OCR Text |
Show addition to a million men in the second sec-ond line reserve. These men have all been conscripted, and their training is not of the incidental sort given in our National guard or in our colleges and secondary schools. They are fully ful-ly equipped to be called into quick action. France ha3 as many trained army officers as we have men in our regular army a total of 106,000. Little Czecho-Slovakia has been' calling up approximately a hundred thousand men a year for real military training, and has a million men in her reserves. Poland has conscripted from 150,-000 150,-000 to 190,000 'men a year since the , World War, and now has a reserve; force of 1,700,000 trained soldiers, j Italy has conscripted each year between be-tween 224,000 and 250,000 men, and has a reserve force of some 2,500,000 trained men. All of the Allies and the new nations formed as the result of the war, excepting England, maintain main-tain this system of conscription and the building up of immense armed forces. Soviet Russia has a larger army of conscripts, active and reserve, than any other European power, besides be-sides several million more who have received partial training. We have in the United States a little lit-tle more than 100,000 men actively receiving such training. About 50,000 of them are available for mobilization in continental United States. We have more than twice the population of any of the nations mentioned other than Soviet Russia, and greater national na-tional wealth than all of them combined. com-bined. Yet we hear this constant caterwauling cater-wauling against our comparatively insignificant military forces, not adequate ade-quate to quell an insurrection of any size, not to mention national defense proportionate to what we have to guard in case of involvement in war. And while we do not expect war, neither nei-ther do we expect cyclones, and yet occasionally they come regardless of whether they are invited, or wanted, or not. We do not wish or intend to maintain main-tain in this country such armies as are kept up in Europe. But in view of the disparity between our military strength and that of these other pow-?rs, pow-?rs, why is it that this is the only country in the world, other than England, Eng-land, in which there is a formidable novement to get rid of what military defense we have? This thought, too, occurs to many Americans. If these nations can afford af-ford to withdraw from productive occupations so many millions of men at great expense, why so much talk about Europe being too poor to pay the debts they owe this country ? The man who rides around in an expensive automobile and then declares that he can't pay his grocery bill would hardly -xpect to get a respectful hearing from his creditors. Now everybody knows that France, Italy, Poland, Soviet Russia, and the smaller nations of Europe have no more intention of disarming than they have of taking wings like a dove and fly to the South Pole. Only those who 'pek in comprehension of realities in Europe believe that these nations either ei-ther want to or intend to disarm. Asking them to disarm is like urging a wildcat to file his nails. WHY NOT STOP KIDDING OURSELVES? Many of our pacifists profess to believe be-lieve that America is the world's great obstacle to peace. The impression impres-sion they seek to create is that only the bloodthirsty militarism of the United States prevents the world from disarming. They oppose appropriations approp-riations for the maintenance of our regular army, and Jane Addams even insists on the dissolution of our National Na-tional guard. They raise loud outcry against the slight military training given to youth in some of our colleges col-leges and high schools. They insist that if the rest of the world doesn't beat its cannons into plowshares Uncle Un-cle Sam is all to blame because he doesn't use his moral guidance. A recently published report of the Foreign Policy association shows just how preposterous this pretense of American militarism is. France has given a year or more of intensive military training since the World War to 3,000,000 men now in the first line reserve. This is in |