Letter from Clarence Avey to President Harry S. Truman

1429 P.P.F. 200 Cangress message 10/23/43 355 Athol, School Street, Massachusetts. Hon. Harry S. Truman, Can A President of the United States, The White House, Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. President: I have just experienced my lowest hour in many years. I have seen the headlines announcing your proposal for universal compulsory military training for all youthful Americans. No one who heard President Franlin D. Roosevelt on the occasion of our declaration of war against Japan and Germany could ever forget the ringing tones in which he proclaimed, "We will win the war, and we will win the peace" Your program is the public confession of our government that we cannot make good on the second half of that statement and pledge, that we have already lost the peace. If our government has no better pro- gram for the future than the regimentation of all our youth, fit or unfit, in a program of compulsory militarization, then it will be difficult to convince the thoughtful citizen that we have in truth gained any real and lasting victory or peace. To juggle words and to claim that the plan presented by you is not conscription is useless. If it's compulsory, it's conscription! Compulsory military training of whatever sort means that America is following in the train of Europe, is turning away from the tradtion of free- dom which has made her the haven of liberty and the land of opportunity. From the earliest days Europe's harassed peoples have turned from military slavery to America's free shores. Now we turn the clock back, and can do noth- ing better than to copy the worst feature of European life. Instead you should put all the weight of your own influence and that of your administration behind Congressman Martin's plan for general abolition