"I'm afraid you not only heard correctly, Carl, but that I had better tell you that if you're thinking of sending for the booby-wagon for me, you'll have to send for about thirty others for the rest of the committee. Next week, the Blair Defense Preparedness Committee will introduce a bill for unlimited lowering of the draft age, for either war or peacetime use. Within a month after its passage--and I can guarantee you that it will be passed--the committee will give you what you'll need for your first big story on it. It will urge, and then it will demand that all male youths from the present draft age of 17 down to the age of thirteen be immediately registered for selective service." "Good Lord, Doug--" "The committee is strong, Carl. It is strong because I knew how to pick it. I did not pick it, I assure you, on the basis of intelligence or learning or capability. I picked it in terms of personal political and financial influence, and in terms of my capability in persuading its members to my way of thinking. That was not too difficult--they're all band-wagon men. "But to the point. On the heels of the new Blair Law's invocation, the committee will again make a demand--registration of all youngsters down to and including the age of ten years." "Doug for God's sake--" "Sit down, Carl!" "Sure...." "I'm quite sane. Worried?" "Hell yes I'm worried." "Take it easy. They thought a man called Litvinov was deranged once--around 1913 I think it was, when he predicted World War One, and the fall of the House of Czars." * * * * * "But you can't be serious about this--this kid business. Why my God if I think you've been--overworking, let's say, what d'you think the reaction of the man in the street'll be?" "That, Carl, hasn't mattered for quite some time. You know it, and I know it. He's already swallowed UMT itself, don't forget." "But--hell, the Blair Committee isn't the only bunch of politicians around here. And they--" "I told you, Carl, my committee is strong. I picked it that way. Others can yell all they want. But no amount of yelling--even by the most widely-heard commentators and widely-published columnists--has ever really accomplished much when a particularly strong political faction has decided how things are going to be. It's the things that make you sick that have always made the front pages, remember?" "I--you're crazy, Doug. Crazy as a 1951 tax program. You've gotten bitter about things in the past, sometimes a little cynical. Hell, who doesn't. But you've always been the one man the people knew they could count on--and your fellow-workers, I can even add. If you try to come out with a thing like this--" "A moment. Just a minute, Carl. I want to ask an easy one. It is really easy. How long before the next world war breaks out?" "Easy, what d'you mean, easy? Tomorrow, next month, next year maybe. Maybe not until 1960. Nobody knows that--"