The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-30

of the blood and dust and sweat and reek-
ing slaughter-pen odors of battle, but the
tailor has done more. Homer could hurl
boulders ana javelins through the air and
tumble the Grecian heroes down to Plutus
in lordly hexameter, and we long to war
ourselves around the Trojan walls. but let
the man with the needle of steel sew few
inches of bullion on coat and we are mad
for butchery. So the painter and the fid-
dler and the rhymer, led by the tailor.
have rushed nations away to death. A
minority, doubtless, have benefited the
earth by dying, but great majority would
have been of more use above the ground
than under it.
The man who could best give expert tes-
timony on the broad question of war is the
man who never came back from the battle.
All the other evidence is incompetent.
But the scribe who notes the parade and
the review from the bandstand writes rot,
which, in the eternal fitness of the thing,
is in perfect ke' ing with the burlesque he
sees moving before him.
The green and bloom of vegetation
springing from the red-reeking soil of
battle may cover the graves and trenches
but not the wide gulf that lies between the
civil and the military. The civilian, with
the fire of noble activity pushing the
world on from change to change, cannot
understand why the bebuttoned and be-
gunned soldier should stalk around his
quarters like manikin pulled by string,
a parody on war in time of peace; and the
soldier only an order-Obeying machine as
he is, cannot understand that he is an out
of-place figure in the landscape. The
civilian, among his peers upon a social
equity, cannot understand why in the
military the officer is lordly aristocrat
wearing the belt and spur of knight won
more frequently off the field of valor than
on it. Neither can the citizen understand
why the man in the rank and file must
forever wear the livery of an inferior social
and mental grade, and salute and 'sir"
| with proper humility should somebody a
little above his low level deign to notice or
approach his locality.
All these caste mannerisms of the mill
tary are undemocratic and un-American
and belong to the monarchic and titled
class. They came down the ages from the
feudal day, where the robber-baron had
his retainers quartered in novels around
him. When he meditated a raid upon
some neighbor whose female slaves and
fat cattle excited his cupidity he called his
captains and lieutenants into the castle
courtyard and after council of war the
blooming gang all marched out together
with flags and drums-and guns after the
villainous saltpeter had been dug from the
bowels of the earth.
War is only horrid emergency, and so
is the warrior. 1t is a period of destruc-
ton, and he is the destroyer. Both are to
be put away and hidden like the graves
they dig. The soldier in peace is nom
producer and adds nothing to the develop
ment of state. Cooped up in his post,
where he prances for the glorifcation of
his superiors, he is not fraction as useful
and not nearly as reliable as that often
abused and long-suffering official-the
policeman. The professional trooper idling
in his barrack has comparatively no part
II 4, \
only duty is to salute and "sir' and minis
ter to the tinseI splendor of his officers
without being in the slightest a portion of
that tinsel splendor. He is not bad fell
low; he is only grain of wheat under
the upper and neither milestone OF
that system called miiitafy discipline,
which forever brushes and grinds him.
cumstances that environed his life escort
him to his grave, and the meager honors
he receives there are about what he got in
life. Nothing can be so dead as dead
soldier The peculiar conditions of his
end, unnoticed in the mad contention
around him, his departure in common
with many others who melted out of the
thin red line being about the usual thing.
The monopoly by his superior of the larger
slice of the glory, leaving so little to go
around among the priyates, makes him
horribly and atrociously dead. His grand
finale is so commonplace that few note the
passing of him. So much for war.
Where did this yarn drift from? Oh,
yes-the recruit and the doctor.
The wouldbe tar if he succeeds in haul
ing off from the snares the man of science
sets for him must steer amid dangerous
questions skillfully. He must explain that
there is no hereditary disease in his family
| (the surgeon always asks if there is,
although he knows that no answer but a
negative one was ever yet returned), and