The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 8, 1906, Page 5

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL n’s honor membered uniform and best—good ry fe rt of a well- egula acks, together wit medical tend 10lesome dis- tree ome, wherever d avel pay I perfect the modern battleships, cruising from port to port in all parts of the world, and the free feeling of a soldler's life wants provided now and of a generous provision from care all his certainty with hereafter in case of retirement for old | sickness in the line| Neither earthquake nor fire| rb the stability of Uncle Sam the regularity ef pay to age or incurred of auty. can di interrupt his employes A large percentage of listments re-enlist and serve until entitled to retirement with or original continue en- to allowances for quarters, eloth- ing, subsistence and a pension of three- quarters pay for life. Some of the en-| listed men serving in the staff offices| in Berkeley are receiving $100 a month | and allowances. | few of the advantages pay These are & which attract young men may be mentioned the glamour of a| roving life, with its opportunity of see- | ing the world under the most favorable | conditions; an unhappy past, when Dame Fortune has not smiled or acted | kindly, for in the service all memories | be buried and the | may rows of outrageous fortune” may be forgotten and thrown aside with the| cast-off garmemts of the civilian, whether tail made or overalls. In addition | When a recruit steps into the exam- ining-room and appears before the sur- geon he must be as naked as when he came into the world., If accepted, he dons the service blue, and his old life is a thing of the past. Even his name may be changed and no questions asked, and as plain “Private John Smith” the euphonious and aristocratic cognomen of a Montmorency or Faunt- leroy passes into the limbo of oblivion. Many a scion of an old and- honored | house, not wishing to bring odium on his family name, has metamorphosed it into the more democratic and less con- spleuous alias of Brown. As one old drill sergeant pointedly remarked when calling the roll and a young recruit forgot to answer to his new name, “Just paste your name in vour hat, Smith, and ye wen't forget £ In the ranks there are no distinetions except those galmed by superiority in the military hierarchy, and Jones” and “Private. Smith” all look alike to the drill master or the officer, NNING OF THE SERVICE | be cook’s son, duke's sem, son of a| hundred earls,” so with us, when he | enlists with the colors his identity in civil life is sunk. The friendly mantle of the military cloak obliterates all |sccidents of birth or position, levels all social and elass distinctions as in- dividuals and merges the prince and the pauper alike into the offieial but| | honorable title of private soldier. | The banker and the barber, the law- | yer and the laborer must eagh go | changed man. As Thomas Carlyle says: | through the streets of manufacturing | through the recruit &chool and dem- | onstrate his ability to handle a gun| “Private land shoot stralght befora he is pro- |Would match the knightly chivalry of|to say romantic | nounced fit as a soldler. | | Intelligence, of course, counts in the | | service, as elsewhere, and the success o0 quon cow [ |him and which makes of the hobo ofttimes a hero. He makes no fuss avout the job, He don't talk big or brave. He knows he's in to fight and win Or help to fill up a grave. He ain't no “mamma’s darlin’,” He does the best he can, And he's the chap that wins the scrap, The reg’lar army man. The dandy, handy, Cool and sandy, 1 leg'lar army man. The rarin’, tearin’, Sometimes ‘swearin’, Reg'lar army man. | The applicant must be of sound body | without serious blemish; of strong physique, intelligent, of good charac- | ter and able to read and write as well as speak English. If he does not pes- sess all these qualifications he is | promptly rejected. Since the Spanish | war special inducements are now of- | tered by the act of Congress which pro. | vides for especially meritorious enl ed men becoming commissioned office More than twenty men who enlisted as privates have been promoted to the rank of lieutenant of the marine corps in the past several years, and, almost without exception, have become most | creditable and efficiert officers. As examples of men who have enlist- ed because of & blot on their past lives and who have proved good soldiers I | may mention the case of a private of my command who was killed in de- fense of the American Consulate at Apia, Samoa, in April, 1899, and who had been a first lieutenant in the Unit- | ed States grmy. One of my sergeants | told me, after he was killed. that he had formerly been the commander of | the company in the regiment of infan- {try in which the sergeant had served |and had been dismissed. On another occasion, when I was at- | tached to the flagship of the Mediter- ranean fleet twenty-flve years ago, dur- {ing a visit to the port of Trieste, Aus- | tria, a fine old sergeant who was on duty at the gangway when the Em- comes the sergeant while the dissolute | Peror visited the ship was immediately | recognized and embraced by one ef the or lazy college man may remain a high| - private in the rear rank until the end | Emperor’s staff as a former comrade of his enlistment and graduate finally | He had been decorated by the Empersr with a bob-tailed discharge. | with