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Show ' Sees 3t jty lYestbrook Pegter Released by WNU Features. IT IS important that the boys whe join the army as draftees for the Roosevelt Memorial War with Russia Rus-sia shall eat their spinach, hear nc vulgarity but their own and writ home once a week. But it will b very hard to hire good officers il the public continues to hold their all arbitrarily up to contempt ai an incompetent, parasitic class. SOLDIERING IS MAN'S BUSI jiESS EVEN WHEN BOYS ARE EMPLOYED. The Union Army in the Civil War was younger, on the average in the ranks, than the West Point football team of today. Stray news-pictures from here and -wrr "r there show thai rVWk! kids of 16 and up i are still out hunt- 1 tW : lng other kids ol -filas? 16 and up with 4 II realistic guhs and nard ammunition. There is abroad f VW in the United States I "l a propaganda : -I against officerj which, with a little irrivi more emphasis, Fistic might deter tne men who are needed most from en. tering or continuing military ca reers. A first-class man won't take that kind of abuse or disrepute. Anj when the rate of pay Is considered in comparison with that of construction workers, Uic man with the true qualifications qualifica-tions for rank must reflect that j he is only a peacetime Tommy Atkins himself. When bricklayers can get $25 a day regardless of incompetence or production, a colonels' $125 a week after 20 years service is not impressive. im-pressive. Officers This time it will be necessary to In start over with the . w induction of the Big wars elected Federal Gov-ernment. Gov-ernment. Big wars have always lowered the average competence, character and reputation of the officers, of-ficers, although they suffered far less in these particulars in World War I than they did in the second one. There were several obvious reasons. The first war was soor. ended. There were far fewer temporary tem-porary officers. Woodrow Wilson had a personal code as austere as that of the West Point corps of cadets ca-dets and of the corps of officers ol - the army. Franklin D. toosevelt, on the other hand, debauched not only his own office by his open contempt con-tempt for honesty as an institution insti-tution but every other office from the supreme court to the park service. He reveled in his title of commander-in-chief, but the c-in-c's family had had their feci in the trough for years, fattening on the by-prod-Oct of our highest elective of- fice in a way that would have disgusted even Warren G. Harding. Hard-ing. He let the air force clique pull Elliott out of the cruel war to bull through a contract for Howard Hughes and accept from Hughes the equivalent of thousands of dollars In feasting and boozing. Under the 05th and 9Gth articles oi war, Elliott could have been court-martialed. He defaulted his . debts to John Hartford and others, which is a triable charge entailing dismissal, and in accepting the favors of Howard Hughes, he violated vio-lated a direct order and warning from Gen, II. H. Arnold. General Arnold should have made charges, but he was holding his Job by Roosevelt's whimsical favor. Had he made a move, Roosevelt would have quashed the charges against Elliott and Arnold would have been sent to the University of Missouri as an instructor. Racket Everyone knew this and the enlist-In enlist-In ed soldier, being no Last War fol and army-wise, UT realized that all life wa racket in that army. The outrageous out-rageous cheapening and inflation of rank to accommodate Hollywood QT4fl dodgers, timid New Deal law ?ers from Harvard Law and thousands thou-sands of restless white-collar bums who were having wife trouble was calamity to the prestige of command. com-mand. Captains became majors and jnajors colonels who were absolutely absolute-ly useless for any military duty. But they consumed the best rations and whiskey, broke up more than "ir quota of homes, including, in many cases, their own. and occupied occu-pied quarters according to rank, all to the denial of the combat officers of-ficers and soldiers. It was, altogether, a disgraceful disgrace-ful Imposition on the fighters to throw commissions to such Igbtsecrs and tomcats. The Injury In-jury continues now In the morose prejudice against officers. offi-cers. The Roosevelt politics also con-"Jjues con-"Jjues today in the regular services U the way from the office of the secretary of Defense down through e desks which are known by the "oterlc name of echelons. The roll J' victims with long and honorable service whose careers were stopped aead because they wouldn't play Politics is the roster of a silent Pogrom. |