Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 185, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1917 — Universal Military Training Produces Efficiency and Respect for Law [ARTICLE]

Universal Military Training Produces Efficiency and Respect for Law

By R. A. White

I believe in universal military training and service because it is a good thing for our young men: (1) It is good physical training; it takes the kinks out of the stoop-shouldered and puts red blood into the anemic. (2) It teaches young men to obey. We are suffering from lack of discipline. Young men do not know how to obey because they have not been made to obey. The schools are without effective discipline and the average home has little or none. A large percentage of our lawbreakers are young men from fifteen to twenty-one or twenty-two. Better for our yoking men to know how to carry a rifle than a cigarette; to send a lead ball to the center of the bull’s eye than to puSh ivory balls into the pockets of a billiard table; to love the red-blooded service of the camp rather than the anemic entertainment of cabarets. (3) Physical training and discipline breed efficiency for business. The time a young nian may lose from his early business life will be more than compensated by his increased ability to do things. That these are not theoretical assumptions Germany proves conclusively. When I first began going to Germany thirty years ago I decried German military methods. For the last ten years I have felt otherwise. In Germany a law is made to be obeyed, not broken. “Das ist verboten” is no idle sign. Military discipline is largely responsible for this respect for law. Germany estimates that her industrial and commercial efficiency has been increased per cent through the military training of her young men. ' I believe in universal military training and service and a sane preparedness because it is the only way to avoid war. Only mighty provocation leads a nation to attack another if that other is as strong or stronger than itself. Had England, France and Russia been as well prepared as Germany there woiild have been no European war.