The Unpopular History of the United States by Uncle Sam Himself/Chapter 2
II
UNCLE SAM KEEPS GOING
This bluster and brag about licking the world with both hands tied behind us is the most dangerous sort of bunk. Every chancellery in Europe smiles at it.
Suppose we start at the very beginning. To the forefathers of this republic a standing army typified all the oppression from which they had escaped. Professional soldiers to them represented the pomp of dynasties and the pride of kings, a class apart from, and antagonistic to, the people—a class that marched at the nod of tyrannical monarchs. None of that for us in free America.
We built our military fabric upon an entirely different theory—a small standing army to be used as a nucleus around which the aforesaid fighting citizenship would rally. We believed implicitly in the volunteer. Up to the passage of our present selective draft law, we figured that our ranks would be crowded with youngsters who were craving to fight.
Now we have the selective draft upon our statute books, but no law gets full force and effect unless the people understand and approve. We have changed our entire military system because we had started wrong, and the people ought to know why.
At the beginning we planned that a small body of volunteers should constitute our regular army; the balance, held as a reserve force or militia, remaining under control of the states. Militiamen and officers alike are generally untrained, the officers being popular fellows elected by their comrades and commissioned by the Government.
I am not saying a word against these volunteers, the finest youngsters that ever trod shoe leather, the best fighting material on earth. But no matter how brave and patriotic the individual lad may be, he needs long and skillful training.
This, my son, was the germ of our military policy. It has been tried for more than a hundred years, in assorted wars, foreign, domestic, Indian. Educated military men got their dose of it—by the painful method—and say it is the worst system ever devised. But some way or other we have always managed, by main strength and awkwardness, to scramble out on top, which has made folks think that as a nation we are invincible. My son, the very surest way to get life pummeled out of you is to feel that there’s no use exerting yourself. The other fellow exerts himself, and it is all over but the ambulance.
Did you ever sit out in front of a crossroads store and hear the boys talk? I mean the boys with whiskers, whittling on a dry-goods box? They are my kind of folks. I was born with them, reared with them. I know what kind of flapjacks his wife makes; know what kind of water he has in his well; I drink out of the same gourd, and know the name of his dog. I deny flatfootedly that there is any better American alive than the Iowa farmer, or the Virginia farmer, or the Texas farmer. I speak his language, I know what he is thinking about, and I wish I could talk to him face to face.
Most of them have got the same idea, not only the boys at the crossroads store, but business men, school teachers, lawyers. Just hang around and listen to what they say: “Look what we did to the British in the Revolution—a plenty.” “How Old Hickory cleaned ’em up at New Orleans.” “Over-ran Mexico before you could say scat.”
“Of course those foreign governments have big armies, but we have individual initiative. Our lads know how to ride and shoot. That’s the thing that counts.”
You hear that kind of talk all over the country—especially about individual initiative.
Your Uncle Samuel used to think that same way, until developments in modern warfare knocked it out of his head. Modern warfare is a question of team work. You can’t accomplish anything nowadays by every fellow pulling his own way. Where would the Giants, or the Phillies, or the Red Sox be without organization? You could put a thousand fine individuals into the diamond, and nine trained players plus team-work, would play rings around them. Soldiers, like baseball teams, can’t get anywhere on an individual basis. That’s another kink that we Americans must get out of our heads—individualism. We are habitually intolerant of restraint. We resent the slightest encroachment upon our personal privilege to do as we please. If the notion strikes us to play at soldiering, very well, soldiers we will play—whenever we get ready and for just as long as it suits us. The average American having volunteered for a few months, frequently carries this idea with him and stops to ask questions, before he obeys an order. Individualism is his most petted possession. He argues that we have been victorious in five foreign wars on this basis of individual initiative, and sees no sense in quitting a good thing. Lots of people talk that way. It’s one of the biggest troubles in this country.