The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-05-26

somehow or other and have gone into
the army rs sort of refuge Nine.
tenths Of the regular soldiers. when ask.
Ell where they come from. mention some
city or large town The great rural
masses of the population of the United
States seem 10 be only slenderly repre-
sented IN the regular army.
In fact il is not at all a representa-
tive thing. The question may well be
asked whether il ever can be, in view %
The necessity of the maintenance Of the
social relations between officers and pri-
Yates which l have mentioned. The or
binary white American is unwilling
20 accept a relation of conspicuous So
cial interiority for two reasons. One,
and the lesser, is that he has been
taught historically that such relation
must not exist in the United States be-
cause it is politically dangerous. and
the other and greater reason is that the
women for whom he most cares de-
spises him if he enters into it. Tho av-
erage American is never going 20 be a
regular soldier so long as the girls of
the same sort of people that he belongs
TO refuse 20 be seen walking on the
street with a regular soldier when they
will freely walk with a volunteer pri-
vate. The social ambition and keen SEN
sitiveness of American women 10 social
distinctions cut figure in this ques-
ton of the increase of the regular army
which has never been taken sufficiently
into account.
Some other things that see here tend
TO convince me that the volunteer serv-
ice is the real soldering that Ameri-
cans think of and that regular army
can never be anything more than a thing
apart from their lives and thoughts.
The regular soldiers whose terms of Of
flee are expiring or likely to expire dur
ing this Office are all anxious to go into
the volunteers rather than TO re-enlist.
No great number of them appears likely
TO be able 10 get into the volunteer serv-
ice just now but it has great attractions
to them. So it has to all the young Off
GERS They seem TO be TO a man anxious |
to get commissions in the volunteer |
army superior TO the ones they now hold |
In the regular army. They all hope to |
return to the regulars after their posi- |
BILE volunteer service shall be over, and |
they do not hope to go back to it ON |
terms much better than their present |
ones But the service appears real, in
viting and stirring to them. Even they |
seem TO recognize sort of relation in
the volunteer service to the vital activi- |
ties OF the nation which perhaps they
do not feel in the regulars.
But, with it all, certain prejudices
that civilians may have felt against the
regular army are likely to weaken when
one has spent some time in contact with
It, IL regular army officers are bound to
keep the privates in a certain place and
not allow them to get above it, they are
nevertheless very far from appearing to
feel themselves superior caste. Disci-
pline, not degradation for the soldier, is
what they seek. Among themselves they
Are very democratic body. They put
on no airs" at all. "Militarism' in
the German sense they know nothing
about. l believe they are incapable of
any notion Of hostility to
he liberties of the country. They cher
sh tradition that Grant and Sherman
both informed President johnson, when
lie sounded them as TO whether the army
,ould be relied on in case of trouble be-
ween him and congress, that indeed it
'ould be depended on to take the side of
congress. The old fashioned ideas of the
ivil bases of things in the United States
re entertained by officers of the regular
rmy as instinctively. suppose, as they
re by civilians
To get American officers who are en-
irely loyal TO American ideas is per-
ectly easy, but to get American sol
iers for regular army-that is differ
mt.