Life — April 6, 1916 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AMES LORD, boss miner and head of the Mining Division of the Amer- ican Federation of Labor, wants a democratic army. He has observed the war, and read about the German army, and is not pleased witk the notion of an obedient army where the mass of the soldiers are canonen futter, by use of which their superiors express their wills. He is not positive as to details of his democratic army, but suggests that officers in it should be elected ; that soldiers should he tried by their peers— their fellow soldiers—for military of- fenses, rather than by officers; that it would help to guarantee the democracy of a democratic army if its soldiers kept their arms and equipment at home. It is not hard to see the ideal that James Lord is reaching for. And it is a just ideal, but one may suspect that an army that conformed with his ideas would not be an army at all, but an armed mob, His thought is for the members of the trained, armed force, that they shall not be subject to of- ficial tyrannies, nor have their wills subverted to the uses of worse wills, nor be compelled to serve purposes that they disapprove. Very well, but there is another thought to be taken, a thought for the community at large. No one who has reasonable sense is going to make an army that will act its own will. There is enough inconvenience in the world from people who do as they like, with- out gathering them into regiments, training them in military exercises and providing them with weapons to keep at home, where individually they will have them handy An army is a serv: nt. Every soldier in it, from general to the last private, is \S¥ a servant. Every man jack of them is there to do, not what he will, but what is ordered. That is why the military industry is called “the service.” So it has been in effective armies; so it must be so long as armies are; and as much in a democratic army as in any other. We talk so much about liberty and free speech, and all the other varieties of freedom, that it may seem to be a defect in the military training that it is a training to service. “LIPE: The Democratic Army On the contrary, that is its merit, for servicé is immeasurably the highest thing that man attains to. There is Scripture for that, and probably it was an old, recognized truth when it got into Scripture. Jch Dien of the crest of the Black Prince is only a repetition of it. It is not that man en- nobles service, but that service ennobles man, and that through that door every man who would be great must come to his greatness. But whom shall a democratic army serve? The people, to be sure, of whom i a part, and in whose voice it speaks. An army, any kind of an army, must obey the state and the officers the state gives it. If it gets detached from its state as Xenophon’s Ten Thousand did, it must obey the officers it gives itself. Unless it obeys somebody it isn’t an army, but a mob, and except temporari- The Devil: WHat 1s THAT—A Porc! PINE? Cupid VM GETTI CAMPAIGN, NO; JUST A LITTLE PRACTI READY FOR THE SUMMER ly in emergencies it cannot be a town meeting. z What would make a democratic army would be, it would seem, a common consent to discipline, a brotherliness in service, a recognition that it is the office that one obeys rather than the man in it, and that the office is neces- sary. But we need not grope about after the constituents of a democratic army, for there is at least one that we can examine. The French have one. It exists by consent and contrivance of the French people. It is brotherly, it is obedient, and anyone who questions its efficiency may be referred to Berlin. If we want to know how to have a democratic army, we can ask the French. E, S. Martin, Safety Last 'HE Safety Last Association was organized yesterday afternoon with great enthusiasm, amid cries of “ America for the Americans!” It is a patriotic society, designed to offset the Safety Firsters. “There are two sides to every ques- i said the Chairman, a prominent automobile manufacturer. “ Most peo- ple live too long, anyway. For every person run over by an auto or railroad train the State is saved at least one hundred dollars.” “The Blessings of Grade Crossing,” a paper, was read with great applause. Among the most interesting pieces of testimony, however, came from a young lady, the title of whose talk was, “ How It Feels to be Almost Killed.” “T was run over and badly injured while crossing the street in New York, and I can truly say that it is not nearly so bad as our opponents, the Safety Firsters, would make out. Aside from having several bones broken and being in the hospital for a couple of months, I really had an enjoyable time. I have come to the conclusion that it pays to be crippled. I never think of walking now, and I know my real friends.” It is expected that Safety Last will spread over all the country, With a rap- idly decreasing population, think of how the survivors will enjoy themselves! comicbooks.com