establishment of a working balance between military and industrial needs, and, second, the ad- justment of the several needs within industry it- self. The second is a refinement of the first and ought not to be approached until the first has been disposed of. As in every instance in the solution of her man-power problem, England approached this task backward, recognizing the need for the refine- ment before the broad principle of military-indus- trial correlation was perceived. It was not until August, 1917, that the Ministry of National Serv- ice was definitely established, providing the means for the maintenance of the military-industrial bal- ance indispensable to the scientific administration of selective service. The passage of the Military Service Act of May, 1916, put the Government in a position to know with a definiteness not therefore possible what might be expected within the next year. During tlie first half of 1916, as a result of the act, re- cruits for the army might be anticipated and the flow somewhat accurately gauged. In the month of June, one hundred and fifty thousand men went into the army, but after August the supply might 216 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE be expected to fall off. As a matter of fact, the figures did decrease with an alarming regularity. In November the new recruits were less than one- half the intake in June, while in December the number was reduced to fifty-two thousand. Furthermore, the effective carrying out of the 1917 overseas program, then in contemplation, de- pended not only on the provision of drafts to make up the overseas establishment, to repair wastage, and to provide new units, but also in a great de- gree upon the adequate fulfilment at home of the requisite munitions program. For this last de- mand alone it was estimated that a reinforcement of two hundred and fifty thousand operatives would be required. As a result of this grave situation and the rep- resentations made to them upon it by their mili- tary advisers, the cabinet decided, in August, 1916, to establish the Man-Power Distribution Board, whose functions should be to survey the whole field of possible supply and to advise the cabinet as to the most economical method of its employment. Here was found the first action evincing a realiza- tion of the true scope of selection. But the step was partial only; it was not yet a recognition of the principle that the recruitment of armies and the maintenance of industry are but the two sides of a single problem, the eflBcient dis- tribution of national man-power. In a word, the HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 217 attitude in the summer of 1916 was this ; the army has presented certain indispensable needs; how can industry be so squeezed and readjusted as to satisfy them? So it was to the refinement of readjusting indus- trial man-power that the Man-Power Distribution Board was limited and to which it directed its first efforts. The Reserved Occupations List origi- nally prepared in the summer of 1915 as the cata- logue of industries, the employees of which had to be protected from military service, was revised and curtailed; the "dilution" of trade groups which contemplated the gradual replacement of male by female labor was systematized and extended, and the organization of the National Service Volun- teers, a volunteer army of labor, which eventually totaled four hundred thousand, was effected. The legal difficulties encountered are typified in the fact that the holders of badge exemptions and trade-card exemptions could not be taken for mili- tary service. Finally the Review of Exemptions Act (April 5, 1917), followed nearly a year later (February 6, 1918) by additional legislation and the Decertification Orders of April 9 and June 6, 1918, gave the necessary legal authority to review and revoke any and all exemptions theretofore granted. Thus, by successive stages, the mistakes of the first two years of war were gradually cor- rected and reviewed and the whole field of indus- 218 THE SPIRIT OF. SELECTIVE SERVICE trial man-power brought, step by step, within the jurisdiction of a single head. To- obtain man-poAver for which the army called, the industrial field was re-surveyed, re-grouped, and readjusted by these means, and by levying on certain industries of definite quotas of men se- lected by age groups within the occupation, and by a "Schedule of Protected Occupations." Struggling for the light of a truer philosophy, England finally, in the summer of 1917, achieved the last step in the evolution of selection. On Au- gust 1, 1917, the Ministry of National Service was definitely constituted and established. Its pur- pose was to place under a single control all the remaining man-power of the nation. It recog- nized the armies and the industries of the nation as two fields of endeavor of equal importance, both to be supplied from the same fund, which was to be controlled and distributed by a single authority. The final coordination of industry and army and the recognition of their oneness of purpose, marked the arrival of true selective service. "Henceforth," says the War Cabinet Report of 1917, "a single agency will be responsible at once for providing the army with approved comple- ments of fighting men for home and foreign serv- ice and at the same time for meeting — to the limits of what is possible — the essential demands of vital industry. ' ' HOW ENGLAND ACHIEVED 219 Thus, after three years of bloody struggle and ill success, England achieved the true selective service which we attained in the first seven months of war. The concluding events may be briefly told. The mistakes of three years could not be overcome with the ease and rapidity with which the true system could have been at once inaugurated. On Janu- ary 1, 1918, forty-one months from the beginning of the war, Great Britain had, despite every effort, but three and a half million men in the field, a little more than two million on the Western front. The Russian debacle brought her face to face with the impending German drive. It came, and with it came the awful crash that marks the fall of empires. Precipitously she brought to service every man short of fifty-one ; ^ at the risk of civil war, she sought to coerce Ireland to conscription and, with frantic haste, sent her cry for sustaining strength across the ocean. Thence came a mighty force, assembled in a year, which, throwing its weight into the conflict, stemmed the tide of autocratic aggression and saved the world for democracy. This is the story of England 's struggle to attain selection. Approaching a gigantic task with a false ideal and a ruinous reliance upon an anti- quated theory, she, often distracted by foolish 1 Second Militery Service Act (1918), April 18, 1918. 220 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE cries, under the cruel lash of adversity gradually, but finally, achieved a more complete philosophy. England's failure in the first years of the war was not due to any lack of innate patriotism on the part of her people or to any lack of splendid abil- ity on the part of her leaders. It lay solely in the failure to adopt as the system of recruitment the only method for mobilizing her national strength that subsequent events disclosed could be success- ful in a modem war. Profiting by her mistakes, America was indeed fortunate in avoiding the pit- falls that she encountered and that nearly wrecked the empire. Our patriotism was no greater than hers; our ability to organize no abler. Her ad- versity was our teacher, and her failures our suc- cess. Can England's shortcomings and our own ap- preciation of them, her close escape and our own undreamed success, be again a lesson dearly bought and soon to be forgotten? CHAPTER Vm THE SPIEIT OF THE DRAFT THE draft is an accomplished fact, and so the public mind turns away from the thing done to a question, the solution of which analyzes the character and conscience of a great people. How was it accomplished? What was the spirit that entered into the mental and moral fiber of a citi- zenship of various origin, wedded by tradition to an idea of service only at the will of the individ- ual person, and resentful of arbitrary laws for universal military service, impelling them cheer- fully to toss their time-honored notions into the discard and accept with cooperative enthusiasm the decision of Congress and the Commander-in- Chief of the Armies of the Republic to marshal the man-power of the nation under the Selective Serv- ice Law. It was as if the whole country was bom again ; as if the mold in which our whole social and political habits had once been formed were broken asunder, and we had been recast. Was it a new conscience? Was it the first springing into existence of a real sense of nation- 221 222 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE ality, a first feeling of patriotism that stirred the country as a whole, North, South, East, and West? Could it be that the first battles for liberty in 76 were only the breaking of chains of restraint by crude men with crude ideas, groping for the light of fuU liberty, which was only to see its realization after a century of mixture of diverse elements? One feels, as his mind reverts to political events in the early history of this nation, as if our whole span of government might be compared to the sud- den bursting forth of a spring from the bowels of the earth, which as it gushes forth brings with it sand, mud, and gravel ; then subsiding for a while, it gushes forth again with sand and mud, gradu- ally loses its force, and again springs forth min- gled with sand only, until finally, like the purging of a great body, it has relieved itself of the dis- turbing elements and, sparkling in the sunlight, trickles down the hillside, pure, cool, and sweet, for the benefit of the tired wayfarer. Thus we see our forefathers in the snow at Val- ley Forge, struggling for something they called liberty, willing to die rather than endure taxation without representation, and yet viewing with com- placency the slavery of persons to whom the con- dition of their masters would have seemed the very essence of liberty. We look again and see our forefathers at the breastworks of New Orleans, willing again to die THE SPIRIT OF THE DRAFT 223 that men who had sought refuge in this country as their adopted mother might not be impressed into the service of the autocratic rulers of the land of their birth, thus emphasizing a broader prin- ciple of liberty, that of the right of man to trans- fer his citizenship to the jurisdiction of the pro- tector of his fireside. We look again and see our fathers in the carnage of Gettysburg, still battling for the principles of freedom, hopelessly disunited, but both sides equally fearless and willing to die for their oppos- ing convictions ; one that his people should be free to carry out their own policies and their ideals of self-government according to their conceived ideas of the original agreement of States, and the other that the nation should not die a moral and politi- cal death through the maintenance of a condition of slavery that was repulsive to the very spirit of liberty that gave it birth. We see again our brothers at Manila Bay and San Juan Hill, making their sacrifice that that slavery which had disappeared from our own midst might not rear its head to the destruction of our weaker neighbors in the Western Hemi- sphere, toward whom we had come to regard our- selves as an elder brother in the great family of peoples of the West. And to-day in all comers of the globe, wherever the rights of man are imperiled by oppressive ag- 224 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE gression, we see our brothers and our sons throw- ing down the gage of battle to the oppressor for the accomplishment of the principle of interna- tional policy enunciated by President Wilson, that "Every people should be left free to determine its own polity, its own way of development, unhin- dered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful. ' ' Thus it was a growth, a steady growth, of na- tional conscience, which, reaching out, has become almost a world conscience, demanding the right of self-determination for all races, the right of growth, of progress, of freedom from any form of tyranny. So imbued were our people with this old and yet new idea that they only wanted to be shown an adequate method of accomplishment, and were not inclined, as the conflict progressed, to be too argumentative about the method adopted if the result appeared probable. I am therefore impressed that the spirit that underlies all this great achievement was the com- ing into being for the first time of a national spirit, simultaneously in the West, the East, the North, and the South; that it took the imminent perils confronting alike all the elements comprising our national life in all its geographic sections to awaken this new national spirit. Such a danger had never appeared to us before. It was not pres- ent in the Eevolutionary War or in the War of THE SPIRIT OF THE DRAFT 225 1812 or in the Civil War or in the War with Spain. It was the Americanism that Roosevelt spoke about when he said: "We wish to be broadly American and national as opposed to being local or sectional. We do not wish in politics, in litera- ture, or in art, to develop that unwholesome, paro- chial spirit, that over-exaltation of the little com- munity at the expense of the great nation which produces what has been described as the patriot- ism of the village. ' ' It was this Americanism that President Wilson had in mind when he said: "We shall be the more American if we but remain true to the principles in which we have been bred. They are not the principles of a province or of a single continent. We have known and boasted all along that they were the principles of a liberated mankind. ... As some of the injuries done us have become intolerable, we have still been clear that we wished nothing for ourselves that we were not ready to demand for all mankind — fair deal- ing, justice, the freedom to live and be at ease against organized wrong." It was the combined Americanism of Eoosevelt and Wilson, with some- thing added. The people had it. No faction could interpret it. It did not exist as a factionary char- acteristic. It can not now be defined. It is larger than the use of words. It is even^ broader than the scope of thought. One might almost say it reaches out into the realm of dreams because it 226 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE embodies both accomplishments and hopes. It is an Americanism without selfishness. It is a pride of country plus a brotherhood of man. It is pic- tured by the strength of the powerful unit holding out supporting hands to the disorganized world factions, encouraging nationalism, holding out no hope to radicalism, or to the pose of conservatism, but not discouraging relief of a stranger without the gates. Such a spirit was splendidly expressed by one of the local boards in a letter to the national headquarters, relating the experiences of the board : We knew we were fighting for humanity, for the safety of women and children, unselfishly devoting ourselves, as a Nation, in order that others far across the seas should enjoy the Freedom that is ours. We knew our cause was just and that He who governs all things was ever at our side. And supporting this great spirit, there were cer- tain characteristics of the American people that almost approached the dignity of a spirit, and that accounted to a large extent for the psychology that made certain the success of the draft the very moment it was placed before the public for ap- proval, even though it was such an astounding de- parture from their customary thought and action. There is and has been since the institution of our Government ingrained into its people a deep sense THE SPIRIT OP THE DRAFT 227 of fair play and justice. It is shown in the every- day affairs of life, in our ball games, our races, our prize-fights, our social customs, our business af- fairs ; it is a part of our religion. Roosevelt was speaking only as the average American when he demanded, "A square deal for every man, great or small, rich or poor." The masses fully recog- nized that it was the duty of all to serve and not merely a duty of those seeking adventure. Hav- ing, therefore, once convinced themselves of the duty owed, there was only one plan that could ap- peal to this deep sense of fair play and justice, and that was the marshaling of the man-power of the nation by the process of selection in such manner that the men most needed at the front should go and the men most needed at home should stay. "It is just, fair, and democratic, and treats rich and poor alike," was the common view expressed by one local board. "It places all men on the same basis, regardless of social and financial standing, and allows the boards to choose men from all vo- cations of life, thereby not crippling or retarding any certain lines of industry," wrote another, in similar vein. Therefore, when it first became plain to our people that the great issue to be set- tled by force of arms was dependent upon the American people showing "their faith by their works," the boasted chivalries of the South, the aggressiveness of the West, the tenacity of the 228 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE North, and the alertness of the East fused like a new and brilliant alloy from the furnace, and dis- carding sectional notions and forgetting in the danger of the moment force of habit and love of custom, they merged their purposes into one com- mon purpose, applying the doctrine of the square deal to the task of winning the war as quickly as possible in order that they might again turn their steps into paths of peace. It is a question whether the draft moved the country or the country moved the draft. I am convinced that the spirit of the country had reached the point where nothing else could or would have been accepted, notwithstanding the early apparent opposition to the principles of the draft, and in this sense it is, to my mind, clear that the country moved the draft. But inasmuch as the plan itself was a radical departure from ideas that had been seen to fail, but carried on its face the evidence of fairness and equality, the public seized on it as an expression of what they de- manded, but did not know how to designate or de- fine, and in this sense the draft moved the country. It constituted the essence of their sense of fair play and justice, and though unknown to them so far as its detailed workings were concerned, was the very embodiment of that new spirit of nation- alism that had developed through more than a cen- tury of experience. "It is fair, just, equitable. THE SPIRIT OP THE DRAFT 229 humane, and admirable, even to its minutest de- tail," was the verdict of the masses as expressed by one writer. "I am truly proud to have been associated with so great a work as this, because I can honestly say that this system meted out justice to all, regardless of religion, social standing, and color, " was the judgment of another. Their sense of fair play was shown in the outpourings of ex- pressions of approval when the Secretary of War drew by lot the first order number. I do not mean to suggest that the East and the West and the North and the South had lost those sectional characteristics that have in the past ac- counted for the greatness of their leaders. I do not mean to suggest that the public was much in favor of the draft as a principle. But certain it is that the public is not easily "brain-stormed" by abstract principles. Although fond of an ideal, the American, trained by a century of adventure, demands results. Whatever the trend of his thought, it does not con- tent itself with mere philosophic passivity. There is no room for ponderous Grecian philosophy in American life. Beared and educated in the school of practical experience, the average American takes no stock in schools solelj' for mind culture. With him to think is to act, — whether right or wrong, — to act, to waste no idle time about it. When, therefore, he became convinced of the ex- 230 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE pediency and effectiveness of the draft, he seized upon it willingly and cheerfully as a practical working method of enforcing a principle. In- deed, it is doubtful if he has yet satisfied himself as to the soundness of the principle upon which it was based. In effect, however, it became a prin- ciple, accepted and acted upon as such during the time of the national emergency, perhaps to be dis- carded when that emergency had passed. The people of this country had seen England's futile efforts to raise armies by the volunteer system, had not only seen its practical failure, but had seen the injustice of the system. They had seen the very flower of English life, the build- ers of its industries, transported to France and left upon the battle-fields with the inevitable re- sult of suffering and disorganization at home. They had seen their armies march with no ade- quate forces left at home to feed them. They had seen their ammunition wasted, their artillery lost, with no power to replace it, and they knew that the war could not be won in this way. But to win is almost as vital to the real red- blooded American as the cause for which he fights. The cause, it is true, inspires him, but separate and distinct from this inspiration is his determina- tion to win whenever he starts anything. It is one of the greatest characteristics of the Ameri- can people, recognized not only at home, but THE SPIKIT OF THE DRAFT 231 abroad. It is a characteristic that often means a battle won before it is started, and is therefore an invaluable asset to the cause in which the fight is waged. Like the sense of fair play, and perhaps aided by it, this is shown in every detail of the na- tional life. This individual spirit has become a national spirit; the Germans recognize it; the French throw their hats in the air as a compli- ment to a spirit kindred to their own ; the English carefully admit it. It did not leave America with the troops, but stayed at home as well. It fol- lowed the Selective Service officials in the perform- ance of their manifold duties. It showed itself in the competition of the draft executives of the states, in the pride of the local boards of the vari- ous states in seeing that they put their work through earlier than other boards. It even con- flicted at times with that inherent sense of fairness and justice of which we so proudly and rightly boast, because in the furtherance of this grim de- termination to win — the spirit to "do or die" — injustices were often unwittingly done by local boards anxious to make a better showing in Class One than other boards. Frequently it even af- fected the professional judgment of physicians and lawyers, so anxious were they to put the larg- est number of men possible in the field. It like- wise caused them to make heroic sacrifices of time and property and business. At one time the draft 232 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE executive of one of the states called upon the mem- bers of the medical profession for volunteers to donate to the Federal Government their profes- sional services and hospital equipment for the pur- pose of removing remedial defects of registrants who otherwise would be liable for immediate serv- ice; over five hundred physicians in that state signed a written contract tendering to the Govern- ment without cost, both their services and their entire equipment, to the exclusion of other busi- ness, for the treatment of these eases. In the same state, upon another occasion when it ap- peared that the draft was entailing heavy expense upon the Government and after various calls had been made upon the other Selective Service offi- cials for the promotion of economy, a letter was sent out to the clerks of the draft boards asking what they were willing to do to win the war, and within less than ten days the office of the draft ex- ecutive was flooded with answers from nearly all the clerks, voluntarily agreeing to donate a sub- stantial portion of each month's salary to the Gov- ernment. These are only illustrations of a similar spirit shown in all other states and are the strongest evidence of the fact that the typical American will do anything to win except violate his sense of fairness and justice. Then, too, the operation of the Selective Service L9.W opened up to the real American opportunity THE SPIRIT OP THE DRAFT 233 for activity that appealed strongly to his nature. It meant that the battle was being waged at home as well as abroad, that the privilege of defense was not being accorded to the few and taken away from those not qualified to serve upon the battle- fields. And the real American loves a fight, even if he can only hold the coat of the fellow who is giving the blows. He likes to feel that he is in it, whether he is in the danger zone or not. The sys- tem of volunteering to which he had become wed- ded by tradition offered none of these opportuni- ties. Under such system the man who volunteered was the patriot, the man who did not was the slacker, whatever meritorious excuse he might have to offer. But under the Selective Service System the man who was called went, and the man who was not called felt both a duty and pleasure in throwing himself into the fight at home where service was as vital to the cause as elsewhere. Aware, therefore, that the stigma that under the old system of marshaling the military forces of nations always clung to those who did not volun- teer, would not be cast upon him who abided by the law, he whole-heartedly threw himself into the service of the Government, and built up within himself a pride in his patriotic service that quite frequently resulted in his tender of serv- ice for actual duty at the battle front. So that to him the law became both a satisfaction to his con- 234 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE science and a source of inner growth that molded him into the strongest of patriots. Numbers of letters from the local boards testify to the growth of