Analysis: The Country Is Being Rushed into Military Conscription

Date: August 7, 1940

Author: Harry Emerson Fosdick

Genre: speech

Summary Overview

In 1940, concerns that the growing war in Europe would eventually spread across the Atlantic prompted Congress to consider a bill that would raise a suitable military force via selective compulsory service. Dr. Harry Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church in Manhattan, addressed radio listeners in August to call for more thorough consideration of the bill, citing the haste with which it was being rushed through Congress. Absent a formal declaration of war, Fosdick said, the United States should not hastily draft citizens into the military. Fosdick strongly criticized comments from the Roosevelt administration that compulsory service was the most democratic and efficient manner by which to address the growing European crisis.

Defining Moment

After suffering under the punitive economic, military, and political sanctions levied upon it by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Germany rose again during the 1930s under the nationalist, racist, and anti-Semitic philosophies of Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. Immediately upon assuming power in 1933, Hitler launched a campaign of national revitalization that would go on to expand Germany's geographic domain by conquering most of Europe.

Hitler inserted troops into the demilitarized Rhineland and absorbed Austria, and in 1939 he made the bold moves of annexing Czechoslovakia and invading Poland (an act that prompted France, Britain, New Zealand, and Australia to declare war). In 1940, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg fell as the Nazi blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) spread across Europe. In June 1940, France fell, and the Nazis installed a puppet government seated in Vichy. After the fall of France, the last viable European opponent for Germany was Great Britain. (The Soviet Union had entered into a nonaggression pact with Germany in 1939.) German bombers began sorties over London and other key targets in England during the fall of 1940. Offshore, German submarines (or U-boats) began sinking merchant ships en route from the United States to British ports, effectively cutting any supply chains to Europe from the west.

By 1940, virtually every corner of the world with the exception of the Western Hemisphere was living under wartime conditions. Still feeling the effects of its involvement in World War I and separated from Europe by thousands of miles of ocean, the United States remained on the sidelines. A majority of Americans felt that the growing crisis in Europe, although unsettling, was of no immediate concern to their country. Still, there was widespread worry that the war could spread to the eastern shores of the United States if England fell to Germany, and to the west coast of the country if Japan, which was by then an ally of Germany, continued to advance into China.

Because the US Army had been significantly reduced following World War I and the Navy was largely occupied with the Japan crisis, emergency legislation was introduced in Congress to raise a military force capable of addressing the wartime threat. Secretary of War Henry Stimson appeared before the House Military Affairs Committee in late July 1940 to advocate for one such bill that was an initiative to reinstate a system of selective compulsory military service (also known as conscription). He argued that the measure would raise the military force democratically (by drawing into service every citizen, regardless of social standing or wealth), efficiently, and quickly enough to meet the growing threat. Stimson also said that a voluntary system of military recruitment was far too slow and raised numbers too small to succeed against German aggression. Two weeks later, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick shared his opposing point of view on the same Columbia Broadcasting Service (CBS) radio platform on which Stimson's testimony had been broadcast.

Author Biography

Harry Emerson Fosdick was born on May 24, 1878, in Buffalo, New York. Inspired at a young age to become a preacher, Fosdick received his bachelor's degree from Colgate University in 1900 and his bachelor of divinity degree from New York City's Union Theological Seminary in 1903. In 1908, he received a master of arts degree from Columbia University. In 1919, Fosdick became the pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in New York City, but the backlash from his critical comments regarding Christian fundamentalism led to his resignation in 1925. Industrialist John D. Rockefeller soon invited Fosdick to serve as pastor of the city's Park Avenue Baptist Church, a post Fosdick accepted on the condition that the church would be reopened as a nondenominational institution. Fosdick remained the pastor of the renamed Riverside Church until 1946. He, his wife Florence, and their two daughters moved to Bronxville, New York, where he continued to write, give sermons, and teach until his death on October 5, 1969.

Document Analysis

Much of Harry Fosdick's comments to radio listeners are in response to Secretary of War Henry Stimson's speech before the House Military Affairs Committee a few weeks before. Fosdick sharply criticizes Stimson's arguments that the introduction of a compulsory service system is both democratic and necessary, and Fosdick urges congressional leaders to give more careful consideration to a bill to implement such a system. Americans, he says, are being hastily forced into accepting this measure under the guise of impending war on US soil.

Fosdick points to the erroneous perception that the war in Europe represents a real and imminent threat to the country and that there is little time for debate. Fosdick dismisses this idea and argues that such statements amount to fear mongering. The advocates of this bill's immediate passage, he says, are operating under the false assumption that America is about to be invaded. Fosdick quotes of a number of experts who argue that no such attack is imminent and that immediately raising a military is only acceptable during times of war. To date, no declaration of war has been issued.

One of the most controversial of Stimson's suggestions, according to Fosdick, is that the selective compulsory service system is democratic. Fosdick argues that implementing a law that requires every able-bodied American man to join the military is not democratic and is no different than totalitarianism. Although Fosdick acknowledges that mandatory conscription would be acceptable during times of war, he goes on to say that unless the bill's advocates consider it democratic to have conscription in all areas of American life, such as in the workplace or in the distribution of wealth, they should dismiss the connection between conscription and democracy.

Fosdick continues his critique of the bill and points out its flaws. He suggests that under the voluntary system, enlistees receive more extensive training than the eight months of mandatory training under the compulsory service bill. Fosdick suggests that the country introduce a one-year voluntary system wherein recruits receive adequate training without disrupting their lives as private citizens. Furthermore, Fosdick points out that there are no provisions in the bill that take into account the jobs draftees would leave behind when they join the military, and he expresses concern that soldiers would not have jobs to return to after the war. Fosdick believes that solutions and amendments can be devised, but he worries that congressional leaders and advocates of the bill are more concerned with the bill's quick passage than in consideration of and debate over potential problems that may arise.

Fosdick questions the need for a major military force and cites former military leaders and experts to argue that a relatively small military is adequate to defend America's coasts and borders. Unless the United States plans to expand the 1823 Monroe Doctrine (which identified North and Latin America as the primary region of security interest to the United States) to include East Asia and Europe, there is no reason for the country to dramatically increase its military. The time might come for such compulsory service, he acknowledges, but there is no immediate need in 1940. He therefore urges Congress to show great care and consideration when addressing this highly controversial bill.

Glossary

belligerent: war-like

conscription: a compulsory enrollment of persons for military or naval service; draft.

constituent: serving to compose or make up a thing; component; having power to frame or alter a political constitution or fundamental law, as distinguished from lawmaking power

contiguous: touching; in contact; near

jitters: nervousness; a feeling of fright or uneasiness

non sequitur: Latin phrase “it does not follow”; an inference or a conclusion that does not follow from the premises; a statement containing an illogical conclusion

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Chambers, John Whiteclay. Draftees or Volunteers: A Documentary History of the Debate over Military Conscription in the United States, 1787–1973. New York: Garland, 1975. Print.

“Fosdick, Harry Emerson (1878–1969).” Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle. Stanford University, n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2014.

Miller, Robert Moats. Harry Emerson Fosdick: Preacher, Pastor, Prophet. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. Print.

Oxford, Edward. “The Draft.” American History 29.4 (1994): 30–43. Print.

Stimson, Henry L. “Our Duty Is Clear: Compulsory Service Must Be Adopted.” Vital Speeches of the Day 6.21 (1940): 647–48. Print.