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Show Abolish The Draft Let's Try Something Net) j I ; " ? 'v.- v: V:- " . ... . v , . . ... . : $ the draft does provide the necessary neces-sary number of young men. But the "success" of the system must be measured against its costs and inefficiencies. For more than 25 years we have accepted the draft as-an immutable fact of life. Our keen sense of the value of liberty has been dulled by habit. Simply stated, conscription conscrip-tion is involuntary servitude. It is complete usurpation by the Government Govern-ment of an individual's freedom of choice. As Daniel Webster put it in speaking against a draft proposal pro-posal in 1814 "The question is nothing less than whether the most essential rights of personal liberty shall be surrendered and despotism embraced in its worst form." To my way of thinking, there should be one and only one circumstance cir-cumstance when a free nation should condone the draft and then reluctantly. That is when preserving pre-serving the liberties of us all requires re-quires the sacrifice of liberty by some; when it is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that military manpower man-power needs are so great that only coercion can produce the necessary numbers of men. For personal liberty is not a privilege. It is not a concession granted by Government that must be paid for by military service. It is the guaranteed right of democracy. democra-cy. It must not be compromised. The deprivation of individual liberty lib-erty is not the only danger of conscription. con-scription. There is also the danger that the Government may be unable to resist the temptation to indoctrinate indoc-trinate hundreds of thousands of young men with ideas inimical to the workings of a free society. This attitude has been demonstrated by no less an authority than Lt. Gen. Lewis Hershey, director of the Selective Service System. Testifying Testify-ing before a House committee in June, 1966, he made this remarkable remarka-ble statement in defending the draft and opposing a volunteer army: ar-my: "I do not want to go along on a volunteer basis. I think a fellow should be compelled to become better bet-ter and not let him use his discretion discre-tion whether he wants to get smarter, smart-er, more healthy or more honest ..." Now who's going to decide what is "better" for each recruit? The Federal Government? That is not the American way. That sounds like Russia. For the past three years, the Johnson Administration has conducted con-ducted a seemingly endless series of studies on the draft. Last March the President sent his recommendations recommenda-tions to Congress. Under the President's Presi-dent's plan, deferments for all graduate students (except those preparing to be doctors, dentists and ministers) would be abolished. The age priorities for induction would be reversed; 19-year-olds would be drafted before 26-year-olds. The manpower requirements of the services would be met through a lottery. A lottery! The Administration calls this scheme FAIR (for Fair and Impartial Random) selection. A colleague of mine points out that FAIR is really an acronym for Futile and Irresponsible Roulette. Rou-lette. The lottery approach does not remedy the basic inequity of the draft the injustice of forcing one man to serve while allowing another an-other man his liberty. As Bruce Chapman asks in his book, "Wrong Man in Uniform": Is injustice handed hand-ed out by a machine any more tolerable than injustice handed out by other men? Nor does the lottery lot-tery method reduce the inefficiency inefficien-cy of the draft, increase the quality of military personnel, or alter the fact that forcing young men into uniform contradicts our belief in the right of the individual to freedom free-dom from governmental interference. interfer-ence. The lottery just makes the denial of personal liberty a little more arbitrary. Obviously, the U.S. requires a sizable military force. The question is which system of manpower recruitment re-cruitment best meets our needs. The ideal system should provide the maximum amount of individual liberty; it should be fair; it should supply the services with the necessary neces-sary quantity and quality of men as economically as possible. In my opinion, an all-volunteer military would satisfy these requirements re-quirements far better than the draft. Many argue that a voluntary system sys-tem could not provide enough men at reasonable cost. The evidence is to the contrary. Despite the war in Vietnam, the Marines needed few draftees in 1966, and the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard none at all. The only service dependent upon conscription is the Army. And of its 1.45 million men, about 60 percent per-cent are volunteers. Critics of a volunteer military like to