Building the Anerican Reserve
Shortage of active troops may not be the main reason for American reluctance to be committed on the mainland of Asia, but it is certainly a powerful one. In this context, the President made an important statement in his speech last Monday. to the American Legion: ' For a century and a half the Republio has prided itself on its refusal to maintain large standing military forces. We have relied, instead, upon the civilian soldier. . . . But we have failed miserably to maintain that strong, ready military reserve in which we have believed for 150 years. . . . The establishment, of an adequate reserve will, be a number one item submitted to the Congress next year.' He was referring to the Administration plans, announced at the beginning of August by the retiring Assistant Secretary of Defence, to increase the intake under compulsory military service and to make effective the law (at present only fragmentarily enforced) that requires all Americans to join the reserves on leaving active service. These new reserve proposals are calculated to provide an additional three million men for the United States services, trained and ready to be called up immediately in any national emergency. At present, according to the Defence Department, the bulk of the Army reserves could not be called up within a year and are, in any .event, well, below strength. if the Administration can coax Congress into swallowing this ' number one item' at the beginning of the next session it will have done something substantial to correct the balance in the availability of trained men to East and West. It will, furthermore, have provided itself with the means to implement the policies in which it rightly believes but which it 'has not, over the past months, been able to live up to.
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