Scarecrow Massacre

Amongst the reams of paper shoved at the undergraduate yesterday as he traversed the west end of Memorial Hall was a two-page mimeographed questionnaire. Under the heading, "Please check the two arguments against Universal Military Service that you consider most telling," it listed nine arguments thought up by the "National Council Against Conscription." For a lesson in applying the twin arts of irrelevant argument and scarecrow massacre, no one need look further.

The first argument states that "Universal Military Service is not a temporary war emergency measure as is Selective Service ..." The questionnaire, however, conveniently left out the one point that would make this argument relevant: the current emergency is neither as acute or as temporary as full scale war. During World War II Selective Service was adequate only because it could call into service everyone but the blind and the lame; at present it can only fluctuate with the twists and turns of the Cold War, always one step behind events. For a prolonged period of semi-emergency, such short-range measures are inadequate, and the fact that UMS is not temporary is a strong argument in its favor.

Arguments two, three, seven, and eight all deal with the means of peacefully neutralizing Russia. The first three claim that UMS will neither bring peace to the world nor trouble to Russia; the fourth points out the anti-conscription Council's way to eventual success. UMS could not possibly match Soviet manpower, the argument runs, but it could arouse deep suspicions in the Communist world, thereby increasing the danger of war.

The idea of UMS as an attempt to match Russia, soldier for solider, is no more than a clumsily constructed straw-man. The aim of universal service is to create an army large enough both to make Soviet aggression costly and to assure Western Europe of United States protection in case of war. It does not require an army numbering in the hundreds of millions to accomplish this, but it takes more than a supply of airplanes, bombs, and battleships--a supply which, despite the questionnaire's claims, is no greater than Russia's.

"Instead of putting our boys and our wealth into an armament program to defend the status quo," argument eight says, "why should we not oppose Communism in the only effective way--by adopting policies that will win the masses away from Communism?" This is a tidy solution as far as it goes; economic aid, food baskets, and an anti-colonial stand can counteract Communism's social doctrine, but not its tanks and rifles.

Arguments four and nine both claim that UMS would befoul the morals of America's boyhood, first by subjecting youth to the "hazards of armies of occupation," and second by destroying the "democratic ideal" of "the self-reliant man, capable of making his own decisions and standing by them, alone if necessary."

UMS supporters claim that universal service is more democratic than the present system which discriminates against those without enough money to attend colleges or graduate school. To oppose this, the anti-conscription Council raises its theory of the "democratic ideal."

This cave-man approach to democracy, a view which leaves no room for authority of any sort, looks rather silly in the light of modern life.

As for the hazards of armies of occupation--whatever they are--they have yet to manifest their diabolical influence on World War II veterans, and they probably never will.

There are two more points, one concerning the Army's mental and physical standards, and the other, the problem of UMS and lower casualties. The former contradicts itself and the second flails away at a defense of UMS few people, if any, have used.

The National Council Against Conscription has thoughtfully provided a question at the end asking, "Do these arguments effectively state the case against Universal Military Service?" It is there we can put our pencil to use and make our mark.