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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. IV No. 34, 24 August 1940, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghanfor ETOL.
If there is one proposition that is utterly fantastic and completely false, it is the one propounded by some of the opponents of the Burke-Wadsworth conscription bill to the effect that the United States should continue to rely on the volunteer system for getting soldiers because that system is a democratic one.
We are not, of course, primarily interested in showing the weaknesses of the arguments of the opponents of the Burke-Wadsworth bill. We also oppose that bill, for totally different reasons than those advanced by most of the other opponents, and our shafts are levelled primarily at those who favor the bill.
Nevertheless, when those who oppose the conscription bill advance the idea that the government should continue the policy of voluntary enlistment because it is democratic we are compelled to state very clearly and very definitely that they are either fakers or fools.
John L, Lewis is one of those loud mouths who makes the following propositions: 1. that we should oppose the Burke-Wadsworth bill and 2. that we should first try the policy of voluntary enlistment and if that policy doesn’t furnish the army with the necessary number of men then conscription should be resorted to.
The second proposition in reality shows that Lewis and others like, him, who have come out for the Maloney amendment providing that voluntary enlistment be tried first, are not interested, in democracy, as they claim to be.
For if conscription is undemocratic before voluntary enlistment proves inadequate, it remains undemocratic after that policy has been tried out and found wanting. The real “democrats”, if consistent, should oppose the conscription bill regardless of the fact that a sufficient number of people failed to volunteer.
But is voluntary enlistment democratic? There is a certain plausibility to the contention that it is and in all probability many workers will yield to that argument.
Who, however, volunteers to join the army or navy ? Exact figures are not at my disposal as to the social composition of the volunteers, but if anything is certain it is that the vast majority of those who volunteer to serve in the armed forces are of working-class origin. The volunteers come from the poorer classes. They are mainly youth who have no jobs, who become terribly disgusted and downhearted when they tramp the streets for days looking for a job and finding none. Their family surroundings are probably not of the best, because poverty and joblessness are not conducive for a healthy family life.
In desperation the jobless youth joins the armed forces. One of his reasons might be that he hopes to learn some trade which will more likely give him a job after his enlistment period expires. Nine times out of ten he either does not learn a trade or if he does he can’t get a job anyway after he gets out of the army.
If there is a son of the more well-to-do who wants to join the armed forces, he does not volunteer. He obtains an appointment to West Point or Annapolis and comes out from these institutions as an officer ready to lord it over every private.
What democracy is there in a system where joblessness, hunger and despair are the real recruiting sergeants?
Voluntary enlistment is democratic only on the surface; when placed under a Marxist examination it is found to have merely the veneer of democracy. In this respect it is similar to a great many of the so-called democratic institutions functioning under the capitalist system.
How often does one hear the enraptured 4th of July orator proclaim the great principle of equality before the law which is supposed to represent the very basis of our democratic institutions.
Let us assume even that His Honor on the bench is an individual of the greatest integrity who will give justice to the poor and rich alike without fear or favor. That is of course a very violent assumption when one thinks of the Tammany judges and other judges dominated by the corrupt political machines. But even assuming that justice will be meted out though the heavens fall, what follows?
Imagine two individuals arrested for a minor, offense and fined a hundred dollars a piece. One is a worker making twenty-five dollars a week and the other an executive of some kind making fifteen thousand dollars a year. The latter simply writes a check for the hundred and is out; but how about the worker? He must either stay in jail or else depend on his friends or on the loan shark to raise the fine.
There is formal equality before the law. Both rich and poor were fined an equal amount, but the real inequality is tremendous.
The Negro in the South has the formal right to vote but how about his actual right? He simply has no vote.
The capitalist system is shot full of these formal democratic rights which cannot be enjoyed by the worker because of the real inequalities existing under that system.
It is true that no one compels any individual to enlist in the armed forces of the United States, but in actuality that right not to enlist becomes meaningless to a youth who beholds the alternative of joblessness and hunger.
To insist upon voluntary enlistment as an alternative to the Burke-Wadsworth conscription bill, without at the same time insisting that every youth volunteering should be offered as an alternative a decent job with a decent wage attached to the job, is to be expected from demagogues like Wheeler and Vandenberg; but no one interested in the labor movement should give the least support to such a proposal.
If there is a worker who is class-conscious enough to see the necessity of getting military training he should not volunteer for that purpose. He should demand that he be given military training by his union.
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