For the first time in the history of this nation, so bold a voice rises among the mothers, calling with so great a call for the payment of the supreme tax which the young men of this country must pay — with pride, with self-esteem, and with much dignity... The Woman's Voice is proud that one of the members of its family should make so great an appeal.

The Lebanese government had laid before the Chamber of Deputies a momentous bill — the bill for compulsory conscription in Lebanon — and it befits the Lebanese woman to speak her true word upon it, and to say it with boldness and sincerity, before the man says his.

For woman is the one first respon-sible for adopting this project and pleading for it in the home and the institute, in the papers, from the platforms, and in every place where she may be!

And who is worthier of that than woman, who has always been the mother and the wife of heroes — and where there is no mother, there is no nation.

The new era demands a new gen-eration, and we cannot create this new generation except by creating a new generation of mothers; and until today fear has hung over the hearts of our mothers, so that our youth has yielded us nothing but lean fruit!

Woman has been silent long, and with her the living forces of youth have been silent; and cowardly, fearful, hesitant moth-erhood brings forth only a fearful, hesitant, cowardly generation.

We stand at this moment of time, when the forces of evil are making their sinful attempt against our people and our nation; we today need mothers who will urge their sons on to martyrdom, however dear and heavy the sacrifices...

Gentlemen:

The day the Lebanese government brought forward this bill of its, Lebanon at that hour recorded

its first victory over the hesitancy that has accompanied its life through many generations.

And the day the Lebanese government puts this bill into effect, Lebanon will record the second victory — over fear and doubt, and over the defeatism that has made our national life meager and poor... And the hour the young men of this country march — foreheads high, figures erect, nerves calm — rank upon rank, to the joyful trilling of the mothers, the wives, and the sweethearts, then shall we record our last great victory... and live in history as the great peoples live in history!

Our national life until today has been poor and feeble, and so there have died out in us the moral values that develop the fighting instincts in man and rear in him the spirit of contest and struggle; and the free and dignified life comes only to struggling, orga-nized, trained peoples. Soldiering, with its sternness and its discipline, develops these national tendencies in peoples, and creates a new generation distinguished by the spirit of endurance and striving.

It is of the nature of life, gentlemen, that it is struggle and contest — a struggle man begins from his childhood: man's struggle for his own sake, his struggle for his family, and his struggle for his homeland — and this is the noblest struggle in life, which man offers to the noblest cradle and the noblest grave... to his homeland!

And how greatly we in this country need to develop these forces in ourselves; how greatly we need to train our bodies with a strong, strong training; how greatly we need a discipline that will deliver us from this chaos that rules over the departments of our life and makes our life flabby and slack, without restraint and without responsibility.

We shirk discipline because we have grown used to chaos — and

discipline is hard and rough, while chaos is easy and soft.

And we dread responsibilities, however small, because responsi-bility is manhood, will, and vigor — and manhood is what we lack.

And we fear soldiering, because soldiering is a great sacrifice, and in sacrifices we have not always been great.

I still remember, the day the government brought forward the compulsory conscription bill, the uproar that arose in our homes, and the panic that crept into our hearts; and people talked — and some people talk still — saying: ...And why compulsory conscrip-tion? Is it right that we should offer our children, the pieces of our hearts, as food for the fire? And for what should our sons become soldiers??

What, then, is right, gentlemen?

Is there shame in soldiering, when it is the nation's honor and its pride?

And what is a nation, if it be not soldiers great in their souls, great in their bodies?

Is it right, then, that our young men should remain in their frailty, sowing the streets with their coming and going, with no aim and no goal?

Is it right, then, that our young men should live in their selfishness, with nothing to urge them on toward glory?

And what is there in compulsory conscription to frighten us, when it is a national phenomenon in every people? This age of ours is an age in which nations and peo-ples race one another to develop the athletic gifts of the young: they set up training camps, found sporting clubs, strengthen the scouting movement, and accustom their youth to the bearing of hardships and to sacrifices... And peoples from the oldest times have concerned themselves with the idea of soldiering, and have seen in it a mark of honor and a matter of pride and self-esteem.