The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1916-07-27
GUARDSMAN IN ANGER
ANXIOUS To COME HOME
Men Believe They Are Made Pawns
in Political Game.

A correspondent writing from
townsville, Tex. to a syndicate of
under date of the p inst,
says:
Under its first severe test the National
Guard is breaking down, and through
no fault of It's own.
Ninety per cent. of the men are dis
satisfied and disconnected and are anx-
ious to get back home to their work and
their families.
This statement may come as a sur
prise to public that is being fed daily
by assurances from Washington that
everything is lovely along the Rio
Grande and that the militia are bub-
bling with JOY over their present situa-
ton and future prospects, but it is the
indelible truth and any candid person
with persistence enough to get under
the surface of thing can find it out
for himself.
The officers of the regular army
know it and have spoken their minds
about it to the correspondent in army
camps along the border for 100 minds
from this city to Fort Ringgold. Some
officers of the National Guards are per
fectly aware of it, but are trying to
gloss it over. They say that the dis
satisfaction and discomfort will wear
off and that the. men will settle down
happily to six months or so of profes-
sional soldering.
1t required no condolences from the
keenly concerned and distressed regu-
lar officers to satisfy this writer that
the militia are eager to get release
from the border and that they will be
desperately anxious within few weeks.
1t was a simple matter of keeping
eyes and ears open as one visited the
camps at Brownsville, Mercedes, Don
ma, Pharr McAllen, Mission and other
troop headquarters up the Rio Grande
Valley The men talk and talk freely
if their officers are not within hearing
What is true of the militia from one
State is true of the militia from an.
other. The men from Indiana are Just
as unhappy and just as worried as are
the men from New York or the men
from Virginia or the men from Illinois.
The complaints are heard wherever one
goes. These troops fell that they have
been buncoed by Mr.. Wilson, and the
more they think about it the madden
ey get They can't shout their in
~-lgnation, because that would mean
punishment for them.
Properly enough, of course, under
military discipline they can't take their
troubles and their very real grievance
to their own militia officers, because
their officers are not sympathetic. This
concentration at the border is a very
agreeable business to the National
Guard officers for many reasons which
cannot possibly apply to the enlisted
men.
But the enlisted men can tell the
newspaper correspondents what is in
their hearts. They flock around the
correspondents at every opportunity
and beg to know if there is chance of
their being sent back home in the near
future. They talk with kind of pa
thetlc helplessness, like children, these
grown men who find themselves trap
ped by their own patriotic zeal. and it
is impossible not to understand them,
not to sympathize with them. not to
want to tell the whole truth about
their plight.
Let it be thoroughly and completely
understood that they are not trying to
play the baby act, that they are not
merely seeking to crawl out of the hard
labor of training in climate as tropical
as Panama, and that they are not lying
down on the country In no sense are
they cutters, but they have reasoned
it out among themselves as American
citizens have habit of reasoning things
out. and they have made up their minds
that they were tricked and deceived
and they are being kept here for the
political purposes of the Administration.
That is not offered as the guess of
the reporter who writes this story. 1t
is an absolutely accurate digest of
minds of 25, 900 militiamen whose camps
the reporter visited in the past week
along the Rio Grande.
They stayed in the National Guard
and responded enthusiastically to the
order to go to the border, because they
wanted to fight for their country. They
wanted to play part in helping their
country defend itself and maybe pacify
troublesome and dangerous neighbor.
They were assured and believed they
were going into Mexico.
T'Most of them were fred by patriotic
I ii purely, because most of them are
fine types of Americans-me mentally,
physically and morally. Some wanted
to be heroes and to do tall things they
could tell their children about. Some
craved excitement. But the basis of
anthIIaiaero in averv caea vras tho do