Show I DEMANDS OF VOLUNTEERS The great majority of the volunteers are anxious to be mustered out for they find army Ufe dull and monotonous monoton-ous and without any promIse of active i service to relieve the dullness and I monotony They regard the war as over and they wish to return to civil life to reenter the occupations they left They certainly should be mustered mus-tered out as fast as possible with due regard for the pUblic welfare This strong desire of the volunteers to be mustered out should draw attention atten-tion to the very important fact that we are not a military nation and that our social customs and theory of government gov-ernment are against turning us into one We are a fighting nation as the Ur has shown but if military service ser-vice were compulsory our soldiers would lose much of their dash and intrepidity they would then be soldiers sol-diers whether or not they wanted to now we have no soldiers who are not volunteers the regular army being composed entirely of volunteers If the government adopts the policy of a large standing army it will not bean be-an easy matter to raise it if the case of filling up the regular army to its authorized number is anything to goby go-by It still lacks some twenty thousand to make Its quota complete If the policy or imperialism is to Qe the policy of the government in the future ther there will have to be a large army as colonies must be garrisoned gar-risoned and the government must always al-ways be prepared to put down what we shall call insurrections and rebellions rebel-lions but what those engaged in them will term struggles for liberty and independence in-dependence When that time comes the I demands of volunteers to be mustered out will receive no heed in fact they will scarcely dare make such a demand de-mand |