Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1916-09-26
GUARDSMEN ON
BORDER DISGUISED
Are Heartily Tired and Sick Of the
Months Neutrality-suspicious.
for Action.

Carl A. Dixon, correspondent of
the Des Moines Capital, returned
from Brownsville, Texas, yesterday,
after weeks with the soldiers on the
Mexican border. He says men are
going to desert the ranks Of the
guards by thousands as soon as they
are released from the oath they took
last summer. He is reported as fol-
lows in last nights Capital:
'The fur-bristling trip of the ma
tional guard to the border will do
more for the cause of universal
training than all the preparedness
parades and defense demonstrations
that have occurred since the United
States was aroused from slumber by
the European war;" declared Mr..
Dixon.
Recruiting signs will be hung
out in practically every city that
boasted a national guard company
when the call came-for unless an
All-Wise Providence steps in, there
will not be enough men left to mus
ter the required peace strength or
ganization. Men are going to leave
the guard by the thousands. They
have had their fill of being militia
men. Three monotonous months on
the border, with the routine of daily
and weekly drill and camp life brok-
en- only by new rumors of going
home that come with each morn
ing's sun, have dispelled all gold
braid and glistening bayonet ideas
of the service. They are cured.
''Not that they would not fight.
Not that they didn't want to fight
when they went to the border. And
if orders for actual warfare against
the organized mobs of Mexico were
to come today the cheer from the
border could almost be heard here.
It's the failure of the government
to provide fighting or permit them
to labor under the impression that
there will be fighting within a short
time that took the pep out of the
guardsmen.
"The only two things the govern
ment has provided have been a mo-
notony Of training that even the
soldiers Of the regular army are not
required to follow and a silence as
to the future that has chafed offic-
ers and men alike because they find
it an absolute impossibility to plan
for their return to their business,
their homes, their civilian life.
IA big percentage of the mem
bers of the national guard were
wearing the olive drab when the
call to the border came because they
liked to be soldiers on Decoration
Day and Fourth of July.
Others went to the border be-
cause they liked the military game.
They were in the guard because they
liked to salute and be saluted, to Or
der and be ordered, to wear the uni
form and carry the gun. The mill
tary life has an attraction that is
not destroyed by three months of it
in a fronical land
"There is third class-the men
who Joined as recruits when the call
came. They are Adventures. They
wanted excitement. They wanted
action. They did not care how sci
fighters they were just so long
as they were given the opportunity
to fight.
at will be the men of the first
and third classes who will leave the
guard when mustered out of the fed
eral service and returned to their
home towns as militiamen.
Everywhere on the border you
will hear guardsmen say they have
had enough of the militia and will
get out as soon as they get home,
and find it convenient. They will tell
you they did not come down to the
border to sit still.
Washington n G. Sant o6