The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-03-09
A Soldier President.

Do the men who served in the Unit
ed States army and navy in the world
war want military man for presi-
dents Inasmuch AS 100000 Americans
went overseas, and as hundreds OF
| thousands more were getting ready to
90. the question remains OF practical
| interest to the politicians. II has now
become generally agreed that Pershlng
"will not do" But will any soldier,
BY virtue of the fact that he is a
| soldier, be specially commended to the
men who had experience in the army
To such question no sweeping, gen
eral answer can be given, but it may
be possible to determine whether or not
there is a marked drift of sentiment In
one way or another. seeking to throw
light on the situation, the weekly pa
per, The Home Sector, published in
New York, and edited by men who
were on the staff OF The Stars and
Stripes at Paris during the war, has
collected opinions from so service men
in all sections of the country, repre-
senting various trades and occupations.
These answers establish their own au-
thenticity by their variety. But there
is little positive demand for a military
candidate and there are emphatic ex-
pressions of opinion against one
Several think that the country. as
whole needs military discipline, on ac-
count of "bolshevism" and other forms
of unrest, and that, for this reason,
soldier should be chosen. But many ex.
press the feeling that they have seen
enough of army officers already One
man, writing from Hartford, favors
Wood, but on the ground that he IS
"more like a civilian" than Pershlng.
This man, who thinks Wood would be
good president, is distinctly against
"army methods for civilian administra-
tion.' and says, "It's the West Point
spirit that we don't like" Others
would like to see a soldier elected pres
ident, but not high army officer,
"Most general officers were disliked by
their men," writes an ex-soldler In
Providence, and from Detroit comes
the following view, written by a man
ual training instructor, These high
officers like Wood and Pershing are not
in our class" Army officers are held
by one to be not good, sound bust
ness men, but another favors Wood
on the ground that he has little IN
common with the old line politicians.
The strongest expressions against an
army president come from the West,
where the sentiment seems to be both
against military men and against war
"a soldier president might lead us into
another war; says Kansas City man,
who was gassed in the Argonne. 1--WE
need a man with diplomacy. Nobody
who's been in war wants to get IN
another one unless he has to-" A st.
Louis man would not vote for mill
tary man for the presidency because
First of all, if we had military man
universal military training would be
the result" An electrician in Detroit,
who calls Wood "a bag of wind" and
thinks that Pershing knows nothing
about running the government. asserts
that "a soldier, who makes a profes
sion of it, knows only one thing-how
TO give orders and how to fight" An
insurance broker in San Francisco
thinks that soldier would be zig
norant of social conditions, unrest and
trade relations and travelling sales
man in Cleveland says that a general
"wolId make Prussia ont of the Unit
ed States"
Perhaps the most amusing thing
about the letters is the contradictory
views expressed in several of them
with respect to soldier presidents in the
past. A salesman in Cleveland afiirms
that the Civil war presidents proved,
on the whole, TO be "a pretty good line