this spirit, well expressed by the following state- ment of one of the larger boards : Some of the people at first opposed the draft, many sought deferred classification which only increased the burden of the members. Contrary to our first thought, how much better it was to use the civilians and civil offi- cers rather than military men in raising this Army. There was a marked change among the registrants as the time went on until the very end when many were eager to go and disappointed when the armistice was signed. But perhaps the greatest factor toward insuring the success of this radical plan was the fact that, although the plan was new, the idea underlying it was old. Militarism had become so repugnant to our people, because of the tyranny of its chief ex- ponent La Europe, that it was doubtful whether a plan arbitrarily put through by the military de- partments of this country without calling in the aid of the people themselves would have succeeded. This was very wisely recognized by those in charge of the military affairs. The fight was a struggle for the liberty of races and not for con- quest, and therefore, it was the people's fight and not merely a fight of military leaders. Every man likes a responsibility. "The members of this board feel proud that we have had the oppor- THE SPIRIT OF THE DRAFT 235 tunity of being a small cog in the great draft ma- chinery," wrote one of the local boards for the Middle ^^'est. A man always takes an intense in- terest in the things he helps create. We even love the man we have helped put on his feet rather than the man by whom we have been helped. This feel- ing is illustrated by the fact that all successful railroads make stockholders out of the people through whose land the railroad passes. The same is true of banking organizations. Even though I have only a hundred-dollar share in the bank, it is my bank and I will fight for its success. Then, too, the people appreciated the fact that they were permitted to carry out the work along lines similar to those to which they had been ac- customed. The registration became to them an intensely interesting event, because they were per- mitted to carry it out in a manner similar to their system of registering- for elections. Their spirit of cooperation was enlisted by the fact that their ideas were listened to with sympathy and not met by curt nods of dismissal. This is evidenced by the following extract from a letter written by one of the boards in a Southern state : And now ! The Great Drama ended and our services required but a short period of time in the near future, we want to say that the uniform courtesy and considera- tion extended us by our superiors is gratefully and heartily appreciated. The work has engaged our 236 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE thoughts by night and has taxed our labors by day. It has been inspiring and fascinating, developing into a labor of love. We shall feel immeasurably compensated if the small part we have enacted in the great struggle of freedom for the world shall call forth that commenda- tion: "Well done thou good and faithful servant!" This process may have seemed slow at times to minds of military trend, but it was rapid in its re- sults because it carried with it the sympathy and enthusiasm of a people proud of their own meth- ods and achievements. They were not given new and strange orders, or arbitrarily instructed to put a thing through out of line with their customs and habits. The wisest men are those who tell people old things in a new way. The citizen lis- tens and says: "Why, I knew that all the time. I wonder why it has n't been tried before." But he recognizes, and is attracted by the effective utilization of the old idea because it opens up to him possibilities that are known to him but have lain dormant through lack of adequate suggestion. Such interpretation of his point of view and sym- pathetic acceptance of it brings to him a clearer realization of his own powers, and inspires those acts of self-effacement and sacrifice that make men wonder. It does not have the humiliating appear- ance of a new and wonderful scheme evolved for the edification of his benighted mind. It becomes jtiis plan, his purpose, his achievement. It is his THE SPIRIT OF THE DEAFT 237 fight and not only his neighbor's, and he qtiite nat- urally becomes jealous of his privilege to serve and equally proud of his progress in the service. A similar spirit is shown in the relative atti- tudes of the landlord and tenant. The landlord looks on his fine fields with glowing countenance. He visualizes the growing things in pictures of sunlight and air and rain and the future advance- ment in his mode of living made possible by their power. The tenant sees none of these things. He sees the relative value of his share in terms of living. It is not true that the American public is a crowd of practical money-makers. A man grows only as he gives, and we have already witnessed that steady growth of a national conscience which centered not in self-service, but in self-denial. No nation can live that is not possessed of a na- tional conscience and a national ideal, and there is no visible evidence of decadence in our national life. The American public has had a spirit with- in and an ideal before it that, fortunately, were greater than its power to achieve in their fullness, but not greater than its hope of achievement. We cannot climb abovo our ideals because they are un- limited and infinite. They are the inspirations that draw up instead of push up, and I am con- vinced that this great spirit of nationalism, Ameri- canism plus brotherhood, has drawn people up not 238 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE as the prophets of old, by chariots of fire, but by processes they could understand, to the achieve- ment of world democracy through the marshaling of our resources in a simple, but equitable way and along practical lines. Just as the war could not have been won without America, so the war could not have been won without the draft. PART II CHAPTEE IX THE TASKS THAT LIE AHEAD THE war is won. Victory over the enemies of democracy has been achieved. It is pleasant to reflect upon the accomplishments of the last two years and to measure the strength of a great peo- ple in the vigor and variety of their achievement in those strenuous days. Mighty latent forces were called into being over night and, with a cooperative enthusiasm bom of a common sympa- thy in the cause of world democracy, shattered to its foundation the mightiest military structure that the mind of man had ever conjured up. These accomplishments will be written large upon the page of history, and they will always be a source of pride and satisfaction to generations yet unborn. But they are past. The chapter is closed and leaves one only with his thoughts and the very vital experiences that two strenuous years of a world war have given him. But the world moves on apace. One cannot tarry long in contemplation of past things if he would share in the accomplish- 241 242 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE ment of the things that are yet to be. Yet how rich a gift of experience can be brought to the solution of the great national problems that now confront America by those who have shared in the achievements of the last two years ! And all have shared in them. It was no one man or set of men who organized America for war. Whatever success was attained was due not to the genius or the foresight of any one man, but to the enthusiastic cooperation of all classes, colors, and creeds in a great national undertaking. It was unity of purpose springing from common sympa- thy in a common cause that made possible the per- formance of tasks that did not seem within the realm of probability when first approached. So it has come about that the war has left us with at least two major lessons in nationalism, that the unified effort of America is potent beyond that of any other nation and that it requires only a common honest purpose, honestly pursued, to unite America in enthusiastic and irresistible ac- tion. That much Selective Service has taught. It would be folly at this time to lose sight of such all-important truths. We are confronted now with so many and such a variety of vital issues, which a vigorous national effort alone can success- fully meet, that to ignore the patent lessons of the war in seeking their solution would be no less the part of folly than of ruin. THE TASKS THAT LIE AHEAD 243 For the war has indeed left us with many press- ing problems that might well distract a less versa- tile people. The world has been torn to its heart. Theories of government, economic concepts, the social structure itself, have been viewed in the vivid lights of a great world struggle. The peo- ples of the world have suffered, and the delirium of suffering has not failed to have its reaction on the mind of the world. So it is that the ap- proaches to the new problems are not met with cold calmness, but with a mind that is often dis- ordered because of four years of fevered excite- ment. The closeness of great and revolutionary events makes a true perspective, therefore, doubly difficult of attainment. Emergent policies that the war forced upon every nation in many in- stances departed widely from the principles to which these nations had been committed for many decades. Yet those war policies sometimes pro- duced results of such far-reaching importance and of such efficiency that a complete return to the old ways has now become a matter the wisdom of which is the subject of doubt to many who before the war would never have suggested a departure from the old theories of politics and economics. Moreover, the world has been drawn closer than ever before. Bonds of suffering, of economic ne- cessity, and of political expediency have made the provincial a cosmopolitan. Peoples have begun ■2U THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE to look about with new eyes, and have begun to see their own activities in their relation to world- wide movemients. They have caught the vision of a newer field in commerce and in politics, in which the units a re no longer individual persons, but na- tions. What is the duty of America to this new world? What must be done both to meet our obligation to the world and to remain true to the obligation that we owe America? For if we ignore the latter, the accomplishment of the former becomes forever im- possible. It is, therefore, to the solution of the problems of America that we owe our first duty. And this is not a narrow or a selfish view. For it is only by first solving our own problems that we may enter upon the solution of the broader ones that confront the world at large with a certain step and an influence that will not weaken. The force and the power are ours. No one can doubt this who has lived through the last two years. But the perplexing difiBculty is how to achieve in peace the enthusiastic cooperation that made possible the accomplishments of the war. Perhaps what has already been said furnishes the general answer to the problem. America must keep alive a virile national consciousness that can unite the energies of all Americans in the solution of our national problems. To create and THE TASKS THAT LIE AHEAD 245 sustain a new Americanism, a vigorous, honest, na- tional purpose in which all our people will share and which is a part of themselves, that will be the answer to our difiBculties. But Americanism and nationalism are vague, in- tangible things. They cannot be called into being by a sort of legerdemain and then put to work in aid of our national tasks. Americanism is not a cause ; rather is it a result, and we cannot expect to give it birth out of the thin air. It is a thing that grows, feeding upon the daily intimate things that men do and feel, until it reaches its full strength in the midst of the commonplaces of every-day life. It will take root and grow far more readily in a plan to reduce the high cost of living in America than in an international scheme to feed Europe. But once there is attained, in the solution of America's own problems, a national solidarity and unity of purpose, then has been created the na- tionalism that will enable America to approach the broader world problems with a united front and an unalterable will. Is it then possible to meet and overcome our present perplexities in such a way that, in solv- ing them we will engender a national conscious- ness that will forever unite Ajnericans in a vigor- ous national purpose? Undoubtedly the administration of Selective 246 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE Service has pointed the way to such an end. For there America created, out of the execution of a policy that was at first intensely unpopular, an en- thusiastic national purpose. How the spirit of Selective Service may be applied to the solution of the more immediate problems of peace, has its place later in this discussion. There must first be briefly sketched the greater of the problems that this nation must now frankly face — problems with which two years of war have confronted us. It has been only a short time since "big busi- ness" was the target of the most vicious attack in America. There is no doubt but that in many instances the attack was not unjustified. Methods had been employed that were destructive of every- thing that stood in the way of those who directed the larger commercial activities. The weak were crushed. Competition did not stimulate, but strangled. Such methods were unfair because they rested on the rule of commercial might and not of commercial justice. So it resulted that great industries and enterprises were erected that in their building brought down the wrath of Amer- ica upon them. But it was not so much the end as the method by which the end was sought that had aroused the ire of the nation. National production ought to mean national wealth and prosperity. But there was production builded upon the ruins of aban- THE TASKS THAT LIE AHEAD 247 cloned mills and factories, which had stood in the way of competition. So "big business" was attacked, corporations were dissolved by the courts, and their executives brought to the bar of justice. The war came. Production had to be speeded and greater efficiency produced. A united indus- trial effort became indispensable, for it was only by a pooling of all interests that a national pro- gram, looking to maximum output, could be real- ized. Then came a remarkable change. The prin- ciple of "big business," concerted industrial ef- fort, which before the war we had condemned as criminal, became a necessity for the preservation of America. What two years before we had de- nounced as destructive of American ideals became the salvation of the republic if not of the world. So cooperation in industry, to the elimination of which we, as a nation, had been directing every energy for two decades, was sedulously cultivated and, under the fair directing influence of the Fed- eral Government, became the means to united na- tional efforts that turned the tide of the war. The Federal Government began to project itself into every phase of industrial life. It assumed a di- recting influence over production — production of raw and finished materials. Out of tlie former the nation beheld a great increase of food crops and live stock; intensive cultivation and un- 248 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE dreamed wealth for the farmer. Out of the latter came results no less propitious. The subsidy of the merchant marine, for ex- ample. That had been a national issue since 1812. The pages of history mark America's decline upon the sea as a merchant carrier. The advent of the world war forced her to an emergent policy of a subsidized merchant marine. On February 1, 1917, the tonnage of the world approximated fifty million tons. Of that amount only an inconsider- able portion was American. Yet on September 1, 1918, after eighteen months of Federal coopera- tion, the actual dead weight of sailors and steam- ers, owned and controlled by the United States was ten million tons or one-fifth of what the total tonnage of the world had been eighteen months before. From a merchant carrier whose flag was rarely seen in the ports of the world, America is about to take her rightful place upon the high seas. No one who has followed the marvelous expansion of eighteen months can doubt that it could have been accomplished save by the cooperation of the national Government. Call to mind the contribution in labor alone that the Selective Draft made to this great industry. In September, 1917, there were engaged in the building of ships in the United States only 60,000 THE TASKS THAT LIE AHEAD 249 men. Through the aid of Selective Service and. most directly by the operation of the work-or- fight principle this small group of artificers was augmented within a year to a mighty and ever- growing industrial army. What else? The nation has seen the Federal Government fix the price of food and of labor, grant insurance to its soldiers and compensation to their dependents, control the use and consump- tion of food and fuel, invade every home within the land and assert its right to the compulsory military service of its citizens in a national army. It is true that these powers were exercised in time of war. But there is no escape from the les- son that cooperation, made imperative by the na- tional emergency, has produced results of tre- mendous importance, and it is foolish to close one's eyes to a consideration of projecting similar measures into the normal industrial and economic life of the nation in time of peace. Are these extraordinary measures, invoked in time of war not only in America, but in every na- tion involved in the conflict, to be abandoned with the passing of war, and is America to enter the life-and-death struggle for commercial supremacy after the war with the old loose methods of the pre-war day! On every side, in the countries of our allies, we see a contrary course. We see it in France, in 250 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE ■England, in all the leading nations of the world — vast intricate plans of national cooperation in in- dustry and in commerce. Can America survive without it? That ques- tion is foremost in the minds of all men who have been lately sitting in the presence of the war-time concentrations of the great and vital forces of the nation. One of them, less than a month after the signing of the Armistice spoke thus : If we are to look forward to the common prosperity and lay the foundations for the individual betterment of men, women, and children, which cannot be secured except by success in production and exchange, we must give freer course to cooperation in industry. The war has compelled cooperation, and the Government, under this compulsion, has fostered what it previously de- nounced as criminal. The conduct which had been con- demned by law was found necessary for the salvation of the republic. Cooperation is just as necessary to secure the full benefits of peace as it is to meet the exigencies of war and without it we shall miss the great prosperity and advance in trade to which, by reason of our skill and energy, we are entitled. The problem is thus sketched in its broadest out- lines only. It would be futile to discuss within the limits of one book the countless ramifications into which it divides at the very threshold. What shall be done with the railroads? The merchant marine ? And what of the manifold industrial ac- THE TASKS THAT LIE AHEAD 251 tivities, the products of which they will convey not only to our own markets, but to the markets of the world? How can America hope to compete in a world field with the unified commercial ef- forts of her sister nations? But any discussion of industrial development and the expansion of commerce leads necessarily to a consideration of the ever-present problem of labor. The man with the hoe has broken the silence of centuries. It is becoming more and more appar- ent every day that the most potent voice in the re- construction of the world is the voice of labor. It has spoken at the peace table ; it has spoken simul- taneously at the several international labor confer- ences, in the platforms and reconstruction pro- grams of labor parties and labor unions in every ci\'ilized country. The man who works with his hands has begun to assert his strength in no un- certain way. In Russia he has become a Bolshe- vist, in France a Radical socialist, and in every country of Europe the mark of an awakened class consciousness has already been indelibly stamped upon the national life. In Ajnerica also the same general situation is apparent. As this is written, a great industrial union, backed by the national labor organization, and feeling its power over the very life of the na- tion, has just been thwarted in its attempt to cut 252 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE oflf the nation's fuel supply on the verge of win- ter. And we have just heard the decision of a federal judge denouncing as violative of statute law and common justice this action of a certain element of organized labor, which sought to coerce not only the employer and an innocent general public, but the very Government itself. Forty years ago the great and still growing industrial corporations of America sought to operate under a similar policy which took no heed of the general welfare; that policy of the so-called capitalistic group soon resulted in such overwhelming public denunciation that the right to operate big business was denounced by law, and the corporations oper- ating in defiance of public welfare were ordered dissolved by the courts. So it is no remarkable departure in principle even though the decision was predicated upon a war statute, that the strike of a labor union which held as nothing the untold suffering that it might bring upon an innocent public should have been declared illegal and ordered discontinued by a federal court. America will no more tolerate de- fiance of the masses on the part of labor than it will or has in the past on the part of capital. Yet no one can doubt the righteousness of la- bor's cause and the end it seeks. The right of em- ployment, the right to organize, to unrestricted change of residence, to insurance against disabil- THE TASKS THAT LIB AHEAD 253 ity, sickness, old age, and unemployment ; the right to a safe place in which to work ; the right to safe appliances with which to work ; the right to a liv- ing and a decent wage ; the broadening of legisla- tion to insure the health and safety of the worker and the prohibition of labor by children; these are truly inalienable rights which no fair- minded people can deny. But the end can never justify the means. In- deed the means are often destructive of the end it- self. Bolshevism has resulted not in a social para- dise, but in national chaos and industrial stagna- tion supervised by a military despot. If labor will crash the social structure down about its ears, it must, like Samson, find a common burial with those it would destroy. Undoubtedly America has her anarchists, her I. W. W. 