Page images
PDF
EPUB

New Recruiting System Making Keeping the World "Safe for De-
Good

T

HE new Recruiting System by Corps Areas is rapidly making good. Post commanders are gradually getting in line and taking a personal interest in the matter. The commanding officer, Fort Snelling, has done excellent work in filling his regiment. Starting with the nucleus of the training center he has rapidly pushed his regiment towards authorized strength.

No post commander would think of issuing training instructions and letting the matter drop and expect a trained outfit. Neither can he detail a recruiting officer and a few men on that duty and expect recruits to roll in without further effort on his part. He must select a good recruiting officer and give him the necessary time to attend to his duties. He must see that only selected men, fond of the service, are permitted to go out as canvassers and that before being sent out they are properly coached as salesmen, knowing what they have to offer and believe in it themselves. No man can talk convincingly on a subject he knows nothing about or is not interested in and certainly no commercial firm would think of trying to open up new territory with untrained salesmen.

Tired Tim knocked at the door of a cottage. It was a chilly day and he was very hungry.

The old lady who opened the door was a good sort. She asked him into the kitchen and placed before him a nicely cooked meal and asked him why he did not go to work. "I would," replied Tim, "if I had the tools." "What sort of tools do you want?" inquired the old lady.

"A knife and fork," said Tired Tim.Judge.

mocracy"

T

HERE was no finer result of the World War than the expres sion of the national spirit of service caused by the President's call "To Arms"! For the duration of the war we were one people, rising above the sordidness of political, religious and commercial partisanships with but one objective in view-"The making of the world safe for democracy."

We "made it safe," but the problem today is, and the problem tomorrow is -to keep it safe for democracy.

Those patriotic men and women of America whose vision is broad enough to comprehend this fact are not advocating reduction of Army and Navy personnel and material at this time! With Bishop Stuntz, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, world-known missionary bishop and statesman, they agree. The Bishop recently stated in Los Angeles, that "he was glad to hear the former speaker sound the note of a warless world; but we would never have a warless world until we had a righteous world." And he followed this forceful statement with this trite and historical fact-"that civilization had gone forward on a powder bag."

Some day wars will end-but the end is not yet. And far-seeing men and women, patriotic citizens, fully realize the now important task of "making and keeping our men fit to fight." We all hope it will never be necessary, only a foolish man clamors for war-but only other foolish men dream of security in times like the present.

A common-sense view of the present emergency, presents America's task as three-fold:

[blocks in formation]

In the second place, military instruction does an indispensable thing for a man's mind-it schools him in the habit of attention, makes him put his mind upon a task and keep it there. It uncovers the intellectual capacity of the nation as nothing else can reveal it, and distinguishes classes of the mentally weak for whom appropriate vocations must patiently be found.

In the third place, military training teaches a man that he has duties as well as rights; that he owes his country, if occasion arises, all that he has. It qualifies him to be a citizen, and in all virile civilization the bearing of arms has been the distinguishing mark of citizenship. Nothing else takes its place.

DAVID P. BARROWS, President, University of California.

Sales Manager-Well, Jobbie, how did the last prospect turn out?

Vacuum Cleaner Canvasser-The original Mrs. Gaspard, the well-known miser's worst half? That dame let me demonstrate the machine until I made her best rug look like new and then all I got was a demand for a quarter of a dollar to pay for the electricity she estimated I'd used.

The Value of Routine

"Powerful, indeed, is the empire of habit." -Publius Syrius, 42 B. C..

OUTINE is a collective term,

R Time and Habit are the strong

components of its significance. Considering time and habit, we find that at last psychology, that word of which the world has grown so weary, bears something of value to military men; teaches a real lesson, to be distinguished from all its inane introspection, the conjectured worth of which has been the subject of such tiresome reiteration by uniformed pedants.

The cumulative force of time and habit is so enormous that professional soldiers early realized that to disregard it was to experience dire disaster on the day of reckoning which, for an army, is always just at hand. Therefore, despite the fact that the lesson of routine is, at the present writing, a psychological one, it is nevertheless important-for the current of its theme is identical, not with the uncertain course of a synthetic science, but with the deep, never-shifting stream of human nature.

Many a time and oft, not long ago, the voice of diversion was heard in the Army. It spoke of the "dull routine" of the soldiers' existence, how, in the past, it had narrowed their mental views and "cabined, cribbed, confined" the higher aspirations of the Army's collective soul. The would-be reformers had their will in many ways. and soldiers now do not find their lives to be "dull routine." During the course of any day their minds are carefully distracted by their miscalled educational environment from any thinking whatever of the Army's future or their own. At will they wander mentally about unproductively dallying with everything from shoemaking tomust we hear it again?-psychology; in the languor of their literary leisure excelling even those scriptural lilies which long ago furnished such an enduring example of ease.

Let us, then, as we value our destiny, bid the ill-auguring spirit of such folly to depart from our forces, for time, though it leaves to our soldiers no legacy of valuable habits, is passing surely on to the grim day of reckoning which, for an army, is always just at hand. Let us turn again to reason, our

E. & R. director of old, and learn from that source that only in routine, dull routine if you will, is the secret of all

success.

