The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1907-09-20
WARFARE A TRADE
"soLDlERS OF FORTUNE" IN ALI
AGES.
Few Wars in History In Which Mer-
cenaries Have Not Taken Part
Famous American
Free Lances.

The phenomena of men voluntarily
giving their services to any bellig-
erents that will accept them are curl
Gus from ethical viewpoints. Men
are supposed to fight because they
have grievances-whether the contest
at long or short range. The love of
fighting purely for the sake of fighting
is innate in some human creatures.
Warfare becomes to such men
trade, as legitimate as welding an AK
against the trees of the forests.
The character of the soldier of for
tune, or free lance" Is one that per-
vades history. Since the beginning OF
man mercenaries have had mention.
The desire for embodiment isn't con-
fined to any nationality or race.
Commentators upon the recent death
In this city of Col. ]. Y. F. Blake ex-
posed their ignorance of history when
they asserted that the Irish furnished
the most notable examples, says a
writer in the Brooklyn Eagle. The
Swiss always have been the free lances
of Europe. We know about the Hes
SLAMS in the American revolution. In
the wars of the sixteenth century thou
sands of soldiers of fortune fought
now under one and now under another
of opposing banners. Sir Walter Scott,
in his delightful study of Capt. Dugald
Dalgetty, in the Legend of Montrose,
permanently fixed the type of the sol
der of fortune in English literature.
The keen sarcasm of Cervantes, in
that greatest of all lampoons, Don
Quixote," could not discourage or rid
icule the soldier of fortune sufficiently
to render his race extinct. He con-
tinued to be born, to grow up. and to
go to war with no other purpose than
to make trouble for himself and others.
Men of this type love danger, purely
for its own sake. They seek the happy
chance of hard blows. Generally spec
linens of fidelity to their employer, in
dividual or national, they are indiffer-
ent to the political or moral aspects of
the conduct in which they take such
active parts.
We have had many examples of
these adventurous spirits. Sam Hous
ton was a Virginian by birth, but he
| couldn't keep out of the fight for Texas
freedom from Mexico. William Wal
ker, the Nicaraguan filibuster, was a
Tennesseean, and had been journal
list in California; he cared nothing for
the people of the Central American
state. Gen. Ryan, well known to all
working newspaper men of this me-
tropolis in the early seventies, dis
liked the Cubans almost as much as
he loved liberty-the freedom of a
fight. He was captured on the Vir
ginius, stood against wall at San
tiago and was shot to death. But,
am sure he died happy! Hobart Pacha
commanded the Turkish navy during
the war with Russia in 1877 and 1878
He was an English naval officer until
he took that job.
| Speaking of Russia, one marvels al
the disclosures that a little research
gives regarding the part Britons Of
two generations ago played in her ma
val battles. Englishmen, as officers oil
Russian war vessels and as command
ers of troops afield, did more than ma
tive genius to extend and consolidate
the power of the car by land or sea
Englishmen appear to have been as
fond of the campaign of hard knocks
as the Irish.
Wasn't it Charles Darwin who as
serted that human nature has a con
slant tendency to revert to the print
tive type? Does this explain why the
savage love of combat revives indi
viduals from time to time? / was liv
ing in London when the revolt against
the Turks broke out in Herzegovina
| and spread to Servia, and among my
small circle of acquaintances were sew
eral mild, scholarly, humane and ami
/ able men, as known to their asso
ciates, who hurried off to the noun
1 tain Businesses to kill men, much as
they might have gone down to Devon
shire for a week-end's pleasant shoot
ing. Guerrilla warfare was the last
imaginable kind of life one would have
! supposed such men to have desired
but they went mad at the prospect oil