's, her Bolshevists. But they are not Amer- icans. They do not typify the spirit of America or of even a measurable portion of her popula- tion. Analyze them and there will scarcely be a case in which your radical is not an alien trans- planted. Americans have a sounder and more ra- tional social philosophy. One is thus led quite naturally to a considera- tion of the alien. There is no more vital problem to be faced than this. And it demands an imme- diate solution. For if America would attain Americanism, she must root out these decayed 254 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE spots, which, if left untended, will corrupt the whole. America has truly been the melting-pot of the world, and the cosmopolitan composition of our population was never more strikingly disclosed than by the recent events of the World War. Then the melting-pot stood in the fierce fires of a national emergency; and its contents, heated in the flame, either fused into the compact mass or floated off as dross. The great and inspiring revelation was that men of foreign and of native origin alike responded to the call to arms with patriotic devotion. No one can peruse the muster-rolls of America's camps or the casualty lists of her battle-fields with- out realizing their common loyalty. On the other hand, not the least valuable of the lessons of the draft was its disclosure that there are to-day certain portions of our population which either will not or cannot unite in ideals with the rest. We have welcomed to our shores many who should be forever denied the right of Ameri- can citizenship. But if the alien sometimes showed himself un- worthy of the gifts of America, was the fault his own? Had not America been unmindful of a high duty that she owed the stranger suddenly set down on her shores? Perhaps so. Certainly it was no false sense of obligation that prompted THE TASKS THAT LIE AHEAD 255 an eminent federal judge to speak as he did to an American citizen of German birth on trial before him for violation of the Espionage Act in October, 1918. He said: If you were set down in Prussia to-day, you would be in harmony with your environment. It would fit you just as a flower fits the leaf and stem of the plant on which it grows. You have influenced others who have been under your ministry to do the same thing. You said you would cease to cherish your German soul. That meant that you would begin the study of Ameri- can life and history; that you would try to understand its ideals and purposes and love them; that you would try to build up inside of yourself a whole group of feel- ings for the United States the same as you felt toward the fatherland when you left Germany. I do not blame you and those men alone. I blame myself. I blame my country. We urged you to come. We welcomed you; we gave you opportunity; we gave you land; we conferred upon you the diadem of American citizen- ship, and then we left you. We paid no attention to what you have been doing. And now the world war has thrown a searchlight upon our national life, and what have we discovered ? We find all over these United States, in groups, little Germanics, little Italies, little Austrias, little Norways, little Russias. These foreign people have thrown a circle about themselves, and, in- stead of keeping the oath they took that they would try to grow American souls inside of them, they have studi- ously striven to exclude everj^thing American and to cherish everything foreign. A clever gentleman wrote a romance called "America, the Melting Pot." It ap- pealed to our vanity, and through all these years we 256 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICB have been seeing romance instead of fact. That is the awful truth. The figure of mj' country stands beside you to-day. It says to me: "Do not blame this man alone. I am partly to blame. Teach him, and the like of him, and all those who have been misled by him and his like, that a change has come." There must be an interpretation anew of the oath of allegiance. It has been in the past nothing but a formula of words. From this time on it must be trans- lated into living characters incarnate in the life of every foreigner who has his dwelling place in our midst. /li they have been cherishing foreign history, foreign ideals, foreign loyalty, it must be stopped, and they must be- gin at once, all over again, to cherish American thought, American history, American ideals. ^ That means some- thing that is to be done in your daTTy life. It does not mean simply that you will not take up arms against the United States. It goes deeper far than that. It means that you will live for the United States, and that you will cherish and grow American souls inside of you. So it is that a great problem in education con- fronts America, for it is education alone that will remove the menace of the alien. But it cannot stop there. It is not the alien alone to whom the nation owes the duty of intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. The draft has been a great teach- er for us all. Sometimes we have been startled, sometimes shocked, by its disclosures ; but we have always been made to see the light. We now know that despite a conceit that Amer- ica is the most enlightened nation of the world, THE TASKS THAT LIE AHEAD 257 thousands upon thousands of our youth are illiter- ates. At one period of the draft statistics re- vealed that twenty per cent, of inducted men could neither read nor write. The fact had come as a tremendous shock. But it was more than a shock ; it was a threat, the removal of which demanded vigorous efforts. What was accomplished during the war in the camps and by the Boards of In- struction set up as a part of the Selective Service system was only a sporadic effort to remove the more immediate evils that might arise out of the situation. But those efforts were necessarily of limited scope only. Nothing considerable will be the result of them. The real good, however, that will flow from the situation comes from the fact that for the first time we were able to appreciate in a very vital way the extent to which illiteracy existed in Amer- ica and the harm that it might engender. It is not possible to cultivate a true national spirit unless the mind of the youth is first properly drilled to receive instruction. The soil must first be prepared — well prepared. Ignorance must be eradicated and the means for achieving a broader point of view must be provided. Nothing less than a strenuous national campaign for education can accomplish it. But it will not do simply to prepare the mind of America. If it is true that a sound mind resides 258 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE in a sound body, we owe likewise a very pressing obligation to the health and the physical welfare of our youth. Before the war and the operation of the Selec- tive draft, we had known in a general way that disease existed in America in too great a degree. But we had never had any accurate and definite information about it. Statistics had been com- piled, it is true, but they had been based, at best, upon experience that was comparatively limited. It remained for the Selective draft to discover, after the most comprehensive investigation, the real physical condition of our people. That ex- perience was based upon the actual physical ex- amination of nearly twenty-four million men, almost fifty per cent, of the total male population of the United States. And what did it disclose? Thirty per cent, of our manhood is physically unfit. Of the men be- tween the ages of eighteen and forty-five, the years when the body ought to be strongest, three out of every ten Americans are physically wrong. We know the causes, have always known them, though we may never before have accurately known the limits in which those causes operated. Poor living conditions, unhealthf ul places in which to work, ignorance of the body and how to care for it, wilful disregard of the duty to be strong and well, are only a part of them. THE TASKS THAT LIE AHEAD 259 But whatever they are, it is plain that, if we would have a strong, virile, aggressive America, we must destroy the things that make physical weaklings of one third of her people. There are the larger problems. They involve the industrial, the economic, the social, the intel- lectual, and the physical welfare of America. They are no longer local problems, but essentially and vitally national ones. Can they be solved? And in solving them, can we engender that fervid sense of national unity that will carry America safely through the in- ternational perplexities that are sure to attend her upon her entry into the new world field that a world war and a world peace have opened up be- fore her? We found a plan in Selective Service that made possible the accomplishment of such a problem in the limited field to which it was applied, the raising of a national army. Can there be found in the un- derlying spirit of Selective Service a real princi- ple of national conduct, which, applied to varied national activities, will accomplish like results and thus attain a permanent place in the national life of America? CHAPTER X THE PERMANENCY OP THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA WILL the Selective Service idea live? Will the thousands of Selective Service officials who have within the past two years aided in mar- shaling the man-power of the greatest nation on earth, for the achievement of world democracy, who have laid the comer-stone for the greatest structure of all ages, now put aside their tools and, basking in the sunlight of their past achievements, permit the throttling of a living success in the fear that possible future failures may dim the glories of past accomplishments? Will we admit that having fulfilled a compre- hensive trust, we are unable again, with the same power of resource and similar methods, though dis- similar aim, to reach out with hands, brain, and soul into the farthest corner of this common- wealth and into the various elements of our na- tional life and mold the man-power of the nation for the presentation of the democracy so glori- ously achieved? Will we admit that ours is the power only to create forces for destruction, and 260 THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 261 not the power equally to create forces for construc- tion? Will those who have heroically applied the Selective Service idea in its limited, though stu- pendous, task, and those who have watched with growing marvel its intricate, yet certain, analysis of a people 's thoughts and demands, seize upon it and adopt it as a principle in the orderly admini- stration of organized society? I have used the term "Selective Service idea," because that is what it means to me. Having lived with it, having made it the master of my thoughts, of my activities, my hopes, it has become an idea with me, a principle, a great light by which I can sense the orderly growth of this great republic through processes simi- lar to those which were born of the idea which lies back of it and which, though old, has received new life and new impetus. And I have no doubt that to those who with me have borne the respon- sibilities of marshaling the untried forces of this country, the Selective Service processes have meant more than a mere plan, a mere method of procedure. Having for a period of two years viewed with pride and wonder their heroic sacrifices in this great labor of love, I have that supreme faith in the purpose and integrity of my fellow-laborers which assures me they will not content themselves with a mere prideful contemplation of past sue- 262 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE cesses, but will capitalize their past endeavors in a plan to promote proper man-relation through the Selective Service idea. But call it what you will, an idea or a system, a principle or a plan, its designation matters little if it will bring things to pass. What, then, is this force, which, coming into existence in the form of a plan, a system, devel- oped such strength in our national life that it has become in a sense part and parcel of our national character. We have traced in an earlier chapter the ma- terial accomplishments of the draft. We have seen how, in the operation of the Selective Serv- ice System the Government achieved its greatest triumph in the recognition of the individual, fix- ing upon him a responsibility that was real, ad- vising him, and being advised by him. We have seen how, with local boards as a unit in the opera- tion of this system, the responsibility was laid upon the people of each section to pass upon ques- tions of the liability to military service of those within their jurisdiction. This responsibility re- quired an intimate knowledge of their needs and conditions for the adequate performance of the dual duty of preserving the rights of the individual and meeting the necessities of the Government. We have seen how in the performance of these duties the local boards became centers of inf orma- THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 263 tion, real community centers, advising the people of their rights and liabilities, their privileges and their duties and, going even further, answering their various inquiries about all matters in which the public was vitally interested. A great school it was for people, for those who were thus ap- pointed to pass upon the vital questions of liability to military service were appointed because of their intellectual qualifications and high character and their varied knowledge of people and things. We have seen how in the execution of this law by the various boards, the registrants and tliose inter- ested in them came together, sometimes in small groups, often in large groups, to present their claims or to make inquiries of the members of the boards, and that in this way people of all kinds, representing all factions, all classes, and all races, were brought in close contact and enabled to dis- cuss with each other the thing that held a com- mon interest. Here for the first time the banker and the day laborer met, not in the unequal contest of brain against brawn, not in circumstances where one was the supplicant and the other the power that could extend or withhold mercy, not as poverty versus wealth, not as weakness against strength, not as man against man, but as man to man, each facing the same question, each weighing his duty against his desire. And for 264 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE the first time there sprang up in the mind of the banker an interest in the day laborer that was not measured by the latter 's value to his bank ; and there sprang up in the mind of the day laborer an interest in the banker that was not measured by the depth of his envy or his prejudice. Each regarded the other with new eyes. And thrown together as they were, they naturally discussed with each other their conditions, intimate things about which they had theretofore been densely ignorant. The lawyer, the farmer, the bricklayer, the physician, the merchant, the factory hand, the insurance agent, the stock-broker, the idler, all were there, looking, listening, learning, — learning lessons that were to bring nearer to realization the great day when hatred and envy will be de- throned by human love and sympathy, that day when all men will understand. And not only were they learning the individual toward whom they owed a duty, but learning the individual collectively, because through the patient efforts of the local boards to satisfy the public about what was going on in the world and why, there was daily disseminated knowledge about the Government and its purposes, the allies and the enemy countries, their aims and motives. History was being taught in the great school of the draft ; geography was becoming a thing of interest to the ignorant man, who realized that only a few months THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 265 might pass before he or his kindred would per- haps be fighting upon foreign soil, side by side with those who had lived near them, but whom they had not theretofore really known. If such intercourse between men interested in a common, but vital, subject was resulting in a bet- ter knowledge of the individual, it was likewise resulting in a better knowledge of the Government. The system was well adapted to the task of creat- ing a deeper interest in government. The Gov- ernment was drawn closer to the individual than it had ever been before. Let us look for a moment at the connecting links between the central authority and the people in the administration of the Selective Service Law. In doing so we will for the moment pass by those other agencies, the Legal Advisory Boards, Gov- ernment Appeal Agents and district boards, oc- cupying as they did a somewhat similar relation to the public, and performing duties as onerous and responsible. The local board is definitely re- ferred to here because it best illustrates the con- nection between the public and the Government. Above the local board, under the plan of organiza- tion, were the draft executives of the states, to whom the local boards were responsible for the manner in which their duties were performed. But if the local boards were responsible to the governors, so in like manner were the governors 266 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE responsible to the people from among whom the boards were made up. Their very political status was dependent upon the wise performance of their duties. Their political lives were at stake. Pub- lic opinion would soon ferret out attempts to re- press measures calculated to bring about substan- tial justice. It was for the mutual protection of the boards and the chief executives, therefore, that they should advise with one another with suflScient frequency to assure the maintenance of uniformity among the various sections of the state and equal- ity in rights among the individual registrants in their respective sections. We have seen how, in order that this might be brought about, the local boards were required to make regular reports at all stages of the draft, and how at the same time the draft executives of the states kept the local boards advised by daily bulletins of the progress of the draft not only in the state as a whole, but throughout the nation, because a similar system of interchange of advice and information was maintained between the state headquarters and the national headquarters. Thus we see that on the one hand the activities, views, and opinions of the individuals were col- lected in the ofiSces of the local boards, analyzed, and collectively forwarded with the recommenda- tions of the members of the boards to the state headcLuarters. There the reports and correspon- THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 267 dence from each jurisdiction were analyzed in con- nection with the views and activities of the indi- viduals under the jurisdiction of other boards and the recommendations of other boards, and made the basis of the recommendations sent from the draft executives and their advisers, the adjutants general of the states, and the military officers as- signed as their assistants, to the national head- quarters, where they were analyzed and the salient points made the basis of the policies to be adopted in the further administration of the law. Never before had the individual had this vital, intimate connection with the national Government. He was now a part of it ; be was in a sense one of its councilors. It received his advice with sym- pathetic understanding, and so was enabled to sift out the good from the bad, and adopt policies that answered the collective judgment of the wise ma- jority. By this system the Government was able to satisfy the reasonable demands of the individ- ual collectively, and avoid the pitfalls of the in- dividual as such. But this process did not run in one direction alone. If the stream flowed upward, it flowed downward as well. Information, advice, and rul- ings were daily disseminated in forms of bulletins or, where necessary, in special communications to state headquarters, pointing out existing defects in the state administration of the draft, warning 268 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE against the arbitrary exercise of power, suggest- ing palliative measures to cure local conditions, suggesting the experience of other sections, and other states for the consideration of the draft ex- ecutives. And we see the governors, anxious that their states should keep pace with the progress of other states, daily sending down to their various draft organizations the information and advice so received, this in turn to be disseminated among the individuals and having an ultimate beneficial effect upon their future views and recommenda- tions. It was a process that operated like a fleet of ocean carriers, which transport cargoes, but do not return empty. The individual was giving some- thing, the boards were giving something, the gov- ernors were giving something, and the central au- thorities were giving something, but it was a proc- ess of exchange, because they were in turn receiv- ing something of value for what they were giving and something that continually enhanced the value of their gifts. This is why Selective Service has appealed to me as an idea, a great fundamental principle. Just as Franklin caught the lightning from the clouds, teaching the lesson that the great forces of nature might be safely harnessed for the development of mankind, so this idea of cooperation based upon mutual understanding caught and harnessed the THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 269 impulses of our people, giving them an unalterable will for victory. I am, therefore, convinced that whether as a plan or a policy or a method or a system or a fundamental principle, a force that can put into harness a people's thoughts and characteristics for the practical accomplishment of large things in or- ganized society will not die. It will live because it is a great onward-moving, educating idea, which opened up practical possibil- ities to the eyes of the people participating in its operation. Men have the same eyes that they had two years ago, but not the same visions. The same mental faculties are in use, but with the added advantage that there are now visualized practical working methods of accomplishing those things that before the war existed only as dreams. We have been taking a primary course in the great school of mutual understanding. We have been fitting ourselves for the great task of digging down into the madly groping, squirming mass of humanity, tearing away the dirt, uncovering and bringing to light tliat understanding between men, which is, but cannot now be seen. We have been compelled to study others in rela- tion to ourselves. We have compared their sys- tems, their methods, their positions with our own. We know them better because we have sympa- thetically studied them, and knowing them, we 270 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE know ourselves; without a knowledge of them wc were in dense ignorance of ourselves. We know that this world is too big for one man to live in or for one man to handle. We have learned the nat- ural limitations of the ordinary brain. We have learned that the superman existed only in the days long gone. We have learned that the gods and demigods of the olden days live in tradition, but perish in history ; that there is no place in modern life for the man set upon a high pinnacle far above the world surrounding him. We have learned that Thomas Jefferson was talking only common sense when he said that all men were created free and equal, equal in the sense that they are en- titled to equal opportunity to improve their God- given faculties. We have learned that the man who forgets this fact soon loses his head like Charles I or loses his reputation like William Hohenzollern. Therefore, the future holds in store for us neither heroics nor mock heroics. We have learned that there is not much difference in folk anyhow and anywhere. We have learned that one individual is forceful and energetic; an- other quiet and unassuming; one rich, another poor; one haughty, another humble; one apolo- getic, another boastful ; but when it comes down to the practical problems of government and ques- tions of reform, they all have a common view- THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 211 point, or at least viewpoints that are not antago- nistic or inconsistent with one another. Never before in all history of the world had there been the close contact between men, between classes, between groups, between factions, be- tween sections, as during the World War when the administration of the Selective Service system ap- plied selection, but abolished distinction. No power so potent has arisen as the power made pos- sible to Selective Service officials through an un- derstanding of men in the workings of the draft. The man who was wont to laugh at the suggestions of John Doe, to sneer at the advice of Richard Roe, to make light of his excuses, to impugn his mo- tives, now seriously considers such suggestions, advice, and excuses, not because, forsooth, he agrees with him, but because he understands him ; he knows that he means well and that while what he has to say to-day may not be worth much, a good motive eventually produces something of value. Therefore, he must sympathize with his efforts. It is not the fact that the other man is hitting the mark which has been pressed home to Selective Service officials and must be taught the world at large. It is the fact that the other man is aiming in the direction of the mark and may hit it sometime, specially if he is helped by sympa- thetic understanding. It is this understanding of 272 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE purposes of other men and sympathj- with other peoples that has been instilled in the minds of Se- lective Service officials merely through unpreju- diced contact. The Selective Service idea will not live in an abstract sense. It is both an idea and a method for its accomplishment, enlarging the principle of democracy, giving an added dignity to it, equip- ping it with effectiveness. It is a working idea. I do not mean it will operate in a fixed groove. The Selective Service system was continually in process of change, and yet the idea underlying it never changed. It worked as the yeast works in the dough, or as the bacilli work in the cider, permeating the entire body politic and causing the scum to rise to the surface and be eliminated. In like manner the cooperative idea, the spirit of understanding, practically put to the test by proc- esses similar to those embodied in the Selective Service system, can permeate organized society and stamp out vicious class warfare through the influence of a common understanding among men. It is, moreover, the sane answer to the modern demand for something new, combining the new with the old, appealing to the hopes of the pro- gressive and palliating the fears of the ultra-con- servative. It draws both together and satisfies both. The public is demanding something new. It THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 273 wants a change. There is a spirit of social un- rest that is gradually spreading throughout the world. As this is written America is in the throes of the greatest industrial upheaval of her history. Party lines that have been hard and fast for the past hundred years are breaking down. Man has shown an independence of thought that has been unheard of since the institution of government, an independence that does not hesitate at the limita- tions of law and order or the destruction of or- ganized society itself. The danger that arises out of such a mood hav- ing reached the point of real menace to organized society, the sensible part of the public has come to the conclusion that something must be done to save civilization. Other plans having been tried and having failed to produce the desired results, it is certain that we must try a new plan or theory in the furtherance of the demands of organized society. The fact remains that government of the peo- ple, by the people, and for the people will never be satisfactorily attained until there is as much going downward as upward, until there is a closer union between the people's representatives and those represented. Is there not vital need of the adoption of an idea or a system that wiU not only arouse interest, but maintain interest, in govern- mental matters, and thereby make for security 274 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE against the encroachments of the vicious strong, and the inactivity of the servants who are weak. It is certain that the people will not be turned back to the old methods, whereby they learned what was going on only by diligent inquiry. The citizen of the future is going to say: "I knew what was going on during the war, and why. I was a part of a process. I learned the things that were vital for me to know not because of my own prying investigations, but because of the in- strumentalities that were furnished me, because the Government knew it could not succeed with- out my help and knew it could not enlist my sym- pathy and support unless it put me in possession of the facts." Democratic government does not mean only representative government in the sense applied by parties, but government by intimate contact and broader relation ; not the relation that results in sectionalism, provincialism, but man-re- lation, that recognizes no geographical boundary which might prompt an injustice to the distant neighbor. Already this idea is being tried out through the conferences of governors and is accomplishing wonderful results. If it will work well in such an application, it will work well if tried on down the line. It will not be in conflict with representative government, but in aid of it. It will rather offer a means of putting into practical effect the views THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 275 of our representatives, and at the same time will be a source of supply from which they may draw. But while the Selective Service idea answers the demand for something new, it meets a demand that is as old as mankind. It is a human, yet hu- mane, application of the world-old doctrine of self- preservation. Organized society, confronted, as it is to-day, with the menace of social and indus- trial chaos, quite naturally falls back on this doc- trine in an effort to secure its existence. The only trouble is that the doctrine of self-preservation has from the beginning been continually misinter- preted and misapplied. It is a principle that is instinctive with the individual, and with nations. Being an inheritance from our ancestors in their savage state and from the fear of domination or worse we have been too much inclined to go back to the ideas of savagery in its application, without stopping to consider whether we can live and let live, much less considering the question whether or not existence may be made more secure and better worth while by preserving the existence of others notwithstanding their potential menace. We have been too much inclined to think that self- preservation meant another's destruction, for- getting that in saving others we save ourselves. The lion feels that it can live only by reason of its strength, and consequently stays on the search for any enemy that may seek to dispute its place. 