The Boy Scout Movement

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 10, 12 May 1911, Page 13

The Boy Scout Movement

By G. R. KIRKPATRICK,

The Boy Scout movement is an organised, craftily subsidised effort for creating the kill-lust in boys—the love of arms, the desire for the military life, and the brainiessly automatic obedience of soldiers. As many boys as possible are to be blinded with steel-glitter, deafened with drum-roar, dazzled With uniforms and flattery, fooled with drills and marches, seduced with ribbons, sashes, "Teddy" hats, khaki, medal pictures, picnics and wild tent life in the woods—betrayed into stupid gratitude to the crafty, dollar-marked subsidisers of the movement who plan thus to have a host of trained armed guards ready for uso in the swiftly coming future when millions have their wages cut and millions more are forced into the street to the ranks oi : the unemployed army. The pretense—of course there is some fine pretense—is that "the boys are to be prrysically developed." That is the sly cry of the promoters —"the ennobling physical development of the youth." While the. boys arc to fee physically developed they are to have their intellects ossified and their sociabilty suffocated. The boys arc to have their wills killed by a thousand drills in a slave's crowning virtue—obedience. Obedience—word of infinite import in the history of organsed robbery of the workers by the shirkers. Obedience,, automatic obedience., has been and is hgw., the damnation of the working class. Caesar is alarmed. The industrial despot shivers with fear. Why ? Because the slave begins to think and more and more refuses the role of professional cutthroat. The department of murder is shriveling in popularity. The fist of blood and iron is dccreasingly dependable. The right hand of national and international working-class fellowship and working-class loyalty begin to charm the toilers of the world. The eyes of the socially damned multitude begin to blaze with intelligent and fascinated realisation of the fact that war means suicide for the working class, that heil's sleet of lead and steel from gatling guns is for the working class, that the jaws of Death spread wide for the working class —and only for the working-class in any and all wars. The slave thinks. Caesar is startled. Therefore, catch the slave's son and kill the kindness of his soul, destroy his sociability, ressiu"rcct_the savage in his heart, rouse the beast that slumbers in his bx-east, fire his passions, befog his intellect and kill his will. Let Mars seduce the boy. Let the blood-stained god of war blast the boy's fratcmalism and plant in his soul the cheap aspirations of a proud-strutting, gilt-braided butcher—afire with desire for bloody deeds. Sting dead the bud of love in the small boy—the helpless small boy. A human fool-tool is needed in the shop, mill and mine. Therefore, stop forth, you low-duck-ihg prostitutes of the various intellectual professions, all of you who bow the knee to the steel and gold gods of industry, and shout aloud the advantages, desirabilities, superiorities and incomparable excellences of the Boy Scout enterprise. Take the boys to the woods and train them, take them to the street and train them, take them to the armories and train them, and also especially and piously take the boys to the basements of the churches and train them—mockingly teach them to "love

"Subsidised Effort for Creating the Kill-lust,"

Author of " War—What For."

their fellow men," but carefully train them to bui-cher their fellowmen. In substance teach each boy, each boy, to think and say and agree to this 4, "Obedience is beautiful. Blind obe-tr dience to superiors is perfection. lam an inferior. I agree that those who arc appointed over mc ought to be oveu mc. 1 will make no inquiries. "I will obey anybody who is said t<* be Cor who may be appointed by somet body to be) my superior. I will obey? any and all orders irom my superiors—• without question. . I will obey my employer and bo loyal to him. I will obey my captain, because (no matter how vulgar, cheap, ignorant, cruel and vicious he may be) he is my superior. "I will always ■ believe that welldressed people know more than I know and more than I should bo permitted to know. I will always let others in.-, form mc what my duty is. I will forget that I have a brain (if I have I will gladly learn to handle tho sword,' riile and bayonet—for I may bo needed, my superiors toll mc. "I will gladly learn the glory ofarms/ tho splendours of war, the grandeur of? red-seamed patriotism, and the nobility , ; of narrow-brained, low-browed racei jealousy. I accept my employer as myj best friend, as my ideal and idol. % will make a faithful effort to become a fool—or a loyal endeavour to remain one-—for my employer's sake. "Proudly I accept the high honour of being an automatic jackass ready for the clieap role of armed guard for the coward ruling class. And all I ask is flattery and a 'good time' sometimes— if it suits my employer." At the age of three the tiny boys of all races and colours gleefully romp and play together, sociabilit}' has its own glad way with them in happy laughter, sweet caresses, and a thousand gracious amiabilities promising tho poetry of f ratemalisni and the ever more glorious levels of life for the human family. But at the ago of twenty these same children, shrewdly poisoned with geographic and ethnic "patriotism" cursed with tho embrace of Mars, damned by the false teachings of prideless intellectual prostiutes, are proudly ready to slaughter one another at the nod of syphilitic kings and cheap queens, at the order of coarse-grained pesidents, pot-house statemen and small-brained commanders. A boy scout is an incipient assassin, a budding jingo, a germinating butcher of men—a boy, innocent and excellent fruit of love, .being transformed into a blood-lusting fool and tool to serve in the great class struggle as an iron fist for the employer class against the work-ing-class. A boy scout is helpless. Ignorance is always helpless. The boy scout movement is the very latest blessed, anointed and baptised method of flattering tho working-class into cutting its own throat when it raises its head too high to suit the employer class. All the "best" people are encouraging the movement—from President Taft to the pettyest political and sacredotal csnivelings willing to sell their souls for bread and popularity with the kings of industry. The boy scout movement is a recent handsome wrinkle on the snout of the beast of capitalism.