The Soldier

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 10, 12 May 1911, Page 14

The Soldier

AS JACK LONDON VIEWS HIMANGRY MILITARISTS. 4.diutant General E. A. Forbes,; of California, will institute an. investigation of the charge that Jack London, the author, and other are distributing about Long Beach and Southern California circulars ad™r.g tho young men of that section or the Stato not to join tho national guard. Captain A. IX Borden, of Company H, at Long Beach, has appealed to headquarters for assistance, and in nis appeal incloses one of tho circixlars. Captain Borden says at least fifty young men have been dissuaded from Joining the militia, and this fact has arousecl General Forbes to see if a legal or military law covers the case.

The circular follows: "Young man, tho lowest aim in yoxae life is to bo a good soldier. The good soldier never tries to distinguish right from wrong. He never thinks; reasons ;he only obeys. If he is ordered to fire on his fellow citizens, on hie friends, on his neighbours, on his relatives, he obeys without hesitation. If ho is ordered to fire down a crowded street when the poor are clamouring for .bread, he obeys, and sees the grey hairs of ago stained with red and the life tide gushing from the breast of women, feeling neither remorse nor sympathy. If he is ordered off as one of a firing squad to execute a hero or benefactor, he fires without hesitation, though he knows tho bullet will pierce the noblest heart that over beat in human breast. "A good soldier is a blind, heartless, soulless, murderous machine. He is not a man. He is not even a brute, for brutes only kill in self-defence. All that is human in him, all that is divine in him, all that constitutes the man, has been sworn away when he took tne enlistment roll. His mind, conscience, aye, his very soul, axe in the keeping of his officer. "No ntan can fall lower than a soldier—it is a depth beneath which we cannot go. "Head chapters 8 and 9 of 'The Iron Heel' by Jack London."