276 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE The lamb, on the other hand, adopting the same principle of self-preservation, must feel that on ac- count of its weakness the only way it can maintain its existence is to stay out of the way of its stronger neighbors. Consequently, between the two there can never be any intercourse, and under such conditions it will never come about that * ' the lion and the lamb shall lie down together." The trouble with us is that there is a tendency on the part of the classes and individuals that realize their power to feel that they are in the posi- tion of the lion, though they do not want to harm any one, or bring misery and despair upon weaker classes. They merely want to live themselves, and they fancy that the only way to live themselves is to keep the others down. The weaker classes and individuals have somewhat the same feeling, but having the weakness of the lamb, they are con- stantly on the run, hoping only that power will be put in their hands so that they can put the upper classes down, not because of any harm they want to do, but in order that they may live. Thus we see that there is a condition in human affairs that results entirely from a lack of under- standing of the principle of self-preservation growing out of an entire lack of understanding among men. It is necessary, in order that he may exist, that the lion keep other beasts in a state of continual fear. It is necessary that the lamb, to THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 277 exist, keep continually on the run. There can never be an understanding between the lamb and the lion, because the mind to reason is lacking. That understanding can be brought about among men, and it is not necessary, in order that I may live and enjoy life, that I shall prevent my neigh- bor's living and enjoying life. It will be neces- sary, however, if I fail to reach an understanding with him, because the desire in me to live is greater than anything else. The only question to be solved, therefore, is, how may I properly apply that first law of nature, self-preservation, without detriment to my neighbor? The answer to this is the answer that is contained in the Selective Serv- ice idea, by reaching a complete understanding with my neighbor, by convincing him that I have no desire to harm him, by convincing him that I am as proud o-f his achievements as he himself is, that his failures mean my defeats, his successes my victories. And I am convinced that, notwithstanding the corruption spots that appear in the body politic from time to time, man is not going back to the beast. The average man is a sane man ; while he wants a change, he does not want chaos, because he realizes that chaos means not only the destruc- tion of others, but the destruction of himself. Then, too, he is uncertain of the strength of others and having increased in wisdom, he is unwilling 27S THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE to take the chances on the gamble of life, lie may risk his individual life in such a gamble, but he has grown to the point where individual life has be- come a small thing to him compared to the collec- tive life, and he is unwilling to take a hazard that would mean the complete destruction of society. So his mind has been in continual conflict over this important question of how he might progress, how he might push himself up without pushing the other fellow down. He has reached that point where he will accept a plan that does not mean self- degradation, but which is practical and appears on its face to possess possibilities of achieving his idealistic demands, the common advancement of himself and his neighbor. Into this conflict comes the Selective Service idea, carrying with it the hopes of thousands of faithful servants who have assisted in its adminis- tration that it will be the means of bringing about a complete understanding between those factions, classes, and individuals that have been for cen- turies fighting at arm's length not because they hated each other, but because they feared for their own existence. These officials hope through its influence there wlU be brought about an enlarge- ment and sane application of the doctrine of self- preservation, to achieve which the methods of the past, destructive in their operation, were adopted only because of a grim belief in their necessity. THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 279 But however strong may be the other reasons that would incline one to the view that the Selec- tive Service idea has taken up its permanent abode in the public mind, he realizes that unless an idea is consonant with the characteristics of free people, it can exist only as a passing thought. It is be- cause of the characteristics that stand out in American life and distinguish us as a type from the world about us that the Selective Service idea will not only take root, but will grow as if watered and nourished by the spirit of America. The Se- lective Service idea is the very embodiment of American character. It is the new sense of na- tionalism, it is the sense of fair play and justice, the square deal, the practical idealism, the deter- mination to win, the energy, the adventure, the pride of responsibility. It was through this idea that not only the man-power, but the spirit of America, was mobilized. And because the spirit of a people must be mobilized again and again to meet each new crisis that affects our national life, whether through the menace of war or internal conflict, there should be kept alive the idea that, having once accomplished both the mobilization of the man and mobilization of the spirit, has within it a potentiality which demands a test in all great crises. The constitution of society forms a fitting field for the adoption of the Selective Service idea. 280 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SEEVICE The national life is marked by a common nnity of purpose not for the achievement of temporary objects, but permanent ideas. To attain the end desired, the people of any nation must have things in common, a common language, customs, and a kindred relation to the history of the past. Whenever there is divergence from the common purpose, the national structure trembles, and the continued divergence of individual habits and ideas has a tendency to weaken the structure as a whole. It is essential, therefore, that the leaders of national life seek assiduously to bring about and maintain that common understanding between individuals which is necessary to the sohdification of the entire nation. A plan, a sys- tem, an idea, that leads in this direction has life before it. It does not follow that the interests of the in- dividual are identical with those of the nation. Often they are entirely distinct, but though dif- ferent, the interests of the nation are dependent upon a common understanding of those interests and national purposes and the means for procur- ing them. The individual will, of course, always have opinions that will vary from those of his fel- lows. The best-governed people are those least governed. Progress is dependent upon the proper exercise of the individual's mental faculties. It is desirable, however, that notwithstanding individ- THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 281 ual opinions and purposes, one keep in mind the proper relation of himself to society at large, and weigh his individual opinions against the common good, the good of the nation. To do this he must at times make a concession of his individual desires where they manifestly conflict with the common good. l!ut one can never be brought to the point where this concession will be made unless he is suf- ficiently close to his fellows to understand their purposes and their motives. He cannot properly attain this by merely trying to obtain agreement with those who would naturally have reason to think as he does, those in the same factions, classes, or groups, those engage'd in the same en- terprises or the same kind of production. He can- not set himself off as a representative of one class against another class, and debate the questions that mutually concern him and the representatives of other classes. In doing this he is the partizan repreyentative and yields only to the force of the logic and material strength of the other man's position. He must be made to see that it is better to concede a point not merely because he realizes from an opponent's presentation of the case that he is defeated, but because the interlocking interests of others, as well as himself, are concerned. A study of the processes of government through the passing centuries convinces me that that is the 282 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE goal toward which man has been aiming. He has passed from one form and one theory of govern- ment to another with such comparative rapidity that the people have become almost dazed by the changes. He has made these changes not because he could not live under the various forms of mon- archy or autocracy or democracy, but because of his desire for a complete understanding with the world about him. And he will continue to make experiment after experiment in governmental processes until he has finally hit upon a plan that appeals simultaneously to his reason and his con- science. There has been something lacking. Even democracy, the nearest approach to the at- tainment of what people have hoped for, has been in a sense a failure not because of defects in princi- ple, but because of lack of definite, practical instru- mentalities for putting it into effect. So a large part of the public, buffeted about from one failure to another, has almost reached the point where it is inclined to throw up its hands and exclaim, "Oh, what 's the use ! ' ' Yet, on the other hand, looking back upon the past and realizing that, notwith- standing defects and failures, considerable prog- ress has been made in the lapse of centuries, they are unwilling to discard the fruits of past labors, however disappointing, and plunge off into chaos. They sense a change in the conduct of human af- fairs. Shall it be orderly? Shall it be democratic THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 283 government practically applied? Shall it be through processes that typify American charac- ter and conscience, or shall it be radical socialism or bolshevism? The Selective Service idea voices its appeal for permanency and sanity. But the public says, "You are trying to bolster up your idea with specious philosophy." And, abandoning the defense of the idea based upon faith in its meaning, those who have poured out their very souls in its first great practical experi- ment answer as with one voice, "It is the only plan that has yet succeeded in bringing classes, factions, and races together." We have seen how this welding together of peo- ple 's minds under a practical, fair law resulted in the registration of thirteen million men in a single day, thus emphasizing the fact that time is not the essence of any undertaking when the spirit is there and the task is approached with a common under- standing. But this, though a magnificent accom- plishment, is small beside other accomplishments which relate not only to specific and material things, but to those larger things that make life worth while. Will it not be admitted that for the first time there has been definitely emphasized those laudable characteristics of Americans, de- termination to win, and fair play? Has not our attitude toward other peoples been vitally affected by the knowledge we have gained of the aliens who 284 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE have cast their lot among us, our understanding of their motives and their purposes? Have not our relations to our fellow-men undergone a significant change through our acceptance of and application of the doctrine of the abolition of the rule of thumb under the administration of the Se- lective Service Law? Indeed, this alone will live in memorj' as long as man lives, and will in the future be both a rule of conduct and a religion. Will it be denied that through the work-or-fight order a real crusade against idleness was put in motion, instilling in the national conscience the real meaning and purpose of industry? It is not to be argued, solely because a system has been tried out on a relatively small scale and has succeeded, that it will succeed whenever put to the test. But such fact is sufficient to make a reasonable man ask, "Why not give it a trial on a large scale?'' And if this reasoning be worthy as applied to small successes, how much more reason is there for the belief that a system or an idea which has resulted in the successful accomplishment of one of the greatest tasks ever faced by this nation, and that, too, in the face of an initial resentment against an invasion of traditions, will succeed if applied by men equally interested in promoting good govern- ment to the larger tasks of nation building? Are the policies of peace so intricate when men's minds THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 285 are composed that processes which solve the prob- lems of war may not be successfully utilized in putting them into effect? The war has closed, and it is easy to drift back into the old frame of mind. This is where the value of the Selective Service system lies. I do not mean the application of the system, as such, but I mean the ideas that have been formed by men coming together, serving on the same boards, or coming together as selectivcs before the same boards, discussing their liabilities among them- selves and with the officials, and yet being as dif- ferent from the other as the day is from the night. The blacksmith sat upon the board with the cot- ton-mill manufacturer. They had nearly two years to discuss with one another and with the thousands of men who came before them during this time, varying points of view, and particu- larly the varying needs of capital and labor. They had the opportunity of determining what there is in the laborer and employer, respec- tively, that is of value to each other and to the country. It was a case of the teacher being taught. The manufacturer had thought he knew it all, that the blacksmith who sat on the board with him was merely put there to make a quorum, and that common decency would lead the black- t^mith to sit in humble silence and listen to his words of wisdom. The blacksmith started out 286 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE with the idea that putting the manufacturer on the same board with him was an imposition. He did not expect to get any material suggestions from him. He expected the manufacturer to be interested solely in protecting his industry. He did not expect him to be interested in other people. It was, therefore, rather a shock to him to find the manufacturer showing some human interest in the ordinary citizen. Both started out with the idea that the other was either a bad man or a crank, and after about two years in which to understand each other's motives and imbibing each other's ideas, both reached the conclusion that there is not much difference in folk anyway, that brains wear no particular style of clothes. Notwithstanding this improvement in relation between classes and individuals, each is still wedded to his particular class organization, and does not know how to break away from it without having something else to take its place. It is rather a curious situation. The blacksmith recog- nizes perfectly the other's views, and knows that his own views, in turn, are recognized and appre- ciated. He knows that, so far as the two individ- uals are concerned, they can get along perfectly well and thrash out their different opinions and sympathize with the point of view of the other. And yet he is tied to his class. Men are creatures THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 287 of habit, and in the past it has almost always been necessary to bring about a revolution in order to break a custom. This might be true in the present instance if it were not for the fact that a pre- ponderance of the people of this country have been placed in almost the same position in the last two years as the blacksmith and the manufacturer. They know that they ought not to hold these an- tagonistic viewpoints. They know that their atti- tude ought not to be hostile. In their hearts they do not want them to be. It just has not occurred to them how the situation can be remedied. The absurdity of distinctive class organizations has not occurred to them because it has become a habit to have such organizations ; it has been deemed neces- sary for self-protection. They know perfectly well that even with such organizations it becomes necessary, in order to bring about any result, that the two treat together by representatives, because so long as the labor organizations are absolutely separate and apart from the capital organizations, nothing can be done unless it coincides with the views of both. We started out with the Selective Service sys- tem by appointing men on the local boards repre- senting, as nearly as possible, the various elements in American life. If the position heretofore taken by labor and capital is sound, these representa- 288 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE tives, in order to be consistent, should have held off from one another with the same degree of aloof- ness as under ordinary conditions, and should have obtained thereby the results that are now the boast of the Selective Service system. The rep- resentative of labor on the local board should have presented his ultimatum to the hostile forces and said, "Now I am here primarily to take care of labor." The manufacturer should have glared back at him and laid down his ultimatum that in- dustry must be protected and labor could go hang. The professional member should have felt of the excited pulses of the two and said, "Neither of you is so important ; it is necessary that the pro- fessional class run things; they must be looked after before anything else is done. ' ' In fact this is just what frequently happened when they first started out their work, regardless of the feeling of patriotism that was spurring them on. It took some time before each of them reached the con- clusion that the others were willing to live and let live. But the net result of their continued contact was not three opposing hostile camps, not a minia- ture labor union, corporation association, and a professional organization working at the same time at cross-purposes, but a simple, human organiza- tion so representative that a common viewpoint was obtained. People cannot stay in armed and hostile camps THE SELECTIVE SERVICE IDEA 289 without a conflict sooner or later. The stage is set for just what labor and capital want to do. The permanency of the idea rests upon its poten- tial power to meet these and similar questions. If it be faithfully tried and fail in its task, then it must fall below the dignity of an idea and be reduced to a mere plan of procedure for which there may be hundreds of substitutes of equal value. It is so simple that its mere simplicity alarms those accustomed to intricate processes. It is letting the people do their own work in their own way, shouldering their own responsibiUties and achieving the apparently hopeless tasks through an understanding between themselves and their government and between themselves and their associates in the great labor of nation build- ing. It is my purpose in a subsequent chapter to out- line more definitely the manner in which this idea may be applied in the various fields of human en- deavor. But mindful of the rapidity with which momentous events are now daily occurring and of the ever-changing problems that they present, I shall not seek to commit myself to a plan more defi- nite than will serve as a basis upon which the pub- lic mind may react, and ultimately evolve a sys- tem that will accurately sense and carry out a peo- ple 's will, to the end that whether in form identi- cal with the ideas of my associates in the labors 290 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE now closed or in form changed to meet varied conditions, it may be the means whereby the health, education, and social relations of the re- public are placed upon a plane commensurate with our ideals. CHAPTER XI THE PBESEBVATION OF AMEEICANISM IT is to be expected that in the consideration of any new plan or any idea to which a people, by reason of long continued reliance upon the fancied safeguards of tradition, has been unaccustomed, the critical mind will at the very outset look for defects. This is both natural and proper. If a plan or an idea will not stand the test of experi- mental attacks, it may not be expected to stand the crucial practical tests that will follow its adop- tion. It is, however, of vital importance that in the search for defects the strong points are not overlooked. In passing final judgment a critical public ought at the close of a careful analysis, to inquire, ' ' Notwithstanding its defects, has it alto- gether suflScient strength to meet the demands that will be made upon it?" And in laying down this preliminary caution, it is no more than proper to appeal to the con- structive critic for a more sympathetic dissection than that usually given by that super-sensitive element, which ever, at the approach of the new, 291 292 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE senses some unwarranted attack upon the Con- stitution or some hostile invasion of the time- honored pronouncements of democratic principles of government. Such apprehensions were un- questionably shared by many when the Selective Service Law was first passed. That they were groundless is now frankly admitted by the ma- jority of intelligent citizens. The following ex- tract from a letter received by the provost-mar- shal general voices this assurance : "Now that it is all virtually over, we rejoice that the glorious Constitution of the United States is still intact, that the liberty our fathers fought for has been preserved to us and that it has been extended to thousands, yes, millions, of the bonded men and women of the world." There is a large element in America that re- minds one of the anxious brooding hen, which whenever the shadow of a sparrow falls across the barnyard, conjures up a vision of some hawk or eagle, and seriously disturbs the barnyard melodies with her squawks of frenzied distress. They are ever perturbed over the possible weaning of a people 's heart from the heirlooms of tradition, and ever solicitous for the preservation of Ameri- canism, as if it might take its flight should they relax their vigilance. I have no quarrel with this type of critic. All types have their uses. Even the chattering, THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICANISM 293 shrieking Sammy Jay, the naturalist says, serves a good purpose through his intense curiosity and continuous shrieking, in warning the smaller ani- mals against the depredations of the greater. In like manner the sometimes over-anxious solicitude of this more cautious element quite frequently sounds the alarm against real danger. My pur- pose, therefore, is not to warn against their pro- test, but rather against heeding their misgivings, without sufficient analysis. In this connection it may not be amiss to quote from one of the stanch friends of the Selective Service System. "And now, having accomplished its great purpose, to pick flaws is like overlooking the virtues of a faith- ful friend to speak of his faults." No sacred rights were ever preserved by put- ting them under lock and key. They must live bright and open in the heart and thought of a peo- ple. They must be elastic enough to give cuver to a nation's conscience as well as a nation's pride. If they cannot satisfy both the judgment and the conscience of a great people, then political leaders of centuries past have wasted too many anxious moments in their efforts to make them burglar proof. Thomas Jefferson, enunciating the fundamental principles of democracy, made the future his debtor when he wrote : "All men are created free and equal." The trouble, however, with funda- 294 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE mental principles is that, like cards, there are so many different kinds of games that can be played with them. The Democratic party says that Jef- ferson was speaking for it, and with sublime faith in its apostle of democracy, proceeds to carve out a certain path running north. The Republican party is sure that Jefferson was its prophet, and makes a bee-line southward. The conservative so- cialist accepts Jefferson as its licensed pilot, while the ship of state makes circles on the high seas. So after all, notwithstanding the idealistic potency of a general principle that we all accept, glittering in its generality, the fact remains that generalities may be either helpful or harmful, depending en- tirely upon their specific application. We all agree on one definite program. Ameri- canism must be preserved. If we can not all agree on ways and means, it is but another proof of the fact that America is thinking, and thinking inde- pendently. There is one proposition, however, upon which I can never agree with a certain element in our na- tional life, and that is that Americanism is such a weak, tender thing, so susceptible to disease and contaminating influences that it is necessary to keep it continually nursed and petted for fear it will dwindle away and be lost to us. In this par- ticular, I have more faith in the building erected by the fathers than those who continually prate THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICANISM 295 of their abounding love for the glories of the past. Americanism is no pale, sickly thing to be con- tinually brightened by cosmetics. It is no Indian pipe, so frail that the touch of human hands will bring a blight upon it. It is the giant oak of the forest, which, with its roots bedded deeply in the soil, rears its massive body high upon the hillside, scorning the shelter of the valley, proudly and de- fiantly shaking its head in the face of the storm, confident in its strength, and giving protection to the tired wayfarer from the beating rain. Shame on those who so far forget themselves as to doubt the composite character of the people of this great republic ! It is they who are the breeders of pan- ics. It is they who have cried, * ' Wolf, wolf ! " so often that the public can hardly be induced to raise its head when their voices again sound the mono- tone of deception. And what is this proud heritage called Ameri- canism? Indeed, it is more than a heritage. It is not the definition of a virtue arisen from the grave of the past, nor is it the essence of a present attribute. It is the definition of our national growth. It is both the character and the charac- teristics of the American people, combining their present attributes with their hopes. It is their experience, their conduct, and their idealism welded into one harmonious whole, an alloy the temper of which will stand the strongest tests. 