Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 227, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1916 — Conscription a Noble Word if It Can Be Made Synonymous With Citizenship [ARTICLE]

Conscription a Noble Word if It Can Be Made Synonymous With Citizenship

By DR. JOHN H. FINLEY

Commissioner of Education, State of New York

I am wishing that everybody might be conscripted to give soiSb service to the state, under a plan of national constructive preparedness; that every selfish luxury and waste and indulgence be commandeered, every useful skill and science and art and industry be called to the colors, periodically, and ja general, mobilization for the common defense of ouri ideals be ’compelled by our vision of an America that has a mission beyond commercialized supremacy. I would make “conscript”, a noble word by making it synonymouswith “citizen” in a republic with a mission and «n ideal worth fighting for. Till that time comes, may every American man do what every Cambridge student has done, conscript himself, and each one offer to hia country the best that he has to give. And may American institution® do wh’at Cambridge has done, not await government mobilization but mobilize themselves. • .