ARMY & NAVY: Wasteful & Obsolete

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The report of the President's Advisory Commission on Universal Training (TIME, June 9) seemed to have popular approval. Editorial writers largely cheered it, and the latest Gallup poll showed 74% of U.S. citizens in favor of enforced military training for U.S. youths. Bernard Baruch put U.M.T. high on his 16-point preparedness program. Last week, speaking as chairman of the newly formed, 120-member Citizens Emergency Committee for Universal Military Training,* Owen J. Roberts, former Supreme Court justice, added his voice. World affairs are approaching a crisis, he told the House Armed Services Committee. U.S. military weakness is accelerating its approach. Said Roberts: "Every month's delay is a terribly dangerous thing."

But the opponents of U.M.T. had a potent spokesman, too. With typical disregard of what appeared to be popular approval, Ohio's Senator Bob Taft last week declared he would fight "conscription . . . to the bitter end." U.M.T., said Taft, was wasteful and obsolete. "Conscription was no insurance of victory in France, Italy, or Germany." It would improve neither the morals, discipline, nor health of U.S. youth. "The Army wants boys for twelve months consecutively because it wants to change their habits of thought, to make them soldiers, if you please, for the rest of their lives." It was unAmerican. "Militarism has always led to war, not to peace. . . . We are indeed bankrupt of ideas if we cannot provide a method by which necessary military forces and reserves are provided by an American voluntary system." He suggested a summer training program for 200,000 volunteers.

As chairman of the Senate majority policy committee, Taft chiefly determines what bills will reach the Senate floor. For this session, at least, U.M.T. was dead.