o arm.

"The power against which we are arrayed," the President said, "has
sought to impose its will upon the world. To this end it has increased
armament until it has changed the face of war. In the sense in which
we have been wont to think of armies, there are no armies in this
struggle, there are entire nations armed. Thus, the men who remain to
till the soil and man the factories are no less a part of the army
that is in France than the men beneath the battle flags. It must be so
with us. It is not an army that we must shape and train for war; it is
a nation.

"To this end our people must draw close in one compact front against a
common foe. But this cannot be if each man pursues a private purpose.
All must pursue one purpose. The nation needs all men; but it needs
each man, not in the field that will most pleasure him, but in the
endeavor that will best serve the common good. Thus, though a
sharpshooter pleases to operate a trip hammer for the forging of great
guns and an expert machinist desires to march with the flag, the
nation is being served only when the sharpshooter marches and the
machinist remains at his levers.

"The whole nation must be a team, in which each man shall play the
part for which he is best fitted. To this end, Congress has provided
that the nation shall be organized for war by selection; that each man
shall be classified for service in the place to which it shall best
serve the general good to call him.

"The significance of this cannot be overstated. It is a new thing in
our history and a landmark in our progress. It is a new manner of
accepting and vitalizing our duty to give ourselves with thoughtful
devotion to the common purpose of us all. It is in no sense a
conscription of the unwilling; it is, rather, selection from a nation
which has volunteered in mass. It is no more a choosing of those who
shall march with the colors than it is a selection of those who shall
serve an equally necessary and devoted purpose in the industries that
lie behind the battle line."

The President had strongly espoused the selective draft in preference
to the voluntary system of raising an army organization. He had
pointed out that many forms of patriotic service were open to the
people, and emphasized that the military part of the service,
important though it was, was not, under modern war conditions, the
most vital part. The selective draft enabled the selection for service
in the army of those who