the Iron Cross for distinguished Discipline accomplishes some marvel- | gallantry on the fleld of battle when ous changes in the character of.the|an officer of the Imperial Cavalry. man, and not infrequently the worth-| The service of the United States onee less black sheep of a respactable fam- |resembled the forelgn leglon ef the ily who applies for enlistment because | Corps d’Afrique of Franee, it being cors- he has been a failure in everything else | posed principally of foreigmers, but this develops qualities which win him med- |is no longer the case. The service re- als of honor for heroism and conspieu- | quirements now demand American eiti- ous gallantry and leaves the service a|zens only, eltker native bern, natur- alized or those whe have legally de-| clared their intentions to become suek. | Next to the native born, intelligent towns and collect ragged losels enough, and educated young men of American every one of whom, if once dressed | birth, the best soldiers, perhaps, are | in & red coat and traimed a little, Will young Germans, mauny of whom have receive fire cheerfully for the small seen service by conscription in their | sum of one shilling per diem and have own country. Some of the Germans the soul blown out of him, at last, with | who have enliSted in the marine eorps perfect propriety?”’ < |have been officers in Germany, and There is material in many an Afmeri- | these naturally have made excellent can soldier for such acts of daring he- | sergeants and non-commissioned effl- | roism as that displayed at Fort Moul- | eers. trie by Sergeant Jasper, who cduld| I have served with or had in my | neither read nor write, and there are command on different occasions several | modern instances of soldierly self-sac-|distinguished foreigners whose pasts if | rifice, devotion and unselfishness which laid bare would be most Interesting, not Perhaps debt, intem- Sir Philip Stdney. | perance, misfortune, fancied disgrace, It is not the coat that makes the sol- | the rebuffs of fate, disappointment in dier—nor yet, as Artemus Ward says, love or a duel, possibly, has led them “Do not recruiting sergeants drum though Jones toured the West on the | of the recruit, particularly when it|“the trousers”—any more than it makes| to leave the fatherland and come to ings and ar- |prake beam of a freight car while | comes to sel Smith came overland in a -Pullman driwing-room. “As fon for promotion, de- | pends upon s character, obedience, | personal qualities and amenability to| the man. It is the training, the disci- America, where, béneath the charitable pline, the steady drill of the recruit|folds of “Old Glory” they have drawn squad. Tt Is Sergeant “Whats-His- a veil over that painful page of their with Tommy Atkins when he|discipline, but it often happens that the | Name” that nerves the tramp to stnnd;ll\’es and have sought and found a new | the King's shifling. whether he|poor recruit with little schooling be-|up and have the soul blown out of| field of hope C DERIIINS May >und Fifth avenue and alongside Whitechapel and the Tender- loin in the ranks. Many enlisted men have more pocket money to their offic and ma if they 1 than choose, | play a heavier game of poker. I have enlisted a scion of one of the wealthiest and proudest Knickerbocker of families of New Cornell, with of letters and also enlisted gradua A newspa York—a graduate the degrees of master of arts. enlist New York son ored his spirit and beyond the age lim and t I cou intimation that form the d ifritate the with bity musket throu to Appomatto from the nu in disgust old Another applica hon i il to have a w g 9 fact would d fy h - 4 replied that this, i cause for rejection, c vantage, for, >uld member it would is hardly ssar gument, however convincing, and he stu for something wooden leg woul ness in a new No appl evidently of age the other qua above, for troubls where parents to effect a dis the accepted recruit was well, perhaps, to order which goves enlisted men from the \o enlisted parsor of the ¥ charged thefefrom prior to tion of his term of eniistn for one of the following sirability, inaptitude tal disability or un “In every case the recommendations for such discharge must be ma officer Appl immediate commanding whom the man is serving. for discharge which ment in any way except commanding officers shall exeeption, disregarded ¥Phé officers of the marine corps who have charge of enlistments of men for the service get their share of interest- ing literature. About the most unique applieation received recently is the fol- lowing: “dere Ser luftenant I hud you al got sum jobs for $16.00 dollus a r an bord i am gittin ¥ dojlus an I but has to sleep in the ba an am got a good naim i hav to do in them job botes let me no §f the or robotes i wish you all wood give me a job becuz $9 dollus a munth more aint to be snezed at i aint got no to keer erbout me tak al an i will wurk hard i t w budy turnd of but | wants to W youa all. yer frend “P. S.—If them aire sale bot of robotes i will wurk for §11 munth insted of $13 dollus do throw in washin." His anxiety instead of ‘“robote phonetic reform T his extraordinary epistle helped to lose the writer the job and the additional 9.00 a munth” which, as he wisely ob- served, “aint to be sneezed at.” As far as official record show, he is ou all e botes™ ch as t exhibited as spelling in life that was con- | still sleeping fa the barn.