296 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE It is that fixed and wholesome purpose of the in- dividual American that places public welfare be- fore private interest. But it is equally that sound and determined policy of the body politic that de- mands the burning of the sacrificial fires upon the national altar for the success of the individual. Watch carefully the thing- that is being hawked about from street to street under the garb of Americanism. Whatever may be the pleasing ad- dress of those who would offer it as a symbol of that great attribute that Roosevelt voiced so stren- uously, if it embodies less than duty to serve and right to receive, the square deal, and hunger for mutual understanding and sympathy, spurn it as you would a leper, for it is not Americanism. Un- less it becomes to you the mirror of your own con- science, your own thoughts and ideals, it is a fraud that is being held out temptingly before you. Americanism is no strange thing. Unless you recognize it intuitively, it is no part of you, and being no part of you, is not American. For it is to you I am speaking, you, the strong, sturdy, red- blooded sons of adventure and freedom and jus- tice, separated by thousands of miles and three centuries of time from the hated tyrannies and op- pressions that put the glow of human love in your hearts for the weak and the temper of steel in your hearts to beat back forever the aggressions of the cruel strong. It is you who, shaking off the dust THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICANISM 297 of a morally impoverished Europe, established this great society of kindred spirits in the savage- tenanted west, and put into forms of law your idea of equality, both of right and duty, laying down as your first fundamental the obligation to your fellow-creature, which attains its highest fulfilment in the common duty to society, yourj government. "^ Is it to be wondered, then, that those who have regard for the integrity of the past, confidence in the purpose of the present, and faith in the future, become impatient at the ever-harping critics whose fear is the taint of suspicion of the very things they pretend to love and praise? Let them sound their empty paeans ; it is but mockery, because they fear their gods are dead. Let us, however, who have faith in the sublime purpose of a sturdy Americanism, be not afraid to put it to the test and assume responsibilities in the greater, future, world affairs that will be commensurate with our faith. It cannot be said that this prided attribute con- sists only in a distinctive name. Are we to boast merely because we are different? It is not that we are merely different. The distinctions of to- day that we define as Americanism date back to those same distinctions that could not in 1776 sense the dipping of the Hessian sword in the blood of a struggling people for the price of a 298 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE flagon of beer, and that now can see only as a hor- rid nightmare the degenerate brutalities and de- ceptions of the Beasts of Berlin. But Americanism is something more virile than love of soil and fellow-man, of attachment to American laws, institutions, and government, and filial admiration of its heroes, statesmen, and men of genius. There are added to those attributes, as Cardinal Gibbons has well said, "an ardent zeal for the maintenance of those sacred principles that secure to the citizen freedom of conscience and an earnest determination to consecrate his life, if nec- essary, pro aris et focis, in defense of altar and fireside, of God and Fatherland." But there is something more. Americanism cannot be preached into a man. There can bo no pedantic instruction in loyalty to a friend or loy- alty to a cause or devotion to a country or an ideal. Americanism combines these attributes. It is neither an abstract nor a concrete thing. It lives not as a thought nor as an exhibit. Proclamation is the flimsiest evidence of its existence. It is rather a punctuation of it by a question mark. It is the call of the national conscience that ever com- pels and impels a real American to do service in support of a principle, in aid of his fellow-man wherever he is oppressed or persecuted. It will not serve the profiteer. It will not cloak the hyp- THE PRBSEEVATION OF AMERICANISM 299 ocrite. It will not protect the thug of ruthless finance. A guise of Americanism that is not ex- pressed by self-effacement will not long hinder the progress of this mighty land of purpose and promise. It is this spirit of America, the spirit of service, that Selective Service processes brought to light, revealing to the outer consciousness of the nation the yearning of its inner consciousness. One of the local boards of the State of New York caught its true significance in the declaration that "the Selective Service system is the best expression of the new democratic spirit of the country." It is the spirit that prompted men to sacrifice their business and their pleasure in defense of national honor ; it is the spirit that prompted our women to leave the protection of the fireside and go out on the battle-field to minister to the wants of the wounded ; it is the spirit of sacrifice. It is the an- swer of an entire nation to the call of humanity to give something, not as an investment upon which the return can be computed in dollars and cents, but an investment that gives a consciousness of having rendered service to humanity at large. Governments may fail, races may perish, but service lives. The recipients of service pass away, but the joy of planting the seed of service and watering the plants is greater than riches. 300 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE The Deity who punishes and rewards can bestow no greater reward than the mere pennission to serve. How deeply such devotion to service affected those engaged in the trying task of raising the nation's army is shown in the splendid expres- sion of appreciation from one of the Local Boards in Mississippi: "It is for us to thank those in authority for giving us a place to serve rather than for them to express any appreciation of the work wo have done." And I am convinced that as long as the spirit of our people, our Americanism, preserves and cultivates this devotion to service, which attains its practical fulfilment in regard for every politi- cal and social obligation, nations of the future will, as in the present, look to us, as a guiding star. These, then, are outward attributes of Amer- icanism, loyalty and devotion to God and coun- try, honesty and frankness in the relations of man to man, and a spirit of service adding an ag- gressiveness and self-reliance that acknowledge no failure and stake life itself in the accomplish- ment of what is right. But these are only outward attributes. Whence did they spring? Upon what have they thrived? What made it possible to fuse into a kindred purpose a people made up of men of THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICANISM 301 every nation on earth and to create and sustain a unity of thought and action in the most hetero- geneous citizenry in the world? Americanism was not imported to the western world. The men and women who first touched American shores left their homes to escape the things that were the very antithesis of what we now call Americanism. They came to a strange land, a new world of wilderness and savages. With his musket and his axe, the pioneer won a home for himself and his loved ones. Ours was, then, the spirit of adventure. It has always been so since, virile, aggressive, self-reliant. The fierce struggle in the wilderness, the dependence upon himself to which each sturdy backwoods- man was forced, planted the seed of individual initiative, resourcefulness, and fearless aggres- siveness. There grew up in the new land the tolerance and forbearance of the weaknesses of other men and the ready response to a call for aid that come almost spontaneously to men set down in the wide places. The pioneer, having conquered the wilderness and having established a haven from the perse- cution which he had originally fled, fired with the zeal and joy of his new-found freedom, conceived the thought that the haven, once established, should be thrown open to the peoples of the world, wherever persecuted, so that they, too. 302 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE might find a place where freedom of individual thought and conduct and action would not be cur- tailed. Out of his attainment of individual lib- erty was born the spirit of service — service which was first the spirit of mutual aid, but which by 1917 had become the service of the strong, who, secure in their own strength, reach out their hands to help the weaker brother in distress. Individual liberty, political, social, and relig- ious, became the very corner-stone upon which the whole structure of American government was built. The zeal for it carried the colonies, strug- gling in their infancy, through the trying days of the Revolution and up the rough ways of prog- ress until the nation reached full strength. It was written into the Declaration of Independ- ence, and became indelibly stamped upon every phase of American political and social activity — the freedom of the individual and his right to live and acquire by his own industry, and to par- ticipate personally and actively in those affairs of society and government that touch him di- rectly. Freedom of thought and of conscience, the right of private property and the right to local self-government, these are the indices of Americanism. Without them true democracy cannot exist, and with the decline of democracy must come the wane of Americanism. THE PRESERVATION OP AMERICANISM 303 The war confronted America with many strange and pressing problems, to the solution of which it was necessary to apply drastic and emer- gent remedies. In many instances the remedies carried with them the relinquishment by the states and the more local governmental units of many of those rights which would in other cir- cumstances never have been surrendered. The Federal Government, for the war, became the re- pository of virtually every larger governmental function of the nation. State policies, local poli- cies, all were merged in the larger policy of the nation at war. But it was never contemplated that those rights and powers, surrendered to a central government in time of war and without the right to exercise which the nation could not have functioned efficiently during the emergency, should be retained by the national Government when the necessity for their retention had passed away. Yet we cannot close our eyes to the fact that the tendency of the times is for the national Govern- ment to retain and to continue in the exercise of many of those prerogatives of power initially assumed while the nation was at war. Stronger and stronger grows the desire to gather all the functions of government in a central authority. Easier and easier it is to visualize a gradual at- 304 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE trition of power to the Federal Government, with a corresponding loss of sovereign rights to states and local communities. Can it be that the tendency of the times is to efface the right of local self-government, which has always been held to be the inalienable her- itage of democracy? Will it be possible to sus- tain a democracy that has suffered the loss of those rights? Should we not hesitate before we acquiesce in a policy that looks to the centraliza- tion of all power in a federal government, which, absorbing the rights of smaller political units, must finally submerge the will of the individual, heretofore expressed through his more immedi- ate local government, in the all-embracing power of a federal authority? But it is not only upon the political side that one sees this gradual absorption of power. Al- ready, and in no unmistakable way, the same tendency is manifest on the economic side. The question of government ownership of railroads has passed within two years from a purely aca- demic to a most vitally practical question. Gov- ernment ownership of telegraphs and telephones, the merchant marine, the packing industry, the coal mines, and the steel industry, in short of all the larger national utilities is a question upon which the public mind has not been idle. It may be that government ownership of cer- THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICANISM 305 tain larger utilities would be beneficial. But one cannot escape the thought that in the present state of the world's mind such ownership would constitute but the beginning of a larger policy, which, unwisely exercised, would look to the gradual absorption of all property by the Fed- eral Government, the ultimate loss of the right of private property, and the initiation of a regime of socialism. These are the large thoughts in government that the World War and the return of peace have left us. We are at the parting of the ways. The decision must be made now. Perhaps if the decision had been asked two years a,<,n), it would have been easy. But the war has left us so many vital problems, to the solution of which must be brought vigorous national ef- forts, that I do not doubt but that there are many who see no solution of these problems except through vesting in a national government the powers which will enable it, of its own motion, to execute any plan or policy. This is the vital problem in the preservation of Americanism. Shall we, in meeting a temporary emergency of peace, allow the rights of individ- ual liberty and freedom of action to be absorbed in a federal state, and risk an eventual loss of the ancient and sustaining rights of private prop- erty and local self-government? 306 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE I am not ready to concede that the solution of the larger national and international problems lies in the vesting of greater power in a federal government, with a corresponding destruction of sovereignty in local government. Is there not some other way in which the pres- ent problems can be met and solved, at the same time establishing means for national unity of action and purpose, while preserving the sacred rights of individual liberty, private property, and local self-government, without which our democ- racy cannot long exist? Such a plan was found in the administration of Selective Service, a plan which fused the spirit of a people into a vitaliz- ing, enthusiastic, national purpose, yet which was administered not by the strong arm of a federal government, but by the loyal cooperation of local communities. CHAPTER XII A PLAN OF ACTION HAVING outlined the larger of the present problems of America and indicated the ne- cessity for preserving in their solution the rights of local government and private property, it now becomes necessary to state the plan whereby the problems may be solved and the essentials of democracy at the same time protected. There is a dual aspect to the problem. On the one hand, it relates to the proper relations to be maintained between political entities, such as the states and the Federal Government ; on the other, the relations that must be established between classes and individuals outside the purely politi- cal or governmental field. So the plan must be designed to fit the problem. It must be discussed both in its relation to the political and the social aspect. And while both are of equal importance, the industrial situation, which at this very mo- ment confronts America with social chaos, is so poignantly a public issue that I feel a hesitancy in mingling a discussion of the two which might detract the reader's attention from the sugges- tions for remedying the industrial situation. 307 308 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE But, taking that risk, both aspects of the plan will now be presented. We have always heretofore contemplated two distinct and separate forms of government in all our political speculations. We have had our Federal Government functioning in the operation of federal offices and departments, in the execu- tion of federal laws. We have had the various state governments operating within their respec- tive borders, but totally divorced from the fed- eral field and from any thought or idea of co- operation among themselves or with the federal system. Forty-eight different state governments and a federal government operating in as many jurisdictions; these are political facts, the exist- ence of which is inconsistent with the prosecution of any comprehensive or definite plan of national significance. I have mentioned in another chapter the prob- lem of illiteracy, the problem of education. It is a national problem. It is not only worthy of approach with a definite national policy in mind, but any successful solution of it requires a united national effort. Yet in forty-eight different states there are to-day forty-eight different state poli- cies for the education of American youth and only the feeble beginning of a federal policy, which its proponents believe should be intrusted to a federal administration. A PLAN OF ACTION 309 In virtually every one of the forty-eight states there is a department of education operating under the supervision of the government of each state through various state officials and em- ployees. Why is it that some directing influence ciinnot be brought to bear to give a basis of uni- formity to forty-eight different state policies and to shape a single plan which, if definitely pur- sued by forty-eight states, would result ulti- mately in a definite national policy and the cer- tainty of a uniform system in education? It is not necessary, and the administration of Selective Service has demonstrated this, that to achieve a real national policy in education, every activity pertaining to it should be directed and controlled by a federal bureau of education. The states themselves are capable of executing any policy upon which they determine, and of execut- ing it well. Variation in state policies exists only because there has never been any national definition of a policy that ought to be pursued. I cannot believe that the system of education in any particular state exists because that state, after having examined every other system of edu- cation, has determined that its own is best. Eather, I am of the opinion that lack of informa- tion, lack of a directing influence, lack of a consis- tent purpose and a real goal to be attained, has re- sulted in these variations of policy. 310 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE Throwing out this thought, I ask again: "Is it not possible to achieve a real national policy in education, a sincere and effective drive to stamp out illiteracy and yet leave the actual administra- tion of it to the states themselves?" I am convinced that it is possible. All that is necessary is to coordinate, direct, and encourage forty-eight separate state agencies. Once the na- tional drive, stimulated by a national head, has been inaugurated, and the aid of the states had been solicited not as mere political units, but as active participants and partners in the plan, there will appear, as in the administration of the Selec- tive draft, that spontaneous enthusiasm and en- ergy which only the creator can feel for the thing that he himself is in the process of creating. I am not unaware of the fact that efforts have been, and are being made, to bring about a uni- formity in educational policies. But it is not mere uniformity that is desirable. That alone will bring only a colorless sameness into the sys- tem. It must be supplemented and vitalized by a policy that will arouse the enthusiasm of a people, and this can be done only by making them an inti- mate part of it, by giving them an active place in the scheme. And so I visualize the spirit of Selective Serv- ice, as applied to a campaign against illiteracy and for improved educational facilities, as a great na- A PLAN OF ACTION 311 tion-wide plan headed by a directing federal bu- reau, which shall supervise and coordinate only, and driven and directed by state departments of education, in touch with the more immediate con- ditions of their respective people. The experi- ence, the failures, and successes of a state can then be disseminated to all other states through the federal agency ; the best can be retained, the worst thrown off. Each state need no longer learn through the bitterness of experience, but may profit by the failures as well as by the successes of other states. But all this information, one may say, is al- ready available. That is true. But there has al- ways been lacking that one element in the national system which might systematically collect and dis- tribute it. This is the factor that must now be added. But the strength of such a policy does not lie in the benefits that may accrue to this or to that state. While benefit to the states themselves would be a sufficient justification for the plan, the great good to be derived is something far more desirable. It will be the means of establishing between the states of America a contact that would be possible in no other way. America is a land of magnificent distances. That of itself makes diffi- cult the sustaining of a close union of spirit and purpose. But even in states that are contiguous 312 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE closeness in location does not mean necessarily closeness in thought and purpose. So it is that the plan I have suggested will work its good in revealing to every state the spirit, the purpose, and the accomplishments of every other state. It alone will make possible a single, though collec- tive, purpose by laying in broad daylight the indi- vidual purpose of each state. It will mold into a single, mighty national effort forty-eight individ- ual efforts by the simple expedient of letting every one know what every one else is doing in things educational. If it will accomplish anything short of this, then I have missed entirely the whole les- son of the Selective draft. But there is still a greater benefit to be derived. Nothing so stimulates effort in America as a whole- some spirit of competition. The spirit of con- flict, springing not from antagonism, but from local pride, made possible most of the stupendous achievements in every field during the recent emer- gency. One saw evidence of this in the Liberty Loan campaigns, in which the wide publicity given to the nation about the efforts of every district in filling its subscription quota built up a keen, though friendly, rivalry, which achieved un- dreamed results. So in the administration of the Selective draft the spirit of competition instilled by giving the widest possible publicity to the prog- ress in classification in eveiy state caused each A PLAN OF ACTION 313 state to redouble its own efforts in the race to be foremost. It is not only upon war