One of the first things that Congress ought to do is to provide for military training on a basis of universality. Out of the men thus trained the army would naturally come. This does not mean that everybody would be a fighter, but it does mean that the huge resources of the country would be put at the service of the nation, for such arrangement and distribution and assignment as the public authority decreed.

This makes a democratic army. It does not throw the burden on the shoulders of those who are moved by an impulse of patriotism, excusing everybody else. Hard feelings would inevitably result if the nation's responsibility should be saddled on volunteers. There is vastly less reason for volunteering to go out to be shot down than for volunteering to pay one's taxes. How we should come out if the financial support of the nation were left on an optional basis, needs no diagram.

We have the admirable method of reaching the universal service system by providing for universal training. As the soldiers under it gradually acquire efficiency, the mechanism of the same law would translate them into working units for the field. --Boston Herald.