The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-12-03
(Bu a Worker Correspondent

(Bg q w 0rHef correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Calf. (By Mail)
Reading between the lines the
government doesn't trust the pres
ent personnel of the U. S. navy.
Too many "hoboes," "tramps" and
"hums" in it, according to a state
ment in the Los Angeles Examiner
recently by Lieutenant Commander
NJ. S. Tisdale, U. S. n, in charge of
the Los Angeles recruiting station.
Migratory workers may be a little
Red, you know.
The Evening Herald, Also a
Hearst sheet and, therefore, getting
its information from the same
source, I suppose. went little fur
Their. 1t characterized all foreign
ers, in addition to the above men,
toned element, as unfit for navy
service. The authorities, it seems,
look upon every foreigner as a Boil
shevik-rebellious enough to join
General SANDING in Nicaragua and
the Communists in China and other
countries. The Herald pointed out
that prospective recruit must pro-
duce first-class recommendations
from his employer, for a period of
years, in order to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that he used to
he perfect, loyal slave for his boss
and master.
The Examiner puts it this way:
ANY man or boy who comes here
Ito the recruiting staticn) to be a
sailor must have the mental train
ing required by any commercial con-
Germ :" Boys, not men, are pre-
ferred by the Herald. The minds of
men of 80 or more are more or less
fixed, you know, as rule-not so
easy to get imperialistic war lord
ideas into the heads of persons of
that age, unless the capitalist seed
was there before they joined the
navy. Well, they are trying hard
to get boys from respectable" pa
| triotic homes as ballot counters,
money collectors and butchers of
working men at home as we'll as
abroad-all for the benefit and
glory of Wall Street.
The Examiner article reads, in
part:
Nowadays if boy can make the
grade to become a sailor, dad can
well throw out his chest with pride.
Because now you must have brains
to become bluejacket. -. Where
cnce the navy was, esteemed by some
as a semi-reform school, where once
The hobo, the tramp and the bum en-
tered it to dodge the cops; where
once It meant simply four years of
scrubbing decks and seeking foreign
lands. it has become today:
"The training school for nation,
the opportunity for visual, physical
and manual education, place of
rapid advancement and learning; in
TACT the mecca for romance ard adj
venture for the youth of the
land. . . :" Emphasis mine.-L. P.
| r.
"Now you see why getting into
the navy isn't simply matter of
desire. And Lieutenant Commander
M, s. Tisdale, in charge of the re-
cruiting service here, personally
sees to it that only the highest type
Of the thousands of applicants he
has each month becomes one Of the
favored sixty" (Sixty per month
recruited from this distr:ct.)
An applicant must give "the
highlights of his history since the
day he was born" Also a physical
examination. Tisdale is strong on
education as well. He "checks back
with your school," but he doesn't
take the "word of the school au-
thorities." either. Even some school
teachers are Reds themselves. Scott
Nearing, for example. The COM
mander asks questions himself. The
first he wants to know is, "Who's
the President of the United States ?"
Well, Coolidge has been so silent in
office that the prospective recruit
had never heard of him. But story
about "the Father of his Country"
was fresh in the boys mind. So he
answered, quick as flash, George
Washington"
"John Smith did not get in the
Navy" at that time-but soon,
suppose, because John mot his real
namel must have heard about Cool
idge by this time on account of the
presidents Armistice Day speech
Another youth was rejected when
he declared "that Los Angeles was
the capital of California" How