The Conscription Idea MAY 01, 1955 by DEAN RUSSELL “The
principle of voluntarism should not be compromised.” That policy
on civilian manpower was recommended to the National Security
Council in a May, 1954, report from the Office of Defense
Mobilization. The report suggests an extensive program of
voluntary incentives as the best method to secure the most
effective use of civilian manpower in time of war. Would not the
principle of voluntarism work just as well for soldiers as for
civilians? Would not present-day Americans volunteer to defend
their country as our ancestors did in the earlier history of our
nation? An increasing number of influential persons, including
men who have devoted their lives to military affairs, are again
beginning to think so. Among them is Liddell Hart, the
distinguished British military authority and military advisor to
Encyclopaedia Britannica, who says: “Twenty-five years spent in
the study of war . . . changed my earlier and conventional
belief in the value of conscription. It