Some War-time Lessons The Soldier's Standards of Conduct; The War As a Practical Test of American Scholarship; What Have We Learned?

Excerpt

Perhaps the greatest laboratory experiment in human conduct in the history of the world has been the development of our Army during the past two years. Under the provisions of the Selective Service Law, this Army has represented a cross section of American male humanity—even more representative indeed than was intended; for in the efforts of the Local Boards to send men who could best be spared, many found their way into the ranks who were handicapped from the start by low mentality or disease. What were the guiding forces which operated upon this body of nearly four million men?

In the first place, our country entered the war with a great moral purpose, untinged by any trace of national or individual selfishness. We really have to go back to the Crusades to find the like. And, as then, each man supplemented this great basal impulse with whatever was to him the strongest incentive—religion, patriotism, pride of family or state or regiment, the desire to excel in what all were attempting.

In the second place, thanks primarily to the vision and determination of one man, the individual appeal to each soldier as to his personal share in the great enterprise was upon the highest plane. We were fortunate in having at the head of the War Department a man peculiarly sensitive to community problems and with no small experience in their solution. Through the centuries men had come to the belief that if their soldiers were only valiant and disciplined in arms, it would not do to inquire too curiously into their personal standards of conduct in other matters—that a considerable wastage in military strength from drunkenness and disease was inevitable. And as we all know, this wastage has in the past sapped, not only the strength of the Army, but afterwards the very life of the nation to which the soldier must sooner or later return.

The Secretary of War and his lieutenants, chief among whom in this field should be placed the Chairman of the Committee on Training Camp Activities, Raymond B. Fosdick, approached this problem neither in the fatalistic spirit that what has always been must continue to be, nor in a spirit of what, for want of a better term, I may call doctrinaire idealism. They faced the fact that among the hundreds of thousands of young men who were to be called to the colors, there would be many whose ears would be deaf to any abstract appeal, and many others to whom such an appeal might be made under normal conditions, but who in fatigue or the let-down following the strain of conflict, could not be depended upon to stand in the hour of temptation. As a result the whole field of preventive measures was thoroughly studied and vigorous treatment was applied. The Army regulations as to prophylaxis and the introduction of intoxicants into camps were strictly and honestly enforced. The Army saw to it that state and local laws as to liquor and prostitution were properly carried out, and if these were lacking, they were promptly enacted. The so-called Zone Law was adopted for the purpose of placing the immediate vicinity of camps under Federal control. In some cases where the community showed signs of regarding the Army policy in this regard as a beau geste and nothing more, it was made to realize that while the War Department could not compel the community to mend its ways, it could and would move the camp in twenty-four hours to a more wholesome environment. I am proud to say that it was necessary in only a very few instances to bring forward this aspect of the situation, but when it was necessary the Department spoke in no uncertain tone....