The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1898-05-25

that they have made q failure In life"
somehow or other and have gone into
the army as sort Of refuge. Nine
tenths Of the regular soldiers, when ask
cd where they come from, mention some
city or large town. The great rural
masses Of tho population Of the United
States seem to be only slenderly repre-
sonted in the regular army.
In fact. il is not at all representa-
tive thing. The question may well be
asked whether 1t ever can be. in view Of
the necessity Of the maintenance Of the
social relations between officers and pri-
Yates which have mentioned. TIE or
dinary white American is unwilling
to accept relation Of conspicuous So
cial inferiority 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 1t 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. The av-
erage American is never going to be a
regular soldier so long as the girls Of
the same sort Of people that he belongs
to refuse to DO seen walking ON the
street with regular soldier when they
will freely walk with volunteer pri-
vate. The social ambition and keen sem
sitivcness Of American women to social
distinctions cut figure In this ques-
tion Of the increase Of the regular army
which has never been taken sufficiently
into account.
Some other things that sec here tend
to convince me that the volunteer serv-
ice is the real soldering that Ameri-
cans think Of and that a regular army
can never be anything more than thing
apart from their lives and thoughts.
The regular soldiers whose terms of Of
fee are expiring or likely to expire dur
ing this Office are all anxious to go into
the volunteers rather. than to rc-enlist.
No great number Of them appears likely
to be able to get into the volunteer scrv-
ice just now, but it has great attractions
to them. So it has to all the young off,
GERS They seem to be to q 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 q sort Of relation in
the volunteer service to the vital aotivi-
ties Of the nation which perhaps they
do not feel in the regulars.
But, with 1t all, certain prejudiccs
that civilians may have felt against tho
regular army are likely to weaken when
one has spent some time in contact with
it. If regular army officers are bound to
keep the privates in 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. / believe they are incapable Of
entertaining any notion of hostility to
the liberties of the country. They cher
ish a tradition that Grant and Sherman
both informed President johnson, when
he sounded them as to whether the army
could be relied ON in case of trouble be-
tween him and congress, that indeed it
cou1d ha demanded On to take fine side Of
congress- The old fashioned ideas of the
civil bases of things in the United States
are entertained by officers of the regular
army as instinctively, I suppose, as they
are by civilians.
To get American officers who are en-
tirely loyal to American ideas" is per-
fectly easy, but to get American SOL
diers for a regular army-that is differ
ent.