subjects that this spirit of competition can be engendered. One sees it in American civic improvements, in American games, in American charities, this friendly, yet none the less zealous, rivalry. I have no doubt but that it lies dormant in the question of education and in every phase of social activity to which it may be applied. But it is contact, a complete understand- ing of what is going on elsewhere, that alone can bring this spirit to the surface. But this principle of Selective Service does something more than accomplish the end itself. It creates, out of the accomplishment an intense singleness of purpose which can, and in the ad- ministration of the draft did, fuse the wills of heterogeneous groups of communities and classes into a single and irresistible national purpose. And so I see, in applying the principle of Selec- tive Service to the groat and vital policy of edu- cation, an intensive, sweeping campaign for en- lightenment, which will wipe illiteracy from Amer- ica simply liy bringing about systematic contact among local communities while bestowing upon them the task and the joy of accomplishment. And how may this be accomplished? Simply by establish hi (I, with the consent and voluntary co- operation of the several state governments, a fed- 314 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE eral bureau of education, the sole purpose of which shall be to coordinate and supervise the activities of the forty-eight state departments of education that already exist. The idea here advanced need not stop with a campaign against illiteracy. The problem of the alien has been mentioned in a preceding chapter as one of the more vital issues that America must meet. The problem of the alien is a problem of education, not the mere shaping of mental proc- esses, but the instillation in the foreigner of a spirit of love and reverence for America because of what it has been, what it is, and what it may be. When one gets back to first principles, it is appar- ent that mental enlightenment must lay the groundwork for such a spirit. So it is that a na- tional campaign for better education will wipe out, to a large measure, what during the war some were pleased to call the "menace of the alien." And by processes similar to the one outlined for attaining national efficiency and effectiveness in education, America may approach and solve the problem of national health. Poor living condi- tions, unwise or unjust labor laws, lack of sani- tary regulations, ignorance of the laws of health themselves, are among the major causes for a weakened physical standard. All these matters are now subject to the supervision of departments or bureaus of each state. Similar agencies exist A PLAN OP ACTION 315 in the national governmental organization for the purpose of functioning in fields that are purely federal. It is quite practicable to bring these va- rious agencies, the purposes and aims of which are identical, into harmony. Nothing is necessary to accomplish this except the institution of a fac- tor that will keep every state in constant touch with every other state, enlightening the one as to the accomplishments of the other, stimulating the spirit of friendly competition, and ultimately achieving that enthusiastic response that comes with the zest of clean and honest struggle. One so often hears a loyal citizen of some state say: "My state is the best in the Union. It is God 's own country. " It is a great shock to such a citizen to be met with these rejoinders: "Did you know that the State of spends twice as much per capita for education as your own state?" "Did you know that the death rate in your state is twenty per cent, higher than in the State of ? " " Did you know that your state permits its children to labor in its mills and factories while many other states make such employment criminal?" "Did you know that the percentage of venereal disease in your state places it at the top of the list of states afflicted with the social evil?" He does not believe these things at first. He denies them vehemently. Then he finds that they 316 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE are true. He loses Ms smug complacency, but he does not lose his local pride. That he turns to the accomplishment of improvement. It is not that he would not know; rather is it that he did not kaow. And what is the solution here? Merely to pro- vide, with the consent of the states, as in the case of education, some federal agency to coordinate the activities of the several states in matters con- cerning the public health. There are many other fields in which the same idea may be applied to matters of policy in which there has been for a long time an apparent neces- sity for some basis of uniformity in all the states. Such a procedure might easily bring about uni- formity in corrupt-practice acts, with resulting elimination of election frauds and those weakening influences in our political life which sap the integ- rity of the democracy. It would be effectual in accomplishing uniformity in the divorce laws in the several states, obviating a situation that at present results in laws that recognize the validity in certain states of divorce decrees which in cer- tain others are null and void. It is needless to enumerate the many angles that might be dis- cussed were it practicable to prolong this treatise further. I am not unmindful of the fact that within re- cent years, and particularly since the beginning of A PLAN OF ACTION 317 the World War, the conferences- of governors called by the President from time to time have done much to attain uniformity of policy in the various states and mold state purposes and state policies into national purposes and national poli- cies. But the weakness in such conferences lies in the fact that they are sporadic instead of sus- tained and continuous efforts, and soon lose their force through lack of sustaining legal authority, and the constant shifting of executives within the states. What is necessary is the creation by law of an agency, or agencies, which will constantly keep alive the idea which is to-day best typified in the conferences of governors and which during the war was exemplified in the administration of the Selective draft. Such is the efficacy of the plan which I am here suggesting, the creation and sus- taining of a constant and continual contact and cooperation among localities. If the application of the idea which I have here proposed will accomplish what I believe it will, the cost in dollars and cents would be an item that should not long deter a people from its execution. But the thing which commends it to me is this, that to put it into execution would not involve the dis- bursement of a single cent that is not now being expended by the several state governments and liy the Federal Government. Every state now has its bureau or department of education, its 318 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE bureau or department of health or labor, and the like and similar agencies also exist in the Federal Government. The necessity is not for the crea- tion of new agencies, but for an integration of ex- isting agencies, for a plan which utilizes what al- ready exists, but which attains, instead of incon- sistent effort, concerted and united purpose. This is the idea that Selective Service contrib- utes to the American political world, the cooper- ation of state and federal governmental agencies, and their integration in the execution of great na- tional policies, preserving local self-government, yet making possible uniform, consistent, and effi- cient administration of national undertakings. But there is the other and perhaps more vital field to which the Selective Service idea can be feasibly applied. That is in bringing about the proper relation, not between state and federal gov- ernment, but between citizen and government, be- tween class and class and man and man. The Se- lective idea can, I believe, be applied with equal good not only in the political field, which has al- ready been discussed, but also in the social and economic fields. And it is high time that some solution be found for the perplexing industrial problems that threaten to bring chaos into the social life of America. As this is written, the miners' strike has just been declared illegal by a federal court, A PLAN OF ACTION 319 and at the direction of a federal judge, the leaders of the miners ' union have been compelled to cancel the order, which, had it remained effective, would literally have paralyzed America at the approach of a severe winter. But the decision that resulted in the termination of the miners* strike was predi- cated upon a war statute, which was the only au- thority in law for declaring the strike illegal. The emergency will soon terminate, and the ex- traordinary powers which, while it lasted, were conferred upon the Federal Government, will soon no longer exist. It is, therefore, time to cast about for some permanent solution of situations that like the one just passed may at any time again threaten the whole industrial and social struc- ture. I think the time has arrived for all men to ad- mit frankly that it will no longer do to deny that the laborer has as vital an interest in the thing he makes as the employer has in the thing he sells. The sooner there is a candid declaration of this principle and the adoption of a policy in industry recognizing it, the sooner will men come to realize that fundamentally there is nothing incompatible between the interest of capital and labor, between the man who works with his head and the man who works with his hands. Proceeding upon the idea that it is necessary to establish a franker relation between capital and 320 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE labor, I now outline a plan which may bring about that result. By way of introduction it may be said that the plan divides itself into two heads. First, the creation of agencies composed of representatives of labor and capital, the purpose of which shall be to bring about amicable agreements between em- ployer and employee ; and second, the creation by law of agencies, the functions of which shall be to act as boards of arbitration in those disputes which may affect the public welfare and which la- bor and capital themselves have been unable to settle. First, then, it is suggested that there be estab- lished local councils composed of laborers and em- ployers in each industrial plant, factory, and mine in America. An opportunity would thus be af- forded for settling, man to man, partner to part- ner, the differences that might arise within each little industrial group in the mine, the factory, or the mill. Details of improvement in working con- ditions, peculiar methods of local administration, and other measures of local mutual advantage to employer and employee might then be discussed frankly and openly. Such local industrial councils, opening the way to free discussion and resulting in a common un- derstanding between local capital and local labor, ought soon to establish within each industrial plant A PLAN OF ACTION 321 a state of mind that would recognize the mutual obligations and the mutual iaterestd of two ele- ments which are daily becoming more antagonistic. Thus the first step in this plan is the creation, within each industrial plant, of a council composed of representatives of employer and employees. Growing out of these local industrial councils and working upward in the scheme, there should be established a national industrial council for each industry in America, composed of represen- tatives of labor and capital from all the plants and factories within each particular industry, and meeting for the purpose of discussing and decid- ing the larger questions of the industry as they affect employer and employee in each industry. A N&,tional Federation of Textile Manufacturers and a National Federation of Textile Workers would be replaced by one National Council of Tex- tile Workers and Manufacturers. Instead of two national organizations, operating entirely inde- pendently of each other and most often at cross- purposes because of lack of opportunity to discuss dispassionately their interlocking interests, there would be one organization, a merger of the two, the purpose of which would be the elimination of the very thing that the present dual organization accentuates, a lack of harmony. Thu^ the second step in the plan is the creation of a national cov/ncil within each industry, com- 322 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE posed of representatives of employers and em- ployees within each particular industry. Proceeding one step further, there should be established a national council of all industries in America, composed of representatives of labor and capital, meeting together for free discussion of the more vital questions of industry, nation- wide in their scope and affecting generally the whole industrial situation. Thus would he erected a great national indus- trial parliament, sitting side by side with and in aid of the political parliament, the Congress, and speaking with a voice so potent that its recom- mendations and requests could not be lightly treated. I think it highly probable — the operation of the Selective draft convinces me of the fact — that the establishment of these industrial coun- cils, ranging upward from the local council to the national industrial parliament, would bring about such a mutual understanding between the repre- sentatives of labor on the one hand and capital on the other that a majority of the disputes between those two elements, which to-day are rapidly ap- proaching a point where amicable adjustment seems impossible, could be settled to the interest and satisfaction of both. But I am not so optimistic as to suppose that such councils could eliminate entirely from the A PLAN OP ACTION 323 industrial world those disputes and misunder- standings which are evidencing themselves to-day in a situation approaching industrial chaos. I do believe, however, that so far as the greater part of those disputes are concerned, they could be peaceably settled, or at least so limited in their extent that they would not materially affect the general public. But one cannot overlook the fact that, while the disputes of labor and capital are very vital to those elements themselves, they usually have a no less keen significance for the general public, depend- ing upon industry for supply or living close enough to the actual operation of the industry to feel directly the shock of its conflicts. Labor must be protected ; capital must be protected ; but the general public must also be safeguarded. How, then, if the industrial councils fail to agree and industrial disturbances threaten the general public, may such catastrophes be averted? I am convinced that it would be entirely feasible and not in conflict with any present agency of ad- ministration or with our legislative bodies for the President, under authority of special legislation so framed to effectuate this, to appoint, upon recommendation of the governors of the several states, boards composed of three or more repre- sentative citizens for each county or similar unit, entitled "Local Advisory Boards," which would 324 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE function somewhat similarly, though with a dif- ferent purpose, to the local and legal advisory boards under the Selective Service system. The members of these boards should be authorized to apply their energies to the adjustment of local conflicts between labor and capital, when those conflicts had failed of adjustment within the local industrial council of a particular plant, factory, or mill. But in order to give proper weight to the coun- sels of such boards, it would be wise, even neces- sary, that they be clothed with the sanction of legal authority vesting them with full power to investigate thoroughly, as a representative arm of the Government and the general public, the local dispute between capital and labor and to use the weight of their influence as the representative of the general public to settle the local disagree- ments that labor and capital themselves had been unable to settle. The effectiveness of such bodies would neces- sarily depend upon the quality of their person- nel, and with the experience of the draft before us, it is not unreasonable to believe that such boards would be composed of the most intelligent and representative types of American life. Clothed with the power to make recommenda- tions to the President of the United States as to the membership of such boards, the governors of A PLAN OF ACTION 325 the states, iii whom the people of the respective states have reposed the highest confidence, could reasonably be expected to recommend men whose counsels and decisions would command the re- spect and confidence of the citizens. In the ad- ministration of the Selective Service Law, the governors of the states, as a rule, appointed on the local boards representatives of labor, busi- ness, and the professions. The same reasons would exist under the proposed plan for making similar appointments. In appointing to the local advisory board a representative of labor in a given community, the governor of the state would no doubt select a man whose character and intelli- gence would carry weight with the labor element. In appointing a representative of the business in- terests, he would doubtless appoint a man whose character and intelligence would at all times cause those interests to listen to his counsel. In ap- pointing a representative of the professions, he would no doubt have in mind the necessity of ap- pointing a man of such balanced type that he would serve as a check upon any spirit of antagon- ism that might arise in the deliberations of the other two members. It is not to be doubted that such an ofiBce of trust — an appointment by the President of the United States, on the recommendation of a governor of a sovereign state, carrying mth it the power 326 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE and authority to arbitrate local industrial diflScul- ties and adjust the same where possible — would be an office that any man, whether he be laborer, capitalist, or a member of the professions, would be proud to hold. His pride in holding such a trust would be an incentive to him and equally an incentive to the collective body that he represented, to bend every energy to the adjustment of such local difficulties that might arise in order that the confidence might be justified. Indeed, I am con- vinced that not only would the representative of labor himself take a due pride in the effectiveness of his efforts to promote harmony between the elements which he represented and the elements which the capitalist and the representative of the professions might represent, but that the laboring elements themselves would take a due pride in the fact that they had a voice not only in advising as to the duties and functions of labor and its fac- tors, but in the duties of capital and its factors and the professions and their factors, as well. The same thing would apply to the representative of business, and the representative of the profes- sions. With such an organization properly func- tioning in each political unit of the United States and composed of men of character and intelligence, I am convinced that no conflict between capital and labor could reach large proportions in any community in the United States. A PLAN OF ACTION 327 But the idea should not stop here. The dis- turbing problems of capital and labor, although frequently only local, sometimes become matters of state-wide and national concern. And in order to carry out the cooperative idea, expressed by the local advisory boards, a state advisory board ought to be established in each state. The func- tions of the state advisory boards would be similar to those of the local advisory boards, except that the state boards would serve as arbitrators of those industrial disputes which the local industrial councils had been unable to settle, and which had passed beyond the stage of local disturbance, though not attaining an importance of national significance. The members of such state boards should like- wise be appointed by the President of the United States upon recommendation of the governors, with headquarters at the state capitals. The gov- ernor of each state should be ex-ofBcio member and chairman of the board. It is not unreasonable to expect that in time the decisions of such state advisory boards would settle virtually every industrial dispute within a state, because they would give the decisions not of a strange tribunal, but of friends of local and state interests. Carrying this plan to its logical conclusion, a national advisory board should be established. 328 THE SPIRIT OF. SELECTIVE SERVICE Its functions would be to arbitrate industrial dis- putes of national significance when the national industrial council or the national industrial parlia- ment had failed of agreement. That its person- nel should be of that high order which would make its decisions respected by every element goes with- out saying. These various boards, the national advisory board, the state advisory boards, the local ad- visory boards, could not function effectively un- less there were maintained at all times an inter- change of thought and information by means of reports passing downward, that would enable the local advisory boards to know at all times what was being done, what was being thought, what problems were being faced by the state advisory boards and by the national advisory board, and unless the national advisory board could know at all times, through similar reports passing upward, what local problems were being met by the local advisory boards, how they were being solved, and what advice and assistance was being given by the state advisory boards in the adjustment of such problems. Through such interchange the national advisory board might reach out with its broad experience and information gained not from the one board, but from all the boards, and through an analysis of such information reach a possible solution of local, state, and national problems. A PLAN OF ACTION 329 It would thereby be qualified to advise the state boards, and through them the local boards, how such problems had been settled in other sections, and how they could be settled in the given in- stances. Nor is it to be doubted that in the analysis of the experiences of the various local and state units the national board, in the consid- eration of disturbing conflicts that might attain na- tional significance, would be fitted to render such decisions as would appear to the conflicting in- terests just, wise, and beneficial. Through the decisions of the board the force of public opinion would have splendid channels through which to flow. It is thus seen that this idea of interlocking and protecting mutual interests of industry and the general public by coordinating activities of industrial councils within particular plants and local advisory boards within political areas and extending the same plan through the higher agen- cies of the political and industrial systems, could care for any situation from the smallest industrial disagreement to the largest national disturbance. This-- is the contribution of Selective Service to the industrial world, the offering of an oppor- tunity for closer and more sympathetic under- standing between citizen and government, labor and capital, man and man; and the opportunity for adjusting by common-sense methods the bitter 330 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE disputes that most often arise because of a lack of appreciation by one group of the motives and purposes of another. Among the major problems of America there remains the question of the proper policy to be pursued with respect to big business. Whatever may have been our pre-war prejudice against con- certed industrial action, the fact remains that the experiences of the war have proved indisputably that cooperation in industry and centralization of production make possible the most eflScient results. The efficiency of big business was proved beyond a doubt. We have learned to know that big busi- ness is not an evil merely because it is big. Rather is it in the misapplication of power re- sulting from its size that the evil which we have always associated with it has arisen. If America is to take her proper place in the new struggle for industrial supremacy, it would be folly so to attack the larger industrial enter- prises of America that in destroying their big- ness we cut down the efficiency of American pro- duction. There must be a way found in which to retain big business because of its efficiency, and yet at the same time destroy those things that make a potential menace of each incipient monopoly. In such larger industrial enterprises — certainly at the time they assume a monopolistic size and A PLAN OF ACTION 331 importance — one finds that they may exercise a very controlling influence on the lives of the great masses of citizens, whether they come in direct contact with them as employees or in less direct contact with them as consumers. It is obvious that there are three factors enter- ing into the discussion of a proper disposition of big business, namely, capital, which operates it; labor, which it employs; and the general public, which it supplies. What has already been said with reference to the creation of industrial councils within particu- lar industries, will, if the results anticipated are realized, bring about a satisfactory adjustment of so much of the question of big business as con- cerns two of its factors, capital and labor, and the relation of the one to the other. The antagonism that now exists between these two elements operates largely in bringing about the unsatisfactory conditions that existed not only before the war, which accentuated them in a very vivid way, but which still remain with us. It is possible, I believe, to create an atmosphere of fair dealing and cooperation between capital and labor that will enable the industry itself to present to the general public the same