An Essay on the Coming Draft

Bernard Baruch, Woodrow Wilson's commissar for war production, was similarly blunt in his description of the WWI-era “war socialism” system for which conscription provided a foundation:

“Every man’s life is at the call of the nation and so must be every man’s property. We are living today in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state. His property is his only as the state does not need it. He must hold his life and possessions at the call of the state.”