The law creates a vast reserve army now rapidly being perfected. The law, especially as amended recently, gives the President power greater than is possessed by some of the most dangerous and hated tyrants on earth today. Issuing a general order by telegraph and post, the President could suddenly place under orders from five to ten millions of the strongest men in the land—including the strikers themselves; and to neglect or refuse to obey such orders would mean a “court-martial” trial with rigorous punishment. A court-martial jury is not noted for gentleness; famously different from a jury of one’s “old neighbors.”
Section 9,—“The militia, when called into actual service of the United States, shall be subject to the same rules and articles of war as the regular troops.” That is to say, for the time they are “on call,” they are virtually federal soldiers.
The law as amended by Congress in May, 1908, provides “that every officer and enlisted man of the militia who shall be called forth in the manner hereinbefore prescribed shall be mustered for service without further enlistment.” [Italics in Report.]
“The call of the President will, therefore, of itself accomplish the transfer of the organized militia which is called forth by him from its state relations to its federal relations. It becomes part of the Army of the United States and the President becomes its commander-in-chief.
“The President is the exclusive judge of the existence of an emergency which would justify the calling forth of the Organized Militia.”[[191]]
This law contains twenty-six sections, every one of which should be studied carefully by the working class of the United States. The Union labor bodies should urge local newspapers to publish parts of the law selected by the unions. The more the law is examined the more food for reflection will be found in it.[[192]]
The English capitalist government has also recently enacted a new military law, a species of “Dick” law, called the Territorial Force Act. This law transforms a “voluntary citizen soldier” into a “regular” soldier. Says Justice:[[193]]
“Under the new act the Volunteer must ‘enlist’ and serve under ‘military law.’ He will be as much a regular soldier as a Life Guard or a Lancer, and can be called out to shoot down strikers in labor disputes as was actually done at Featherstone ... and at Belfast only a few months ago.”
“The Volunteer,” says the Morning Post, “will no longer be a citizen soldier, he will be a soldier without the blur of citizenship.... He may be mechanic; many of the best Volunteers are mechanics. If there is a strike in his works, ordered by the trade union to which he subscribes, and if the Mayor is afraid of the Strikers, and wants soldiers to shoot them, in case of need, the Volunteer, renamed ‘man of the Territorial Force,’ is just the man he wants; and the bill empowers the Mayor to call him out for the purpose.”
The “Dick” law was passed by capitalist “friends of labor,” of course, both Republicans and Democrats; and the “Territorial Force Act” was similarly passed by capitalist “friends of labor,” both Liberals and Conservatives. As the unarmed army of the unemployed grows threateningly larger and the armed army of bribed butchers grows larger—ready to murder those who starve—it is in order, in “Old England,” in “New America,” everywhere in order, for the working class to give more careful attention to the “good men” who are so tearfully and fearfully “friendly to labor.”