spirit of fair dealing that it has engendered in the relation between the two elements making up the industry itself. With the conflicts between capital and labor sat- 332 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE isfactorily disposed of, the relation between in- dustry and the consumer can be approached with greater assurance of the fairness that will be ex- hibited by the industry toward the public. But it would be unwise to rely upon the assumption that it would be possible so to permeate industry with the spirit of fair dealing that it would be un- necessary to take no other precaution for insuring the integrity of industry's relation to the con- sumer. This can be accomplished, I believe, by the exercise of federal supervision over such in- dustries as have by reason of their size and in- fluence reached a point where they are vitally af- fecting the welfare of the consuming public. It is true that in the past government super- vision has not always proved satisfactory. The reasons for this have always been apparent. The exercise of federal supervision has been based upon facts furnished largely by the owners of the enterprise to be regulated. If a true basis of fact cannot be secured, it follows necessarily that the exercise of federal supervision cannot fully meet an actual situation which it is often impossible to discover. In other words, we have heretofore been pro- ceeding upon a theory recognizing that, while cer- tain industries affect everybody vitally, they are nevertheless the business of those who furnish the money which operates them. Under the Selective A PLAN OP ACTION 333 Service plan applied to industry, the business that affects everybody vitally becomes everybody's business, with the result that the clear light of day is thrown upon every industry and intelligent regulation is instantly made possible. The scheme that may be applied to big busi- ness is the scheme of Selective Service, supervised decentralization. It was the local agencies, the local boards, that collected and transmitted those vital elements of information which came to them in the actual processes of classifying and mobiliz- ing their registrants that furnished the data upon which all the larger policies of the Selective Serv- ice system were based. It was this constant flow- ing of information from local boards upward through state headquarters and eventually to the national headquarters that enabled the directing head of the Selective Service system to accom- modate its policies to the ever-changing situations arising out of its administration. There has already been outlined the system of local advisory boards and local industrial coun- cils, which will serve a similar purpose in sup- plying the directing head of the federal body super^-ising an industry with the real facts of in- dustrial situations, making possible the shaping of policies designed to obviate the defects or the evils which those facts may disclose. The plan wiU make effective federal supervision 334 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE possible, because it will immediately bring about the cooperation of industry and the public in reaching solutions of things that touch each closely. It will preserve intact the right of pri- vate property, while destroying the menace that lies to-day in the power of wealth. Thus the idea of Selective Service may be ap- plied to every vital national problem that now confronts America. It will bring the states closer to the Federal Government and to one another; it will bring the citizen closer to the state, class closer to class, man closer to man. Preserving the rights of local self-government and of private property, it is capable of permeating every phase of national life with a spirit of common under- standing, of engendering a healthy competition that makes possible redoubled efforts, of exciting the purpose of a people in common national un- dertakings, and of thus attaining that unity of will and spirit which will mean the new Ameri- canism and the force and power to approach with renewed assurance the larger international is- sues that lie ahead. CHAPTEE Xin THE OLD GUAKD OX the thirty-first day of March, 1919, as pro- vost marshal general, I addressed a letter to the Selective Service officials throughout the United States and its territories, in which I stated that it v?as my last official communication to them. I did not expect then, however, that the close re- lations that had been established between the of- ficials in charge of the central administration and those in the limited jurisdictions and the relation established between my fellow-workers in the field would be completely severed. For I had reason to hope that such official relations would be re- placed by stronger tics, which would reunite us in one great band moved by a common purpose to apply the experience gained during the war to the larger tasks that lie ahead in the peace that is rightly ours. The problems are too vital, the stake too large, the ultimate reward too certain for us now to permit a disintegration of our forces. Notwithstanding the fact that those who made certain the success of Selective Service are scat- 335 336 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE tered throughout the counti\y and separated in many instances by thousands of miles, and not- withstanding the fact that they have gone back to their varied business pursuits, there is still, and "KT.11 continue to be, a community of interest, of feeling, of ideas, of hopes, of purpose, that will insure a common answer to such calls as the future may make in its efforts to promote progress and a saner civilization. The war is not yet won either at home or abroad. But just as the allied forces abroad have put shackles upon the Prussian armies, so the allied forces of Americanism are, by processes that make for a more complete understanding among our people, forging the chains that will forever bind the beasts of pestilence and chaos. We must, however, not falter a moment. We must keep the work going at high, tension until the last link is forged and placed upon every social menace. For we owe this as a debt to the past, to the pres- ent, and to the future, and we must pay. We owe the past for what she has done for us, for the experience she has given us, for the lessons she has taught us, for the inheritance of her hopes and prayers. We are indebted to her for the message of her leaders, who speak to us from afar and yet with voices that grow stronger as the past recedes, pointing out to us the pitfalls that lie in our paths. We owe her for the industry THE OLD GUAED 337 of her people, our ancestors, who have carved out of crude nature the sculpture that has adorned our civilization, who have cleared the mighty forests and furnished her sons with food and clothing. We owe her for the splendid genius of the past, which has molded mighty engines of com- merce and has supplied the world with instru- mentalities for putting to flight that supposedly inconquerable thing, disease, which stalked with its companion, Death, through the world of yes- terday. We owe her for her waking dreams, which have bridged space with the current of thought, making neighbors of the East and West. We owe her for the wealth that lies open upon the pages of literature and history. We owe her for her successes, also for her mistakes, teaching us the power of man to attain, but likewise that we are human. We owe her for the visions of her dreamers in the realm of art, which have made the purpose and achievements of the past live in color. We owe her for the music of her masters, which, falling upon the ears of a torn world, "hath charms to soothe the savage breast." All this we owe and more, and we must pay our debt. But how? To whom? For the past, though living, is dead. But speaking softly from her tomb, she says, "If living, I would not hold you in my personal debt." For the past is un- selfish. We listen further to her voice. "I need 338 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE nothing. I have had my chance. I bequeath to posterity the debt you owe me. Pay her, and I will cancel the debt. ' ' "We are honest. We must pay. "We will pay. "^""e will hold nothing back from the child of the future. Though unborn, it is ours, "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." "We need no spoken or written mandate from the past to make perfect the inheritance of those who are to follow. Yet following in the footsteps of the glorious past, we, too, when we have passed into the great beyond, will say to those we have left behind: "Pay also your debt by building for the future. Therein lies the value of your present estate." No man can truly live who lives only for the present. No man can have even a proper indi- vidual perspective who lives only for the present. "With such a man the vision is always inward arid always dark. But while we are paying our debt to the past by building for the future, the present is not dwarfed. "We grow for the future, and the pres- ent flourishes like the green bay tree. That is the philosophy of growth. I can not but feel that the poet had suffered some peculiar noisfortune when he said: ' ' Grow old along with me, The best is yet to be, The last of life for which the first was made." THE OLD GUAED 339 We labor that the future may be a greater ex- perience than our own, but we would not exchange the labor of the present for the reward of the future. We would not part with the pleasure we have in building for those that are to come, for a lodging-place in the house of our building. Our payment is automatic, inunediate. It is the measure of our own efforts. I have faith in the "first" of life as well as veneration for "the last of life." "The child is father of the man. " It is the vision of youth that catches the hidden meaning of the things that lie ahead. It is the petal of the flower before its un- folding. It is the spirit of springtime, which surges like the sap in the trees, threatening to burst its bounds that it may grow. And while it takes a mad pleasure in its wild frolic, it spells the autumn harvest. It may tax the patience of wisdom, but rest assured that the youthful archi- tect has pictured in his mind a newer and a greater structure, which he will sooner or later erect if you give him time, if you do not rush him off his feet with petty objections, petty criticisms ; and he will do it, too, without violating the traditions of the fathers or unduly assaulting the bulwarks of the cautious present. It is to this vision of youth that we must look for the remedies that are to be applied in the pre- vention of the social diseases that are at present 340 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE stalking about on the outskirts of civilization and seeking an opening to give full play to their ravages. We have seen the social unrest, which is a natural outgrowth of our enlarged ideas of jus- tice and humanity, but which constitutes a con- stant menace to society because it is but the wob- bling of the child that has not yet learned to walk and by falling may injure itself and posterity. It is the unrestrained passion of human nature, which reaches its highest development not through the breaking of all bonds of restraint, but through the maternal training that converts its wild passions and lusts into vitalizing energy, which will uplift the individual and society. Those who are strong must play the parental part, directing, leading, scourging where necessary. And so it behooves this Government to keep a re- straint upon the activities of her children and pre- vent their contact with unnecessary danger, but not prevent the natural development that fol- lows the normal activities of healthy children. They must be watched with the eye of the wise, but fond, parent, and their natural covetousness restrained. But it is also necessary that they be given some fit substitute for the object of their de- sires, otherwise they are likely to look to radical socialism, bolshevism, anarchy, communism, and other social fallacies, as proper instruments for THE OLD GUAKD 341 the attainment of their unrestrained and unsatis- fied desires. It is up to us to choose what we will have. "Man is the arbiter of his own destiny." We can make America what we want. We can keep intact our Americanism. We can perpetuate real de- mocracy. Or we can lose our chance if we are afraid to keep in repair the underpinnings of the great structure, our government, by adopting new systems, yet old ideas, to keep the faith of each citizen in his fellow-citizen intact through adequate knowledge of his motives and activities. "There is a tide in the affairs of men, AVhich taken at flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. ' ' It may be said that the world has listened too long to generalizations, and that it is now looking for something definite, some specific plan to cope with problems disturbing our social organization. That is true, and I have endeavored to present a feasible plan for broad experiment. However, my main purpose is to emphasize certain condi- tions and suggested remedies as will set the public thinking, in the hope that through such thought and study the public will evolve practical plans and processes, which will not involve a radical de- parture from our democratic ideas and customs, 342 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE taking only such definite plans suggested through this book as may form a nucleus for further de- velopment. For I have faith that the strong virile Americanism will face bravely and meet success- fully the problems that are no^V beginning to be insistent politically and socially. If I can accomplish nothing more through this labor of love, having as its motive a more per- fect spirit of understanding between man and fellow-man, and man and government, than the strengthening of the public faith in the things that should be as dear to us as they are near to us, I will rejoice in our mutual success. For it is my passion to instil ia the hearts of every man what I feel has been instilled in the hearts of those who have labored with me in the processes of Selec- tive Service, a belief in the individual American and a faith in the Americanism that typifies him both individually and collectively. Let us con- stantly preach this faith, encourage it, foster it, feed it, nourish it with our confidence, and not devitalize it with our suspicions. It is we who are to be judged, not the future. It is our present Americanism bearing future hopes that is at stake. Will we let her die in child-birth ? Let us have faith in all that we have and all that is hers. Let us take just pride in her prosperity and her victories. Let us have faith in our neigh- bors and pride in their successes. Let us glory in THE OLD GUARD 343 the accomplishments of the past that create in us expectations of a larger future. Let us have an abiding affection for our native soil. It is, indeed, the land of Canaan, "flowing with milk and honey." Let us enlarge our faith in and re- spect for our laws and institutions, our habits and customs. Let us rely upon our form of govern- ment, which has stood the shock of conflict with hated tyranny. rXet us have confidence in the stabilizing influence of our Anglo-S axon blood, which has lost none of its viriEfy through a cau- tious fusing with the best blood of other peoples.] Let us put our trust in the common purpose of this country, bearing in mind the assurance, admir- ably voiced by Dr. Hugh Black, that it is the aim that justifies the endurance, and let us likewise have faith in the great purpose of mankind, which assures us that America will be met half way by the other great nations of the world in its efforts to elevate society, establish law and order, and wipe out the menace of anarchy and similar abor- tions of diseased minds. Such is the faith of those who have applied themselves during the last two years to the great task of marshaling the man-power and material resources of this country for the protection of home and fireside and the preservation of democ- racy. Li recognition, therefore, of the sympathetic 344 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE understanding you have lent to the tasks in which we have worked together for the preservation of our national existence, I now appeal to you, my fellow-laborers in the draft, in the days of re- construction that are now before us and in the days of progress that are to follow, to throw your every energy and resource into the effort of main- taining and strengthening the civilization that has been saved. We would not, however, get the idea that ours is the only interest. Others are equally inter- ested and possessed of similar ideals. We have just cause, however, to be proud of the fact that opportunity, labor, and experience have furnished us such splendid equipment for the task of estab- lishing proper cooperation, and we must not hesi- tate to shoulder the responsibility of showing the way. It is you who must be the moving spirits, for never in the history of the world has there been a similar organization so adequately prepared for such a task. I urge you, therefore, to put your shoulders to the wheel, to pour into the struggle all the attri- butes that make for virile Americanism, to put no check upon the vision, to keep the task ever ahead of the accomplishment, in order that hope and ambition may not become stagnant. We must expect criticism, laughter, scorn, and even defeat, but it is in the climbing of the hill THE OLD GUAED 345 that strength is developed. We must adopt the missionary spirit in establishing and developing the contact with men and things that will give the world a broader viewpoint and a resultant growth. Such contact and such resultant growth will not imply the casting aside of the things that were a part of us, the initiative that causes us to admit of the contact, but the taking on of newer ideas as an aid to the old. It may well be that our efforts will ultimately result in an entirely different viewpoint for ourselves, which might, to the careless critic, justify the assumption that we did not know our own minds in the beginning and are mental will-o '-the-wisps. Such an assumption is not warranted, however, merely by change of viewpoint on the part of the intellectually honest man, the test being whether or not we have re- tained the initial mental and spiritual attitude that may be defined as a yearning for the best and sympathetic consideration of all roads pur- porting to point in that direction. In applying this test, dependence must necessarily be placed upon our inherent honesty. Usually the intellectually dishonest man retains his initial viewpoint, both actually and artificially, because he does not want to get away from it; he is proud of his intellectual attainments; he does not care to admit the possibility of error on his part; he faces questions in a debative and ar- 346 THE SPIRIT OF SELECTIVE SERVICE rogant mood, and in doing so does not attain real contact ; he refuses to let his ideas mix ; he re- jects the intermingling of suggestions of others Avith his own ; the result is friction, and the result of friction, fire that destroys at the points of con- tact. There is contact, it is true, but it is a con- tact by dissimilar material, out of sympathy, so to speak, with the elements to be brought together, just as when carbon is interposed between two copper wires carrying electrical current, produc- ing the friction that makes artificial light. The light of understanding can never be produced by such artificial means. Intellectual dishonesty represents the carbon in the current of man 's rela- tions, and it is an element that must be constantly watched. Just as science is constantly on the search for the material that radiates light with- out the attending danger, so man is on the search for the light of understanding that is not the prod- uct of friction. The majority of men have the proper yearning, and herein lies the safety of the world. They are in harmony with the old order of things, be- cause, being a part of the old order of things, they understand the motives that prompted the original viewpoints. In their yearning for better things, however, their sympathetic consideration makes them receptive to new viewpoints. They are good conductors of the currents of human thought. THE OLD GUARD 347 Theirs is a versatile, but not a hypocritical con- sistency. At each point of contact they naturally fuse with the respective elements because of their sympathy for the old and yearning for the new. I am inclined to think that it is not a change in their fiber, but that the current flowing through them accommodates itself to the variations in their mental and spiritual make-up, just as the river rushes madly through the mountains but, reaching the lowlands, flows sluggishly, as if to prove itself in harmony with its surroundings. It is you, the Selective Service officials during the Great "World War, who, by reason of your ex- perience, have established the value of contact, and who should logically exercise a profound influence over community thought, national thought, world thought, and thereby be molders of world opinion and purpose. It is you who have the potential power to bridge the gap between the conflicting el- ements in our national life, which not infrequently sound the note of discord and of menace. It is you who, fresh from the field of successful en- deavor, where the analysis of human character was your specialization, will, with the courage of crusaders, pour yourselves into the political and social maelstrom, and neutralize the acidity of cor- rupt thought and purpose. It is you who, having by your broad experiences sensed the proper re- lation of man to man, man to government, and 348 THE SPIRIT OP SELECTIVE SERVICE the necessary relation of the states to the central government, and the futility of attempting real accomplishment in the various governmental units without due consideration of their relation to the accomplishments in broader fields, are now equipped to obtain and maintain harmonious con- tact between factions and classes and groups. The consciences of men, the aspirations of men, often speak in different languages. It is you who will interpret. APPENDIX APPENDIX Supplemental Report of the Provost Marshal Ges- EBAL TO THE SeCRETAKY OF "WaK ON DEMOBILIZATION OP Provost Marshal General's Department On December 30, 1918, there was submitted to you the second report of the Provost Marshal General, em- bracing the operation of the Selective draft between the dates of December 30, 1917, and the date of the second report. That last report was voluminous and compre- hensive in its scope. It went minutely into the diverse ramifications of the Selective Service organization, its varied and novel activities, and the results thereof. The report was submitted after the signing of the armistice and at a date when it had been definitely concluded to demobilize the Selective Service organization. Since the submission of the second report of the Provost Marshal General, the activities of the Selective Service organiza- tion have been devoted chiefly to its own demobilization. There ought, however, to be enumerated the several steps immediately following the signing of the armistice on November 11, which you directed to be taken prior to the commencement of the actual demobilization of the Selective Service system itself. On November 11, on which date approximately a quarter of a million selec- tives were to begin mobilization, all calls for the army were canceled. At that time the Local and District Boards had gone two months deep into the task of clas- sifying the registrants who had been enrolled on Sep- 351 352 APPENDIX tember 12, 1918. Those registrants comprised all men between the ages of 18 and 45 who had not theretofore registered. The Local Boards had been instructed, first to classify the registrants coming within the age group 19-36, second those within the 37-45 group, and finally the 18-year-old group. When the armistice was signed, the work of classifying the first group had been practically completed and in many instances the work of classify- ing the second group was well under way. The prob- lem that was presented to you and to this department was whether or not it would be wise or necessary further to continue the classification of the remaining registrants of September 12, 1918. On November 11, at your direction, State Headquarters and Local and District Boards were directed to discontinue all work connected with the classification of registrants over the age of 37, but to continue to completion the classifi- cation of registrants between the ages of 19 and 36, inclusive, and to proceed immediately to the classifica- tion of registrants who had attained their 19th year. Undoubtedly a complete classification of the entire regis- tration between the ages of 18 and 45 would have pro- duced very interesting information. But the nation had been through such strenuous days and the stress and strain of the emergency had been so severe that you wisely concluded that the value of such a complete classi- fication would be far out-weighed by relief from the onerous duties with which the Selective Service organiza- tion had been burdened through the preceding eighteen months. On November 13, all mobilization calls for the Navy were canceled, and on the 16th all physical examinations were ordered discontinued and District Boards directed to cease work upon classification and appeals. On No- APPENDIX 353 vember 19, Local Boards were directed to complete at the earliest possible moment the classification of those registrants with whom your prior order had directed them to proceed, and to close their records not later than December 10, 1918. At the beginning of the Selective draft, arrangements had been made with the State Department under which any person of military age desiring to leave the United States was required to secure from the Provost Marshal General a permit for passport. This duty was subse- quently placed on the Local Boards who continued to examine into the merits of such cases and to issue the