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that all of the nation's young men upon attaining age
18, shall, without exception or deferment, be immediately
inducted for two years of training and military
service.
Under such a plan the nation would gain a relatively
small number of trained fighting men (the
equivalent of present freshmen and sophomore classes)
but ultimately lose a large part of two generations of
college-trained specialists. Let us waive the obvious
and questionable implication of the Conant Plan,
namely, that we must or could successfully confront
the enemy in Europe and Asia with adequate masses
of manpower in the immediate future. Rather, we
must decide whether 100,000 to 200,000 young men
out of approximately 1,000,000 in each age group will
determine the military outcome as effectively if immediately
inducted, trained and sent to the fighting
front as if permitted to complete college level and
graduate training before being allocated to national
service.
It is true that manpower is scarce and that a three
or three and one-half million man military force will
be difficult to assemble. Whatever those difficulties,
they can be surmounted by appropriate changes in the
Selective Service law which will still permit the intellectually
qualified wouth, selected by a nationally applied
aptitude test and regardless of financial ability,
to serve the nation after receiving further training
rather than before.
-R-
The proposals of the six scientific advisory committees
to General Hershey and those of the Association
of American Universities and the Association of
Colleges and Universities of the State of New York all
recognize the importance of ultimate national service
for all young men. The first two, however, leave entirely
to the military agencies the selection of those
who will be inducted at once and those who will be
permitted to complete a post-secondary school course
in training. Left to the military also is the determination
of the service which each shall perform.
Only the New York State Association proposal includes
the creation of a top-level civilian manpower
allocation agency responsible for insuring the most
efficient use of our scarce and precious manpower resources.
This plan alone flatly and without equivocation
permits national service after completion of an
educational program at the level for which a youth's
intellectual capacity fits him.
Much has been said concerning the democratic
methods with an indiscriminate immediate induction
for military service of all our youth whatever
their potential capacities may be. But democracy is
not self-destructive. The common mold is a feature of
totalitarianism, not democracy. Let our educational
leaders stand to their principles and as long as discussion
is possible, press for the preservation of technically
trained manpower as the nation's first resource in its
critical hour.
Program Sponsored on HOur Society in the �tomic Era"
AN outstanding public lecture program of interest
to all UR alumni and alumnae in Rochester and vicinity
will be presented by the University on February
16 and 23 on the central theme, "Our Society in the
Atomic Era."
Four nationally-known speakers will take part in
the series, which will combine the annual Cutler and
Rosenberger lectures. The first two addresses will be
given in Strong Auditorium, River Campus. William
L. Laurence, famed science writer for the New York
Times) who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1946 for his
eye-witness account of the atom-bombing of Nagasaki
and subsequent 10 artides on the development, production
and significance of the atom bomb, will speak
at 3 p.m. on February 16 on "The Atomic Era."
At 8 o'clock that evening, Sumner Pike, one of the
8
original members of the Atomic Energy Commission,
who was acting chairman following the resignation
of David Lilienthal and was reappointed a commissioner
last November, will speak on "The Impact of
the Atomic Era on the American Economic System."
Second part of the series will be held in Cutler
Union on February 23. Dr. Quincy Wright, professor
of international law at the University of Chicago, and
Dr. Margaret Mead, one of the world's leading an­
thropologists and associate curator of the American
Museum of Natural History, will be the speaker. Dr.
Wright's lecture will be at 3 p.m. on "World Gov­
ernment and the American Constitution," and Dr.
Mead's at 8 p.m. on "The Individual in the Atomic
'
Era."
The lectures are free and no tickets are required.