cite a Pentagon study which shows that 38 percent of all volunteers volun-teers entered service only because they felt the draft was breathing down their necks. Even if this is true, the fact remains that we still have more men in our manpower pool than the military can possibly handle. Each year more than 1.9 million men reach draft age. Of these, even under war conditions, only about 300,000 must be drafted. Another step that might be ' taken to insure the success of a voluntary volun-tary system would be to accept many men who now try to volunteer volun-teer but who are rejevted because of "deficiencies." As General Hershey Her-shey has stated, "the volume of re- A Navy Officer in the Pacific during World War II, the author was Republican governor of Oregon Ore-gon for eight years before election elec-tion to the U.S. Senate in 1966. By SEN. 3IARK O. IIATFIELD For many years the merits and deficiencies of the draft have been debated by both the public and by Congress. On June 30 the law expires. ex-pires. It now seems certain that we will extend it with 'some modifications for another four years. In doing so, we are consenting to a system that is inherently unfair, monstrously inefficient, and pernicious per-nicious in its invasion of the individual in-dividual liberty that eight generations gener-ations of Americans have fought to preserve. I believe the draft is basically wrong; we should get rid of it. With our nation at war in Vietnam, Viet-nam, many will be horrified by this suggestion. But the facts are that, even with 3.4 million men under arms today, we do not need a draft; we can afford not to have a draft; we are long overdue in ending this invasion of the liberties of our young men. The nature of Selective Service itself has produced inequities. There are more than 4,000 local draft boards, each with wide latitude in interpreting and administering draft regulations. Indeed, there are no clear, uniform standards as to which boy is to be called up and which is to be left free. The draft has long been accepted on the theory that it is the only practical method of providing the military with the necessary quantity quan-tity of men. This justification has served for too long to excuse national na-tional complacency. To be sure, quests ... indicates to me (l significant numbers of yoilD not qualified for military "i? really want to serve." It also seems to me tl number of volunteers actual, quired by the military could x duced by substituting civi!! ' servicemen in many jobs. Finally, under a voluntas, tern, the services would recruit fewer men simply the turnover rate (which ran- tween 92 and 95 percent ami" draftees) would be drastically ? duced. Using Defense Deparb' i figures, Prof. Walter Oi of the versity of Washington has puted that if all recruits ,(" "true" volunteers, the tu rate would plummet to 16.9 perct'l An all-volunteer force would er I increased status, and this encourage many to enlist wit!,! further inducements. Critics have also claimed . under a voluntary system, we mi find ourselves with an al-re J military. That argument his ract overtones. It implies thai' have different goals from It denies all the progress that t"1 been made in recent years tor;? the standards of the Negro. (jJ also say that a voluntary spl would lead to the develop a military elite and would fe-. a threat to civilian control -danger of military elitism-primarily elitism-primarily from senior office are and always have been p; sionals. At the top we fevea will continue to have tiWuuae, trol. --"- The question is no longer 1 er a voluntary military f or desirable, but rather aether w can afford it. The togou catm: say: Its cost estimate range iron $4 billion to $17.5 rffion. Dr. 0. has estimated that we would to-to to-to allocate roughly $8 billion fe the salary increases to attract sue a force. This sum must be m ured against the economies tla would inevitably result from a k duction in the turnover rate. Th savings in training costs, maten. and maintenance, would be sign: cant perhaps billions of dollar It seems to me that the economi-of economi-of ending conscription may not as terrible an obstacle as U draft's defenders insist. We must have the foresig; accept logic over habit, rea. over the retarding security off-dition. off-dition. We must dispel the n,;-that n,;-that the draft, besides being sirable, is also inevitable. Ar and again Congress will be & to extend the draft. Our co; tees will provide one "study another. But the time for ; is ovff. In my opinion, shoulE) enact legislation ajj ately to provide for an orders J( sition to a volunteer mJW . is never too late to start .m. away from the draft - " the restoration of wW'. and military efficiency that volunteer military would bra Keprinted by "JCof the Saturday Evening ro- pii 1967 by The Curtis PubluHW |