Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-04-02

been on recruiting duty through several
spells of hard times, and ! never saw 1t
work out before the way it worked out
when the last hard times swung along.
and the way it's been working out ever
since.
In so and 94, for example. they fought
to get into line at the recruiting ONCE
doors to take on in the army. Nothing
like that for a good many years now,
though.
THE top recruiting folks have been
rubbing their heads instead of their
hands over the problem Of how to ge.
men to take on. They can't figure 1t out
just why the young fellows are not bust
ing blood vessels in their eagerness to
break into the service.
Il think they're gradually beginning to
understand that of late years the whole
country has been put wise to what a
bum business soldering in the regular
army of the United States has become
with a lot of idiotic theories, to-say moth
ing of a bunch Of women folks with sar-
saparilla ideas, running and running the
service.
Just for example: Yesterday afternoon
a spick and span sort of a duck that L
spotted the minute l clapped eye on him
as a somebody that had put in his en-
listment all right, stopped here as he
nudged through the park and took peek
at this uniform board out of the tail Of
his grinny eye. He laughed enjoyaDly,
and then he edged over to me-
Some hard to con EN- into taking on
as swill-carters these days, >eh, bunkie? ?
he said to me, and / could only grin back
at him.
put in his two ennstments right enough,
just as ! had figured. and he had got
out when the soldering game got too
mean and messy. Now he's working here
in New York. hauling down good money.
and being somebody.
We'll, he had it about right. When
he said 'swill-carters he about covered
it. The time has swung by when you
can get American young fellows to SOL
dier, and do the filthy work Of the COM
monest kind of day laborers at the same
time
1T isn't natural to expect them to do
it. The kind of fellows that are want
ed to make good soldiers in this mans
army are not the sort of fellows who will
willingly follow around a swill cart back
of the officers quarters and juggle the
garbage cans.
You can get swill-carte4s and you can
get soldiers, but you ca1, get both in
and ofiicers' outhouses isn't soldering:
neither is cleaning up officers back yards:
neither is working eight hours a day
shovelng coal or gravel or building roads.
degrading 1atlgue duty. and whole heaps
of it, is one of the main things that has
put the regular army of the United
States. SO far as the enlisted man is con-
cerned, on the bum.
And now. when it's pretty late in the
day, II not too late. they're talking about
organizing a special duty corps of
civilians to do the dirty work around
army posts. and to pay these civilians the
kind of money that men ask for when
they're required to do dirty work any
where.
But they haven't got much beyond
talking even about this move. In the
meantime the fellows still in the service.
in addition to double and triple guard
duty on account of the shorthandedness
of the army, are still doing the dirty
work and sitting on the edges Of their
hunks counting UP on their fingers the
days until their timell be out, and l sup
pose there is a fat chance for such men
to take on again when their time is out;
yes, a very adipose chance.
When you begin to look it over you'll