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oo obey the orders of the President, the Governor, and the offi- cers appointed over them “according to law and the rules of Articles of War.” This places them subject to martial law. They can be called out at any time by the President to quell internal disturbances such as industrial strikes. When Congress shall have author- ized the use of land forces in excess of the Regular Army the President may draft them into the Federal! military service for the period of the war or the emergency. Paid Volunteer Service There are strong evidences that we are still an anti-militar- istic Nation when love of fighting does not lead us into vol- unteer military organization without compensation. The 1920 law offers as an inducement to both officers and enlisted men in the Reserve Units pay proportionate to a correspond- ing grade in the Regular Army: provided that not less than 50 per cent of the officer s and 60 per cent of the enlisted men attend a minimum of drills and drill for at jeast an hour and a half each time. The in colleges where three College Bait hours military training a week is optional for two years a boy may secure his tuition and maintenance to complete his four-year course by agreeing in writing to take five hours a week in military courses. It is a bid for the boy of slender means with ambition to acquire a college degree. _ ey. Military Advertising 4 The popular demand for preparedness is slight when the Chief of Staff must plead by radio broadcasting for mothers to send their sons to military camps for “physical training.” Posters urging men to enlist are like a flier for a summer tour with no indication of the Navy, and popular magaz war-time duties of the Army and ° ines must continue their war-time methods of militaristic propaganda, filled with sophistry, playing upon the pride and fear of the reading public. General Pershing writes in one of these, March 10, 1923, of “an Army springing from the people, retaining their high ideals and obedient to their will.” Js an army obedient to obedient to the will of the the will of a people or is a people Army? It depends on the variety of the propaganda, which is spread through popular n ewspapers, magazines, radios, and motion pictures, all of which were used during the last war to stuff the people full of falsehoods. No better illustration of Military propaganda could be given than this last public statement of General Pershing in the Saturday Evening Post. One has only to look back to the Washington Army Conference to find the same man equally plausible on the other side. What Is the Enlisted Force? Secretary Weeks (Report 1923) laments the fact that lack- ing a crisis the average cit izen is not keenly interested in the . National welfare, and there are signs of an “unhealthy con- dition in our citizenship.” There are eleven million male workers in manufacturing industries and transportation and eleven million more in agriculture, the two major activities involved in the produc- tion of wealth. (General Lassiter, 1923 Report, p. 12.) These sre the men who will form more than half of the Army in times of war, and whom General Pershing wishes to train in military obedience in the Organized Reserve. They are the same people to whose will the Army would supposedly_bow. And these are the same people against whom tke War Department can call out the National Guard Reserves to help the Regular Army if and when they manifest their will through strikes, or organize for political ideas which to the War Department appear “absurd.” Questions There are questions that must be answered before the American people should accept this radical and revolutionary program of the Army Department. What effect will this system have upon the people of each State? What is it costin they get? How will it the people and what return do ect us politically? - Tasker H. Bliss, former Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army - (Foreign Affairs, Dec. 1922), speaks of the “Military prin- ciple that war is but a continuation of political policy in a new form.” Bearing in mind that the Officers’ Reserve Corps are to be organized in every State, and that reserve officers must be citizens (in other words, voters) between 21 and 60 years of age, there is a new political significance in the Na- tional Defense Act which gives absolute authority to the President to prescribe the grades of officers and the number in each section; to appoint and commission all Reserve Off- cers (except general officers) for a period of 5 years, which is one year longer than the President serves before chance of re-election; to discharge a Reserve Officer at his discre- tion; to order Reserve Officers to active duty at any time and for any period. . If war is declared during the appointment of a Reserve Officer he becomes automatically a part of the Regular Army, is bound until six months after the termination—"“the grades of enlisted men shall be such as the President may from time to time direct. The pay of enlisted men is determined by their grade.” A big stick in a political issue is a most effective way of mobilizing the “free will” of a people. The law reads “No Reserve Officer can be employed on active duty for more than 15 days in any calendar year without his own consent.” That does not prevent his serving 365 days with his consent and when on active service he re- ceives the same pay and allowances as an officer in the Regu- lar Army of the same grade and Jength of active service. It is a simple method of recruiting a_skeleton army anda. - a flesh and blood politica’ machine at one and the same time. The Federal subsidizing of colleges and public and private schools for military training also has its political significance. Economic Effect Economically it diverts our industries from the manufac- ture of the necessities of daily life, raises prices through competition of the necessities with the manufacture of war equipment, and diverts enormous sums for the development and maintenance of this gigantic organization machine which must be placed upon the already tax-burdened back of the people as an insurance against attack by a suppositious foe. Social Effect Socially it threatens to build up a military hierarchy, domi- nated by an artificially stimulated fear of our great bulk of loyal citizens who are producing our wealth for us in the mines and the factories of the country. Such a military system developed to its full strength, inter- locked with directorates of big industries, colleges, the press, and our present banking system would, in my belief, be the match to start an industrial conflagration in this country which would be comparable with the revolutions of France and Russia. Psychological Effect We are having superimposed upon the coming generation the belief that war is necessary, is heroic, is patriotic. So that the minds of the young people not only of the United States but of the world will be befogged into believing that it is their responsibility to take on the debts of the last war and prepare for the next, in order that the old system of the economic exploitation of the world may maintain. If the United States can be led into the system of a “Nation in Arms” the great interests that juggle the world need not fear that the other nations will disarm and rob them of their chance for plunder. It is only the Army that is covered by the National De- fense Act. But the Navy Department too has its plans for militarizing the country. In the Report of the Secretary of the Navy, 1922, our Naval policy was given as “Second to none,” “Guard our overseas possessions,” “Every effort, ashore and afloat, at home and abroad, to assist the develop- ment of our American interests.” ; The Navy Department advocates that a bill be submitted to Congress for the reorganization of the U. S. Naval Reserve forces, and the Secretary recommends that “as conditions warrant Congress be asked for such increase as will tend to balance our fleet and make and keep it the equal of any in the world.”