necessary permits in the name of the Provost Marshal General. With the signing of the armistice, the neces- sity for retaining within the borders of the United States those citizens who were liable to early call for military service ceased, and on November 25, 1918, Local Boards were directed to discontinue the work and thereafter no permits were required from the War Department as pre- requisite to departure from the United States. On November 28, State Headquarters were directed to begin immediately the demobilization of inducted men who had been assigned to State Headquarters, District, Local and Medical Advisory Boards for clerical duty and on the next day instructions were issued for the discharge of temporary clerks as soon as their services could be dispensed with and for the disehtirge of permanent clerks on not more than thirty days' notice. Instructions, however, were issued that chief clerks should continue their duties until further notice from the Provost Mar- shal General. On November 27, 1918, it was determined that all the records of the Selective Service organization should be taken from the control of the Provost Marshal General 354 APPENDIX and delivered to the Adjutant General of the Army in the City of Washington for final keeping. Henceforth, the activities of the Provost Marshal General's office and the various State and local agencies were confined to de- livering all their records to the Adjutant General and to the demobilization of the Selective Service system. At this date all the records of the draft have been de- livered to the Adjutant General of the Army in whose care they will remain. On December 5, in pursuance of the plan to turn over all draft records to the Adjutant General, the Selective Service agencies were directed to proceed with the pre- liminary arrangement of their records along lines which were outlined by the Provost Marshal General. The arrangement was necessary for an orderly closing up of the records of the Selective Service organization prior to their shipment to the Adjutant General. It will be remembered that December 10 had originally been designated as the date upon which all records were to be closed. But the task of assembling and adjust- ing the files and records of the boards in order that they might be received by the Adjutant General of the Army from the Selective Service agencies throughout the coun- try in a uniform way made it imperative to keep the records of the boards open until after December 10 to enable the Provost Marshal General's Office to provide a procedure for closing them that would insure their ad- vantageous reassembling in Washington where they were ultimately to be lodged. Thus far I have stated chronologically the several orders issued preliminary to the demobilization of the Selective Service system. But your attention ought to be called to the fact that while this task is simply stated it involved considerations of the greatest import. With- APPENDIX 355 in the records of the boards were contained the war histories of nearly twenty-four million Americans. Upon some of them was written a record of patriotism to which those registrants and their descendants would look with greatest pride; upon others was a record of ignominy and unpunished delinquency that the nation could not afford to let go undealt with. The pride, the sorrow, the sacrifice and the patriotism of the nation were contained within the records of the Local Boards. But it was more than a matter of sentiment that prompted a scrupulous preservation of those records. Never in the history of this or any other nation had a more valuable and comprehensive accumulation of data been assembled upon the physical, economic, industrial and racial condition of a people. It contained the first and only record of the man power of this nation. It would be of untold value to the physician, the economist, the sociologist and the historian for many decades. It was not only worthy of preservation, but this genera- tion owed it to posterity that it be preserved. You will see that it was a vitally important task properly to assemble these records. The task was no less important than it was tremendous. Scattered throughout the breadth of the land, lying in the offices of the 4,648 Local Boards, 158 District Boards, 1,319 Medical Advisory Boards and 52 State Headquarters were the records of nearl3' twenty-four million men. It was necessary, before assembling all these records, to bring about a uniform system of filing them in order to avert certain confusion when they were finally gathered en masse. When it is considered that these records, as assembled, made up a file of cases which, if placed end to end, would make a line fifty miles long, and contained a volum« of 400,000 cubic feet of paper, 356 APPENDIX requiring approximately ten acres of floor space for their accommodation, the magnitude of the task that con- fronted the Department when it began their assembling can well be envisioned. But it was not only an important task and a tre- mendous one, but it was approached under conditions that did not augur well for its success. For many months the members of the Selective Service organiza- tion had devoted themselves unsparingly to the execution of heart-breaking duties. That service had been unsel- fish, but it had been exerted under the stress and excite- ment of a call that would brook no delay. The stimulus of war had been there. But now those same men, weary from the strain of many months of service, suddenly re- lieved from the tension of the war, were called upon, in time of peace, to perform a task that was no less onerous than that which they had so patriotically assumed in the nation's hour of peril. It is but one further testi- monial of the unselfish loyalty of the members of the Selective Service organization that not one single obliga- tion laid upon them in these post-bellum days was shirked and that the work of the Selective Service organization after the signing of the armistice proceeded with the same dispatch and efficiency as had characterized its activities during the war. On December 23, 1918, after a series of conferences be- tween the officers of the Adjutant General's Office, the Provost Marshal General's Office and the Draft Execu- tives from practically all of the States, the regulations which were to govern the disposition of the records of all draft boards were promulgated. The regulations provided for a careful checking of every paper within the files of Local, District, and Medical Advisory Boards. Roughly outlined, the scheme for closing up the records APPENDIX 357 divided itself into two parts: first, the cheekiiig, clos- ing, packing and shipping of all records of the draft agencies, except those pertaining to delinquents and de- serters; and, secondly, the disposition of delinquency and desertion records. The reason for this division is quite apparent, ilany thousands of men, in the rush and hurry of war-time activities, had been reported by their local boards either as delinquents or deserters. It had always been well known that many of the men carried on the rolls of their local boards as delinquents or deserters were not, in fact, such. Many of them had enlisted voluntarily in our own Army and in the armies of our allies. Many had changed their place of residence and through mistake, ignorance, or mishap, had failed to receive the notices to which they would willingly have responded had they been received. The sense of fair play that had charac- terized the draft throughout its administration demanded that the stigma of delinquency be removed in every case in which a reasonable doubt existed as to the actual guilt of the registrant. To accomplish such a result it was necessary that a careful and discriminating survey be made of every case of desertion or delinquency. To this end Local Boards were required carefully to examine the cases of all regis- trants who were carried on their rolls as delinquents or deserters and to insert in the files of these registrants signed memoranda giving every detail in regard to the status of these men which was personally known to the Board or any member thereof, or which might be secured from the relatives or friends of the registrants. These delinquency and desertion records were then transmitted to State Headquarters where they were given a second examination by a corps of trained inspectors and clerks, 358 APPENDIX assisted by representatives of the Department of Jus- tice, and in the majority of cases, by the United States District Attorney of the particular judicial district. This second examination at State Headquarters resulted in the elimination there of many reported cases of de- sertion and delinquency where the facts demonstrated that registrants were not, in fact, in a status of deser- tion or delinquency. After this examination in State Headquarters, the de- sertion records were transmitted direct to the Provost Marshal General's OfiSce, where they were given a final, careful inspection with the view to purging the list of the names of all men whom the final examination dis- closed to have been erroneously reported as deserters. The records in delinquency cases were shipped direct to the Adjutant General of the Army, the representa- tives of the Department of Justice retaining for their future reference the necessary extracts from these records and forwarding their reports to the Bureau of Investi- gation of the Department of Justice for further action of the civil authorities. You will therefore perceive that the final shipment of records resulted in lodging at once the greatest portion of them in the custody of the Adjutant General of the Army, in the City of Washington, and in turning over to the Provost Marshal General for inspection the records of desertion in the several States. These desertion rec- ords, after examination in the Provost Marshal General 's Office, were turned over finally to the Adjutant General of the Army, together with a list of all registrants who were finally found to be in a status of desertion. Thus the Adjutant General of the Army became the final custodian of aU records of the Selective Service system. It is not improper at this point to digress long enough APPENDIX 359 to call your attention to the final results of the Selective draft in respect to deserters. No one feature in the ad- ministration of the draft can be the occasion of greater pride. In my second report to you, statistics concerning desertion were available as of September 11, 1918, only. The available data at that time disclosed 474,816 regis- trants reported as deserters. After accounting for all those included in this total who should not properly have been classified as such, there remained a net total of 363,022 cases of desertion. At the time of my second report 67,838 men had been apprehended and their cases disposed of. Final and complete statistics covering the entire opera- tion of the draft up to June 30, 1919, show the follow- ing results which are truly remarkable. Out of a registration of 23,988,576 men, there were reported 489,003 cases of desertion or a total of 2.04% of the total registration. Of this number, it appears that 151,354 cases were accounted for by enlistment in our own armies and those of our allies, and erroneous in- duction of aliens and other registrants, so that the net total of desertions was reduced to 337,649, or 1.41% of the total registration. Of this last number 163,738 men have been apprehended and their cases disposed of, leav- ing an actual balance of outstanding cases of desertion in which the offender has neither been accounted for nor punished 173,911 or .72 of one per cent, of the total registration. It therefore appears that out of a total registration of more than twenty-three million men but 1.41 '/f wrongfully sought to escape the military obli- gation imposed upon them by the Selective Service Law and that at the present time but .72 of one per cent, of the entire registration group have failed to respond to the duty imposed upon them and have not yet been 360 APPENDIX brought to justice. It also appears that between Sep- tember 11, 1918, and June 30, 1919, 95,900 deserters have been apprehended and delivered to the military authorities for disposition. It is thought that within the next twelve months the total of net outstanding de- sertions will be materially reduced so that the linal result wUl show a percentage very much less than the present low figures stated above. In the work of rounding up deserters after the arm- istice, the splendid results achieved by the Department of Justice and the police officials in the various States ought not to be overlooked. It is to their vigilance and untiring effort that the substantial reduction of the outstanding cases within the past nine months has been due. Immediately after the promulgation of the regula- tions governing the disposition of records, the various draft agencies began the final work of closing out their records. Supein^ised by the Provost Marshal General's OfBce, upon which the most urgent demands had been made that the work of demobilization be completed at the earliest possible date, the draft boards began the execution, in January, 1919, of a task that might well have occupied them for many months. During the early part of March, after a careful sur- vey of the country, it was determined that the work of all draft boards in the United States, by calling upon the draft agencies to exert a special effort to do so, could be completed by March 31, 1919. Accordingly, on March 8, the Secretary of War directed that the work of closing up Local, District, and Medical Advisory Boards be completed not later than March 31. It was but another test of the efficiency of the system. Under ordinary circumstances the work that remained APPENDIX 361 to be pfrfonned in early March would easily have con- sumed several months, but upon the urgent request made upon them, Local Boards bent themselves to the labor of closing out their offices with such zeal that on ]\Iarch 31, every draft board within the United States, with the exception of three, had filed, packed, sealed, and shipped its records. It is only fair to say that, as to the three boards that did not slip their records on March 31, everything had been done by them preliminary to their shipment but that, by reason of their inaccessibility to transportation, final consignment was delayed for several days after March 31. Thus it was that the final act of the Selective Service system evidenced the same devotion to the performance of duty and the same untiring efficiency that marked the execution of every demand that was made upon it from the very first days of the war. After March 31, the several State Headquarters con- tinued in operation for a little over a month for the pur- pose of winding up general matters of the administration in their respective States. Between May 6 and Jlay 21, all State Headquarters completed their work and on the last named date the last of the State Headquarters was demobilized. Thus, before the first of June, noth- ing remained of the Selective Service organization within the States. The Provost Marshal General's Office alone remained in existence for the purpose of winding up the national administration of the draft. By July 15, the final steps had been taken in the Provost Marshal General 's Office and on that day I was formally relieved from duty as Provost Marshal General, the last act of the Selective Service system had been performed and the organization terminated as of that day. It has already been mentioned in this report that cer- 362 APPENDIX tain of the statistical tables embodied in the second re- port of the Provost Marshal Greneral were based upon incomplete statistical data from the several States. The information upon which the tables of the second report were based was collected during the month of Septem- ber, 1918, at a time before the classification of the regis- trants enrolled on September 12, 1918, had just begun and when the excitement of mobilizing men rendered it practically impossible to secure full and complete returns upon all phases of administration. However, after the signing of the armistice and before the Local Boards closed their records, they were again called upon to submit complete returns covering their work from the time of their organization until December 30, 1918. The data thus collected are of prime importance because they represent the final and most accurate statement of the operations of the draft upon questions of classifica- tion, mobilization, desertion, delinquency, and fiscal ar- rangements. It should be noted in this connection that some dis- crepancies exist between the tables published in this re- port and those which appeared in my second report to you. The reasons for the discrepancies are those stated above. I submit the tables which appear in the appen- dix herein as the most accurate and complete figures per- taining to the operation of the Selective Draft. There are several matters in connection with these tables to which your particular attention ought to be directed. For the first time the nation has available a complete survey of its industrial and military man- power. Out of a total registration of 23,908,576 men, the draft organization classified all with the exception of 6,319,728 men, 5,519,722 of whom were registrants within the age group of 37 to 45 years, the classification APPENDIX 363 of which group was discontinued by your order on No- vember 11, 1918. The figures secured through this classi- fication, therefore, represent a very comprehensive basis upon which the man power of this Country may be computed in the event of future necessity. On November 11, 1918, the date upon which the armistice was signed there were in the military and naval sorvice of the United States about three and one- half million men. Of this number 2,758,542 had been furnished by the Selective Service organization. The re- mainder had entered the fighting forces of the United States through the processes of voluntary enlistment. On November 11, there had been finally classified, physically examined and found qualified for general military service but not yet inducted 1,426,446 men. On the same date, there had been classified in Class I but not yet physically examined 1,216,017 men, while 6,319,- 728 men had not yet been classified. Upon the basis of previous experience in the operation of Selective Serv- ice, these totals would eventually have produced 3,630,106 men in Class I, qualified for general military service. It will be remembered that the Selective Serv- ice organization, up to the signning of the armistice, had inducted 2,758,542 men. When there is added to this number the number which would eventually have become available as general fighting men (3,630,106), it appears that the total fighting forces comprised of general service men which Selective Service would have been able to furnish for the Army, Navy, and JIarine Corps, had the exigencies of the emergenc}' made it necessary to exhaust the total fighting forces of the nation, would have been 6,388,648 general service men. When there is added to this number, which the Selec- tive Service organization might have produced, the total 36i APPENDIX of voluntary enlistments in the Army, Navy and Ma- rine Corps, it results that the United States could have put into the field 7,856,524 men qualified for general military service without invading any of the deferred classes, constituted under the Selective Service law and regulations. But these figures do not take into consideration the men classified in Class I but not available for general militaiy service by reason of minor physical defects, either remediable or not. The total of uninducted remediables and limited service men in Class I was 899,040. When this number is added to the total of gen- eral service Class I men inducted into the service and who have eventually become available for general mili- tary duty, it results that the total fighting forces which America could have placed upon the field, without in- vading any of the deferred classes, was 8,755,564 men. Not the least interesting information that the final compilation of statistics concerning the operation of the draft discloses is the cost. The total amount appropri- ated by the Congress for the expenses of the Selective Service System was $54,896,905. Of this amount $30,- 847,914.24 was expended and the balance either returned to the Treasury of the United States or transferred to the Director of Finance. Upon the basis of these ex- penditures it appears that the per capita cost per regis- trant was $1.26; per registrant classified $1.74; per man inducted $10..38 and per man accepted at camp $11.34. When the coit per accepted man ($11.34) is compared with the cost per man secured by voluntary enlistment in the Army (.$28.95) and in the Navy ($30.22) it is ap- parent that from a standpoint of national economy noth- ing was lost by recruitment of our fighting forces through selective processes. Comparing the cost per accepted APPENDIX 365 man under the Selective Service Law with the corre- sponding cost per man under the Civil War Enrollment Act one finds that the cost under the latter legislation was, per capita, $217.87 for bounty and $9.84 for oper- ating expenses, a total of $227.71 against a per capita cost of $11.34 under the Selective Service Law. In my second report, at page 210 thereof, under the title "North Carolina" there was contained a statement relative to delinquents and deserters in that State which was not accurate in all its details. The errors in that portion of the text of my second report were discovered after its publication and immediate steps were taken at that time to correct them. I feel, however, that in jus- tice to the State of North Carolina, and pursuant to my promise to the authorities of that State, made after the discovery of the error in my second report, a corrected statement of the incident referred to ought to be repub- lished in this final report to you. The statement as cor- rected is therefore appended to this report, appearing as Appendix C hereof. In my second report to you I stated in a footnote on page 95 that the case of John Napore versus James H. Rowe and others was pending on appeal in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. It will be recalled that the District Court, on its hear- ing on a writ of habeas corpus, held that the rules and regulations promulgated by the President under the au- thoritj- vested in him by virtue of the provisions of Selective Service Law were null and void in so far as they related to non-declarant aliens, and further held that it was necessary, in order to establish the induction of any registrant, to show afBrmatively that his local board had performed everj' step in the process of induction pre- scribed by the regulations, upon the ground that local 366 APPENDIX boards were inferior tribunals as to which no presump- tion in favor of their performance of official duties could be indulged. The United States Circuit Court of Appeals, in re- versing the District Court, overruled the decision of the lower court upon every point, and not only sustained the validity of the rules and regulations governing the Se- lective Service system, but based its decision upon the implied premise that local boards were executive tribu- nals of a high order and that the legal presumption that such high tribunals performed every duty imposed by law was applicable to them. This decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals is the last word that has been said by the courts upon questions growing out of the operation of the Selective draft. The legal status of draft boards has thus been happily stated, for the court has declared that they, in law, oc- cupy a position which, in fact, is theirs beyond all doubt. The boards were, indeed, tribunals of a high order, and it is no bare legal theory to say that they performed every obligation that was by law imposed upon them. In my prior reports to you I have repeatedly called your attention to the splendid and devoted efforts of the members of these boards and of the State ofilcials, from Governor down, who were connected with the adminis- tration of the draft. In concluding this, my final report to you, I cannot forbear to say again that whatever suc- cess was achieved in the administration of Selective Serv- ice was due to the unselfish and devoted efforts of these men. Never in the history of the nation had there been a more urgent call for the unselfish exercise of patriotism and never has there been a more universal and whole- souled response than was found in the administration of the Selective draft. APPENDIX 367 There are now pending in Congress two Joint Resolu- tions and two bills, the purpose of each of which is to rec- ognize the service rendered by the civilian members of the Selective Service organization during the war and to ex- tend the thanks of Congress to them for the tasks which they so splendidly performed. It is true that other civil- ian organizations, during the emergency, performed great and unselfish labors. But the relation of the personnel of the Selective Service system to the prosecution of the war was peculiar. Linking itself directly with the Mili- tary Establishment, it contributed in the most vital way to the recruitment of our armies and to the successful conclusion of hostilities. I know that the rush and press of other urgent business before the present Congress has been the cause of its failure yet to adopt any of the measures to which I have just referred. But in conclud- ing this, my final report to you, I feel that, in justice to those men who contributed so much and so unselfishly to the great labor of the past two and one-half years I must urge you that you use the weight of your influence in securing a prompt recognition on the part of Congress of those services. Until that shall have been done, I shall feel that my work as Provost Marshal General is in some measure incomplete and that there has been a failure to recognize, as it should be recognized, a most potent factor in America's achievement. THE END