Routine! That is the path to power. The lives of all who possessed the strength to win prove that only by the plodding efforts of each day is that concentrated capability engendered which will not be either defeated or denied.

Routine! That is the essence of order, the first law of heaven. Is He who decreed the dull routine of the firmament, rendered immutable the unaltering circuits of the suns and ruled that ever regular should be the flow of seasons, doubtless narrow-minded? Does He, too, betray an intellect intolerant of spontaneity and adverse to adjustment and originality? Answer quickly, O ye disciples of diversion!

Again we return to our lesson of routine. By routine we store up for the use of the future the multiplied force of past actions. In the daily repetition of our duties, time and habit cooperate to strengthen us and slowly we accumulate invincibility. When dawns at last the day of reckoning, the force of routine will come to our aid, skilfully directing for us our armies, doubling the might of their time-perfected blows-on that day let those who will call us "narrow-minded," but we shall not fail!

JESSE B. SMITH,
1st Lieutenant Infantry.

For hours they had been together on the front porch. The moon cast its tender gleam down on the young couple who sat strangely far apart. He sighed. She sighed. Finally: "I wish I had money, dear," he said. "I'd

travel."

Impulsively she slipped her hand into his; then rising she sped into the house. Aghast, he looked at his hand.

In his palm lay seven cents.

Recruiting for the C. M. T. C.

R

ECRUITING for the Citizens'. Military Training Camps of 1921 was conducted on the basis of quantity and many boys who had shaped up their summer activities to attend were denied the opportunity to do so. In 1922 several of the Corps Areas failed to secure the quota allotted by the War Department and it is understood that the reason assigned is due to the policy pursued during the previous year. Many prospective candidates failed to enroll because of the uncertainty as to whether or not they would be permitted to attend. The very best recruiter for the camps is the boy that attended last year and who intends taking the next higher course this year. He will bring his "buddy" along with him provided he is assured that there will be a place for him at the camp. This subject should be given careful consideration. As soon as it is definitely known how many candidates the appropriations provide for an allotment should be made to each of the Corps Area commanders. Applications should be definitely accepted or rejected in the order of their receipt and when the quota is filled reeruiting should be discontinued except to fill vacancies caused by candidates dropping out. By so doing, good faith will be kept with the citizens of the country and there will be no disappointed candidates to knock the system of training that the camps afford.

Clergyman-I brought back the secondhand car I bought from you last week. It is too obstreperous.

Dealer What's wrong? Can't you run it? Clergyman-Not and stay in the ministry.

The Stuff

The test of a man is the fight he makes,

The grit that he daily shows; The way he stands on his feet and takes

Fate's numerous bumps and blows. A coward can smile when there's naught to fear,

When nothing his progress bars, But it takes a man to stand up and cheer

While some other fellow stars. It isn't the victory after all,

But the fight that a brother makes; The man, who, driven against the wall,

Still stands up erect and takes The blows of fate and his head held high,

Bleeding, and bruised, and pale, Is the man who'll win in the by and by,

For he isn't afraid to fail. It's the bumps you get, and the jolts you get,

And the shocks that your courage

stands,

The hours of sorrow and vain regret,

The prize that escapes your hands That test your mettle and prove your worth;

It isn't the blows you deal, But the blows you take on the good old earth

That shows if your stuff is real.

To Spread Americanism

A

N agitation has been started in the American community in Shanghai for an American daily newspaper in that city. It is pointed out that such a newspaper is needed to advance the American view

point if we are to hold our friendships of paraffin. This was the best of deliin the Far East.

The British are well supplied with newspapers throughout the Far East, with the result that the British viewpoint and British ideals are at all times. kept to the front.

There is no question that there is a great need for American owned, controlled and edited daily newspapers not only in China but in several other great countries of the world where this nation and its interests suffer because they are undefended and garbled in presentation.

Here is a virgin field for American service as important as the founding of colleges and asylums that should attract the attention of those of our men and women who have enlisted in the fight to carry the principles on which this Government is founded to the world.

[blocks in formation]

cacies for the rats. In vain we drew traps and baited them with the best cheese obtainable. Equally in vain did we draft the services of all the cats in camp. The raids on our tentage continued unabated. They would eat around the edges of the tents like polite rats should, but all seemed possessed with a mad desire to go straight through the folded tent. Result: One single-way trip of one rat through the one folded pyramidal tent equalled thirty-two holes about two and one-half inches in diameter.

The quartermaster had no facilities for repair and surveys were turned down with instructions to have them repaired. In my company I placed one man on special duty repairing tents and finally gave him an assistant. They are now well qualified as expert sail makers. But this procedure was akin to a fire department which follows the fire putting out the embers. We had to get ahead of the fire! So I devised the "Rat Proof.”

This was nothing more or less than a "house" or the principle of a garbage house except that there was screen or metal around the entire enclosure. First a rectangle was built of 2"x6" lumber which was 3'9"x4'6". At each corner of this was fastened a leg of 4"x4" so that the lower edge of the 2"x6" would be about six inches off the floor and thus give easy access to clean out anything that the rats might carry under. Then this rectangle was covered with window screen and a floor of one-inch boards placed over it. This gave a base the under side of which was screen-covered.

Next the framework of the sides was erected of 2"x4" eight feet high and

« PreviousContinue »