Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1922-03-02
"THREEslD|6S, "A
VENOMOUS AND FALSE
PICTURE OF THE WAR

| For the past tnree years war
stories" have been out of favour. yet
John Dos Passes Three Soldiers"
! (Doran Coz has been SO widely read
and criticized this winter that one
might almost imagine a change OF
public sentiment towards literature
touching on-not, perhaps. the his
tory OF the war, but the psychology
! of IT,
For Mr. Dos Passos' book has moth
ing TO do with history; it deals en-
/ tirely with the conditions which sur
rounded the private soldier during the
war, and the effect ii had upon three
1 in particular.
II is written with power and conf
plete frankness-a series OF strong
impressions, and. 10 quote Conningsby
Dawson in the New York Times: 1T
is either base libel or a hideous
truth. 1t is so savagely explicit in its
accusations that 1t deserves no quar-
ter with the reading public"
The author seems to take the stand I
| that serving as an enlisted man in the
war was a soul-corrupting, degrading
business. The men felt degraded
when they were obliged to salute Off
GERS: in slavery when they We're
forced TO wear uniform The only
way they won promotion was by boot
licking of the most servile kind This
promotion his less intelligent charac
ters covet, but his principal hero. a
young Virginian OF culture and edu
cation, is scornful of the bullying,
drinking men who are their officers.
When one of his friends. as they are
slogging through the mud, heavy
packs on backs, wishes that he were
at an officers training camp, An
drews replies:
"'Oh. TO hell with that
Chrisfeld took the cigarette, that
had gone out half-smoked, from his
mouth and spat savagely at the heels
OF the man in front OF him.
This amt no life for a white man.
he said.
I'd rather be this man than
that, said Andrews bitterly. He toss
ed his head in the direction of staff
car full of officers that was stalled at
the side OF the road They were
drinking something out of thermos
bottle that they passed around with
the air of Sunday excursionists."
In all his book Mr. Dos Passos al
lows no redeeming feature for an Of
ficer or for the army as a whole. His
three soldiers. supposedly decent,
average men when drafted, are drag
ged down by debasing army methods
until one kills an officer, another con-
tracts a vile disease and is relegated
to labor battalion. and the third,
Andrews, the man of education, be-
comes a deserter. and, just as the book
closes. is captured by the military
police.
reader cannot help wondering if
the author believes that the soldier
who served his country during the
war suffered this wholesale debase-
ment and EQUALIZATION. That there
were cases of injusticeI and brutality
in some instances. and of hardship in
nearly all. everyone is convinced.
That some characters were unable to
understand or to receive discipline is
also bclievable; but to one who has
worked among soldiers in war time,
who has seen the conditions under
which they lived, and has heard
dozens - almost hundreds, express
their opinions, it is uncomfortable that
Mr.. Dos Passos should write as
though his characters were typical of
the whole army. What he relates.
might, quite possibly. have happened.
The wrong lies in the fact that no.
where does he allow that it could be
otherwise Nowhere does he depict a
soldier who is not dDwntrodden and
enslaved. (uniess he has deliberately
| revolted} nor an officer who is not
bully or filled with self-interest.
Three Soldiers" leaves bad taste
in the readers mental mouth. but.
luckily, there are antidotes for this
sort OF poison. Let the reader who
has jus. finished the book turn to that
ma sterpiece of the war-Donald Han
Keys "Student in Arms and COM
pare his point of view with that OF
Mr.. Dos Passes hero.
The cases are similar to this ex-
tent: that Hankey was man of cul-
iture and education who went into the
war as a private soldier-but Hankey
i really lived, he was not a character of
lfction. and. instead of deserving. he
I gave his life for his country. Read
i what he says or the hardships. the dis
i cipIine. and see which of the two
! books is the finer-the truer. And
when you have finished those two 'es-
i saws in the Studentng entitled The
| -------------r q q n 81